CrossFit Speed Squats

Tuesday, July 21, 2015

Coach Pat

(11AM) Mandy, Ben, Chris, Cameron, AJ and me

Warm Up

400m Run followed by 3 rounds of Deadbug Home 10 sec hold, Deadbug R arm / L Leg then LA/RL, both arms both legs, 5 goblet squat, hold the one for 10 seconds in the bottom.

This warm up really activated your core.  I could not get through the Deadbug positions.  Home position is arms and legs straight up, knees straight and toes flexed.  Slowly lower into the alternating positions and then return to home.  On the goblet squats, Coach Pat threw in bicep curls in the squat position and holding the kb behind the back to incorporate a bit of triceps stretch.

WOD

Front Squat:  Find your 3 rep max.  Speed Front Squats:  8x3 completed on the minute.  Work up to a weight that you can complete the 3 reps every minute for 8 minutes focused speed while keeping good positioning.  The down and up should look the same, no pause at the top.  If you lean, it’s too mean!  This is for speed and explosive power, not a max effort.

We had 5 minutes to work up the weight.  I did 45#, 65#, 95# and then a couple more at 95#.  For the workout I used 105#.  I started to lose speed on the later rounds, but my form seemed to hold up OK.  This was the right weight for me.

then

Row 1500m for time, every minute complete 5 burpees.

I was dreading this from the moment I read it.  I must get better at burpees.  Starting off with the row, I ticked off about 250m in the first minute.  After that it took me about 30 seconds to get through the burpees and get back on the rower which only provided 30 seconds of rowing time (~125m).  I ended up finishing in 11:28 which includes 55 burpees.  All things considered I maintained reasonably good form and finished strong.  Most folks finished under 10 minutes, which of course saved them 10 burpees.

Overall Impressions

This was my first time meeting Pat who seems like a good guy.  He took the time to explain some of the theory behind speed squats and how they approach the Power = Work / Time by focusing on the denominator rather than the numerator.