Training 12-11-07

Today, New Workout Buddy and I had an appointment with one of the trainers at the gym. New Workout Buddy was entitled to a free workout as a part of his recently acquired gym membership, and I was invited to tag along.

The trainer was a nice enough guy, probably a year or two younger than me (!), and claimed that he was going to put us through a Crossfit workout. I was a bit skeptical going in. He had us do some circuits:

~20 yard famer's walk with dumbbells = 75% bodyweight
5 pushups to dumbbell rows
10 box jumps, 14 inch box
~ 20 yard farmer's walk with 75% bodyweight
25 rope jumps
15 ez-bar curls, 45 pounds

I completed 4 rounds of the circuit, then we rested for a couple of minutes before doing one last round.

I left the workout with mixed impressions. The farmer's walks, box jumps and rope jumps were solid ingredients -- functional, taxing and good for use in a metcon circuit such as this one. The pushups to dumbbell rows seemed a bit silly, but harmless. It doesn't seem like they're going to do much for your upper body strength, but they're an interesting way to add a twist to the conventional pushup and row movements and maybe work your stabilizing muscles in a new way. The ez bar curls, however, were completely out of place in a "Crossfit" workout. (Perhaps a post on why curls are largely useless is in order...)

So could I make a better circuit? Well, I obviously think I could. So here's my attempt at modifying this circuit to create a solid Crossfit-style metcon workout for beginners. It wouldn't really be very different from what he had us doing:

3 rounds, for time:
~20 yard farmer's walk with 75% bodyweight
5 pushups (from knees, if necessary)
10 box jumps, 14 inch box
~ 20 yards of lunges
25 rope jumps
5 jumping pullups

I'd make it 3 rounds for time to keep the intensity high and to set a benchmark. You could then repeat the workout after a couple of weeks of training to demonstrate progress with an improved time.

In any event, it was an interesting workout, and it wasn't taxing enough to create any problems with lifting tomorrow morning.