Workouts: Week of Jan. 24th

WOD 1 – Tuesday

Body/Ring Rows – max reps for three sets
(Practice perfection – start each rep at full arm extension, keep your torso rigid in a straight line from the top of your head to your heels, and pull yourself in until your thumbs touch your chest. Elevate your feet to ring level or above if you’re capable of doing so with perfect form.)
and then,

For max reps:
Three minutes of Double-Unders
Three minutes of Clean and Jerk (use approximately 60-65% of your 1-RM)
Two minutes of Double-Unders
Two minutes of Clean and Jerk
One minute of Double-Unders
One minute of Clean and Jerk

WOD 2 – Wednesday

Sprint 400 meters
25 x Kettlebell Swings
Farmer’s Walk with heavy kettlebells x 50 meters
Waiter’s Walk with heavy kettlebells x 50 meters
25 x Squat Jumps
Sprint 400 meters
Walking Lunges x 50  meters
25 x burpees
Sprint 400 meter

Note: a farmer’s walk is performed by carrying kbells in hands with hand by your side.  Waiters walk is performed by carrying object with your hand beneath it and keeping your hand at shoulder level next to your body, just like waiters carry trays.

WOD 3 – Friday

Pendlay Row
5-5-5
(Check out the demo video provided by our friends at Catalyst Athletics.)
and then,

“JT”
21, 15, 9 :
Handstand Push-Ups
Ring Dips
Push-Ups

(Since none of us can do this as Rx, a good modification would be to replace the Hand stand push up with a press. choose a weight that can be pressed x 21, but keep in mind that you shouldn’t be able to press it 21 times without stopping.  That would be far to too light.  Or perhaps the stronger among us could start with HSPU and then switch to the press.)

WOD 4 – Saturday

Weighted Pull up
1-1-1-1-1-1-1

“Helen”
Three rounds for time of:
400 Meter Run
21 Kettlebell Swings (24/16 kg)
12 Pull-Ups

Intensity: It’s Not Just Cause We’re Crazy

If you have already tasted the CrossFit Koolaid, then you know how we feel about intensity. To say we like it would be an understatement. Perhaps, you think, these crazy people just get off on throwing their bodies around – on the ground, on the rings, under and over weights of various shapes and sizes – and generally looking like a circus gone terribly wrong. Or maybe they just are in so much pain from their contortions that they want to get the hated workout over as quickly as possible.

While both of those factors certainly come into play, there is actually some science behind our madness. It has been documented that high intensity exercise produces more of what we all want – aerobic endurance, anaerobic endurance, strength, fat-burning, growth hormone production, bone density, and overall hottness – and does so in less time than conventional methods of exercise.

Dr. Izumi Tabata was the first to document the effects of max-effort intensity exercise over low intensity or moderate intensity exercise. Here is what Mark Sisson had to say about it in his post  on tabata sprints:

“Tabata’s findings from a 1996 study on moderate and high-intensity interval training helped legitimize a movement – away from chronic cardio and toward high-intensity workouts. He showed that high-intensity intermittent training actually improves both anaerobic (intensity and muscle building) and aerobic (slower, oxygen consuming) body systems, while aerobic exercise only improves aerobic systems. Of course, these findings would come as no surprise to anyone who’s ever done burpees to exhaustion, or followed a CrossFit WOD.”

Mark is referring to our belief that chronic cardio – spending hours and hours spinning your wheels on an elliptical or pounding away on the concrete at moderate or low intensity – is a poor use of your time and may even be harmful in the long run. Cardio addicts have a hard time hearing that their beloved 6 miles a day is putting unnecessary stress on their joints and producing results that could be equalled or surpassed in 20 minutes with a kettlebell.

So how can you get a taste of this infamous intensity? It’s incredibly easy.

A Tabata workout consists of choosing an exercise that can be done to a maximum effort for a short burst of time – this can be cycling, swimming, rowing, burbees, squats, push-ups, pull-ups, thrusters, or the basic, sprinting – and giving a maximum effort for 20 seconds, then resting for 10 seconds, and then repeating 8 times for a total of 4 minutes. (Note: elliptical machines won’t work because they do not allow a maximum effort.) If you’re adventurous, you can select a series of 3-5 exercises, doing 8 rounds of maximum effort for 20 sec on 10 sec off  for each exercise in succession. The key is the words “maximum effort.” With sprinting, it helps to imagine that a hungry tiger is behind you. Point is: run as fast as you possibly can each time. If you don’t think you can get a workout in 4 minutes, I urge you to try this. Run hard, take only 10 seconds for rest, and if you’re not tired, you should head for the olympics.

If you’re reading this and you don’t already incorporate high intensity exercise, I urge you to give this a try. Just adding this in one day a week – maybe that evening you think you don’t have time to workout – can make a huge difference.

You may look crazy, but it will be worth it.

Workouts for the week of October 26th

WOD 1 – Tuesday

12 rounds

Sprint as hard as you can up Andrew’s road. When you get to the top, jog back down without taking a break. That’s 1 round.  As soon as you get to the bottom, turn around and repeat without walking.

At the end of all 12 rounds do 30 burpees as fast as you can.

WOD 2 – Wednesday

3 heavy squat cleans (185lbs / 135lbs)

5 pullups (weighted if possible, otherwise dead hang. NO jumping/kipping!)

7 Clapping push ups

10 rounds or as many as you can in 20 min. Scale weight appropriately.

Note: Mara and I will START at 6am for the first round.

WOD 3 – Friday

For time:

100 Push-ups

75 Body Weight Deadlifts

50 Pull-ups

Don’t mix the sets, finish each one before moving on.

(I found this on University of Nevada Crossfit page.  I have no idea what this will be like, but it looks nasty. A word of caution – even though we can all deadlift our bodyweight, doing so 75 times is a bit extreme for now.  So, I recommend that you either lower the reps or lower the weight.  Let’s err on the side of caution.  Also, Mara and I will start at 6am for the first round.)

WOD 4 – Saturday

For Time

15pullups

15ringdips

9frontsquats (155lbs / 95 lbs)

400m run

12pullups

12ringdips

12frontsquats (155lbs / 95 lbs)

400m run

9pullups

9ringdips

15frontsquats (155lbs / 95 lbs)

400 m run