Shoulda Stayed In Bed

Workout date: 6/27/15

I've made no secret of the fact that I'm not a big fan of Competitors Class.  It's way too early.  I'm not training for any competitions.  And if I still regularly finish last in normal classes during the week, then you can imagine how swimmingly well I perform at something called "Competitors Class".  I go because the company is good and I'm promised breakfast afterwards.  If you dangle breakfast or ice cream in front of me, I'm pretty much at your beck and call.

Saturday was an example of how out of place I am in that class.  Now to be fair, I had been riding high on a wave of great performances (for me) throughout the week, so maybe I just began flying too close to the sun.  Or maybe those performances took a lot more out of me than I realized.  Whatever the case may be, I was a mess on Saturday.  My hands, which have become extremely calloused, were so sore that I reached a point where I was in pain every single time I picked up a barbell.  My stamina level was zilch.  And when I got home, Jenn told me that I needed to take a nap because I looked "deathly pale".  Apparently my body isn't shy about letting me know when I need a rest day.

The first hour of Competitors Class was simply lifting.  Didn't even have to be Olympic lifting.  I wanted to focus on two things during that time: back squats with proper breathing and squat cleans.  For the back squats, I was going to keep the weight relatively low in order to practice pushing my abs out while holding my breath.  I started with 135 pounds on the bar and did some reps there.  It still feels very weird, but it does feel like a more solid position in general as I'm doing the reps.  Will probably take some time to get right.  I eventually moved up to 185 and 225 to test out the technique and I found that the weight did not seem to matter much when it came to how many reps I could do while holding my breath.  The answer seemed to be four no matter what.  So I'll need to practice pausing and breathing again at the top when necessary.

Since I wasn't looking to max out my back squat, I stopped at 225 and moved on to squat cleans.  I stripped the bar back down to 135 and started there.  I wrapped my hands around the barbell and...oh dear God, that hurts a lot.  I tend to experience a lot of hand pain whenever I'm doing pull-ups, toes-to-bar, or any other body weight movement hanging from the bar, but it's unusual for me to have it when using a barbell.  Clearly, the toll of hanging from the bar for WODs and for practice have made my hands extra sensitive.  I did some squat cleans at 135, 165, and 185 and the worst part of the experience by far was holding on to the bar.  I think my form was pretty good (that was the original intent of doing squat cleans: making sure my form was correct), but it was hard to focus when my hands were throbbing.

Know what would probably make my hands feel better?  How about a long team WOD?  We had thought that the class would only be Giulz, Rachel, Michal, and myself, but the newest Souka, Mark C., came out to join us for class.  Mark will be part of this year's Sweaty Souka team participating in the Brawl in the Burbs at KOP on August 15th.  Because we had 5 people, we divided into a team of 3 (Rachel, Mark, and myself) and a team of 2 (Michal and Giulz).  One person would work at a time for each team, except Mark and I would try to synchronize our movements.  At least until one of us got exhausted and fell apart.  Here was the workout:

3 rounds:
40 deadlifts (185/125)
20 box jumps (24"/20")
40 overhead lunges (115/75)
20 manmakers (45/25)
120 double unders

What the heck is a manmaker?  It involves a set of dumbbells.  You place them in front of you on the floor and do a plank over them before doing a push-up.  From there, you do a row (pull the dumbbell up alongside your chest) on each side of your body before coming back on to your feet again.  Then you do a squat clean followed by a thruster.  Super fun!

Our plan for the workout was to have Rachel do 10 reps, then have Mark and I do 10 reps of the deadlifts, box jumps, and overhead lunges.  For the manmakers, we would do 2 each before switching.  When it came to double unders, Rachel would do as many as she could (a lot), before I would take over and do as many as I could (a little), while Mark did single unders as I jumped rope.

The first round of deadlifts wasn't so bad.  I didn't even notice my hands all that much.  Standing behind Mark, I tried to match his cadence on the deadlifts exactly, as if I was one of those Regional athletes doing a synchonized team workout.  We all held on to the bar for 10 reps each time and we were off to the box jumps.  Rachel did her 10 reps fairly quickly.  I tried once again to stay in lock step with Mark, but he's a little quicker than me on the box jumps, so I was about a rep behind him.

