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!