“Ryan”
5 rounds for time of:
7 Muscle Ups
21 Burpees
Post results to comments or BTWB
TIGHT HIPS, SORE KNEES?
These two things can be a bi-product of a sundry of things, one of those things could be tight quads. The mobility in the above video will ROCK YOUR WORLD, but will absolutely affect change!!
Back Squat
4-4-4-4-4
Then:
5 rounds of: 20 Unbroken wallballs (choose your weight)
Rest 1 minute between rounds.
*If you fail to go unbroken, round doesn’t count so choose weight wisely!
Post loads to comments and BTWB
This lovely little ditty about why intensity sucks (but is very necessary) will be brought to you By Courtney Shepherd with a lot of assistance of Mike Warkentin of CrossFit 204.
So it’s almost 3, 2, 1, go time for yesterday’s workout (the one with all those power snatches) when I mention to an athlete that I really want to see them do the first set of 20 unbroken or only broken one time. This athlete kind of shoots me a head tilt and then says, “well whenever I scale a workout, I always wonder if I should have done it RX”. That’s fair, to which I would reply, if today’s workout is meant to be less than 10 minutes but the average time on the board is around 7, and the fastest time RX is under 5. . . if you scale the workout and finish it under the average, then that would be a good indicator you could have done it RX. True, you won’t know that until after the workout, but that gets us talking about the whole concept of logging workouts and keeping track of these things, a blog post saved for another day.
Now if this person kept the RX weight on the bar and took over 10 minutes to do the workout, then they would not get nearly the same benefit if they had scaled and gone faster. “Why?” The short answer is intensity. Yesterday’s workout was meant to have a high level of intensity, a high level of work with a short level of rest kind of ratio. If I’m meant to hold on to a bar for 20 reps and be done in :30 but instead I do sets of 3-5 and take :90, that is a loss of intensity. That is a loss of a stimulus that is meant to breed adaptation. Intensity and adaptation is what gets us results and progress. So if there is the chance we have found ourselves in the same place for a long time, is it because we have let ourselves get comfortable resting too much, going to the chalk bucket a few too many times, breaking the sets more often. . . are we giving ourselves reasons to be less intense? Well I picked the heavier weight, so I’m just going to have to set it down a few more times. Do you know what is worse than doing “Fran” with 95#? Doing “Fran” with 75#. Lighter weight gives you no excuse to put it down. No excuse to stop. We work faster and it hurts more.
Mike Warkentin of CrossFit 204 describes this well:
“You have to do Fran today. Stop reading, close your eyes and really think about that for a moment. Note the freefall feeling in your chest, the sweaty palms and the subtle changes in your breathing. Now consider this statement:
You have to do Fran in less than 12 minutes today.
I bet you suddenly don’t feel nervous at all. You might even view the reps as a warm-up for another workout. Same weight, same reps, same workout—different results.
Intensity burns. It tastes like a mouthful of old pennies soaked in battery acid. It makes you dizzy. It causes you to writhe around on the ground trying to work the misery out of your muscles. It usually requires a period spent on your back or butt, and sometimes it sends your lunch back the way it came in. Intensity gets caught in your throat and keeps you hacking hours after the workout ends.
Intensity also brings results. Push someone out of the comfort zone and physiology adapts. Do that regularly and fitness improves dramatically. Discomfort creates adaptation, but it can be very tempting to avoid the continuous discomfort needed to keep driving adaptation—even as a CrossFit athlete who knows its rewards.
Reducing intensity can be as subtle as breaking up Fran’s 15 thrusters when we don’t have to. It’s a very minor reduction in effort, and almost no one notices—sometimes not even the athlete. Fran burns a bit less, and only 20 seconds are added to a PR time, giving him or her the opportunity to attribute the score to an off day, bad sleep or “that third burrito at lunch.”
Luckily, the athlete still stays far fitter than if he or she hadn’t done Fran, but slacking off a little can lead to slacking off a lot, which is equivalent to treating a CrossFit workout like a 20-minute roll through the sports section while plodding on the elliptical machine.
To reap the greatest benefits from CrossFit, you have to be willing to push yourself, to be uncomfortable, to suffer for reward. And most of us are most of the time. The whiteboard and the rivalries thereon are powerful motivational tools. Still, a 5-minute Fran can become a habit if you let your mind trick you into dropping the barbell well before you need to.
Remember: Objects in motion tend to stay in motion, while objects at rest tend to head to the chalk bucket.”
