Descriptions copied as usual. Have fun!
Warm Up
2 rounds of:
- 25 jumping jacks
- 5 T push ups
- 10 bottom downs
- 10 good mornings
- 10 deadlifts
WoD
As many Rounds As Possible (in 15 minutes) of:
Exercises
- T Push Ups
Drop down in to a push up position, and lower your body until your chest hits the ground. Push your body up off the ground, but as your arms start to get fully extended, lift one of them off of the ground. Rotate your torso towards the side where you lifted the arm, so that you are now facing sideways rather than towards the ground. At the same time, extend the arm you lifted straight up in the air. This is actually where the name comes from: at full extension, your body will make something of a T-shape. Lower your arm and rotate your torso back in to a regular push up position. Repeat this motion by lifting your other arm in to the air to complete a single rep. - Bottom Downs
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. - Good Mornings
Grab a bar and add as much weight as you can handle (a lot of people use 40lbs, most I've seen is 60lbs). Standing, rest the bar on your shoulders behind your neck. Keep your feet about shoulder-width apart, and keep your legs locked. Bend at the waist (as if you’re bowing), keeping your eyes forward. Keep your back flat as you do that, and finish so that your back is parallel to the ground. Come back up to standing to finish the rep. Notice that this variation doesn't require a bend to your knees. - Deadlifts
Use the same barbell that you were using for the good mornings. 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 part, 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. - Hang Power Cleans
A single rep of a squat clean is essentially a weighted squat with some hand motions thrown in. This exercise is meant to be done with barbells, so if you feel comfortable using that weight, go for it. If you aren't comfortable with that weight or the technique using a bar, switch to a pair of dumbbells. Remember, just make sure that you're comfortable with the form with whatever you use.
To begin with, hold the barbell down near your thighs (this position is considered a "high hang" so that's where the name comes from). 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 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. At the end of this motion, you should have your palms facing away from your body, as if you were "racking" the dumbbells 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 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. - Burpees Over Bar
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.
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.
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