Al wasn't there for this one, so he sent it out to everyone before hand. You're going to work on your front squat during the strength portion, so expect your legs to be a little tired by the time you get to the WOD. It'd be good to keep that in mind, because there are only two exercises in the WOD. Like I always say, that means you're going to do a ton of those two exercises. And guess what? They tax your legs, too. Incidentally, be sure your legs are good and warmed up.
The safety focus for today was the front squats, power cleans, push jerks, and push presses. Any and all of these can tweak your back if you get sloppy about your form. So don't get sloppy about your form. It's preferable to slow down than go fast with poor form. I've seen someone hurt their back with 15lb dumbbells, and you'll almost certainly be putting up heavier weight than that on each of these exercises. I say it a lot, but I mean it: keep to strict form. No one wants to see you get hurt.
Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 25 jumping jacks
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 arm circles
- 10 push press (no weight on bar)
- 10 front squat (no weight on bar)
Strength
For 10 minutes:
- 5 front squats
- (Rest at least 60 seconds)
WoD
As Many Rounds As Possible (in 10 minutes) of:
- 10 box jumps
- 10 power clean & (push) jerks (can be power clean & push presses)
Cash Out
- 100 stability ball sit ups
- 100 crunches (keep hands on shins)
Exercises
- Bottom Down
From a standing position, reach down and touch your toes. Without letting go of your toes, squat down in to a full squat. Hold the bottom of this position for three seconds, and then stand up without letting go of your toes. Your feet should be as close to locked out as possible, so that you're essentially bending down to reach your toes. Hold that position for three seconds in order to finish the rep. The idea behind the hold is to ensure that you don't cheat by only coming up or squatting down part of the way.
- Arm Circle
From a standing position, rotate your arm without extending your arm away from you. You're essentially making a windmill of your arm. Do this in both a clockwise and counter-clockwise motion for each arm, so that you fully warm up & stretch the muscles. Most people just do 10 rotations forward with one arm, 10 rotations backward with the same arm, and then they repeat this with the other arm.
- Push Press
You'll need a barbell. For the warm up, leave all of the weight off. You're just trying to get the muscles warmed up. For the WOD, weight it as heavily as possible. I usually see between 45lb and 90lb on the barbell.
To start, hold the barbell slightly below shoulder level with both your palms facing away from your body so that you can see both palms in a mirror. You want the weights "racked" against your chest, with your elbows farther forward than the bar. If you just finished doing a clean, the weight will already be racked for you. You don't need to bring them all the way up like you do with a front squat, but you do want your forearms vertical and supporting the bar from underneath.
Do a quarter squat, and come up as explosively as you can. In reality, you'll end up end up hopping up a tiny bit because you're generating so much momentum/power from your legs. That's okay, but be absolutely sure that you're in control as you do this. You really don't want to trip or fall while holding a barbell. As you come up, press the barbell directly over your head. Remember, your legs should be driving the power in this motion, not your shoulders or arms. At the top of your motion, you want your arms to be fully extended and your legs completely straightened out. Also, bring your head forward a bit so that your arms, spine, and head are all aligned along the same vertical plane.
One last cue is to make sure you move the weight directly up & down; if you start moving the horizontally, you'll put extra stress on your shoulders. If your elbows flare out horizontally, that's also going to make it difficult to press straight up & down. Finish your rep by bringing the weight back to beginning/racked position.
- Front Squat
Hold the barbell at about shoulder level, with your palms facing away from your body so that you could see both palms in a mirror. In a sense, the weights are "racked" against your chest. If you've got enough strength and flexibility in your wrists, bring your elbows straight up so that they point away from your body. This will force more of the weight against your upper torso and put more of a strain on your wrists, so only do this if you can sustain this position through lots and lots of reps. Regardless of how high you bring your elbows, the weights are "racked" against your chest.
Keeping the barbell in this position, do a squat. The same rules apply as always: keep a good lumbar curve while you do this, keep your weight on your heels, keep your head up & look forward, and keep your chest facing forward (don't bend over). With weight in your hands, these cues become more important. If you do enough reps poorly, you can tweak your back. Incidentally, this is also why we try to learn good from with air squats; so that it's habit by the time you put weight in your hands.
- Box Jump
You'll need to set up a platform with risers. I usually see between 3 and 5 risers. Before you even start the WoD, stomp on it really hard. You want to make sure it'll support your weight & won't move around when you jump on it.
When you do jump on it, you want to make sure that you stand tall once you're on the platform. If you stay hunched over the whole time, you're not getting the full effect of the exercise. One way to think about this is that you want your hips to "open up" on both the jump up and the jump down; all that really means is that your hips should be pushed forward once you're standing on top of the box.
