One of the great attractions of Crossfit workouts is that they allow you to get a killer of a workout into a compressed time span. One of the best choices that you can make when you’ve only got a limited amount of time to train is the Cindy WOD.<\/strong><\/p>\n Don’t be fooled by the name – Cindy WOD is one tough mother of a workout. Here is what it involves:<\/span><\/p>\n But that’s not it – you keep going, and going and going . . . until 20 minutes is up. Your goal is to get as many reps<\/strong> as you can within 20 minutes.<\/strong><\/p>\n One of the great things about Cindy WOD is that you can do it with hardly any equipment.<\/strong> All you will need is a pull up bar and your body. Because each of these three movements hits different muscles in your body, you will be able to move fluidly from one movement to the next without taking any rest. The pull ups are all about the lats and biceps.<\/strong> When you move on to the push ups, which target the chest and triceps,<\/strong> your back and bis get some respite. Likewise, when you do your air squats, the upper body muscles get a break.<\/strong><\/p>\n We all need a goal to work towards, so here are the targets for Cindy WOD, broken down to ability levels:<\/p>\n If you’re not ready to take on the Cindy WOD as prescribed, don’t worry. There are a number of things that you can do to scale down this workout<\/strong> according to your ability levels.<\/p>\n Let’s take a look at them, exercise by exercise:<\/span><\/p>\n Perform box squats to go down to a parallel squat level.<\/strong> You can also squat holding a rig or a ring<\/p>\n Perform banded pull ups<\/strong> if you are unable to perform the exercise without assistance. Alternatively, you can perform jumping pull ups, ring rows, the TRX body row or banded pull downs. If you have access to one, you can also use an assisted pullup machine.<\/strong><\/p>\n If you cannot perform normal pushups as the rounds go by, you may drop to your knees.<\/strong> To increase the intensity you may do push ups on an inclined box, from a bench, using the TRX suspension<\/strong> strap<\/strong> or using a bar in a rack.<\/p>\n You may also choose to scale the entire Cindy WOD by reducing the time to 15 minutes and\/or changing the rep scheme to 9, 6 and 3 (air squats, push ups, pull ups).<\/strong><\/p>\n Let’s break down our Cindy WOD strategies in terms of exercise (take a look at the master list of CrossFit Hero WODS<\/a>).<\/span><\/p>\n With this version, you replace the thrusters with power cleans. Apart from this change, it is the same workout;<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Pull Ups are the hardest of the three exercises in the Cindy WOD.<\/strong> They are the one that you will probably fail to hit your required reps on first. When you get into 10 plus rounds, you will more than likely find yourself failing after 3 or so reps. The good news is that you will recover quite quickly.<\/strong> Ideally, you want to be on a chin up apparatus, such as a power rack,<\/strong> where you can rest in an upright position where you don’t have to jump down from the bar (with a power rack you can rest your feet on the safety bars to the sides). Only allow yourself a maximum of 10 seconds between reps.<\/strong><\/p>\n Of course, it is very easy to start cheating on push ups,<\/strong> especially when you are focused on going for a time. Do not be the person who does this. You will not be benefiting yourself.<\/strong> All you will be doing is deluding yourself into thinking that you are fitter than you actually are. Therefore, do not start performing quarter push ups, lifting your butt up into the air or dropping your head so that you are only moving a couple of inches.<\/strong> Do the exercise properly,<\/strong> making sure to get a full extension<\/strong> so that your chest touches the floor<\/strong> and your arms are at full extension.<\/p>\n The air squat is a deceptively simple move<\/strong>. But after a while, you will be tempted to fall into improper form.<\/strong> Usually, this will evidence itself by not maintaining a neutral spine (such as by rounding your back) or by not going down far enough on the squat. Follow these guidelines to make sure that you keep it clean:<\/p>\n Once you have got your form down on all three exercises, and are determined to maintain proper form<\/strong> once you begin to get fatigued, you need to make sure that your transitions between moves don’t waste time.