Hey fellas – running Open WODs to the very last minute but having fun. However, still delaying my Ankou time each weekend. And I refuse to “half ass” the programming for this crew!

Day 1:

5 Rounds of:
Row 500M
10 Burpees over rower (from now on called an erg)
Rest 2 mins

Alternative would be to sub 400m runs and do burpees over a loaded barbell.

Needless to say this is not meant to be done at stroll in the park pace. Push hard and build that engine a little today!

Rest of the week will come in a few hours.

Keep it one and done folks. But if you feel froggy – take on 13.4 one last time!

A.
Three sets, not for time, of:
15′ Rope Climb x 2-3 ascents
Alternating Pistols x 12-16 reps
Ring Dips x 10-15 reps

B.
For time:
Row 1000 Meters
30 Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups
20 Overhead Squats (135/95 lb)
20 Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups
10 Overhead Squats (135/95 lb)
10 Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups
Rest exactly 5 minutes, and then . . .

C.
For time:
Row 1000 Meters
20 Front Squat (155/105 lb)
20 Ring Dips
10 Front Squat (155/105 lb)
10 Ring Dips

Movement Prep

3 Rds of Row 200m/10 GHD Sit Ups/10 Back Ext/2 24″ box Jumps

Mobilize Shoulders/Lats/Hips – roller/band/lacrosse ball

Every 30 sec for 3 minutes:

1 Power Clean & Push Jerk @ 65%

*Immediately perform 2 TTB after every rep.

Rest 5-10 mins then complete 13.4

Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes following the rep scheme below:
135 pound Clean and jerk, 3 reps
3 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 6 reps
6 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 9 reps
9 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 12 reps
12 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 15 reps
15 Toes-to-bar
135 pound Clean and jerk, 18 reps
18 Toes-to-bar…
This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete 21, go on to 24, etc.

Strategy Comments from Rudy:

13.4 is seemingly a “run into the wall” workout, with no room for strategy or real variability. However, after testing this morning, I actually believe there is as much to be gained here from a tactful approach, as all the other WODs of the 2013 season.

Clearly 13.4 is very grip intensive. Spealler and Holmberg both complained immediately about grip after finishing the demo on the announcement show. This led me to question immediately whether touch & go reps were appropriate for the piece, despite the fact that I have always believed they were significantly faster.

>Highlights:

-Drop the bar every rep to save grip and time under load (or no more than 3 touch & go reps), but stay as close as possible, and re-grip immediately.

-Find the least bouncy set of plates in your gym. Comp plates are the holy grail.

-Hook grip every rep, and thumbs around the bar on TTB.

-All Push Jerks.

-Wear the shoes you’re comfortable doing TTB in. WL shoes are unnecessary.

-Break TTB well before failure, especially if you’re not planning rest intervals. However…

-Plan rest intervals.

Even with an improbable score of 126 reps there is space for 1:45 worth of rest. If you do not plan these rests you will be left with your hands on your knees, unable to recover from an early flame out. I will not suggest exactly where to use them, but I will suggest planning them early—round of 9, and possibly 6 on—and not allowing for any extraneous waste (chalk, adjusting clips).

CJ Martin:

Equipment Considerations

Shoes – I would suggest flats for this workout. Olympic weightlifting shoes are going to push you too far forward. You want something light and close to the floor, and you don’t need the heel boost because you won’t be squatting on any of these cleans.

Chalk Placement – Ensure that you have a block of chalk conveniently located near the bar where you will do toes to bar. This should be the only place you chalk. When you’re moving the barbell, move the barbell. The only appropriate time to stop for chalk is in transition from the barbell to toes to bar.

Barbell Relatively Close to the Bar – You should set the barbell relatively close to your toes to bar station. It doesn’t need to be right under it, but you don’t want to lose a lot of time walking back and forth. Keep it within 3-4 steps if possible.

Height of the Toes to Bar Station – Set-up at a toes to bar station that does not require you to jump or step up. You don’t want to be losing time or energy having to jump high to a pull-up bar if you break on toes to bar.