Mike’s point to his readers and my point to this particular Verve athlete are one in the same. It’s not enough to just slug through a workout. So you did all the reps and all the pieces, but if all of it together takes over 10 minutes when the workout was suppose to be less than that. . . there is no adaptation. There will be minimal benefit, other than a few calories burned. If you want a dose of intensity, if you want movements like burpees to feel better (suck less) and you want improved times in those faster workouts, then take away any and every excuse you have to stop. Don’t worry about RX, what Joe Shmo at 5:30am did, or the average time on the board. Instead, lighten the load, maybe cut the reps, and make your goal to never stop, never put the bar down, not come down from the pull-up structure. If you finish a 12 minute workout in 5 minutes, I guarantee you hauled ass. I guarantee you did not stop moving, and I can guarantee you got more from that workout than if you took 20 minutes to do it.
So think about it. CrossFit will never get easier. Period. The better you get the harder it gets, you can push yourself even more. So rather than resting until you feel comfortable, keep going, your heart will not physically explode from your chest. Get use to being uncomfortable. Get use to how bad intensity is and next thing you know, holding on to a bar for 10-12 unbroken reps seems like nothing. . . it could have been 30-40 reps.
**You can read Mike Warkentin’s article “Elliptical Syndrome Cripples Fran, Helen” in it’s entirety by clicking here.
“Jack”
Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 mins of:
10 Push Press 115#(85#)
10 Kettlebell Swings 53#(35#)
10 Box Jumps 24″(20″)
Post times to comments and BTWB
Saturday June 24th Verve is co-sponsoring the Mile High Fit Games
Monday May 29th is Memorial Day, we will be programming “Murph” as the WOD
Saturday and Sunday July 15th-16th Verve is hosting a CrossFit Kids Trainer Course
Saturday August 19th Femme Royale is returning to Verve
10 Rounds for time of:
10 Ab mat sit ups
20 Foot handstand walk
Run 100 Meters
Post times to comments and BTWB
In teams of 2
Row max calories in 24 minutes
*Every 3 minutes partners stop rowing and each partner does:
5 Burpees over the rower
10 Wallballs 20#(14#)
Post time to BTWB
Here’s a little recipe idea of tomorrow morning or even later today after this brutal workout!
These pancakes are a delicious combination of almond flour and applesauce topped with fresh berries. Feel free to substitute mashed bananas or pureed pumpkin for the applesauce and cinnamon for nutmeg. If you are allergic to almonds, you can replace half the almond flour with coconut flour and the other half with tapioca flour. Cooking these pancakes on a griddle, slowly and over low heat, will give the best results.
Recipe makes 2 servings.
Approximate Cook Time: 30 minutes
Ingredients
1 cup(s) almond flour
1/2 cup(s) applesauce, unsweetened
1 tablespoon(s) coconut flour
2 large egg(s)
1/4 cup(s) water, (consider soda water for slightly fluffier pancakes)
1/4 teaspoon(s) nutmeg, fresh
1/4 teaspoon(s) sea salt
1 tablespoon(s) coconut oil, divided
1/2 cup(s) berries, fresh
Instructions
Combine almond flour, applesauce, coconut flour, eggs, water, nutmeg and sea salt in a bowl, and mix together completely with a fork. The batter will appear a little thicker than normal mix.
Heat a non-stick frying pan over medium-low heat with coconut oil.
Drop 1/4 cup of batter onto the pan once it is fully heated. Spread out batter slightly if desired.
Flip like a normal pancake when the bubbles start showing up on the top, and cook for another minute or two.
Add more oil to the pan and repeat with remaining batter.
Top with fresh berries.
Recipe from Paleoplan.com
Back squat
5-5-5-5-5
Then: 5 Minutes of prowler pushes in teams
Post loads to comments and BTWB
I’ve heard it from many Verve athletes, I want to be better at pull-ups. I want more pulling power to build into muscle-ups. Here is great guide to help you work on this skill coming from some amazing subject matter experts.
The Secret to Pull-ups By Pamela Gagnon and Zachary Long with Jeff Tucker
“For the CrossFit athlete or novice CrossFit enthusiast, one extremely important element is necessary for success in gymnastics skills: prerequisite strength.”
CrossFit Gymnastics subject-matter expert Jeff Tucker has spoken this truth many times.
Strength is essential to gymnastics. It allows both continual development of skills and virtuosity of movement in body-weight training. Beyond that, strength is an asset that reduces the chances of injury.
If we begin work on any skill prematurely—before building prerequisite strength and control—we will ultimately slow down our progress and needlessly risk injury. As stated in Part 1 of this series, shortcuts do not exist in gymnastics, and skipping steps creates poor training habits that will result in frustration in time.
For long-term development of the pull-up, athletes will be best served by strict strength progressions first. Kipping should not be the first step.
Upon developing competency and strength in the hollow position detailed in Part 2 of this series, it is necessary for the CrossFit athlete to build the strict strength necessary for common CrossFit movements such as pull-ups, rope climbs and muscle-ups. This strength is a requirement before we add momentum to these and other movements.
