AMRAP With Friends

5 minute AMRAP

The Ripcord

Upper-lower switch · Blood Shunt · intensity 3 of 5

The workout

As many rounds as possible in 5 minutes of:

Overview

The Ripcord is 12 skater jumps and 10 back widow. The skater jumps and the back widow trade the quads and the upper back.

Muscles worked

Energy systems

These are overlapping contributions. This workout is not assigned to one energy system.

  • Glycolytic: High
  • Oxidative: Low
  • Neuromuscular: Moderate

Training effect

Immediate demand

5 minutes, intensity 3 of 5. Today the limiter is the skater jumps.

Intended stimulus

The style is built to switch the upper body and the lower body inside one round. On this workout that is 12 skater jumps and 10 back widow.

Repeated practice

Repeat the same workout and compare the score. What can change over weeks is how long that pace lasts. One time through does not produce that change.

Body-composition context

Body weight changes with the rest of how you eat and train. This workout is one piece of work on one day.

Expected feel

12 skater jumps is where the round gets hard. The other movements still have to be finished after it.

Pacing

Lateral power dumps blood into the legs, then the widows yank it into the upper back. Punch the floor with the elbows — do not crunch.

The clock is short enough to start near the pace you can hold. Do not spend the first minute looking for a rhythm, and do not let the skater jumps be the set that collapses.

The movements

Skater Jumps (Total)

Keep the chest up. Looking down at the floor rounds the back and cuts off your airway.

What not to do. Bounding forward instead of laterally, so the hips never load sideways.

Back Widow

Do not turn this into a core crunch. Your lower back and glutes must stay anchored to the floor. The only reason your torso lifts is because your lats and rhomboids are pressing the earth away.

What not to do. Turning the lift into a crunch so the lower back and hips leave the floor.

Why these movements

The skater jumps and the back widow trade the quads and the upper back.

Scaling

Keep an upper-body movement and a lower-body movement in the same round. Drop reps on both before you drop one of them.

Skater Jumps (Total)

  • Step instead of jump. Same pattern, same range, no flight. Keeps the pace without the landing.
  • Lower and slower. Keep the jump but cut the height and take the landing softly.

Back Widow

  • Shorter lift. Drive into the floor but only lift as high as you can control without the hips or neck cheating.
  • Hold the squeeze. Reach the top and freeze for a count instead of cycling reps. Same drive, less fatigue management.

Mistakes and who it is for

  • Opening the skater jumps at a sprint makes the skater jumps the piece that falls apart.
  • Resting until you feel fresh between movements removes the point of keeping them in one round.
  • Letting the skater jumps shrink so the rest of the round can speed up changes the workout on the page.

Suited to someone who wants 5 minutes through Skater Jumps (Total), Back Widow.

Scoring and progression

Work through the movements in the order listed, then start the next round. Your score is the number of complete rounds plus any reps of the round you were partway through when the clock hit zero — written as rounds plus reps, so seven full rounds and twelve reps is7+12.

Progression is repeating this workout and comparing that score. The page does not promise a change from one time through.

Related workouts

Run it with friends

The Ripcord runs on a shared countdown: share a rally link, everyone gets the same 5-minute clock, and the leaderboard updates as people log rounds.

Start this workoutMore 5 minute AMRAPs