Colin!

El Cap
AMRAP 20
4 Bar Muscle Ups
8 DB/KB Strict Press or Barbell Strict Press
16 Kettlebell Swings @ 53/35

Workout Guidance:
Today our workout is all shoulders, and it’s a lot of pulling and grip work. We want to pick an option on the bar muscle-up that’s our hardest version of a pull-up. Given the low number of reps it’s okay to be down to singles, but we don’t want to be missing reps on the gymnastics today. We want to pick a weight on our strict presses and kettlebell swings that allow us to work with no more than one break, even when we’re tired. The name of the game today is managing shoulder fatigue. We all know that it’s possible to hit a “point of no return” where our shoulders become so fatigued that we have to slow down exponentially. We can avoid this by taking breaks before we become fatigued. Even if you feel great, I would recommend taking one break each on the presses and the swings every round, starting with round 1.

Box Brief:
Core Conversations Seminar
Saturday August 13th @ 10:30am
Click HERE for details.

Zero One Nutrition Challenge starts August 26th!
Click HERE for details.

King of The Mountain 24 Hour Event
Saturday September 10th @ 9am at Mount Abram
Click HERE for details.

Colin!

Sunday Funday
Every 3:00 x 8 rounds
20/15 Calorie Bike
20 Double DB Push Jerks 35s/20s

Score is slowest round
Compare to 4/24/22

Workout Guidance:
This is a fast and furious interval where we’re meant to have about 1 minute of rest each round. For our Bike today,  let’s limit ourselves to 1 minute if we’re unable to hit the calorie goal within that time. On the push jerks, we should pick a dumbbell weight that’s going to allow us to go unbroken on all 20 reps. Today our score is our slowest round, so we should have a whiteboard next to us to record how long each round takes us.

Box Brief:
Core Conversations Seminar
Saturday August 13th @ 10:30am
Click HERE for details.

Zero One Nutrition Challenge starts August 26th!
Click HERE for details.

King of The Mountain 24 Hour Event
Saturday September 10th @ 9am at Mount Abram
Click HERE for details.

Alex looking comfy on those runs!

Paws For a Cause
3 rounds
11 Power Cleans 95/65
33 Burpees
1700m Run

Workout Guidance:
Today we are doing a charity workout to benefit Paws for a Cause, a charity that supports animals whose owners can’t afford emergency veterinary care. Our barbell weight today is something that we could do unbroken, but given the length of the workout it might be advisable to take one break here. Our burpees should take us no longer than 3 minutes, and our run should be in the 8-9 minute range. This is a long workout, but we do long workouts all the time, so you’ll be just fine!

Box Brief:
Core Conversations Seminar
Saturday August 13th @ 10:30am
Click HERE for details.

Zero One Nutrition Challenge starts August 26th!
Click HERE for details.

King of The Mountain 24 Hour Event
Saturday September 10th @ 9am at Mount Abram
Click HERE for details.

How many reps can you hang on for?

Gogoltha
Death by Thruster @ 115/80

Workout Guidance:
This workout is awesome. We love thrusters because they’re brutally efficient. They hit almost every muscle in your body in just one movement. Today we want to pick a thruster weight that we could do 15+ reps with if we were completely fresh. Inside the workout, one break might be fine as we get deeper into the minutes. “Death by” refers to an on the minute style of workout where we increase the reps by 1 each round. If I had to guess, I would imagine most folks between 12 and 17 minutes for this workout. We should pick a weight where we could do at least 12 minutes, aka able to do 11 reps one minute then 12 reps the following minute. If we’re between two weights, we should pick the lighter of the two. Today is about intensity, not weight.

Question of the Day:
What’s your favorite landmark?

Box Brief:
Core Conversations Seminar
Saturday August 13th @ 10:30am
Click HERE for details.

Zero One Nutrition Challenge starts August 26th!
Click HERE for details.

King of The Mountain 24 Hour Event
Saturday September 10th @ 9am at Mount Abram
Click HERE for details.

How fast can you go on that cash out?

Nutter Butter
For Time:
1000m Row/Ski or 2000m Bike

5 rounds of
10 DBL DB/KB Deadlifts
10 Toes to Bar

1000m Row/Ski or 2000m Bike

Workout Guidance:
Today we have a grippy couplet sandwiched between two long cardio efforts. Because of the demand that the deadlift/toes to bar combination places on our grip, this is a very different workout on the row/ski vs on the bike. There are two ways you could think about this. The first way is to say that choosing to ride the bike allows you to go faster because the bike interferes less with the other movements and makes the workout more elegant. This is absolutely true, but it’s not the stance I would take. I would say that this workout is already grippy, and it’s not meant to be elegant; it’s meant to be a grind where one aspect of your fitness is put to the test. You’re supposed to have trouble holding on to the dumbbells and the rig, and have your forearms on fire when you get back on the row. With that in mind, I’m going to encourage my class athletes to row given the option. We don’t always have to go as fast as possible to get an effective workout. Sometimes we can pick something deliberately that slows us down in order to make us better.

Question of the Day:
Which snack food has the best mascot?

Box Brief:
Core Conversations Seminar – Saturday August 13th @ 10:30am – Click HERE for details.

How many reps can you hang on for?