When appropriate muscular strength and control are not present, the body must find other means to dissipate the forces generated by momentum and leverage, and the forces are directed to muscles and connective tissues that are not prepared to handle them. This can result in injury.
For example, if an athlete lacks strength in the upper body—to include the hands, arms, shoulders and back—when performing a kipping pull-up, forces created during an uncontrolled descent are transferred to the tendons and ligaments, as well as the labrum. These tissues are not meant to bear these forces, and the athlete is creating a recipe for injury—either acute or due to strain accumulated over many months.
From the “CrossFit Specialty Course: Gymnastics Training Guide”: “Injury occurs due to the traction of the biceps and labrum pulling off the glenoid. The same thing sometimes occurs when an athlete kips above the plane of the bar but lacks the appropriate strength to control the descent.”
To develop the necessary strength and control for proper pull-ups, we first need to learn the “active hang”: We hang from the bar in the hollow body position with tension while contracting the appropriate muscles. As simple as this exercise sounds, it is surprising how common it is for athletes to place tension on their ligaments and tendons instead of the appropriate muscles in the hang position. The shoulder joint, a ball-and-socket joint with a large range of motion, is inherently unstable, and we don’t want to encourage excessive mobility.
To perform the active hang, grab the bar, wrapping the thumbs around for a solid grip. Then “pull” down on the bar while keeping your body hollow. This downward pull while maintaining extended elbows will lift the body upward. To build strength in the shoulders and lats, you can work “active shrugs” in this position by performing small pulses up and down with the elbows locked. We want to pull from the lats, not the pecs, to ensure we activate the muscles we will rely on when we get to kipping.
Guideline for sets/reps for shrugs in the active hang:
Beginner 3 x 5-10 reps
Advanced 4 x 12-20 reps
(Not for time; this prescription is also great for building grip strength.)
Reinforcing the foundation, we encourage athletes to regularly practice hanging while maintaining the hollow position we worked in Part 2 of this series.
Grip strength is also a prerequisite for effective pull-ups. The better your forearm and grip strength, the more consecutive reps you will be able to perform. Grip strength can be built in many ways, but a few favorites include barbell wrist curls for the forearms and simply squeezing a tennis ball. In the prescription below, quality matters, not quantity, so rest if needed to ensure quality reps.
Guideline for sets/reps:
On a clock, work for 30 seconds then rest for 30 seconds for 4 minutes
Alternate between dumbbell wrist curls and tennis-ball squeezes
After we can perform an active hang with the correct muscles engaged, we want to build strength to perform a strict pull-up. Commonly, we see coaches and athletes using resistance bands for assistance when working on pull-up strength. While bands can be a good tool, they have a huge drawback many don’t recognize: They provide significantly more assistance at the bottom of the pull-up. We often see diligent athletes who are simply unable to progress past band assistance because they are not building strength throughout the entire range of motion.
The following drills will help the athlete develop strength through the complete range and move closer to acquiring unassisted strict reps.
Toe-assisted pull-ups are a great starting point for strength development. Set a box or other stable object underneath a pull-up bar so the athlete’s chin is above the bar when standing on the box. While holding the hollow position, the athlete then lowers by bending the knees (which will hang off the box in the front) and controlling the descent with the upper body. The legs should be used only as needed for assistance.
Once at the bottom, the athlete begins to pull back up while staying in the hollow position and using his or her toes as a “spot” to provide assistance to complete a full repetition. It is very important that the legs only provide as much assistance as is needed to complete the prescribed repetitions. The shoulders must also remain active in the bottom so athletes learn the control that is required for success in more advanced progressions.
Video: Toe-assisted pull-ups
We typically suggest a three-three-three tempo when doing toe-assisted pull-ups, meaning the athlete pulls up for a three count, holds the top position for a three count and then lowers for a three count.
Guidelines for sets/reps:
Day 1: 5 x 1 rep
Day 2: 4 x 2 reps
Day 3: 3 x 3 reps
Day 4: 2 x 4 reps
Day 5: 1 x 5 reps
In this prescription, the exact rep numbers will be dependent on each athlete’s strength. For stronger athletes, consider adding a rep to each day’s load in the first week—Day 1 would be 5 sets of 2 reps, for example. In other cases, coaches might have an athlete perform 2 strict single reps on Day 1, then perform 3 toe-assisted singles to complete the day’s work. Each week, try to add 1 rep to each day’s prescription. If you can’t, repeat a cycle and try to add 1 rep to each day in the following cycle.
Eccentric pull-ups (doing only the lowering portion of the movement) are also a great tool for developing pull-up strength. To perform eccentric reps, the athlete will jump to a pull-up bar so that the chin is above the bar, then lower for five seconds while maintaining the hollow body position. During eccentric contractions, muscles create more force than during concentric contractions, and this allows many athletes to control the descent even when they cannot do a full pull-up. Eccentrics are also a great tool for developing strength and health in the tendons.
