Posts Tagged ‘Crossfit’

How to do Wall Balls

Friday, July 9th, 2010
Wall Balls
Wall Balls

Wall Balls is a silly name for an exercise, I know, but that’s what you get when you borrow exercises from Crossfit. In fact, Wall Balls are a great conditioning exercise that builds full body stamina and endurance. It will also make you sweat.

This is an exercise that integrates perfectly into a high intensity interval training (HIRT) circuit, and can also be used to build high intensity interval training (HIIT) sessions, but do not translate that well into Tabata training.

Wall Balls also can be used separately as a full body conditioning exercise by attempting to complete X reps as fast as possible, or by attempting to complete as many reps as possible in a set time limit. Either way, it burns!

Medicine Ball Training

Medicine ball training has been around for a long time, and in fact they were used frequently at gyms back in the 18th and 19th centuries. Ancient (3000+ years ago) wrestlers and other athletes used to train with various sand-filled implements, which evolved over time into the medicine ball.

The standard medicine ball is a weighted rubber ball measuring roughly 14 inches in diameter, although sizes vary greatly nowadays as you can get a medicine ball from the size of your fist to the size of your body.

Used in a wide variety of fitness programs, medicine balls can be benched, rowed, curled, pressed, squatted, tossed, caught, bounced, squished, and generally manhandled all for the sake of fitness.

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How to do Kipping Pull Ups

Tuesday, May 25th, 2010

Pull-ups are awesome for developing a strong, hard back. Chin-ups are great too, especially for increasing biceps involvement. Unfortunately, pull-ups are hard. Many new trainees can barely do 1, if any, pull-ups or chin-ups.

Sexy Back Muscles
A strong, hard back.

Sometimes we need a way to do pull-ups when fatigued, or maybe you are looking for a way to include pull-ups in your conditioning routine. There is a way my friends, and it is called the kipping pull-up.

How to Perform Kipping Pull Ups

A “kip” is basically using the drive from hip flexion followed by an explosive hip extension to increase momentum during a pull-up. This is useful for getting your chin up over the damned bar when performing a HIRT or Tabata session that calls for 100s of pull-up in a short period of time. Kipping pull-ups are used extensively in Crossfit workouts, and you can use kipping chin-ups in your workout too.

The types of pull-ups and chin-ups that most of us typically do in a standard weight training routine (unless you train Crossfit), are from a deadhang. Kipping pull-ups and kipping chin-ups are actually completely different exercises, and should not replace the deadhang in a standard weightlifting routine.

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Project Swole Joins Crossfit

Tuesday, March 30th, 2010
Crossfit NH
Crossfit NH

Yes it is true, I have joined my local Crossfit. They call themselves The Savage Society, and they are based out of Manchester, NH.

Why Join Crossfit?

Crossfit is a place we can go to use revolutionary exercise ideals to create an elite level of fitness. This is not so much about strength and size, as it is fitness, which is a goal that I think has been lost to the majority of gym goers nowadays.

Rather than paying $10 a month for access to treadmills, ellipticals, and some free weights, with virtually no help or planning unless you pay $100s for a trainer, Crossfit has a formula to help you attain your personal fitness goals with workouts of the day and special routines to help you. It takes some of the thinking out of designing the perfect routine.

This will definitely be a new, positive experience, and I will probably end up getting Crossfit certified myself some day.

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A Killer HIRT Circuit by CrossFit’s Willie Albert

Friday, February 12th, 2010

At a body weight of 180 lbs, Willie Albert of Iron Will Strength and Fitness in Ottawa Ontario Canada performs 10 total rounds of barbell back squat with 445 lbs, standing military press with 135 lbs, and barbell deadlift with 425 lbs. He was attempting to complete this circuit for time and finished in 4:35.

For all you math geniuses, that would be a total of 10500 lbs of work in less than 5 minutes. He’s not lifting elite powerlifting numbers, but to complete 10 rounds of this in 4 and a half minutes is impressive to me. I bet if he were going for a 1 rm, he’d be squatting and pulling in the 600s, and would be shoulder pressing 200+.

Keep reading to view his video…

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