After the upper-body beat down that was Tuesday’s class, Thursday focused more on explosive power, but included some fun options which accomplished that goal.
A unique and fun way to get moving, but also useful for the multi-directional movements that are required – forwards and backwards, side to side, twisting, turning, bending, jumping, and, occasionally, diving, tucking, and rolling.
Another somewhat fun and different, but still useful, CFDC warm-up: Wall ball for height. The basic gist of this drill is to use a lighter than usual medicine ball, and then see how high you could get your wall balls. Rather than the conditioning requirements of, say Karen, this is all about explosive force (and not letting the ball hit you on the way back down).
Once everyone was warmed up, class was separated into groups based on the weight they could adequately use for high rep power cleans. These groups were then given a few minutes to warm-up to their assigned clean weights, and then introduced to the day’s met-con.
In thirty seconds perform as many reps as possible of power cleans, then rest for thirty seconds. Then perform as many 10m lateral shuffles in thirty seconds, before resting another 30 seconds. Finally, perform as many overhead med ball throws at the wall within thirty seconds, and then rest another thirty seconds. This was repeated for a total of 5 rounds. Groups were no larger than 3, and everyone started with the power cleans, which meant everyone worked and rested at the same time.
The med ball throws were a different take on the more traditional slam ball – in fact, you can roughly equate them to slam balls at the wall, instead of the floor. Standing roughly 5-7 feet away from the wall, throw the ball from an over head position so that it hits the wall at roughly eye-level and rebounds back. It wasn’t important that you were able to catch the ball, but rather that you kept your distance away from the wall. The focus here was on the explosive need to really hurl the ball against the wall.
This is actually a great substitute for slam balls. When athletes tire during slam balls, natural instinct is to let the ball fall from from the overhead position rather than being thrown. With the overhead throw, so long as the athlete keeps their distance from the wall, the ball must necessarily be thrown with force in order to get enough rebound. Otherwise it will simply fall dead against the wall, requiring multiple back and forth trips to perform the exercise.
Nice work. Something a little different mixed with something a little difficult – maybe not difficult at the beginning, when 30 seconds seems awfully long, but perhaps by the end when 30seconds magically becomes awfully short. If you haven’t yet responded to the request for your max squat, please do so. If you haven’t been able to find a number, please respond and let us know – we can probably gauge a number for you, but need to know if that’s necessary. Look forward to seeing you all this Sunday.
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Looking forward to the first class of the squat cycle on Sunday!
Blogger deleted my awesome comment, so here’s the condensed version:
1. I’m excited about the cycle.
2. My grip sucks on hang cleans.
3. I lay back too much on power cleans, but can’t feel it or fix it.
4. My bicep hurts.
Was nice to get back to that place where we can do anything seemingly related to wallballs without hating life.
I think my cleans went well yesterday. Period.
Fun mix of stuff last night! Different planes, different directions, different movements, different loads. Like if someone asked you to program the polar opposite of 12.1. 🙂
See you all Sunday!
I really enjoyed last night’s workout! Loved the different movements and working on hang cleans! I used 85lbs and that got rough by the last round but I did manage to pull energy from somewhere since I got the most reps on the last round. I thought i would be dying today but the soreness hasn’t kicked in yet. That’s either good or bad, maybe tomorrow I’ll feel it.
Can’t wait to start the cycle either!
I agree, that was a fun class! I used 8# for the wall balls and didn’t get much higher than my normal height, but got some good pointers on form. 35# on the cleans, it felt about right because by the last few reps I was struggling to continue. Like Erica, I felt like the cleans went well. The wall throws were really fun, great way to take out aggression.
I’m a little nervous to start the cycle because I don’t know how my knee will hold up. (Chondromalacia patella, aka runner’s knee — ironic since I don’t run!) I hope focusing on pressing my knees out will help, and strengthening my quads is supposed to help as well. Also, I think about all the health obstacles others have overcome, so I know I can handle this (asthma? torn pec? No problem!). I’m aware of it, so I just need to be dedicated in monitoring myself and preventing it from becoming a problem.
Katie you will do freat with the squat cycle. I too struggle with a chronic knee issue. Focusing on the knees pressing out and strengtening all the muscles around your knee will definitely help it feel better.
This was a great class. I had a couple different subs due to sore forearms and tight lower calf/ankle. I did push presses/push jerks @45kg (a bit on the heavy side yesterday) I should have gone lighter. I had a little difficulty not over arching. I joined Lizzie for mummy crawls in place of the side shuffles. They went pretty well. I used a 14lb ball for the wall throws. Those were fun.
I used a 10-12lb wall ball for the max height wallballs.
Looking forward to sunday’s reveal of the squat cycle as well as post class CFDC get together at Ben & Erica’s.
Have a great weekend everyone.
Yay, super fun class! I used 8#/10# ball for wall balls and 55# on the cleans. Still working on having good form consistently, but I’m pretty sure hang cleans are my favorite!
Looking forward to the squat cycle… it will be my first Sunday appearance!