Crossfit, bodyweight movements (I)

Javier Colomer 5 min. of reading CrossFit Leave a comment

Let’s go over the main exercises and movements using just your own body weight that we do in CrossFit

In this part, I’ll focus on those exercises where you only need your own body weight, without using any extra equipment like bars or dumbbells. I think this can be a good step, following the recommendations from the previous article, as a way to test your capacity. If you’re a fan of outdoor workouts and you get to a park or a spot with pull-up bars and parallel bars, for example, you can practice the whole list; on the other hand, you can even do it in your living room (just make sure to shield all the furniture…)

Air squat

This is about doing a squat without the bar load, just using your own body weight. Place your feet shoulder-width apart, with toes pointing outwards. When you go down, go as low as possible (no stopping at parallel), where your hips should be lower than your knees. During this movement, you’ll take a deep breath so you can push it out as you come back up.

Here, you have to fully extend your hips, standing up straight—no arching your back…

Push up

The classic push-ups we all know. Just get parallel to the floor, supporting yourself on your toes and hands, with hands about shoulder-width apart (you can vary this distance depending on the muscle you want to target).

Each rep consists of lowering yourself until your chest touches the floor, then pushing back up to the starting position with your arms fully extended

HSPU (Handstand Push Up)

Handstand push-ups, or simply push-ups while doing a handstand. Another move widely used in many wods. It combines strength, endurance, and balance. You’ll need a wall to help support your feet (heels).

If you can, go without the wall, but for this topic, it’s better to use it, especially because when you get tired during the wod, your balance might not be 100%…

Burpee

A CrossFit classic, used in some wods as a penalty if you don’t complete the required reps in time, or as a punishment from your coaches 😉 It’s a combo of a push-up, frog squat, jump, with full hip extension, and respecting the ROM (Range Of Movement), bringing your hands above your head.

In this article we break it down thoroughly

Dips

These are the typical dips, either chest dips or triceps dips, depending on how wide you open your arms (wider means more focus on the lower chest). You just need parallel bars. To do a dip, lower yourself until your elbow forms a 90º angle with your arm. It’s best to keep your legs parallel, not crossed, to stabilize your core more easily.

There’s a variation using rings, Ring dips, which require more core control and engage stabilizer muscles more intensely than the previous version

Pull up

The pull-ups we all know, which you can do in two ways: strict (no swinging) for strength work with added weight, or with swinging or kipping, which is the better option during a wod when you need to crank out reps.

Even with swinging, the rule is the same: arms fully extended at the bottom, and chin over the bar.

There’s a variation where you bring your chest to the bar (without touching), known as Chest to bar

Muscle Up

This could roughly be defined as a combo of a pull-up and a dip, done in two parts. If you can do a muscle up, you’re definitely closer to the community ;)…

Here’s an interesting article on how to do your first muscle up

Toes to bar

A pretty straightforward name for what you have to do: hanging from the pull-up bar, bring your toes up to touch the bar. Easy? One rep, yes, but when you need to string together several, it gets tricky and heavily involves your abs and hip-shoulder coordination, which is key to nailing your reps.

A lighter version is Knees to elbows, which if you know some English body vocab, you’ve guessed: hanging from the bar, bring your knees to your elbows, crunching your abs

Box Jump

Jumping onto a box, bench, hurdle, or elevated platform… Facing the object, feet on the ground, you push off with your legs and hips to land on the elevated surface, fully extending your hips and standing up straight.

Be careful especially when pushing hard after several reps, and don’t let your shins hit the edge where you jump (personal experience ;( )

Lunge

The backward lunge usually found in leg routines. An important tip is to let the knee of the back leg touch the floor. In a wod, lactate buildup in the leg can be why you don’t finish your reps.