Scale down: Step up to the box, and then step down instead of jumping on the platform. If you do step, make sure you alternate which leg steps up onto the platform first (and which legs steps off the platform first).
- Power Clean
You'll need a barbell for this, and you'll want to weight it fairly heavily. I usually see between ~45lbs and ~90lbs.
To begin with, put the weight on the ground in front of you (this is different than the "high hang" where you start with the weight near your thighs). Squat down to grab the weights, but remember to face forward and keep your chest facing forward. Stand up, but as you do so, shrug your shoulders aggressively. I know it sounds silly, but it should be an *aggressive* shrug. You really want to build some momentum in that motion. However, keep your arms locked as you're doing this, or you'll end up doing more of a curl. If you need to make sure you've got it down, practice just that part of it a few times.
The next step, starting from the shrugged shoulder position, is to quickly bring the weight up to about chest level and do a quick hop at the same time. If you were to watch the path the weight travels, it should be as close to your body as possible, and as close to completely vertical as possible. If the weight travels in an arc away from your body, you're doing it wrong. Your hands don't lift the weight as much as they adjust themselves to hold the weight differently. At the end of this motion, you should have your palms facing away from your body, as if you were "racking" the weight near your chest/clavicle.
You can almost think of it as letting go of the weight in midair, and positioning your body underneath the weight so that you end up with your knees slightly bent and the weight at your chest. Don't actually let go of the weight, that can be all sorts of bad. However, you'll find that because it's a quick hop, you're pretty much jumping into it. At the same time, your hands will suddenly shoot up to hold the weight at your chest.
As always, keep a good lumbar curve. You don't want to bend over as you do this. If you do it wrong repeatedly or with a heavy enough weight, your lower back will pay for it. Again, practice just the squat motion a few times so that it feels natural.
Lastly, just stand up completely while holding the weight at your chest. You basically just need to straighten your legs out, but you don't want to do this step until you've got full control of the weight. Normally, you would then put the bar back down on the ground to finish the rep, but in this case, you are considered done when you stand tall with the weight racked at your chest/clavicle. All that's really left is to put it all together in a smooth motion.
- Push Jerk
Hold the barbell at about shoulder level, with your palms facing away from your body so that you could see both palms in a mirror. In a sense, the weights are "racked" against your chest. If you've got enough strength and flexibility in your wrists, bring your elbows straight up so that they point away from your body. This will force more of the weight against your upper torso and put more of a strain on your wrists, so only do this if you can sustain this position through lots and lots of reps. Regardless of how high you bring your elbows, the weights are "racked" against your chest.
From here, do a quarter squat to load up your legs to act as springs, and then you want to violently shove the barbell directly over your head. In fact, your momentum will cause you to do a slight hop while your hands go upwards. At the same time, you want to squat down (about a quarter squat). It might help to think about it as your lower body is racing to reach a quarter squat at the same time that the barbell reaches the top of the lift. At the top of the rep, your arms should be completely locked out, and you should be in a quarter squat position. Once you've got full control of the weight, stand tall. Then, and only then, should you re-position your feet. Because this lets you use your legs to drive the momentum and the power, this should feel easier than a strict shoulder press.
To finish the rep, you have to lower the weight to the hang position safely (we're not allowed to just drop weights). From the locked out position at the very top, bring the weight straight back down to the racked position (resting on your shoulders/clavicle, palms facing away from you, elbows as high up as you can). You'll need to keep your chest facing forward the whole time; don't bend forward at any point. All of that is one rep. If you need to, practice the motion until it starts to feel natural; form is really important here.
- Stability Ball Sit Up
In some ways, this is like a poor man's version of a GHD sit up. Grab a stability ball, and roll it over near a wall. You'll want to sit on top of it so that your toes are touching the wall. In essence, you want to "anchor" yourself with the wall by not giving your feet any place to move forward. You can also do this by placing a pair of dumbbells up against the wall, and putting your feet underneath the dumbbells.
Once you're in the starting position, lean back and touch the ground behind you/over your head. You will need the muscles in your abs/core to stabilize yourself as you do this. This part can be challenging if you don't have good mobility in your core, so only go so far as you can safely control.
From there, sit up (using your abs, not your hips) and touch the wall with your hands. That's a single rep.
Scale down: If you can't reach behind you to touch the floor, you only have to lean back enough so that your body is parallel to the ground. That eases some of the strain on your abs, and doesn't require as much mobility.
- Crunch
If you've never done these, lie on your back. This time around, you need to keep your hands on your shins the whole time. This will force you to contract your abs, and keep you from using your lower body to generate momentum.
Raise your chest off the ground enough that you feel a contraction in your abs. You don't even have to go 45 degrees, it should be far less than that. Go back to the starting position to finish the rep.
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