All told, there was a total of 24 minutes worth of rest programmed into last night’s workout, as compared to the just 16 minutes of work that was done. Bet it didn’t feel that way.
Tuesday’s nights drills really keyed on body position and using gravity, by way of a good forward lean, to generate momentum:
(1) Ball of Foot Hops (emphasis on tight mid-line and landing on the ball of the foot;
(2) Forward Hops (as above, but with a forward lean introduced);
(3) Stop and Start Hops (again re-emphasizing the use of gravity by leaning forward for momentum and pulling back to slow up – also a good self-check for body posture); and,
(4) Forward Hops into a Light Jog (this should help to transfer the idea of using the forward lean from the hop to an actual running movement. Remember that the mid-line should stay tight, and that the body lean is created at the ankles, NOT the hips)
While the first two exercises were meant to exact a heavy toll, they were also patterned in that order to help cement a few key points.
The goal for the box jumps was “continuous” jumps; really try to explode off the ground and back onto the box as quickly as you can. This concept built off the same instruction given during the Pose running drills: less time on the ground is better, so really work on pulling the feet off the ground as quickly as possible (quick feet, but quiet feet).
After hammering everyone’s posterior chain, those who tend to dip deep for the push-press would find that their muscles weren’t of much use at that point, making those repeated “quarter-thruster” push-press hellaciously hard. This should really drive home the need to shorten the dip to a slight unlocking of the knees followed by an explosive drive upwards.
After that, it was simply push through to the end. Double unders were scaled to single skips (since the emphasis was on the cardio aspect rather than the skill work), and burpees were programmed with a games-style hand release at the bottom.
Fun, right? Score (if you can remember your numbers) is equal to lowest number of box jumps and double unders plus total push press and burpees. Awesome, awesome work; a lot of good enthusiasm, and I really liked hearing athletes cheer for others even when they were having enough trouble simply catching their own breath.
POSTSCRIPT: A big congratulations to Paul on his selection for Officer Candidate School yesterday! Good thing celebratory burpees were included in the workout.
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Even though I wasn’t sure I would make it, I liked last night’s workout.
I knew I wasn’t going to make it to last nights class so I asked Tom what the workout was. I did this on Monday and when I arrived at the gym Andraea was there so I got her to join me.
I did not score this at all. I used a 65lb barbell for the PP. It was nice to have someone to do the workout with. I did double unders and did not know about the hand release on the burpees so just did regular burpees
after that workout..thank goodness Wednesdays are my rest days! Great work, everyone.
New CrossFit DC equation: Killer humidity (on the court) + kick-ass workout = ? 🙂
I didn’t do much scoring on this workout because I was concentrating on not missing the box for my jumps (check), on doing good push presses with 35# dumbbells (check), on trying to get a double-under (or two) even though I was next to the “Queen of Double-Unders” (Stephanie…good job, by the way) (fail…but I will keep trying), and on getting at least ten burpees in even though the floor was covered with (my) sweat (check…I think). 🙂
All-in-all, it was a good workout in which everyone in both classes did a great job.
“Not too bad for an old man.” – CFDC’s (and possibly CrossFit Dupont’s) own ODB.
Andraea, ha, Sara sold you out. You should now really comment on how you felt after this workout!
It was great to have McKenzie back in class again. Thanks for being my partner! Really enjoyed the workout, but made some modifications – did db (20lbs) lunges instead of box jumps and strict presses (15lbs) instead of push. It was good to be doing DUs in class again. Definitely noticed how out of shape I was for them compared to pre-injury, need to build my stamina back up.
Scoring-wise…15 lunges for each round, presses went from 19 in the first round to 12 in the last round (can’t remember the middle), lowest DU round was 40ish I think, and burpees were about 11 reps each round (they were sloooow).
Great job everyone, both 6pm and 7pm! Btw, Chris is subbing on Friday for both 6 and 7pm classes if anyone want to join me!
Nice one. Can’t think of a better way to spend 24’+16′!
Just curious – why the variation in rest/sets/intervals for the different movements? Why not 8×30″ (or 4×1′) and 2′ rest across?
Was as close to throwing up as I’ve ever been during class last night so I now feel like I’m officially a CFer. Hubba bubba workout welcomed me back to DC. I partnered up with Vicky(i?) who was a great motivator. We used the lower box, but I was able to do 8 rounds of (literally almost) unbroken box jumps, so am feeling closer to moving up a box. Used 20lbs on the PP, and got a bunch in each round. No where near DUs yet, but am definitely feeling better on the regular jumps. Need to focus on more wrist, less forearms. And the burpees, well, I just love burpees so can never get enough of those!
I am so sore today. Still hurting from those toes-to-bar/knees-to-elbow from Sunday.
The box was too high for truly continuous box jump practice, but I tried my best. The hands up business on the burpees really threw off my rhythm.
My double-unders were terrible last night.
I ran up the escalator at Friendship as fast as possible to catch a bus later. Added a nice post workout burn.
I don’t think it was especially humid last night, just that that workout was pretty tough (unlike last week, I wasn’t sweating while coaching). Everyone hurting from the last few days accumulation needs to be hitting the foam rollers hard.
Julia, I had some specific reasoning for the workout, although other iterations could work as well. I think that the 30 second interval works well for the box jumps both from a cardio standpoint and for working continuity. Go longer and I think most people will loose the rhythm as they tire (especially in later rounds). The short rest break allows for recovery, but not cooling down.
I wanted to make sure to give people a longer rest before moving on to the only weighted movement, to be recovered, as well as have time to do a few prep sets with the dumbells. The longer interval allowed us to really drain the shoulders capacity and fight for a few extra reps, then recover enough to go at it again with a substantial weight.
With Double-unders, we mimicked the BJ scheme, for the same reasons. Burpees followed the PP format, really challenging everyone to fight through to the end, while allowing enough recovery for the more systematically abusive movements.
fantastic workout. thanks for the shoutout! I am excited for OCS!…gotta keep getting better everyday until then!
Makes sense, thanks for the explanation. And congrats Paul!!
It was a great workout! I’m all about the long metcons! I’m glad Sara was there and had the workout. I worked on squats before that since I always end up missing squat days. Then I was debating what to do so it was perfect timing when Sara walked in with the workout. We did it in the nice air conditioned room so maybe that’s why I didn’t completely die. 8 rounds of box jumps seemed to have lasted forever. I didn’t do DU so I just did single skips, I tried DU but still can’t get it to happen for me. So I probably didn’t get the same workout as those that did DU. I used 25lbs dumbbell for the push press.