Team Wod-

As a team you will complete as many thrusters as you can in 15 min. Guys weight is 95# ladies use 65#. When your partners bar touches the ground you both do 5 burpees. Enjoy!

Individual-

Max thrusters in 10 min 95#65# Every time you drop the bar do 5 burpees. 

Wodivore Blog Nov 3, 2012

The Unique Value Of Olympic Lifts For Athletes (Excerpted from Appendix 3 – Training on the Snatch and Clean and Jerk: A Key to Athletic Excellence)

The truly remarkable abilities of Olympic style weightlifters are certainly due in part to genetic qualities of these athletes and to their outstanding physical condition. However, they are also due in no small measure to the kind of training that weightlifters do: performing the snatch and the clean and jerk (C&J).

Almost any form of resistance training can improve an athlete’s strength, but the snatch and C&J are unique in their ability to develop strength and explosive power at the same time. And the benefits of practicing the Olympic lifts are hardly limited to developing strength and power. Here is a partial list of other added benefits:

1. The mere practice of the Olympic lifts teaches an athlete how to explode (to activate a maximum number of muscle units rapidly and simultaneously). Part of the extraordinary abilities of the Olympic lifters arises out of their having learned how to effectively activate more of their muscle fibers more rapidly than others who are not so trained (in addition to having developed stronger muscles).

2. The practice of proper technique in the Olympic lifts teaches an athlete to apply force with his or her muscle groups in the proper sequences (i.e., from the center of the body to its extremities). This is a valuable technical lesson which can be of benefit to any athlete who needs to impart force to another person or object (a necessity in virtually every sport).

3. In mastering the Olympic lifts, the athlete learns how to accelerate objects under varying degrees of resistance. This is because the body experiences differing degrees of perceived resistance as it attempts to move a bar with maximum speed through a full range of motion. These kinds of changes in resistance are much more likely to resemble those encountered in athletic events than similar exercises performed on an isokinetic machine (which has a fixed level of resistance or speed of resistance throughout the range of motion).

4. The athlete learns to receive force from another moving body effectively and becomes conditioned to accept such forces.

5. The athlete learns to move effectively from an eccentric contraction to a concentric one (through the stretch-shortening cycle, the cycle that is activated and trained through exercises that are often referred to as plyometrics).

6. The actual movements performed while executing the Olympic lifts are among the most common and fundamental in sports. Therefore, training the specific muscle groups in motor patterns that resemble those used in an athlete’s events is often a byproduct of practicing the snatch and C&J.

7. Practicing the Olympic lifts trains an athlete’s explosive capabilities, and the lifts themselves measure the effectiveness of the athlete in generating explosive power to a greater degree than most other exercises they can practice.

8. Finally, the Olympic lifts are simply fun to do. I have yet to meet an athlete who has mastered them who does not enjoy doing the Olympic lifts. While making workouts enjoyable may not be the primary objective of a strength coach, it is not an unimportant consideration in workout planning. Athletes who enjoy what they are doing are likely to practice more consistently and to be more highly motivated than athletes who do not enjoy their workouts as much.

Other than the abilities of Olympic style weightlifters, is there any proof that practicing the Olympic lifts actually helps athletes? There is an enormous number of examples of athletes who have benefited dramatically from practicing the Olympic lifts. Presenting these cases would require a very large book. I will provide just three examples to make the point. I have chosen those particular examples because they come from athletes who participate in sports which would not normally be expected to benefit very much from ordinary weight training.

Steve Bedrosian recently retired at the age of thirty-nine after a very successful career as a professional baseball pitcher, most recently as relief pitcher for the Atlanta Braves. His career had very nearly ended five years earlier. When he was thirty-four, Steve lost some of the feeling in two of the fingers of his pitching hand. As a result he had lost the ability to pitch effectively and was forced to take a year off in an effort to rehabilitate his hand. Many baseball experts felt that after this kind of setback his career was over. It was at this point that he met Ben Green, athletic director at the White Oak Athletic Center in Newnan, Georgia (Ben’s accomplishments as a weightlifter and coach were discussed earlier in this book). Ben put Bedrosian on a program of Olympic lift training during his year off . After six months of such training, Bedrosian added eight miles per hour to his fast ball and was able to dunk a basketball (something he had often tried but had never in his life been able to do). Steve made a triumphant return to the mound during the 1993 season.

