Wrist Mobility

After doing yesterday's WOD over at the Shell, both Donny and I noticed how the entire workout was based around wrist strength, wrist speed, and wrist mobility. On the double-unders, we needed to use our wrists to generate enough power to keep the rope going fast enough to make it twice around every time.

More noticeably, we found out quickly that the overhead squats were killing our wrists. In the overhead squat, you need wrist strength and mobility to successfully support the weight through the entire squat motion. But, because of the cheapo, shitty bars that we were using at the Shell, neither of us made it unbroken through a round of overhead squats. When we were squatting, we would start with the bar at an ideal width overhead. On every rep, our hands would slide out wider and wider on the bar, until it became nearly impossible to keep a strong overhead position. When we put the bar down and re-gripped, we were good to go... until the same thing happened 7 reps later. The barbells at the Shell are also (most likely) 31mm in diameter, instead of the legit and much easier to handle 28.5mm. This makes gripping the bar slightly but noticeably more difficult, whatever the lift may be.

So, instead of laying ALL of the blame on the budget-ass barbells provided to us by rec sports, I figured that we could focus on how to strengthen and mobilize our wrists. Since I'm not feeling like researching and re-phrasing several articles tonight, I'm going to let some of the professionals inform your brains better than my words ever could. Check out the following articles:

"How To Improve Wrist and Ankle Mobility", Mark Sisson, Mark's Daily Apple

"Be Nice, Your Wrists Work Hard", Kelly Starett, San Francisco CrossFit

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WOD 101013 Wednesday

Location: The Shell, 9:00pm

Warm-up

S/S: Rowing Technique, 500m time trials, and max wattage.

WOD: For time:

-1/2/3/4/5/6/7/8/9/10 Squat Clean and Jerk

-5 Pull-ups

-10 Push-ups

-15 Squats

Finish: MobilityWOD of your choosing.

WOD Results

*Listed as- WOD Time (weight used), 500m Row Time

Donny- 24:57 (95#), 1:47.5

Ted- 28:00 (95#), 1:43.2

Matt- 31:24 (135#), 1:29.8

Matthias- 33:15 (75#), 1:42.8