Now I Know What Dave Feels Like

Workout date: 5/30/15

I try not to bring a bad attitude into the gym with me, even if I've had a bad day prior to getting there. There are a variety of reasons for that.  I tend to think bad moods are contagious, so I don't want to ruin the experience of other folks at the gym just because I can't get my act together.  I also think it's important to be in the right mindset if you're hoping to give your best performance at the gym.  There have been times where anger has powered me through a tough part of a workout, but I certainly didn't start the workout angry.  If that were the case, I likely would have fallen apart much earlier.

Saturday morning I was not in a good mood.  There were several reasons why, but the point is that it was noticeable to the people I was working out with.  There are many times when I am able to disguise how I am feeling, but yesterday morning was not one of those times.  And it was Competitor's Class, which meant that not being in the right place mentally would have even greater repercussions.

The class was supposed to have three parts to it, but we ended up only doing two segments (well, I did a little bit of the third segment on my own after class).  We were starting off with double under bingo.  The rules of the game went like this: you would state how much you wanted to bet (double under reps) and if you were able to string together that many reps, you received that amount as your score.  Trip up and you got 0 that round.  There would be 8 rounds in total.  Before round 1, I asked if I could fold (what bad attitude?), but apparently this game was more showdown than actual poker.  I thought 15 was a reasonable number to start with.  It was not.  Three times in a row I tried for 15 and didn't even reach 5.  Knowing that I was regressing in double unders even though I've spent more time practicing this movement than anything else in the gym this year was really making me cheery.  I lowered my bet to 5 and finally got some points on the board.  My first attempt at 10 was a failure, but then I went back to my old form of jumping way too high and got 10.  For round 7, I was able to manage 20 jumping around like an idiot.  With Aimee holding the highest final score with 415, I bet 381 for my final round, because I'm not big on finishing second.  I fell a measly 372 reps short in my quest to win double under bingo.

The showcase of Saturday's class was a hero WOD that we'll be testing every 3 months.  I wasn't available to do it in February, so this would be my first experience with hokey man.  What's that?  It's called Holleyman?  Hmmm...I received a text message that said otherwise.  Plus, hokey man is a lot more fun to say, so we're going with that.  Hokey man is 30 rounds long, although there are only 9 reps per round:

5 Wall Balls (20# to 10', 14# to 9')
3 Handstand Push-Ups
1 Power Clean (225/155)

At least I can do the wall balls!  My hope was to do handstand push-ups with two abmats.  I still can't kip anything, but I have done 11 consecutive strict handstand push-ups with two abmats before.  I thought I would be able to handle three per round, but I was concerned because the last time I attempted these, it did not go well.  So the majority of my warmup was practicing these.  Over and over again, I failed on each rep.  Finally, I managed to squirm my way through one.  And then I failed a couple more.  At that point, I stopped.  I was furious.  Maybe I could translate some of that fury into the heavy power cleans.  All I knew is that I would not be doing handstand push-ups of any sort.  I would be doing stinkbugs, which I hate, mainly because I end up with a giant red mark on my forehead from doing them.  At least I was a little smarter this time around, using my backup shirt as a tiny bit of padding.

Choosing a weight for the power cleans was difficult for me.  Originally I was planning on using 165, but I knew the intent of the workout was to do very heavy cleans.  So I bumped it up to 185.  Given that you only had to do one per round and then got some recovery while doing the other movements, I thought I could work my way through 30 of them.  One other thing setting my mind at ease was that I knew this was a long workout.  If I failed on a power clean rep, it wasn't the end of the world.  I could re-group and do it again.  I just needed to keep moving throughout.

Most people in class got a whiteboard, wrote the numbers 1 to 30, and planned on crossing off each round as they went along.  That seemed like too much effort to me.  Plus, as someone who is notorious for finding reasons to take breaks during a workout, I didn't want to give myself an excuse to stop every 9 reps.  So I grabbed an abacus and decided that I would do 3 rounds and then slide over  one of the 10 beads to keep track of my 30 rounds.  During the workout, I discovered that this was also an excellent time to grab a sip of water as well.

