Cindy

15 Jul 2018

CrossFit Girl WOD “Cindy”

20 min AMRAP of
5 Pull Ups
10 Push Ups
15 Air Squats

Good score to beat for Cindy:
11 rounds and 3 reps – Fitness Level 0 – Beginner athlete
12 rounds and 8 reps – Fitness Level 25 – Beginner athlete
13 rounds and 23 reps – Fitness Level 50 – Average athlete
16 rounds and 28 reps – Fitness Level 75 – Average athlete
19 rounds and 19 reps – Fitness Level 90 – Advanced athlete
21 rounds and 22 reps – Fitness Level 95 – Advanced athlete
24 rounds and 15 reps – Fitness Level 98 – Elite athlete
27 rounds and 30 reps – Fitness Level 100 – Regional athlete

What is Cindy?

Cindy is one of the best known CrossFit Girls and one of the most popular WODs out there. It is a simple 20 Min AMRAP of 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, and 15 air squats.

The workout may look easy at first glance. It is an easy workout if you go slowly. But try to hold about ~40 seconds per round for as long as possible, I bet not many will be able to keep that pace for 20 minutes.

What is a good score for Cindy?

According to our app, a good score for a regional level athlete is 28 rounds, advance athletes are looking for about 20 rounds, and a beginner should get at least 11 rounds.

By the way, some people have beaten +30 rounds mark.

How to get a good score in Cindy?

The first milestone is to build large enough capacity for all three bodyweight movements. Your ultimate goal is to do all movements unbroken without slowing down.

The second milestone is to minimize all transitions between movements. For example, there are 75 transitions in 25 rounds of Cindy. With 2 seconds transitions, you are “resting” for 150 seconds. If you can halve transitions to 1 seconds, then you will get an extra 75 seconds which may result in almost 2 additional rounds.

The third milestone is being able to keep the pace high for full 20 minutes. Most of us can smoothly go fast for the first five rounds, but many will slow after that. Your first round should be about the same fast as your last round.

Pull-ups

Five pull-ups are not much, but over 20 rounds you will do a total of 100 pull-ups. You may consider doing 2 sets of 3 + 2 pull-ups from the first round if you are not efficient on pull-ups.

Anyway, I find the pull-ups being the easiest of all three movements. It is because they are low rep and body have enough time to recover for the next unbroken set.

By the way, do butterfly pull-ups if you know how to do them.

Push-ups

Most people will get stuck there after about ten rounds. If you are one of them, split push-ups to 2 sets of 6 + 4 reps since the first round. You will lose some seconds in the beginning, but you will save enough energy to catch it up later.

Air squats

You have just two options there.

Go for the unbroken set. Just do air squats at a consistent pace, don’t slow down. Also, don’t start too quickly in the first five rounds.

Split air squats into 2 sets of 9 + 6 or 3 sets of 5 + 5 + 5. You need to have super fast squats if you are going to split them into multiple sets. There is no need to split them if you are going to do them at a medium pace.

Pacing

Cindy is all about staying consistent for full 20 minutes. Try to race with the clock to get the best score possible.

To find out correct pacing strategy, do 10-minute EMOM of 1 round of Cindy. Find out average time per round, add about 2-4 seconds to it and hold that time per round for full 20 minutes during Cindy.

You can also increase the EMOM interval to 75 or 90 seconds if you are new to CrossFit to find out right pacing.

Good luck getting your first 20, 25 or even maybe 30 rounds of Cindy!