Coach Plentus had a great post on his blog about the 7 biggest things he has learned during his 7 years doing Crossfit. For those of you who don't know Coach Plentus, he coached at KOP for a while and now coaches at Crossfit Thermal. He was the first one to really help me with my front squat, emphasizing how important it was to bring intensity to the lift as soon as I put my hands on the bar. In fact, every time I front squat, I envision him standing on the other side of the bar yelling at me to get intense. It really does help.
Anyway, if you haven't clicked on the link to his blog on the KOP webpage, you should do so. First of all, you'll get to see what a real blog looks like. As you're reading it, you won't think to yourself "this reads like the ramblings of a crazy person." And because Plentus is a great photographer, you'll tend to see awesome photos, as opposed to my page where you will see something that I took with my iPhone with shaky arms after doing a WOD.
While there are some very good points made in the blog, I wanted to add one more (and naturally this point is applicable to me today). If I could give one piece of advice to new or potential Crossfitters, it would be to learn to trust your body. What does that mean? Well, it means a couple different things. The first is trusting your body when choosing a weight for the workout. Unless the WOD is designed to be a sprint, I generally choose the most weight I think I can handle without causing an injury. I'm not concerned about my time as much as I am concerned about progressing to the point where I can RX the workout. This likely explains why I finish last a lot.
Finding the right balance between a weight that will kick your butt and one that will cause you to be in a cast takes some time, but I honestly believe your body will tell you. When I first started, I was clueless. Add in the fact that I'm overly competitive and it is a minor miracle that I didn't get injured early on in my Crossfit career. There is a natural urge to look at someone else in the gym, say "hey, he's about my size, if he can lift that weight, so can I!" As I've gotten to know my strengths and weaknesses, I've been able to resist this urge. If I have doubts about my ability to complete a workout at a certain weight, I'll load the bar so I can strip it mid-workout if necessary.
The flip side is that your body also tells you if you went too light. On the rare occasion that I've ripped through a workout while other people are still going, I find that my excitement turns to disappointment very quickly. I'll end up feeling like it was a missed opportunity to get better.
The other aspect of trusting your body takes place before you even get to the gym. Because I'm psychotic, I almost always read the WOD at 10pm the night before and go "ooooh, I want to do that!" Unfortunately, that means not enough rest, which could also lead to injury. That was my dilemma this morning. I definitely need practice with my handstand push-ups, and rowing and push jerks for 10 minutes sounded like a nice little workout. But when I woke up this morning, my right knee was killing me from the pistol madness I took part in the night before. I started telling myself that I would wait and see how it felt later in the afternoon and maybe it would be better then. My body, though, was being pretty clear about letting me know I needed a recovery day. And I hate recovery days. Still, I would hate it a lot more if I couldn't go to the gym for an extended period of time because I'm a stubborn ass.
So trust your body. It will let you know when to push, when to throttle back, and when to rest.
Saturday, January 31, 2015
Thursday, January 29, 2015
Pistol Whipped
Workout date: 1/29/15
I may have been the only irrational human being giddy about doing 126 pistols this evening at the gym. The reaction of most people when told they will have to do pistols in a workout tends to range from "I was kinda hoping for something else" to "bite me". But I'm a weird guy who likes weird things, and I like pistols. To be fair, it may have something to do with the fact that I'm relatively good at them. That's a pretty strong statement for me. 99% of things at the gym I'm either average at or quickly put me in danger of getting time capped on a workout. Pistols, on the other hand, are my friend. I desperately hoped that pistols would wind up in one of the Open workouts last year, just so I could put up a good score. Instead I got chest-to-bar pull-ups. Can't win 'em all I guess.
Despite my confidence with pistols, I sure hadn't done 126 of them before, and that gave me some cause for concern. The workout tonight was structured as follows: rep scheme of 18-15-12-9-6-3 of power cleans (RX weight of 115/75), pistols on the right leg, pistols on the left leg. The weight for the power cleans didn't seem too cumbersome, which got me thinking that this was a specially designed Dave sucker WOD (I know, redundant). What I didn't bank on was Coach Aimee putting us through the ringer during our long warm-up session. Whatever sweat didn't come out of me warming up last night came pouring out in buckets tonight. I was drenched before I even put weight on the barbell. Not a good sign.
Feeling slightly dehydrated, Aimee let us know we would be starting in 90 seconds, which became 45 seconds approximately 2.7 seconds later. I loaded my bar with 25 pound and 10 pound plates, just in case I had underestimated the workout and would need to peel some weight off. My plan for the workout was fairly simple. I had seen that times earlier in the day tended to be in the 15-18 minute range, although only a handful of folks had gone RX. My hope was for something around 16 minutes, but anything under 18 minutes without having to scale would keep me happy. Knowing that the workout would take that long, I didn't want to do big sets on the power cleans. I was going to do 5-6 reps, then put the bar down, shake out my arms, and then get going again.
Aimee yelled 3-2-1 GO and we were off. I divided up the power cleans as planned and was surprised that I wasn't immediately behind everyone. A few people had started their pistols when I got going, but most of the class was on the same pace as me (maybe we all had the same plan!). The first round of pistols let me know that my left leg is stronger than my right leg. I tried to do sets of 3, but that fell apart a little bit on the right leg. On my left leg, I was able to do a couple of larger sets and got myself back to the bar as quick as I could. The round of 15 was more of the same story, although I was definitely getting winded and the pistols on my right leg were starting to get tough. Knowing at the end of the round that I was slightly past halfway, I glanced at the clock as I made my way back to the bar. Nearly 9 minutes. That's not so good.
Part of me thought the second half might go faster because when you get to the sets of 6 and sets of 3, you bust right through it with everything you have left and get finished. Then again, my shirt had reached full saturation and my legs were starting to get sore. 18 minutes was gonna be work. The round of 12 was tough as I split the cleans into 3 sets of 4. I did sets of 2 pistols on my right leg, while trying to do 3-4 on the left. Not being able to alternate legs not only slowed you down in this workout, it took a toll on your legs. Got through the round of 12, did not look at the clock.
The round of 9 was where I thought I could kick it into high gear. A set of 5 and a set of 4 on the cleans, then 3 sets of 3 on the pistols. Not quite. The cleans went well enough, but they were definitely starting to work my lungs. Then I got back to the pistols and everything started to hurt. My calves hurt. My hamstrings hurt. And I don't know what the hell I had done to my abs, but I suddenly felt like I had been on the GHD machine during the workout and somehow forgot about it. I slowly got through the round of 9 on the right, then slightly less slowly on the left.
Seshu came over to try and help me finish off the workout and his yelling definitely helped me do all 6 cleans. With really sore calves, I got through my 6 right pistols, then went to do the 6 left ones. I did the first rep and...rut roh...that didn't feel great. It felt like my left calf was about to cramp up. I stopped to shake out my leg a little bit, while Seshu implored me to keep going. A little gingerly, I made my way through the last 5 pistols. The last round was a sprint. I grabbed the bar, did 3 quick cleans, did 3 semi-fast right pistols, did 2 fast left pistols, lost my balance for a second, then did the last pistol. TIME! The clock read 17:39.
As happy as I was with the workout, I was exhausted in a way I have never been after a Crossfit workout. Usually my arms or shoulders will be burning because I do not have big boy muscles (biceps, triceps, things like that). It is pretty rare that my legs are shot and if they are, it's generally not the entire leg. Tonight, the entire back of my legs (hamstrings and calves) were fried. And they didn't feel all that much better even when I got home. So while I love pistols, I am not really eager to do 126 of them again in a workout.
I may have been the only irrational human being giddy about doing 126 pistols this evening at the gym. The reaction of most people when told they will have to do pistols in a workout tends to range from "I was kinda hoping for something else" to "bite me". But I'm a weird guy who likes weird things, and I like pistols. To be fair, it may have something to do with the fact that I'm relatively good at them. That's a pretty strong statement for me. 99% of things at the gym I'm either average at or quickly put me in danger of getting time capped on a workout. Pistols, on the other hand, are my friend. I desperately hoped that pistols would wind up in one of the Open workouts last year, just so I could put up a good score. Instead I got chest-to-bar pull-ups. Can't win 'em all I guess.
(My legendary side-kick pistol)
Despite my confidence with pistols, I sure hadn't done 126 of them before, and that gave me some cause for concern. The workout tonight was structured as follows: rep scheme of 18-15-12-9-6-3 of power cleans (RX weight of 115/75), pistols on the right leg, pistols on the left leg. The weight for the power cleans didn't seem too cumbersome, which got me thinking that this was a specially designed Dave sucker WOD (I know, redundant). What I didn't bank on was Coach Aimee putting us through the ringer during our long warm-up session. Whatever sweat didn't come out of me warming up last night came pouring out in buckets tonight. I was drenched before I even put weight on the barbell. Not a good sign.
Feeling slightly dehydrated, Aimee let us know we would be starting in 90 seconds, which became 45 seconds approximately 2.7 seconds later. I loaded my bar with 25 pound and 10 pound plates, just in case I had underestimated the workout and would need to peel some weight off. My plan for the workout was fairly simple. I had seen that times earlier in the day tended to be in the 15-18 minute range, although only a handful of folks had gone RX. My hope was for something around 16 minutes, but anything under 18 minutes without having to scale would keep me happy. Knowing that the workout would take that long, I didn't want to do big sets on the power cleans. I was going to do 5-6 reps, then put the bar down, shake out my arms, and then get going again.
Aimee yelled 3-2-1 GO and we were off. I divided up the power cleans as planned and was surprised that I wasn't immediately behind everyone. A few people had started their pistols when I got going, but most of the class was on the same pace as me (maybe we all had the same plan!). The first round of pistols let me know that my left leg is stronger than my right leg. I tried to do sets of 3, but that fell apart a little bit on the right leg. On my left leg, I was able to do a couple of larger sets and got myself back to the bar as quick as I could. The round of 15 was more of the same story, although I was definitely getting winded and the pistols on my right leg were starting to get tough. Knowing at the end of the round that I was slightly past halfway, I glanced at the clock as I made my way back to the bar. Nearly 9 minutes. That's not so good.
Part of me thought the second half might go faster because when you get to the sets of 6 and sets of 3, you bust right through it with everything you have left and get finished. Then again, my shirt had reached full saturation and my legs were starting to get sore. 18 minutes was gonna be work. The round of 12 was tough as I split the cleans into 3 sets of 4. I did sets of 2 pistols on my right leg, while trying to do 3-4 on the left. Not being able to alternate legs not only slowed you down in this workout, it took a toll on your legs. Got through the round of 12, did not look at the clock.
The round of 9 was where I thought I could kick it into high gear. A set of 5 and a set of 4 on the cleans, then 3 sets of 3 on the pistols. Not quite. The cleans went well enough, but they were definitely starting to work my lungs. Then I got back to the pistols and everything started to hurt. My calves hurt. My hamstrings hurt. And I don't know what the hell I had done to my abs, but I suddenly felt like I had been on the GHD machine during the workout and somehow forgot about it. I slowly got through the round of 9 on the right, then slightly less slowly on the left.
Seshu came over to try and help me finish off the workout and his yelling definitely helped me do all 6 cleans. With really sore calves, I got through my 6 right pistols, then went to do the 6 left ones. I did the first rep and...rut roh...that didn't feel great. It felt like my left calf was about to cramp up. I stopped to shake out my leg a little bit, while Seshu implored me to keep going. A little gingerly, I made my way through the last 5 pistols. The last round was a sprint. I grabbed the bar, did 3 quick cleans, did 3 semi-fast right pistols, did 2 fast left pistols, lost my balance for a second, then did the last pistol. TIME! The clock read 17:39.
As happy as I was with the workout, I was exhausted in a way I have never been after a Crossfit workout. Usually my arms or shoulders will be burning because I do not have big boy muscles (biceps, triceps, things like that). It is pretty rare that my legs are shot and if they are, it's generally not the entire leg. Tonight, the entire back of my legs (hamstrings and calves) were fried. And they didn't feel all that much better even when I got home. So while I love pistols, I am not really eager to do 126 of them again in a workout.
Wednesday, January 28, 2015
What Happens in Vegas, Stays in Vegas
Workout date: 1/28/15
So here is what didn't happen in Vegas: me exercising, me eating well, me winning the National Handicapping Championship, me winning $800,000, and me blogging. Good, now we're caught up!
The NHC was a great experience once again, but this was not my year. And with handicapping taking up 14-16 hours each day, there wasn't much time for anything else. With that being said, I wasn't expecting things to go well tonight, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised. Perhaps the biggest upset of the evening was that I didn't begin sweating profusely until we were a few minutes into the cash out. Usually I can't get through the warmup without needing some paper towels.
Tonight's WOD began with finding a 3 rep max for shoulder press. Shoulder press might be my least favorite lift at the gym. It kinda reminds me of soccer. Why can't you use your hands? It's like they are intentionally making it much more difficult than it needs to be. Same deal with the shoulder press. I can't bend my knees? Come on! I can put up much more weight with just a little knee bend. Why am I rigidly standing there pressing weight over my head?
Of course, I do get why the shoulder press is done and what the benefits are, but when you start to struggle on the shoulder press, your mind can't help but think "bend your knees, stupid!" So the combination of a lift I don't enjoy along with not having exercised in a week seemed ominous. The 6 of us in the 7:30 class ended up breaking up into two groups of three, with Rachel, Eric, and I as one group. We were supposed to do 5 sets and my goal was to get to 135. I started off at 65 and that felt pretty easy, as did my next set at 85. 105 wasn't too bad, but I did start to have doubts as to whether my next jump to 125 was a wise one. It turned out to be a good plan, as the second to last set should be at least a bit of a struggle. The first two reps were fine and the third had a slight hitch, but I pressed it out and got ready for 135. After Rachel and Eric had done their final set, I loaded up the bar and tried not to think about the number. Sometimes I think I just psyche myself out when I get to a certain weight and 135 was that number for the press. I remember how difficult it was for me during my first year to get to a point where I could press that bar up once with the 45 pound plates. And honestly, I haven't gotten far beyond that as my 1 rep max is still 145. But if I could put up 135 three times tonight, then maybe it would be time to revisit 150 for one rep.
I grabbed the bar and held it at my shoulders. Surprisingly, it didn't feel super heavy, probably because I've gotten used to holding heavier weights like that when doing front squats. The first two reps required some heavy breathing, but they were fairly smooth. That last rep though...well that was not smooth at all. I began pressing it up and tried to keep a tight core, but then I started to arch my back a bit and one side of the bar was raising a little faster than the other. I kept pushing though, confident I could fight it up. Despite the poor form, the bar kept moving upwards and I was able to fully press it out. A 3 rep shoulder press at 135 was a very good result for me.
The cash out consisted of a 500 meter row, followed by 50 wall balls, and then another 500 meter row. This would be a sprint, and since Rachel was sitting next to me, I couldn't help but try my best to finish the workout before her. She's a really good athlete and there are very few workouts where I feel I can keep up with her, but this seemed like something I would have a chance at. I also had a goal of staying under 7 minutes for the cash out. We got going and I tried to row at a solid pace while maintaining a fairly calm breathing pattern. I did not want to go nuts on the rower just to save a few seconds, only to fall apart on the wall balls. The first 250M was at a 1:40 split, but the second 250M was at more of a 1:50 split. I got off the rower around the 1:45 mark, but as I made my way over to the wall, Rachel was getting off her rower. I thought I could do a couple of really large sets of wall balls, but it turned out that the shoulder press had taken its toll on my shoulders. More than anything, I didn't want to keep my arms up. I probably should have shaken them more between reps. I quickly realized I'd have to break up the reps into smaller sets. Even worse, I managed to throw the ball too low on 2 reps, meaning I was going to have throw that ball 52 times. After an initial set of 12, I started doing sets of 5 and 6 before dropping, but I was quick about starting again since my lungs weren't killing me at that point. After doing 33 reps, I managed to dig down and do a set of 9. With 8 reps left, there was no way I was putting that ball down until I hit 50.