A second example is professional golfer Cindy Schreyer. She was introduced to the Olympic lifts by Ben Green in 1993. After approximately eight months of training, Cindy increased her drive by a full forty yards, a staggering improvement for a person already highly skilled at golf. Cindy won her first PGA tournament shortly after this dramatic improvement in her drive occurred..

Derrick Adkins was a sophomore at Georgia Tech when he began to work with Lynne Stoessel-Ross, then the school’s strength coach. Lynne has been a national champion and a national record holder in weightlifting and has represented the United States in the Women’s World Weightlifting Championships. She has a strong academic background in physical education, having earned a Masters degree in that field. She currently works as and educator and strength and conditioning coach in Lubbock, Texas. Derek had already reached the international level as a 400 meter hurdler when he began training with Lynne in 1990, having won the Atlantic Coast Conference championships and placed sixth at the World University Games. His best time was 49.53 seconds. In less than a year of training on the Olympic lifts, he shaved nearly a second off his already outstanding time (reducing it to 48.6 seconds). An injury sustained during an unfortunate running accident hampered his training for more than a year after that. However, after recovering from his injury and resuming training on the Olympic lifts, he reduced his time by another .9 seconds and went on to win the U.S. Nationals and the Goodwill Games. More recently Derek won the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta.

Needless to say, if a baseball player, a golfer and a hurdler have benefited so much from practicing the Olympic lifts, football players and other athletes who participate in sports in which power is acknowledged to play a more critical role can enjoy and have enjoyed even more direct benefits.

In order to enjoy the myriad benefits that arise from training on the Olympic lifts, there is a significant price that every athlete must pay. He or she must commit to learning the requisite skills. Most weight training exercises can be learned in one session, and the athlete’s technique can be refined to the point where the athlete can train with little supervision (with regard to technique) in a few practice sessions. In contrast, mastering the Olympic lifts requires a deeper understanding of the mechanics of the movements (which are somewhat complex). Moreover, considerable practice under supervised conditions must take place before competency is attained. People who say that the Olympic lifts are dangerous are very wrong in most of their arguments, but they are correct in one very important sense. The Olympic lifts can be dangerous if an athlete does not learn how to perform them properly. An athlete who is not willing to learn proper technique is better off not practicing the Olympic lifts at all.

Strength- Hand Stand Pushup or Handstand walk progression

3 sets of 5 reps, wall walks, shoulder touches, handstand pushups

WOD-

10 min Amrap

4 OH Squats 95/65#

6 HSPU

8 Burpees

Wodivore Blog November 2, 2012

Building Posterior Chain Strength

For Time

4 Rds

400m run

25 KB Swings 53/35#

15 Goblet Squats 53/35#

10 Burpees

Happy Halloween!

12 Min Amrap

3 Air squats, 3 burpees, 6 air squats, 6 burpees, 9 and 9 so on and so on for 12 min. How far can you get. Post scores to the comment section.

WOD-

5RFT

300m Run

20 Wall Balls 20/14#

15 HR Pushups

10 Box Jumps 24/20″

Wodivore Blog Oct 25th 2012

Kipping Pullups

They’re Faster

• You can do more work in a shorter amount of time if you do kipping pull-ups. The explosive motion involved in their execution makes them faster to perform, and the momentum of one pull-up brings you right into the next. Dead hang pull-ups take a long time because you’re only using your arms and you have to lift yourself from a locked-arm, hanging position.

You Use More Muscles

• When doing any kind of work in the real world, rarely do we use any one muscle or muscle group in isolation. Kipping pull-ups utilize the shoulders, the biceps, the core and the back, so you get a better-rounded workout than you would with the dead hang variety, which isolate the bicep muscles and the back.

•  

You Work Harder and Burn More Calories

• You are working harder and with more intensity with kipping pull-ups than with dead hang pull-ups. When doing a dead hang pull-up, many people tend to rest between repetitions in order to give their muscles a few seconds to recover. There are fewer opportunities to rest with kipping pull-ups, because you are constantly moving.

