Pipe Flips and Battling Ropes

Workout of the Day

WOD 1 – in the morning…

3 x 10 shinbox switch 3 point isometric handstand holds on parallettes

WOD 2 – in the afternoon…

3 dead stop floor press every minute on the minute @ 245# until failure to complete. 10 minute cap. 10 minute AMRAP: 1 pipe flip (330#) :30 battling ropes (alternating techniques)

WOD 3 – in the evening…

3 rounds for time: 100 yard individual medley (fly, back, breast, free) 100 walking lunges

If Tuesday was light on volume, today made up for it. I began the day with a new exercise pulled from Evolution Kettlebell Groundwork, a great program recommended to me by my man Zvi in Israel. My hip flexibility is way lopsided so this wasn’t easy for me to handle, but I could definitely see improvement by the end of the sets. For a sample of this move without hip extension, watch this..

I crushed the floor presses in the afternoon, making all 10 rounds without much trouble, and really enjoyed the assistance workout that followed. Pipe flips, the indoor cousins of log flips, are a cold blooded killer of an exercise, and SO MUCH FUN. I’ve had this apparatus in my gym for the past few months, thanks to the guys at Steelfit, but haven’t got it on tape until now. You can find some footage at the bottom of this post.

I wrapped up the day hitting the pool for the second week in a row, this time doing a more classically “CrossFit” workout than before. 3 rounds for time of a 100 yard individual medley and 100 walking lunges. The air was a little brisk, so hopping out of the pool to do those lunges each set wasn’t exactly inviting. But it provided the break from the brutality of the IM that I needed to keep working. 100 yards in the pool doing that combination of strokes takes your air in a hurry. And your arms as well. So pairing it with a relatively slower and lower body exercise like lunges is a good call. My pace during the WOD was pretty consistent, and I finished the whole thing in 12:44. Heading snowshoeing on Saturday so probably won’t get to deadlift or condition as planned, and I’m totally fine with it. Really looking forward to this trip.