Pull-up is one of the common CrossFit workouts in the gym that is included in almost every regimen. Based on the hand position, you can classify pull-ups into three. The first one is the traditional pull-up where your hands are in a pronated position and facing away from you. The second type of pull-up is known as chin up, and here your hands are supinated and the palms facing you. The third one is referred to as a neutral grip pull-up where your palms face each other. Each of the above grips gives your system a slightly different stimulus. If well executed, a pull-up achieves many things amongst them shoulder extension, elbow flexion, stabilization of lumbopelvic positioning, and scapular retraction. It achieves this by working out the big gun muscles such as the biceps, rhomboids, lats, obliques, mid and lower traps, abdominis, rectus among others. When you do a pull-up, you should feel it in your biceps, the muscles around, below and between your scalps as well as the core. On the other hand, if you feel your pull-ups on the neck, upper traps, and the front section of your shoulders, just know that you are doing it wrong. The pull-up movement is, therefore, one of the amazing CrossFit workouts that teaches you how to use your core and builds tremendous upper body power, size, and strength. This is because it enables you to move a large load over a much wider range of motion while most of the time is spent under tension. This sounds in every sense a winning combo. The Technique The best place to start is to look at the common flaws committed in pull-ups. The following are the major flaws that any athlete in a CrossFit gym must keenly focus on. Driving into Extension –Extension is important particularly for power development, but in pull-ups, you must always maintain a neutral lumbopelvic position. Since the lats play a big role, to counteract the drive into extension, you need to fire your rectus, obliques, and transverse abdominis. Scapular Anterior Tilt and Humeral Anterior Glide –In order to keep your shoulders strong and healthy with CrossFit workouts, you have to maintain the position of the humeral head within the socket. If you make the mistake of pulling your elbows way past your body, you will not accomplish this goal. What you are simply doing is cranking on the front of your shoulder and circumventing the very muscles the pull-up exercise is meant to use. Flailing – Waving or swinging as you go up doesn’t help you in your workout. To do it right, you have to maintain an impressively strong lumbopelvic position and initiate the movement by first pulling up your scalps in the direction of their opposite butt cheeks. After the scalps are set, pull your elbows straight all the way down to your hips and simultaneously pull your chin over to the bar. After you reach the top, reverse everything you have done and gradually descend your body to the bottom where it started. In your CrossFit workout routine, you may also throw in exercises such as isometric holds, eccentrics, and band assisted pull-ups to help you build strength.

A majority of athletes are quite familiar with the standard push-up movement. However, the same cannot be said of the many variations that have significantly enhanced the challenge of this bodyweight movement in CrossFit gyms. One of the push-up variations known as handstand push-ups or simply HSPU is very demanding both in strength and technique. Simply defined, handstand push-up is a position where an athlete holds a fully extended handstand up against a wall and then lowers his head gradually until he reaches the ground after which he pushes the body back to the wall until his arms are fully extended once more. The challenge in handstand push-up is that the CrossFit athlete is required to rely only on the core or upper body strength while at the same time attempting to push his bodyweight right in the opposite direction against the force of gravity. Benefits of Handstand Push-Ups Handstand push-ups according to experts in CrossFit gyms demand athleticism at the elite level, and this makes it a choice exercise for your training regime. Among the benefits you will get from this workout include: Strength Enhancement When you do handstand push-ups, you will realize an improvement in strength within your prime movers which are the shoulders, chest, and triceps. Typically, handstand push-ups are not designed for beginners although they can be modified to suit the needs of athletes who are less experienced. The reason this CrossFit workout places a greater demand on your muscles compared to standard push-ups is that it involves pushing up 100% of your bodyweight. Women can also benefit immensely from this workout because development of shoulder strength is not a preserve of men. Improved Balance The sort of athleticism required to hold your body upside down while performing the handstand push-up is incredible. Any sport would value such kind of athleticism. If you possess only the strength required for the exercise, but you do not have the prerequisite balance, maintaining the upside-down position may be difficult for you. You can use the wall as a spotter against which to challenge yourself without the risk of falling over. Core Conditioning In as much as exercise balls and balance boards are used to exercise and build core strength, they may be somewhat inferior to athletes who are already experienced and have well-developed cores. The core strength developed through wall-supported or freestanding handstand push-ups in CrossFit gyms exceed by far that produced by any sport or device. When your core strength is well developed, you will enjoy greater protection against injuries. To perform the handstand push-ups, you must have the ability to push much more weight than that in most shoulder press exercises. If you are a young athlete looking to build shoulder strength, handstand push-ups are such a fantastic CrossFit exercise. However, before integrating them into your CrossFit training schedule, you must prioritize safety. If you feel in any way that you can’t measure up to the full handstand push-up, begin from the pike push-up and then progress gradually.  