After tossing the ball for the 50th time to the 10 foot mark, I turned and ran back to the rower. Rachel was still on the wall balls, but I doubted it would be for long. I had a little trouble getting my feet into the straps, but then I started pulling as hard as I could. Sure enough, I had company very soon. I wasn't 50 meters in when Rachel sat on her rower, but she seemed to have some trouble strapping in as well. Now sweating and breathing like crazy, I kept telling myself that I was less than 2 minutes from being done. I tried to focus not on going fast, but making nice big pulls. I could sort of see how far I'd gone, but really I was just concentrating on big pulls. Before I knew it, the display said 400 meters and I knew it was time to give it all I had left. 12 quick solid pulls and I'd be done. I counted them down in my head as I tried to finish as fast as possible. At last, I hit 500M and gasped "Time!" I had finished before Rachel, although she was done soon after. My final time was 6:51. I had hit all three of my goals for the night. I was sore, but very, very happy!
Tomorrow's workout looks like a boatload of power cleans and pistols. I do love me some pistols! Hoping to make the 5:30.
So here is what didn't happen in Vegas: me exercising, me eating well, me winning the National Handicapping Championship, me winning $800,000, and me blogging. Good, now we're caught up!
The NHC was a great experience once again, but this was not my year. And with handicapping taking up 14-16 hours each day, there wasn't much time for anything else. With that being said, I wasn't expecting things to go well tonight, but I ended up being pleasantly surprised. Perhaps the biggest upset of the evening was that I didn't begin sweating profusely until we were a few minutes into the cash out. Usually I can't get through the warmup without needing some paper towels.
Tonight's WOD began with finding a 3 rep max for shoulder press. Shoulder press might be my least favorite lift at the gym. It kinda reminds me of soccer. Why can't you use your hands? It's like they are intentionally making it much more difficult than it needs to be. Same deal with the shoulder press. I can't bend my knees? Come on! I can put up much more weight with just a little knee bend. Why am I rigidly standing there pressing weight over my head?
Of course, I do get why the shoulder press is done and what the benefits are, but when you start to struggle on the shoulder press, your mind can't help but think "bend your knees, stupid!" So the combination of a lift I don't enjoy along with not having exercised in a week seemed ominous. The 6 of us in the 7:30 class ended up breaking up into two groups of three, with Rachel, Eric, and I as one group. We were supposed to do 5 sets and my goal was to get to 135. I started off at 65 and that felt pretty easy, as did my next set at 85. 105 wasn't too bad, but I did start to have doubts as to whether my next jump to 125 was a wise one. It turned out to be a good plan, as the second to last set should be at least a bit of a struggle. The first two reps were fine and the third had a slight hitch, but I pressed it out and got ready for 135. After Rachel and Eric had done their final set, I loaded up the bar and tried not to think about the number. Sometimes I think I just psyche myself out when I get to a certain weight and 135 was that number for the press. I remember how difficult it was for me during my first year to get to a point where I could press that bar up once with the 45 pound plates. And honestly, I haven't gotten far beyond that as my 1 rep max is still 145. But if I could put up 135 three times tonight, then maybe it would be time to revisit 150 for one rep.
I grabbed the bar and held it at my shoulders. Surprisingly, it didn't feel super heavy, probably because I've gotten used to holding heavier weights like that when doing front squats. The first two reps required some heavy breathing, but they were fairly smooth. That last rep though...well that was not smooth at all. I began pressing it up and tried to keep a tight core, but then I started to arch my back a bit and one side of the bar was raising a little faster than the other. I kept pushing though, confident I could fight it up. Despite the poor form, the bar kept moving upwards and I was able to fully press it out. A 3 rep shoulder press at 135 was a very good result for me.
The cash out consisted of a 500 meter row, followed by 50 wall balls, and then another 500 meter row. This would be a sprint, and since Rachel was sitting next to me, I couldn't help but try my best to finish the workout before her. She's a really good athlete and there are very few workouts where I feel I can keep up with her, but this seemed like something I would have a chance at. I also had a goal of staying under 7 minutes for the cash out. We got going and I tried to row at a solid pace while maintaining a fairly calm breathing pattern. I did not want to go nuts on the rower just to save a few seconds, only to fall apart on the wall balls. The first 250M was at a 1:40 split, but the second 250M was at more of a 1:50 split. I got off the rower around the 1:45 mark, but as I made my way over to the wall, Rachel was getting off her rower. I thought I could do a couple of really large sets of wall balls, but it turned out that the shoulder press had taken its toll on my shoulders. More than anything, I didn't want to keep my arms up. I probably should have shaken them more between reps. I quickly realized I'd have to break up the reps into smaller sets. Even worse, I managed to throw the ball too low on 2 reps, meaning I was going to have throw that ball 52 times. After an initial set of 12, I started doing sets of 5 and 6 before dropping, but I was quick about starting again since my lungs weren't killing me at that point. After doing 33 reps, I managed to dig down and do a set of 9. With 8 reps left, there was no way I was putting that ball down until I hit 50.
After tossing the ball for the 50th time to the 10 foot mark, I turned and ran back to the rower. Rachel was still on the wall balls, but I doubted it would be for long. I had a little trouble getting my feet into the straps, but then I started pulling as hard as I could. Sure enough, I had company very soon. I wasn't 50 meters in when Rachel sat on her rower, but she seemed to have some trouble strapping in as well. Now sweating and breathing like crazy, I kept telling myself that I was less than 2 minutes from being done. I tried to focus not on going fast, but making nice big pulls. I could sort of see how far I'd gone, but really I was just concentrating on big pulls. Before I knew it, the display said 400 meters and I knew it was time to give it all I had left. 12 quick solid pulls and I'd be done. I counted them down in my head as I tried to finish as fast as possible. At last, I hit 500M and gasped "Time!" I had finished before Rachel, although she was done soon after. My final time was 6:51. I had hit all three of my goals for the night. I was sore, but very, very happy!
Tomorrow's workout looks like a boatload of power cleans and pistols. I do love me some pistols! Hoping to make the 5:30.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Don't Write That On Your F'ing Blog!
Workout date: 1/20/15
Day 2 of the Nutrition Challenge. 19 more blocks consumed. Quickly losing interest in vegetables.
Made it to the gym for the 7:30 class tonight for what might be my last WOD before the Vegas trip. Most of the hour was spent on trying to find a 2 rep max hang power clean. I used to struggle with lifts from the hang. I don't have it totally figured out (as you soon shall see), but I have gotten better with my setup and making sure to activate my hamstrings. It has made a big difference in my confidence in performing lifts from the hang. What I have not gotten good at is the partial squat. My lifts tend to be one of two varieties: either no squat or a full squat.
Coach Keith was back in class tonight and made a point of getting us to feel comfortable at various depths of a partial squat. Of course, doing it with an empty bar is one thing, while doing it with some heavy weight is another. My solutions all seemed wrong. At lighter weights, I would yank the weight up and drop under it, letting the weight crash on to me. Wrong! I had started at 95 and 125 and made this mistake at both weights. I did manage to do 2 cleans at 145 where I did a good job with meeting the bar. As I progressed up to 165 though, the partial squat would be more important. When things get heavy and I'm doing multiple reps, you can count on me to perform the first rep correctly and then the reps after that horrendously. For 165, that was the case. For 185, that was the case. And when I made my attempts at 205, that was the case.
The issue was that I was leaning back to receive the bar instead of partial squatting under it. Keith decided to give me a little rhyme to try and help me remember to squat which went "REDACTED" (sorry - see the subject of the blog). I tried to keep the same form for both reps at each attempt, but there was no getting that back lean out of my second reps. Still, I was successful at 165 and 185. When I got to 205, that bar sure got heavy. The first rep wasn't too pretty, and as I set up for the pull on rep two, the bar came out of my hands. The second attempt was a mirror image of the first: sloppy first rep, slight panic about how I was going to manage a second rep when I barely got the first, and then the bar slipping out of my hands.
With time running out, I thought about dropping to 195, but deep down I felt like I could do 205. I psyched myself up, went back to the bar, and did a solid first rep, much better than in my previous two attempts. As I lowered the bar for the second rep though, I knew I was going to need a huge pull. I dug deep, but the bar just barely made it on to my chest. My man boobs actually do benefit me in times like this, as I was able to control the bar and rolled it up to my shoulders from there. Technically, it counted and I got 205, but it was very, very ugly.
The cash out was a rowing sprint. 3 rounds of 500 meters, with a 2 minute rest between rounds. I knew it was gonna be a burner, but I tried like hell to sprint all 3 rounds. The first round was rough, but I finished in 1:42, and was surprised to find that the rest period didn't fly by. Rather, it seemed a bit slow, and I felt re-grouped for round two. Seemed like I gave a strong effort in the second round, but my time was 5 seconds slower, and the rest period wouldn't have seemed long if you gave me 5 minutes. I worked on calming my breathing, shook out my arms, and got ready for round three. The third round was all about hanging on. I was breathing heavy, not getting nearly as much on each of my strokes, but I knew there wasn't much left to go. When I hit the finish, I had done the last 500M in 1:55, giving me a total time of 9:24 (including rest periods).
Not sure if I'll make it in to the gym tomorrow, but if not, the next few workouts will be from Treasure Island in Las Vegas! Hopefully I can find some good WODs to do on the road.
Day 2 of the Nutrition Challenge. 19 more blocks consumed. Quickly losing interest in vegetables.
Made it to the gym for the 7:30 class tonight for what might be my last WOD before the Vegas trip. Most of the hour was spent on trying to find a 2 rep max hang power clean. I used to struggle with lifts from the hang. I don't have it totally figured out (as you soon shall see), but I have gotten better with my setup and making sure to activate my hamstrings. It has made a big difference in my confidence in performing lifts from the hang. What I have not gotten good at is the partial squat. My lifts tend to be one of two varieties: either no squat or a full squat.
Coach Keith was back in class tonight and made a point of getting us to feel comfortable at various depths of a partial squat. Of course, doing it with an empty bar is one thing, while doing it with some heavy weight is another. My solutions all seemed wrong. At lighter weights, I would yank the weight up and drop under it, letting the weight crash on to me. Wrong! I had started at 95 and 125 and made this mistake at both weights. I did manage to do 2 cleans at 145 where I did a good job with meeting the bar. As I progressed up to 165 though, the partial squat would be more important. When things get heavy and I'm doing multiple reps, you can count on me to perform the first rep correctly and then the reps after that horrendously. For 165, that was the case. For 185, that was the case. And when I made my attempts at 205, that was the case.
The issue was that I was leaning back to receive the bar instead of partial squatting under it. Keith decided to give me a little rhyme to try and help me remember to squat which went "REDACTED" (sorry - see the subject of the blog). I tried to keep the same form for both reps at each attempt, but there was no getting that back lean out of my second reps. Still, I was successful at 165 and 185. When I got to 205, that bar sure got heavy. The first rep wasn't too pretty, and as I set up for the pull on rep two, the bar came out of my hands. The second attempt was a mirror image of the first: sloppy first rep, slight panic about how I was going to manage a second rep when I barely got the first, and then the bar slipping out of my hands.
With time running out, I thought about dropping to 195, but deep down I felt like I could do 205. I psyched myself up, went back to the bar, and did a solid first rep, much better than in my previous two attempts. As I lowered the bar for the second rep though, I knew I was going to need a huge pull. I dug deep, but the bar just barely made it on to my chest. My man boobs actually do benefit me in times like this, as I was able to control the bar and rolled it up to my shoulders from there. Technically, it counted and I got 205, but it was very, very ugly.
The cash out was a rowing sprint. 3 rounds of 500 meters, with a 2 minute rest between rounds. I knew it was gonna be a burner, but I tried like hell to sprint all 3 rounds. The first round was rough, but I finished in 1:42, and was surprised to find that the rest period didn't fly by. Rather, it seemed a bit slow, and I felt re-grouped for round two. Seemed like I gave a strong effort in the second round, but my time was 5 seconds slower, and the rest period wouldn't have seemed long if you gave me 5 minutes. I worked on calming my breathing, shook out my arms, and got ready for round three. The third round was all about hanging on. I was breathing heavy, not getting nearly as much on each of my strokes, but I knew there wasn't much left to go. When I hit the finish, I had done the last 500M in 1:55, giving me a total time of 9:24 (including rest periods).
Not sure if I'll make it in to the gym tomorrow, but if not, the next few workouts will be from Treasure Island in Las Vegas! Hopefully I can find some good WODs to do on the road.
Monday, January 19, 2015
19 Blocks on the 19th
Workout date: 1/19/15
After a fun evening on Saturday that included my first experience with Cards Against Humanity (a game clearly designed with me in mind), I woke up to a very dreary Sunday morning. My plan was to go and do the 10am WOD, but the bed seemed like a much better alternative. I looked at my phone and saw that I had a bunch of texts about icy road conditions, with major delays due to huge pileups on the highways. Seemed like an omen to me. Put the phone back on the charger and went back to sleep. Thought about getting on the rower later, but got absorbed in some housework and it never came to fruition. So Sunday ended up being a rest day.
Today was a work-free Monday which meant my first Dirty 9:30 in a while! Ok, maybe it wasn't too dirty. The workout today was in honor of Steve's Club, a program which benefits at risk youth. As this was a workout for charity, friends and family were welcome. With so many little ones in attendance, profanities were kept to a minimum. The workout was a 12 minute AMRAP consisting of 20 thrusters (115/75), 30 pull-ups, and 40 burpees. It was also a partner workout, so I had the opportunity to work with Steve, who I had not met before. The Steve's Club annual workout, a partner named Steve...clearly we were going to crush this workout!
Steve let me know that he planned on using dumbbells for the thrusters. I thought it might be awkward using a barbell while he used dumbbells, plus it was a packed house, so I went with dumbbells as well. Steve grabbed 15 pounders, while I tried the 35 pounders. I had done thrusters with 35 pound dumbbells a few months into my Crossfit career and that was a really bad choice at the time. For today's workout, I felt they were appropriate, although I had some apprehension thinking back to my previous failure. We agreed that we would alternate back and forth 5 reps at a time. Thrusters went by smoothly for round one, but the pull-ups (we both agreed to use a medium-sized band) got a little shaky towards the end. Still we seemed to be moving well. For some strange reason, I felt energized to blow through burpees today, and when I jumped and clapped for our team's 40th rep, we were on to round two.
The second round did not go as smoothly. The thrusters were still fine, but definitely slower. The pull-ups were definitely worse (surprise!). Steve ended up doing 16, while I did 14, as we did alternating sets of 4. The clock was past 10 minutes at that point and we rushed into doing burpees, hoping to complete a second full round. We were pushing through as best we could, but when Steve finished burpee #35 with only 10 seconds left, things looked bleak. For some reason, I still thought I could get the last 5 and began furiously throwing myself at the floor and popping back up. These were easily the fastest burpees I can remember doing. I got 4 done, hit the floor for the last rep and heard "TIME!". That was a bummer. I laid on the floor dejectedly for a few seconds when Steve said "you gotta finish that last rep." He had a point. I hopped up and clapped, but sadly, we ended up being the only team not to finish two full rounds. 1+89 for Team Steve.
