Fight Gone Bad Explained

Fight Gone Bad has been on the board a few times in the recent past. I was lucky enough to be at the cert in Santa Cruz where the action portion of this video was filmed. It’s the instructors for the weekend hitting it while we kick back and enjoyed some Fat Tire, courtesy of the New Belgium Beer Co.

Bonus is that you get an explanation from Coach Greg Glassman.

Take a look and get fired up. With time and effort, you could be one of the people rocking this workout as prescribed.

Why Wall Ball

cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power,
coordination, agility, balance, and accuracy.

Member Mike Frazer doing Karen (150 WallBall Shots For Time). Great job on the first time through!

The movement begins as a front squat and follows through to a push press/shove that sends the ball up and forward to the target from which it rebounds back to the throwers outstretched arms where it is “absorbed” back into the squat. In its entirety the wall-ball is quite simply a throw.

When perfected, each shot looks identical to the one before, and the ball’s contact and departure are gentle and smooth.

Functionality & Wall Ball by Greg Glassman – CrossFit Journal RePrint

And if you like – you can support Wall Ball by downloading and sporting this nifty Wall Ball Banner (click image, right click and save as for you PC folk):

Wall Ball

Murph Revisted

Will & James tackled Murph head on — a la Angie. Will finished at about 40 min and James finished at 52 min with this “catch the punch with your face” approach to this Hero WOD.

Being all hyped up to tackle Murph, they forgot to closely examine the actual Rx for this workout and / or peruse the CrossFit message boards for more detail. Perhaps they could have spared themselves the horror of non functioning legs during the first quarter of the second mile (after the 300 squats — in a row) had they done so.

“This is horrible” was a direct quote from both of them more than once.

So, lets take a look at the WOD prescription for Murph:

“Murph“

For time:
1 mile Run
100 Pull-ups
200 Push-ups
300 Squats
1 mile Run

Partition the pull-ups, push-ups, and squats as needed. Start and finish with a mile run. If you’ve got a twenty pound vest or body armor, wear it.

Emphasis mine. Turns out what this means is that you don’t have to Angie this WOD – you can take a Cindy-esque approach and do 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 squats – or take a Barbara approach and do 20 pullups, 30 pushups and 50 squats and rest 3 min. Whatever. You don’t have to do the 100 pull ups, then the 200 push ups and then the 300 squats and stumble out the door for the second mile.

Anyhoo, more than likely, the guys would have finished faster with one of these partitioned approaches. Same amount of work, but just a physiologically better way of approaching it and totally within the Rx. That said, knocking off each exercise in order is a testament to their fortitude.

Good job fellas!