You Smell...Clean?

Workout date: 4/25/15

My last blog post referenced the workout I did on Wednesday night.  Let's just say that some more important events took place on Thursday night and Friday night that kept me from the gym.  (Oddly enough, I ended up in karaoke bars on both nights, although on Thursday night, I was merely an awkward backup singer/dancer for a group rendition of Ludacris's "Roll Out".  Let's move on...)

Having mixed little sleep with plenty of alcohol during those 48 hours, I was not excited about Competitors Class at 7am on Saturday.  Although to be fair, I'm never excited about that class.  I've come to think of it as a necessary evil more than anything else.  The alarm went off at 6:15, I peeled myself out of my oh-so-comfortable bed, got in the shower, threw some gym clothes on and drove to the box.  Despite being less late than usual, I found that the warmup had already begun.  If this class is now going to start on time, I am really going to hate my Saturday mornings.  I grabbed a rower and joined in with the group.  Aimee and Keithie were there, along with the dynamic duo of Rachel and Michal.  The surprise member of the class was Ryan A.  He had a golf outing that morning and decided to come in and do the 7am class before hitting the links.

After a mild amount of ribbing during the 1,000 meter warmup row about my previous two evenings, Rachel and Michal decided to kick things up a notch by making fun of the fact that I reeked of alcohol.  Only I did not reek of alcohol.  Each of them came over to do their very own sniff test, followed by the stunned declaration that I smelled clean.  Later they would claim that this was a compliment, but it was most certainly of the back-handed variety.  Now to be fair, I was told that I was very sassy (insult?  back-handed compliment?  commentary on the inner diva that resides in me early on Saturday mornings?) throughout the remainder of the 7am class, so perhaps I got my revenge.

There was not a lot scheduled for a 2 hour class and that may have partly been due to the fact that Rachel, Michal, and I had all stated that we were going to hang around for the very special torture that awaited us as part of the 9am class.  The strength portion of Competitors Class would be a series of clean and jerks.  It was a 12 minute EMOM (Every Minute On the Minute) of clean and jerks with increasing weight.  Now I probably should have been more concerned with the increasing weight, but instead I was worried about being able to change the weight on my bar quick enough so that I was ready for the next lift.  That distraction clearly affected my decision to do the following weights: 95, 115, 135, 145, 155, 165, 175, 185, 195, 205.  Why was this decision problematic?  Because it only covered 10 minutes rather than 12.  I didn't realize this until we were a few minutes into the workout, so at a certain point, I ran over and grabbed some 2.5 pound weights so that I could add lifts at 190 and 200.

My concern about how fast I could switch the weights did turn out to be validated though, as I would get my clips on after a weight change only to see that I had about 5 seconds to rest before going again.  Racing to change weights was almost a metcon in itself.  As for the lifts, they went fine early on.  I think I was around 165 when I started trying to actively quarter-squat on my cleans, but I still don't meet the bar very well.  I also noticed during the progression up the weights that my legs were lacking power.  This was a real problem because I have grown accustomed to using my legs to get the higher weights up, especially in the jerk.

The lifts at 175 and 185 weren't great, but I completed them successfully.  190 and 195 were even shakier, but I managed.  Then we got to 200 and things started to go wrong.  The clean was fine, although it was much more of a "get it on your chest and roll it up to your shoulders" kind of clean.  With my legs lacking energy, I had no faith that I could do a full squat clean.  Then I went to jerk the bar and as I put it up over my head, it started to move backwards.  I contorted my back a bit to save it (I know I shouldn't do that, but when you're in the moment, you just want to do what you can to save the lift) and made the lift at 200.  But I felt a tweak in my back that served as a reminder that I should have bailed the bar.  And when my jerk at 205 didn't go smoothly, I immediately bailed it.