Today also marked the official start of the Nutritional Challenge. This is really not going to go well for me. I confess, there are not a whole lot of things on the menu in Chef Dave's kitchen. And being inexperienced with cooking makes the Zone diet we are doing really painful. 2 cups of celery? How many celery stalks make up 2 cups of celery? Is it based on how finely I cut up the celery? Answering simple questions like that is probably second nature to a lot of people doing the challenge, but not to me.
The worst part is that I really enjoy my food. There aren't a lot of things that beat an excellent meal. Comfort food isn't just a catchy name, it is there to make you feel better after a lousy day. That is what makes this so tough. Reading through charts and measuring everything I am eating feels like work and it is taking the fun out of eating. Plus everything needs to be balanced. And I need to eat 19 blocks, which I have discovered is nearly impossible to do if you skipped breakfast like I did this morning.
Then again, it is only the first day and maybe things will turn around. It will definitely be tough to stay on track when I head to Vegas on Wednesday for a week, but if I can get a feel for what 5 ounces of chicken looks like, I might be able to buffet my way to some healthy eating during my trip.
After a fun evening on Saturday that included my first experience with Cards Against Humanity (a game clearly designed with me in mind), I woke up to a very dreary Sunday morning. My plan was to go and do the 10am WOD, but the bed seemed like a much better alternative. I looked at my phone and saw that I had a bunch of texts about icy road conditions, with major delays due to huge pileups on the highways. Seemed like an omen to me. Put the phone back on the charger and went back to sleep. Thought about getting on the rower later, but got absorbed in some housework and it never came to fruition. So Sunday ended up being a rest day.
Today was a work-free Monday which meant my first Dirty 9:30 in a while! Ok, maybe it wasn't too dirty. The workout today was in honor of Steve's Club, a program which benefits at risk youth. As this was a workout for charity, friends and family were welcome. With so many little ones in attendance, profanities were kept to a minimum. The workout was a 12 minute AMRAP consisting of 20 thrusters (115/75), 30 pull-ups, and 40 burpees. It was also a partner workout, so I had the opportunity to work with Steve, who I had not met before. The Steve's Club annual workout, a partner named Steve...clearly we were going to crush this workout!
Steve let me know that he planned on using dumbbells for the thrusters. I thought it might be awkward using a barbell while he used dumbbells, plus it was a packed house, so I went with dumbbells as well. Steve grabbed 15 pounders, while I tried the 35 pounders. I had done thrusters with 35 pound dumbbells a few months into my Crossfit career and that was a really bad choice at the time. For today's workout, I felt they were appropriate, although I had some apprehension thinking back to my previous failure. We agreed that we would alternate back and forth 5 reps at a time. Thrusters went by smoothly for round one, but the pull-ups (we both agreed to use a medium-sized band) got a little shaky towards the end. Still we seemed to be moving well. For some strange reason, I felt energized to blow through burpees today, and when I jumped and clapped for our team's 40th rep, we were on to round two.
The second round did not go as smoothly. The thrusters were still fine, but definitely slower. The pull-ups were definitely worse (surprise!). Steve ended up doing 16, while I did 14, as we did alternating sets of 4. The clock was past 10 minutes at that point and we rushed into doing burpees, hoping to complete a second full round. We were pushing through as best we could, but when Steve finished burpee #35 with only 10 seconds left, things looked bleak. For some reason, I still thought I could get the last 5 and began furiously throwing myself at the floor and popping back up. These were easily the fastest burpees I can remember doing. I got 4 done, hit the floor for the last rep and heard "TIME!". That was a bummer. I laid on the floor dejectedly for a few seconds when Steve said "you gotta finish that last rep." He had a point. I hopped up and clapped, but sadly, we ended up being the only team not to finish two full rounds. 1+89 for Team Steve.
Today also marked the official start of the Nutritional Challenge. This is really not going to go well for me. I confess, there are not a whole lot of things on the menu in Chef Dave's kitchen. And being inexperienced with cooking makes the Zone diet we are doing really painful. 2 cups of celery? How many celery stalks make up 2 cups of celery? Is it based on how finely I cut up the celery? Answering simple questions like that is probably second nature to a lot of people doing the challenge, but not to me.
The worst part is that I really enjoy my food. There aren't a lot of things that beat an excellent meal. Comfort food isn't just a catchy name, it is there to make you feel better after a lousy day. That is what makes this so tough. Reading through charts and measuring everything I am eating feels like work and it is taking the fun out of eating. Plus everything needs to be balanced. And I need to eat 19 blocks, which I have discovered is nearly impossible to do if you skipped breakfast like I did this morning.
Then again, it is only the first day and maybe things will turn around. It will definitely be tough to stay on track when I head to Vegas on Wednesday for a week, but if I can get a feel for what 5 ounces of chicken looks like, I might be able to buffet my way to some healthy eating during my trip.
Sunday, January 18, 2015
Embarrassing "Before" Photos
Workout date: 1/17/15
Saturday was the kickoff for the Nutritional Challenge at the gym. Part of the proceedings was a benchmark workout, so I wasn't exactly sure whether I would hit up the WOD beforehand. That all changed when Rachel sent me a message on Friday about coming in to do Competitors Class at 7am. It sounded like the last thing I wanted to do, which also meant that it was probably exactly what I did need to be doing.
Got up in the dark once again, stumbled about getting ready for the gym, and drove over to the Annex. The lights were on this time. Hooray! The door was locked. Shit! I was starting to think the Competitors Class was just a myth. A minute later, Rachel showed up and we decided to check the main gym. I ran over, found Aimee and Michal inside, and let Rachel know we were working out over there.
The workout was starting off with 2 rounds of 100 double unders. A week ago, this would have been one of the last things I wanted to see as part of a workout. But a tiny bit of double under success breeds all sorts of irrational confidence. I thought I could work through sets of about 8-10 reps and not fall too behind my three workout partners. I could not have been more incorrect. Aimee and Michal flew through the first 100 reps with Rachel not too far behind. I was somewhere around 40 at that point. By the time Aimee and Michal had finished their second round of 100, Rachel had 53 reps left in her second round, while I was still struggling to finish my first 100. I was seriously concerned that I would have to stop before finishing the 200 double unders or else I would be seriously delaying the class. Has anyone ever been time-capped less than halfway through a class? I am a trail blazer.
While the girls started warming up for the next part of the workout, I kept chugging along, finishing the first round, pausing briefly, and then starting round two. A bunch of sets of 4-5 reps, a few sets of 7-8 and the second round of 100 was feeling smoother than the first round, even if my arms were fatigued. The snatch pull/snatch portion of the proceedings was already in progress, but I did manage to finish the second round of 100 without holding everyone up too much. On to snatching!
As my unfortunate encounter with Isabel showed, I haven't been pulling as much as I need to during the snatch, especially as I've gotten fatigued. Aimee watched me during my pulls and noticed I'm trying to float the bar above my head. With the snatch, I seem to have one of two problems: 1) The bar isn't making contact with my hip crease, so I just try to yank the thing above my head, which is a big problem as the weight gets heavy or 2) I do make contact with my hip crease, but just expect that momentum to carry the bar (aka: the aforementioned floating) above my head without a big pull. If I could remember both of those things, I'd be golden, but it is still very much a work in progress. I did try to use the workout to focus on pulling more and I made my way up to 145 before we moved on the next segment.
The third and final part turned out to be the benchmark workout for the Nutritional Challenge. I honestly thought I would have to come back at 11 to do this, so I was happily surprised that I would be getting this over with now. The workout was a 10 minute AMRAP of 9 burpees, 15 med ball cleans (20/14) and 21 push press (95/65). 9 burpees at a time seemed tolerable, med ball cleans are mental, and push presses at a somewhat lighter weight are something that I tend to be good at, so I thought I could post a good score. After seeing the scores from the day before, I made it my goal to finish 3 full rounds. And being the competitive idiot that I am, I wanted to try and beat Rachel. Right off the bat, Aimee was ahead of all of us as she can fly through burpees. Rachel and I were moving at about the same pace, with Michal just behind us. Round 1 was done in a smidge more than 2 minutes, with round 2 done closer to the 5:30 mark. Not finishing three rounds would be really disappointing at this point. I got through the burpees, got through the med ball cleans, and told myself to pick up that barbell. As I did my first rep, Rachel was picking up her barbell, meaning I was racing her and the clock. I stopped looking at both and tried to make my way through the push presses as quickly as I could. Did a set of 10 and dropped the bar. Quick breather, picked it up, and did 6 more. Looked back over at Rachel and saw she was still working. Picked up the bar one last time, finished 5 reps, and peeked at the clock, which was nearing 9:35. I had no doubt that Rachel would be right on my heels, so I forced myself to do quick burpees until I heard time. As I was clapping for my 6th burpee, I heard time, and finished with a total of 141.
The clock didn't stop though, as the 2nd half of the benchmark was to find a 1 rep max front squat. Out of breath as usual, it was nearly 5 minutes in before I did my first lift. My max is 260, but my calves were shot and I had no faith I'd reach that high. I thought I could get to 245. I went to try 235 with a couple minutes left, got the bar off the rack, and as I began to squat, the bar started sliding down my sweat-soaked shirt. I tried to control it, but as I began coming up, it was gone. That was a waste! Now I had to hurry to strip the bar, get it on the rack, re-load it, and get 235, or else 215 would be my starting weight for the challenge. Got everything set up and had an "easy lift" (according to Aimee) at 235, but didn't have enough time for 245. A little disappointing, but not nearly as bad as if I had only gotten 215.
Still, the worst part was yet to come. I have no ambitions of winning the Nutritional Challenge, but I'll certainly try my best and part ways with $5 no problem. What I did not know was that I would have to take my shirt off for pictures. See, I have much more of a "keep your shirt on" physique. I have never taken my shirt off during a workout, even though there were many times during the summer that I wanted to. Let's just say I'm doing the gym a favor by keeping it on. After we had finished, Aimee turned into a drill instructor, barking at Michal, Rachel, and I to take our shirts off for photos. Like in the middle of the gym. With the 9am class there. I was going to say "thanks, but no thanks", except Michal and Rachel did it (like me, they were wearing sports bras), and then I really would have felt like a wimp saying I wouldn't do it. So reluctantly I did it and only got a mild amount of mocking from Michal.
At 11, I returned to the gym for measurements and ice cream. I was getting paid off on my ice cream bet, and really, that was the only way to make up for the earlier embarrassment. After all...
I was kinda excited about getting my measurements, if only because I have never known what my body fat percentage was. I was morbidly curious as to what large double-digit number would be the result. When I went in to get the measurements, I was informed once again that I would have to take off my shirt (might as well get it all over with the same day) and once again received more light-hearted mocking from Michal. The results:
Nearly 23% body fat and almost 50 pounds of body fat! Wow. At least I'm acceptable (yay?)
The rest of the day was spent helping fill in the stats for all of the other folks doing the Nutritional Challenge, followed by listening to a lecture on what we'll be attempting the next 30 days. And since the "lifestyle change" doesn't start until Monday, I capped off the day with this:
Thanks Jill!
Saturday was the kickoff for the Nutritional Challenge at the gym. Part of the proceedings was a benchmark workout, so I wasn't exactly sure whether I would hit up the WOD beforehand. That all changed when Rachel sent me a message on Friday about coming in to do Competitors Class at 7am. It sounded like the last thing I wanted to do, which also meant that it was probably exactly what I did need to be doing.
Got up in the dark once again, stumbled about getting ready for the gym, and drove over to the Annex. The lights were on this time. Hooray! The door was locked. Shit! I was starting to think the Competitors Class was just a myth. A minute later, Rachel showed up and we decided to check the main gym. I ran over, found Aimee and Michal inside, and let Rachel know we were working out over there.
The workout was starting off with 2 rounds of 100 double unders. A week ago, this would have been one of the last things I wanted to see as part of a workout. But a tiny bit of double under success breeds all sorts of irrational confidence. I thought I could work through sets of about 8-10 reps and not fall too behind my three workout partners. I could not have been more incorrect. Aimee and Michal flew through the first 100 reps with Rachel not too far behind. I was somewhere around 40 at that point. By the time Aimee and Michal had finished their second round of 100, Rachel had 53 reps left in her second round, while I was still struggling to finish my first 100. I was seriously concerned that I would have to stop before finishing the 200 double unders or else I would be seriously delaying the class. Has anyone ever been time-capped less than halfway through a class? I am a trail blazer.
While the girls started warming up for the next part of the workout, I kept chugging along, finishing the first round, pausing briefly, and then starting round two. A bunch of sets of 4-5 reps, a few sets of 7-8 and the second round of 100 was feeling smoother than the first round, even if my arms were fatigued. The snatch pull/snatch portion of the proceedings was already in progress, but I did manage to finish the second round of 100 without holding everyone up too much. On to snatching!
As my unfortunate encounter with Isabel showed, I haven't been pulling as much as I need to during the snatch, especially as I've gotten fatigued. Aimee watched me during my pulls and noticed I'm trying to float the bar above my head. With the snatch, I seem to have one of two problems: 1) The bar isn't making contact with my hip crease, so I just try to yank the thing above my head, which is a big problem as the weight gets heavy or 2) I do make contact with my hip crease, but just expect that momentum to carry the bar (aka: the aforementioned floating) above my head without a big pull. If I could remember both of those things, I'd be golden, but it is still very much a work in progress. I did try to use the workout to focus on pulling more and I made my way up to 145 before we moved on the next segment.
The third and final part turned out to be the benchmark workout for the Nutritional Challenge. I honestly thought I would have to come back at 11 to do this, so I was happily surprised that I would be getting this over with now. The workout was a 10 minute AMRAP of 9 burpees, 15 med ball cleans (20/14) and 21 push press (95/65). 9 burpees at a time seemed tolerable, med ball cleans are mental, and push presses at a somewhat lighter weight are something that I tend to be good at, so I thought I could post a good score. After seeing the scores from the day before, I made it my goal to finish 3 full rounds. And being the competitive idiot that I am, I wanted to try and beat Rachel. Right off the bat, Aimee was ahead of all of us as she can fly through burpees. Rachel and I were moving at about the same pace, with Michal just behind us. Round 1 was done in a smidge more than 2 minutes, with round 2 done closer to the 5:30 mark. Not finishing three rounds would be really disappointing at this point. I got through the burpees, got through the med ball cleans, and told myself to pick up that barbell. As I did my first rep, Rachel was picking up her barbell, meaning I was racing her and the clock. I stopped looking at both and tried to make my way through the push presses as quickly as I could. Did a set of 10 and dropped the bar. Quick breather, picked it up, and did 6 more. Looked back over at Rachel and saw she was still working. Picked up the bar one last time, finished 5 reps, and peeked at the clock, which was nearing 9:35. I had no doubt that Rachel would be right on my heels, so I forced myself to do quick burpees until I heard time. As I was clapping for my 6th burpee, I heard time, and finished with a total of 141.
