CrossFit founder Greg Glassman developed “The Girls,” a series of workouts designed to check the strength, endurance, speed, and power of CrossFit athletes. they're all short, intense, and challenging — and they’ll undoubtedly expose your weaknesses.

The original girls, released in 2003, were “Angie,” “Barbara,” “Chelsea,” “Diane,” “Elizabeth,” and “Fran.” a couple of months later, “Grace” and “Helen” joined the repertoire, and “Karen” was added as a part of the “New Girls” released in 2010. There are quite 20 Girl WODS now, and most of them have their variants. WOD stands for "workout of the day."

Here’s everything you would like to understand about Karen.

The Karen Girl WOD
The workout: 150 wall-balls for time. 20 pounds for men, 14 pounds for ladies.
Score: Karen is scored “for time,” which suggests you complete the workout as fast as you'll.
Equipment Needed: ball (also called a “wall ball”)
Level: Karen may be a great workout for beginners. While the rep number is high, the workout consists of 1 extremely functional movement that each one athlete should master. The loading is additionally relatively light.

Benefits

The Karen WOD is straightforward but surprisingly challenging. It’s so simple that a lot of CrossFitters think there’s no way that Karen might be so difficult — until they are doing it. Here are four fitness benefits you'll expect from Karen.

Muscular Endurance

According to science, there are ideal rep ranges for strength, hypertrophy, and endurance. generally, building strength requires heavy loads and lower reps, while endurance requires lighter loads and more reps. Muscle hypertrophy falls somewhere in between. At 150 reps employing a 20-pound or 14-pound ball, Karen trains the sort I muscle fibers that believe aerobic metabolism.

Power

Secondary to muscular endurance, Karen also builds power. You’ll get to use power from your quads, hamstrings, and glutes to forcefully drive out of rock bottom of the squat and throw the drugs ball to the target. the facility from your legs should give the ball enough momentum so that your shoulders don’t need to figure very hard.

Cardiovascular Endurance

Though Karen isn’t a very long workout, it requires many reps with only a few and really short rest periods. Ideally you wouldn’t rest for quite 10 seconds between sets while completing the Karen WOD. Your pulse will rise dramatically and you’ll probably feel the familiar build-up of carboxylic acid, but you’ll be all the higher for it afterward.

Squat Practice

To get better at squatting, you want to practice squatting more often. Karen may be a great WoD for squat practice, as you’ll perform 150 ball squats. Holding the drugs ball will assist you keep your torso upright and your core engaged, two common faults within the squat.

Step-by-Step Instructions

With only one movement to recollect, Karen is one of the simpler workouts in CrossFit. You won’t get to use much brainpower to recollect rounds and reps, such as you might within the Seven hero WOD. Here’s what you would like and the way to finish the Karen WOD.

Equipment and Setup

For the Karen WOD, all you would like maybe a ball (also called a “wall ball” — this is often different than a slam ball) and a wall or wall-ball target. I also recommend employing a small whiteboard, chalk, or tokens (whatever your gym provides) to tally your reps.

How To Do a Wall-ball


  1. Set up: Place your ball on the bottom a few feet ahead of the wall or wall-ball target. Stand together with your feet in your normal squat stance (about hep shoulder-width apart).
  2. When the clock starts, pick your ball off of the bottom, holding it with both hands on either side and squat down low. attempt to get your hips below your knees.
  3. As you begin to return out of the squat, use your hips and glutes to forcefully extend your hips and rise onto the balls of your feet. you would like momentum here.
  4. As you straighten your legs, throw the drugs botch to the target, which is typically 10 feet for men and 9 feet for ladies.
  5. Keep your arms extended to catch the ball because it bounces off of the wall or target. This completes one rep.
  6. To start subsequent rep, descend into a squat after receiving the ball.

Common Mistakes

All workouts and movements present opportunities for mistakes, and intrinsically, opportunities for learning. Here’s what you would like to understand about common mistakes within the Karen WOD.

Doing Too Many Reps Unbroken

CrossFit athletes tend to require to travel super fast all the time. That’s great, but you ought to slow your roll when it involves Karen. If you go too fast right out of the gate, you would possibly blow out halfway through. rather than just attacking as many reps unbroken as you'll, strategize. Try sets of 20, 15, or 10 with brief breaks of 5 to 10 seconds in between.

Not Reaching Proper Squat Depth

Unless you've got an injury that forestalls you from squatting, you ought to try your best to succeed in full squat depth. In most cases, meaning your quadriceps should be parallel to the bottom, but some CrossFit coaches might encourage you to squat deeper.

Other Squat Technique Mistakes

Besides reaching proper squat depth, you ought to keep these key points of performance in mind for the squat: Keep your torso upright; chest-high; core engaged; eyes forward; and heels on the bottom. Repeatedly deviating from anybody of these points can cause bad squat habits, which may end in injury over time.

Not Using Legs to Propel the Ball

For most people, the legs are the foremost powerful a part of the body — it might be a shame to not use that power to save lots of your arms and shoulders from fatigue. During Karen, once you ascend from the squat, powerfully drive yourself onto the balls of your feet and fully extend your hips. This momentum should make the drugs ball feel almost as if it’s floating up for a blink of an eye.

