Workout Description

Why This Workout Is Medium

While individual movements are moderate difficulty, the 32-minute duration and team format create natural pacing and recovery. Only one athlete works at a time, providing 2/3 rest ratio. Sandbag weights are typically lighter than barbells, and the rep scheme allows for manageable chunks. The backwards pulls provide active recovery. Most average CrossFitters can complete this with appropriate sandbag scaling, making it a solid medium-intensity endurance challenge.

Training Focus

This workout develops the following fitness attributes:

• Stamina (9/10): High volume sandbag movements combined with extended duration heavily taxes muscular endurance across multiple muscle groups and movement patterns.
• Endurance (8/10): 32-minute AMRAP with continuous work creates significant cardiovascular demand, though team format allows brief recovery periods between athlete rotations.
• Strength (6/10): Sandbag loading provides moderate resistance for squats, lunges, cleans, and overhead work, requiring substantial strength endurance throughout the workout.
• Flexibility (4/10): Bear hug position, front rack holds, overhead movements, and lunges demand good shoulder, hip, and ankle mobility for proper execution.
• Speed (4/10): Team format encourages steady pacing rather than sprint efforts, with transitions between athletes creating natural rhythm breaks in cycling speed.
• Power (3/10): Sandbag cleans and shoulder-to-overhead require some explosive hip extension, but heavy sandbag limits true power expression compared to barbells.

Movements

• Sandbag Shoulder-to-Overhead
• Sandbag Backwards Pull
• Sandbag Squat
• Sandbag Clean

Benchmark Notes

This is a 32-minute team AMRAP with 3 athletes rotating through a complex sandbag circuit. Each round consists of 6 bear hug squats, 30 front rack lunges, 3 cleans, 3 shoulder-to-overhead, 3 burpees over sandbag, and 30 backwards pulls. Breaking this down movement by movement: Bear hug squats (6 reps): 8-12 seconds fresh. Front rack lunges (30 reps): 45-60 seconds fresh. Sandbag cleans (3 reps): 6-9 seconds. Shoulder-to-overhead (3 reps): 6-9 seconds. Burpees over sandbag (3 reps): 12-15 seconds. Backwards pulls (30 reps): 45-60 seconds. Total fresh round time: 122-165 seconds per athlete. With 3 athletes rotating, each athlete gets approximately 10-11 rounds of work over 32 minutes (1920 seconds). However, sandbag workouts are notoriously grip and core intensive, creating significant fatigue. By rounds 3-4, expect 15-20% slowdown. By rounds 6-8, expect 25-35% slowdown. The backwards pulls and bear hug squats will become particularly challenging as grip strength deteriorates. Elite athletes might maintain 2:30-3:00 per round throughout, completing 10-11 rounds. Advanced athletes will slow to 3:30-4:00 per round in later rounds, managing 8-9 rounds. Recreational athletes will experience significant breakdown, with rounds taking 4:30-6:00+ in the back half, completing 5-7 rounds. The team format adds coordination complexity but provides built-in rest. Using Cindy (20-min AMRAP) as a reference anchor and scaling for the longer duration and sandbag complexity: Cindy L10: 25-30 rounds, L5: 15-18 rounds, L1: 6-8 rounds. This workout is significantly more demanding per round but has 60% more time, suggesting similar total output ranges. Final targets - L10: 11 rounds, L5: 7 rounds, L1: 3 rounds.

Modality Profile

6 movements total: 5 sandbag movements (Squat, Lunge, Clean, Shoulder-to-Overhead, Backwards Pull) are Weightlifting due to external load, 1 Burpee Over Sandbag is Gymnastics bodyweight movement. 1/6 = 17% G, 5/6 = 83% W, 0% M.