The clock didn't stop though, as the 2nd half of the benchmark was to find a 1 rep max front squat. Out of breath as usual, it was nearly 5 minutes in before I did my first lift. My max is 260, but my calves were shot and I had no faith I'd reach that high. I thought I could get to 245. I went to try 235 with a couple minutes left, got the bar off the rack, and as I began to squat, the bar started sliding down my sweat-soaked shirt. I tried to control it, but as I began coming up, it was gone. That was a waste! Now I had to hurry to strip the bar, get it on the rack, re-load it, and get 235, or else 215 would be my starting weight for the challenge. Got everything set up and had an "easy lift" (according to Aimee) at 235, but didn't have enough time for 245. A little disappointing, but not nearly as bad as if I had only gotten 215.
Still, the worst part was yet to come. I have no ambitions of winning the Nutritional Challenge, but I'll certainly try my best and part ways with $5 no problem. What I did not know was that I would have to take my shirt off for pictures. See, I have much more of a "keep your shirt on" physique. I have never taken my shirt off during a workout, even though there were many times during the summer that I wanted to. Let's just say I'm doing the gym a favor by keeping it on. After we had finished, Aimee turned into a drill instructor, barking at Michal, Rachel, and I to take our shirts off for photos. Like in the middle of the gym. With the 9am class there. I was going to say "thanks, but no thanks", except Michal and Rachel did it (like me, they were wearing sports bras), and then I really would have felt like a wimp saying I wouldn't do it. So reluctantly I did it and only got a mild amount of mocking from Michal.
At 11, I returned to the gym for measurements and ice cream. I was getting paid off on my ice cream bet, and really, that was the only way to make up for the earlier embarrassment. After all...
I was kinda excited about getting my measurements, if only because I have never known what my body fat percentage was. I was morbidly curious as to what large double-digit number would be the result. When I went in to get the measurements, I was informed once again that I would have to take off my shirt (might as well get it all over with the same day) and once again received more light-hearted mocking from Michal. The results:
Nearly 23% body fat and almost 50 pounds of body fat! Wow. At least I'm acceptable (yay?)
The rest of the day was spent helping fill in the stats for all of the other folks doing the Nutritional Challenge, followed by listening to a lecture on what we'll be attempting the next 30 days. And since the "lifestyle change" doesn't start until Monday, I capped off the day with this:
Thanks Jill!
Thursday, January 15, 2015
Staying Under Control
Workout date: 1/15/15
I was good today. Part of me was interested in doing today's WOD, but I knew that would be pushing things. And I knew that I didn't want to take the day off because I have committed to partaking in alcoholic consumption tomorrow evening. So today was essentially a maintenance day. The plan was to go for Open Strength and work on a variety of things.
The day didn't get off to the best start though. Thursday has become weigh in day, if for no other reason than January 1st happened to fall on a Thursday. Last week, I checked in at 213 pounds, which I believe would make me a double light flyweight in the boxing world ("heavyweight" has such a negative connotation). After last night's sweat-fest, I figured that I would have at least lost enough water weight to fall in the 212, maybe 211, range. Instead, I got on the scale, waited impatiently for it to calculate, began to get angry (come on, I do not weigh that much!) and then was informed that I now weighed 214.2 pounds. Joy!
When my 5pm conference call began 25 minutes late, I assumed that I would not be making it to the gym at all this evening, but surprisingly the call wrapped up on time. I ignored all speed limits and got to the gym at a prompt (for me) 6:31. I started with some bench press as I hadn't done it in a while and because I was too sore in almost all of the body parts that I would need to do things like squat, deadlift, or Olympic lift. I did a set of 10 at 95, a set of 10 at 125, a set of 5 at 155, then 3 sets of 5 at 165. I've been told that I tend to jump up to the weight I plan to max out at too quickly, so I tried to work my way up tonight.
After that, I wanted to work on double unders. Getting from 6 to 8 made me believe I could pull off 10 tonight. Oddly enough, as was the case the other night, my first attempt resulted in me tying my previous best of 8 in a row. I got started again and did 11 in a row. Boom - just like that I had reached double digits. So glad I got a new rope and so glad Justin R. showed me the proper way to hold it. I kept at it, thinking that 15 could very well be in my future, but besides one attempt where I got 11 again, there were no more double digit successes to report.
Part of the reason that I considered tonight's WOD is because of my ice cream bet with Jill C. I promised I'd get back to the ice cream bet. As most of you probably know by now, I tend to find things more entertaining if a wager is involved. It doesn't have to involve the deed to your house, but when there is a little something to play for, it makes things that much more interesting. Jill and I have both been working on stringing toes-to-bar, and we've both been around the same range (about 5). So we made a bet: the first one to string 10 in a row gets a free pint of ice cream purchased by the loser. I don't think either one of us started training like in a Rocky montage to win the bet, but we both would make attempts here and there to get 10. I believe Jill was in the 6-7 range and I had gotten 7, while coming very close to 8 in one attempt. A good amount of that progress came from a very helpful tip that Justin H. gave us one night.
With Saturday marking the beginning of the Nutrition Challenge, the time frame for winning the bet was accelerated. We agreed that if neither of us had hit 10 by the end of this week, we'd do one last attempt before the Nutrition Challenge and whoever got the most would win by default. But being the competitive bastard that I am, I wanted 10. And tonight's WOD involved rounds of 20 toes-to-bar. It took a lot of restraint not to participate.
That didn't mean I wouldn't still try to get 10 tonight. Once the 6:30 class ended, I went over to try and win the bet while Rachel and Michal (who had just finished the WOD) practiced their double unders. I did 6 once, and 5 a couple of times, but my grip sucked, and the wear on my hands from trying to go fast wasn't helping. I watched Rachel and Michal do double unders effortlessly and the light bulb went on: maybe I should just methodically crank through the toes-to-bar. While the girls took a break, I made another attempt. I did 3 fast reps, then hung from the bar for a second before doing rep #4. I stuck with that pattern to do 4 more reps. As I hung there with 8 in the bank, I realized how stupid I had been in trying to quickly rip through these in all of my previous attempts. Up I went for rep 9, and after a brief pause, I tapped my toes against the bar for rep 10. Using that technique, I think I could have gotten to 12, but 10 was all I needed for some ice cream. Victory!
I was all pumped about winning the bet that I wanted to try double unders again. In a complete role reversal, Rachel and Michal had gone over to test out stringing toes-to-bar. Who knows, maybe we had inspired each other to go try the other thing. Feeling confident, I made an attempt and got 5. But I was rushing again. I needed to just calmly work through it like I had with the toes-to-bar. I started twirling the rope and settled into an easy cadence. By the time I remembered to hit myself with the rope, I had miraculously done 23 in a row. Complete craziness! And naturally, greedy Dave wanted to beat that. The rest of my attempts (aside from one where I got 17 in a row) were nothing to write home about. As the clock hit 8pm, it was time to head home.
Still, it was one of the more exciting nights I've had in the gym. Gonna keep practicing and see where it leads me. And maybe, just maybe, one day I'll have that sort of success with pull-ups.
No blog tomorrow. Back again on Saturday with the Nutritional Challenge that I have zero chance of winning!
I was good today. Part of me was interested in doing today's WOD, but I knew that would be pushing things. And I knew that I didn't want to take the day off because I have committed to partaking in alcoholic consumption tomorrow evening. So today was essentially a maintenance day. The plan was to go for Open Strength and work on a variety of things.
The day didn't get off to the best start though. Thursday has become weigh in day, if for no other reason than January 1st happened to fall on a Thursday. Last week, I checked in at 213 pounds, which I believe would make me a double light flyweight in the boxing world ("heavyweight" has such a negative connotation). After last night's sweat-fest, I figured that I would have at least lost enough water weight to fall in the 212, maybe 211, range. Instead, I got on the scale, waited impatiently for it to calculate, began to get angry (come on, I do not weigh that much!) and then was informed that I now weighed 214.2 pounds. Joy!
When my 5pm conference call began 25 minutes late, I assumed that I would not be making it to the gym at all this evening, but surprisingly the call wrapped up on time. I ignored all speed limits and got to the gym at a prompt (for me) 6:31. I started with some bench press as I hadn't done it in a while and because I was too sore in almost all of the body parts that I would need to do things like squat, deadlift, or Olympic lift. I did a set of 10 at 95, a set of 10 at 125, a set of 5 at 155, then 3 sets of 5 at 165. I've been told that I tend to jump up to the weight I plan to max out at too quickly, so I tried to work my way up tonight.
After that, I wanted to work on double unders. Getting from 6 to 8 made me believe I could pull off 10 tonight. Oddly enough, as was the case the other night, my first attempt resulted in me tying my previous best of 8 in a row. I got started again and did 11 in a row. Boom - just like that I had reached double digits. So glad I got a new rope and so glad Justin R. showed me the proper way to hold it. I kept at it, thinking that 15 could very well be in my future, but besides one attempt where I got 11 again, there were no more double digit successes to report.
Part of the reason that I considered tonight's WOD is because of my ice cream bet with Jill C. I promised I'd get back to the ice cream bet. As most of you probably know by now, I tend to find things more entertaining if a wager is involved. It doesn't have to involve the deed to your house, but when there is a little something to play for, it makes things that much more interesting. Jill and I have both been working on stringing toes-to-bar, and we've both been around the same range (about 5). So we made a bet: the first one to string 10 in a row gets a free pint of ice cream purchased by the loser. I don't think either one of us started training like in a Rocky montage to win the bet, but we both would make attempts here and there to get 10. I believe Jill was in the 6-7 range and I had gotten 7, while coming very close to 8 in one attempt. A good amount of that progress came from a very helpful tip that Justin H. gave us one night.
With Saturday marking the beginning of the Nutrition Challenge, the time frame for winning the bet was accelerated. We agreed that if neither of us had hit 10 by the end of this week, we'd do one last attempt before the Nutrition Challenge and whoever got the most would win by default. But being the competitive bastard that I am, I wanted 10. And tonight's WOD involved rounds of 20 toes-to-bar. It took a lot of restraint not to participate.
That didn't mean I wouldn't still try to get 10 tonight. Once the 6:30 class ended, I went over to try and win the bet while Rachel and Michal (who had just finished the WOD) practiced their double unders. I did 6 once, and 5 a couple of times, but my grip sucked, and the wear on my hands from trying to go fast wasn't helping. I watched Rachel and Michal do double unders effortlessly and the light bulb went on: maybe I should just methodically crank through the toes-to-bar. While the girls took a break, I made another attempt. I did 3 fast reps, then hung from the bar for a second before doing rep #4. I stuck with that pattern to do 4 more reps. As I hung there with 8 in the bank, I realized how stupid I had been in trying to quickly rip through these in all of my previous attempts. Up I went for rep 9, and after a brief pause, I tapped my toes against the bar for rep 10. Using that technique, I think I could have gotten to 12, but 10 was all I needed for some ice cream. Victory!
I was all pumped about winning the bet that I wanted to try double unders again. In a complete role reversal, Rachel and Michal had gone over to test out stringing toes-to-bar. Who knows, maybe we had inspired each other to go try the other thing. Feeling confident, I made an attempt and got 5. But I was rushing again. I needed to just calmly work through it like I had with the toes-to-bar. I started twirling the rope and settled into an easy cadence. By the time I remembered to hit myself with the rope, I had miraculously done 23 in a row. Complete craziness! And naturally, greedy Dave wanted to beat that. The rest of my attempts (aside from one where I got 17 in a row) were nothing to write home about. As the clock hit 8pm, it was time to head home.
Still, it was one of the more exciting nights I've had in the gym. Gonna keep practicing and see where it leads me. And maybe, just maybe, one day I'll have that sort of success with pull-ups.
No blog tomorrow. Back again on Saturday with the Nutritional Challenge that I have zero chance of winning!
Wednesday, January 14, 2015
So Much Soreness
Workout date: 1/14/15
Monday was a tough workout. Tuesday was a tough workout. Would there be any let up on Wednesday? Of course not! Today's WOD consisted of 100 KB swings (55/35), 100 air squats, and 100 kicks to the balls. Wait...that can't be right...let me look back at the blog again. Oh! The last part says 100 burpees. Same difference.
Making matters worse was the fact that my hamstrings felt worse than they've felt in a long time. It wasn't an injury or anything, just a ton of soreness. Yet another sign that I chose poorly on Monday, because I tend to feel the after effects of a workout two days later. I brought my stick to work and tried to roll out my hammies during the endless parade of completely unproductive conference calls I was stuck on. That made things a little better, but not enough that I wanted to go do 100 burpees. Still this was definitely one of those lung workouts that I badly need, so I convinced myself to attend the 7:30 class.
The 7:30 was surprisingly packed with 9 of us all getting to watch the end of the previous class do the 1,000M row cash out with a look that I would describe as "hating life". After they were done, we did a fairly brief warm up and got ready to go. The deal was that you could break up the reps however you wanted, which naturally led me to concoct some plan that I was sure would never hold up. I don't think I have ever had a workout plan that ended successfully, but it's fun to dream. The plan tonight was to go through the 100 burpees and then the 100 KB swings. I would attempt to do big sets, and when I needed a break, I would do 10 fairly slow air squats to get my breath back. The goal was to try and get about 20 burpees or KB swings before hitting the air squat break.
Surprisingly, this worked out well for the burpees. I think I took breaks after 22 reps, 46 reps, 62 reps, 78 reps, and 88 reps. So when I finished the 100 burpees, I was halfway through the 100 air squats. And I was around 12 minutes, which didn't seem awful since I thought the KB swings would go quicker. Which would be where my logic was faulty. I didn't realize that my shoulders were shot along with my hamstrings, but I quickly figured it out when I began swinging that 55 pound KB. My sets were much shorter than I hoped (around 11-13). Sticking with the plan, I did sets of 10 air squats (I did 10 before starting the KB swings as well). But when I did my 100th air squat, I still had 48 swings to go. Uh oh.
At that point, a set of 6 was good. My hips were not providing much help even though I was actively trying to get them to force the KB up towards my head. And my shoulders were simply burning. I would do a set of 6-8, put the KB down, take a few breaths, then try to go again. The 20 minute mark came and went (I suspected there was no way that I could break 20 minutes). Finally I had only 6 reps left. I got through them and stopped the clock at 23:25. Not a great time, but all things considered, I was just happy to finish the workout.
For the 1,000M row cash out, I wanted to break 4:00. If I was fresh, that would be no problem. Except I was far from fresh. When the first 500M were complete, I was barely under 2:00, which was no bueno. When I got to 300M left, I tried to push as much as I could. With less than 100M to go I was fairly certain that I wasn't keeping it under 4:00, and that would be the case as I stopped the clock at 4:03.9.
Neither time was very fast tonight, but I'm glad I got the workout in even though I wasn't feeling 100%. One positive note: my sweat angel looked a little slimmer. We'll see how true that is as tomorrow is weigh in day once again. I don't think I will be able to pull off a workout tomorrow, although I may go to strength just to get some work done. I doubt I will be able to make into the gym on Friday and I'd prefer not to take two days off in a row (says the guy who took 4 in a row off last week!).
Time to get some sleep and let these old bones recover!
Monday was a tough workout. Tuesday was a tough workout. Would there be any let up on Wednesday? Of course not! Today's WOD consisted of 100 KB swings (55/35), 100 air squats, and 100 kicks to the balls. Wait...that can't be right...let me look back at the blog again. Oh! The last part says 100 burpees. Same difference.
