- Box jumps
- Burpees
- Knee-ups, Knees-to-elbows, Feet-to-bars
- Hand-stand push-ups.
A burpee is simply the act of dropping to the floor, prone and chest touching the floor, then getting up as quickly as possible, finishing with a short jump and a clap of the hands overhead.
Knee-ups and their cousins are performed while hanging from a pull-up bar. They're mostly self-explanatory. Sometimes Knees-to-elbows and Feet-to-bars are abbreviated K2E and F2B, respectively.
An "Rx" Hand-stand push-up, often abbreviated HSPU, is performed by doing a hand-stand against the wall, lowering your head to the floor, then pushing back up. The exercise can be heavily modified to reduce load and improve mechanical advantage for the athlete-in-training. We used a 24" box to place our feet on, which alleviates the bodyweight a great deal.
Anyway, here was the workout for today:
FT (for time)
- 400m run
- 20 box jumps (24")
- 10 burpees
- 500m row
- 20 pull-ups
- 10 K2E
- 500m row
- 20 Wall Ball (16 lb med ball)
- 10 HSPU (modded with box)
- 400m run
I completed it in 18:32. This workout kicked my ass. And my breaking point was where I would actually have least expected it: the pull-ups. I could not do 20 pull-ups to save my life, which is curious to me since I (previously) felt that, on the whole, my upper body strength was far less deteriorated than my core and leg strength.
I powered through the run, box jumps, burpees and rowing with relative ease and gained a pretty significant lead on my classmate. But the pull-ups ended me. It took me a very long time to complete them. The Wall Balls were difficult for me too as I was unable to link too many of them together, but my slowness there doesn't even compare to how hard a time I had with pull-ups.
I knew that a weightlifting background would be only marginally useful for CrossFit, but today's workout really highlighted this for me. I underestimated just how out-of-shape I am.
I can't wait to look back on this post and laugh about how crappy I was.
Dead hang or kipping? What was giving out on you? Was it a cardio issue or a strength/endurance issue?
ReplyDeleteEither way, I can't wait for the day when you look back and you are doing 100 pull ups in 5 minutes.
I can't get the timing of kipping down until I practice a bit more, so it was mostly dead-hang with sporadic and poor attempts to kip it.
ReplyDeleteI think it was primarily a strength issue. I can't remember the last time I simply cracked off 20 pull-ups, fresh or not. But also the transition from endurance-focused activities to a purely anaerobic one really did me in. I did not anticipate that to be so tough on me.