Wednesday, April 24th
1. Barbell Cycling. 2. Conditioning, and a classic CrossFit.com benchmark - "The Chief".
A.
BARBELL CYCLING:
On the 2:00 x 5 Sets: 3 Power Cleans 1 Pausing Push Jerk + 2 Push Jerks (*2 sec pause in catch) Set 1 - 65% of 1RM C&J Set 2 - 70% Sets 3-5 - Build to a heavy complex for the day. On the pausing push jerk, the first of the three overheads: 2 second pause in the dip position, and 2 second pause in the catch (quarter squat receiving position). No pause in the second and third overhead movements.
B.
METCON:
“The Chief”
5 Rounds of 3 Minute AMRAPS: 3 Power Cleans (135/95) 6 Pushups 9 Air Squats Rest 1:00 between each AMRAP.
"The Chief" has been completed in many ways. Some have only scored full rounds, some have scored rounds plus repetitions. If we have an old score we would like to beat, let's use our former counting method. For scoring in the system today, we will be doing rounds plus repetitions. That is, we are working for the full three minutes, with every rep (regardless of the movement) counting as a single "point".
Stimulus wise, we are looking for an unbroken barbell - throughout the duration. Let's make this workout about our conditioning and stamina, and not about our olympic lifting strength. View this as a load that we could cycle for 21+ repetitions unbroken when fresh… if not more.
In pacing "The Chief", we first tend to gravitate towards the pushups. Pushups are one of those movements that can disappear for us if we reach failure. Knowing where we stand in this movement is vital. These reps do not need to be unbroken, but we do want to strive towards consistency. It is not wrong to break this set up into two quick bursts. But, if we are breaking more than once per, we are losing the stimulus. Let's choose a difficulty today that allows us to clear each set with at most, that single break.
Next are the air squats. This is the pacer of the workout. A chance to level our heart rate, and buy us a brief bit of recovery before our next transition through another round of cleans and pushups. Slow is smooth, smooth is fast here. And as we move through these, let's respect the movement. The air squat is one that if we relax into, we'll likely find some issues deeper into the workout. As in, our lower back. The combination of higher volume cleans and air squats can result in a gnarly back cramp if we are not disciplined with our technique. The most common pitfall in this workout will be lazy air squats. Where we dump our torso forward, placing a good amount of work on our posterior. These squats will be the grinder of the workout, but it doesn't mean it's alright to let our technique slide. That will do more harm than good here.
Lastly, circling back to the cleans. Again, we are looking for the unbroken barbell throughout here. And with that, we want to be mindful of our transitions. this is a workout where a second here and there between movements can creep in… and we're looking at possibly 50+ transitions inside this workout. Disciplined movement here is highly important. Cleans, and turn parallel to the barbell for pushups. After locking out our 6th pushup, jump our feet up to extension, and move into our squats. Half turn back to our barbell for the next round.
