What Does WOD Mean In CrossFit?
If you are starting to practice CrossFit, you may have already noticed that they have a lot of acronyms. One of these acronyms that is more often used is WOD. So, what does WOD mean?
WOD or Workout Of The Day is a set of activities or modalities that your coach tells you to do on a particular day. The WOD is a very important part of your training. After all, you need to know what activities can help you achieve the results you are looking for as well as the activities that you should reduce to optimize your results.
Discover the top CrossFit shoes for men.
One important part of the CrossFit philosophy is related to learning other activities or modalities, and see how each one affects your WOD.
No matter how appealing the WOD may be to you, you should make sure that you keep the structure of a CrossFit workout routine. If you don’t, it can lead you to short and long-term injuries.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_5bSHiIHMHo
A CrossFit workout routine includes 4 elements and it’s important to include them all since this is the only way to gain the most out of your workout for the long-term.
Usually, a CrossFit workout consists of 4 elements and the WOD is just one of them.
#1: The Warm Up:
The CrossFit workout warm up usually involves some blood pumping exercises between 12 to 15 minutes. During the warm up, you can do exercises such as lunges, pull ups, jumping jacks, jumping rope, squats, among others. The main goal of the warm up is to set both your body and mind ready for for the coming workout as well as to prevent injuries.
#2: WOD:
The CrossFit WOD is often seen as the heart of your CrossFit workout routine. The truth is that your WOD will never be the same day after day and uses both strength training and HILT. You will need to complete a specific number of exercises as well as reps as quickly as you can. The goal of the WOD is to push yourself to your own limits.
Most CrossFit gyms offer WODs to their members either in the gym or on their website. Usually, these gyms also tend to have classes that feature the specific WOD for the day in question. The WOD should take you between 10 and 20 minutes.
Check out some examples of WODs.
#3: Skill/Strength Training:
On workout days that are dedicated to skill training, you will enhance one skill that will be trained in the following WOD. However, on other occasions, the skill day may be dedicated to building a new skill.
Take a look at the top CrossFit shoes for women.
On strength days, you will dedicate your time to the building of pure body strength. These include exercises such as squats, deadlifts, among others.
Both skill and strength days workouts usually take between 15 to 20 minutes. The main goal of these days is to improve form, gain the muscle memory, and increase your overall health.
#4: Stretch/Cool Down:
This is one of the CrossFit workout routine that is clearly underrated. However, this doesn’t mean that it isn’t equally important to the other 3 elements. After all, your muscles need to have the time to recover. In case you don’t take a day off, you will be increasing the odds of getting an injury in future workouts.
During these days, the best thing you can do is some traditional stretching of the muscles exercises and make use of some foam rollers and stretch bands. These exercises should take you between 10 to 15 minutes.
