Art Museum WOD Posted!

In preparation for tomorrow’s friendly competition at the steps of the Philadelphia Art Museum, we took today off.  I spent most of the morning assembling our beautiful new squat stands courtesy of Christian’s Fitness Factory out in Lancaster, PA.  Any one looking to purchase some equipment for a gym needs to go here.  Prices cannot be beat!  Once I got some gear all fixed up, it was off to the “gym”  where I hit some squats and then The Interval WOD from Hell (yesterday’s WOD).  Sheesh.  Good workout.  It was heavy and three minutes sure seemed longer than three minutes!…

I need to bring a broom or something the next time we workout.  So much dirt and dust everywhere.  Rest assured, when the real gym opens it will be spick and span!…

There’s not that many steps…

Anywho, the moment you’ve all been waiting for:  The Art Museum WOD can be found here!

Bring lots of water for both before, during, and after the workout!  Plan on there being at least three heats.  Eight Movement Program athletes and another three to four athletes from Steve’s Club are expected to show!   We start the first WOD at 9:00 am.  Make sure you are there by 8:30 am to warmup and turn in your Death Waivers!

Stay hydrated today and keep cool!  See you all tomorrow!

Terpak

Intervals from Hell!

Competing on Saturday?  Download the “Death Waiver” form and sign and bring it to the Art Museum on Saturday!  (One of your parents/guardians must sign it if you are under 18.)  Encourage your parents to come should they wish to see what all this Movement Program jazz is all about!

Hot out?  At least it was a dry heat.  The loving embrace of the I-95 overpass sheltered us from the brunt of the sun’s rays on this oh so auspicious of Thursdays.  We experimented today with an interval format for the WOD today.  I wanted to go heavy and difficult in proportion to the movements and therefore played with the arrangement of time and task on this one.  We did 3 x 3 min AMRAP of front squats, push jerks, and racked lunges.  A minute rest of recovery between each of the three sets.  “It was HEAVY, Terpak.  My shoulders are tired, my wrists feel tight, my fingers hurt.”  Wah, wah, wah!  Deal with it!  It wasn’t meant to feel comfortable.  The heavy weight was meant to challenge you, but the minute rest period was just enough for you to gather your thoughts and re-gird your loins for the next bout of elite exercising.  Shout out to Knick for scaling up to 135# on this one.  Hope it was heavy enough for you!

For our skill portion, we hit the tall clean.  I have been noticing that many of you are slow and apprehensive in dropping underneath the bar in our cleans.  The tall clean is meant to fix this.  In the tall clean you are simply dropping and pulling yourself underneath the bar.  You are NOT pulling the bar UP in any way, shape, or form!  Saw some big improvements.  Now let’s put it together during WODs!  Check out some of the action below!

Terpak

Skill/Strength

Tall Clean

3 sets of 5 at a moderate heavy weight.

WOD

3 x 3 min AMRAP.  1 min rest after each round.

2 Front Squat (115/75)

3 Push Jerks (115/75)

4 Racked Lunges (115/75)

Art Museum WOD Movements Announced!

She will haunt your dreams…

We dealt with “Annie” today, a classic workout in the realm of “functional fitness”.  (Shhh…I can’t say “CrossFit” because of this situation… )  Took a break from the barbell and went straight gymnastics work, son!  This WOD is a quick one in total time usually, yet as some of us found out today, it can be a grinder, too….those darn situps.  Double unders can be a hot mess, too.  Don’t let consecutive misses screw with you mentally!  When you just cannot seem to string some together, stop, RELAX, deep breath, and back at it with some fast flicks of the wrists and consistent power jumps.  Shout out of the day, goes to Lauren L. for stringing together 10 consecutive double unders for the first time!  Yeah, gurrrllllll!

For the participants in Saturday’s Art Museum WOD, here is the list of possible movements one may encounter:

Pushups (or any variation thereof, clapping, slapping chest pushups, etc)

Burpees

Pistols

V-Ups

Press (or any variation thereof, push press, push jerk, etc)

Box Jumps

KB Swings

Olympic Lifts

Thrusters

Running

Squats (or any variation thereof, air squats, front squats, overhead squats, etc)

Weighted carries (or any variation thereof, pinch grip carries, farmer’s carries, etc.)

Full description of the WOD will be released by Friday by 3:00 pm!

