CrossFit and Pushups

Stretching Class with Courtneyrose on Tuesday nights at 8pm

Monday, November 10

Weekly Programming Links:  Group Class, Venice Barbell Club

Gymnastics and VBC at 8pm at Venice!

Prehab

Sampson Stretch x 60 seconds each
PVC Dislocates, 2×10 reps
Leg Swings x 10 each direction
Scapula Pushups x 15
Wide Grip Lat Activations x 15

Warmup

Jog 400 meters
100′ Bear Crawl
10 Burpees
Split into Advanced/Fitness for continued specific warmup

Cool Down

Pec Stretch x 30 sec each
Wall Extensions, 2×10
Sampson Stretch x 60 sec each
Pigeon Stretch x 90 sec each
Straddle Stretch x 2 minutes

Fitness Strength

20 minutes or 3-4 sets of:
Bulgarian Split Squat x 6-8 reps each
Russian Kettlebell Swings x 15-20
Handstand Hold x 45-60 seconds

Notes: Try to go heavier or perform more reps than last week for the split squats. For the handstands, focus on staying tight! Squeeze your butt, feet together, lock your knees, pushing up through the floor, think about making your body as long as possible. If staying inverted for 60 sec is easy for you, attempt to perform this first with only your toes and nose touching the wall and then the forearm supported style with a box or blue mat. If you cannot hold for 45 seconds straight, scale by performing multiple sets and accumulating the time.

Advanced Strength

Every two minutes, for 20 minutes (10 sets): Snatch x 1 rep

Notes: These should be full squat. Start around 60% and build up to your 1RM for the day. Focus on quality over load. If you are feeling good, go for a PR!

Conditioning

“Cindy”
20 minute Amrap:
5 Pullups
10 Pushups
15 Squats

Notes: This is an infamous workout with elite level athletes completing 30 rounds or more. Be sure to prioritize full range of motion over speed! Notoriously the pushups are the hardest to maintain. Newer athletes should scale to 15 minutes.

Ah, CrossFit and Pushups.  I’ve told this story a hundred times, but before I started doing CrossFit, all I did was pushups and running…lots of pushups.  I started just by maxing out regularly with 3-5 sets with 1 minute rest between sets to see how many I could do.  Over time, as I started getting stronger and develop a better understanding of my limitations, I would make up challenging rep schemes and rest intervals to see if I could complete them.  I would make the plank position my resting position and see how many reps I could perform without taking breaks.  I would always go to absolute failure and always fight for one more rep.   I did this for about 5 years before I started doing CrossFit and I believe this had a profound impact on my long term training and results.  High volume, quality pushups develop a basic strength for almost all gymnastics movements like handstand pushups, dips, pull-ups, burpees and muscle ups.

Here’s the thing, just like the other two movements in this workout, just because pushups are foundational, doesn’t mean they are easy.  My challenge to you today is to perform every rep in this workout with the following standards:

• Body maintains a straight line from head to shoulder to hip to ankle, throughout the entire range of motion
• At the top the elbows are locked out with the shoulders above or slightly in front of the wrists
• At the bottom you do not rest on the floor and the chest and thighs make contact at the same time
• The elbows are not touching the torso throughout the range of motion

Trust me, this is a lot harder than it sounds.  In coaching CrossFit for over 6 years, this is probably the single hardest movement to keep people to standard on.  Probably because when performing the pushup properly, if you are not used to it, failure occurs quickly and the intensity of the workout goes down.  In the moment, many people seem to choose to just keep going and do their best.  I am asking you to rest long enough to perform the standards no matter what.  If you want that high intensity workout and don’t want to rest that much, you can reduce the number of pushups per round or perform an easier variation.  This should go for every workout that you perform, but I wanted to drive this home today, because this is such a classic test of fitness.  So be hard on yourself and your standards, and when you perform this workout again in the future, you will know exactly how much fitter you have become!