I was really looking forward to today: my first meeting with Cindy, one of the CrossFit ladies:
- 5 pullups
- 10 pushups
- 15 air squats
20 minute[abbr title=”As Many Rounds As Possible”]AMRAP[/abbr].
I’m pretty sure I lost sleep over this one – my first all-bodyweight WOD! I’m at the point where I’m familiar enough with most of the exercises and know my strengths and weaknesses, so I’ve started to strategize a little. The next phase will be once I’ve gotten a few more of the “standard WODs” under my belt so I can have actual experience of how things feel at different points in the workout, but for now all I can do is visualize.
Of course, the visualization would have worked a lot better if I hadn’t somehow gotten 3 pullups in my head instead of the prescribed 5. I used a band for assistance, but those extra two take me over the fatigue line a lot faster.
So I had a bit of a notion of adding a small rest phase between sets to pace myself out, but that got taken care of during the pullups, since if I can’t lift myself over the bar, it’s a null rep, so I needed to wait in between 3-5 after the third round or so.
There’s not a lot I would (or could) do differently on this one. It’s a great benchmark workout for overall fitness, but other than improving overall conditioning and my strength/weight ratio, which just takes focused effort, I’d go out pretty much the same next time.
The only minor tweak would be my rest position if/when the pushups fail out. In the first few cases, I was just laying prone, with my hands still in position, which kept my arms and chest semi-engaged and made me start from a dead stop. Later in the workout I switched to more of a cat stretch, on my knees but with my hands still in position, and I found I was able to go from banging out singles to doing 3-4 at a time.
I’ve found that hand-release pushups have been a big help with my overall pushup, so basically I’m going to keep doing those, continue my training, and next time I want to aim for 15 rounds (today was 11 plus 4 pullups.)