Not Reaching Wall-ball Target

The standard CrossFit wall-ball target heights are 9 feet for ladies and 10 feet for men. a minimum of half your ball must reach the target. If but half the ball reaches the target, or the ball doesn’t reach the target in the least, your coach may “no rep” you, meaning that rep didn’t count toward your total reps. This probably won’t happen in typical CrossFit class settings, but it happens in competitions and within the CrossFit Open.

Modifications and Variations

The Karen WOD only consists of 1 movement, but don’t be fooled into thinking that this workout can’t be scaled or modified — it can. Here’s the way to scale if for fitness levels, injuries, and pregnancy, plus some fun Karen variations.

Reduce the Reps

For most CrossFit beginners, 150 reps of anything maybe a lot. 150 reps of a total-body movement that mixes strength and cardio may be a different beast. If the prescribed rep count seems like too many, scale Karen to 100 wall-balls or 75 wall-balls.

Reduce the load

Maybe you've got great endurance but you aren’t yet as strong as you’d like. No problem! Scale the drugs ball weight. The prescribed weights are 20 pounds for men and 14 pounds for ladies. Men who are just starting might want to scale to 14, 12, or 10 pounds; women might want to scale to 10 or 8 pounds.

Reduce Weights and Reps

If both the rep count and weight seem too challenging, you'll reduce both to satisfy your fitness level. ask your coach about the simplest thanks to scale.

All that said, a beginner version of Karen might appear as if this:

75 wall-balls for time, 10-pound ball.

Scaling for Injuries

Wall-balls require a complete range of motion throughout your whole body: You’ll get to fully flex and extend your knees, hips, shoulders, and elbows. If you've got a current or prior injury affecting any of these joints, you'll got to modify the wall-ball movement. Try these scaling options.

Squat to box wall-balls: For those with knee or hip injuries, squatting to a box may provide some comfort and stability. Place a box 2 to three feet faraway from the wall or target, and use it as a guide for squat depth. this might take a couple of practice reps to urge won't to.

Medicine ball squats: If you can’t throw the ball overhead, just squat with it instead. You’ll hold the drugs ball ahead of your chest, with one hand on all sides. this may desire a front squat.

Thruster with a PVC pipe: this is often an honest scaling option for somebody who can squat and extend their arms overhead, but can’t throw the drugs ball. You’ll front squat with a PVC pipe and, as you get up, push the PVC pipe into the overhead position.

Scaling for Pregnancy

For the foremost part, the scaling options for injuries also work for ladies who are pregnant. you ought to always reduce the depth of the squat to accommodate your belly, and confirm your movements are slow and controlled. Always consult your physician or obstetrician before exercising while pregnant.

Variations of Karen

Ever since the women's workouts came to call at the first 2000s and 2010s, CrossFit coaches and athletes have created variations of the WoDs to stay things fun, interesting, and challenging. Here are two variations of Karen you'll try.

“Karen Meets Grace”: The Grace workout is another tough Girls WoD that consists of 30 clean-and-jerks for time (prescribed weights 135 pounds/95 pounds). “Karen Meets Grace” combines the two: First you’ll complete Karen’s 150 wall-balls, then immediately follow with Grace’s 30 clean-and-jerks. This mash-up isn’t for the easily intimidated!

Partner Karen: this is often simply Karen with a partner. you'll stick with the prescribed 150 reps and split them equally (75 wall-balls each), but if you’re up for a significant challenge, do 150 wall-balls each for a complete of 300. Most CrossFit coaches recommend switching after every 10 or 15 reps to avoid total fatigue.

Safety and Precautions

Compared to CrossFit workouts with heavyweights, technical lifts, and gymnastics movements, the Karen WOD is comparatively safe. However, you ought to still take certain precautions before any workout. Keep the following pointers in mind before attempting Karen.

Warm Up and funky Down

You should always prime your body for exercise by warming up. Complete a general warmup that consists of sunshine cardio, like jogging, rowing, or cycling, and dynamic stretching. Then, complete a selected warm-up that will get your body won't to the movement it’s close to complete 150 times. Practice some bodyweight squats, ball squats, and overhead presses.

After the workout, spend a minimum of five minutes — but ideally 10 to fifteen minutes — cooling down. With a full-body flush that has slow monostructural movement (walking, cycling, etc.), foam rolling, and static stretching, you'll promote blood flow and reduce the intensity of delayed-onset muscle soreness.

Scale Accordingly

If you’re new CrossFit, don’t do an excessive amount of timely. Ask your coach about scaling the workout to your fitness level. Similarly, if you’re injured or pregnant, modify the workout so you don’t injure yourself.

Wear Protective Garments If Needed

The Karen WOD involves 150 squats and overhead extensions, which could be an excessive amount of stress on the body for people with bad knees or elbows. Compression garments help tremendously to offset the pressure on your knees and elbows, so consider wearing them if you’re concerned about pain during or after the workout.

Hydrate Before and After

Karen, on the average, is merely a five to 10-minute workout, but you'll still lose tons of body water through sweating. this is often very true if you complete the workout at a CrossFit gym that isn’t air-conditioned. To combat dehydration, drink a minimum of 16 ounces of water before the workout and replenish with an electrolyte drink when you’re done.