Monday, March 26, 2007

The CrossFit PC Menu

CrossFit Pierce County workouts are broken down into 5 different categories based on how long the workouts in that section take to complete. The briefest and most intense workouts take up to 3 minutes to perform and fall under the heading Explosive. Our Short workouts take from 3 to 10 minutes, Medium 10 to 20 and Long from 20 to 45 minutes. Workouts that take longer than 45 minutes to complete are called Epic. Some workouts that are shorter than 45 minutes but that are particularly brutal may also be considered Epic…Painstorm XX comes to mind.

WARM-UPS

Yellow Rain

The name Yellow Rain for the exercise comes from the fact that I use yellow slam balls and once this gets going it is raining yellow balls. The obvious “Keep a lookout for falling objects” warning is in effect. You can start with everyone on a ball or start from one end and you can go for time (I usually go 2 minutes) or for some set number of throws. We push press the ball, underhand throw the ball (both for height) and slam the ball going all the way through however many balls are out with each type of throw before switching.

Man in the Middle

You’ll need some medicine balls (both Dynamax and slam balls work here) and a group of 3, 4 or 5 people. The idea is that each of the people outside the circle pitch the ball they have to whoever is in the middle. The man in the middle then push presses, underhand throws or slams the ball depending upon which kind of ball is thrown or what pre-arranged throw order is decided. The person feeding the slams will throw the ball up from underneath so the man in the middle can “catch” the ball with his hands on top and go directly to the slam. With 4 people go for 4 minutes switching out whoever is in the middle every minute.

Rage Box Throws

Two people stand on opposite sides of a plyo box or 4 opposite one another around a tractor tire with one medicine ball per pair. Slam the ball and go down and get it on the bounce. Stand and go to a squat clean and stand with a thruster/wall ball type throw the ball to your partner. Once rid of the ball jump onto the box/tire. Your partner does the same exercise and throws to you just before he jumps. Go for time, reps or whoever needs the bucket first. Run and Throw We use 6, 8 and 10 Valeo Balls (rubber medicine balls with a bit of a bounce – look for them on Ebay) and run a quarter mile throwing the balls ahead of us. We use one less ball than we have people so that whoever is without the ball runs to recover and throw the next ball thrown. The throws are chest throw, underhand facing forward, and backwards over your head. Throw as high and as far as you can, minimize the amount of roll with your throw.

Valeo Ball Bounce

Get in a circle with 3 or more people and use the Valeo balls. Use one less ball than you have people. Do a ball slam as hard as you can for as much height as you can get and turn quickly to your right (if throwing clockwise) to catch the ball being bounced at you. Go for at least two minutes.

Net – Ladder - Rope

No time thing here, just go up over the cargo net, up and down the 45 degree rope ladder and up and down the rope. We do each one twice.

Jump up – Pullup - Roll up

Jump up to the pullup bar and do a pullup, then roll up knees to elbows. If the bar is open at the top and you have the room you can add a pullover. You can also do a burpee at the start so that you do a burpee – jump up – pullup – roll up – pull over. Many people have difficulty with the pullover and the trick is to do the upside down pullup as high as possible so that when you drop your feet over the bar the bar is at least at your waist if not higher. Don’t just flop down to lower yourself, do a controlled descent in an L-sit.

Slam Toss

Partners face each other with a 30 lb slam ball. One will slam the ball and the other will catch it on the bounce and then stand and toss it a la wall ball back to the slammer. Don’t stand and then throw, instead come up out of the squat and launch the ball with your legs. The slammer will slam and the tosser will toss for 10 reps each and then switch so that the slammer tosses and the tosser slams. You can also go for a minute and switch if you prefer to go by time.

Tire Rotation

Put slam balls of different weights around a big tire. Do Ball Buster, Ball Slams, Rage Ball or some other slam ball exercise for 1 or 2 reps each and then rotate for some number of times around. At the end of each slam jump on the tire before the rotation and make sure the jump comes up out of the crouch from the slam.

