Our military guys and gals will get the drilling reference in the title, but for the rest of you, it will simply be a welcome instruction to recover from Tuesday’s beat down. To aid in the road to recovery, class started off with a long warm-up focusing on flexibility and mobility, getting muscles warm and joints open.
Forward Lunge, 10 Push-Ups, Backwards Lunge, 15 Sit-Ups, Side Lunge (Rt), 10 Push-Ups, Side Lunge (Lf), 15 Sit-Ups
Done with a partner, where P1 spends 2min sitting in a squat shifting from side to side to open up the ankles while P2 uses the PVC to help open up the shoulders. After 2min, the partners switch. (sorry, no good pics of the PVC stretch, but I’ll be sure to take some next class so we have a good visual reference)
As above, P1 spends 2min sitting on their feet with their feet dorsiflexed (toes tucked under) or alternating between toes dorsiflexed and flexed (toes pointed).
Meanwhile, P2 “assumes the position,” with hands against the wall, back straight and hips extended, head pushed through to help open up the shoulder.
Retracting the scapula – pinching the shoulder blades – is the initial movement in ANY pull-up, strict or kipping. 
Instead of simply pulling with the arms, often causing the shoulders to pull forward and down, a proper pull-up should be initiated with the scapula. By pinching the scapula, the shoulders are pull down and back, tilting the chest up towards the bar. The hanging scapular retraction will help burn this movement into muscle memory, helping to build consistently strong pull-ups.
With the warm-up out of the way, and people (hopefully) a little more mobile, class moved on to a strength/skill-based session focusing on two of CF’s lesser-loved movements: the muscle-up and the hand stand push-up (HSPU).
Alternate between pulling and pushing exercises, working up the chain of progressively harder movements if possible.
Pulling: C2R Ring Rows -OR- C2R Ring Pull-Ups -OR- C2R False Grip Ring Pull-Ups
P1 rows 400m while P2 maintains a plank position, and then the two switch so that P2 rows 400m while P1 maintains a plank position.
Continue this rotation until each partner has rowed 400m, 300m, 200m, and 100m (1K total), for total time.
Nice work. Hope everyone has recovered fully at this point. There will be class this Sunday for those of you who are still in town. Otherwise, enjoy the holiday weekend!
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Yikes – better get to work evening out that tan.
Not sure I got the feel for that PVC stretch. (Maybe I was just afraid of ‘going too far’ with this ‘submission movement.’ Death by stretching is really NOT something I could live down.)
Great to try HSPU negatives from the bumpers. I only did a few reps at a time, pausing in between, but even then each one felt exponentially harder than the one before. Brendan and James looked awesome on these!
Happy 4th if I don’t see you guys Sunday!
This workout really targeted some of my weakest muscles (back btw the shoulders), which I’m happy about because I know those muscles need to get stronger so I will be able to do better pushups, pullups, more on bench press, probably more on OHS, too! Oh the possibilities are endless….
I think my body tries to “cheat” these muscles sometimes, but I can actually feel them today, so yay!
Props to you guys doing the negatives and HSPUs! Impressive…
Julia, better make sure your mom doesn’t read the blog and comments 😉
This workout was the far end of the spectrum from Tuesday. No rep scheme, no clock, just specific training to make specific improvement. Slowing things down a little also gives you the chance to analyze things more clearly, and find where the specific weakness is. Its also REALLY important to emphasize posture and body positioning at each point in a given rep, not just get through the required ROM. Thats what makes a drill like the scapular retraction so beneficial.
Nice work on the partner metcon, see you all on Sunday!
I finally lowered down and touched my head to the padding! I would lower just a bit but still be freightened that my arms were going to give out, I’d land hard on my head breaking my neck and then being paralyzed. I know I’m crazy buy every time we had to do these that’s what was going through my head. So it was a mental wall I have to get passed. Working the negative was great and I could feel the shoulder muscles working.
Erica we are an awesome team! I enjoyed the partnering workout and the time to work on rowing once again.
I <3 you Andraea :)
Yesterday was a great change from Tuesday and my legs are feeling much better, thankfully. I really liked the emphasis on skill work, but wish there was a step between ring rows and pull-ups. I also did not find the “corner” move (think 90 degree angle like a corner) move to be a “first step” to negatives as they were EXTREMELY challenging for me. I know I need to hollow out my core on these more to help me, but my legs were so exhausted.
Looking forward to seeing you all on Sunday!
I bailed out on most of class but was happy to have a chance to work some handstand stuff. I just worked on negatives with a deficit. I first used the 25kg plate with an abmat then decided to lose the abmat. It was a much bigger deficit and very difficult to maintain control the whole way down but I suceeded. I don’t work on HSPUs enough.
Enjoyed the HSPU negatives. Partnered with Reggie for the rowing/plank holds made for an quick pace. Happy 4th everyone!
@Erica: The “‘corner’ move” is also known as a half-handstand. 🙂
I really enjoyed this class. I felt better about performing the handstand push-up (HSPU) negatives as I was able to get more than one rep out of them. I also liked performing the ring pull-ups; even though, I was not able to advance to the false-negative grip ring pull-ups.
Like Brendan mentioned, he and I partnered for the met-con. I enjoyed this met-con.
“Not too bad for an old man.” – CFDC’s own ODB
Great workout after a grueling Tuesday