No doubt that Tuesday night’s unique skill work involving tumbling was a break from the norm, but who could’ve seen Thursday’s follow-up? And while the conditioning work seemed pretty straight forward, if not a little easy, on paper, the demands of the repetitive explosive work definitely made an impact.
The seated hurdle jumps are similar in demands to the CFDC-favorite seated box jumps, requiring athletes to go from an un-loaded, seated position into an aggressive jump. The difference, of course, is that instead of landing on a box, the goal was to clear the hurdle, landing on the floor on the other side.
The up-side of using hurdles is that they easily give way, falling over when you hit into them (as opposed to boxes, which are a little more obstinate about giving way when you don’t quite jump high enough). The down-side, however, is that you have farther to travel, clearing the hurdle and then landing on the floor again, which requires real concentration to land softly, absorbing the impact.
Just a little something different to get everyone’s explosive power up to speed for the day’s met-con .
The met-con was a study in explosive work, as well as a real eye-opener to just how taxing max effort explosive work could be. Rest was programmed in, and although the workout wasn’t for time, the programming called for people to move right from the wall balls to the slam balls to the broad jumps with as little rest as possible in between. However, before starting the actual work, each class began with 5 broad jumps for max distance, making note of the distance traveled as a goal to be repeated during the work-sets.
Each working set kicked off with 5 wall balls for max height. Athletes could catch and immediately cycle into the next wall ball, or let the ball hit the floor, before picking it up and starting the next rep. The only demand was that each attempt – each shot – be thrown as high as possible. Following the wall balls, everyone completed 10 slam balls, stringing the slam balls together into a chain of 10 if possible. More importantly than stringing all the slam balls together was using good form, extending with the ball straight overhead, and then slamming the ball into the floor, meeting it at the bottom in a full squat (check out our recent discussion of how to properly execute a slam ball from last month: “BY ALL CLEANS“).
As soon as the slam balls were completed, athletes stepped up to the starting line and performed 5 broad jumps, trying to cover as much distance as possible, and hopefully, get back to the spot they hit during the jumps before the workout started. The broad jumps were not continuous, meaning that a person could really take their time and reload before each jump. As with the wall balls, the only demand was that each broad jump be for as far as possible.
Post workout included a lot of stretching, a lot of which focused on the back after Wednesday’s 5RM deadlift work and Thursday’s jump-fest. Please continue to hydrate well, as this weekend is going to be a warm-one. Additionally, come ready to squat heavy on Sunday! Lastly, the Element’s Curriculum for this Sunday will feature some rope and ring work (just to continue with this weeks theme of breaking from the norm!).
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That metcon was deceptively rough. Those slam balls take your breath away. I managed to get a little farther on some of the rounds than I originally jumped on the broad jumps. I struggled tremendously with the hurdling.
Nice height on that wall-ball toss Ethan!
Skin the cat on Sunday!
Fun class yesterday! The hurdles were better for me mentally, but I wasn’t as good about landing softly like I do on the boxes. I think I also sit back to far in order to not hit my hands when I swing my arms, but that makes the distance I have to jump further. I’m going to try to sit closer next time and see if that helps my landing also.
The metcon was awesome! Looked so simple but it was rough. Really enjoyed the return of ball slams, even though they suck. Not very good at wall balls for height and it’s crazy to watch the guys throw the balls more than half way up the wall. It was also awesome to watch Dan do broad jumps. He looked like a flying squirrel!
Nice photography!
For me, the hurdles were an exercise in confidence building. I kept jumping with my feet out, and I also struggled with the explosiveness — I would stand up, then jump, as opposed to making it one motion. But I completed the jumps without injuring myself, so that was a victory in and of itself because I know I can do it now.
Did 10# for the wall balls and used a 16# medicine ball for “sumo” ball slams. I hit 10′ on the wall balls most of the time. After doing so poorly with the form on ball slams last time, I wanted to really focus on squatting to pick up the ball, not bending over, and I think I did fairly well with that. I consistently ended about 2 feet short of the original mark on the jumps.
After the metcon I tried the 30# ball for the ball slams. They were tough, but I managed to do a few…so next time I’ll have to start with 30# for ball slams, I guess!
I stuck around and got in some scaled pull-up stuff, and also enjoyed watching the 7 p.m. class. I agree, watching Dan and Tom A. in particular do broad jumps is impressive. I did notice how much they open up their hips, which I realized I’m not doing as much as I should be. Watching others is really helpful for me sometimes — even though I knew I should open up my hips, for some reason it didn’t click until I saw how far they were going compared to people who weren’t fully opening.
Oh, and I did get my keys back. :o) Someone did pick them up by accident.
I actually thought my hamstrings and back would be in bad shape to today after that workout plus heavy DLs and basketball the night before, but I feel surprisingly limber. This was a much more physically taxing workout then it looks like written down, especially with the heat.
I guess sometimes it pays to under 53 yrs old, Tom. A.
Thanks Steph, SBV, Chris, everyone who tried to help me slamball better. Definitely don’t have the hang of it yet, but sure felt the impact of the explosive work anyway (even if my ball slams were more singular than repetitive). Fun stuff, taxing for sure!
Well the seated hurdle jumps scare me. I prefer the seated box jumps.
Great metcon of explosive work. I ended up using a 16# ball for wall balls which was a bit much when going for height but I got it to about 11-12 feet each rep. Used a 40lb slam ball (ball slams are one of my favorite exercises) I 2 of the sets unbroken and the rest I did 5-7 and then finished the rest off. I realized my biggest problem was the ball slipping through my hands due to the heat and sweat. fixed that problem by chalking up my hands. I managed to get to the same place on my broad jumps each round except the first. Don’t know what happened there.
I was watching the 7PM class go and I think I picked up a cue that may help me in my broad jumps. I am not sure how to describe it really but I saw both Julia and SBV basically hyperextending first and then throwing their arms and torsos forward to get into that legs loaded position before each jump. I am going to try that out next time.