In the CrossFit training niche, dips are considered to be one of the compound exercises which can be applied to triceps training. The reason why triceps are so strategic is that they take up approximately two-thirds of your arm and therefore important targets for anyone looking at improving the overall size of their arms. Being a compound exercise, triceps dips involve the shoulders, chest, and triceps. However, you should mindfully focus on the triceps when performing the workout. There are many training tutorials and literature on how to perform triceps dips the right way, but somehow athletes tend to veer off the mark. Below are some of the common mistakes athletes make in this Crossfit exercise. Confusing Triceps Dips with A Chest Dip Just like the deadlift and the squat CrossFit exercise, the dip is a compound movement that can be oriented in different positions as you target various muscles. Depending on how you position yourself, you can either target the chest or the triceps. For instance, when you lean slightly forward, your target is the chest. On the other hand, if you position yourself bolt upright, all the tension will be placed on your triceps. It is therefore important to be mindful and practice your positioning so that you target the right area. Panic When the Workout Gets Too Hard Triceps dips is indeed a difficult CrossFit exercise therefore when the going gets tough, do not panic. The difficulty arises from the positioning, the zero lower body stabilization, and isolation of the triceps. In order to regress the movement, you can enlist machine assistance to help bring you upwards through the movement and stabilize. The alternative is to use a bench to practice the triceps dip movement before progressing to the dip bars. Complacency Upon Mastering the Exercise When athletes have mastered a particular workout, there is a tendency to become complacent and even forget the method of progressive overload. Progressive overload is a key component for those who want to stimulate and grow their muscles. Various methods such as more sets, added resistance, decreased rest time, and increased eccentric times make the workout harder each week and hence progressively overloading it. Performing Triceps Dips Too Quickly Just like any exercise, when you do a workout too quickly, chances of you recording progress are minimal. In order to develop working muscles, you require constant tension which is enhanced through continuous overloading of the muscle at least on a weekly basis. To increase the time and attention, you need to slow down your exercises and apply a sufficient speed instead of performing the exercise very fast. Lastly, going too high or too low can potentially strain your shoulder joint and cause some shoulder injuries including rotator cuff tears during the CrossFit exercise routine. To prevent this from happening, you should keep an eye on your arms and ensure a 90-degree angle is generated about your forearm and upper arm.  

