Fitness - Two-A-Days, Weighted Step Ups & WOD #1 - 1/6

Still super sore this morning but I'll be golden by tomorrow. I was extremely tired last night and went to bed really early (9:40-ish), expecting to get over 8 hours of sleep. That ended up not being the case at all.

Although I was extremely tired, I just laid in bed awake and couldn't fall asleep until almost 11:30. I wish I would have gotten more sleep. I'll hopefully be able to fall asleep easier tonight.

Focus: Weighted step ups (holding kettle bells), working up to heavy sets of 5
2x5 (each leg) - 16 Kg bells
3x5 (each leg) - 24 Kg bells

This is in continuation of the glute/hammy work Dave has been implementing. There's two ways to do step ups, and they both target different muscle groups.

1) The quad-centric version is to keep your torso upright and just stand up. This version mainly fires the quads. The one thing to watch out for is your knee (the knee of which ever leg is on the box) tracking to far out over your toes, which is never really good. It disengages a lot of stabilizer muscles. You'll do this as a way to compensate and balance. If you find it happening, just move your foot a little farther away from you on the box.

2) To get the glutes and hamstrings fired up you set which ever foot on the box, stick your butt out (keeping a flat back), sort of lean over your front foot, then step up. It's a great way to target the back of the leg and butt cheeks. such a small change in body position has an effect in which muscles are worked.

WOD: I go-you go style with a partner, 5 rounds for time of:
1 Dumbbell split snatch (each side) - 50# dumbbell
1 Burpee
2 Dumbbell split snatches (each side) - 50# dumbbell
2 Burpees
3 Dumbbell split snatches (each side) - 50# dumbbell
3 Burpees

Score/Time: 8:19
Calories burned (focus & WOD): 551

One round consisted of both partners having gone through the complex. One partner rested while one did work, then we switched. A lot of built in rest during this WOD, pretty much a 1:1 work to rest ratio.

Didn't have much trouble with this at all. My partner and I moved right through it and never really broke our pace. It was a quick, light-ish WOD. Which I had no complaints with.

On top of WOD #2 tonight, I think Dave wanted to work with me on my jerk technique, which I need. Another reason I was glad this morning was on the easy side was I heard the benchmark WOD "Jackie" is on the menu for tomorrow, and I want to give it as much as I can. It'll be my first go with her and I've got butterflies already.