The overhead lunges were something I was looking forward to, although the practice reps I did left me a little uneasy.  I am comfortable balancing myself with weight overhead, so this seemed like a movement I could be good at.  And for the first round, that was the case.  Rachel did her 10 lunges, then Mark and I did our 10 lunges, with me being a little bit faster.  The same held true for our second set of 10 lunges.  But I was starting to feel the burn.

When we got to the manmakers, the thought was "just keep moving".  I had done these as part of the Barbulls program (they were dubbed Plentus-makers) and they were not pleasant.  Especially with 45 pound dumbbells.  The first half of the movement isn't awful, but transitioning into the squat clean and then the thruster is kinda horrific.  There was a very good reason that we were doing only 2 reps of these at a time.  Almost immediately I was behind Mark when it was our turn to do these.  I made sure that I was at least on the second rep before he finished his second rep, but my speed had slowed to a crawl.  Eventually we got through the 20th rep.

Rachel was in the zone and started knocking out deadlifts before she noticed that I was yelling at her that we needed to do double unders.  No matter, she grabbed her rope and managed to knock out 30-40 reps.  When it was my turn, I managed 5 reps.  Then I managed 4 reps.  Then I hit myself with the rope and called myself an asshole.  I did manage to get one bigger set in the teens in before turning it back over to Rachel.  She did another 40 or so and to get us to 102 reps.  I managed to pull it together to do 18 reps to finish off round one.

I was toast.  I had no idea how I was getting through round two much less round three.  Rachel and Mark held on for all 10 reps twice for the deadlifts, but I needed to break up my second set into two rounds of 5.  If I was slightly slower than Mark on the box jumps the first time around, I was glacially slow the second time around.  The team was now waiting around for me to finish.  Not good.  I got a tiny break as Rachel did her overhead lunges, but when it was my turn to lunge, it did not go well.  I did 2 lunges then dropped.  After taking some time to regroup, I managed to get the last 8 reps, but that left me a wreck with 10 more reps still to go.  Giulz came over and informed me that we would only be doing two rounds instead of three, which was the best thing anyone could have said to me at that point.  In the second set, I went 4 and 6 to get my 10 reps as my teammates patiently waited on me.

The manmakers were grueling.  Two reps doesn't sound like much, but those dumbbells felt like anchors as I worked my way through each piece of the movement.  The squat cleans sucked and the thrusters were even worse.  The sweat lake was forming between the two dumbbells as I slowly pushed through my reps, trying not to delay Mark and Rachel from finishing the workout.  At last we were done and only 120 double unders were keeping me from laying on the floor.  Rachel took care of the first 40 reps.  I did a set of 17 and a set of 6.  Rachel took us from 63 reps to over 100 and I finished out the round.  I don't remember our exact finish time, but it was a shade under 27 minutes.  If we did round three, it would almost certainly have been pushing 50 minutes.

I had earned my breakfast and I had earned a rest day.  Sunday was the Bridgeport Barbell Classic, where I would get to use real brains rather than fake brawn.  It would be a long day, but at least there would be no physical exertion involved.

You've Had Quite The Few Days Recently

Workout date: 6/26/15

Being a board coach is a very tough job.  You have to look at the board.  You have to figure out what your pupil is good at.  And then you have to stand there while they work their ass off trying to obtain a score good enough to be one of the top three in the gym.  Super demanding.  But nothing takes a greater toll on a board coach than when they are asked to come in for a 6am class.  That is clearly well before normal office hours.  In fact, I'm pretty sure humans weren't meant to be up before the sun.  I digress...

Anyway, over the last few months, I have become Rachel's board coach.  Really tough gig.  I tell her to go jerk 185 pounds and she jerks 185 pounds.  Job well done Dave.  There are 36 different movements/workouts listed on the white board in the gym and Rachel is on the board for 4 of them.  I am holding steady at 0 (still 6 more months to make it happen!).  I let her know that I thought the overhead squat should be her next target.  She was leaning towards the 500 meter row, but you don't pay for a board coach (ok, it's pro bono work) and then ignore the advice he's giving to you.  Luckily, today's WOD was focused on establishing a 1RM for the overhead squat.  Rachel asked if I could make the 6am class and I begrudgingly said yes, on the condition that she definitely make the trip worthwhile by getting her name on the board a 5th time.