Slippery When Wet
On 2:30 x 5 Rounds
400m Run
Max Snatches @ 115/80

Workout Guidance:
Today we have two movements that will blast our heart rate into orbit. There is no rest programmed between 2:30 intervals, so we need to find the place to breathe. Our place to breathe is the run. We need to be comfortable running a sub 2 minute 400m in a way that allows us to recover our arms and shoulders for the next round of snatches, as well as catch our breath a little bit. This being the case, it’s a great day to scale the run to 300m or even 200m. When we see the 115/80 barbell, this is our moderate weight for snatches. This means that we should be coming in and doing an unbroken set somewhere in the 3-7 rep range, then following it up with quick singles until our coach tells us to get back out on our next run.

Question of the Day:
What mess do you force someone else to clean up?

Getting some good pulling strength in today!

The Biggest Loser
AMRAP 12
3 Weighted Pull-ups @ 35/25
6 DB Push-ups @ 35s/25s
12 DB Lunge @ 35s/25s

Workout Guidance:
All you need to get fit is a pair of dumbbells! Today we have weighted pull-ups, dumbbell push-ups (not weighted) and dumbbell lunges. Our weighted pull-ups are written to be done with one dumbbell between the thighs, our push-ups are being done with the hands on two dumbbells, and our lunges are being done holding two dumbbell any way you prefer. When we’re picking scaling options today, we want to pick our hardest versions of a push-up and pull-up. Ring rows, negatives, and bands are suitable options on the pull-ups today, and on the push-ups we can think about box push-ups or banded push-ups. For our lunges, although we can hold the dumbbells any way we prefer, I would strongly suggest holding them in front rack rather than at your sides. Given the grip demand placed on our hands by weighted pull-ups, it seems unwise to test our grip further when we don’t have to.

Question of the Day:
What’s the best reality TV show?

Daphna!

Black and Blue
5 sets of:
3 Power Cleans
2 Front Squats
1 Jerk

5 rounds of
10 Power Cleans, 135/95#
10 Burpees

Workout Guidance:
Today we have a workout that is a classic CFNE benchmark, with a little bit of lifting before hand. For our barbell complex, we’re going to be going unbroken today cycling the power cleans off the floor, rather than resetting at the bottom of each clean. When we cycle power cleans off the floor, we want to rest in the hang position, with the bar touching our thighs. Inside this complex, different people will be limited by different things. I’ll probably be most limited by my ability to string three power cleans together, but other folks may be limited by their ability to put the weight overhead. One thing we want to be mindful of is the necessity to transition our hands between the front squats and the jerk. On the front squats we use a loose fingertip grip driving our elbows high, and on the jerks we wrap all five fingers around the bar with our elbows slightly in front. We’ll want to pop the barbell of of our shoulders at the conclusion of that second front squat in order to create the space needed to scoot our hands back underneath the barbell. “Black and Blue” is a workout that’s a hard sprint where everyone finishes under 10 minutes. Our workout weight should be something that we could hold on to for 15 unbroken power cleans if we were fresh. We should be doing a mix of sets and singles, with stud athletes hanging on and going unbroken through the the entire workout.

Question of the Day:
What’s the most sore you’ve ever been?

Plenty of midline work today!

Sunday Funday
AMRAP 20
Buy In: 400m Double KB Front Rack Carry: 53s/35s
AMRAP in time remaining
15 Double KB Deadlifts
15 V-Ups

Workout Guidance:
This workout has a lengthy carry buy-in, followed by a midline challenge to cap things off. When we do a double KB front rack our kettlebells should be in the area between our wrist, elbow, and shoulder, what Max calls the “Bermuda Triangle of Fitness.” We want to avoid having the kettlebell resting on the top of our shoulder with the handle above the cannonball. This does make the carry much easier, but this is a back rack position, not a front rack. We also want to make sure that our elbows are pointed out away from each other rather than down towards the ground. This will keep the kettlebells from putting too much torque on our wrists. Take as many breaks as you want on these carries. When you get back inside, let’s try to keep the kettlebell deadlifts unbroken and take the v-ups at our own pace.

A few different types of rope climbs on the menu today!

Elvish
AMRAP 30
400m Run
30 Push-ups
2 Rope Climbs (1st Legless / 2nd Regular)

Workout Guidance:
This workout is especially cool because it’s one that biases strength, despite only using the resistance from our own body weight. The entrée here is definitely the rope climb. We run all the time and do push-ups all the time, so expect your coach to spend a good deal of class covering the intricacies of both legless and leg assisted rope climbs. I think it can be tempting to think of these movements as two flavors of the same thing, in the way that strict muscle-ups and kipping muscle-ups are mechanically similar despite some obvious differences. I would argue that this is not the case for rope climbs, and in fact the legless rope climb is a completely different movement from the leg assisted rope climb. When we do a leg assisted rope climb the focus is on long extension and deep flexion, alternating between making our bodies long to cover the most distance on the rope possible, and then using the anchor of our hands to pull our feet up as high as possible. In a legless rope climb, our focus should be on keeping our body in a relatively similar position the entire time. One of the strongest structures the human body can create is the attachment of our elbow to our ribcage. As the elbow gets further and further away from the ribs and the arm gets more extended, the strength of that structure is decreased. Obviously we can’t climb a rope with our elbow attached to our ribs, but when we do our legless rope climbs we should keep in mind that low elbows (at or below the shoulder line) and bent arms will allow us to scamper up the rope using small steps and taking advantage of the mechanical strength of our bodies.

Question of the Day:
Given unlimited time, what language would you study?