Workout of the Day
STRENGTH
Front Squat
3×5 reps
Notes
Perform 4-5 progressive warm-up sets then complete 3 progressive and challenging sets of 5 reps. Rest 3-4 minutes between sets. Leave 1–2 reps in reserve each set.
METCON
EMOM 15:00
A: :45 Double Unders
B: :45 Wall Walks
C: :45 DB Bent Over Rows
Notes
JR: Use the jump rope segments to perform DU attempts or an AMRAP, even if you only get a couple. They don’t happen unless you make them happen!
WW: Aim for 3-5 reps each round
BOR: Aim for 16-20 Reps per set. You will have to break these up. (+/50s/35s/20s/-)
CrossFit Group Class Programming Template (WK4/8)
Handstands
The section below is a snippet from the 2006 CrossFit Journal article “Handstands” written by Greg Glassman. In it, Coach Glassman talks about some of the why’s of training handstands and some of the developmental exercises they recommended at the time. Take a trip in the CrossFit history machine and check out this phenomenal article!
“Handstands, hand walking, and pressing to the handstand are critical exercises to developing your athletic potential and essential components to becoming “CrossFit.” Historically, these exercises have been collectively referred to as “hand balancing” and have been an integral part of strength and health culture since antiquity, yet today hand balancing seems to have followed the passenger pigeon to extinction.
Examining the twin questions “what has been lost by this extinction?” and “what does hand balancing offer that makes it essential?” is the aim of this month’s Journal. The answers to these questions motivate a challenge for our readers for the New Year.
The quick and obvious analysis as to hand balancing’s benefits would include improved balance and increased shoulder strength, and though accurate, ending the analysis here doesn’t speak to the singularly unique advantages to this training.
There are countless successful protocols for increasing shoulder strength and balance, but training the handstand and presses to the handstand improves proprioception and core strength in ways that other protocols cannot. Let’s examine this claim more closely.
Being upside down exposes the athlete to, what is for many, a brand new world. Psychologically, physically, and physiologically, inversion is otherworldly. We spend roughly two thirds of our life upright and one third in repose. When upside down most of us lose our breath, orientation, and composure. What this portends for an athlete upended by opponent or accident is calamitous. The difference between tripping and landing on your feet versus knocking your teeth out is profound. Gymnasts’ bike wrecks don’t look like weightlifters’…”