Joe Tolles CrossFit Series: December ’23
Joe wraps up the year and the dumbbell portion of the series with the Dumbbell Snatch.
More Than Our Story
Joe Tolles CrossFit Series: November '22
Workout Of The Month
Deadlift
Every 2:00 for 5 sets:
3 Deadlifts
Bad Decisions
For Time:
21 Deadlifts (185/135)
12 Muscle Ups
3 Pegboard Ascents
15 Deadlifts (185/135)
9 Muscle Ups
2 Pegboard Ascents
9 Deadlifts (185/135)
6 Muscle Ups
1 Pegboard Ascent
What Was My Approach With This Workout?
(High-Skill Gymnastics Under Fatigue)
We start with deadlifts – sets of three, building in weight every two minutes for five sets. We haven’t done deadlifts in a while, but we do a lot of general pulling in our workouts. Every once in a while it’s good to isolate the deadlifts – I like to do a cycle before the CrossFit Open because it’s usually tested. This workout incorporated a light deadlift to give the opportunity to go unbroken. The ring muscles-ups rep scheme 12,9,6 it’s a lot, but also gives people the opportunity to scale the number down while remaining attainable. The pegboard is very challenging – I have only programmed it 3 times – but it’s also something everyone in the gym can see that it’s actually attainable.
Overall, it’s nice to give everyone a challenge that’s outside the box – if you went to another CrossFit gym you wouldn’t see something this dynamic. But I definitely love challenging you guys, and even if you didn’t do the workout as prescribed, everybody got a win out of this.
What Do You Expect To Be Challenging?
All of it to be honest. The cool thing about this workout is there are levels to it. For some people 185/135 deadlift is heavy, but attainable. Usually when I program deadlifts it’s like 225/155 or 275/185, so people newer in their CrossFit journey can hit this and feel good about themselves. The muscle ups, 27 is a lot, but still manageable. The pegboard even for the fittest in the gym is going to pose a real challenge.
“When I wrote this workout I was like, “I don't know if I can do that”. I think that’s a good thing. If I knew I could do every workout it would not be in the best interest of everybody in the gym - because I’m not the best at everything.”
What Do I Expect People To Like About This?
I think part of the the lure of CrossFit is you’re doing things that you wouldn’t see anywhere else or be able to do at your local gym – or even feel safe doing it. However, in this environment where we go over technique and everybody’s attempting it, people feel safer and not so afraid to try things.
What Modifications Are Applicable?
For the deadlifts a lighter load would be the most obvious, and if someone had an issue with their back we would do something different. For muscle ups, I think the scales for these are dependent on where the athlete is with that movement. If they’re fairly close but struggle with the follow-through or finish, they would do a jumping muscle up scale. If they struggle with overall pulling and pushing strength, a ring dip to ring row scale would be great. If they’re okay with pressing but they struggle with pulling, a feet elevated ring row would be a good scale. For the pegboard, it’s a different grip than a pullup, it’s more of a neutral grip, so chin up hold with a supinated grip instead of pronated grip would be good to develop the core and lat strength.
Difficulty Level?
5/5
I feel like this is one of those workouts where you could program it in any CrossFit gym in the world and maybe the top one percent could actually do it as written. It’s like I was trying to tell the class – if you can’t do this, it’s okay. To be able to do all these three things in a workout when you’re tired, it’s more than a lot.
North Shore Athletic Club
Joe Tolles
Joe Tolles is a semi-retired, professional hockey player, CrossFit gym owner/operator, and organ donor. He is a down-to-earth person whose work ethic and motivation are infectious.
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Joe Tolles
Joe Tolles is a semi-retired, professional hockey player, CrossFit gym owner/operator, organ donor, and inspiration to others.