Tight Collars – Select your best, most-secure collars for the barbell. You are going to be dropping the barbell. Make sure your plates are going to stay put and you’re not going to be spending time tidying your barbell.

Tape Your Thumbs – Many of you will want to tape your thumbs for this workout. If you’re prone to tearing your thumbs when cycling cleans, be sure to tape early and warm-up with the tape to ensure it’s comfortable.

Movement Considerations

Kelly and Carl cover a lot of this stuff in their videos, but here are a couple of the things that I want to emphasize.

Mobility and Warm-Up are NOT Optional. Give yourself at least 20-25 minutes before your workout to begin the process of addressing your soft tissue work. Get after your hamstrings and spend a good amount of time on thoracic mobility.

Ground to Overhead

Be efficient, and be consistent. Choose to move with the most efficient patterning right from the beginning. Don’t wait until you are smoked to change to a more efficient movement. Start and finish that way. A slight knee bend on the power clean, get the barbell off your chest immediately, and re-dip slightly under the overhead – just be sure to squeeze your butt to stand up tall before bringing the barbell down again.

Keep it close. You want to keep the barbell as close to your body as possible when you are cycling the ground to overhead. The further it gets from your body on the descent, the less efficient it is going to be, and the quicker you will have to start breaking up your sets. For almost all of you, that will mean tapping the thigh with the barbell before returning it to the ground. You may be faster going straight from overhead to the floor, but that gets expensive quickly, and in my opinion, this workout will be more about who can keep a consistent pace on the barbell rather than who can move it with blazing speed early.

Transition from Ground to Overhead to Toes to Bar

Use your transition time to take a deep breath, gain composure and focus on your next task. Athletes who are capable of stringing their toes to bar through all or most of their sets are at a huge advantage here. The toes to bar are much faster repetitions than the ground to overhead, so take a moment in transition to gather yourself, and then try to fire through the toes to bar with smooth, efficient movement.

Toes to Bar

Keep your eyes straightforward. Neutral gaze on the toes to bar! I won’t recap Carl’s good instruction, but it is extremely helpful.

Pseudo False-Grip – Carl touches on this also, but try to get your knuckles up over the top of the bar on your toes to bar – you don’t want to be trying to hold on with just your fingers.

The Caveat – It’s worth noting, that you should not be trying totally new movements for the first time in competition. Hopefully these movement cues and patterns are not new to you, but if they are, just play with small adjustments in your warm-up and see if it’s something that you can make immediate use of. For example, if you typically look up at the bar for toes to bar, play with neutral gaze (looking straight forward) in your warm-up, for many it will immediately click and be easier. If it doesn’t click to what you feel most comfortable with.

Pacing Considerations
Sorry, this is reserved for our private coaching clients.

Strategy Considerations
Sorry, 95% of this is reserved for our private coaching clients. But here is one quick thought . . .

Keep in mind throughout this workout that the barbell is loaded to 135/95 lbs. Ask yourself when you last failed to move that weight. For most of you, it has been years. There will certainly be times where you are uncomfortable in this workout, and you will be tempted to give yourself a little extra rest between reps, but fight that. If you commit to placing your hands on the barbell, you will ALWAYS SUCCEED in getting a 135/95 lb barbell from ground to overhead.

Judging/Scoring
If there is any possibility that you will be performing this workout twice, find a judge or a friend that will mark down the time in which you complete each round. This will help you to understand where you fell off and how you might need to attack this on the second attempt at this workout.

Performing This Workout Multiple Times
Most of you will recover very quickly from this workout. As long as your hands stay together pretty well on the toes to bar, and they should, you should be able to repeat this workout in a 3 day period. If you execute your strategy well the first time, there shouldn’t be a need to repeat . . . but I think this is an event that many athletes will realize after the 7 minutes are over that they could have placed their hands back on the barbell quicker than they did the first time. Accordingly, I think you’re going to see athletes repeating and doing better the second time. Of course, I want you to be the athlete who pushes so hard through minutes 2-5 and then hangs tight when you see the finish line that there is no reason for you to repeat the event later in the week.