It is imperative you start small and work for quality rather than quantity when performing these strength pulls. Listen to your body so you don’t push beyond a level of safety, which could put you in danger of rhabdomyolysis or injury.
Once you have mastered these assisted movements and are ready to do strict pull-ups in a hollow position without assistance, you can perform a concentric rep and then do eccentric work by lowering under control for five seconds.
Video: Strict pull-up
The development of strict pull-ups while maintaining the hollow body position will allow for the best application of pull-up strength to high-level skills such as the muscle-up.
As the “CrossFit Specialty Course: Gymnastics Training Guide” reminds, the shoulder can be an area of concern if there is a “lack of strength and endurance in the shoulder muscles, which must stabilize the joint during dynamic movements.”
Make sure you build prerequisite strength before you move to kipping, which we will cover in the next article in this series
Part 1: “Stand Before You Walk: Gymnastics Foundations”
Part 2: “The Position for Your Gymnastics Mission”
About the Authors:
Zachary Long is a doctor of physical therapy, CrossFit coach and director ofThebarbellphysio.com.
Pamela Gagnon is a lead coach for CrossFit Gymnastics, a coach at Rising CrossFit Ballantyne, a two-time CrossFit Games masters athlete and a former collegiate gymnast.
Jeff R. Tucker, or “Tucker” to those who know him, is the subject-matter expert for CrossFit Gymnastics. He is the CEO and founder of Global Sports Xtreme (GSX) in Fort Worth, Texas, and he has a passion for teaching gymnastics.
3 Rounds for time:
21 pull ups
15 handstand push ups
9 Thrusters 115#(75#)
Post times to comments and BTWB
What’s happening around Verve? Just a few things. . .
This weekend is the South Regionals in San Antonio, TX. Any athletes and teams from the state of Colorado that made it to Regionals will be competing. Got some friends from another gym? We will be sure to have it streaming at Verve for your viewing pleasure. Keep an eye for Courtney judging and possibly handing out some “no reps”.
Monday May 29th is Memorial Day. We will be doing our traditional Memorial Day “Murph”, so dust off your weight vests and be sure to check out MBO as we will have an abbreviated schedule.
Saturday June 24th will be the Mile High Fit Games at Mile High Stadium. This will be a fun one day partner competition. Stay tuned for tomorrow’s blog post that will have ALL the details for you.
For time:
400m run
30 DB hang power clean, 40#(25#)
30 DB weighted step ups, 24″(20″), 40#(25#)
30 Box jump overs
400m run
20 DB hang power clean, 40#(25#)
20 DB weighted step ups, 24″(20″), 40#(25#)
20 Box jump overs
400m run
10 DB hang power clean, 40#(25#)
10 DB weighted step ups, 24″(20″), 40#(25#)
10 Box jump overs
Post times to comments and BTWB
Happy Mother’s Day Verve moms. . . .
We wish all of Verve’s strong mamas the happiest, most wonderful day you ladies deserve.
Working in teams of 2, complete the following for time:
100 Double unders, per person
60 Pull-ups, partner not working is doing KB farmer hold
80 Shoulder to overhead, partner not working is holding in front rack, 135#(95#)
100 Kettlebell swings, partner not working is hanging from pull-up structure, 24kg(16kg)
100 Double unders, per person
*Only one person can accumulate reps at a time. Partner not working is performing static holds. Partners can break up work however they want.
Post times to comments and BTWB
Hot weather outside doesn’t mean we can’t make chili inside. Recipe courtesy of my new favorite site skinnytaste.com
CROCK POT CHICKEN TACO CHILI
Ingredients:
Directions:
Combine beans, onion, chili peppers, corn, tomato sauce, diced tomato, cumin, chili powder and taco seasoning in a slow cooker and mix well. Nestle the chicken in, cover and cook on LOW for 10 hours or on HIGH for 6 hours. Half hour before serving, remove chicken and shred. Return chicken to slow cooker and stir in. Top with fresh cilantro.
Nutrition:
Yield: 10 cups (serving size is 1 cup)
Protein – 10g
Carbs – 33g
Fat – 1.4g
7 Rounds, every minute on the minute, alternating:
Minute 1: 3 deadlift @ 85% of 1RM
Minute 2: 7 strict handstand push-up
Minute 3: 1 L sit rope climb
Post results to comments or BTWB
DEADLIFTING PAIN FREE
Some of us have some mobility restrictions that inhibit us from getting into the correct position for deadlifting and others just have lower back pain when deadlifting. The video above gives you some great modifications to help both issues. Of course, your coach can help to find a great modification that both meets your needs and the intent of the workout!! Happy Deadlifting today!
VERVE UPDATE:
-Don’t forget to pre-order your shirt on the Square system at the gym!!!
