Many of you asked for it, so we’re changing things up. Thursday will no longer be a ‘make-up’ day and will now be our gymnastics & skills day.  It’ll start with just gymnastics skills ranging from handstands, tumbling, rope/ring work, kipping pu, muscle ups, etc, but we may include skill work on other things that are skill intensive such as kettlebell work, oly work, OHS work, etc. We’re making the change for a couple of reasons:

1. People need gymnastics skills: Back in the day, Strongmen (lifters) could all do handstands, walk across the room on their hands, and general Cirque du Soleil stuff because it was part of the culture of being strong. Somewhere along the line, it got thrown by the wayside and relegated to girls’ gymnastics only. You all know the total body awareness AND strength to be able to perform any of the gymnastics movements so we’re trying to convey the same to everyone else. Just like lifting isn’t just for boys, gymnastics isn’t just for girls.

2. You’ll PR your lifts by doing gymnastics: Michelle Benedict of CrossFit Fort Bragg already had a sick deadlift in the mid low 300′s but then started doing Jeff Tucker’s Gymnastics WODs in addition to her regular CF programming and PR’d by 40#s in 3 months. The amount of core strength needed to perform these movements is ridiculous, and it will translate to your lifts (as most fail in the core/trunk before anything else).

3. Make up days get ridiculously hectic: With the potential for 3-4 different wods simultaneously occurring, AND the need to instruct 3-4 different warm ups each day, the quality of instruction has no choice but to degrade. It’s like managing a circus on some nights, and the last thing we want is for injury to occur because we’re juggling too much at once.

4. It’s FUN: duh.

Some days we’ll program 2-3 skills while others we may add a gymnastics wod. We’ll keep in line with the rest of the week’s programming so we don’t trash your shoulders the day before we do muscle up progressions, etc.   In addition to learning these skills, you’ll learn the proper way to spot each other when needed.    Most classes will involve an aspect of tumbling, inversion (being upside down), and core work.  Each skill will be tailored to your skill level so you’ll be able to progress each week.  An example of a gymnastics class would be:

Forward Roll:

• One hand/two hands
• Flippin’ Burpees
• Tuck/Roll out of Handstands

Handstands, scaled to your ability, ranging from:

• kicking up
• one-handed
• free-standing
• walking
• ring

L-Sits:

• tucks
• parallette L-Sits
• ring L-Sits
• L-sit pull ups/muscle Ups

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Marcus (Emperor) has been training hard and made great gains on the Wendler program. He will be competing in his first Power Lifting meet this Saturday at The California State Championship located at the Inland Sports Center located at 8580 Milliken Ave, Rancho Cucamonga. It starts at 9:30am and will consist of the squat, bench, and deadlift and will go approximately 8 hrs. Come out and join in the Cheer Squad!

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WOD 03.22.11

Double Under Skill Work

Power Clean + Power Jerk (3+1)x3

3 rounds:
1 min stations (10 sec between each station)
Tire Flips
10m Shuttle Run
Hang Power Cleans
Rest 1 Min