The box was located in the art district in Denver just west of the city. It was about a 10 min walk to the box but Matt was nice enough to pick me up. As you can see by the pictures or maybe you can't, the box was in the shape of a rectangle and was a fairly good size. They have plently of equipment, 4 or 5 ropes, 3 GHD machines, 4 squat racks and much more.
Matt showed me the warm up and WOD and all I could think was.....Crossfit Bend winter games again? How many times am I going to have to do one arm KB snatches? Damn! see below. As an added bonus I took some video of Matt and I and the start of the WOD so you can see how brutal this one was.
WOD
30 One arm KB snatches - 55lb
800 meter run
30 One arm KB snatches - 55lb
They are also doing some great warm up exercies, Bergener warm up and Skill transfer and what they called Dynamic Range of Motion exercises (DROM), there are a few pictures attached but I put them here as well.
DROM
1 - arm circles
2 - hip circles
3 - knee circles
4 - ankle circles
5 - wrist circles
6 - neck circles
7 - samson stretch 3/3
8 - leg swings - 10/10
9- pass throughs
10 - doorway overhead squats 20
Then we went into the warm up
Run 400 meters
10/10 Toy soldiers
10/10 toe touches
30 second squat hold
5/5 spidermans
15 HRPU
10 kipping pulls ups / or bar taps ( kipping pull up progression)
5 wall climbs
10 GHD sit ups
Bergener warm up
1 - stance and hook grip
2 - down and up
3 - high and inside - scarecrow
4 - turnover
5 - muscle snatch 2", 4", 6"
6 - hang squat snatch
Skill transfer
1 - Slow snatch balance
2 - heaving snatch balance
3 - snatch balance
So, after we finished this warm up and believe me I felt warmed up and sweating, we did skill work which was
5 x 3 back squat 90% of 1 RM
rest 90 between sets
According to Matt, I learned the difference between a high back squat and low hang back squat and why the low hang is better. According to Jason the owner and Matt, doing a low hang back squat where the bar sits just on the top of shoulder blade and you push the bar with your hands into your back. You also need to lean just forward slightly. This type of squat works the glutes, hamstrings, and most of your posterier chain in the back.
As you can see from a couple of pictures ,Matt is doing 225 and since starting this type of back squat has increased his strenghth with his snatch, OH squats, thrusters. They do a lot of squating each week.
And now for the WOD....321 Go and we were off and as you can see from the video, I started out good but these quickly took their toll on me. I think I did 10-15 unbroken but then had to drop it. I noticed that I am much stronger and have better control with my right arm but struggled with my left ( this is very noticable from the video). You can also see that Matt is crushing it, he did all 30 unbroken and he was soon off on the run. Once I started the run, I felt the elevation hit me hard but I pushed through and finished off 30 more. Matt finished in just about 6 minutes and I finished in just under 8 minutes, humbled again!
After the WOD and some coconut water, Matt and the owner Jason helped me with my form on the snatch and lets just say that their constructive yet very honest comments made a huge difference and I wanted thank them both!
Matt and Jason said that I could WOD again on Wednesday so that is what I decided to do. 6 am and Matt would be the coach.
The 10 minute jog to the box was nice, and got there just at 6. The warm up was the same but the WOD changed......I did 65 lbs simply becuase I needed to work on form and get this right. Sometimes its more important to put your ego aside and do the lighter weight to become more efficient at the movement and this was one of those times.
AMRAP -12 min
50 DU
7 hang power snatchs 65/95
7 snatch balance 65/95
Before this WOD we did 10 minutes or more of snatch warm up to get ready for the WOD which would prove to be very helpful. So 321 Go and we were off, I forgot to mention it was only me and 2 others at the 6 am class. My DU's were ok, a couple of breaks but not too bad but once again like the run seem to gas me in a hurry, the snatches went good as well, but Matt was on me about activating my shoulders which is another weak spot in my snatch but glad he pointed it out. I finished 4 rounds plus the DU's and 12 reps, just shy of 5 rounds and for me I consider this a success.
Thanks again to Jason ,the owner of Crossfit Elevation and to my friend Matt Benti. I was so happy to see that he is doing what he loves and doing it well and enjoying Denver with his lovely girlfriend Erika. It was so nice to see you both!
Untill we WOD again..........
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