Making matters worse was the fact that my hamstrings felt worse than they've felt in a long time. It wasn't an injury or anything, just a ton of soreness. Yet another sign that I chose poorly on Monday, because I tend to feel the after effects of a workout two days later. I brought my stick to work and tried to roll out my hammies during the endless parade of completely unproductive conference calls I was stuck on. That made things a little better, but not enough that I wanted to go do 100 burpees. Still this was definitely one of those lung workouts that I badly need, so I convinced myself to attend the 7:30 class.
The 7:30 was surprisingly packed with 9 of us all getting to watch the end of the previous class do the 1,000M row cash out with a look that I would describe as "hating life". After they were done, we did a fairly brief warm up and got ready to go. The deal was that you could break up the reps however you wanted, which naturally led me to concoct some plan that I was sure would never hold up. I don't think I have ever had a workout plan that ended successfully, but it's fun to dream. The plan tonight was to go through the 100 burpees and then the 100 KB swings. I would attempt to do big sets, and when I needed a break, I would do 10 fairly slow air squats to get my breath back. The goal was to try and get about 20 burpees or KB swings before hitting the air squat break.
Surprisingly, this worked out well for the burpees. I think I took breaks after 22 reps, 46 reps, 62 reps, 78 reps, and 88 reps. So when I finished the 100 burpees, I was halfway through the 100 air squats. And I was around 12 minutes, which didn't seem awful since I thought the KB swings would go quicker. Which would be where my logic was faulty. I didn't realize that my shoulders were shot along with my hamstrings, but I quickly figured it out when I began swinging that 55 pound KB. My sets were much shorter than I hoped (around 11-13). Sticking with the plan, I did sets of 10 air squats (I did 10 before starting the KB swings as well). But when I did my 100th air squat, I still had 48 swings to go. Uh oh.
At that point, a set of 6 was good. My hips were not providing much help even though I was actively trying to get them to force the KB up towards my head. And my shoulders were simply burning. I would do a set of 6-8, put the KB down, take a few breaths, then try to go again. The 20 minute mark came and went (I suspected there was no way that I could break 20 minutes). Finally I had only 6 reps left. I got through them and stopped the clock at 23:25. Not a great time, but all things considered, I was just happy to finish the workout.
For the 1,000M row cash out, I wanted to break 4:00. If I was fresh, that would be no problem. Except I was far from fresh. When the first 500M were complete, I was barely under 2:00, which was no bueno. When I got to 300M left, I tried to push as much as I could. With less than 100M to go I was fairly certain that I wasn't keeping it under 4:00, and that would be the case as I stopped the clock at 4:03.9.
Neither time was very fast tonight, but I'm glad I got the workout in even though I wasn't feeling 100%. One positive note: my sweat angel looked a little slimmer. We'll see how true that is as tomorrow is weigh in day once again. I don't think I will be able to pull off a workout tomorrow, although I may go to strength just to get some work done. I doubt I will be able to make into the gym on Friday and I'd prefer not to take two days off in a row (says the guy who took 4 in a row off last week!).
Time to get some sleep and let these old bones recover!
Tuesday, January 13, 2015
Death By 14.2
Workout date: 1/13/15
Registration for the Crossfit Open is right around the corner, so it was only appropriate that tonight's WOD reminded us of what's to come. (Has it been a year since the Open? Yikes!) Last year was not my best Open performance. How did the first 4 workouts go in the epic Dave-Flounder duel from the 2014 Open?
Registration for the Crossfit Open is right around the corner, so it was only appropriate that tonight's WOD reminded us of what's to come. (Has it been a year since the Open? Yikes!) Last year was not my best Open performance. How did the first 4 workouts go in the epic Dave-Flounder duel from the 2014 Open?
Advantage, Flounder.
Open workout 14.2 was a couplet of 2 rounds of 10 overhead squats at 95/65 along with 10 chest-to-bar pull-ups. You were given 3 minutes to get that work done. Just as if you were playing Pole Position, completing the task at hand led to "Extended Play!", where you had to complete 2 more reps of each movement per round. This went on and on until you could not do the ever-increasing workload in the ever-constant amount of time given. Prepare to qualify!
Part of the reason I encourage people to do the Open (and to do it RX this year, rather than go for the Scaled option) is because it really is exciting the first time you accomplish something you thought you couldn't do. And honestly, it may be even more cool when you see someone else do it. As someone who struggles to do pull-ups, the chest-to-bar variety wasn't really a consideration for me. I had penciled in 10 for my 14.2 score as soon as it was announced. However, Coach Jason was convinced that he could teach naysayers like myself how to do a chest-to-bar pull-up. The day of the workout, he showed me in the annex how he does them. I tried to imitate what I had just seen, but I am pretty god awful when it comes to any kind of kip. After a bunch of failed tries, I got one. It was probably an accident. But I got one! I practiced a little bit and probably got 1 or 2 more. Bring on 14.2!
When it was my turn to go, I knocked out the overhead squats quickly and got to the bar. I got 1 pretty quickly. Then another. Then another. Before I knew it, I had gotten to 8. I had gone from a certain score of 10 to "get this guy another 3 minutes!". And that's when failure set in. I tried like hell to get those last 2, if only so I could knock out 10 quick overhead squats and get a score of 30. It wasn't to be. My 14.2 score was 18. When I got back over to the bench to sit down, I had a conversation with one of the other members that went like this:
Them: How did it go?
Me: Not well. Only 18.
Them: You got 8 chest-to-bar pull-ups?
Me: <dejected> Couldn't get those last 2. So aggravating!
Them: Didn't you tell me this morning that you had never done one before?
Me: Yeah, but...
There's a lot of "yeah, but..." with me. Probably because I view "close" as "failure". Last night, when I got my ass kicked by Isabel, that was not close. I need to go lighter the next time I do it. But when I'm close, I think to myself "really, you couldn't summon just a little more?" It didn't matter that I had done 8 of something I had never done before earlier that morning. In my mind, I should have been able to do 2 more. I get greedy, which probably leads to delusions of grandeur.
Tonight's "death by" version of 14.2 went like this: Death by chest-to-bar pull-ups, followed by a 5 minute break after the round you failed, followed by death by overhead squats using half of your body weight. (For those unfamiliar with "death by", you do 1 rep the first minute, 2 reps the second minute, and so on. Super easy at first, then it turns on you with a vengeance.) In an attempt to not have delusions of grandeur nor easily the worst score of the day, I opted for regular pull-ups with my friend, the medium-sized black band. I didn't see any way I was getting through 10 rounds, which seemed about the norm for the day. Sure enough, after 8 rounds, my hands were fried. For the 9th minute, I did 3 legit pull-ups, 2 range of motion pull-ups, and then got ready for my 5 minute break.
For the overhead squats, I had 105 pounds on the bar, which was no joke, but it certainly felt lighter due to the Isabel debacle 24 hours earlier. With 14 minutes elapsed, it was time to start overhead squatting. Some of the other folks in the 7:30 class told me that I was doing some serious ass-to-grass overheads, which was nice to hear, although my only real focus was to stay steady during the movement. During the break, I had switched to my lifting shoes which really help me keep my balance when overhead squatting, otherwise I tend to start looking like I'm taking part in a dizzy bat race or something.
The first 7 rounds weren't bad, but round 8 started to feel tough. For round 9, I broke it up into a set of 5 and a set of 4 trying to preserve some energy, but my form had started to go. In round 10, my shoes couldn't keep me from wobbling. I did 6 reps, put the bar down and looked at the clock. Time was not my friend, so I got the bar back up again and tried to do the last 4 reps as quickly as possible. With 1 second left, I completed rep 10 and knew that I had just finished my last successful round. After a short break, I attempted to knock out some more reps in round 11, but after 3 reps, one of my calves began feeling shaky, so I called it a night.
And once again, as it was last year at 14.2, my final score was 18.
Monday, January 12, 2015
Nine Minutes With Isabel
Workout date: 1/12/15
6 days on, 4 days off...maybe it was time to get a saner schedule going. Or maybe it was time to binge on working out again since I'll be headed to Las Vegas next week. Probably the latter. Either way, I finally made my way back to an actual class this evening for what would be another test day. Tonight's workout was Isabel, 30 snatches for time with RX weights of 135/95.
A few months ago, we had benchmark week at the gym, with one of the workouts being Grace/Isabel, where we got to choose which of the ladies we wanted to take on for the WOD. That day, I chose Isabel, because I had never done Isabel before. Part of me wanted to try it at 135 that day, but the night before we did a benchmark workout involving pull-ups and you can imagine how swell that went. I opted for 115 instead and finished in what I thought was a respectable 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
That performance led me to the delusional belief that I should do 135 tonight. To be fair, there was a logical argument behind going for it. Earlier in the day, Rich A and Pete did the workout in around 6 minutes and 8 minutes respectively. That was a little daunting, since they are two of the better athletes in the gym, but I really didn't think something in the 6-7 minute range was nuts. That would be 3 minutes on top of my time using 20 pounds less. Reasonable, right?
Option B was to do 125 pounds. It was a slight bump higher and it would probably keep me in that respectable "close to 5 minutes" range that the workout was designed to be done in. This was the more sensible choice, so the chances of me going down this road was pretty much zilch. I mean, if you're that close to doing it RX, you might as well just go for RX! (Poor decision making at its finest) And there was also the fact that I had missed 4 days at the gym, so I felt the need to go above and beyond tonight.
We ran the workout in 2 heats with one partner counting for the other during that person's heat. Conn was my partner and he decided to go with 95 pounds as he had done a heavy squat routine yesterday. Despite that, he blew through his 30 snatches in under 3 minutes. In fact, most of the first heat was done in around 3 minutes. Which meant I was in trouble already. It wasn't long before my heat began. Once we started, my plan was to try and keep a nice steady pace with form being more important than speed. I knew I wasn't putting up a super fast time and with the weight being what it was, I needed to make every lift count.
1 rep, 2 reps, 2 reps...shoot, right off the bat I couldn't even string 3 snatches. The 3rd lift came up to eye level and came back down. Not a good start, but I kept plugging away. I made it to 11 reps at around the 2:15 mark, which meant I was still around 6 minute pace. The weight didn't feel awful, but my form was deteriorating noticeably. Coach Giulia mentioned that my shoulders weren't back in the setup, so I made an adjustment and started doing some better reps. I forget where that got me, but I started creeping up on 20 reps. Around 22-23 reps, I hit the wall. Good reps were interspersed with bad reps. I think the clock was at about 7:15 when I managed rep #27. The end was near! Or not. A couple bad reps before #28 was complete. More failure before #29 was a success. And when #30 went up, Barbell Club may have been over. The official time for Isabel was 9 minutes on the nose.
So that was horrible, but I do need to thank Conn, Giulia, and Kate K for giving me tips on how to finish. And to Cline for making me laugh by yelling out "do it for Kesha!" at some point during that ordeal.
After the workout, I practiced pull-ups again (5 sets of 5 strict pull-ups on the medium black band). Also did 1 unassisted by bands strict pull-up (yay!). Needing double under practice as well, I got out my new rope that arrived yesterday and had immediate success surprisingly. My first attempt tied my PR with 6 strung double unders. On my next attempt, I got to 7. After a bunch of attempts in the 4-5 range, I managed to get 8 once, but that would be as high as I would get.
Tomorrow is a 14.2 flashback with chest-to-bar pull-ups and overhead squats. I can do one of those two things!
6 days on, 4 days off...maybe it was time to get a saner schedule going. Or maybe it was time to binge on working out again since I'll be headed to Las Vegas next week. Probably the latter. Either way, I finally made my way back to an actual class this evening for what would be another test day. Tonight's workout was Isabel, 30 snatches for time with RX weights of 135/95.
A few months ago, we had benchmark week at the gym, with one of the workouts being Grace/Isabel, where we got to choose which of the ladies we wanted to take on for the WOD. That day, I chose Isabel, because I had never done Isabel before. Part of me wanted to try it at 135 that day, but the night before we did a benchmark workout involving pull-ups and you can imagine how swell that went. I opted for 115 instead and finished in what I thought was a respectable 3 minutes and 45 seconds.
That performance led me to the delusional belief that I should do 135 tonight. To be fair, there was a logical argument behind going for it. Earlier in the day, Rich A and Pete did the workout in around 6 minutes and 8 minutes respectively. That was a little daunting, since they are two of the better athletes in the gym, but I really didn't think something in the 6-7 minute range was nuts. That would be 3 minutes on top of my time using 20 pounds less. Reasonable, right?
Option B was to do 125 pounds. It was a slight bump higher and it would probably keep me in that respectable "close to 5 minutes" range that the workout was designed to be done in. This was the more sensible choice, so the chances of me going down this road was pretty much zilch. I mean, if you're that close to doing it RX, you might as well just go for RX! (Poor decision making at its finest) And there was also the fact that I had missed 4 days at the gym, so I felt the need to go above and beyond tonight.
We ran the workout in 2 heats with one partner counting for the other during that person's heat. Conn was my partner and he decided to go with 95 pounds as he had done a heavy squat routine yesterday. Despite that, he blew through his 30 snatches in under 3 minutes. In fact, most of the first heat was done in around 3 minutes. Which meant I was in trouble already. It wasn't long before my heat began. Once we started, my plan was to try and keep a nice steady pace with form being more important than speed. I knew I wasn't putting up a super fast time and with the weight being what it was, I needed to make every lift count.
1 rep, 2 reps, 2 reps...shoot, right off the bat I couldn't even string 3 snatches. The 3rd lift came up to eye level and came back down. Not a good start, but I kept plugging away. I made it to 11 reps at around the 2:15 mark, which meant I was still around 6 minute pace. The weight didn't feel awful, but my form was deteriorating noticeably. Coach Giulia mentioned that my shoulders weren't back in the setup, so I made an adjustment and started doing some better reps. I forget where that got me, but I started creeping up on 20 reps. Around 22-23 reps, I hit the wall. Good reps were interspersed with bad reps. I think the clock was at about 7:15 when I managed rep #27. The end was near! Or not. A couple bad reps before #28 was complete. More failure before #29 was a success. And when #30 went up, Barbell Club may have been over. The official time for Isabel was 9 minutes on the nose.
So that was horrible, but I do need to thank Conn, Giulia, and Kate K for giving me tips on how to finish. And to Cline for making me laugh by yelling out "do it for Kesha!" at some point during that ordeal.
After the workout, I practiced pull-ups again (5 sets of 5 strict pull-ups on the medium black band). Also did 1 unassisted by bands strict pull-up (yay!). Needing double under practice as well, I got out my new rope that arrived yesterday and had immediate success surprisingly. My first attempt tied my PR with 6 strung double unders. On my next attempt, I got to 7. After a bunch of attempts in the 4-5 range, I managed to get 8 once, but that would be as high as I would get.
Tomorrow is a 14.2 flashback with chest-to-bar pull-ups and overhead squats. I can do one of those two things!
Sunday, January 11, 2015
Lost Weekend
After a bad Friday, I was hoping to turn things around with an early start on Saturday. I have never been a fan of getting up early, but getting up early on the weekend is always a million times worse. My watch went off at 6am and a quick glance out the window confirmed it was still dark outside. I really wanted to just go back to sleep. However, I got up and slowly made my way to the bathroom so that I could stand in the shower for 20 minutes. If that didn't wake me up, nothing was going to. The long shower did the trick (barely) and I packed my bag to go to the gym. 2 hours of pain was awaiting me.