Over - Unders

Set out your weight bench. Hop over the bench and then crawl back under it. Simple. Not easy, but simple. Excellent little lung burner to have as a 10 rep event in a larger multi-exercise workout.

Tire Flip and Hop Through

Pretty self-explanatory – flip the tire then jump through and run around and repeat. With 3 people you can have the first person flip the tire and jump through, the second person just jump through and then the 3rd flips and jumps through. Keep rotating like this for some fixed number of flips or distance or max reps in some pre-established time.

SPUDs
Swinging Push Ups and Dips.

Set your rings about waist high or so and put out a pair of boxes, chairs or benches in front of and behind the rings with both just a little lower than the rings. Start in a pushup position, feet on the box behind, toes within about 6 inches of the forward edge of the box. Do a pushup. As you get to the top of the pushup tuck your feet under quickly and swing your feet through to the other box. STAY TIGHT or you will fall through to the floor. If you fall through…don’t let go of the rings. Kick your feet up onto the other box and land on your heels. Do a dip and at the top of the dip kick your feet back to the pushup box and start again. Do 10 of them, 5 reps each, and you will notice that it gets harder and hard to stay tight as the reps progress.

DROOL
Dumbells – Rocks – Odd Object Lifts.

Set out some heavy stuff in the form of dumbbells, kettlebells, sand bags, rocks, steel log (you can make your own with a 2 foot section of plumbing pipe, bumpers in the middle, screw down collars to hold it tight and T-joints on the ends for handles) a beer keg, plastic barrel full of sand or whatever you have at hand and rotate through each for 3 reps or so. Be sure to do cleaning, pressing, swinging and squatting movements to maximize muscle recruitment. Go through 2 or 3 times and you will be ready for anything.

Rage Ball Kick Ups

Put a slam ball at your feet and a big tire or bench behind you. Drop down for a burpee with your hands on the ball and kick your feet back onto the tire. Do a pushup. After the pushup drop your knees so that you have come off your toes and are now resting on your shoelaces with your knees bent. Extend your quads hard so that you go up into an ugly handstand with your hands still on the ball. Drop your feet back down close to the ball and stand with the ball to a squat clean. When you come back up with the ball launch it into space as if doing wall ball. Catch the ball on the way back down, press it up and then slam it. Now do it again.

Air Squat Tire Jumps

Do 5 air squats and on the 5th one jump up onto the tire or box. Do the jump from the full squat position, don’t stand and then jump.

Burpee Tire Jump

Do a burpee and then from the squat jump up onto the tire or box. This is great to combine with Air Squat Tire Jumps so that you do 5 squats and then the jump and when you come down off the tire do a burpee and when you jump down from there do the 5 squats again.

Mae West

35 lb Thruster - 3
35 lb Colleen and Jerk - 2
52 lb Snatch - 2
135 lb Clean - 2
Ball Buster-1 30 lb slam ball (2 balls)
195 lb DL -3
44 lb KB Clean and Jerk -3

Mae West consists of the above 8 exercises around two large tractor tires. The only change to the regular Ball Buster explained in the first section is that at the at the end of the exercise while still partially in a squat from the slam with your legs loaded with the downward effort, jump up with one foot on each tire or both on one tire if you prefer. Reps are shown and are designed so multiple people doing the exercise will finish in about the same time and rotate together. With the KB Clean and Jerk, DB Thruster, Colleen and Jerk and Snatch you do a jump on the tire at the end of all the reps. With the DL, Ball Busters, and Clean it is after each rep…you will notice this changes from exercise to exercise so that with every other exercise you switch from jumping after each rep to jumping at the end of the set of reps. This can be done for 2 laps around at a leisurely pace as part of a warm up or 3 or more times around at high intensity as a workout. You can adjust the loads, laps and reps to create the desired training impact or you can change any or all of the stations to suit your training needs or equipment list.

2 Comments:

Blogger Unknown said...

I think I should include Tire Rotation in my workouts. Thanks for sharing

Slammer Ball

10:31 AM  
Blogger Unknown said...

This is great. I really loved reading your post. Thank you. kettlebell weights strength training equipment

11:42 PM  

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