Smashby's Training Blog

The second workout of the 2015 CrossFit Games Open is a repeat of last year’s competition. As Dave Castro said last night during the big reveal… “15.2 is… 14.2.” Check out what the workout is below:

My advice on this one is simple. Regardless of whether you can complete this workout Rx’d, or whether you need to scale it, PACE, PACE, PACE!

Some of the best athletes out there CAN complete the first two rounds of 10 Overhead Squats and 10 Chest-To-Bar Pull-Ups in under a minute. To me, though, there’s no reason to do that. If your heart rate spikes and your grip starts to go that soon, that athlete will start to fatigue far too early. I suggest pacing the first two rounds, keeping your heart rate down, and move slowly and comfortably from station to station.

OHS Pacing Suggestion: Go unbroken as long as you can, as long as you feel comfortable and can hold a steady pace. To start each set, I would recommend that the athlete perform a squat snatch as their first rep as long as they’re comfortable with the movement. It is simply more efficient, and requires less time under the bar.

Pull-Up Suggestion: Unless you’re great at Chest-To-Bar Pull-Ups and don’t think you’ll fatigue that badly, start with sets NO larger than 5 at a time. For most athletes who are comfortable with C2B, the first round or two of the workout will not be that bad. The reps will start to add up a lot more on the round of 14. Getting there in sets of 4 or 5 reps at a time will conserve more energy than blasting through larger sets early on. If you can, like last week, try to have a box or some weights next to the bar you plan on using so you can step over onto the bar instead of needing to jump up to it.

This workout has put people’s hands through the meat grinder for over a year now. My suggestion is to not let your hands get shredded, especially if you plan on re-doing it before Monday night.

Pace. Pace. Pace. Chest and eyes up on OHSs. Lock out those elbows hard and stay as calm as you can, control your breathing. Small comfortable sets on the pull-ups.

For all of you out there who will get your first OHS at 95/65lbs, and those of you who will get your first chin-over or chest-to-bar pull-up… CONGRATS! That’s such a fun moment. You should be super proud of yourselves! 🙂

I’d love to hear how you guys do. If you’ve done it before, let me know if you improve. Good luck, have fun, I believe in you!

I can’t believe it’s already time for the 2015 CrossFit Games Open!

I also can’t believe that it’s been almost a year since I have been actively posting on this blog. Well, what better time to bring it back than the most largely participated-in athletic contest in the WORLD! (I have no idea if that’s true, by the way)

Workout 15.1 is actually two workouts. Woah, that’s never happened before. Here’s what we’re dealing with for this week’s fun:

I was able to get after this one last night, and my advice is actually pretty simple. For me, the hardest part of Workout 15.1 is the toes-to-bar. I started with sets of 5, and wasn’t even able to hold that throughout the entire 9 minutes. My suggestion is to take them in sets that you know you can maintain throughout each round. If that means sets of 5 for the first two rounds, then down to sets of 4, and so on, go for it. Once your grip goes, it could very well be gone. Therefore, burning out in the first 4 minutes of the WOD will lead to a very slow and frustrating final 5. Remember, once you get off of the toes-to-bar, you need to hold onto the bar for deadlifts AND snatches (or potentially clean and jerks for the Scaled division). When that little 9 minute adventure is over, you then need to pick up a heavy barbell. Destroying your grip early on is a lose-lose scenario for me. Instead, I suggest smaller quick sets with very short rest between them.

As for the deadlifts, I feel these are meant to be the easiest part of the workout. I used an alternating grip and got through them all unbroken. If your grip and lower back can take it (which I think they should be able to), I’d go unbroken on all rounds here. Lastly, the snatches. If you can handle 115/75lbs, try your best to get through them unbroken. The time it takes to let the bar settle inbetween “single” attempts is significantly slower than trying to get through them with “touch-and-go” speed. At a moderate to light weight, only having to do 5 reps at a time is a gift! Had there been even 10 reps in a row, I think this would be a totally different workout.

Once the 9 minute AMRAP is done, athletes are to go right into their 6 minute 15.1a, in which a 1 rep max Clean and Jerk should be established. This one can get dirty! My advice here… give yourself 3 attempts.

Resting a little longer than you feel is necessary before your first attempt is probably not a bad idea. Let your forearms and grip recover just a little. Then, I would approach the Clean and Jerk in a way the Olympic Weightlifters might approach a meet:
1st Attempt- I weight that is challenging, but you feel you could hit successfully 99% of the time. For me, that weight would be around 75% of my 1RM (conservative for a meet, but hitting this tired would not be a “gimme” for me)

2nd Attempt- Based on how the first attempt felt, I would gauge my second attempt. Personally, pushing up towards 85% of my 1RM was a good idea.

3rd Attempt- I would suggest waiting until around 1 minute remains in this workout to try your final attempt. That way, worst case scenario, if you miss… you’ll still have some time to compose yourself and give it one more attempt before the buzzer! For me, getting close to 90% of my 1RM is considered a big success for a relatively experienced lifter.

For newer athletes, establishing a true one-rep max may not be something you’re completely comfortable. That said, as long as you can perform the Clean and Jerk safely, be prepared with weights to potentially PR your lift! It’s counterintuitive for many of us to imagine being able to PR when we’re tired, but I’ll tell you what… it happens!!

Alright, folks. It’s time to get out there and have some fun! As always, I would love to hear your own thoughts before and after the workout, and please tell me how you do. Any other questions, let me know!

#TheOpenIsUponUs. Now go crush this first workout!

I love motivational videos, and watching people doing awesome things.
So…. I’ll just leave this over here….

It’s Monday, and it’s time to share a feel-good moment with the world.

In this video (that circulated around the Facebooks last week), a server named Chelsea is surprised by her coworkers and friends with some pretty awesome gifts.

I’ve never “Pranked it Forward”, but this would be awesome to do for someone!

Next, my buddy Rj Smith IV sent me this video to share with you guys. I’ve seen this video before (heck, maybe even shared it under a different name before), but any compilations like this get me all fired up. As some of the these videos say in their title… “People are awesome!”