Except it wasn't. I pulled up to the annex to see no lights on. I sat in the car for about 5 minutes, then walked over to the main gym to see if there was anyone there. No lights there either. Came back to my car, watched the sun start to rise, and figured that Competitors Class was cancelled when no one arrived by 7:15. Turns out all the competitors were at the Masters Arctic Blast, where KOP had 2 teams end up on the podium.
Going to the gym before daybreak and finding no class was a bit deflating. And there was no way I was going back home and then returning to the gym 90 minutes later. With a handicapping contest in the afternoon and plans later that night, two days off had turned into three.
And three days turned into four. Saturday night did not end well and Sunday morning was not much better. Even missed the rowing clinic I had been looking forward to. Not even through January and I've already run into a frustrating stretch. Not good at all.
Will try and make up for it tomorrow. It's Coach Giulia's first day back in training since her surgery and she'll be my teammate in a few weeks, so I need to pull it together. Let's hope for a WOD that I'll be excited about!
Except it wasn't. I pulled up to the annex to see no lights on. I sat in the car for about 5 minutes, then walked over to the main gym to see if there was anyone there. No lights there either. Came back to my car, watched the sun start to rise, and figured that Competitors Class was cancelled when no one arrived by 7:15. Turns out all the competitors were at the Masters Arctic Blast, where KOP had 2 teams end up on the podium.
Going to the gym before daybreak and finding no class was a bit deflating. And there was no way I was going back home and then returning to the gym 90 minutes later. With a handicapping contest in the afternoon and plans later that night, two days off had turned into three.
And three days turned into four. Saturday night did not end well and Sunday morning was not much better. Even missed the rowing clinic I had been looking forward to. Not even through January and I've already run into a frustrating stretch. Not good at all.
Will try and make up for it tomorrow. It's Coach Giulia's first day back in training since her surgery and she'll be my teammate in a few weeks, so I need to pull it together. Let's hope for a WOD that I'll be excited about!
Friday, January 9, 2015
The Negative Post
See, I was nice enough to warn you right there in the subject line. If you've been having an awesome Friday or are just generally in a good mood, you should skip this post. There will be another one tomorrow. Scout's honor.
I typically approach negativity as motivation. The biggest reason I ended up at my alma mater is because enough people told me that I could never get in. I'm not sure there is any better feeling than when you accomplish something that you weren't supposed to be able to, and then get to ask the person who doubted your ability "you were saying?" Jenn tells me that I'm constantly rooting for underdogs when it comes to sports, which makes sense. Once you get tired of hearing what you cannot do, you start rooting for others who have been told the same thing.
But there are days when you just don't want to deal with negativity at all. Today was one of those days for me. It could have been a productive day at work, but instead it turned into a waiting game followed by a tsunami of crap late on a Friday afternoon. At times like this, I tend to turn to the gym as my stress relief. Who knows, maybe it could have been, but I arrived too late to participate in today's WOD. (The WOD, for the sake of posterity, was 15 minutes of practicing handstand walks, followed by 2,000 meters on the rower where every minute on the minute you had to do 20 double unders, or a scale thereof)
With that option gone, I talked myself into doing strength, but all of the racks were taken, so my plan to squat was off the table as well. Pull-ups! You need to work on pull-ups! Oh yeah, that's right. I made my way over to the monkey bars, grabbed a box, and set up my medium black band. The 5 sets of 5 that I did weren't extremely difficult, but I still felt lousy. I grabbed some abmats to test out handstand push-ups, but I quickly found out on attempt #1 that I had no desire to be upside-down and in a foul mood. From there I made my way to the GHD, where I did 20 slow sit-ups, focusing on being explosive on the way up. This was probably the best thing I did today. Still, that wasn't making me feel any better. Thinking that I needed some ab work, I headed back down to the other end of the gym again, grabbed another ab-mat, and did 100 sit-ups.
With the 6:30 class finished with the WOD, I grabbed my jump rope and began double under practice. It was pathetic. I already suck at double unders, but when you have no energy or focus, double unders simply become impossible. I might have practiced for 5 minutes (could have been 2 minutes for all I know) and decided to leave. I wasn't accomplishing anything and my mood certainly wasn't improving. I probably should have skipped going to the gym altogether.
Looks like I ended up taking consecutive days off anyways. Oh well. Maybe I'll get up super early tomorrow and get my ass kicked at Competitors Class. As for tonight, I'll see if my buddy Captain Morgan and the Music Choice channels can turn things around.
I typically approach negativity as motivation. The biggest reason I ended up at my alma mater is because enough people told me that I could never get in. I'm not sure there is any better feeling than when you accomplish something that you weren't supposed to be able to, and then get to ask the person who doubted your ability "you were saying?" Jenn tells me that I'm constantly rooting for underdogs when it comes to sports, which makes sense. Once you get tired of hearing what you cannot do, you start rooting for others who have been told the same thing.
But there are days when you just don't want to deal with negativity at all. Today was one of those days for me. It could have been a productive day at work, but instead it turned into a waiting game followed by a tsunami of crap late on a Friday afternoon. At times like this, I tend to turn to the gym as my stress relief. Who knows, maybe it could have been, but I arrived too late to participate in today's WOD. (The WOD, for the sake of posterity, was 15 minutes of practicing handstand walks, followed by 2,000 meters on the rower where every minute on the minute you had to do 20 double unders, or a scale thereof)
With that option gone, I talked myself into doing strength, but all of the racks were taken, so my plan to squat was off the table as well. Pull-ups! You need to work on pull-ups! Oh yeah, that's right. I made my way over to the monkey bars, grabbed a box, and set up my medium black band. The 5 sets of 5 that I did weren't extremely difficult, but I still felt lousy. I grabbed some abmats to test out handstand push-ups, but I quickly found out on attempt #1 that I had no desire to be upside-down and in a foul mood. From there I made my way to the GHD, where I did 20 slow sit-ups, focusing on being explosive on the way up. This was probably the best thing I did today. Still, that wasn't making me feel any better. Thinking that I needed some ab work, I headed back down to the other end of the gym again, grabbed another ab-mat, and did 100 sit-ups.
With the 6:30 class finished with the WOD, I grabbed my jump rope and began double under practice. It was pathetic. I already suck at double unders, but when you have no energy or focus, double unders simply become impossible. I might have practiced for 5 minutes (could have been 2 minutes for all I know) and decided to leave. I wasn't accomplishing anything and my mood certainly wasn't improving. I probably should have skipped going to the gym altogether.
Looks like I ended up taking consecutive days off anyways. Oh well. Maybe I'll get up super early tomorrow and get my ass kicked at Competitors Class. As for tonight, I'll see if my buddy Captain Morgan and the Music Choice channels can turn things around.
Thursday, January 8, 2015
Having the Self Control to Take a Rest Day (aka Scheduling Two Appointments After Work)
After 6 days of hitting the gym, I finally took a rest day. Probably not the schedule I want to keep going forward, but I'm stubborn, and there were so many good WODs this week! Luckily, Cindy isn't one of my favorite WODs, and more importantly, I had obligations that took the decision to go to the gym out of my hands in advance.
I will need to do Cindy soon though, as it is one of the WODs we're testing at the gym over the course of the year. Since pull-ups are part of the workout, I imagine my score today would have been pretty low. Maybe with a lot of practice I'll be a Cindy fan come late-2015.
I didn't really have too much of a plan as far as posting on rest days was concerned, so this post will be shorter than the volumes I've been posting each night. It did seem like a good place for an update though, so here are the highlights for week 1 of 2015:
Weight - dropped from 213.8 to 213.0
First 10,000M Row - finished in 45:32
Two PRs - back squat improved from 270 to 275, clean and jerk improved from 205 to 215
And while this blog might be focused on my workouts, I thought this post would be a good place to highlight other PRs in the gym this week:
Back Squat:
Sue K - 135
Marci - 135
Cline - 220
Clean and Jerk:
Keith - 300
Justin - 235
Liza - 110
Chris B - 195
Rebecca - 88
Ly - 88
#whoisjohnmchugh - 170
Jill (no initial) - 145
Luke - 195
Shane - 185 (cleaned 195)
Jill C - 115
Steph C - 100
Sue D - cleaned 75
Back to work tomorrow! And a rowing clinic on Sunday. Very much looking forward to that.
I will need to do Cindy soon though, as it is one of the WODs we're testing at the gym over the course of the year. Since pull-ups are part of the workout, I imagine my score today would have been pretty low. Maybe with a lot of practice I'll be a Cindy fan come late-2015.
I didn't really have too much of a plan as far as posting on rest days was concerned, so this post will be shorter than the volumes I've been posting each night. It did seem like a good place for an update though, so here are the highlights for week 1 of 2015:
Weight - dropped from 213.8 to 213.0
First 10,000M Row - finished in 45:32
Two PRs - back squat improved from 270 to 275, clean and jerk improved from 205 to 215
And while this blog might be focused on my workouts, I thought this post would be a good place to highlight other PRs in the gym this week:
Back Squat:
Sue K - 135
Marci - 135
Cline - 220
Clean and Jerk:
Keith - 300
Justin - 235
Liza - 110
Chris B - 195
Rebecca - 88
Ly - 88
#whoisjohnmchugh - 170
Jill (no initial) - 145
Luke - 195
Shane - 185 (cleaned 195)
Jill C - 115
Steph C - 100
Sue D - cleaned 75
Back to work tomorrow! And a rowing clinic on Sunday. Very much looking forward to that.
Wednesday, January 7, 2015
Souka-star!
Workout date: 1/7/15
Knowing that I would have to take Thursday off, I made the decision on Monday night to keep going to the gym through Wednesday. I wasn't missing the Tuesday WOD (sucka!) and taking off two nights in a row was out of the question. So no matter what, I was in for the workout on Wednesday. Turns out that I'd be testing out another 1 rep max that I had not attempted in quite a while.
You already know that I prefer the snatch to the clean and jerk, which probably explains why I've tested my 1RM for the snatch over and over again in the last year, while I couldn't tell you the last time I tested my 1RM for the clean and jerk. Sometime late last summer if I had to guess. Well my top performance was 205 pounds, and the one time that I did it was certainly not pretty. It was one of those attempts where I was standing with the weight above my head, frantically looking around the room for someone to confirm that the lift was legit. And they probably lied to me because I had crazy eyes, shaky arms, and a lot of weight perilously hanging over my head. Still I felt confident that I could PR tonight because about a month ago we did a workout that included a 2RM hang squat clean and I was able to do 215 once. Tonight I was not operating from the hang, so the question should have only been the jerk.
As the weight gets really heavy, it's best to go to a split jerk. And that requires balance. And that is where I run into problems. I mean, to be honest, if I was doing the split jerk properly, I would probably be fine. But instead I turn into Mary Katherine Gallagher, then wobble, and pray that I don't fall over. Might be a sign that I need to practice that movement a little more.
I started off light at 95 pounds so I could practice my split jerk along the way and got some advice from Coach Keith, who had thrown up 300 pounds earlier this morning. My main issues were having a stance that was too extended, having a back leg that wasn't bent much at all, and my back toe was pointed the wrong way. Basically it was all wrong. But with a light weight to begin and 7 attempts to be made in total, there was some time to iron out the wrinkles. I went 95-125-155 for my first 3 lifts as I knew the cleans would not be that strenuous, but when I got to 175, I figured I should start squat cleaning. The problem is that the message from my brain takes a while to be processed by my legs. There wasn't much squatting involved in my attempt at 175. The try at 195 was a power clean, followed by a pause where I silently berated myself, and then the split jerk. Lift #6 was at 215, the thought process being that if I failed, I could do lift #7 at 210 and still possibly PR. Once again, as I drove the bar upward, my body did very little in the way of getting under the bar. Instead of squatting, there was some incredibly awkward starfishing. However, I got the bar up to the vicinity of my collarbone, and with a little adjustment, I was ready to try the split jerk.
Now maybe it was because I knew this was for a PR, or maybe it was because I was still mad that I continued not to squat when I kept telling myself to, but I managed to get a lot of intensity into that split jerk. It may have even been the best one I did all night. 215 went over my head and I had a PR. In fact, I felt so good about it, I quickly threw on 10 more pounds for an attempt at 225. There was no chance of power cleaning that weight, so I audibly said "squat" over and over again before attempting the clean. I grabbed the bar, tried to clean it, actually squatted a little, but I was way too slow moving under the bar, and 225 fell to the floor. Oh well, it will have to wait for another day. Hopefully that day isn't too far away though.
The cash out was a 21-15-9 rep scheme of hang power cleans and burpees with RX weights of 135/95. I could feel the tightness in my forearms already from the clean and jerks, so I decided not to try and be a hero and scaled down to 115. Despite the tightness, the cleans ended up not being too bad, although my core started getting loose towards the end of the 15 clean round, which meant some ugly looking cleans or, more likely, some blatant reverse curling. And burpees? Well, I'm out of shape, so those were going to suck no matter what. Finished up in 6:46 and desperately searched for my water bottle.
Thanks to Sue, Steph, Fayth, and Jill for a fun 7:30 class this evening. Tomorrow is finally a day off! No really it is. Despite the fact that I see it is a test day. Good luck to all those testing out Cindy tomorrow!
Tuesday, January 6, 2015
The Sucker WOD
Workout date: 1/6/15
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received at the gym came courtesy of Jim C. I had only been at KOP for a short time and I was about to make my first attempt at Fight Gone Bad. Part of what drew me into doing Crossfit was watching these crazy events on TV where the athlete would do 10 reps of this, followed by 20 reps of that, and on and on and on. So now I would be doing this WOD where I would get to do 5 different things over the course of three rounds, and the best part was that I would get a minute break between rounds. Sweet!
Or not. As I was telling Jim how cool it was that this WOD included not one, but two breaks, he explained to me that if a WOD had breaks in it, then I should expect it to be much worse than most other WODs. 17 minutes later, as I was clutching on to a pole or something trying to figure out what the hell just happened, I realized how wise that advice was. And although I've never forgotten that WODs with breaks are the spawn of Satan, I haven't quite learned my lesson when it comes to Sucker WODs.
What are Sucker WODs? Those are the workouts that when they pop up on your screen at 10pm cause you to say "nice, I can do that, doesn't even sound that bad!" Today's workout fell into that category. It was very simple in design: 1,000 meters rowing, 30 box jumps (24"/20"), 30 wall balls (10' with 20lbs/9' with 14lbs), 500 meters rowing, 30 more box jumps, 30 more wall balls, capped off by 1,000 more meters rowing. Hey, I can row! I can jump on boxes! And my wall balls have gotten much better over the last few months. This is going to be a piece of cake!
As I laid on the floor of the gym at about 8:15pm this evening, I kicked myself for being naive once again. The 7:30 class was just me and Mark. My naiveté didn't extend to the point that I thought I would be the first one done, but it didn't matter anyway after Mark decided he was doing 15 reps on the box jumps and wall balls. (Note: Mark finished 6 minutes ahead of me. There is no doubt he would have crushed me on this workout had he done the full 30 reps.) We got started and Mark was off the rower a solid 10-15 seconds before me, although I was comfortable with doing the first row in almost exactly 4 minutes. Then came the box jumps and those got sucky quick. I was at 12 jumps when Mark moved to wall balls, and he was back to the rower before I finished off my 30. I felt like I was 10 minutes behind him already. I got to the wall balls and did 11 before letting the ball drop. I wanted to string all 30 (and Coach Keith might tell you I was capable of doing so), but between being far behind and already breathing heavy, my mental strength was wavering. I only got 5 in my next set, losing my grip on the ball a bit on my last rep. Keith came over and told me he wanted me to string the last 14. Maybe having someone bark at me helps, but more than anything, I think I hate disappointing people. So that ball hit above the 10' mark 14 times in a row before it hit the ground again.
