No kettlebell lifting for me today. I feel I need to rest my back and knee for a little while longer. Surprisingly, I feel no irritation in my knee or back while squatting or performing Olympic lifts @ lighter loads. I discovered this during a thorough warm-up with a dowel rod where I performed numerous reps of movements like back, front, and overhead squats, hang squat-cleans and snatches. And so I decided to hit a variation of a CrossFit WOD I remebered seeing on the CF website.
The Workout
Perform for time.
Note: all weight lifting movements were performed with a 45# barbell.
-25x Back Squats
-25x Front Squats
-25x Overhead Squats
-0.15 mile on Life Fitness Elliptical Trainer @ Level 12
-35x Full Squat Hang Cleans
-0.15 mile on Life Fitness Elliptical Trainer @ Level 12
-35x Snatch
-0.15 mile on Life Fitness Elliptical Trainer @ Level 12
*My completion time was 15:03.
I used the Elliptical as a substitute for running (lower impact movement) and I chose to go a little lighter with the bar than I would have usually in order to protect my knee. The weight did prove to be too light as I was able to perform each set with the bar unbroken. This is an indication that the load is insufficient, ideally you want to work with a resistance that forces you to take breaks, recover and resume work. This ensures you are working at maximal intensity and increasing your work capacity by teaching your body to sustain work at levels as close to your threshold as possible. For physiological adaptation to occur this is optimal with regard to training intensity.
This is not to say I found this workout easy, it was still pretty rough. It just meant that I was able to move through it more quickly experiencing less muscular fatigue, but still experienced an extremely intense cardiovascular workout! Where I not injured I would have probably gone with a load of perhaps 95# which would have resulted in a much more comprehensive workout that would be equally taxing for both my cardiovascular and muscular systems.
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