It doesn’t matter whether you are a CrossFitter who is experienced or you are simply a beginner looking to curve your way out, the first few weeks of your exercises can be hurting. You need time to adapt so that your body can be in sync with the frequency and magnitude of your workouts. The pertinent question many people ask is how they should know they have optimized their recovery in between CrossFit workout of the day. Unfortunately, the answer is, there isn’t a way to tell. There are no markers or signs to show that you have fully recovered not even the delayed onset of muscle soreness. This is why you can always enhance your recovery efforts even if you feel you are getting better at handling WODs. For every athlete, optimal recovery is a dynamic and systematic physiological process which changes as the athletes change. The following tips will help you in optimizing your next WOD. Clean Up Your Diet What you eat and how you eat it on a day-to-day basis is one of the major factors that will impact on your recovery. The WOD is simply a stimulus for growth. However, the body won’t grow during the workout because real growth happens in the repair and recovery process. A clean CrossFit diet should include lean protein to support muscle growth as well as lots of fruits and veggies for the vitamins. Veggies and fruits contain antioxidants which are crucial in protecting your body against muscle cell damage. Similarly, the phytochemicals in the dark leafy greens can help in repairing connective tissue and reduce inflammation. Pre-WOD Nutrition An excellent way to optimize your recovery is to lower as much as possible the amount of stress your body encounters when working out at CrossFit gym. To do this, you have to eat as much energy packed nutrients as you can before the start of your session. Even though every person handles pre-WOD snack differently, try and consume a small meal or snack an hour or two before the training. Aim at getting 250 to 350 calories particularly coming from non-sucrose carbohydrate sources. Post-WOD Activities When you finish your WOD at CrossFit gym, you can engage in some light activities so as to cool down. Go for biking, jogging, or rowing, or even some light gymnastics. This will continuously push blood through your vessels thus helping in circulating out any waste products from muscle contraction. After Workout Massage To reduce swelling for the affected tissues, go for physical manipulation of the muscle tissue using lacrosse ball, roller, or even better, partner massage. This breaks up the tightness of the muscles. Sleep Inadequate sleep can sacrifice your growth and progress in the CrossFit gym. Research shows that much of the anabolic process takes place during sleep. Also, the regulation of growth hormones, cortisol, melatonin, and others which affect the adaptation of your muscles to training, takes place at night. Try about 8 hours a night of sleep and avoid intake of foods and drinks such as alcohol, sugar, caffeine, and water a few hours before your workout. Remember to stay hydrated, supplement adequately, and ensure that you follow your post-WOD nutrition carefully.

Box jumps are one of the favorite exercises of CrossFit athletes. This is because they are efficient, will get you gasping for breath and sweaty within a short time in addition to their flexibility in scaling for different fitness levels. Doing box jump CrossFit exercise is easy because all you need is a plyometric box or simply a sturdy-raised surface onto which you can jump and land with both feet then straighten your legs at the top position. After that, jump back down and immediately spring back the fastest you can. If you have knee problems or feel a bit uncomfortable, you can step back down from the box instead of jumping down. The height of the box will be determined by your current level of fitness. However, a majority of women prefer to start with a box height ranging from 14 to 18 inches while men tend to start at the height of 20 to 24 inches. You can begin with 3 or 4 sets of about 10 to 20 box jumps 4 times a week. Alternatively, you can add them to your high-intensity impact CrossFit training workouts. Here are 5 reasons why box jumps are simply loveable. Strengthen Your Calves Jumping up and down the box enhances your muscle tone and strength as well as build your lower and upper body strength. Doing box jumps means your body is forced to jump high enough while at the same time using every single muscle in your legs to lift you up atop the box. Calorie Burning and Fat Blasting Jumping at a fast pace causes your body to burn approximately 800 to 1000 calories every single hour. This will compare to the calories you burn (200 to 300) per hour while walking. High-intensity jumping stimulates mitochondrial changes causing your body to prioritize fat burning before carbohydrates. This is great news for anyone wanting to lose weight. Balance and Coordination in Old Age None of us wants to be a weakling in life, but rather healthy and active all the way to our senior years. To achieve this, you should continuously be active and enhance your strength, coordination, and balance. Box jumps aid in balance and protects you from injury as you age. Additionally, they keep your bones strong and healthy for a solid life. They Don’t Need Equipment The excuse of not having CrossFit exercise equipment should not surface in box jumps because you can still do them, even with a high bench or stairs. Just ensure the surface is steady so that it doesn’t move while you are jumping which may result in injuries. They Enhance Your Athletic Abilities Box jump CrossFit exercise enhance your vertical jump, endurance, and speed. These are fitness attributes that fit into any sport including surf, skateboard, and basketball. The level of coordination you build while working out will give you a front edge in any other activity. If you see no reason at all to do box jumps, think about the fun that comes with realizing that you can actually jump high. This will certainly bring out your inner kid!