  Video Courtesy of CrossFit HQ

Strength- 

Strict Pull up 5×5

WOD-

5RFT

9 Push Press 115/75#

12 OH Lunges 115/75#

15 Pullups

Wodivore Blog Oct 24, 2012

CrossFitters often revel in the fact that our workouts have bloodied our hands. “We’re such badasses! We’re SO hardcore!” But let’s call a spade a spade: IT IS NOT “COOL” TO HAVE CHUNKS OF OUR SKIN RIPPED FROM OUR HANDS.

All it means is that:

• You’re a soft-handed newbie who hasn’t yet had the chance to build up thicker skin on your fingers and palms to protect them from tearing, or 

• You’re not giving your hands the T.L.C. they need to keep from getting shredded. 

Torn skin is painful and annoying, and may put you out of commission for a spell. And THAT is unequivocally un-hardcore.

My first encounter with shredded hands occurred shortly after starting CrossFit, back when the roughest activity my hands saw was an occasional difficult-to-open jar of spaghetti sauce. And my latest (and greatest) rip was during yesterday’s Mary WOD, after neglecting proper hand care for weeks. Over the past year, I’ve experienced minor tears and major ones. In this post, I’m going to discuss what I could (and should) have done to prevent bloody hand, and what treatment options are available to those of us unfortunate enough to gash open our hands doing high-rep pull-ups, kettlebell snatches and the like.

Hand Grooming 

Those who are new to gymnastics, weightlifting or CrossFit in general often start with soft, callus-free hands. Ideally, to reduce the likelihood of hand tears, beginners should try to gradually build up calluses (through — what else? — handling bars) to the point where the skin on their palms and fingers are tough and thick — but smooth. Once some skin-thickening is achieved, the goal is to keep any calluses filed down. The goal is have a consistent, smooth palm surface, without noticeable ridges or fluctuating thicknesses of skin. A raised, rough callus will eventually blister and tear away from the surrounding skin, ripping open your hands and making a bloody mess. A general rule of thumb: If you can pinch a raised edge of the callus, it needs to be filed down. Constant vigilance and regular hand care is key to preventing tears.

You can use a number of different tools to keep your calluses in check, including:

• A nail file; 
• A callus/corn shaver;
• Cuticle scissors; 
• A pumice stone; 
• A dull razor blade; 
• Sandpaper; 
• A butter knife; or
• A Dremel tool(!)

 

Obviously, don’t be an idiot. Use these tools with care.

As one CrossFit Journal article put it:

Ideally, your entire palm surface should be one thick callus with no bumps or ridges in any one particular area. In order to do this, groom your hands always after a hot shower or bath (this allows the calluses to swell up). While the calluses are still “swollen,” I take a double-edged razor and very carefully shave the dead callus bumps down a little at a time until the bumps are about even with the thickness of the rest of the hand. With my younger students, I simply ask them to get a callus stone (you can buy one at any drug store), and gently sand the callus down even with the rest of the skin. Remember, whenever you groom or shave your calluses, don’t overdo it, since you don’t want to go too deep into your skin. Always leave enough thick skin so to facilitate your workout the following day. The goal is to maintain an even and consistent thickness of hard skin throughout the entire palm.

Also: Lube up your hands. Chalk and frequent washing will suck the moisture right out your skin, and dry, cracked hands do not feel awesome. So listen to the Silence of the Lambs guy: Lotion is important for skin care. (And remember to put the lotion in the basket.) Use Bag Balm or Udder Cream (it’s not just for irritated cows anymore!)  or whatever suits your fancy.

This, by the way, is what a well-groomed pair of CrossFitting hands is supposed to look like:

 

My hands don’t look like this. Being the idiot that I am, I’ve never been very consistent about filing down my calluses, and lately, I developed a few big ones with rough edges. I didn’t do anything about ‘em, and as a result, I tore ‘em wide open yesterday. Not fun.

