Strict Press
1-1-1-1-1
when fail on press, max push press
compare to 11/2
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Open 12.1
AMRAP 7
Burpees
benchmark to kick off December focus: burpees! Yay!
Scale: 75
This month we are going to focus on the “king of all gymnastics moves”, the much-beloved burpee.
Now, before you send me an email saying that you “will be doing a lot of traveling” and need to take December off, imagine how much better CrossFit would be for you if you were better at burpees. What if you could get more efficient at them and blow through them faster with less fatigue? What if you could actually learn to like burpees?
OK, I’m not a miracle worker, but I can tell you from experience that the burpee is something you can get better at and at least make friends with. Back in 2012, we did the 100 Day Burpee Challenge and everyone who completed that got much better at them and for many of us the idea of high-volume burpees is no longer frightening.
Let’s look at some of the benefits of this exercise that everyone loves to hate:
- Endurance and stamina – few bodyweight movements can elicit the same metabolic response, whether you are doing a short number quickly (stamina) or a longer pace like today’s wod (endurance). Why? Because you are working your whole body. Which major muscle group is not in action during a burpee?
- Hip Flexion/Extension – the basics of all fundamental athletic movements. The Burpee is basically hip flexion followed by strong, fast hip extension. We can transfer that skill directly to the Olympic lifts.
- They’re portable – you can take it anywhere. So for those of you who actually are traveling for the holidays, you can always do burpees.
- Anyone can do them – you won’t always do perfect burpees (we’ll work on that this month), but if you can fall down on the floor and get back up, you can do this conditioning exercise. In fact, that sounds like something you might actually need to do in an emergency situation when you are running from bears.
So really, the burpee might save your life. You’re welcome, December.
Today’s workout is a repeat of the CF Games Open workout from 2012. Here is a breakdown of how to approach it.