Having gotten through that part of the workout, we moved on to our metcon, which was being held outside for a change.  In teams of 3, we would rotate between stations for 12 minutes.  One person would be doing double unders, one person would be pushing the prowler (200/100) and one person would be doing push presses (115/75).  To keep it simple, we divided the teams into a boys team and a girls team.  There isn't too much to say about this part of the workout other than it was very fatiguing.  I was fine with the prowler, especially early on.  I think doing double unders right after doing the prowler caused some of us to not do as well on double unders as we might normally do (I was certainly guilty of this).  And the push press was not much fun, but you just knocked out as many as you could before it was time to push the prowler again.  The most notable thing during this workout was that Aimee whipped herself so hard with her rope during double unders that she had to stop for a brief time due to how much pain she was in.  Since it is such a rare occurrence to see Aimee stop during a workout, we all checked on her, but she quickly got back into it.

Finishing up around 8:30 gave us some time to recover before the 9:00 class, which was a relief.  The special 9:00am class was a workout called "Fight Gone Strongman".  It is a play on "Fight Gone Bad", which is a workout that involves 5 basic Crossfit movements.  You do each movement for a minute before rotating to the next station.  After you finish all five stations, you get a minute of rest.  There are three rounds and you generally feel like you want to plop in the corner and die at the end of it.  In "Fight Gone Strongman", each of the five movements is something that might turn up at a strongman competition.  So, if like me, you've seen "World's Strongest Man" episodes on ESPN2 at 3am (note: this is how I discovered Crossfit, as ESPN2 shows all of this crazy shit at 3am), you know it involves lifting all sorts of strange heavy objects rather than loading up a barbell.  For "Fight Gone Strongman", the 5 stations were: 1) GHD bench press - bench press reps with an empty barbell while lying rigid within a GHD holding your body parallel to the floor, 2) Keg/log lifts - going shoulder to overhead with either a 60 pound log or a keg of various weights, 3) Yoke - carrying a heavy yoke (300/200) from one set of cones to another, 4) Farmers carry - carrying a heavy load (155/105) in each hand while walking from one set of cones to another, and 5) Atlas stones - picking up and dropping atlas stones of various weights over a barbell.  An opportunity to do a highly abnormal workout?  You know I was in.

Like it's counterpart "Fight Gone Bad", this workout left me questioning my decision-making skills in life at the end of it.  The GHD bench press was awkward and painful to hold, but it was obvious that this is where the bulk of your score would come from.  I averaged about 20-25 reps per round on this station.  The 75 pound keg I was using was tremendously awkward to lift, especially since the proper way of doing it left you holding it cockeyed over your head.  Only got a few reps per round here.  The yoke was tough to get off the ground, but like a deadlift, once you got it moving, it wasn't too bad.  But you only got 1 rep for carrying the 300 pound yoke about 60% of the way down the gym.  Compare that to pressing out an empty barbell while on the GHD.  As a result, I only got a few reps per round here as well.  The farmers carry was a grip tester and I have a very weak grip.  That meant when I picked up the 155 pounds in each hand, I practically had to sprint (think Olympic walking) to the other end to make it for 1 rep.  Like the yoke, only a few reps could be gained here each round.  Finally, the atlas stone was a bit of a reprieve.  I used the 90 pound stone and was able to get about 5-7 reps per round before I would get to rest.

In total, my score was 111 (37 in round 1, 38 in round 2, 36 in round 3).  It seemed in line with what most others had done in the class.  If I wanted a higher score, I needed to knock out more bench press, because there wasn't a lot to be gained at the other stations.  I was happy with my ability to handle the yoke and the farmers carry as I sensed I would fail later in the workout, but I did manage to go end to end throughout all three rounds.

Now would I do this workout again?  Probably not.  I hate to use the word awkward over and over again, but there is really no other way to describe what it was like at each of these stations.  It was cool to try it once, but I think I'm ready to go back to barbells again.  Not to mention there is plenty of normal stuff in the gym that I need practice on.  Did you say pull-ups and squat cleans?  Well those would get tested on Monday night when we took on Badger once again.