Smashby's Training Blog

Happy Valentine’s Day, everyone! Now meet Karen.

Karen is one of the classic CrossFit “Girl” Workouts, that consists of 150 Wall Ball Tosses. You read that right. To do it at the prescribed weight, you throw a 20 pound ball to a 10 foot target… 150 times! It’s a pretty brutal workout since you’re just doing one full-body movement that many times. Personally, my shoulders get fried from supporting that weight at those speed, but maybe that’s just me. I’ll let you tell me what hurts the most during “Karen” in the comments section!

Just to show you what Karen SHOULD look like.. check out B-Boy (one of CrossFit’s original monsters!) absolutely destroy this workout!

The day started off with Back Squats, where everyone completed 5 sets of 5 reps each. Jamie absolutely crushed the sets, and we know next time he can go way up in weight. Chest was held high, weight back on his heels, knees were pushed out… it was a thing of beauty!! Great job, Jamie.

Workout of the Day:
Strength – Back Squat 5 x 5

WOD
Karen
150 Wall Balls for time

Jamie did a great job during the workout of keeping his weight back on his heels during the wall balls as well. Many times when we start to fatigue that’s one of the first things to happen, but it really stops us from being able to drive our weight down and produce the most force out of the hole when we stand to throw that ball!

Athlete Results:
Back Squat 5 x 5
Jamie- 155 x 10 (made it look EASY!)

WOD
Jamie (14# Wall Ball)- 10:14

Jamie and Andy rocked the workout tonight! It was a pretty simple 3-rounder, but we added in a new movement for these guys with walking lunges. Another main focus for the workout tonight was stretching and mobility work. We normally spend a good amount of time before the workout getting nice and loose. But then tonight, we also spent 15 minutes AFTER the workout getting our stretch on. I’d like to say I made friends showing them some of the methods that a baseball can loosen up your hamstrings and hip flexors, but all I got was, “And I get to throw this at your after, right?” through grimacing faces! 🙂

Workout of the Day:
3 Rounds for time
10 Kettlebell Swings / 20 Ab-Mat Sit-Ups / 30 Air Squats / 100ft. Walking Lunges

This workout was particularly fun to watch because these two were neck and neck the ENTIRE time. At the very end Jamie pulled away a little bit and had the fastest time, but it was really close. Great job pushing each other!!

Then on Tuesday, Mel came in for a Skills Class, and did this same workout!

Athlete Results:
Andy (12kg)- 9:53
Jamie (16kg)- 10:00
Mel (8kg)- 11:14

Walking in the door today, I knew it was going to be one of those workouts where people are laid out on the ground afterwards. Squat Cleans are one of the most full-body movements out there, and can be very taxing. At the prescribed weights for today (135 and 95 pounds), that is no easy task for a workout with “As many rounds as possible” in the name!

Workout of the Day:
As many rounds as possible in 15 min of-
5 Squat Cleans (135lb/95lb) / 10 Ball Slams (50lb/30lb) / 15 Sit-ups (Ab-Mat)

Tonight was a big night for the athletes in the gym, as far as I was concerned. I know I mentioned in a recent post about how great form was looking lately, but today mid-workout I was blown away. You can see in the video the form folks were using. It’s one thing to do a Squat Clean when you’re rested, but to do them (and do them right) when you’re fatigued was AWESOME to see!

Athlete Results:
Jamie (85lb Squat Clean / 50lb Slam Ball)- 4 Rounds + 8 Ball Slams

Today’s workout was simple. Quick and dirty. Get in, WOD, get out. You get the drill.

After some stretching/mobility work and warming up with the deadlift, we got right to the workout.

Workout of the Day:
3 Rounds for time-
10 Deadlifts (275#/185#) / 50 Double-Unders (150 Single Jumps)

I feel like the form across the board on this workout was more solid for every single person than I’ve seen in a while. We spent a bit more time going over technique before/during/after the workout than usual, and I think it’s really starting to pay off. Great job, team!

Video of the group to come soon, but for now, here’s me doing it!

**WOD NOTE**
My grip was shot for final round! I could barely hang onto the jump rope. Next time, the deads will be unbroken, too!

Athlete Results:
Jamie (135# / 150 Single Jumps)- 9:01

Full house again tonight! I know the gym gets crowded, but I LOVE having this many people in class at once. The energy is through the roof, and even mid-workout the support is loud and nonstop. Thank you guys for that! Added bonus tonight, Coach Orion joined in for the workout, too!

For strength, we spent time working on a 5-rep max for the Overhead Squat. Check out CrossFit Rockwall’s awesome post on the Overhead Squat. It’s great to hear your coaches say certain things to drive home some points, but sometimes watching someone else say it helps drive the point home even more!

Today’s workout came to us from the CrossFit Main Site back on January 25th, and was a good one! A simple couplet (two movement workout) with one not-so-simple exercise (the Muscle-Up). For those of you who are not familiar with what a Muscle-Up is, it’s a movement that CrossFitters generally perform on the gymnastics rings. The athlete starts at a dead hang with arms fully locked out, goes into a pull-up, and the shoots their shoulders forwards on top of the rings, before finally performing a dip above them. Here’s an example of Ricky and Joe, two of CrossFit Omaha’s monsters, performing 100 of these things for time. It’s super cool to watch these awesome athletes!

If an athlete doesn’t have this complex movement, the sub will generally be pull-ups and dips separately until strength is developed to put the together! You end up doing more reps, but it should definitely make you stronger!