<\/p>\n You should be able to move quickly from one move to the next in less than five seconds<\/strong>, even as you fatigue in the later rounds. Because you are able to rest the muscles worked on the previous exercises while doing the next one, you will able to keep pushing the fluidity of the exercises. As things get tougher, the challenge will be more mental than physical.<\/p>\n Even though twenty minutes is a relatively short period of time to work out, it is still a long time to be working out without a break, which is what you will be doing. That is why you need to break that twenty minutes up in your mind to allow you to stay focused.<\/p>\n We suggest breaking the twenty-minute workout into four sets of five minutes. Now set a goal of how many sets you will be doing in those five minutes. So, if your goal is to get 30 rounds in twenty minutes, balance that total out over four sessions.<\/strong> Common sense will dictate that you will be able to do more rounds in the earlier rounds. That being the case, here is an example of how you can break it down:<\/p>\n All you need to do now is to focus on hitting your five-minute goal.<\/p>\n While you do not want to fatigue yourself begin, you begin the Cindy WOD, you still need to be sufficiently warmed up.<\/strong> Here’s how you can do it:<\/p>\n <\/p>\n WOD Name<\/p>\n<\/th>\n Description<\/p>\n<\/th>\n<\/tr>\n<\/thead>\n <\/td>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n updated January 1, 2019 Quick NavigationWhat Numbers Should I Aim For?Scaling Up to CindyCindy StrategiesPull Ups Push Ups Air Squats Transitions Break It Down Warm Up Final Cindy WOD Tips One of the great attractions of Crossfit workouts is that they allow you to get a killer of a workout into a compressed time span. … Continue reading Cindy WOD Workout \u2013 A Beastly Strategy Guaranteed to Improve Your PR<\/span> \n
What Numbers Should I Aim For?<\/h2>\n
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Scaling Up to Cindy<\/h2>\n
Squats<\/h4>\n
Pull Ups<\/h4>\n
Push Ups<\/strong><\/h4>\n
Cindy Strategies<\/h2>\n
Pull Ups<\/h3>\n
![\"Pull](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/pull-ups-1.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n\n
Push Ups<\/h3>\n
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![\"Push](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Push-ups.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\nAir Squats<\/h3>\n
![\"Air](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Air-Squats.jpg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n\n
Transitions<\/h3>\n
Break It Down<\/h3>\n
![\"Rest](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/09\/Rest-Between-Sets%E2%80%8B.jpeg\")
<\/span><\/p>\n\n
Break It Down<\/h3>\n
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Final Cindy WOD Tips<\/h2>\n
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Other Cindy WOD Strats<\/h2>\n
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\n \nWOD<\/th>\n \n \n \n ![\"WOD](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WOD-Strats-MURPH.jpg\")
<\/span><\/td>\nWOD Strats- MURPH<\/a><\/td>\n \n \n
\n ![\"WOD](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WOD-Strats-HELEN.jpg\")
<\/span><\/td>\nWOD Strats – Helen<\/a><\/td>\n \n \n
\n ![\"WOD](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WOD-Strats-THE-SEVEN.jpg\")
<\/span><\/td>\nWOD Strats – The Seven<\/a><\/td>\n \n \n
\n ![\"Wod](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/Wod-Starts-%E2%80%93-JACKIE-WOD.jpg\")
<\/span><\/td>\nWod Starts – JACKIE WOD<\/a><\/td>\n \n \n
\n ![\"WOD](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WOD-Strats-Kalsu.jpg\")
<\/span><\/td>\nWod Strats – Kalsu<\/a><\/td>\n On the minute (until you complete 100 reps of thrusters).<\/p>\n \n
\n ![\"WOD](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WOD-Strats-%E2%80%93-Cindy.jpg\")
<\/span><\/td>\nWOD Strats – Cindy<\/a><\/td>\n \n \n
\n ![\"WOD](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/WOD-Strats-%E2%80%93-Angie.jpg\")
<\/span><\/td>\nWOD Strats – Angie<\/a><\/td>\n \n \n
\n ![\"wod](\"\/\/garagegymbuilder.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/11\/wod-diane.jpg\")
<\/span><\/td>\nWOD Strats – Diane<\/a><\/p>\n \n \n