Deadlifting is a CrossFit workout that has been praised for producing strong people. However, in the deadlifting world, there are constant debates between sumo pullers and conventional style fanatics each defending their own turf. There are lots of strong personal opinions on whether or not deadlifting sumo is easy or difficult compared to conventional pulling. There are certain benefits of the sumo deadlift that for some reason are not addressed by the conventional style. Sumo Deadlift Translates Pulling Strength to Real Life Movements Almost every real-life movement where we are asked to lift a weight from the ground is usually done in some variation of sumo. Whether it is flipping logs, lifting the backend of your car, or helping a friend to move refrigerators and coaches, there is some element of sumo-style involved. If you stop and remove yourself from the formal definitions of sumo and open your eyes to movements in the real world, you will realize that sumo deadlift is powerful and practical in your day-to-day life. Individualization of the Deadlift The conventional style is popularly referred to as the gold standard deadlift method. However, the sumo stance can give lots of individuals and athletes a much better pulling approach based on their mobility levels, hip structure, and comfort. Depending on your angle of inclination when doing this CrossFit exercise, you may or may not be comfortable in a given pulling position. Sumo allows you to choose the way to load your posterior chain so that you can feel comfortable and athletic. This diversification helps athletes become stronger and safer. Enhances Quadriceps and Gluteus Maximus Development  Sumo stance places demands on knee extension and this has been shown to increase electromyographic activity in vastus medialis, vastus lateralis significantly, and tibialis anterior compared to conventional style deadlifts. This, in turn, has led to increased quadriceps and glute development that is unique to the sumo style deadlift. Since sumo deadlift is the CrossFit workout, which gives you the ability to target the glutes and quadriceps in a given pulling movement, it can help you to strengthen the specific muscles as well as positions you use when taking a wide stance in the back squats. Also, the deadlift will help you add lower body volume into off-season and preparatory program without the need to excessively tax spinal erectors. Minimization of Lumber Spine Stress Compared to the conventional style, the sumo deadlift has been shown to produce approximately 10% less stress on the spinal extensors. This is because the athletes assume a wider stance where they can open up their hips, flex their knees, as well as keep the hips closer to the barbell at the beginning and this increases the torso angle of the beginning position. Also, it shifts demands placed on the spinal erectors to the glutes and quadriceps. Therefore, sumo deadlift is worth CrossFit workout to include in your CrossFit training schedule for the above and many more other benefits.

Every CrossFit athlete has their favorite workout and their least favorite as well. However, in certain circumstances, you may end up feeling average after your CrossFit gym session. Burpees are admittedly some of the most grueling CrossFit exercises. That notwithstanding, they carry tons of benefits such as strength building, cardiovascular fitness enhancement, and balance improvement. Also, burpees target almost every part of the body giving you an all-around workout. While it is clear burpees are beneficial, unless you integrate them into your workout routine, they will be of no use. The beauty of having a structured workout is the predictability that comes with it hence no room for guesswork. Because of the difficulty and challenge that comes with burpees, some athletes feel like giving up midway. By structuring out your routine, chances of backing off even when your body can’t take it anymore are greatly reduced. This ensures you score high in your metabolism benefits. The following burpee CrossFit workouts will certainly ramp up your metabolism and enhance fat-burning. The beauty is that the routines are designed to accommodate time constraints, finesses and equipment access for every athlete. The New Dad Workout If your time is so constrained that you cannot get to the gym, this burpee workout is for you. It takes about minutes to complete this workout and throughout this time, all you do are burpees. This makes it relatively simple. Depending on your fitness level, try and perform this workout in repetitions every minute instead of performing the entire exercise nonstop for the scheduled time. Ensure you rest for the remaining time before the start of the next minute. The most important aspect of this workout is the form, and at times you