See you all very soon!

Terpak

Skill

Double Under practice for 15 minutes

WOD

“Annie”

50-40-30-20-10

Double Unders

Situps

What’s a cluster?

If I had a dime for every time someone asked, “what’s a thruster?” I’d be moderately wealthy.  Couldn’t say the same for the cluster.   Read on to discover more of this horrible, horrible movement.

After some Oly work, we hit a variation of a WOD I did back in the winter.  Clusters and ring rows were the movements de jour.  Disgusting.  Just when you thought thrusters couldn’t get any worse, I dropped this bomb on you!

No, not those kind of clusters!  The cluster is the combination of a squat clean and thruster.  At first glance, the cluster might have seemed to be the horrible part of the WOD, but ring rows are ugly beasts that wait until the dead of night to steal your manhood.

Did you sign up for Saturday’s WOD at the Art Museum?  You need to if you have not already done so!  So far I’ve got G-Unit, J$$$, Ugly, and Joey B ready to roll.  What’s your excuse?

Terpak

Strength

Snatch

1 set of 3 at 70% of 1 RM / 1 set of 2 at 80% of 1 RM / 1 set of 3 at 75% of 1RM

Clean Pulls

1 set of 5 at 100% of 1 RM / 1 set of 5 @105% of 1RM

WOD

21-15-9

Clusters (95/75)

Ring Rows

 

Art Museum Throw Down

Movement!  I need a head count for this Saturday’s WOD which is to be held at 9:00 am on the steps of the Art Museum.

If you are interested in showing up for this WOD, you need to let me know by posting to comments by 7:00 pm, this Thursday!  The WOD will consist of gymnastics and barbell movements.  Get ready!  We will also be joined by some young studs/studettes from Steve’s Club out in Pennsauken, NJ.

Here’s what went down the last time The Movement Program visited the Art Museum.

Hope to see you all there!

As for today’s workout, the PM crew (No AM Crew.  Sup wit dat?) hit three rounds of Max Effort Handstand Holds.  I saw some real fight out of everyone to get a couple more seconds upside down!  Great work!  Keep that sternum locked to the belly-button and look straight across the room once you are in your handstand.  This helps prevent sloppy positioning i.e. overextension!

We then hit 5 rounds for time of HSPU, Supermans, Box Jumps, and Wall Balls and called it a day.

Welcome back J$$$$!

Terpak

Skill

3 Rounds ME Handstand Holds

WOD

5 Rounds for Time

5 HSPU

20 Supermans

10 Box Jumps (24/20)

15 Wall Balls (20/16)

The next chapter begins…

To the members of The Movement Program and all of you devoted followers, today marked the next chapter in the ongoing saga that is The Movement Program.  If you would have asked me in January that in June we’d still be going strong AND growing, I would have told you to pack your bags for the nut house.  We are mobile, people.

Time to do work.

The calm before the storm…

Flash forward to today and you’ll find Movement Maniacs hurling themselves around on gymnastics rings and lifting heavy weight underneath a highway.  It was quite a class.  Not simply because of the fantastically fantastic programming, but the fact that this program has organically morphed into something truly special.  Stay tuned, world, there’s a whole lot more planned…

As for the training session for the day, we practiced the snatch today using a weight that was about 70-75% of our 1 rep max and performing a squat snatch every minute, on the minute for ten minutes.  This is a really technical lift so don’t be afraid to make mistakes.  Lots of things to remember so I’ll share some corrections to the major flaws I saw today.  One, the arms are straps!  Pull too early and you will actually decelerate the bar.  Use your hips to make that bar weightless.  The only pulling with the arms occurs when you are pulling yourself UNDER the bar!   Two, weight shifts from the balls of the feet at the start (bar on the ground) to the heels once the bar has reached the hang position (position 2).  Three, pull that bar close to you from the hang position back into “pockets” (position 1).  (Failure to do this causes the bar to stay out in front of you, creating lots of distance for the bar to travel in and up!)  Check out your videos below and see if you’ve got the minerals!

The WOD was an 8 minute sprint couplet of deadlifts and (a first for The Movement Program) toes to RINGS.  Were your feet passing through the rings?  Accuracy is key or else NO REP FOR YOU!  Shout out to Joe Brinkman who despite a twinged back came to class and modified the WOD to 20 pushups and 12 toes to rings!  Way to show some grit, Joey B!

