Burpees: Still Sucking After All These Years

Workout date: 4/28/15

I do a lot of whining on here about my inability to do pull-ups.  But my burpee form is nothing to write home about either.  I had always heard in class that burpees were the one movement where you never had to stop.  You could slowly crawl your way through the process of laying your chest to the floor and then rising to your feet no matter how exhausted you were.  As a result, I probably have not been giving enough respect to the burpee section of my workouts.  Better to go hard on the other sections since I can slither my way through burpee after burpee with no energy.  I'm starting to get the feeling this is the wrong way to go.

Tonight's workout was 4 rounds for time of 40 double unders, 30 KB swings (55/35), and 20 burpees.  Ok, double unders will become taxing after a while, but try to get big chunks.  Try to get all 30 KB swings in round one, no more than 3 sets for a given round.  And keep moving on the burpees.  That should work, right?  Not if I was trying to keep up with the rest of the class.  Tonight's 7:30 class marked the return of 2-time King of Prussia winner Dan Faby to normal WOD work, although he has been doing many out-of-state Crossfit competitions, including some with the stipulation "two men enter, one man leaves".  Also in class were my perpetual workout buddies Michal and Rachel, as well as Lizzie and Matt E.

Here's the quick recap:

Round 1: Holy crap!  I just rattled off 35 double unders in a row to start this off.  I'm only 28 seconds in!  Fastest time of the day baby!  Took care of the last 5 and moved on to the KB.  Did 20 KB swings, paused, and did the last 10.  I'm killing this workout!  Wait, why are so many people already doing burpees?  Time to slog my way through these.  At the end of my final burpee, the clock shows over 4 minutes (those were some slow burpees) and I am the last one to start round 2.  What the hell?!?!

Round 2: Double unders not going as smoothly, although after some early mess ups, I manage to rattle off 19 in a row at one point.  Sweating profusely.  Trying to control my breathing.  Finally get to the KB swings.  Did sets of 11, 10, and 9.  Is that a wet fish flopping around on the mat at the end of the gym?  Oh no, that's just Dave doing burpees.  Approximate time for round: 6 minutes.

Round 3: Double unders have become cumbersome to the point where even if I have a good set going, I need to stop because my arms burn so much.  Spending a lot more time with the rope in my hands.  When I get to the KB, I push really hard on the first set ending up with 12.  Last two sets are 10 and 8.  Michal has finished her workout.  Time for some more pathetic burpees, but at least I'm not stopping.  That's good, right?  As I near the end of the round, Faby and Rachel finish the workout.  Approximate time for round: 6:30

Round 4: Lizzie finishes her workout.  Matt has a jump rope in his hands, so we're at about the same point.  I manage the occasional set of 7 or 8, but getting to 40 feels like it is taking forever.  Did I mention my arms are burning?  I finish rep #40 and head to the KB.  With a lot of questionable-sounding grunting, I make it through 13 reps in the first set.  Then 10.  Then 7.  Lizzie offers to do the 20 burpees with me.  She's much faster than me.  When I fall behind at rep 5, Rachel tells me to keep up with her.  I grumble at Rachel that I can't breathe.  I'm trying to stay with Lizzie the best I can.  She has a much better attitude about this than I do.  With 10 reps left, I realize that liquid is pouring off my head and out of my nose.  Attractive!  As the reps wind down, I start doing a better job staying with Lizzie.  Approximate time for round: 7:00.  Final time: 23:24.

Like yesterday, I'm completely confused about whether I should be happy or disappointed in the workout.  It felt like I did a good job.  I did almost everything on my mental checklist.  Yet I finished well behind most of the class.  Finishing 9 minutes after the first person done is a lot!  There's simply no other way to put it.

So some work needs to get done over the next few weeks.  First, I need to start doing burpees daily.  Something in the range of 25-30 of them as fast as I can do them.  Not only does my cardio need improvement, but I need to get that muscle memory back from doing burpees correctly.  I've fallen into the routine of just slogging through them and I'm not improving at all.  In fact, it's dragging my times down.  So that has to go.  Second, I need to start going balls to the wall early on in some of these workouts and see how it goes.  Maybe I'll end up with faster times.  Maybe I'll run out of juice and end up with slower times.  Maybe I'll vomit.  It's all in play.  I used to do WODs this way and it tended to end poorly for me, but I think I'm in better shape mentally and physically than I was back then, so perhaps there will be different results.

The bottom line: time to change things up and see what happens.