may be forced to start from the basic level to cultivate a perfect performance. Remember, it is much more beneficial to do six burpees perfectly than to fumble around with 12 burpees. The 100 Burpees Exercise Challenge This workout lasts for 15 minutes just the new dad workout, but it incorporates some variations as a way of breaking the monotony some athletes feel comes with doing the same things repeatedly for a quarter an hour. As the title puts it, you will do a total of 10 burpees in this type of CrossFit workouts. However, every ten reps, you will rest for about 25 seconds then switch to another variation. It is recommended that you limit high-intensity interval training to about 4 times per week so that you can have adequate rest. This is key to injury prevention. The Burpee Blast This is for the CrossFit athletes whose fitness levels are way up and simply want to boost their intensity. The burpee blast is rather simple CrossFit workouts to do. You begin with your normal burpee and then at the end, finish up with a push-up after you spring back to the plank position. Try moving as fast as you can without compromising on the form. The Bedroom Bodyweight Workout The bedroom bodyweight CrossFit exercise is a nine-move circuit comprising 3 circuits each having three exercises. Before you go to the next move, you should complete the prescribed number of reps. After the 3 circuit moves, you will have 30 seconds of rest and then repeat the entire process two more times. As pointed out, you don’t need gym equipment for this meaning you can do your burpees anywhere anytime.

Have you ever thought how you could gain a perfect fit body without lifting heavy weights? Well, there are lots of exercises that can assure you of an overall fitness and strength improvement without the hassle and nightmare of pulling and pushing heavy loads. The most popular CrossFit workout that can give you exactly this is walking lunges. Whenever people get into an exercise, their main aim is to achieve overall fitness and particularly tone their muscles. That said, there are parts of the body that subconsciously tend to be left out during these routine workouts. These are the outer and inner thighs. These muscles are important, but surprisingly some athletes are not aware of this. Toning up the inner and outer thighs makes you appealing as well as boosts your athletic performance and promotes hip stability. Lunges give you an excellent way to strengthen your hips and develop thigh muscles. It mainly concentrates on two types of muscles: the knee extensors and hip extensors. The lunges movement is similar to squatting save for the wide range of motion and stress on the muscles when performing lunges.  For purposes of discussion and analysis, lunges can be divided into two walking lunges and stationary lunges. Stationary Lunges This type of lunge comprises a downward movement where a strong eccentric contraction of the glutes, hams, and quads is exerted. This ensures the whole bodyweight falls on the forward leg. At the same time, the backward leg gives you better support and balance. On the upward movement, both the front and backward legs bear the pressure and push your body back to the standing position. Walking Lunges In this lunge, the downward movement remains almost the same with an equal amount of pressure exerted on the thigh and leg muscles. However, on the upward movement, the focus is on the forward leg. The muscles of this leg contract to stand straight again. If there is one thing you need throughout this CrossFit exercise, it is stability. Since walking lunges are preferred to stationary lunges because they utilize all the thigh and leg muscles, they do not work the rear leg muscles as effectively, and this is why it is critical that you perform both stationary lunges and walking lunges at regular intervals. What You Gain from Walking Lunges There are lots of benefits, which you can get from walking lunges some of which include: Improved Balance –Since the lunges workout involves both sides of your body, it helps in improving coordination and balance. Boosts Functionality –Walking lunges train your body in a way to improve its functionality as well as helping you to acquire a better body posture. Symmetrical Toning –By the fact that walking lunges focus on some of the most ignored parts of your body, they help in achieving a symmetrically toned body. They address some of the other body parts which other exercises overlook. Improves Hip Flexibility –Walking lunges enhances the flexibility of your hip flexor muscles which may become tight because of the sedentary lifestyle most of us lead. In addition to the above benefits, including walking lunges in your CrossFit training routine enhance core stability, tone gluteal muscles, and gives rest to your spine.