Helloooooo guys, how did the legs feel after friday's little workout??
Yes, we thought so.. I hope you didn't have too much hiking planned this weekend. On the other hand, it's always better to move with legs like that then sitting on the couch;).
To give your poor legs another day to recover from friday, today was a nice upperbody bodybuilding session. Even better, it was done in a team of 2, giving you a 1:1 rest as well.
For today, we went through 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 on single arm dumbbell presses and pull-ups. And I love a workout like this, especially the single arm bench press, because it perfectly shows the importance one of CrossFit's main principles: Core to Extremity. What?!
Core to extremity
Core to extremity is the principle that everything we do in CF starts in the core of the body: the abs on the front, the erectors on the back, the diaphram on the top and the pelvic muscles + glutes on the bottom. Before moving any extremity (arm/leg), we first move/engage the core-muscles.
This ensures safe movement but also more power: first engage the center of the body, before moving anything else, makes sure that all the created power is better transported from the legs to the arms for example.
The Single Arm Bench Press
In the single arm bench press, this principle really comes forward, since the single arm bench press begins as a lower body movement. It teaches hamstring engagement in a pressing movement like no other movement does.
If you don't engage the hamstrings/glutes before you start moving the dumbbell, the weight of the dumbbell will pull your body sideways off the bench because you are not resisting the rotation created by the gravitational force of the DB. So before you start doing anything with the DB, you squeeze your ass, press your feet into the floor and engage the hamstrings. Quite often, we see people cramping their hamstrings in the single arm bench press. Their hamstrings, in a press.. That's what we love to see: Safety + Efficiency, win-win!
The pull-up
Also in the pull-up, we are looking for Core-To-Extremity. In fact, you are actually stronger if you do that. The main working muscle in the pull-up is the Latissimus Dorsi (the big one on your back;)). As seen on the picture bellow, that muscle runs over your complete back, all the way down to the hips and ass.
Meaning, that if you squeeze your ass before pulling up, you are engaging the hip-area and thereby also the lower part of the latissimus dorsi, resulting in more power production through the whole muscle.
So also in the pull-up, first ass/hips/abs tight, then we start pulling up. Nice side-effect: your pull-ups also look prettier when it doesn't look like you are pulling up a soft bag of potatoes, which is fantastic for Instagram!
There's a lot more to geek out about this topic, because it shows some really interesting principles about how we move, but I will safe that for later and let you sleep tight now.
What also happened today:
Marie made a tiny mistake, with Andreas, always being the bigger person, rubbing it in her face..
An easy 210 kg deadlift for Carl, just being done casually in the back,
And the old boys rocking it big time!
Today was a nice day to get back into the week, move a bit, talk a bit, have a good time. But a 'calm' monday, usually tells us something about the rest of the week..;) Have a good one guys!
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