Thursday's Fun

As previously discussed, decease Thursdays WOD will be slightly different than usual.  Instead of setting an “RX” or prescribed weight, healing you will use 50% of your Deadlift 1RM for the Jerks.

After doing Tuesday’s WOD, pills where we used this weight for the same number of Cleans, you can expect to put big weight overhead, this time with a bunch of Pullups thrown in for good measure.  From my experience, the Clean WOD was challenging, and in all honesty, humbling.

First, think about the weight you intend to use for the Jerks.  Since there is no prescribed weight, just a measure of your 1RM, don’t feel pressure to go to heavy just to earn that RX.  If you have a great Deadlift but are concerned with the Jerks, use 40%.  Ot take it lower.

Next, once you have set a weight, I would recommend being able to do at least 5 Jerks with it.  If this degrades to Clean AND Jerk to get each rep, I believe we are losing the intent.  Ideally, the weight should be heavy enough that you cannot complete the first set unbroken, but 3 sets of 5 for the round of 15, 3 sets of 4 on the second, and 3 sets of 3 on the third seems like a good plan.  There will be a generous cap.  This will give you plenty of time to stare at your bar.

Think about wearing a belt for the Jerks.  The weight crashing down may be invigorating.  And by invigorating I mean really freaking heavy and murder on your poor little core.

I believe 108 Pullups may be a factor.  Stabilizing the weight will require you to really use your back, and those Pullups may have a huge impact.  If you are doing big weight, now is probably not the time to try to PR your Unbroken Pullups.  Use whatever seems smart to you – a big set to open then a few small sets to finish seems smart.  For example, open the set of 45 with 15, then 8, then 7, then 5, 5 and 5.  Do this even if you know you can handle more.

Scale the Pullups as needed.  If you can do Pullups, but 45 seems like a lot, cut it by 1/3, doing 30, 24 and 18.  If that seems aggressive, go down again to 1 Pullup for each Jerk, 15-12-9.

Of course, if needed, substitute body or ring rows.

Finally, for me, these workouts beg the question, “Do we need to be able to throw around 50% of our Deadlift 1RM?”  I certainly have not asked the question before.  As long as we are thoughtful about the challenge and scale appropriately with safety in mind, it can be a fun and interesting way to test our fitness.

Workout of the Day

15 Jerks

45 Pullups

12 Jerks

36 Pullups

9 Jerks

27 Pullups

Barbell weight is 50% of your Deadlift 1RM or the weight you used on Tuesday.

25 minute cap