Barbara, take 1
Crossfit Barbara, as specced:
20 pullups
30 pushups
40 situps
50 squats
rest 3 minutes
repeat all for 5 rounds
My modifications to scale it all down: inclined rows instead of pullups, kneeling pushups, 3 rounds instead of 5. I completed 3 rounds in 19:22. I finished strong, banging out the last 50 squats without a break.
Man, oh man, my situps are much stronger than they were when I got started on this. The gating factor on the situps was cardio, of all things— I wasn’t breathing properly. I’m going to have to slow down and pay attention to breathing the next time I do them.
Then I did some exercises targeted at grip strength improvement, which I report here as promised. I did 3 sets of each of these exercises:
wrist curls, palm down, 15lb barbell
wrist curls, palm up, 20lb barbell
10 swings of a 16kg kettlebell, two-handed, holding the ends of a towel looped through the handle
10-second static hangs from a pullup bar
By the end of that, my grip was exhausted and the hangs were very difficult. And as always, my bodyweight complicates the problem. I was slipping off the bar at the end of the ten seconds each time.
