Friday's Workout

Strength Skill:

• Handstand Push-Ups (5-5-5-5-5)

My new favorite way to do handstand push-ups: Kip with one leg. Kipping keeps me from fatiguing too quickly, but I've found that when I kip with both legs, I tend to lose my balance and fall away from the wall. Keeping one leg up against the wall and kipping with the other leg is the perfect compromise: I can generate some additional pop with a strong kick while still maintaining a good amount of stability. Also, I've found that placing my hands a few inches outside of shoulder-width makes it a lot easier to push off without exhausting myself.

Between sets of HSPUs, we played around with rope climbs. A number of us were able to pull ourselves up to the top of the rig using just our hands, though it was murder on our skin.

Metcon:

6 minute AMRAP of:

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...! burpees
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...! pull-ups

Rest one minute, and then:

6 minute AMRAP of:

• 200-meter row
• 20 dumbbell push presses (10 with each arm, 45lbs / 35lbs)

I sped through the first six-minute AMRAP as fast as I could. My goal was to go at a quick, steady clip and avoid pausing, and finished with 10 complete rounds for a total of 55 burpees and 55 pull-ups.

But then came the rowing and push-presses.

The rowing wasn't bad, but the 45-pound dumbbell was too heavy for me, and slowed me down immensely. I finished only two rounds of the push presses, for a total of 40 reps.

Result: 150 total reps as RXed.