I thought the 500 meter row would be a nice breather, but that 2:20 or so felt like it took forever. And Mark was already on his final row! I made my way back over to box jumps and tried to keep a steady pace, but I was definitely tired, even doing one of my patented "collide into the box instead of jumping on it" moves. That doesn't make you feel dumb at all. Wall balls was very similar to the first go round. I did 2 sets of 7 before Keith came over and told me he wanted the last 16 in a row. I'm not sure I could think of anything that sounded less appealing at that moment, but once I picked up that ball, I made sure that it hit the mark 16 straight times before letting it touch the floor.
Just 1,000 meters of rowing to go! Ugh...
I got on the rower, began pulling, and closed my eyes every few strokes. I knew 1,000 meters wasn't that far, but looking at my speed wasn't gonna help me. I tried to pull as fast as I could knowing I was almost done, but when I did see the monitor, my split seemed to be fluctuating from as low as 2:10 to as high as 2:20. My plan was to give everything I could muster once I hit 750 meters and it was at about that point that Keith told me he wanted me under a 2:00 split the rest of the way. With him and Mark pushing me, I got it under 2:00, eventually finishing with a 1:48 split on the screen. Final time for the workout: 19:25.
Did I think this workout would take 19:25? No way. I thought something in the range of 17-18 minutes was where I would end up. But that's what happens when you fall for the Sucker WOD.
One of the best pieces of advice I've ever received at the gym came courtesy of Jim C. I had only been at KOP for a short time and I was about to make my first attempt at Fight Gone Bad. Part of what drew me into doing Crossfit was watching these crazy events on TV where the athlete would do 10 reps of this, followed by 20 reps of that, and on and on and on. So now I would be doing this WOD where I would get to do 5 different things over the course of three rounds, and the best part was that I would get a minute break between rounds. Sweet!
Or not. As I was telling Jim how cool it was that this WOD included not one, but two breaks, he explained to me that if a WOD had breaks in it, then I should expect it to be much worse than most other WODs. 17 minutes later, as I was clutching on to a pole or something trying to figure out what the hell just happened, I realized how wise that advice was. And although I've never forgotten that WODs with breaks are the spawn of Satan, I haven't quite learned my lesson when it comes to Sucker WODs.
What are Sucker WODs? Those are the workouts that when they pop up on your screen at 10pm cause you to say "nice, I can do that, doesn't even sound that bad!" Today's workout fell into that category. It was very simple in design: 1,000 meters rowing, 30 box jumps (24"/20"), 30 wall balls (10' with 20lbs/9' with 14lbs), 500 meters rowing, 30 more box jumps, 30 more wall balls, capped off by 1,000 more meters rowing. Hey, I can row! I can jump on boxes! And my wall balls have gotten much better over the last few months. This is going to be a piece of cake!
As I laid on the floor of the gym at about 8:15pm this evening, I kicked myself for being naive once again. The 7:30 class was just me and Mark. My naiveté didn't extend to the point that I thought I would be the first one done, but it didn't matter anyway after Mark decided he was doing 15 reps on the box jumps and wall balls. (Note: Mark finished 6 minutes ahead of me. There is no doubt he would have crushed me on this workout had he done the full 30 reps.) We got started and Mark was off the rower a solid 10-15 seconds before me, although I was comfortable with doing the first row in almost exactly 4 minutes. Then came the box jumps and those got sucky quick. I was at 12 jumps when Mark moved to wall balls, and he was back to the rower before I finished off my 30. I felt like I was 10 minutes behind him already. I got to the wall balls and did 11 before letting the ball drop. I wanted to string all 30 (and Coach Keith might tell you I was capable of doing so), but between being far behind and already breathing heavy, my mental strength was wavering. I only got 5 in my next set, losing my grip on the ball a bit on my last rep. Keith came over and told me he wanted me to string the last 14. Maybe having someone bark at me helps, but more than anything, I think I hate disappointing people. So that ball hit above the 10' mark 14 times in a row before it hit the ground again.
I thought the 500 meter row would be a nice breather, but that 2:20 or so felt like it took forever. And Mark was already on his final row! I made my way back over to box jumps and tried to keep a steady pace, but I was definitely tired, even doing one of my patented "collide into the box instead of jumping on it" moves. That doesn't make you feel dumb at all. Wall balls was very similar to the first go round. I did 2 sets of 7 before Keith came over and told me he wanted the last 16 in a row. I'm not sure I could think of anything that sounded less appealing at that moment, but once I picked up that ball, I made sure that it hit the mark 16 straight times before letting it touch the floor.
Just 1,000 meters of rowing to go! Ugh...
I got on the rower, began pulling, and closed my eyes every few strokes. I knew 1,000 meters wasn't that far, but looking at my speed wasn't gonna help me. I tried to pull as fast as I could knowing I was almost done, but when I did see the monitor, my split seemed to be fluctuating from as low as 2:10 to as high as 2:20. My plan was to give everything I could muster once I hit 750 meters and it was at about that point that Keith told me he wanted me under a 2:00 split the rest of the way. With him and Mark pushing me, I got it under 2:00, eventually finishing with a 1:48 split on the screen. Final time for the workout: 19:25.
Did I think this workout would take 19:25? No way. I thought something in the range of 17-18 minutes was where I would end up. But that's what happens when you fall for the Sucker WOD.
Monday, January 5, 2015
(Gran)daddy needs a new pair of shoes
Workout date: 1/5/15
Ok, I lied. I had intended to use Monday as a rest day. But I am an addict, and when I hit refresh at 10:00pm last night (you know, after hitting refresh 32 times earlier in the hope that the WOD would accidentally be posted before it's usual time), I saw that the WOD included rope climbs and thrusters. Rest day cancelled!
I didn't get rope climbs for the longest time, but once I caught on, I was J-hooked (sorry, that was bad...I won't let it happen again...at least not in this post). And for some odd reason, I've always liked thrusters. The WOD was 5 rounds for time of 2 rope climbs to the 15 foot mark and 10 thrusters with RX of 135/95 pounds. Tough, but doable. And certainly some serious work for my lungs. I just needed a little extra help for the workout. Wait, what's that on the doorstep when I got home from work?
Oh yes! The new Souka shoes! Time to go kick some butt at the gym!
The 6:30 class was an awesome one, with a ton of positive energy. WODs with Mr. Intensity and Seshu used to be a daily occurrence, but prior to tonight it had been a long time since the gang was all back together. Not only that, but Conn and Borden were both back in the same class, and the Michal/Rachel rivalry was in full effect. After a pretty tough warmup (that's a bad sign), it was time to choose weights for the thrusters. I did my usual scan of the board and saw a few guys had done 115 with a lot more doing 95. Idiot Dave originally thought "115 it is", but then semi-rational Dave thought "dumbass, there's a reason most people chose 95". I was torn. And then it dawned on me that I could split the difference and do 105. Semi-rational Dave was right to call me a dumbass.
As I got my weights, I ran into Coach Paul again. And we had the same conversation from the other night...with a twist.
Paul: What weight are you doing?
Me: Ummm...105? <wincing for the response>
Paul: 105? <head shake>
Me: You don't think I can do 105?
Paul: You should do 115.
It was at this point that I became convinced that Paul is endlessly amused by messing with my mind before workouts. But once again, I went with his suggestion. My goal was to keep it as close to 15 minutes as possible. Round 1 was complete in less than 2 minutes, with round 2 completed in a little under 5 minutes. Things got very tough by round 3 and I was a little over 9 minutes when I trudged back over to the rope. I was sucking wind like crazy in round 4 (Rachel even took time to yell at me as I may have taken a nap on the floor), then tried to figure out how to get oxygen in my body while trying to finish the WOD as quickly as possible in round 5. Finished the rope climbs, got to the bar and did 2 thrusters. Cline became my partner again as he had finished up and was yelling at me to get back to the bar. I took some deep breaths, knocked out 4 reps, then knelt by the bar again. Cline pushed me one more time and I managed to do the last 4 reps before needing a paramedic. The final time?
16:38 was a little slower than I would have liked, but I can remember a time not too long ago when 10 rope climbs wouldn't have even been a consideration. So overall I'm happy with the workout. And of course, I got my rope climb badge of honor per usual:
Way too tired for pull-up practice, but I pulled 213 pounds up a rope 10 times, so that will have to do.
Rest day tomorrow! (Complete lie. Already looked at tomorrow's WOD and I'm totally in.)
Ok, I lied. I had intended to use Monday as a rest day. But I am an addict, and when I hit refresh at 10:00pm last night (you know, after hitting refresh 32 times earlier in the hope that the WOD would accidentally be posted before it's usual time), I saw that the WOD included rope climbs and thrusters. Rest day cancelled!
I didn't get rope climbs for the longest time, but once I caught on, I was J-hooked (sorry, that was bad...I won't let it happen again...at least not in this post). And for some odd reason, I've always liked thrusters. The WOD was 5 rounds for time of 2 rope climbs to the 15 foot mark and 10 thrusters with RX of 135/95 pounds. Tough, but doable. And certainly some serious work for my lungs. I just needed a little extra help for the workout. Wait, what's that on the doorstep when I got home from work?
Oh yes! The new Souka shoes! Time to go kick some butt at the gym!
The 6:30 class was an awesome one, with a ton of positive energy. WODs with Mr. Intensity and Seshu used to be a daily occurrence, but prior to tonight it had been a long time since the gang was all back together. Not only that, but Conn and Borden were both back in the same class, and the Michal/Rachel rivalry was in full effect. After a pretty tough warmup (that's a bad sign), it was time to choose weights for the thrusters. I did my usual scan of the board and saw a few guys had done 115 with a lot more doing 95. Idiot Dave originally thought "115 it is", but then semi-rational Dave thought "dumbass, there's a reason most people chose 95". I was torn. And then it dawned on me that I could split the difference and do 105. Semi-rational Dave was right to call me a dumbass.
As I got my weights, I ran into Coach Paul again. And we had the same conversation from the other night...with a twist.
Paul: What weight are you doing?
Me: Ummm...105? <wincing for the response>
Paul: 105? <head shake>
Me: You don't think I can do 105?
Paul: You should do 115.
It was at this point that I became convinced that Paul is endlessly amused by messing with my mind before workouts. But once again, I went with his suggestion. My goal was to keep it as close to 15 minutes as possible. Round 1 was complete in less than 2 minutes, with round 2 completed in a little under 5 minutes. Things got very tough by round 3 and I was a little over 9 minutes when I trudged back over to the rope. I was sucking wind like crazy in round 4 (Rachel even took time to yell at me as I may have taken a nap on the floor), then tried to figure out how to get oxygen in my body while trying to finish the WOD as quickly as possible in round 5. Finished the rope climbs, got to the bar and did 2 thrusters. Cline became my partner again as he had finished up and was yelling at me to get back to the bar. I took some deep breaths, knocked out 4 reps, then knelt by the bar again. Cline pushed me one more time and I managed to do the last 4 reps before needing a paramedic. The final time?
16:38 was a little slower than I would have liked, but I can remember a time not too long ago when 10 rope climbs wouldn't have even been a consideration. So overall I'm happy with the workout. And of course, I got my rope climb badge of honor per usual:
Way too tired for pull-up practice, but I pulled 213 pounds up a rope 10 times, so that will have to do.
Rest day tomorrow! (Complete lie. Already looked at tomorrow's WOD and I'm totally in.)
Sunday, January 4, 2015
Sunday Snatches and the Open Gym Buffet
Workout date: 1/4/15
My original plan for Sunday was to just go in and participate in the Open Gym, with the hopes of winning my ice cream bet with Jill (the bet will be detailed in a future post). There really is no better motivator than ice cream. But then I saw it was snatch day at the gym. And that meant an hour less sleep so I could get to the 10am WOD.
I'm a big fan of the snatch. (I honestly tried to come up with a better way to say that, but there really was no way around it. Also, I am a 12 year old boy.) I struggle much more with squat cleans than I do with squat snatches. For some reason, I feel much more comfortable being in a squat with weight over my head, then with it landing on my shoulders. It took a while to get to that point, but once I did, I started looking forward to WODs that include snatches.
Today's WOD was different in that you would do 1 rep every minute on the minute for 20 minutes, starting with 50% of your 1 rep max weight and increasing 5-10 pounds each minute. If you failed at any point, you got the next minute off, but you had to decrease your weight by 30%. It was a test of your pit crew skills, as you didn't have much time after putting down the bar to change the weights and get ready for your next lift. My 1RM is 175, so I started at 90 and planned on going up by 5 pounds every minute. Once we got going, I noticed that I would only have about 10-15 seconds after changing the weights. That wasn't too big a deal early on, but it started to become one as the workout progressed. As the weights got heavier, I started starfishing (bad) instead of squatting (good). I think it's just instinct to not want to drop your body down while pulling weight up, but I should know better by now. I got up to 135, lost my balance on the lift and dropped it. Still had time to lift again though and got it the second time. Got 140, struggled on 145, and knew 150 was going to be the wall. Dropped down to 105 and kept going up by 5, until it dawned on me on the last lift that it was dumb to just go to 130 when I had done 145 already. So I bumped it 15 pounds on the last lift and did 140. My form was much better on the set of lifts after I failed, and I felt very comfortable in the full squat for the final lift at 140. Probably my best lift of the day.
The number one priority at Open Gym was pull-ups. After yesterday's debacle, I've made it a point to develop pull-ups, no matter how much I suck at them and no matter how much I hate doing them. Pull-ups have become the equivalent of eating my vegetables. So I put on the black band (not the big one that is the width of a tire, but not the super tiny one that would snap if I placed my body weight on it) that I used yesterday and proceeded to do 5 sets of 5 strict pull-ups. I have a bad habit of swaying during pull-ups (due to my roly-poly physique), so whenever I started swaying, I stopped and continued only when I was stationary again. Since I knew I would need a break between sets, I did 25 sit-ups after every 5 pull-ups to mimic the cash-out from yesterday. Got through it all, but my hands are still very sore from being torn up during a recent toes-to-bar intensive WOD. But the plan going forward is to do this same routine whenever I am at the gym.
After that was done, I attempted some handstand push-ups with 1 abmat. Not sure why my range of motion seems to come to an abrupt halt at 1.5 abmats, but I once again failed every attempt at 1 abmat, even though 2 abmats feels relatively easy. Just one more thing to work on. Then I turned my attention to double unders. Justin was nice enough to help me out since his best string of double unders (74) is slightly better than mine (6). He noticed that I may have cut my rope too short, but the big issue is that like pull-ups, I just need to practice a lot more. I was able to do a bunch of sets of 3-4, but no higher than that.
I wrapped things up by doing as many consecutive wall balls as I could. I think I was a little more tired than I realized, as I could only get to 28. With one of the Festivus events in April including 50 wall balls, I would like to get to the point where I can string all 50.
Definite rest day tomorrow, although I might do a row at home.