God bless the folks who come to these morning classes with a good attitude.  Every time I come to one of these, all I can think about is how much I'd rather be home in bed, but the rest of the class always seems to be eager to take on the day.  Once I see that, I try to get my act together so I don't stick out like a sore thumb.  We did a little bit of a warmup before we got going on the overheads.  Rachel loaded up a cart with a bunch of weights that we could share down at the far end of the gym, which is where the racks were that we chose to use.  The WOD said we should be doing 7 lifts and I planned it out as follows:

95-125-155-175-195-215-225

This seemed like a nice progression for me.  215 on the 6th rep would be a PR, but last time I did manage to jerk the weight and squat down with it overhead.  I simply lost control of it on the way up and didn't have time to make any additional attempts.  As long as I woke my groggy ass up, I thought I could manage 215.  225 was a more aggressive goal.  I have never jerked more than 215 before, so this would be double PR territory.  And when we take the bar from the rack, the jerk comes from behind your neck rather than from the front of your body, so I did not have a good idea of how well that was going to go on a PR attempt.  Let's just try and get 215 first.

After doing some overheads with just the bar, I got started.  The first three lifts weren't terribly difficult, but I was having issues with my hand placement.  Normally when you do a jerk, your hands are closer in than they would be for an overhead squat.  So in order to have your hands in the correct position for the overhead squat, you need to have your hands wider than usual for the jerk.  I think I was splitting the difference a bit, as I kept feeling the need to adjust my hands post-jerk.  Not exactly the greatest of ideas, especially as the weight gets heavy.

At 175, I probably should have started split jerking in order to prepare for the later weights, but I forgot.  Hand position continued to be an issue, but the weight still wasn't too bad.  I looked over to see how Rachel was doing and she was struggling.  This had happened the last time we were trying to find a 1RM overhead squat as well.  She failed at 135, but eventually was able to be successful at 170.  I didn't know how much she had on the bar, but she was really out of sorts, shaking noticeably as she tried to hold the bar above her head in anticipation of the squat.  After doing this a couple of times, she calmed down and began having successful lifts.

For 195, I remembered to split jerk, although I would call it more of a baby split jerk.  It wasn't super aggressive.  It was more of a "I can push jerk this weight, but I need to get ready for split jerking soon" kind of mentality.  The amount of weight on the bar had definitely become heavy and I was slower on this overhead squat than I had been on my prior attempts.  And once again, my hand position felt off.  But I managed to complete the lift.  And from this point forward, I resolved not to think about my hands again once I had them set prior to the lift.

Before attempting 215, I checked in on Rachel again and she was struggling with the weight now on her bar.  I'm a firm believer that people get stuck on numbers (I know I do), so if they hear that is how much is on the bar, they begin locking themselves into a mindset that they can't do it.  When Rachel was testing her 1RM jerk recently, I loaded the bar for her and when we got to the higher weights, I didn't tell her how much was on the bar.  We were at the same point here.  She didn't know there was 165 pounds on the bar, which was a good thing because she probably would have been more pissed than she was at failing with it several times.  After all, she had managed 170 last time.  She wasn't even attempting the overhead squat because she couldn't jerk the weight, which made no sense after recently jerking 185.  I told her she needed to use her legs a lot more as she was barely using them at all.  On her next attempt, she jerked the weight, but then had this "OMG! OMG!" look on her face while holding the bar over her head and then messed up the squat.  If she stayed composed, she was going to be fine.

I focused on my own personal challenge, which was the 215 pounds sitting on my rack.  I knew I could do this, but I had to remain confident throughout the lift.  I grabbed the bar and did another baby split jerk, but once again it was good enough to get the bar over my head.  After setting my feet, I went down into my squat and then began to come up.  Last time, I had completely lost focus at the bottom and was forced to bail.  On this lift, things went as smooth as could be.  I stood up, dropped the bar, and felt a little amazed about what had just transpired.  I had gotten a PR of 215.  Bring on 225!

Rachel attempted 165 again and this time she jerked it over her head with an expression on her face that she was all business.  She took her time to get balanced, then slowly lowered into the squat and slowly stood back up.  Looked easy.  Must have felt somewhat easy too, because she was ready to bump up the weight some more.  How much?  I told her she needed to add 10 pounds to the bar if she was going to fulfill her duty of getting on the board.  So she grabbed 10 more pounds and added it to the bar.

