Just Breathe

Hey Team,

Great work on that tough Monday - Tuesday wod combo... lots of work crammed in there! As we get into more situations where your breathing may be elevated, it is a good opportunity to both learn breath control AND to know when you simply need some more air :)

What I've learned and seen about the masks and working out is that you have to control your breathing. Short, sharp breaths don't do a lot for you at the best of times, but even more so when there's a layer of fabric between the air and your mouth! For the most part, we've gotten over the "panic" feeling of exercising with a mask, so now its time to focus in on controlling the depth and rate of breathing to maximize your performance.

If you can have measured, deeper breaths that are initiated through your belly, you can reduce fatigue in the upper body that can result from breathing high up "through the shoulders". If you notice your shoulders/upper chest moving significantly when you're breathing, chances are you could use some practice of "belly breathing". If you can master that, as I mentioned before, you will recover faster between efforts and have less fatigue through the shoulder girdle.

It's almost always possible to breath deeply during exercise, but surprisingly it does take a bit of practice. Next time you're training, try to breathe a bit deeper through the belly (note I didn't say "slower"!) and see if it affects tension in your upper body. Does it help focus you also? There is a connection between our breathing and our mind state, and controlling one can lead to improvements in the other.

So at the end of the day, maybe the masks aren't too bad (for right now) if they allow the opportunity to practice efficient breathing. Once the masks are off, it may prove to have been a "benefit" that we may not have experienced if we hadn't had to focus so much on our breathing patterns... gotta be a silver lining somewhere!

Cam

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TRAINING WEDNESDAY - THURSDAY

WARM UP

WOD 1

Every 2:30 for 12:30 do:

7 Thrusters, 115/75 lbs

9 Burpee Bar Hops

Thrusters should be CHALLENGING but unbroken... i.e. not light! Your work should be done within 45 sec to 1 min preferably, so if you are not getting it done, drop the burpee number to make it under the 1 min time frame. You can increase your thruster weight if it is too light after 2 rounds.

Likewise if your burpees are very strong, then increase your number to 11-15 if you can get under 1 min.

fg2: 65/95 FG1: 55/75 CP1: 95/135 CP2: 115/165

WOD 2

5 rounds, each round for time, of:

10 Toes-to-bars 12 Box Jumps

Rest 2 mins between each round.

This one is about speed and accuracy! Get the time for each interval to input for your score!

FG: Hanging knee raise or do some ttb plus hkr

CP1: 15 ttb

CP2: 20 ttb

ACCESSORY (IF TIME ALLOWS)

3 rounds for quality of:

12 Reverse Barbell Lunges

8 Plate Front Raises

light to moderate on the lunges, back rack. Do the plate raises with your back against a pillar