Hell-en

Workout date: 5/18/15

It was a packed house at the 6:30 class on Monday night.  I mean, take a look at this lineup!

Me
Cline
Borden
Derreck
Christine W
Ashlea
Dan G
Ashley
Michal
Rachel
Alona
Jen S
Jimmy
Matt B
Steph C

Fifteen people strong!  Oh wait, there's one name missing from that list.  And her name is Helen.  There's a solid chance that we might not speak of her again after this blog post.

Helen has been one of our test day WODs this year, meaning every three months we will do this workout and see how much we have improved over the course of the year.  I wasn't around when this was done three months ago, so this was my first time attempting it this year.  The workout is 3 rounds for time of a 400M run, 21 KB swings (55/35), and 12 pull-ups.  I think you know what the problem is already.

Perhaps it was because I felt guilty about using two bands during the baseline workout for the Mobility Challenge.  Perhaps I was feeling empowered by all the work I had done on Sunday morning.  Whatever the reason was, I got it in my head that I could handle 36 pull-ups without any sort of assistance.  Is that pure crazy talk?  Of course it is.  But it didn't register in my noggin until we actually started doing the workout.  What was the thought process?  My brain, having clearly been seduced by delusion, thought that the worst possible scenario was that I would do the runs at a decent clip, hang on to the KB for all 21 swings in each round, giving me some extra time for the pull-ups should they go poorly.  You read that correctly.  Somehow that version of events was the "worst case scenario".  I will just go ahead and put the crack pipe down.

What actually happened in the workout?  Well, I wasn't too far off on the run and the KB swings for round 1.  I finished that first run mid-pack, grabbed my KB and swung it 21 times in a pretty controlled fashion.  This would be a bit of a test for me because in the past, I've been able to do 21 swings with the 55 lb (in this case, 53 lb due to lack of supply) KB for one round but not for multiple rounds.  The fact that I was not straining to get through the end of the first round of KB swings gave me confidence I could string all of the reps in rounds two and three.

As I made my way to the pull-up bar, I was still mid-pack, as we were instructed to choose a KB weight that we could do 21 reps for, at least in round one.  Everyone seemed to have chosen their weight properly.  But as I tried to knock out one pull-up after another, I was struggling.  I didn't have many no reps, but it was certainly an effort to get each rep.  One by one, everyone else in the class headed out the door.  I was not even close to mid-pack anymore.  I finally completed my 12th rep and went for my run, already cursing this workout.  On my way out, I ran into several people headed back towards the gym.  Great!  A workout with three rounds and I had found a way to get lapped.

Could I have pushed harder on the run?  Probably.  Was I royally pissed off?  Absolutely.  For most movements in the gym, I have seen progress, even if it has been slow.  That is not the case with pull-ups.  I've slowly gotten better at strict pull-ups, but those won't help me in a workout.  And kipping is completely foreign to me.  I've had many people try to help me with it to no avail.  Spending time practicing it has not led to any improvement.  It has been nothing but frustrating.  The only solution at this point seems to be to lose weight, since swinging 211 pounds from my arms is not leading to positive results.  So hopefully I'll be able to shed some pounds this summer.  Oh, and maybe grow adult hands, instead of my current pair that hurt every time I hang on a bar for 10 seconds.  That would help too.

Anyways, after falling well behind, I did my run, came back, swung the KB 21 times in a row again, and headed to the pull-up bar.  I had caught up a little bit, but I also knew I was about to lose a ton of time once again.  Sure enough, some ugly pull-ups ensued.  And then the string of no reps began.  The pull-ups were gone.  There was no bringing them back at this point.  Defeated, I headed over to the rings to do ring rows to complete my round.  As I did, several people had already come back and were finishing up their third round.  Some may have even completed the workout.  Who knows?  I was miserable and wanted this crap over with.

