Crossfit Armoury - March 25, 2018: Gymnastics

Sunday; March 25, 2018 @ Crossfit Armoury - WEST

Gymnastic Coach:  Kyle Samson

Thoughts:

So, I've decided to try again with Gymnastics and after completing Open 18.5; I sorely needed to work on my skills in this discipline.  As I had said to coach Kyle, my default for doing things is to use brute force, not so much skill when it came to Gymnastic movement.  Knowing full well that was wrong, and it showed.  Coach Kyle, said; "there are some things you can't just use brute force."
And here I am, to learn the basics... and build up from there.

Started off with some warm-up, which included some stretches to the arms and hands.  We also practice some headstand holds.  I haven't practice this since the last time I did gymnastic.   My first attempt was familar myself with balancing on my head and then get comfortable with putting both knees on the my elbows.  Coach reminded me to make sure that I put the knees directly on top of the elbows, otherwise one will slip off and it will be much harder to get into the headstand hold.
My second attempt was much better as I did just that before extending my legs upwards.  I was able to hold it for about 10 seconds before coming back down.  I remember that I must focus on holding that core tight.

An explanation and a demo of the next two movements; Strict HSPU and Strict Weighted Pull-up was shown by coach Kyle.  He also gave other examples for scaled version.  We were to between 2 to 10 reps of the Strict HSPU and 2-3 strict weighted pull-up.
There were many scaled version of each movement.   For me, I used a 20" box, with an abmat for my head, and rubber mat for the top of box where I'll be putting my knee on.  One thing I didn't know and did learn from Coach was that when you are at the bottom of the headstand, you are NOT to rest there but treat it as a touch and go.  You don't want to rest at the bottom, as you would relax your core and then would fail to push back up.  However, there are a few few individuals that can do that from the bottom.  

As the knee was closer to the edge of the box, it gets harder.  It's mimicking an upright position and in turn trains the shoulder in pushing the body upwards.  It will also allow you to focus on using your core to balance.

Scaled pull-up is setting a barbell across the rig, just like your setting up to lift weights off the J-cups, but lower.   The intention was to teach me how to do a pull-up (using the arm to pull myself upwards and my head forward toward the bar).  It's not the way we do it in class, but more upright.    At first, it's awkward; but I understand the principle.  A few round to practice and with Coach Kyle corrected my form, I understood.  He suggested I get a few 45 lb plates to be placed in front of me so I don't have my feet slipping forward.
One of my friend, Amanda suggested swapping out the bottom 45 lb plate (that was smooth with a more rubber 45 lb plate so it wouldn't slip as easily).  Thanks Amanda for the suggestion.  I ended up using 3x 45 lb so I could brace my feet against when doing the scaled Pull-up.

I worked up to a 3 reps on my scaled HSPU, and as for the scaled pull-up; it was 4 reps for each round.  We had 5 rounds and it was for Quality.


Next, we worked on Swings; but first with some movements on the ground.
Cat Cow stretches, Hollow / Arch movement.  We did hollow body rock and then some focus on the arch while doing the hollow body rock.  We then moved to bar and did some swings with the movements we just practice on the ground.

Our WOD was an EMOM x 16 (4 movements for 4 rounds)

1. L HOLD from Bar  (scale: is knee up at parallel and hold for 15 seconds)
2. Kipping HSPU  (scale: use the same box setup as above during strict HSPU)
3. Kipping C2B/T2B  (scale: attempt to do toes to bar, if you don't have toes to bar, then modify with swing and brining both legs to parallel with the floor)
4. Headstand Hold (scale: should be able to hold for 30 seconds, if not; then go into a headstand and place knees directly on top of the elbow)

This was a good start to gymnastic for me.  I may do the next gymnastic class or #INVEST on Sunday.  Unfortunately, they both run at the same time.   As one of the class mate had mentioned.  "It's a choice between what is NEEDED vs what I want to do!"   Truly a dilemma!