Tuesday 100629

Sweat much?

Cycle: Summer 2010 (pdf)
Week: 100627

Supplemental Sessions

Commentary
In this week’s B workout we are using the Kneeling Curl and Press. I first saw this exercise when I visited Rob Shaul in January for the Military Athlete Certification. “That looks kind of silly”, I thought to myself. Then I tried it in a workout with a couple of 30 pound dumbbells. It was hard and if I focused on keeping my hips open, so there was no power curling going on, it was a potent ab exercise. Then I used it in one of our corporate classes (this particular corporation is a factory so these are industrial athletes). Not only is it easy to teach but several people noted that they could think of examples where they had to move something from the floor to overhead while kneeling or sitting.

However, the exercise has the word “curl” in it which inevitably draws scorn from some CrossFitters. We even like to make fun of the pursuit of righteous pipes every April 1st. Thanks to the influences of 70′s Big, Greg Everett, and even Westside Barbell (especially Wendler and the assistance work in his 531 program) many CrossFitters are beginning to judge exercises based on their utility and effects not just whether they are “functional”. As Gant points out over at 70′s Big (here and here), isolation exercises can be useful for improving your primary lifts. Everett wrote a nice article on this topic in April (its here but not free). Bottom line, compound multi-joint movements like the squat, press, deadlift and pullup will always be our primary movements but with such a large variety movements to choose from why not try some other exercises as assistant work? But rest assured, you will not ever see any preacher curl equipment at EmerFit.