Grip & Technique 

A lot of CrossFitters rip open their hands doing high-rep bar movements: kipping pull-ups, clean-and-jerks, snatches. But there are ways to tweak your technique to reduce the chances of a nasty tear.

First, use the right grip.

When working with a barbell, some folks are inclined to grip the bar across the middle of their palms. This, unfortunately, squishes the fleshy pad below the base of your fingers against the bar, causing discomfort, added friction, blisters, and worse. A better way to go is to grip the barbell across the base of your fingers — where the metacarpals meet the proximal phalanges. Check out Mark Rippetoe’s explanation of how to grip a bar properly:

 

As for doing kipping pull-ups while training (versus competing), CrossFitter Pär Larsson has this to say about getting a proper grip:

When doing pull-ups, keep your metacarpals in line with your proximal phalanges; i.e., your hand bones and the first bones in your fingers. This sucks because it’s harder to do pull-ups with your center of gravity an inch lower, and it takes more finger/ forearm strength. The first week or two or five, you might have to go back to using a band sometimes, or doing jumping pull-ups on a box, or using an easier band. I understand this might hurt your pride, your ego and your self-esteem like it did mine, but as long as I get the workout I need I see no need to care much if I beat my friends in an everyday training environment… Plus, I don’t have to worry about caring for ripped and bleeding hands. 

As Larsson points out, “[t]his “training grip” eliminates tons of friction on the top inside of your palm muscles and skin, which is what causes the ubiquitous blisters there.” Friction is further reduced if you keep your core tight during kipping pull-ups, keeping your movement compact.

For example, in this GymnasticsWOD video (which Tim posted on theCrossFit Palo Alto Facebook page yesterday), Carl Paoli doesn’t engage in the exaggerated lateral swing that many of us are used to doing. Notice the efficiency of movement; his legs aren’t kicking violently out front. He doesn’t flop around. By keeping the kipping motion short and focused, there’s less of the skin-on-bar rubbing that might lead to shredded hands.

Lesson: Huge kips lead to torn hands.

Treatment

At a barbecue yesterday, I got to talking with Trish about her recent experiment with different ways of treating shredded hands. She’d ripped up her skin in a number of places during Memorial Day Murph, and decided to treat each tear slightly differently:

• With Rip No. 1, she used scissors to cut away the flap of skin. 
• With Rip No. 2, she tore the skin flap off by tugging on it away from the point at which the skin was still attached. 
• And with Rip No. 3, she just left the flap in place. 

All three spots were slathered with antibacterial ointment and bandaged. According to Trish, Rip No. 3 healed fastest. “It was like having a natural Band-Aid in place,” she said. Interestingly, Rip No. 1 — the one subjected to the scissors — was slowest to heal.

I’m now conducting a similar experiment. On my right hand, I’ve used scissors to snip off the flap of skin that tore away from my hand; on my left, I’ve left the skin in place. Of course, I washed both hands carefully (OUCH), Neosporin-ed the heck out of them, and kept ‘em bandaged and dry. I’ll report back on the results in a few days.

But regardless, I know this much: It’s important to clean the wound and keep it well-covered with antibacterial ointment to prevent infection. No one wants a staph infection or necrotizing fasciitis.

I’m using Neosporin, but there are, of course, lots of other remedies that people swear by, including:

• Vitamin E
• Superglue
• Wet tea bags
• Dermabond skin sealant 

Am I missing any others?

Gloves, Grips & Tape 

I know what you’re thinking: It’s a pain in the ass to keep your hands from ripping, and treating them sounds less than fun, too — so why not just slap on a pair of gloves?

The folks over at CrossFit Impulse point to two compelling reasons to train without gloves:

• “[U]nless you wear gloves throughout your daily life, at some point you will have to rely on the pure, unadulterated gripping power of your bare-skinned hands to perform work,” so “develop[] that capability into your own hands as much as possible.”

• “[A]nything between your hands and the object you are gripping reduces your proprioception — your ability to know where the object is in space relative to your body.” 

