12-02-22: Air squats and wall ball shots

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Wall balls. Start in a full-depth squat (hip-crease below the top of the knee) and explode up to full extension, propelling the ball up to the target.

A better look at the starting position. Looks fun, right?

The air squat, as demonstrated by internet traffic generator Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet. These are super simple and easy, once you get the form right... but as with anything else, can start to suck massively at higher rep counts. Like, say, 50.

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• WoD: 2 x 6min with 3min recovery
  • 50 Squats
  • 20 Wallball 20#
• Sellout:
• 2x Max Rep Weighted Pull-up 25/10

"Leg catastrophe." I believe that's how Coach Vin referred to this workout. Boy, was he ever right. You can tell when you're getting experienced at the sport of exercise: You distrust that feeling of "hm, this isn't so bad" in your first set, because you just KNOW how bad its going to get down the line. Case in point, boy, that first round of squats and wallballs really wasn't all *that* bad. But transferring back into air squats, it felt like my quads were made out of concrete, and they weren't really all that excited about repeatedly squatting. I felt like I did pretty good in the first 6 minute round, slowing a bit towards the end, but trying to work straight through.

3 minutes of rest was... heavenly. And far too short, but it was awesome.

The second 6 minutes was... ugly. Seriously, just ugly. About 15 seconds in, the concrete in my legs turned into thick molten lava. Then my lungs caught on fire. Work slowed a bit after that, but I tried to keep from just sucking air, taking a few breaths and moving on. That was always the intention. I get the feeling (in hindsight) that I may not have been that awesome at it. Boo.


Total rounds/reps = 3 rounds + 34 squats

In other news, I signed up for the CrossFit Open tonight. Dammit.