So, # 40mg more on the minute (OTM) work coming up, this time with pullups. I started doing this “workout” during high school wrestling days. My high school was on a college campus, and the wrestling room was in the field house. We didn’t have a “old school” weight room close, but we did a have an old school Nautilus weight room close by.
A guy on my team, Matt, was into bodybuilding and weightlifting, and as we would wander around the Nautilus machine, he gave us some guidance – don’t use the Nautilus, it’s crap. At the time, I knew about pullups and could do a lot of them – I only weighed 100 pounds. There was a dip apparatus on the end, and Matt showed me how to do dips. Immediately fell in love with the movement, and would do them all the time, as every young man wants to develop his chesticles and back arms (more commonly called triceps).
We would regularly do 5 pullups and 5 dips back to back, and we called it push/pull. Matt and I would do 10 sets, with 1 minute rest each after each set. We didn’t use the timer, we used the second hand on the clock that was on the wall. I’m not saying we created a CrossFit WOD or anything like that, but we knew tough bodyweight movements would translate to success on the mat, so we pushed it all the time, before and after practice.
I tore my pec minor doing ring dips in a comp in 2012, and it is my most significant injury in CrossFit. I blame this on poor mechanics and not addressing my own flexibility issues, but it took one of my best movements, dips, and made them a huge weakness. So I’m trying to address it using bar dips.
If you like, during the strength pull-up session, give my old push/pull workout a try. If you can’t do dips, drop down and do 5 pushups after your pullups. Use the “Matador” dip apparatus – don’t mess with ring dips until you have done the complete push/pull session at least 5 times. Push/pull can be done 2-3 times a week – try it with C2B or strict pullups – I generally do strict on this session.
Workout of the Day
Strength/Skill
Pullups
5 OTM for 10 minutes
Conditioning
Snatch/Box Jump Gauntlet
Snatch 75/45
Box Jump 24/20
With a continuously running clock, perform 1 Snatch and 1 Box Jump in the first minute, 2 Snatch and 2 Box Jump in the second minute, 3/3 in the third, etc until you cannot complete the required number of reps in a minute. Make it to 10 minutes and you are doing some serious work. Make it to 15 and you might spontaneously combust.