After class, Nick and Jeremy stuck around and we broke down the muscle up, focusing on pulling the rings to the hips, partner toe holds with fast situp, and finally ring dip drops.  Apparently it worked pretty well as Jeremy got his first ever muscle up!!!!!  (As the video showed, I think I was more excited for Jeremy than he was for himself!!!)

Enjoy the weekend and I’ll see you all on Monday!  Evening classes begin on Monday!  6:30 pm!  PS.  Sorry but I forgot the routine Friday group pic!  All these changes gotz me out of my routine!

Terpak

Strength

1 Snatch every minute on the minute for 10 minutes.

WOD

8 Min AMRAP

8 Deadlifts (225/155)

12 Toes to Rings

Want free Olympic Lifting shoes?!

Want Olympic Lifting shoes for free?!  Let me know because I might be able to get them for you!

All Men’s Sizes, color black:

Sizes available:

5.5

6

6.5

7.5

8

9

10

13.5

First come, first serve!

Terpak

It’s coming…

Summer is here.  How do you know?  Well, clearly by studying the sky at night and monitoring the rise and fall of the sun, one can tell.  There must be a better way, a simpler way…  Hmmm…  Just stick your head out the window.  People, it’s d*mn hot out there.  Be mindful of your daily hydration levels.  Drink, at the very minimum, eight glasses of water a day.  I would recommend double that for those of you engaging in strenuous physical activity (insert Movement Program shenanigans).  Stay away from the soda and other sugary drinks.  Also, with the increased water intake, add a little salt and lemon juice to a couple of glasses to maintain your electrolyte levels.

Alas, today was the last day in the old cafeteria for The Movement Program.  Friday begins our sojourn out East to the I-95 Overpass.  We will be crushing it daily on Front St just south of Washington Ave. (9:00 am M-F, 6:30 pm M-Th).  Swing on by and see the action.

As for today, we hit some moderate volume reps on the old high bar back squat.  Initiate the squat by bending the knees first and then dropping the hips straight to the ground (*ss to grass).  Keep that torso as vertical as possible.  As you begin the movement the rate of your squat should be somewhat slow and controlled.  Once you reach parallel, it is a controlled drop.  By dropping with control, we cultivate our stretch reflex which transers the stored kinetic energy in the hamstrings to snap us up and out of the hole in our Olympic Lifting!

Here’s Knick beasting that High Bar:

After the day’s strength portion, we went and danced for two rounds with some burpees, sumo deadlift high pulls, pushups, squat cleans, and heck, even a bit of running!  Good work, crew!  Remember…just keep moving!

See you all on Friday!  (Don’t forget to email me to let me know you are coming for the 9 am class!)

Terpak

Strength

High Bar Back Squat 5-5-5

Increase weight each set.

WOD

2 Rounds for Time

40 Burpees

30 SDLHP (95/75)

20 Pushups

10 Squat Cleans (95/75)

-Then-

400 meter sprint

9 AM

Yo people, class will be at GAMP tomorrow at 9:00 am!  Get there a little early to roll out/mobilize.  We will start promptly at 9 am!

Terpak

15 minutes…12 minutes…10 minutes?

The latest video on Movement Program stud, Nick “Knick” Kinosian.  Watch out for this kid, ya’all.  He’s already d*mn strong.  Just needs some work on the technical stuff…

Sadness.  Pure sadness, people.  Babies wept and kittens sobbed uncontrollably throughout the land.  Why?  Unbeknownst to me, the school building was being shut down at 3:30 today.  As a result the glorious training session in store was never to be!  We cut out the skill work (Split Jerk 2-2-2-2-2 70-75% of 1RM) and went straight to the WOD after the warmup.  Originally set for a 15 min AMRAP of push presses, box jumps, and double unders, set up time and briefing took a while and in mid-WOD I decided to cut it shorter, first to 12 mins, then to 10!  Oh, the humanity!  Tack on another five minutes of work and it would have been quite nasty.  Good work done nonethless, youz guyz (and gal)!

Stay tuned here to see if we will have morning class at school at 9 am on Wednesday.  No class tomorrow.  Rest up, ice up.  See you (hopefully) on Wednesday!

Terpak

WOD

10 Min AMRAP

9 Push Press (95/75)

11 Box Jumps (24/20)

20 Double Unders