Blog Archive

The AM classes have been very sparsely attended lately… resist the Sloth.  Get your chubby cheeks back into the school. Its time to get back to work.

Today’s Skill/Str Element:

Take 12 min to find a 1RM TGU.

Must complete both left and right side. This will be your Leaderboard score today.

Today’s Workout:

In Teams of 4, and with 1 member at each station

Run 200m

20 Push Ups

20m Walking Weighted Overhead Lunges (15/25lbs)

20 Box Jumps w/step down (30/24″)

Rounds in 24 minutes

Teams rotate stations as a group.  Athletes can not begin the next movement until the rest of the team have completed their tasks.

A

Guys and gals I like what I’m seeing.  Folks are sticking around after class getting on the foam rollers and stretching out.  They’re doing extra work…much of which is coming in the form of ab work.  I know beach season is nearing and we want to look good.  Tabata sit-ups are great but I want to get you all thinking a little differently about your abs and their function.  Sure they work to flex your spine a la the sit-up or crunch but their more important function is, in fact, just the opposite.  To resist flexion and/or rotation.  So if you’re looking for a little variation why not try out some exercises that force your abdominals to work to resist flexion.  Plank holds are a good starting option.  If you find those too easy try’m with only one arm or the side plank variation.  If you’re really looking for a challenge try some barbell roll-outs or dragon flags!

Saturday’s Lesson Plan:

Warm-up: 50 single skips then right into
50/10,40/9,30/8,20/7,10/6
double unders/push ups

If your double unders are bad count every attempt at a  double under as a rep.  7 minute time cap.

Strength:  Deadlift (3,3,3,3,3)

WoD: EMOM
11 deadlifts 1 burpee
10 deadlifts 2 burpees
9 deadlifts 3 burpees
…
2 deadlifts 10 burpees
1 deadlift 11 burpees

Score for the WoD is your deadlift weight.  There’s a lot of reps here (66) in a short period of time so think light.  Coaches keep an eye on athletes.  Give’m one warning on bad reps and after that call a penalty of sitting out one minute.  Protect your spines folks!

Sunday do what Chesty tells you to do. 

Today we’re going to work on the jerk and I want to take a couple of minutes to look at two videos.  The first is of a crossfitter (and a damn good one!) doing what I’d consider a typical crossfit style jerk.  The second is Olympic bronze medalist Christine Girard.  Pay particular attention to the difference in their elbow positions when they start the jerk portion of their lifts.


In the first video Katie leaves her elbows high and forward just like her front rack position for the squat. Christine on the other hand quickly readjusts from that squat front rack position rotating her elbows more down under the bar. This allows Christine to apply force upward into the bar with both her hips (in the dip drive portion) and her shoulders whereas Katie is only generating power from her hips then has to catch the bar and start to press herself under. In essence, Christine has gotten a head start on pressing herself under the bar as she’s already driving up into the bar with her hands as hard as she can before she even starts her dip drive so when her feet become weightless she gets driven under the bar much more quickly.
If you’ve got the mobility to get the bar on your shoulders and point the elbows down a bit give this a try today and see how much of a difference it can make.

Friday’s Lesson Plan:

Warm-up: 3 rounds
7 burpee box jumps
7 dumbell push press

Tech: Jerk (3,2,1,1,1)
Accumulate a total of 30 reps of GHD sit-ups in between sets.

WoD:

16,14,12,…,6,4,2
Split Squat Wall Ball (20/12)
Toes to Bar

Warm up the split squat wall ball for a few minutes before starting the WoD as it takes a few attempts to find the rhythm.  Set up should look like a lunge.  Torso upright at the bottom with the bum squeezed tight.  Front knee over the front ankle and hips over the rear knee as it kisses the ground.  Alternate lead leg each rep.

I bet I’m not the only one who made the resolution to get strong this year.  At least I shouldn’t be!  I don’t think I can put this any better strength coach Mark Rippetoe so I’m going to steal a couple of paragraphs right from him.

“There’s simply no better way to increase your work capacity than increasing your ability to produce force. If your primary interest is being more effective at moving yourself and/or submaximal or maximal loads more efficiently, training for strength contributes much more to your goal than training for endurance.

The reason for this should be obvious. Maximal loads are your 1RMs in the basic lifts. For a 200-pound male of average height, a 1.75x bodyweight squat, a 2x bodyweight deadlift, and a .75x bodyweight press constitute a well-developed strength base.

Although this isn’t considered “strong” by competitive lifters, it represents a level of strength that’s attainable by 95% of male trainees in a few short months of reasonably efficient training on the lifts. More importantly, it makes commonly encountered submaximal tasks much easier repetitively, and this is what we mean by ‘work capacity’.”

So if your lifts aren’t up to the above standards (ladies scale down by 2/3) make it a priority to get them there.

Another resolution of mine, and this goes hand in hand with getting strong, is to get technical.  Put simply technique carries strength much further than it would otherwise go.  Sure, right now you might get one more rep on your front squat if you let your elbows lower and back round but you’re just building a foundation that is going to crumble under heavy loads.  Keep the elbows high and chest proud and now you’ve got a platform that can carry heavy load and more efficiently transfer power from your hips to the barbell.  You even get a bonus of protecting the one and only spine you’ll ever have!

No leaderboard today.  It’s all about strength and technique.  No craning the neck on the pull-ups today.  Thumbs around the bar and finish with your chin tucked and neck touching the bar.

Thursday’s Lesson Plan:

Warm-up:

3 rounds:
10/10 band side lateral step
10 goblet squats
20 glute bridges

Tech:

squat cleans – work up to a heavy 1 rep max
strict pull-ups (resisted, weighted, negative) 4 sets of 5

WOD:

Part #1 – 7 min AMRAP
max squat cleans (approx. 70-80% 0f perfect form 1RM)

Part #2 – 5 min AMRAP
max strict pull-ups (use additional weight if you want)

What are your resolutions for 2013??
Here’s a great article for those hoping to keep one or two of them this year!

Wednesday’s Lesson Plan:

Warm-up:

6 min. partner ladder

wall balls
burpees

Tech:

shoulder press
10, 8, 6, 5, 3, 2, 2+, 2+
(on the last 2 sets of shoulder press, finish with 2 extra push presses)

WOD:

Cindy 20 min. AMRAP

5 pull-ups
10 push-ups
15 squats

Welcome back, hope you all had a fantastic holiday break!