I had also added 10 pounds to my bar, but in my head, it seemed like 100.  225 has been a sticking point for me.  I've tried to clean the weight over and over again, but it's been a lot of close but not quite.  I've never attempted to jerk 225 because I rarely take the weight from the rack.  And I didn't have the luxury of not knowing what was on the bar.  The number I struggled with was on the bar and I was fully aware of it.  <Gulp>  I tried to pump myself up as I stepped up to the bar.  I got my hands set, picked the bar off the rack and went to jerk the weight.  And once again, despite a split jerk that left a lot to be desired, I was able to get the weight over my head.  PR #2 of the day!  Now it was time to see if I could do the overhead squat.  I set my feet and lowered to the bottom of the squat.  And then I did that thing where I lost all focus at the bottom and had to bail.  Damn.  Same as in April.  Had it, messed it up, and now there wasn't enough time to make an additional attempt.

Except there was!  Coach Steph agreed to let Rachel and I skip the cash-out so that we could take a few more cracks at the overheads.  Rachel's lift at 175 was almost an exact replica of her last lift at 165.  Controlled, patient, and never in doubt.  The lift at 175 meant that she would be on the board for a fifth time, as she had tied for the second highest female overhead squat in the gym.  I went back to my bar to give 225 another try, but the second attempt was worse than the first, as I didn't even get the jerk, forcing me to bail the bar behind my head.  That wasn't a good sign.

Option #5 on the white board

Rachel moved up to 182.5 to try and claim the top spot in the gym, but it was a bit too heavy for her as she couldn't jerk the weight in either of her two attempts.  She then took 5 pounds off and tried 177.5, but I think she was fried at this point, as she couldn't jerk that attempt either.  175 was good enough to call it a day.  Meanwhile, I knew I was running out of gas and told Rachel that I was only making one more attempt at 225.  She responded that I better make it a successful one then.  Yes ma'am.  Knowing this would be the last attempt, I focused as best I could and got ready for the jerk.  I dipped and did another iffy split jerk, but it was good enough.  Despite holding 225 pounds over my head, I made time for a tiny smile as I now knew that I could reliably jerk this much weight.  Still, I needed to get my head right for the squat.  When I felt I was completely balanced, I lowered to the bottom, then began to push up.  And I was rising, rising...then walking, walking.  Right as I neared the top, I began to lose my balance.  What followed was me walking to the side a bit, then backwards a bit, before finally planting one of my feet, then the other, establishing control with the bar at last.  225 was a success!  No longer would I be worried about throwing two 45 lb plates on the bar.

So to recap:

• 20 lb PR on overhead squat (205 to 225)
• 10 lb PR on jerk (215 to 225)
• Board coaching success (Rachel's 5th time on the board)
• Woke up at 5am without killing anyone

I needed to stop back later to go over some stuff for the Bridgeport Barbell Club meet on Sunday, so I decided I would do the cash-out then.  The cash-out was called "Ab Destroyer".  Lovely.  Here's how it worked:

7 minute AMRAP:
7 overhead squats (50% of 1RM)
7 toes-to-bar
7 GHD sit-ups

Rachel was there for the end of the summer shape-up program, so she decided that she would take this on as well.  And since the gym was mostly empty, we decided to go head-to-head on this one.  Unlike the other day when it would have been strange facing each other during the workout, this was tailor made for a duel (except I screwed up when I ran to do my toes-to-bar and did them with my back to her...oops).  I was using 115 for my overheads while Rachel used 75 pounds.  Rachel decided to do her toes-to-bar from the high bar while I was content to do fast singles on the low bar.  And we chose adjacent GHDs.

Keith got us going and immediately I messed up.  I went to squat snatch my weight for the quick first rep, but I botched it.  I made the decision then and there to clean and jerk the bar for the rest of the workout.  Despite being pretty fast with my overheads, I was about a rep behind as Rachel made her way over to the toes-to-bar.  When I got there, I thought I moved fairly fast, yet when I finished and turned to go to my GHD, Rachel was already approaching hers.  Uh oh.  I did my GHDs as I did them  on Monday night.  Wasn't a super fast pace, but they were efficient.  Round 1 went to Rachel in this sprint.

Despite getting back to my barbell second, I was able to take advantage of my overhead speed and catch up to Rachel during that movement.  I got done with my toes-to-bar just before she did, but once again, she was faster on the GHD than I was.  Round 2 to Rachel, but not by as much.