Not everyone agrees with this assessment, of course. Some athletes fiercely defend the use of gloves, arguing that the prevention of injury trumps the benefits of going glove-free. And Reebok has developed CrossFit gloves (available in the CrossFit HQ store) that numerous athletes wore during Games. But then again, they were in competition — and did as many as TEN workouts (many with high-rep bar movements) over the course of a single weekend. Their hands were trashed. So before you rush out to plunk down forty bucks for a pair of fancy new gloves to bring to your gym, ask yourself whether they’re warranted. If your hands aren’t wrecked, you probably don’t need gloves.

Similarly, grips and tape aren’t normally needed in CrossFit. If you’re a gymnast, grips will certainly allow you to train harder and longer, but if you’re just cranking out a quick metcon, you’re unlikely to need to ‘em on a regular basis.

However, when your hands are already torn or if you know the day’s WOD is likely to destroy your skin, pulling out the athletic tape may be just the thing to keep you from a world of hurt. Plus, a few strips of tape are unlikely to be as heavily (and unnecessarily) padded as a big pair of mittens.

Right now, my hands are ripped up, and I can’t easily grip anything without covering the places where my skin has been torn away. So tomorrow morning, I’m going to grab a roll of athletic tape and cover the spots that need protection. I’ll also make a handy-dandy tape-grip for additional protection. If you love origami and want to get all fancy, check out these step-by-step instructions for making a super-slick grip out of athletic tape.

And if you just want to quickly throw on a makeshift tape grip before your WOD starts, you can always do this instead:

• Grab a roll of athletic tape (the 1.5-inch tape works great). 

• Tear off a strip that’s a few inches longer than your hand. 

• Split the strip lengthwise down the middle until you’re halfway down. 

• Stick the unsplit half of the tape on your palm (over the rip), with the split ends wrapping around either side of the finger above the rip. 

• Use additional tape as needed to secure the ends of the tape around your wrist and around your finger. 

• Go kick some butt.

Okay — that’s all I got. If you have other tips and tricks, throw ’em in the comments section — given the current state of my hands, I’m certainly motivated to try them out.

WOD-

15 Minute AMRAP: -3 Thrusters 95#/65# -200m Run *Add 3 reps of Thrusters every round*

Wodivore Blog Oct 23, 2012

he 15 rules of the Paleo diet

1. The Paleo diet should be high in fat,moderate in animal protein and low to moderate in carbohydrates. Calorie counting is not encouraged, neither is portion control.
2. Eat unlimited amounts of saturated fats likecoconut oil and butter or clarified butter.Beef tallow, lard and duck fat are also good, but only if they come from healthy and well-treated animals. Beef or lamb tallow is a better choice than lamb or duck fat. Olive, avocado and macadamia oil are also good fats to use in salads and to drizzle over food, but not for cooking.
3. Eat generous amounts of animal protein. This includes red meat, poultry, pork, eggs, organs (liver, kidney, heart…), wild caught fish and shellfish. Don’t be scared to eat the fatty cuts and all meals with proteins should contain fat as well. Learn to cook with bones in the form of stocks and broths.
4. Eat good amounts of fresh or frozen  vegetables either cooked or raw and served with fat. Starchy vegetables like sweet potatoes and yams are also great as a source of non-toxic carbohydrates.
5. Eat low to moderate amounts of fruits and nuts. Try to eat mostly fruits low in sugar and high in antioxidants like berriesas well as nuts high in omega-3, low in omega-6 and low in total polyunsaturated fat like macadamia nuts. Consider cutting off fruits and nuts altogether if you have an autoimmune disease, digestive problem or are trying to lose weight faster.
6. Preferably choose pasture-raised and grass-fed meat coming from a local, environmentally conscious farms. If not possible, choose lean cuts of meat and supplement your fat with coconut oil, butter or clarified butter. Also preferably choose organic, local and/or seasonal fruits and vegetables.
7. Cut out all cereal grains and legumes from your diet. This includes, but is not limited to, wheat, rye, barley, oats, corn, brown rice, soy, peanuts, kidney beans, pinto beans, navy beans and black eyed peas.
8. Cut out all vegetable, hydrogenated and partly-hydrogenated oils including, but not limited to, margarines, soybean oil, corn oil, crisco, peanut oil, canola oil, safflower oil and sunflower oil. Olive oil and avocado oil are fine, but don’t cook with them, use them in salad dressings and to drizzle over prepared food.
9. Eliminate sugar, soft drinks, all packaged products and juices (including fruit juices). As a rule of thumb, if it’s in a box, don’t eat it. At the grocery store, visit only the meat, fish and produce sections.
10. Eliminate dairy products other than butter and maybe heavy cream. You don’t need dairy, but if you can’t live without, read this article and consider raw, full-fat and/or fermented dairy.
11. Eat when you’re hungry and don’t stress if you skip a meal or even two. You don’t have to eat three square meals a day, do what feels most natural.
12. Eliminate to most sources of external stress in your life as possible and sleep the most you can. Try to wakeup without an alarm and to go to bed when it’s dark.
13. Don’t over-exercise, keep your training sessions short and intense and do them only a few times per week. Take some extra time off if you feel tired. Consider short and intense sprinting sessions instead of very long cardio sessions.
14. Consider supplementing with vitamin D and probiotics. Levels of magnesium, iodine and vitamin K2 should also be optimized. Iodine can be obtained from seaweeds. You probably don’t need a multivitamin or other supplements.
15. Play in the sun, have fun, laugh, smile, relax, discover, travel, learn and enjoy life like a daring adventure!

