| Fitness | Performance |
| A. | A. |
| 9 Min form work on: | 18 Min to a Heavy Set of: |
| Hang Powr Clean, Push & Split Jerk | Pwr Clean + Hang Pwr Clean + Jerk |
| 9 Min to a set of: | |
| Hang Pwr Clean + Jerk | |
| B. | B. |
| For Time: | For Time: |
| 750m Row, followed by: | 1k Row, followed by: |
| 15-12-9 | 21-15-9 |
| KBS | KBS 70/53 |
| Burpee | Burpees |
11 Reasons to Take off Your Shirt When you Workout!!!
1. My Shirt Chokes Me During Tiring Met-cons
When I’m in the 5th minute of a WOD and I’m kipping and snatching my brains out, the last thing I want to be thinking of is the tri-blend shirt-noose that’s aggressively massaging me into asphyxiation. To be sure, I enjoy breathing. I also prefer exercising intensely with a maximal amount of oxygen coursing to my cerebrum. Tossing the shirt into the bleachers makes keeping the ol’ trachea highway traffic-free just a bit easier.
2. You Have to “Go Hard” When Your Shirt’s Off
If you take your shirt off in the gym, you’re gonna draw looks. Period. Maybe because you’re smelling like last night’s tamales, maybe because you have the curious body type of a conehead, or maybe because you suddenly are storming around wide-winged like Jax from Sons of Anarchy–regardless of reason, the eyes are on you.
While many struggle with motivating themselves and getting amped up enough to put their best effort forward on a daily basis, a shirtless individual cannot relate to these struggles. A shirtless individual’s most lackluster effort resembles a shirted individual’s personal storming of Normandy. It is relentless, passionate, and sometimes even over-bearing.
Simply put, when the t-shirt goes to the ground, you may as well be throwing down the gauntlet. Game on. Time to PR. Doing a casual set of bicep curls or air squats is simply out of the question. You’ve just made a public service announcement that you’re going to workout till you pass out. Bystanders be at the ready, this dude is going HAM!
3. I’m a Devout Practitioner of Shirtless Meditation
As a unofficial leader in the neo-transcendental religion of shirtless meditation, I find it my daily duty to remind possible parishioners of how liberating and sacred it is to bestow your skin whilst in the throes of deep training practice. The shirt, it seems, is yet one more barrier between our souls and the Mighty One above. Simple removal of your top layer of fabric is like instantly climbing a few steps closer to nirvana.
4. It Helps me Strike Fear Into the Barbell
A heavy barbell can be a daunting thing. Load 300+ lbs onto some iron and a perfect storm of self-doubt and defeatist thinking is liable to start brewing inside your loins.
By taking your shirt off and bearing it all, you’re letting the barbell know that you are not intimidated by its placid, faceless mocking. While some people may scoff at this personification of a barbell, I assure you those people have never encountered and/or experienced a heavy clean & jerk crushing their spirit and landing on-top of and perpendicular-to their windpipe.
In fact, they’ve probably never even done a clean & jerk.
Maybe they’ve never seen a barbell.
Then again, it’s not about them. It’s about the barbell.
Take the shirt off, make the bar whimper.
5. Going Shirtless Keeps Me Young
I was born naked and free. And, as every minute passes in my life, society tries to dress me up, smite out my childish spirit, and dampen the joy naturally effervescing from my pours. Tossing my American Apparel to the wind allows me to reconnect with the infinitely optimistic Power Ranger inside me and channel their rainbow super strength to dominate in my workouts. Just as the application of some moisturizing creams are advertised to take “10 years off your face,” stripping your bod of shirtly bondage immediately takes 20 years off your mind.
Be youthful my friend. It’s Morphin Time!
6. I Care About my Shirt
Somehow, a couple years after college, all of the disgusting, sleeveless-down-to-the-nip shirts I used to wear to the gym were thrown out. Whether ex-girlfriends discarded them or they disintegrated into sweat-drenched dust, they’re gone. And in their stead are a bunch of new shirts. Pearly white shirts. And Bounty bright shirts. These shirts I don’t want to ruin. These shirts are pefectly good as casual wear that can be dressed up and worn into semi-trendy establishments in the evening. These shirts were not cheap.
By removing my shirt pre-workout, I am simply adding life to the longevity of the threads in my shirt and being a diligent and considerate young professional. This way, when I’m in the club and my hands are touching the sky to Beyonce’s “Drunk in Love,” the dancers adjacent to me will not be wondering if I rubbed my armpits in a cocktail of phermaldehyde, urine, and G2.
Yuck.
7. Going Shirtless Increases Testosterone
Unofficial early statistics have reported that removal of the shirt prior to intense exercise increases free testosterone in the body by at least 34%. This means Hulk style gains as soon as that v-neck comes off. And, while these studies are in their nascent and inconclusive stages, the preliminary evidence is quite compelling.
If you’re looking for more anecdotal proof of this phenomenon, look no further than the CrossFit Games as an example of what taking off your shirt in a workout can do for you. Notice anyone on the podium wearing a t-shirt? Didn’t think so. The only things on that stage are washboard abs and high-volume intensity. Booyah.
Apparently, ripping your top off is about as effective as taking a regular trip to Balco–minus the tabloid scorn, expensive and exhausting legal hearings, and unsightly needle marks.
Mr. Rodriquez, sorry this news didn’t come out earlier.
8. Shirts vs. Skins: The Game of Life
In my view, every day at the gym is a game; and, like any semi-organized pick-up game, there are two teams. In order to most cost effectively separate the two opponents, we establish alliance via our uniforms–shirts vs. skins.
For some reason, I’m always on the skins team and we always win.
If you’re interested in joining our squad, we’re recruiting. In fact, our warm-up uniform can be purchased here. And here. And…here.
9. Going Shirtless Avoids the Loathsome Wet Rag
I have no stronger peeve than an unwrung rag nestled in the bottom of the sink. It turns out, wet cotton has a witch-like property to conjure up the smells of fermented goose droppings blended with mothballs. This stench could put down a Rhino.
A sweat-soaked dri-fit is just like that unwrung rag.
Think about putting that shirt in your dirty laundry. Think about the mold that will grow as it rests on the bottom of your bin. Think about when you go on vacation and accidentally leave that shirt in the bottom of the laundry baking into a cesspool of bacteria and bile. Think about the diseases you’re unnecessarily bringing into your home…
It’s like living in Contagion, but Matt Damon is not here to save you.
10. Going Shirtless and Living Dangerously
Taking off your shirt while you workout is another way of saying, “Danger is my Middle Name.” In a gym world where MRSA inhabits 70% of possible surfaces, the shirtless exercise enthusiast is a renegade warrior throwing the middle finger to the air. You’re practically Rambo plowing your way through the jungles of Vietnam, laying waste to everything in front of you.
No bulletproof vest needed when you have a natural plate of armor hiding underneath your shirt.
11. Going Shirtless: Because I Want To
In all honesty, keeping my shirt on in a workout would be an act of self-loathing. I love myself and I was raised to love myself. If I kept my shirt on, I not only would be deferring my self-love, but also offending my mother who worked so hard as a parent to imbue me with such confidence and self-belief (thanks Mom!).