For round 3, I took the lead getting through my overhead squats and then tried like hell to move fast on the toes-to-bar.  As I headed to the GHD, I was by myself.  In fact, when I got done with my GHD sit-ups, Rachel was only beginning hers.  10-8 round for Dave!

In order to win this matchup, I knew I needed to eventually get to the overhead squats with a lead and finally I had one.  I caught a glimpse of the clock and we had about two and a half minutes left.  This had felt like a sprint from the start and I could not afford to let up now.  I pushed through my overheads and got back to my bar.  I finally began to struggle on the toes-to-bar, as my grip was starting to fail.  But I was still able to make every rep count, being successful on all 7 attempts.  I speed-walked over to my GHD.  Moving at my usual pace, I heard there was less than 1 minute to go as I completed rep after rep.  Rachel was not at her GHD yet.  With time winding down, I needed to get back to the overheads to put some space between us and secure a victory in this head-to-head battle.  As 30 seconds left was called out, I got back to the overheads.  I was wobbly by this time, but I managed to finish seven reps.  With only seconds remaining, I got to my bar and knocked out two reps of toes-to-bar.  Final score: 4+9.  I had beaten Rachel by 7 reps.  It was the third time this week I had beaten her in a workout.  Where was this back in March?

Afterwards, Rachel uttered the words found up above in the subject line.  And she's right.  It has been one of the better streaks of workouts that I can remember having at the gym.  My pacing has been good.  My results have been solid.  And I haven't massively faded near the end of these workouts like I normally do.  I can only hope to keep things moving in this positive direction.

Tomorrow: Competitors Class at 7am.  Two days in a row of early morning classes?  Shoot me now!

Dear Dave Castro

Workout date: 6/24/15

Hi Dave,

It's been a while since I last wrote.  Technically it was more of a "death threat" than a letter, but let's not get bogged down in details.  The reason I am writing to you is that I came up with a great idea for Open Workout 16.1.  The WOD goes as follows:

800 meter run

15 clean and jerks (135/95)

3 rope climbs

400 meter run

12 clean and jerks

2 rope climbs

200 meter run

9 clean and jerks

1 rope climb

Awesome, right?  You could even hold the first live announcement in Jamaica and invite this guy:

Jamaican Me Blind

Anyhoo, I'm glad we could catch up.  The restraining order probably isn't necessary anymore, so if you ever decide to drop it, maybe we can go grab a beer or something.

Take care,

The Dave Nichols

Why am I so interested in making that WOD a workout in next year's Open?  Because it was the Wednesday WOD and...we'll get there.  More importantly, it was rope climbing day!  That meant I got to rock some new awesome socks and wrist bands!  (The head band had to go post warmup.  It was just too damn hot.)  I am totally stylin' in that photo.  I do not look like an extra from the movie Tron at all.

The 7:30 class was just me and the girls who beat the crap out of me on an almost daily basis: Michal and Rachel.  However, Rachel was feeling extra feisty today.  She called me out before class saying that we were going head to head on this workout.  That's no good.  I mean, she typically beats me anyway, but if she's actually amped up to beat me in a workout, then this could get ugly.  Adding to my fear was the fact that this seemed like a Dave WOD, and whenever I get excited about how good I might do in a workout, it usually results in me writing a blog post the next day along the lines of "I suck, the workout sucked, the world sucks" or something slightly more dramatic.  Rachel said we'd even be facing each other during the workout which is the highest level of "I plan on breaking your will to live" you can have in a WOD.

We did a core tabata as part of our warmup.  I wasn't thrilled about that as I thought the workout was pretty core intensive and I didn't want to be sore before we got started, but it didn't end up having any effect on me during the workout.  We did some warmup with clean and jerks and honestly those didn't feel great.  My original plan was to string sets of three reps throughout the WOD, but the warmup made me change my mind.  I would do 3 fast singles then take a slight break and keep going like that.  The break would be very small in the first round and I would adjust it as necessary.

We went outside to start the first run and then we were off.  The three of us decided that we would stick together on the run going a solid pace.  On the first downhill, I moved slightly ahead, but I have a bit more gravity pulling my body than the other two do.  We were all together again in a few strides and stayed that way as we hit the halfway point.  On the way back though, it was a different story.  Without warning, Michal hit the gas hard and spurted away from me and Rachel.  She later explained that it was necessary since we would be faster at the clean and jerks and rope climbs, but that story didn't smell right to me.

