Friday, December 16th 2016
GIVE YOURSELF THE GIFT OF A JUMP ROPE!
Time Cap: 34 Minutes
Coach’s Tip: We’ve been posting all week about keeping good form and being true to movement standards. Today we will focus on the “Push Press” and really dial in to the “dip” and the “drive” of the lift. As you get fatigued, we often see people start to “jerk” the bar (meaning, ‘re-bend’ of the knees to drop below the bar on the catch). This is not considered a Push Press. We will be watching for that today, so make sure you keep to a ‘press’, not a ‘jerk’! Because you are holding a plank while your partner rows, you will be switching often. Even though the row is long, row at a good pace. If your partner drops from the plank to rest for a moment, that’s ok. But you need to stop rowing until they are back up!
Maybe the Storm Troopers will make an appearance?!
Thursday, December 15th 2016
NO REP!
We hope everyone had a chance to read Tuesday’s blog about the Cove being a ‘culture of improvement, not comparison’. If you didn’t, please scroll down and read it! In the spirit of improvement and tracking real progress, ensuring quality of movement becomes even more important. Banging out 50 air squats at half depth in a workout will likely be fast and get you top of the WhiteBoard, but won’t be a good measure of comparison when you need to do them to full depth (let’s say in the Open!). We’d rather you take your time or cut volume and work on FORM FIRST so you are building data with an apples to apples comparison. We, of course, love to scale volume, weight and movements for each individual athlete, so this won’t change AT ALL. Our job is to help you get to that movement standard EVENTUALLY, and that journey is different for everyone.
But speaking of the Open, it’s right around the corner! February will be here before you know it, so we’re going to start preparing for it more overtly. That means coaches will be on you to dial into that form, hit movement standards (and ensure you know what those standards are!). We’re not trying to be hard asses, we are just trying to get you prepared! We’re sorry. And you’re welcome.
Coach’s Tip: For the strength work today use a moderate load on the deadlifts. Something you can do 10 RDLs with unbroken with a good position. The focus is not on weight, but on position. For the WOD the cleans should take 1 minute or less, then sit ups 1 minute or less. Athletes should have over 1 minute for Slam Balls in the 1st round. But know it will go down from there!
Aaron T. pumping out some early morning Snatches!
Wednesday, December 14th 2016
WEDNESDAY WINS!
Today we shine a light inward and celebrate one of our great Coaches… Josh H! Josh has been doing some amazing things, both as an athlete and as a Coach and we wanted to do some bragging on his behalf and take a moment to recognize “The Hip”!
Coach’s Tip: For any of you who did Saturday’s workout, you know what high repetition squatting feels like. BUT, today’s starts out with a much lighter weight and gets progressively heavier with each barbell movement. We will spend plenty of time warming you up and getting those hips and quads ready, but don’t let the burpees fool you. This will quickly become a burpee WOD, with three different flavors of them totaling 105. PLEASE SCALE VOLUME AND WEIGHT ACCORDINGLY! For the first set of burpees, your shoulders will be tired from the OHS (even though the weight is light). The second set is “bar facing” so they not only take more time, they take more effort to step to the bar and jump with two feet. And burpees over the bar can be done laterally, so time is saved with a quick, low jump… but by the end of this workout they will feel very difficult. Let us say this again… PLEASE SCALE VOLUME AND WEIGHT ACCORDINGLY!
Besties Melissa G. and Angie B. take part in some of Coach Josh’s shenanigans!
Tuesday, December 13th 2016
COVE CULTURE OF IMPROVEMENT
Competition can be wonderful thing. It pushes us that extra bit when we might not have done it ourselves. It pokes at those nerves that make us feel excited for what’s coming — and stirs a feeling most of us haven’t felt in a very long time. But competition can become toxic if you let it. If you’ve ever looked at the person next to you while doing air squats and said “well, their depth on the squat isn’t past parallel and mine is”. That’s fine. BUT if you look at someone next to you and think “well, their depth isn’t past parallel and mine is. I can’t believe they are going to have a higher RX score than me because they didn’t even technically do RX because those should be ‘no reps'”… well, that is NOT fine. We’ve probably all been guilty of thinking this way at some point. As coaches, of course we want everyone to go to full depth on those squats (and do every other movement up to the highest of standards!) but if you worry about how that positions you on the Whiteboard, we ask you shift your thinking.
Coach’s Tip: For the strength portion, try to find a number that you can stick to for each round. We don’t want you starting at 8 and ending at three. And don’t feel beholden to 6 or 8– we’d rather have 4 or 5 great reps each round than 8 with your chin below the bar. For the Metcon, you should have the capacity to do 5, but you can do small sets as long as you can move the bar quickly. It should take no more than 2 minutes to do each set of 15.
Suzie W. dominating the Push Press!