As we made our way through the initial rounds, I would glance at the clock.  It was impossible for me to avoid it as I was doing a progression from the wall to the floor and then over to my barbell near the clock.  I was keeping a pace of just under a minute per round, which I was comfortable with, as 30 minutes seemed like a solid time based on what I remembered of the times posted in February.  Long workout = just keep moving.  The wall balls weren't a problem except for the fact that I was sweating profusely and my ball was practically glistening as I tossed it.  I had one round where the ball slipped off of my fingertips as I went to catch it.  From that point on, I caught the ball more with my palms to ensure I would not drop it again.  My sweat did prove useful in verifying that I was hitting the 10' mark, as little wet ball prints began forming on the wall each time I threw it up there.  It was so hot in the gym that Aimee struggled with sweat dripping into her eyes during the workout.  She was sweating so much that afterwards she told me she thought to herself "now I know what Dave feels like" during the workout.

The stinkbugs were not my favorite movement, but at least I knew I wouldn't have a mark on my head when I was done.  Some rounds I powered right through the three reps.  Other rounds, my arms would shake a bit.  The power cleans developed the same way.  There were some reps where my form was great and I threw the bar right up on my shoulders.  And there were also some reps where I cleaned it up to my nipples and kinda shimmied it up from there.

At the midway point, I was around 16 minutes.  I was starting to slow a little and I had decided that anything over 35 minutes was unacceptable.  For rounds 16 through 18, I pushed as though it were the final stretch of the workout.  I had Aimee on one side of me and Michal on the other.  Up to that point, we were keeping close to the same pace.  When I started my wall balls for round 19, I was about a round ahead of each of them.  That was nice, but now I had to hold on.  With about 7 or 8 rounds left, I was feeling it.  I tried to maintain my pace, but going to the floor to do stinkbugs was too close to my usual squatting resting position.  I never really took a break, but I definitely slowed during that section of each round.  With 5 rounds left, I tried to make another push through rounds 26 and 27.  Finally I was making my way through the last 3 rounds, telling myself how few reps I had left.  My last power clean was pretty solid and I stopped the clock at 33:45.

Afterwards, I got some muscle-up practice in as that was the intended third segment of the workout.  It wasn't much.  I did 5 jumping muscle-ups, although my form on the first one wasn't great.  But I was happy with the last four as I'm trying to focus on jumping forward so that I am in the proper spot for the transition.  And even though I haven't done a lot of dip work, I've found that I'm able to dip out consistently when I get to the transition point.  So no surprise, there is pull-up work and kipping work to be done.  If I ever figure that out, then maybe I can do a muscle-up.

One last thing that I want to write about.  I struggle with weakness.  This week, I experienced my fair share of both physical weakness and mental weakness.  It's been tough.  You always want to feel like you're making progress at the gym, but I've had a clear regression with both double unders and handstand push ups.  Don't even get me started on pull-ups.  Not being able to get through a warmup without needing a roll of paper towels is embarrassing.  And my body pretty much completely fell apart in a hotel room in Hartford.  Those physical issues have made it tough to keep it together mentally.  The gym is basically my sanctuary, the place I go to regroup and forget about real life for a while.  When it's not going well there, it feels like it is all going wrong.  And for most of this week, I have outwardly projected that it all seems to be going wrong.

Part of the reason I began writing this blog is because I feel more comfortable writing than speaking. I'm not really big on speaking about myself at all.  I'm more of a listener.  I'd rather listen to other people and try to help them out, then speak about my own issues.  In fact, I was told this week that listening is my "overhead squat of life skills".  I kinda liked that line.  It is one of the many kindnesses I have experienced this week.

I've been a part of KOP for nearly 2.5 years now and have developed friendships there, but it wasn't until this week that I got to truly appreciate how good I have it.  When I had my problem in Hartford, I had friends offer to drop everything to drive there and bring me home.  I had people ask me if I was okay throughout the week.  Some people repeatedly checked to make sure I was alive (wow, I must have really looked bad this week).  And I've had people let me know they're willing to lend an ear when I'm ready to talk.

I may never learn how to kip anything.  I may never become proficient at double unders.  I may never stop squatting next to the bar to take long breaks.  And let's face it, I'm never going to stop sweating.  But I can be okay with all that knowing there are good people looking out for me.  Thank you.