On a recent trip to Seattle, I had the opportunity to visit Level 4 Crossfit in Seattle. It is located close to Ballard, just out of Seattle and very close to the water in a huge, and I mean really huge warehouse. I think it was used in the past to repair boats. You can see from the pictures how big it was, sorry no video this time. Tons of equipment, so many pull up bars, very nice!
Anyway, I was at the 5 pm class with 12 other dedicated Crossfitters. Warm up was simple mobility and stretching with the bands which I had never done, and so good to do. The WOD was simple in its design and one that I had never done, time spent on the rower. The trainer did not tell us exactly what the WOD would be ,only that we would be doing a ton of rowing, cool!
The trainer had us arrange the rowing machines so that we made a circle and partner up with someone. After a brief lesson on proper rowing technique, which I was corrected on, we took turns rowing at a specific pace. For example, the first set we had to row at 20 strokes per min for 10 pulls, then we increased to 25, then to 30, then to 35, and that was our warm up.
The WOD was going to be row for 1 minute and then while your parter rows, you rest for 1 minute. The idea here was to go all out for 1 minute while you try and catch your breath during the off minute while trying to maintain the same distance or strokes per min you did on the previous round. So, a 20 min WOD with 10 min of actual work and 10 minutes of OMG I can't breath
What did I think? I guess if you like the feeling of almost puking after each round and then trying to get yourself back together in a min...fun..then you can say I had fun. By far a much more challenging WOD that I expected, in fact I think I learned more about rowing in this 20 minutes then I had ever before!
If you have never done this type of WOD, I suggest it for sure. Why? First off, I am not the best rower and this helped me to improve on my speed and efficiency and in it's simplest form was a great workout!
Thanks to all the crossfitters at Level 4 in Seattle! What a great Crossfit location it is!
Until we WOD again!
Steve
