Thanks everyone who turned up for our massive Saturday Zoom Ladder WOD.  Angie’s Ladder is a big workout with a pull up ladder, push up ladder, sit up ladder and squat ladder making for a long day and some really achy muscles tomorrow morning!  Participants really challenged themselves using tougher progressions and still almost everyone worked for nearly 60 minutes!  Dr. T using an actual pull up mbar lasted 85 minutes!  But even he couldn’t match Dauntless on sit ups as she completed 23 minutes worth!  At 10am DK improved on that with 24 minutes of sit ups and Quicksilver claimed top spot with 25!  Considering I tapped out at 18 I was impressed with them all!

At 8am we had G-Money, Dauntless, Dr. T, Fierce, She-ra & Menace.  10am was packed with Rocky, Hawkeye, DK, AV, Quicksilver, Peril, Dangers, Shine, Doc Disc, DT, Gymkata, Electric, Ethan, Pepper, Iron Man, War Machine, Fury, Big Cat, Thorn, Sprite, Smokey & FeProf!

Today we asked an important question: considering the crummy weather and the fact that we’ve all been stuck inside for a bit, what is your favourite indoors game?  We got a really solid list for those of you wondering how to get through the afternoon:

Cards Back gammon Pictionary
Puzzles Uno Sorry
Settlers of Catan (x2) Crib Ticket to Ride
Monopoly Deal Anomia Clue
Bean Game Monopoly (x2) Cards Against Humanity
Presidents Trivial Pursuit Code Names
Heads Up Scrabble Spoons
Through the Ages Coup Dominion
Risk    

That’s a pretty solid list to get you through a bleak and dreary afternoon!

On the bright side, you have a fun workout to look forward to Sunday morning:

Warm up
3 rnds
10/ 10 hip swings
5 shoulder press
10 alt back Samson lunges
5 push press (dip, pause, stand then press)

Tech
Weighted step up or step over
Push press or front squat with low ceiling

Point of performance: sound hip function. Stand tall on weighted step up or step over.

Full hip extension on the push press or front squat.

WOD
5 rnds 2 mins on/ 2 mins off
20 step ups or overs
Max rep push press or front squat
50#/20 inch  35#/16 inch

Score = # of DB push presses completed in 5 rounds

Cool down
Calf raises (toes in, straight and out)
Hip swings
Crazy ninja fingers
Downward dog /walk dog
Child pose

What to use for this one?  I’d already used logs, firewood, branches, rocks, backpacks and propane tanks.  My lovely, creative wife came up with a solution.  Two shopping bags stuffed with sacks of rice and ground hot pepper powder.  Not quite 50lbs but if held without using the handles, a very tough test of grip endurance.

We walked off to Almond park happy to see some sunshine.  I used a park bench for step ups.  Probably closer to the women’s 16 inches than the men’s RX’d 20” height and so much easier on the legs than the usual 24” box step up!  But holding those bags sucked, my hands cramping and my cell phone going into sleep mode every 30 seconds.  Made for a poor 1st round (25 reps).  During the rest I adjusted the power save settings and that made it better.  40 reps in round two the limiting factor my hands which were exhausted by the time I got to the push presses.  My shoulders didn’t begin to burn until late in round 3.  The grip was still the limiting factor through the latter rounds in which I scored 50, 50 and 60 reps for a total of 225.

Afterwards I got muddy practicing gymnastics skills on the springy ground.  Handstand walks, cartwheels, kip ups, inverted burpees, dive rolls and I even found a convenient pull up branch and failed a couple branch muscle up attempts.  Maybe next time.

There’s something mentally satisfying about completing a workout outdoors!