Strength- 5 dead lifts on the minute for 10 min at 75% of 1rep max

Wod-

3 min amrap of double unders

4 min amrap of squat cleans 105/85

5 min amrap of kettle bell swings 53/35

Wodivore Blog Oct 22, 2012

The following is an excerpt from Greg Everett’s Olympic Weightlifting: A Complete Guide for Athletes & Coaches^[1]

The hook grip is a pronated (palms facing the lifter) grip in which the thumb is trapped between the bar and usually the first and second fingers, depending on hand size. For the pull of both the snatch and the clean, this method of gripping is a necessity to maintain control of the barbell during the violent second pull and the powerful turnover of the snatch.

It’s important to understand that the thumb is itself wrapped around the bar inside the fingers and not simply pinned perpendicularly to the bar. This arrangement takes advantage of the greater strength of the thumb relative to the fingers–with the thumb wrapped over the fingers as it would be in a conventional grip, it will typically reach only the index finger and have a weak purchase on it.

By wrapping the thumb around the bar directly, we create a powerful hook on the bar, which can be reinforced by the grip of both the index and middle fingers, which serve more to support the hook of the thumb than to grip the bar directly. With two fingers over the thumb rather than only a weak section of the thumb over one finger, we also create far more friction to secure the grip. In short, the Hook grip optimizes the anatomy of the hands for this application.

Particularly in the snatch, the grip will be reliant almost exclusively on the thumb, first, and second fingers. The wide hand placement of the lift results in an acute angle where the hands attach to the bar, forcing the third and fourth fingers to have little purchase.

In the case of these two lifts, the integrity of the grip of the first and second fingers in combination with the thumb is critical. In order to ensure this integrity, the athlete needs to use the fingers to actively pull the thumb around the bar rather than simply pressing it against the bar. The hook of the thumb under the bar with the fingers reinforcing it is what provides the necessary grip power. The force of the fingers on the thumb should be the focus of the athlete’s gripping effort.

Typically the Hook grip will be uncomfortable if not considerably painful initially. Consistent use will condition the offending structures appropriately over time and the grip will ultimately offer no trouble. It will, in fact, become more comfortable than a conventional overhand grip. Covering the thumbs with flexible athletic tape can reduce the discomfort and, for some, improve the feeling of grip security by increasing friction. Lifters can submerge the hands in ice water for 5-10 minutes after training to help reduce pain and speed the adaptation.

 

STRENGTH-BENCH 5×5

WOD-

Run 1600 meters
Rest 3 minutes
Run 1200 meters
Rest 2 minutes
Run 800 meters
Rest 1 minute
Run 400 meters

STRENGTH-

WEIGHTED DIPS

WOD-

AMRAP 16 MIN

100FT BEAR CRAWL

6 HR PUSHUPS

4 DEADLIFTS 265/155