Annie

As fate would have it, the day before Annie Thorisdottir was crowned the first women's repeat champion in CrossFit Games history, we had the "Annie" WOD scheduled at our box.

Rich and Annie - source

Saturdays at Mercer Island CrossFit alternate between a team WOD one week, and an Olympic lift plus "a girl" the next. 

Coach Jared writing out the warmup

I had been working a little on my double unders last week, but when I arrived at the box on Saturday, Jared told me that since I was only up to linking 6 at once, it would be better to go with single skips for the WOD.

For those of us who weren't up to RXing with DUs, it was 3 single skips for every double under prescribed.  Below is the breakdown for you - this is an excellent travel workout, even for someone who doesn't typically do CrossFit.  All you need is a jump rope, which doesn't take up much space in a suitcase!

150 skips - 50 situps

120 skips - 40 situps

90 skips - 30 situps

60 skips - 20 situps

30 skips - 10 situps

Before we got started on Annie, though, we had our Olympic lift practice of the day.  This time, it was squat cleans:

I didn't know my one rep max on the squat cleans, which made it really hard to gauge what weight I should be using, especially for the EMOM section.  I ended up with #50, but by the 9th minute of the strength section, I really didn't feel tired.  I threw on a little more weight and did the 11th and 12th sets of 3 with #55 instead. 

Finally, we were on to the WOD.  Coach Jared told us that for this workout, we needed to touch the ground overhead and touch our toes for each rep to count:

I was super strict and no-repped myself if I didn't get the situps exactly right.

I finished the WOD in 11:30, and now I can't wait until I can get double unders and speed my time up!

Jared's been giving me some tips on double unders that might help you, too!

Keeping your chest up, hold your arms in a snatch position, and then just flip your palms to face forward. 

Good form...

A lot of people (including me) err on the side of hunching over and keeping their hands too close to their bodies.



...bad form

 If you want to REALLY see how it's done, check out the double banger footage from the Games this weekend.  Impressive stuff!

YOU TELL ME: How do you gauge a good weight for your workouts if you don't know your one rep max?  Do you tend to go too light or too heavy?  Who did you root for during the Games?  Can you double under?