What’s a “WOD”?

Kettle Bell Snatch

WOD = Workout of the Day, the basic workouts at CrossFit gyms are called WODs, they are instructor led, should have a solid warm up before hand, and should exhaust the crap out of you.  MOB told me after my first WOD “you will be sore in fun and exciting new ways!” One of the most accurate statements that has ever been made.

In addition to WOD, CrossFit is riddled with abbreviations and lingo that is very hard to understand at first, but after a few visits they become second nature.

My favorite is “pood”.  I’m not sure exactly how it’s pronounced, but I pronounce it like any 5th grader would.  Pood is a unit of measure which typically is reserved for kettlebells.  In the picture above, I’m using a 1 pood kettlebell.  Which means 16 kilograms which is about 35 pounds.  A 1.5 pood kettlebell weighs 24 kilograms (1.5 * 16 = 24) and so on.

There’s a great resource on CrossFit.com which has all sorts of awesome FAQ’s and A’s ranging from a full list of acronyms to equipment to nutrition.  It’s a must read for the beginner, and really for advanced CrossFit’ers too.

The key jargon that you should know, in addition to WOD, are as follows:

  • AMRAP = As Many Rounds As Possible for a given time
  • BS = Back Squat
  • C&J = Clean and Jerk
  • CL = Clean
  • DL = Dead Lift
  • E3M = Every Three Minutes
  • EMOM  = Every Minute on the Minute
  • FS = Front Squat
  • HCL = Hang Clean
  • MOB = Awesome Trainer, especially for the newbies like me
  • PR = Personal Record
  • Rx = Prescribed; this is very important, this will dictate the recommended weight or rounds or reps and is typically targeted at the more advanced CrossFitters, if you are  a beginner, you will need to scale.  For more info on scaling, check out this great post by Douglas Chapman “CROSSFIT ANN ARBOR: SO YOU UNDERSTAND SCALING“.
  • SN = Snatch
  • SQ = Squat
  • TABATA = For twenty seconds do as many reps of the assigned exercise as you can then rest 10 seconds.  8 Rounds.  The scoring seems to be varied, either lowest number of reps in an interval or total reps if you are doing multiple exercises across multiple TABATAs
  • TTB / T2B = Toes to Bar
  • WOD = Workout of the Day

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