Lower and Upper Body Conditioning Drills

I have blogged about this workout before, so won't go into too much detail.  If you want to know more, then look through my historic posts for "ICT 4".  This is the first time I have videoed the routine, so just wanted to post the new video.  I have condensed the video into a split screen to make it more interesting and reduce the running time.

Of note, it's worth watching around the 8:06 mark when my son decided to come and get in on the action.  I have no intention of actively encouraging him to participate in the future, since I believe it will be far more effective to allow him to see me exercising and want to participate.  Child psychology works in funny ways, usually when you don't want them to do something, they will do it and vice versa.

WOD: Never Gymless ICT 4

This workout is a classic from Ross Enamait's Never Gymless.  It is basically two routines combined to form a lower body and upper body routine.  Each routine is split into 3 exercises, completed 5 times for time:

Lower Body:

10 x Burpees

20 x Lunges

30 x Squats

Upper Body:

10 x Pull-ups

20 x Power overs

10 x High pulls

The correct way to perform the high pulls is using a resistance band, but I don't have one available to me, so instead opted for a 30kg barbell high pull.  Pull ups are strict, not kipping, so if you can't complete them on the second set, I have found the cheat pull-ups effective.  If you don't know what a cheat pull-up is, see below.

Notes: I performed the first set of pull-ups in strict form, then used cheat pull-ups for each pull-up in each set there after.

My Times:

Lower body: 13:10

Upper body: 10:58

If I recall the last time I did this, my lower body was at least 15 minutes and upper body went into 16 minutes.  This is a massive improvement, considering I haven't done any conditioning for the last four weeks.

Cheat Pull-up

To perform a cheat pull-up, you need to stand beneath the bar and jump into the pull-up, grabbing onto the bar and pulling yourself up.  Then you lower yourself slowly, to full extension and drop.  You can opt to perform as many strict pull-ups as you are capable before letting go of the bar and jumping into the next pull-up.  The idea is to eliminate idle resting, while you wait for your arms to recover, instead forcing them to work by assisting them on the way up.