With her newfound lead, Michal was already working on her clean and jerks when Rachel and I came in the door.  I was set up in front of the other two and I could have turned around to face Rachel, but then I would have had my back to the ropes.  I wanted to be able to see the ropes so that I could drive myself to keep going.  "Look, that's next!  That's why you have that goofy outfit on!  Keep going!"  So the face-to-face confrontation did not happen.  I went with my strategy of sets of 3 fast singles and I felt like I was making good progress without completely exhausting myself.  Plus dropping the bar was saving my grip and I would need that on the rope.  With 3 reps left, Rachel headed to the rope and 2 reps later Michal did as well.  I was last, but the experience from Monday night where I caught up to them at the end kept me from getting too freaked out.

The rope climbs were not pleasant, but not awful either.  I made my way up in 3-4 pulls, caught my breath at the bottom, and went again.  I probably could have taken a bit less rest between climbs, but I was trying to stay under control as much as possible.  Rachel finished her 3rd rope climb when I was recovering from my 2nd rope climb.  She headed out the door as I got back on the rope.  When I went out the door, Michal was in the middle of her last climb.

The run was slow for both me and Rachel.  She had about 70 meters on me and I thought about pushing really hard to make up some of that distance, but I also knew there was a lot of workout left.  I leaned forward and tried to maintain a good speed, although Michal caught me before the 200 meter mark.  I stayed with Michal on the way back to the gym though.  I had no idea how many reps behind Rachel I was, but she was already working when Michal and I came back into the gym.  Feeling a greater sense of urgency, I did 5 fast singles, followed by a bit of a longer break.  Then I did 4 fast singles.  As I caught my breath for the last 3 reps, Rachel was headed to the rope again.  It was clear I needed to make up time on the rope if I was going to catch her.

I finished my last 3 reps and got to my rope as Rachel finished her first climb.  My arms were starting to feel a little tired, but I knew I needed to jump up and get climbing.  I completed the first climb and made my way down.  I took just a brief pause at the bottom and jumped back on the rope.  If I didn't push here, I had no chance of catching Rachel.  As I made my first pull up the rope, Rachel came sliding down hers to start the final round.  Soon I was off the rope and running after Rachel as Michal made her way to her rope.

The final run was short and Rachel's lead was closer to 40 meters now.  Knowing it was a short run, I leaned forward and told myself "only 10 reps left when you get back".  I didn't make up much ground on the run.  Michal was coming out of the door as I was coming in and I saw Rachel string a few reps of clean and jerks.  My chances of catching her looked bleak now.  I would need to maintain fast singles as long as I could.  One by one, I did a rep, dropped the bar, then went into the next rep.  I got through 7 before needing to pause.  But Rachel hadn't gone to her rope yet.  My 8th rep was terrible and I had to really drop low on my jerk to get it over my head.  Still, Rachel wasn't at her rope.  As I put my hands on the bar for my final rep, I saw Rachel head over to the rope.  Move, Dave, move!  I threw the last rep over my head and speed-walked over to the rope.

The final part of the story is up for debate.  Here's the quick version: Rachel was standing next to her rope as I made my way over.  As I got near the rope, she decided to walk over to the chalk bucket.  I didn't care about chalk at that point.  I didn't care about form.  If it took me 7 pulls to get to the 15' mark, I was doing that, but I was going to be fast.  So as Rachel got chalk, I jumped on my rope, pulled as hard as I could, touched the mark, slid down and turned to see Rachel still working.  I won!  Now did she let me win?  Possibly.  She's very competitive, so it's hard to believe she would let me win after all of that work.  Then again, she's very competitive, so why would she walk away from her rope with only 1 rep left, seeing her competition headed there with only 1 rep left, and take time to chalk her hands?  I'm on the fence about the whole thing.  But here's what I know.  I finished with a time of 16:34, which I was pretty happy with (I thought 17 minutes would be a solid time for this workout).  I didn't look at the clock once during the entire workout.  I paced well.  I pushed when I needed to.  And if Dave Castro made this an Open workout next year, I would finally have a glimmer of hope of beating Rachel in one of those damn things.

Thursday will be a rest day as my body is exhausted.  But there will be overheads on Friday, so you know I'll be raring to go after my 24 hour break.