I headed back out, did my run, swung the KB 21 more times in a row (at least I handled that part ok), and did 12 ring rows.  Since the ring rows aren't all that time consuming, my last round was by far the fastest and I finished with a time of 15:06.  Pretty damn slow and I didn't even get an RX.  Hooray failure!  The only benefit may have been the loss of a significant amount of water weight due to the humidity in the gym.

After some mobility work and a grueling tabata for the core, I stuck around for strength.  Except I didn't know what I wanted to do.  I had done a ton of squats on Sunday, so they were out.  Maybe deadlift or bench?  I wasn't feeling that at the moment.  The one thing bouncing around in my brain was double unders.  I have made a lot of progress with double unders this year, but I have been measuring that progress by how many of them I could string together.  In that pursuit, I haven't focused on how efficient my movement has been and any good form I might have had has slowly eroded away.  I can still knock out the occassional set of 30, but I'm exhausted from it.  Having watched the Crossfit Regionals online this weekend and how all of the athletes simply glided along while doing double unders, I set my mind to getting the rhythm for efficient double unders.  If practicing that meant I could only get 4-5 in a row for a while, so be it.

I found some space by the rings and began practicing.  No more jumping like there was a 30 inch box in front of me that I needed to land on.  I was only going to take small jumps each time.  I'd have to make the rest of the movement coordinate with that.  I also have a habit of doing two single unders before I go into double unders, yet I never see anyone else do that.  So I was going to teach myself to go into double unders right after that first single under.  Changing things up yielded a lot of results, although a lot more practice will be necessary as well.

First, forcing myself to go into double unders after that first single under gave me a sense of urgency and made me instinctively twirl the rope faster.  My double unders have tended to be slower than the average person in the class, but I think that is because there was no sense of urgency.  I had this big jump and there was time to float the rope around twice.  With a little jump, I needed more speed.  As I practiced, I was only getting about 5-9 reps, but they were faster sets.  Eventually, I got a couple larger sets in, which is where Rachel noticed that I was not keeping my hands tight to my body as I got tired.  Instead I was "spreading my wings", so to speak.  As my hands got wider and wider, I was losing control of my ability to twirl the rope faster, inevitably bringing on the end of my set.  For the rest of my practice, I concentrated on keeping my hands in tight.

After Michal came down to try out my rope, I noticed that she stays on her toes the entire time she does double unders.  I stay on the front half of my foot, but this was much more exaggerated than that.  It basically took away the ability to do large jumps, but it made me wonder how much more fatigued I would be doing it this way.  Another thing to incorporate into my practice.  I kept trying to do all of these things as I mixed in decent sets of 20-30 reps with the more typical sets of 8-10 reps.  I truly believe that if I can get these things to click, then setting new PRs on strung double unders will take care of themselves.  But in the short term, if it gets me through a workout without becoming exhausted halfway through, then that will be a victory.

Once I felt wiped out from doing double unders, I did do some bench press.  I put 135 pounds on the bar and planned on doing rounds of 10 reps every 2 minutes.  I wanted to get at least 3 rounds, although 4 would be great.  With the strict time frame I gave myself, I wasn't sure how feasible that was.  Round one went smoothly, but round two felt a little shakier.  It got spicy in round three as the last couple reps took some extra oomph to press out.  I thought about stopping then and there, but talked myself into giving round four a shot.  After 5 reps, I needed to put the bar back on the rack.  35 reps over the course of about 7 minutes seemed alright with me.

Despite doing KB swings in the workout, I wanted to do some 80 lb KB swings for practice.  Using the 70 lb KB has helped me a lot with my 55 lb KB swings in workouts, so this seemed like the natural progression.  However, after finishing up the bench press, my chest and shoulders were feeling sore and I didn't think it was worth it to do more.  80 lb KB swings will have to wait for another night.

In the next blog post: Hey big talker, how bout you do 200 double unders to see how your theories work out?  I mean, not just 200 straight, more like 200 double unders as you're making your way through 45 clean and jerks.  See ya at 7:30.