Workout Description

Why This Workout Is Very Hard

This workout combines high-skill muscle-ups with moderately heavy power cleans across 7 rounds with no built-in rest. The muscle-ups will severely tax grip and upper body strength early, making the power cleans progressively more difficult as fatigue accumulates. Most average CrossFitters will need to scale the muscle-ups significantly, and the continuous nature prevents adequate recovery between rounds, creating a brutal combination of skill and strength demands.

Benchmark Times for BLACK AND BLUE

• Elite: <6:00
• Advanced: 7:00-8:00
• Intermediate: 9:00-10:00
• Beginner: >18:00

Training Focus

This workout develops the following fitness attributes:

• Stamina (8/10): Muscle-ups demand exceptional upper body stamina while power cleans tax posterior chain endurance. Grip stamina becomes the limiting factor across rounds.
• Power (8/10): Power cleans are purely explosive while muscle-ups require explosive pulling power for the transition. Both movements are power-dominant by nature.
• Endurance (7/10): Seven rounds of high-skill movements with moderate load creates significant cardiovascular demand, especially as grip fatigue accumulates and breathing becomes labored.
• Flexibility (7/10): Muscle-ups require exceptional shoulder mobility and thoracic extension. Power cleans demand ankle, hip, and shoulder flexibility for proper positioning.
• Strength (6/10): 135/95lb power cleans require moderate strength while muscle-ups demand significant relative strength for the pulling and transition phases.
• Speed (6/10): Success depends on efficient transitions between movements and maintaining consistent cycle times as fatigue sets in across seven challenging rounds.

Movements

• Ring Muscle-Up
• Power Clean

Benchmark Notes

This workout consists of 7 rounds of 3 muscle-ups and 5 power cleans at 135/95 lbs. I'll analyze this by breaking down each movement and applying fatigue multipliers across rounds. Movement Analysis: - Ring Muscle-Up: 8-10 seconds per rep in fresh state (includes setup, kip, recovery) - Power Clean (135 lbs): 2-3 seconds per rep at moderate load Round-by-Round Breakdown: Round 1 (fresh): 3 MU × 8 sec + 5 PC × 2.5 sec = 24 + 12.5 = 36.5 sec + 5 sec transition = 41.5 sec Round 2: Apply 1.0x fatigue = 41.5 sec Round 3-4: Apply 1.15x fatigue = 47.7 sec each Round 5-6: Apply 1.25x fatigue = 51.9 sec each Round 7: Apply 1.4x fatigue = 58.1 sec Total base time: 41.5 + 41.5 + 47.7 + 47.7 + 51.9 + 51.9 + 58.1 = 340 seconds Fatigue and Set Breaking Considerations: - Muscle-ups become increasingly difficult, expect singles after round 3-4 - Power cleans may need to be broken into 3+2 or 2+2+1 in later rounds - Add 30-60 seconds per round for missed muscle-up attempts in later rounds - Grip fatigue significantly impacts both movements This workout is most similar to Amanda (9-7-5 ring muscle-up + squat snatch 135/95), which has anchor times of L10: 420-480 sec, L5: 720-840 sec, L1: 1080-1380 sec. However, this workout has 21 total muscle-ups vs Amanda's 21, but uses power cleans instead of snatches and has a different rep scheme that creates more sustained fatigue. Adjusting from Amanda anchor: The 7-round format creates more consistent fatigue than Amanda's descending ladder, and power cleans are slightly easier than squat snatches. I estimate this workout to be about 15% faster than Amanda due to the easier barbell movement, placing elite times around 360-420 seconds. Final Targets: L10 (Elite): 360-420 sec L5 (Average): 600 sec L1 (Beginner): 1080 sec

Modality Profile

Ring Muscle-Up is a bodyweight gymnastics movement, Power Clean is a weightlifting movement with external load. Two modalities split evenly.