Monday, November 12, 2018

2018.11.12

Nina sent this one out in honor of Veterans Day. It's called "Armistice" and the numbers represent, of course, Armistice Day - November 11, 1918.

This is an awesome workout but again be wary of the weight you put on as you may tweak your back if you're going too fast and/or too heavy for your deadlifts. Warm up your arms, thighs and back and also do an ab cash out for fun.

Just a little something for us to do in remembrance and honor of all the soldiers who fight or have fought. Happy Veterans Day out there!

WoD
Armistice - AMRAP - 22 minutes

Exercises
  • Power cleans
    You'll need a barbell for this, and you'll want to try to weight it as heavily as possible.

    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.
  • Burpees over barbell
    It sounds complicated, but this is only a slight variation on a traditional burpee. Before you start, put the bar down so that it runs parallel to the way your body is oriented for the push up portion of the burpee. You're going to jump sideways over it eventually. You can rest the actual plate part of the barbell on a riser to keep it from rolling.

    With that little bit of pre-work out of the way, it's still 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 sideways over the bar. You're going to end up jumping back and forth over the bar (if the first jump is to your left, you'll jump to the right for your next rep). With a weight lifting bar, this forces you to jump at least a few 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 sideways over the bar instead of jumping. This takes less energy, but still makes you do the work.
  • Deadlifts
    Place a 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 hits 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.
  • Barbell rows
    You'll need a barbell for this; I usually see between 45lbs and 90lbs. But use the barbell you're using for thrusters if you don't have a second bar.

    To begin with, put it down in front of you. Start with your feet a little bit more than shoulder-width apart, and bend your knees to reach down for the barbell. Grab the barbell with your hands on the outside of your legs/knees, so that your hands are slightly farther apart than your feet. From that position, stand straight up so that you have the barbell resting near your thighs (if you know what a deadlift is, you basically need to do one of those).

    From that position, bend your knees slightly and bend forward until your back is at about a 30 degree angle. Your back still needs to be as flat (like a table top) as you can manage. Squeeze your shoulder blades together before you start, and then pull the barbell straight up to your chest while keeping your back stationary. Bring it back down to the bottom in a fluid motion to finish the rep. You want to bring the weight up and down from this position until you've finished all of your reps. Lateral burpee

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