Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 30 seconds of jogging in place
- 10 push ups
- 10 upward to downward
- 10 bottom downs
WoD
- 50 hang cleans
- 40 single-arm dumbbell swings
- 30 dumbbell chops
- 20 burpees
- 10 V-ups
- 10 hang cleans
- 20 burpees
- 30 dumbbell chops (other hand)
- 40 single-arm dumbbell swings
- 50 V-ups
Exercises
- Push Up
You want your entire body straight/rigid, without a bend at the waist. Maintain this position the whole time, regardless of whether you're moving or not. If you start dropping your waist, you're not doing it right. Bring your chest to the ground for every single rep, and when you come up, make sure your arms are fully extended. - Upward to Downward
This is a lot like a "judo pushup" in reverse, if you've ever heard of that. If you're familiar with yoga at all, the starting position should look like the "upward dog." Regardless, lay face down on the ground and then lift your entire body off the ground by extending your arms, as if you were doing a push up. However, bring your upper body all the way up, so that your chest up faces forward while your lower body is still parallel to the ground. This is the starting position. From there, lower your head and bring it down and in, as if you were trying to bring it to meet your waist. This will naturally force your hips to come up, and you'll end up holding yourself off the ground with a noticeable bend at the waist (your butt will be a bit higher in the air than your chest or lower body). To go back to the starting position, lower your head towards the ground, then lower your chest and bring it forward in the same motion. It's not a straight up and down motion like a regular push up, it's more of an arc. You should also keep your lower body off the ground at all times. Continue the arc by straightening your arms and elevating your torso. When you finish the arc, your torso/chest should be facing forward with your lower body parallel to the ground. All of that is a single rep. - 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. - Hang Clean
The starting position for this is with the barbell around mid-thigh in front of you, with a slight bend to your waist (this position is considered a "high hang" so that's where the name comes from). Obviously, though, you have to get the barbell there from the ground somehow. The safest way to do this is actually to deadlift the barbell. In essence, keep your chest up, squat down, and then lift the barbell from the ground using your legs (not your back).
From that position, shrug your shoulders. I know it sounds silly, but it should be an *aggressive* shrug. You really want to build some momentum in that motion. Remember, though, 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 bend your knees a tiny bit at the same time. If you were to watch the path the weight travels, it should be completely vertical. 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 barbell near your chest/clavicle. You can almost think of it as letting go of the weight in midair, and positioning your body so that you can receive the weight with the weight at your chest. Don't actually let go, that can be all sorts of bad.
However, you'll find that because there's so much momentum and you're trying to "catch" the weight with your knees slightly bent, 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. You can practice this one step at a time until the motion starts to feel more natural.
Lastly, just stand up straight while holding the weight at your chest. Once you've stood all the way up, you can drop the weight back down to thigh-level to start over. That's the end of a single rep. Now all that's left is to put it all together in a smooth motion. - Single Arm Dumbbell Swing
You only need a single dumbbell; I usually see people grab 10-15lbs. Do a squat, keeping a good lumbar curve, and hold the dumbbell between your legs at about knee/thigh level. Stand up from the squat, and as you do that, swing your arm upward in an arc until your arm is directly over your head. If you do the motion correctly, your legs will drive most of the momentum, and you're essentially just standing & squatting.
Your arm should stay locked the whole time, so that you're actually swinging the dumbbell. If you start bending your arm at the elbow, you're doing more of a bicep curl. That's not what you're after in this case, so that's wasted effort.
At no point should you bend over, that can hurt your lower back. You always want to be facing forward, with a good lumbar curve. If you get tired, it's preferable to stop for a bit than to do these reps with bad form. - Dumbbell Chop
Use the same weight that you had for the dumbbell swing. Hold it in your strong/dominant hand, and then wrap your weaker hand around your strong hand. Really, your second hand is just there for support.
For this exercise, your lower body is the key. You'll want to pivot your feet, or you can hurt your knees pretty badly. The first part is to swing the weight up to your shoulder. It doesn't matter which shoulder (you'll end up doing both sides anyway), but what does matter is that you pivot your feet as you do that. If you swung the dumbbell towards your right shoulder, your left heel should come off the ground, and your left knee should move down & to the right a bit. You also want your right knee to move a bit to the right and open up your hip a little bit to the right. Both of these things make it so that you're not planting all of your body weight and the dumbbell's weight on one leg and then wrenching it to the side. After enough reps, that'll hurt your knees. If you're bringing the weight up to your left shoulder, just do the reverse: right heel off the ground, right knee down and to the left, left knee to the left, and open up hip to the left a bit.
Next, you want to swing the dumbbell to the side opposite of the dumbbell. Imagine chopping down a tree with an axe (that's where the exercise gets its name). You want the dumbbell to end up about hip level when you finish your swing. Again, be sure to move your lower body. Assuming you swing the dumbbell from right shoulder to left hip, your right heel should come off the ground and your right knee should move down and to the left a bit. Your left knee should also move to the left a bit, and your hip should open up the left side. It's the exact opposite of the way you pivoted your feet when you brought the dumbbell up to your shoulder, and identical to what would have happened if you brought the weight up to your left shoulder. That also means that if you're swinging from left shoulder to right hip, the lower body movement is the same as if you were bringing the weight up to your right shoulder.
Since you want to work both sides, make sure you do half your reps from left shoulder to right hip, and half of your reps from right shoulder to left hip. The pivoting works the same way regardless of which side you start on, it's just a matter of which heel comes off the ground first. - Burpee
It's a 5 step motion: 1) squat down & touch the ground, 2) kick your legs out into a push-up position, 3) do a push up, 4) jump back to the squatting position, 5) come up from squatting and jump 2 inches off the ground. Once it starts to feel normal to do this motion, you can start to make it a smoother motion by essentially dropping down into a push up position, rather than squatting and then kicking out your feet. It requires a little bit less energy, but it also requires more coordination and muscle memory.
Scale down: Step back into the push up instead of jumping. Same goes for when you go back to the squatting position (step 4); step forward instead of jumping. - V-Up
Lie on your back, putting our hands parallel to the ground "above" your head (if you were standing, they’d be directly over your head). Lift your legs off the ground and bring your torso up at the same time to touch your toes. In essence, your body makes a "V" shape. Go back to lying on your back to finish the rep. Be careful about slamming your legs into the ground when you finish the rep, that can hurt your lower back. Some people call these "jack knives," if that helps at all.
Scale down: Bend your knees as your bring your lower body up. You only have to touch your knees this way
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