We had a special guest about 3 rounds in. It was Al! Hopefully he can start joining in again soon.
In the end the most anyone did was 4 rounds just to give you an idea of what to expect (15 lb dumbbells and 3 plates each side on the barbell).
Descriptions below as usual. Have fun!
Warm up
2 rounds
- 30 seconds jogging in place
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 arm circles
- 5 lunge to elbows
- 10 good mornings (bar only)
WoD
20 minute AMRAP
- 5 man makers with lunges
- 10 deadlifts
- 15 dumbbell thrusters (simulates wall ball)
- 20 double unders or 40 single unders
Cash out
Exercises
- Man makers with lunges
Grab two dumbbells (most people usually use 10-15lbs). Start standing, with one weight at each side. Squat down and, still holding the weights, put the weights on the ground a little bit wider than shoulder-width apart. Kick your legs back into a push up position. Do the push up. Staying in the push up position, do a one-armed row with your weak hand (i.e., lift one dumbbell off the ground to about your chest while keeping the other dumbbell on the ground). The elbow of the hand that’s lifting should end up behind your back when you do this; otherwise, you’re not lifting high enough. Also, don't rotate your body; the point is to do a pull, not work your obliques. Then do a one-armed row with your strong hand.
Jump back to squatting position, so that your feet are between the two dumbbells. From here, you'll basically do a squat clean with the dumbbells. Keeping your chest up, start to stand and pop your hips forward. That will generate a bunch of momentum so that the dumbbells start to move upward. You want the dumbbells to move in a straight vertical line, even though you're doing more than just standing up. Shrug your shoulders aggressively to keep the momentum going upward and quickly bring the dumbbells up to about your shoulder level and squat down at the same time. If you were to watch the path the weights travel, it should be completely vertical. If the weights travel 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. 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 in a squat with the dumbbells at your chest. Don't actually let go of the dumbbells, that can be all sorts of bad. However, you'll find that because it's a quick squat down, you're pretty much jumping into it. At the same time, your hands will suddenly shoot up to hold the weight at your chest; since you are holding the dumbbells in a hammer fist, that's basically the same as bringing the dumbbells to your shoulders.
From the bottom of your squat, stand tall and press the dumbbells straight over your head (essentially, do a thruster). Keep your chest up, don't bend over, and make sure you lock out your arms at the top of the press.
Now this is where the lunge happens. With your arms still locked out at the top, step forward with your weak leg
Once you've done that, you can bring the dumbbells back down to your side.
All of that is one rep. As you can imagine, it might take a little bit of time to get used to it. - Deadlifts
Place the barbell on the floor pretty much right in front of your feet (with a full Olympic bar, you'd put your feet right underneath the bar). Stand with your feet about shoulder-width apart, and bend your knees slightly (about 20 degrees) to reach down to grab the barbell. You want your hands on the outside of your legs/knees, and you want to start with the barbell to be high enough off the ground to be about halfway up your shin (this is about the same height as an Olympic bar resting on the ground with 45lb plates on it). Keeping your head up and your chest facing forward, lift your torso a few inches until the barbell almost hit your knees. Your arms shouldn't bend at the elbows, you're just lifting your upper body with the weight conveniently attached to the upper body. Also, the weight should move in a straight vertical line, with no horizontal motion. It can help to think about it as if you're trying to skin your shins with the weight. Once the barbell is at about your knees, pop your hips forward to generate some more momentum. At the same time, contract your shoulder blades towards each other. This will naturally pull the weight up even more (again, in a straight line). You should be standing straight up with your chest out at the top of the movement. Even though it looks like you're pulling the weight up using your biceps, you should try to avoid pulling up with your arms. That actually decreases the amount of weight you can lift in the long run, and it's bad form. - Dumbbell thrusters
Grab a pair of dumbbells; this time around, you only need up to 10lbs (to simulate throwing a 20lb medicine ball).
Start with the dumbbells at your shoulders with your palms facing each other (towards your armpits) and your knuckles facing out away from your body. You're going to be doing this in the hammer fist grip this time around (your forearm and the dumbbell make a hammer that you could swing). This is the start, or "racked" position for this exercise.
Do an air squat so that your thighs end up parallel to the ground; if you can "break parallel," that's even better. As you come up, press the weights over your head, until your arms are fully extended. Push the dumbbells straight up & down, since any horizontal motion will put undue stress on your shoulders.
Bring the dumbbells back to the “racked” position to finish the rep. For this, you can actually make it a smooth motion, and go straight into the next squat instead of stopping at starting position. This is fine so long as you fully extend the dumbbells, bring the weight back down before you start your next squat, and keep a good curve on your lower back the whole time. - Double/Single-unders
This basically means jumping rope. The “single” refers to how many times the rope revolves around you each time you jump. Try to keep a steady rhythm, so that you can do all of your reps without stopping.
Now double-unders are just that...you have the rope go under you twice as you hop once. - Stability ball sit ups
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.
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