I had a great talk with one of newest members this morning. Her husband started Mission CrossFit in early February and today was her first day. She started talking with Sarah and I after her class. She has a little boy that is 2 and a half years old. We talked for a while because we had our youngest Ryan (2 years old) in the gym watching Sarah workout. She told me how long her and her husband had been married and why they waited to have a child. It was fascinating to hear how she decided to give up her career as a working professional to have a child. I believe families are amazing and I think nothing comes close to Motherhood. Having been raised by a single mother who had to work full time to support her children, I have a deep appreciation for working mothers. The sacrifices I see so many mothers make is tremendous. Whether it is giving up a prominent career or having to be the financial provider for your family I admire you. For those families willing and able to keep mom at home to be there for your children I applaud you as well. Nothing matches the love of a Mother.
Why the sappy writing about Mothers? I was on my own with our five children from Friday afternoon until Sunday Morning this past weekend. Sarah makes it look easy. I don’t need to say much other than the kids were really happy to see Mom on Sunday afternoon.
Strength
Same thing I said last week for the Deadlift. How is your setup? Are your feet under the bar, hands in the proper position, back in the proper position, hips back, weight on your heels, arms perpendicular with the ground, bar against your shin, head in a neutral position. When we lift do our knees stays back until the bar gets above them? Does the bar then stay in contact with our thighs as we bring our hips to the bar and our shoulders straight up. Does our back stay in a static position? On the way down are we pushing our hips back first so that our knees stay back and the bar can drop straight down without having to go around our knees? Do you feel the tension in your hamstrings, glutes, and lower back. Once the bar contacts the floor are we back in our good starting position so that we can immediately do another rep without relaxing the muscles we were using to do the first lift? I want you to visualize yourself completing a five repetition set at your personal best.
Workout Strategy
This looks like a very classic CrossFit Benchmark workout called “Fran.” Beware, it’s not. This workout will take more strategy and planning than does Fran which has the same total repetitions of each exercise but it is broken up by going between the two movements in three rounds of 21-15-9 or each. Having to do all the thrusters before moving to pull ups will be much different. First key component is to do the Thrusters with great form. Notice my choice of wording to describe your form. Moving efficiently will be the key to success. Do not rush the movement. By rushing the movement you will hit your strength failure threshold to soon and may get stuck just looking at the bar. I would rather you keep the sets small with small breaks. For example do 5 reps every thirty seconds. That means it will take you 4 minutes and 30 seconds to do all 45. This is good data for you to use on other workouts. It will allow you to know how much recovery time you need to sustain the energy output that you desire. Just going until you fail will not give you good feedback about your actual ability in this workout. The objective for most of these workouts is to help measure where you are for better planning in future workouts. Do I want you to push it and owrk hard, absolutely. But I want you to be smart to get the most out of it. Just trying hard is not enough. Many of you could look at your “Fran” time which we did on March 8th. and come up with a good game plan. There is some criteria I want you to follow reference those looking at Level 4 today. The reason for this is because I would rather you complete the workout faster at a lower weight then to struggle and have it turn into a slow weightlifting/strength workout. I would like everyone to finish this workout in 7 minutes or less so pick a level that is challenging but you know you can do that with.
| Workout of the Day | |
|---|---|
| Strength of the Day | Deadlift: 10 minutes to establish a 5 rep max |
| Level 1: For time
45 Thrusters, 45 Ring Rows |
Level 2: For time
45 Thrusters, 65/35# 15 Pull Ups |
| Level 3: For time
45 Thrusters, 75/45# 30 Pull Ups |
Level 4: For time
45 Thrusters, 95/65# 45 Pull Ups
* Do not do Unless you have a Fran time of less than 7 minutes. |
Get more awesome: 3 minutes of Double Under Practice
