Barbull Reunion!

Workout date: 4/21/15

I gushed about all of the remarkable ladies from KOP in my last post, but it has been a little bit of a bummer that I no longer work out with many of the guys I started doing Crossfit with.  At the end of my first year of Crossfit (2013), I signed up for Barbulls, a strength program for guys only that was coached by Plentus.  Plentus had run this program several times already under the name Barbelles, as it was originally an all-female program.  On the first night of Barbulls, we did a cash out in the parking lot consisting of very heavy KB swings and sprints.  Across the board, we all thought it was the toughest workout we did.  Even 8 weeks later when we had finished the entire program, we all felt the same about that workout.  Barbulls was no joke.

The great thing about programs like that one is that it creates bonds among a group of people that you may not have even known up to that point.  I had never met Mike S. before Barbulls, but every time I see him at the gym now, I say hi and chat with him for a bit.  Mike is a bit more of a morning person than I am though, so I rarely see him.  The rest of the group has kinda disbanded as well.  Brett, Johnny, Tim, Chip and Plentus no longer go to KOP.  Mr. Intensity has done back-to-back performance programs, so he hasn't been in regular class very often.  It's pretty rare that I run into Shawn T. at the gym.  So that trims the group down to Luke and Matt B.  Being teammates on Team Orange during the Open, I got to work out with Luke quite a bit.  (And more importantly, I got to drink with a fellow Wolfpack fan!)  But I hadn't gotten to work out with Matt in a long time as he has been nursing a shoulder injury.  And Matt was someone I worked out with frequently even before Barbulls.  So when Matt showed up for the 6:30 class on Tuesday, I was psyched!

The Tuesday WOD was mainly a strength session, with a skill piece mixed in at the end.  We were doing back squats, specifically 5 sets of 5 reps.  Because I have no self control, I started going through my mental rolodex of what my PRs are in hopes that I might set a new mark today.  Except when it comes to remembering what my PRs are for multiple reps, I tend to have a foggy memory.  Is my 5RM for back squat 225 lbs?  235?  245?  I had no clue.  So my thought was to get at least 225, with 235-245 a possibility depending on how good I was feeling.  But before we got started, Keithie pointed out that there was a handy dandy board off to the side that tells you what your 5RM should be based on your 1RM.  That's helpful!  Having a 275 lb 1RM for back squat, the chart told me I should be able to do 240 lbs for 5 reps.  Yikes - that was a little higher than I was expecting!

Matt and I were working together and did a warmup set at 135.  Now Matt was nice enough to just go along with whatever I put on the bar, in part because he is not back to 100% yet.  But when he is, he's much stronger than I am.  After the warm up at 135, we got started on real sets at 165.  That felt easy enough.  The plan from there was to make 20 pound jumps in order to end with a successful set at 245 (fingers crossed).  Things were fine at 185, then at 205, I started to wobble on my 4th rep along with coming up on my toes, which is something I've worked really hard on eliminating from my squats.  Gotta stay in those heels!  When we made our way to 225, I came up on my toes three times (very aggravating!) and did my 4th rep wobble again.  After putting the bar back on the rack, Keithie called me over.

Me: "I know, I know, I came up on my toes three times.  I'm working on it."
Keithie: "I don't give a shit about you coming up on your toes.  Stop being a bitch and put some real weight on that bar."

Okay then!  225 wasn't crushing me, but I didn't have a lot of faith that I could add on a lot more weight and be successful.  Clearly, adding 20 pounds was not going to suffice, so I grabbed 30 pounds and went to 255.  I mean, how much higher could I really go having only done 1 rep of 275 in my life?  As I got ready to approach the bar, Matt and Keithie tried to get me pumped up for the lift.  And as I placed my hands on the bar, I muttered under my breath over and over again "you can do this".  If I wasn't confident about this lift, then I had no chance.  Plus, when someone calls you a bitch, the last thing you want to do is go and immediately validate their evaluation of you.  So 255 had to go up and down 5 times.

When the first rep went smoothly, I was relieved.  If it had been shaky, who knows how the rest of that lift would have went.  But as I have tried to do with many other things in the gym lately, I remained calm and methodically worked through each of those 5 reps.  It is one of the better moments I have had in the gym recently.  In fact, I was on such a high that I grabbed 10 more pounds so I could knock out a sixth set of 5 reps at 265 lbs.  You know, because I magically just became awesome at back squatting.  Life has a funny way of eliminating any ego I develop pretty quickly and that was proven once again when I had to bail the first rep at 265.

Life: "Don't get greedy Dave."
Me: "Message received.  Loud and clear."
Keithie: "I receive messages."

The remaining time in class was spent practicing bar muscle-ups.  Or, more precisely, jumping bar muscle-ups, for those of us who are not close to doing actual bar muscle-ups.  As I've mentioned in the past, this is a movement that I find to be fun.  The first time I did this in a class, I was able to do them jumping off of a 20" box.  Eventually I got down to a 17" box.  However, my repeated attempts at doing them off of a 13" box had been unsuccessful.  And it was frustrating because I was definitely right on the verge of getting them.  So once again, I grabbed the 13" box and went to work.  Just missed.  Just missed.  Just missed.  Dammit!!!

Keithie informed me that I was not pulling myself forward and over the bar enough (I was preoccupied with getting high enough with my jump), so on my next attempt, I really made sure I was pulling myself forward.  Missed again.  But it was so close!  I got on the box again, started my swing, jumped, pulled forward and...hey, I'm over the bar!  I pressed out and I had finally done a successful jumping bar musle-up off of the 13" box.  I kept at it over the next 5 minutes, getting two in a row before failing while attempting to string #3.  What's left?  Well now I have to figure out how to do the real thing and I imagine it will be a while before that happens.

So overall a very good day.  Much higher number on the back squat than expected.  Got the jumping bar muscle up with the 13" box.  And I'm starting to get the feeling that I'll be breaking through some big numbers soon, with 400 on the deadlift and 300 on the back squat now appearing on the horizon.