My original plan for Sunday was to just go in and participate in the Open Gym, with the hopes of winning my ice cream bet with Jill (the bet will be detailed in a future post). There really is no better motivator than ice cream. But then I saw it was snatch day at the gym. And that meant an hour less sleep so I could get to the 10am WOD.
I'm a big fan of the snatch. (I honestly tried to come up with a better way to say that, but there really was no way around it. Also, I am a 12 year old boy.) I struggle much more with squat cleans than I do with squat snatches. For some reason, I feel much more comfortable being in a squat with weight over my head, then with it landing on my shoulders. It took a while to get to that point, but once I did, I started looking forward to WODs that include snatches.
Today's WOD was different in that you would do 1 rep every minute on the minute for 20 minutes, starting with 50% of your 1 rep max weight and increasing 5-10 pounds each minute. If you failed at any point, you got the next minute off, but you had to decrease your weight by 30%. It was a test of your pit crew skills, as you didn't have much time after putting down the bar to change the weights and get ready for your next lift. My 1RM is 175, so I started at 90 and planned on going up by 5 pounds every minute. Once we got going, I noticed that I would only have about 10-15 seconds after changing the weights. That wasn't too big a deal early on, but it started to become one as the workout progressed. As the weights got heavier, I started starfishing (bad) instead of squatting (good). I think it's just instinct to not want to drop your body down while pulling weight up, but I should know better by now. I got up to 135, lost my balance on the lift and dropped it. Still had time to lift again though and got it the second time. Got 140, struggled on 145, and knew 150 was going to be the wall. Dropped down to 105 and kept going up by 5, until it dawned on me on the last lift that it was dumb to just go to 130 when I had done 145 already. So I bumped it 15 pounds on the last lift and did 140. My form was much better on the set of lifts after I failed, and I felt very comfortable in the full squat for the final lift at 140. Probably my best lift of the day.
The number one priority at Open Gym was pull-ups. After yesterday's debacle, I've made it a point to develop pull-ups, no matter how much I suck at them and no matter how much I hate doing them. Pull-ups have become the equivalent of eating my vegetables. So I put on the black band (not the big one that is the width of a tire, but not the super tiny one that would snap if I placed my body weight on it) that I used yesterday and proceeded to do 5 sets of 5 strict pull-ups. I have a bad habit of swaying during pull-ups (due to my roly-poly physique), so whenever I started swaying, I stopped and continued only when I was stationary again. Since I knew I would need a break between sets, I did 25 sit-ups after every 5 pull-ups to mimic the cash-out from yesterday. Got through it all, but my hands are still very sore from being torn up during a recent toes-to-bar intensive WOD. But the plan going forward is to do this same routine whenever I am at the gym.
After that was done, I attempted some handstand push-ups with 1 abmat. Not sure why my range of motion seems to come to an abrupt halt at 1.5 abmats, but I once again failed every attempt at 1 abmat, even though 2 abmats feels relatively easy. Just one more thing to work on. Then I turned my attention to double unders. Justin was nice enough to help me out since his best string of double unders (74) is slightly better than mine (6). He noticed that I may have cut my rope too short, but the big issue is that like pull-ups, I just need to practice a lot more. I was able to do a bunch of sets of 3-4, but no higher than that.
I wrapped things up by doing as many consecutive wall balls as I could. I think I was a little more tired than I realized, as I could only get to 28. With one of the Festivus events in April including 50 wall balls, I would like to get to the point where I can string all 50.
Definite rest day tomorrow, although I might do a row at home.
Saturday, January 3, 2015
The Double PR (Personal Record and Pull-up Ridiculousness)
Workout date: 1/3/15
Despite being pretty tired from yesterday, I was psyched to go to the gym this morning. Today's WOD was to find a 1RM for your back squat, and it had been a very long time since I had tested my back squat. I have generally been underwhelming when it comes to my squats. I have good flexibility and can get solid depth on them, but I tend to get stuck midway when I try to stand up with heavier weights. It has been frustrating hitting a plateau while athlete after athlete either surpasses 300 pounds on their back squat or moves towards eclipsing that mark faster than I will. During last summer, I began a long front squat program that worked out well for me, but it really just moved my front squat PR eerily close to my back squat PR. Last I checked, there should be some gap between those two numbers.
My goal for today was 285, even though my PR was only 270. My front squat had improved 15 pounds and I felt like I was close on the final attempts that I failed on. And really, that has been my problem. The weight hasn't felt unbearable, I just keep getting stuck. Generally that's a sign that my sucky form is holding me back.
With the gym jam-packed for the 10am session, we worked in groups. I worked with Cline, who told me that his PR was 210. We moved through the warmups pretty quickly and started working towards PRs. Both of us experienced a weight along the way that made us think "ugh, we are not PRing today", but as we increased the weights, it seemed more reasonable that we could hit our marks. I had no doubt that Cline was breaking 210 as his reps from 185-205 looked very smooth. Not sure how mine looked, but it wasn't until 265 that I had any trouble. Cline put on 220, had a little pause at the bottom, but stood up no problem, and called it a day with a 10 pound PR. I tried out 275, had a tiny struggle again, but made it. As we were told to wrap up our squats for the cash out, I decided to give 285 a whirl. There was a split-second when it felt like I had gotten past that point where I normally got stuck, but I was just spinning my wheels. I soon learned that my bailing technique is very good, which includes (according to Alison) "a cute hop". At least I can do something right! It was a little disappointing not getting 285, but it's not everyday that you get a PR, and I felt pretty optimistic that I could get 285 given a few more tries.
That positive experience faded from memory quickly when we did the cash out. Today's cash-out was a sit-up rep scheme of 25-20-15-10-5, with 10 pull-ups following the completion of each round of sit-ups. And what has two thumbs and can't do pull-ups? This guy! (I know you can't see me, but I actually did the "this guy" thing as I wrote this.) I mean, look at this:
What the hell is going on there? It's like I gave myself a chest wedgie.
Needless to say, the cash out did not go well. Finishing last isn't out of the ordinary for me, but finishing several minutes after everyone else in what was essentially a sprint? Embarrassing.
So some serious time is going to need to be spent on pull-ups, because flailing around like I have been just isn't cutting it. I'm not sure how fast that progress will be (likely answer: not very fast), but I can't continue to be as incredibly inept at pull-ups as I have been.
Tomorrow will mark the first open gym that I have been able to attend in quite a while. It is a safe bet that pull-ups will be on the agenda. Not sure what else just yet.
Despite being pretty tired from yesterday, I was psyched to go to the gym this morning. Today's WOD was to find a 1RM for your back squat, and it had been a very long time since I had tested my back squat. I have generally been underwhelming when it comes to my squats. I have good flexibility and can get solid depth on them, but I tend to get stuck midway when I try to stand up with heavier weights. It has been frustrating hitting a plateau while athlete after athlete either surpasses 300 pounds on their back squat or moves towards eclipsing that mark faster than I will. During last summer, I began a long front squat program that worked out well for me, but it really just moved my front squat PR eerily close to my back squat PR. Last I checked, there should be some gap between those two numbers.
My goal for today was 285, even though my PR was only 270. My front squat had improved 15 pounds and I felt like I was close on the final attempts that I failed on. And really, that has been my problem. The weight hasn't felt unbearable, I just keep getting stuck. Generally that's a sign that my sucky form is holding me back.
With the gym jam-packed for the 10am session, we worked in groups. I worked with Cline, who told me that his PR was 210. We moved through the warmups pretty quickly and started working towards PRs. Both of us experienced a weight along the way that made us think "ugh, we are not PRing today", but as we increased the weights, it seemed more reasonable that we could hit our marks. I had no doubt that Cline was breaking 210 as his reps from 185-205 looked very smooth. Not sure how mine looked, but it wasn't until 265 that I had any trouble. Cline put on 220, had a little pause at the bottom, but stood up no problem, and called it a day with a 10 pound PR. I tried out 275, had a tiny struggle again, but made it. As we were told to wrap up our squats for the cash out, I decided to give 285 a whirl. There was a split-second when it felt like I had gotten past that point where I normally got stuck, but I was just spinning my wheels. I soon learned that my bailing technique is very good, which includes (according to Alison) "a cute hop". At least I can do something right! It was a little disappointing not getting 285, but it's not everyday that you get a PR, and I felt pretty optimistic that I could get 285 given a few more tries.
That positive experience faded from memory quickly when we did the cash out. Today's cash-out was a sit-up rep scheme of 25-20-15-10-5, with 10 pull-ups following the completion of each round of sit-ups. And what has two thumbs and can't do pull-ups? This guy! (I know you can't see me, but I actually did the "this guy" thing as I wrote this.) I mean, look at this:
What the hell is going on there? It's like I gave myself a chest wedgie.
Needless to say, the cash out did not go well. Finishing last isn't out of the ordinary for me, but finishing several minutes after everyone else in what was essentially a sprint? Embarrassing.
So some serious time is going to need to be spent on pull-ups, because flailing around like I have been just isn't cutting it. I'm not sure how fast that progress will be (likely answer: not very fast), but I can't continue to be as incredibly inept at pull-ups as I have been.
Tomorrow will mark the first open gym that I have been able to attend in quite a while. It is a safe bet that pull-ups will be on the agenda. Not sure what else just yet.
Friday, January 2, 2015
Rowing With Grace
Workout date: 1/2/15
(To all those who were hoping the second post would be shorter...my bad.)
I don't think I am spoiling anything by saying that two of my best chances of getting on the white board this year are the 500M row and the 2000M row. After all, it's not like I am magically going to be able to deadlift 600 lbs or snatch 300 lbs by the end of the year. Luckily for me, the anniversary gift I received last year was a rower (I'm not much of a flowers or jewelry kind of guy). The tough part is that my house is undergoing some massive renovations, which has led to some interesting living conditions. For example, we recently got a new laundry room, but that is also serving as our kitchen for at least another month. My sister and brother-in-law came to stay with us on New Year's Eve, which required me to move all of the boxes from the guest room with a bed to the guest room that no longer has a bed. As I've told some people, we're essentially living in a life-sized game of Jenga, hoping that the guys renovating the house don't pull the wrong piece.
With cramped quarters for the time being and much of our stuff in boxes, it was tough to find a place to row. But with the work on our bedroom essentially complete, we decided to put the rower next to the bed with greater intentions than just awkwardly walking around it in the morning. Now having done many a 500M row, some 2,000M rows, and one 5,000M row last year, I decided that I should kick things off by doing something different: a 10,000M row. (Yes, I'm the guy who looks at the beer list and then orders "that one, because I've never had it before.") I'm also not much of a morning person, so you can imagine how delighted my body was when it realized that I was actually going through with rowing 10,000 meters at 7am.
My time for the 5,000M row on 4/28/13 was 21:53. Given that was at the gym and not at 7am, along with the fact that I would be rowing double that distance, my goal was 45:00-47:00. Then I did the math (nerd alert) and discovered that a 2:15 split for 500M would get me to 45:00, while a 2:20 split would get me to 46:40, so I adjusted my goal to 45:00-46:30. Here is a brief summary of how it went with the amount of meters to go noted:
10,000 - Let's do this! My dog, Indy, is mildly curious as to a) why I am awake and b) what I am doing on this new monstrosity that I have brought into the bedroom.
9,850 - Indy has already become disinterested, snorting in disapproval and laying back down to sleep. I find myself instantly jealous.
7,000 - So far, so good. Have maintained a pace in the 2:13-2:16 range. May have been 1 or 2 strokes where the monitor jumped up to near 2:20, but that was more of a mental lapse than fatigue. My body has begun pulling an Ndamukong Suh (numb feet).
5,500 - Starting to see 2:20 pop up a little more often. Each time it does, I try to give a burst of energy to get back down in the teens. Suddenly realizing that grip is going to be much more of an issue than planned. My left foot has taken Indy's cue and gone back to sleep.
5,000 - Passed the halfway mark at 22:43. Hope to maintain a pace that will keep me under 46:00.
4,000 - I seem to have established a routine where I row 1,500 meters pretty well and then begin fatiguing. Staying under 2:20 has become a lot of work. Regularly adjusting my hands while I pull the handle as my weak grip has officially started to betray me. Just trying to get to 1,000 meters left where my brain will shut off and the second wind will kick in.
2,000 - Clock reads 36:39. Can I pull together the last 2,000 meters in 8:20? Probably not, but I kick it up a notch and go for broke, hoping that I won't fall apart before the end.
1,000 - Second wind! I start rowing much faster, although it's fair to say that my pulls probably have become much less efficient, as the 500M split hasn't dropped dramatically lower. It's clear I won't break 45:00, but 45:30 is still in play.
Finish
Pretty happy that my second 5,000M split (22:49) was nearly as fast as the first 5,000M, although it took everything I had at the end to make it close. Per usual, there was much sweat to be cleaned up after I was done, along with sitting and not moving, while slowly drinking a bottle of water.
<Went to job, tried not to focus on how badly I wanted the weekend to be here>
Was able to make it to the 6:30 WOD. Today's workout was 3 rounds for time of 500M row (which I imagined would be a picnic compared to what I did this morning) and 10 Clean and Jerks (RX weight of 185/125). I always struggle with choosing a weight for workouts like this. On the one hand, I am infamous for underscaling (30 Clean and Jerks at 185? I can do that!), which leads to finishing approximately 5 minutes after the next class begins. But the other side of the coin is that I believe the only way to push myself to the next level is to take on scary weights. (Note: I never choose a weight that I believe has the potential to injure me. I may be dumb, but I'm not stupid.)
In situations like this, I tend to look at what other folks have done earlier in the day and go from there. Over time, I've figured out who does what well and where I fall along that spectrum. And generally I'll choose someone who I think is a little better than me at this particular workout. After a quick glance at the board, I decide on Justin today. Justin is a little bit better than me at rowing and a little bit better than me at Olympic lifts. (Note: He's a lotta bit better than me at most everything else.) Justin used 165 for the Clean and Jerks and posted a time of 16:56. My goal will be to stay under 18:00 using the same weight...
...that was until I ran into Coach Paul. He asked me what weight I was using and I told him 165. He slowly shook his head and said "that's gonna take you 25 minutes". Damn. I didn't think I'd be quite that bad (although 20 minutes was definitely possible), so I bargained for 155. Another shake of the head. I told him 135 seemed too light for this workout. Paul's compromise was 150, but that if I went over 16 minutes, I had to listen to everything he said from now on. Feeling oddly confident (and maybe a little pissed that he thought I would suck at this workout), I asked him what happens if I break 13 minutes. Another shake of the head. "At best, you'll be in the 13's." Game on!
I finished my first round just past the 4 minute mark, but I was a little slow when I hopped back on the rower. Coach Keith (thanks for reading yesterday's blog post!) pushed me through round 2, reminding me that this was the middle round, the round when I always slow down. Still, I was beyond 8:30 when I got back to the rower for the last round. The third row was on the slow side again (it was like I had rowed 10,000 meters earlier in the day or something), but I got back over to the bar at close to the 11:15 mark. I tried to go as fast as I could, but after 6 reps, I really wanted to squat down and catch my breath like I normally do. I looked at the clock and had about 40 seconds to break 13 minutes. Got back to the bar, did 4 ugly clean and jerks, and finished with a time of 12:55. I was one happy sweaty mess.
(For reference, on 6/18/13, I did "Heavy Grace" using 145 pounds and it took me 14:08. So I suck less now than I once did.)
Time to eat, handicap some horse races, and go into a coma.
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