Tempo Squats

JT Scott | 08/04/2019 | 3

Thanks to everyone who came out today to do a little cleanup of the box and purge the lost-and-found. There was much chicken grilled and a fair number of beverages consumed. They say many hands makes light work, and it was a real pleasure to hang out with y’all and get stuff done! The box feels better already, and I think it’s just great for us to be able to put a little love into a place that means so much to us. Super big thanks to Coaches Mike and Nelly for organizing it!

Pause squats (which we love and program from time to time) are really a specific variant of something known as “tempo squats”: namely, the variation where you pause at the bottom for a set period of time. In weight training notation, you may run into tempo lifts being written as something like 2010 or 23X2. Here’s a good article about what that means and how to read notations like this when you see them.

Today’s lifts are back squats with a 30X1 tempo. What this means:
3: take three seconds to go down from the top to the bottom of the squat. GO SLOW
0: no pause at the bottom
X: come up from the bottom back to the top as fast and explosively as you can
1: wait one second before starting the next rep

This will be challenging in a different way than our recently programmed paused front squats, but I guarantee if you can do them well you will be rewarded with making progress.

For the workout, we’ve got a VERY grippy one that may surprise you. Note the weight on the kettlebell swings – these are heavy, and are very likely to become a limiting factor in your WOD.

STRENGTH:
Tempo Back Squats (30X1)
4-4-4-4-4
* 3 seconds to descend, no pause at bottom, come up explosively

WOD:
AMRAP 12
5 Pullups
10 Jumping Squats
15 KB Swings (70/53)