Jeff’s Thoughts:
The biggest disagreement seems to be the C&J approach. I personally think 135# C&J is one of my best movements in terms of consistently being able to move. I have created a rep strategy that hopefully will work for me – important thing is I have a plan. After watching Spealler’s video my goal is to get to the set of 18 C&J in about the same or a little less time. I think at that point I can get through 18 reps faster than he did then hit a handfull of TTBs. That’s very ambitous but I only plan to do this once and go hard as I can. We’ll see but 7 mins is 7 mins and we all gotta do the work. Best of luck!

13.4 thoughts will be posted in the morning.

A.
Three sets, not for time, of:
Toes to Bar x 10 reps
Double-Unders x 50 reps
Handstand Walk x 15-20 Meters

B.
Take 15-20 minutes to build to today’s heavy Snatch

C.
Run 2-3 Miles @ 80-90% effort
– OR –
Row 4-5k @ 80-90% effort

13.4 Announced Tonight!!

Jeff’s Prediction:
A couplet of:
OHS
C2B Pull Ups

A.
Five sets of:
Front Squat
* Set 1 – 3 reps @ 75-80%
* Set 2 – 2 reps @ 80-85%
* Set 3 – 1 rep @ 85-90%
* Set 4 – 1 rep @ 90-95%
* Set 5 – 1 rep @ 95+%
Rest as needed

B.
Two sets of:
Back Squat x Max Reps @ today’s heaviest FS weight
Rest 3 minutes

C.
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 8 minutes of:
8 Thrusters (115/75 lbs)
8 Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups
8 Burpees Over the Barbell
(lateral jump is fine)

D.
Optional – Take 15-20 minutes to work on gymnastics skills that you have struggled to master.

Ok – sorry about yesterday but you should know Sunday is for Lord and thus we rest!

Today:

A.
Three sets, not for time, of:
Kipping Handstand Push-Ups x 5-15 reps
(Adjust the reps based on your ability and add a deficit if you’re proficient with kipping HSPUs and this rep range is easy.)
Toes to Bar x 10 reps

B.
Take 15-20 minutes to build to today’s heavy Clean & Jerk

If your legs are still sore from 13.3, perform these as power cleans. Regardless, let feel dictate load.

C.
For time:
10 Ground to Overhead (205/145 lb)
30 Toes to Bar
10 Ground to Overhead (185/135 lb)
20 Toes to Bar
10 Ground to Overhead (155/105 lb)
10 Toes to Bar

Use one barbell. Athlete must remove the plates as they progress through the workout.

D.
Three sets of:
Weighted GHD Hip Extension x 6-8 reps @ 4022
Rest 2 minutes
Stationary Dips x max reps @ 1011
(terminate set once you break tempo)
Rest 2 minutes

Warm Up Thoroughly All Week Fellas!

Day 1
Burgener and “Randy”

Day 2
For Time:
Row or Run 5K
100 Push Ups
150 Sit Ups
200 Air Squats
(Break it up in whatever way you see is best. But decide before you start and stick to the plan!)

Day 3
5 RFT of:
9 x Hang Power Clean (75-135# depending clean technique)
6 x Strict Pull Ups (Full elbow extension at bottom – chin above bar. Use bands if necessary)
30 x Double Unders (or 100 Singles)

Day 4
3 RFT
Run 800m (or Row 1000m)
21 x Push Press (75#-95#)
15 x Deadlift with same bar as Push Press

Day 5
A. Front Squat 3-3-3-3-3 (Build up over the sets)

B. 15 min AMRAP of:
10 x Burpee Box Jump Overs (20 or 24 in)
10 x Pull Ups

Been a hectic but good weekend. Here is Day 1 and the rest of the week will follow later today.

A. Review Burgener Warm Up and skill transfer exercises.
– Watch Video
– Do it with PVC
– Do it with an empty bar
– Use hook grip
– Concentrate on why each part is done and how it translates to the snatch.

Video Link to Burgener Warm Up. Pay attention!:

B. “Randy”
For Time:
75 x 75# Power Snatch