WOD conversion chart?

[Chris Hansen]

I'd be interested in what other people think but I think it would be really useful, at least for me, to have like a conversion chart for scaled back exercises in the WODs. Like if you can't do a certain exercise, what is a good substitute. Or if you don't have a certain piece of equipment, what could you do instead.

I've been kind of intimidated by the WODs because a lot of it I can't do either because I'm not strong enough or because I don't have the equipment and I don't always know what would be good substitutes. If there was a chart that laid out some alternatives, I think the WODs might be more accessible to beginners like me.

[Razz]

If you have the book it's easy to find the prescribed movement and then look for alternatives

[Joshua Naterman]

Do you have the book?

[Troy Rodriguez]

I have actually created this myself in an Excel format.

I really have to agree with them on the "Have you read/purchased the book?" question. I thought for quite a while about posting it or PM'ing it, etc. Since there is no way of verifying who bought the book on here and no "Private Members Only" forum I have refrained from bringing it up.

However, like Razz states i was able to build this spreadsheet directly from the book in 2 hours. :wink:

[Joshua Naterman]

Yep. That's the best thing to do!

[Nick Van Bockxmeer]

some creativity is required on your part. The good thing is that if you record what you did you can make the neccesary changes next time the workout comes round.

[Jay Guindon]

I would have to second this motion. Despite owning the book, it can sometimes be hard to know what to sub for cirques or shuttle runs/sled sprints.

[Razz]

Cirques=10 towel chinups, or is it 15?

Sprints, anything that gets your heart rate to 170bpm

[Jay Guindon]

Towel pullups...of course. Don't know how I didn't get that one! So for shuttle runs sled sprints etc. you can just sub any exercise that raises your heart rate over 170? Box jumps work? Swinging dips was a hard one too as it is a dynamic movement and regular dips are a strength movement. Is it ok to sub a dynamic move with a strength move if you don't have the dynamic capacity?

I too actually went through the book and made a table of all the progressions listed from easiest to hardest after hearing other people did that and it definitely makes it super streamlined, but some things come up in workouts that aren't listed in the book in the progressions. That is not meant as a criticism but simply as a statement of what's so, so I can relate to having a hard time with figuring out what is the easier version sometimes.

[Alvaro Antolinez]

In my experience it takes only the first month of WOD to adjust the exercises. That is the time it takes to circle more or less around all exercises and you need to know in what kind of WOD the exercise is included, it is not the same a strenght day with slow reps or a dynamic, high heart rate day. After some experiments is only a matter of small changes to adjust to your capabilities. Reading through the last WODs will give some insight also.

[Joshua Naterman]

Towel pullups...of course. Don't know how I didn't get that one! So for shuttle runs sled sprints etc. you can just sub any exercise that raises your heart rate over 170? Box jumps work? Swinging dips was a hard one too as it is a dynamic movement and regular dips are a strength movement. Is it ok to sub a dynamic move with a strength move if you don't have the dynamic capacity?

For getting your heart rate up, I don't know quite how you are thinking of box jumps. It's going to be a lot easier with jumping rope, I think, but I suppose that as long as you aren't burning so much energy that you can't do your workout properly it doesn't matter.

As for the swinging dips, at first just get used to parallel bar support swings. In the meantime, if you don't have the capacity then you should absolutely substitute something else. You can't do dynamic upper body work until you have strength through the full range of motion, especially at the ends, so that should probably be the first focus. After that you can just focus on speeding up your reps when there's a dynamic workout! There are progressions for swinging dips that you can learn at the seminars. You can probably figure some out on your own!

I too actually went through the book and made a table of all the progressions listed from easiest to hardest after hearing other people did that and it definitely makes it super streamlined, but some things come up in workouts that aren't listed in the book in the progressions. That is not meant as a criticism but simply as a statement of what's so, so I can relate to having a hard time with figuring out what is the easier version sometimes.

What have you seen in the WODs that is not in the book, besides sled pulling? I suppose Cirques aren't in there either. What else has caught your eye?

[Jay Guindon]

Cirques

Box Press Handstand

XR Handstand power downs

Swinging dips

Maybe that's it.

The only ones really that are hard for me are circques because I have no rope but now I know I can sub towel pullups and running/sprinting/pulling sleds because I don't have the space or anything to pull.

[Joshua Naterman]

Ah. Cirques and powerdowns are definitely not in there, and I don't thing box press HS is either. Swinging dips aren't either, I guess I have just seen the video so many times that I thought they were... weird. Bad on me! There's a video for cirques too.

[Jay Guindon]

Ya I found the video, it was more the substitute exercises that are hard to find if they aren't in the book. It's pretty easy to know what to sub if you can't do wide grip L pullups because BtGB lists like ten different pull up variations from easiest to hardest. Cirques aren't in the book so you can't just look up the easier version or the version if you don't have a rope. By the way does anyone know what the actual towel pull up numbers are to sub for cirques? 10 or 15?

[Joshua Naterman]

Ideally, what you'd want to do is to square knot two or three towels together and then tie them on your pull up bar. That way you can do true rope pull ups as well as assisted climbs. But, the following explanation is for regular towel pull ups.

The average rope is 30 feet, I believe. It's going to take you 15 reps or so of regular towel pull ups to equal the work done in one rope climb, and that assumes you travel 1 foot per hand hold, which is pretty reasonable when you think about it. 15 reps = 15 feet per hand, x 2 hands = 30 feet. Since you're doing the negative AND the positive with each rep, you're ascending and descending the rope. Yea, it's slightly different, but close enough. If you're doing them from a dead hang to chin above your hands then 10-12 reps is probably enough.

At first 3-7 reps will probably be the limit for each set. If you can't do at least 3 reps of towel pull ups you should be working on other pull up variations AND your grip!

Once you've got 3 sets of 10-15 reps you should be able to do real rope climbs with no legs. As for cirques, you don't want to start those until you can easily do 3 rope climbs with the rope either outside your legs or at least not being used for friction on the way down.

ROpe climbs ARE different than towel pull ups, so if you were to either get 10 feet of rope or tie a few new towels together (I'd suggest duct taping or whipping the knots for safety and make sure the entire towel goes through the knot, not just a corner) and hang it on your pull up bar or a tree branch you could figure out how many passes equal one rope climb. Since you should be in an L on rope climbs, you could start near the floor.

I'd build up your towel pull ups first, and then transition to real rope climbs when you're good on the towel pull ups.