For students departing from the Wendler cycle:
SWOD 1: Front squat 5-5-5-5-5 (how-to video)
SWOD 2: Power clean 3-3-3-3-3 (video)
Remember, these are max efforts. Try to go up in weight each set, going as heavy as you can without your form degrading.
SWOD 3: Weighted pull-up 5-5-3-3-1
Good method to get the weight on: video; here is another video with lots of variations, but mute your sound before you click on it! The noise in the background is hideous.
By Dennis Leap
Exercise has a positive impact on the brain, scientists from the University of Illinois have discovered. Simple exercise like walking or swimming appears to help the brain resist physical shrinkage and improves the ability to think.
For over a decade, physiologists and neuroscientists have been gathering evidence to show that there is a beneficial relationship between exercise and brainpower. The new findings make it clear that there is more than a relationship: “it is the relationship.”
Experts believe that exercise is more important for brain health than mental exercises that stimulate thinking.
This latest evidence come from several new studies that tested lab animals to determine the effects of running versus those of playing with new toys or engaging the mind in other ways that did not raise the animals’ heart rate. Cognitive tests and brain tissue studies revealed that running is the only thing that improved the animals’ brains.
Additional research shows that since the brain is the same as any other muscle, its power to function declines with underuse and age. It is estimated that beginning in our late 20s, “most of us will lose about 1 per cent annually of the hippocampus,” an important part of the brain related to memory and learning, the New York Times reported.
Exercise seems to slow or reverse the brain’s physical decay. In fact, scientists now believe that new brain cells can actually be generated, something previously thought impossible. Exercise “jump-starts” this process, known as neurogenesis. Research shows that the lab animals that ran for weeks had twice as many neurons in their hippocampi as sedentary animals. Just like other muscles, the animal brains bulked up with exercise.
Yet, to build a smarter brain, exercise is not enough. Science has discovered that brain cells can improve intellect only if they join the existing neural network. It is learning new things that pull neurons into the brain’s intricate circuitry. If the newly generated neurons are not integrated, they will die.
Although science does not completely understand how exercise builds the brain on the molecular level, research suggests that exercise increases brain-derived neurotropic factor (bdnf), a substance that strengthens cells and axons and sparks neurogenesis. After workouts, most people display higher bdnf levels in their bloodstreams.
Scientists are also studying the mental benefits of exercise for older people. Research shows that the brains of older people can benefit from moderate exercise as well.
Last year, a group of 120 older men and women were assigned to a walking or stretching programs for a major study. Those men and women assigned to the walking group showed improved brain development. Yet, those assigned to the stretching group experienced normal brain atrophy. “In effect, the researchers concluded, the walkers had regained two years or more of hippocampal youth.”
Physical exercise is a vital part of life for all ages!
8 rounds for max reps of:
Power snatch, 20 seconds (95/45)
10 seconds rest
Thrusters, 20 seconds (95/45)
10 seconds rest
Okay students! Which AC class is more fit? Today we find out.
In this WOD, each person tries to accumulate as many points as possible for the class. You are trying, as a group, to outscore the other class.
It will consist of three parts, each 5 minutes long with a 1 minute rest in between, with one third of the class at each station:
1) Max distance run : each 100m = 10 points
2) AMRAP in 5 min: 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats : each rep = 1 point
(Band-assisted pull-ups = 3 points for 5 reps; push-ups from knee = 5 points for 10 reps)
3) For max points: load barbells 95lb for men, 65lb for women. 1 point for each distance covered by the barbell: ground to hang; hang to rack; rack to overhead
(1 point lifts: deadlift, hang power clean, push press, front squat, back squat; 2 point lifts: power clean, hang power snatch, thruster; 3 points: any complete ground-to-overhead movement)
Note: Bad form on the barbell = 1-5 point penalty, instructor discretion
At the end, we will total your points as a class. Once both classes have done it, we will multiply each class’s point total by the number of participants in the other class.
Class with highest total will be crowned the fittest!
3 rounds, each for time:
Run 1200 meters
Rest 3 minutes
Hold splits within 3-5 seconds