Workout of the Day:
3 Rounds for time of-
12 Muscle Ups / 75 Air Squats

Athlete Results:
5×5 Overhead Squat
Jamie- 100lbs x 5

WOD
Jamie (25 3-Banded Pull-Ups / 25 Box Dips / 25 Air Squats)- 19:33

It was a pre-Super Bowl Workout today! Since the big game started at 4:30 local time, we wanted to make sure people had the chance to get home and get ready to watch. That meant having an early morning Sunday workout!

Mel, who joined the CrossFit Lakewood (CFLW) Family last week, came in for a skills class and then stayed for the workout at 10:00am. Two hours of CrossFit to start a Sunday… not bad!

The workout was a doozie, but the most impressive part was that Melissa and Jamie both came out in what was at least 4-6 inches of snow overnight. Many roads were not plowed, and we were the first three sets of tracks in CFLW parking lot! Thank you guys for coming out, but most importantly, glad you were both safe!

Workout of the Day:
4 rounds for time of-
15 Ball Tosses / 15 Kettlebell Swings / 15 Double-Unders / 15 Burpees Jumps (over Ab-Mat)

Congrats to Jamie for doing another workout with Double-Unders! He’s officially moved out of needing to scale for that movement!

Athlete results:
Melissa (30lb Ball / 8kg Kettlebell / 50 Single Jumps)- 23:13
Jamie (50lb Ball / 16kg Kettlebell)- 29:27

CrossFit has two types of workouts in particular that mean more to the “community” and the people who complete them. The first are the “Hero” workouts, which are in memory of some Service Personnel (Military, Police, Fire, First Responders, etc). The other are the “Girls” workouts, which take the same method of naming Hurricanes, and use women’s name to distinguish them from other workouts.

In my opinion, the most common of the “Girls” workouts is the “Cindy/Mary” day. On these days, athletes have the choice of two workouts to complete. Both of these require one to complete as many rounds as possible of the specific rep scheme in 20 minutes. Cindy is more basic movements, so the expected result is more rounds. Mary includes far more complex and skilled movements, so while much more taxing, fewer rounds are expected.

Workout of the Day:
Cindy
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Squats
or
Mary
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
5 Handstand Push-ups
10 One legged squats, alternating
15 Pull-ups

Jamie is very close to saying goodbye to bands to assist him on pull-ups! The next workout we do with a lower number of reps, we’re going to give it a shot. Great job making so much progress, so quickly Jamie!!

Athlete Results:
Cindy
Jamie (2 Banded Pull-Ups)- 10 Rounds + 5 Pull-Ups + 10 Push-Ups

It was the last day of January, and the weather was rough outside. Snow and ice always make getting to class an adventure, but we had four brave soldiers make it in safely!

The strength portion would consist of Back Squats, working up to three sets, and it seemed like almost everyone PR’d! Generally if we’re doing 5 sets of 3 reps, that final set will be written as “3+”. This means that the goal is to get those three reps, but IF the athlete can do more reps, they should continue on. Jamie got an awesome 6 full reps on his final set! You can see by the picture below that his range of motion was awesome even when he started to get tired. Well done, sir.

Nice depth on that squat!

Workout of the Day:
21-18-15-12-9-6-3 of-
Power Cleans / Wall Ball

This means that the athlete completes 21 reps of power clean, then 21 wall balls. Next, 18 cleans and 18 wall balls, and so on, all the way down to 3 of each.

Athlete Results:
Back Squat – 5 sets of 3 (5×3)
Jamie- 175 (6 reps!)

WOD
Jamie (65lb Power Clean / 14lb Med Ball)- 18:28

Sunday Funday again! The weeks are going by fast, but I guess I can start viewing that as “it seems like there’s less time between CrossFit Classes! This week, Andy came back for another session, too, so I guess we didn’t scare him away last time!

To start off the day, we focused on a movement that is done very rarely in CrossFit, but one that I think is important to go back and hit every once and a while… The Bench Press! Check out Clayton, putting up 165 for 5 reps.

Once we finished the strength portion of the day, we hit a workout that I saw last year, and have wanted to try ever since. I’ll do this myself in the next few weeks, and maybe post a video of it, too. We’ll see.

Workout of the Day:
1 Clean and Jerk / 1 Round of Cindy / 2 Clean and Jerks / 1 Round of Cindy / etc. until / 10 Clean and Jerks / 1 Round of Cindy

The workout is 1 rep of a Ground to Overhead lift followed by 1 round of Cindy (which is 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups and 15 air squats). The most common and most efficient way to get something from the ground to over your head is generally going to be the Clean and Jerk. Once the athlete finishes one round of Cindy and one Clean and Jerk, then they complete one round of Cindy and then two Clean and Jerks. This pattern continues until the final round, which is 10 Ground to Overheads followed by the last round of Cindy.

Here are some clips of the guys doing work!

One of the highlights of today was watching Clayton crush the pull-ups with an awesome kip! We’ve talked for the last few months about how much his workout times will drop when he improves his kipping form. I’d say that’s pretty accurate watching this. Great Job!

Athlete Results:
Bench Press 5 Rep Max
Clayton- 165lbs
Jamie- 155lbs
Andy (performed Shoulder Press)- 65lbs

WOD
Clayton (75lb Clean and Jerk / Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups)- 27:45
Jamie (65lb Clean and Jerk / 3 Banded Pull-Ups)- 32:18
Andy (45lb Push Press / 3 Banded Pull-Ups / Wall Push-Ups)- 19:40

Finally, as promised, here is the video of two CrossFit All-Stars completing the workout as prescribed. Both of these men are incredible athletes!