How many of you out there love the constantly varied nature of CrossFit? ME! Last week, we spent a FEW minutes working up to a heavy set of Turkish Get ups. Someone asked if we ever did these in “met-con” style workouts (met-cons are the “for time” or “max effort” sessions we often do to push ourselves at a high level of intensity for relatively short bouts of time, 6-20 minutes). A discussion followed that revolved basically around why we TYPICALLY do not program get-ups in met-cons… the reason is because the movement is relatively slow, well controlled, and does not lend itself to power, therefore lack the requisite intensity to be well-suited for a met-con.
So let’s do Turkish Get Ups in a met-con! It is not that we want to haphazardly throw out some exercise suggestions and see if they work… BUT it IS because we want to test out novel ideas and find out if they might work better than we previously thought. Here is some rationale as to WHY we are going to do TGUs today in a met-con… Again, in a format that they are not normally programmed.
Today will get the heart rate high on the C2, then tax the arms and midline with the dips… and THEN challenge you to gain your composure, gather some focus/attention, and perform a detailed, coordination and agility necessitating movement with a fairly heavy external load. Imagine the winter biathlon: cross country skiing and target shooting. Two seemingly incongruous activities melded together… but a hunter, soldier, or police officer may be required to do something very similar: exhaust themselves to get in position to take a shot- and then take advantage of the opportunity. I would argue that the rationale for the triplet we have programmed for the day falls under a similar story. In a real life emergency we could be taxed in my physical ways and then still be required to move with agility, balance, and coordination. We also know that recovering from physically challenging movements is a marker of good fitness… the more fit among us will be able to get a quick rests before hopping right into the TGUs. Let’s see how it goes… look forward to your feedback on this one.

Tuesday’s WOD at 6, 7, 9am and again at 4 and 6pm
As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
20/15 cal row
15 bar dips
10 Turkish Get Ups (50/35#DB or KB)
Post number of rounds and scaling
Tuesday’s 5pm Open Training Hour