Intro Deja Vu

Workout date: 6/23/15

First, a quick shout out to Coach Intern Rachel, who officially became Coach Rachel this evening.  Not only does she kick butt in most workouts, she has been very devoted to becoming a coach and tonight she had her first solo gigs with the 6:30 and 7:30 classes.  Congrats!

Tonight's WOD was:

21-15-9
Hang Power Cleans (95/65)
Front Squats (95/65)
Handstand Push-ups

Initial thoughts:

1. It was going to be 500 degrees in the gym.  Despite the fact an apocalyptic storm had moved through the area about an hour prior to my class, I knew that the drop in humidity outside would not be mirrored inside the gym.  All that mugginess was going to be an issue for me.
2. Hang power cleans mean grip workout.  The weight being used (95 pounds) was on the lighter side, but 45 reps would take their toll on my grip over time.
3. Front squats should be okay as long as I kept my momentum going.  This was a very light weight for that movement.
4. I was going to use my band set-up for the handstand push-ups, but then I thought it might be worthwhile to see if I could once again do strict handstand push-ups with 2 abmats.  After all, the training with the band set-up was so that I would feel comfortable once again getting that range of motion.

I thought I might be flying solo for another 7:30 class when a guy showed up that I did not know.  Turns out he was a coach from Crossfit Main Line named Chris.  Yikes.  I immediately had flashbacks to my initial intro class at KOP when I did the baseline test with some guy who listed triathlons among his hobbies.  This was going to be no bueno.  Rachel sent us out to run 800 meters as part of the warm-up and the pace of that run increased steadily as we went along.  Chris meant business.

We came back in the gym and went through the movements that we would be doing for the workout.  Chris decided he was doing RX+ weight (115) for the workout.  95 was plenty for me.  The one thing I needed to try out though was the handstand push-ups with the 2 abmats.  The last two workouts where I tried these, I failed.  And I would need to do 45 of them for this workout, so it wasn't like I could squeak out one during the warm-up and say "yeah, let's do this!"  I needed to feel comfortable doing these.  I did my little stutter step into a kick up thing that I do to get upside down and tested it out.  And it went well.  I did 4 in a row pretty quickly and dropped down before I wasted them all.  I could have done more if I wanted to.  The practice with the band set-up had worked.  Could I do 45 of these in this workout?  That might be pushing it, but I thought it was worth a shot at least.

We got set to go as Chris set his sights on beating the times that were done with RX+ weight and I focused on...well, myself.  There was no point in trying to compete with him, so I pretended he wasn't even there.  Okay, that's not completely true.  There is still a part of me that doesn't want to be the first one to drop the barbell.  When we worked our way through the first set of power cleans, I knew I wasn't going as fast as him, but maybe that would mean he'd need a break sooner.  I made my way through my set intending to do this kinda like I do DT: only dropping with 1 rep left, as I can do that final rep as part of my transition into the next movement.  And hopefully Chris will have dropped his barbell by the time I get to my 20th hang power clean.

That did not happen as he dropped shortly after I dropped my bar after 20 reps (perhaps he was playing the same game as me).  I got my last hang power clean and went into the front squats.  These were unexpectedly difficult, although it is completely possible that I was thinking too much while doing them.  I broke them up into a set of 11 and a set of 10 before getting to join Chris over at the wall.

Coach Paul once told me I would have no problem getting upside down if I just pretended I was 8 years old again.  An 8 year old would have no fear of throwing themselves into a wall upside down.  After all, they're indestructible.  Me?  I'm very destructible.  Still finding new ways to destroy myself, almost daily.  But as I lined up in my stutter step stance, I thought "be an 8 year old".  And then I got upside down.  For my first set, I managed 7 reps.  My next set would be 9 reps followed by a set of 5 reps to finish off the round of 21.

So far so good, although I was sweating like crazy and already feeling the burn.  I'm not documenting the length of all of the breaks in here to catch my breath, but know that they were longer than what I've been giving myself recently.  There's working without being fully recovered and then there's the inability to breathe.  When I've reached the latter stage, it's time to take appropriate length breaks.  I'm sure there was a longer break before I picked up the barbell again because there is no way I could have done 14 hang power cleans without some rejuvenation.  I dropped with one rep to go again so that I could do this rep and move right into my front squats.  This break must have been shorter because when I got to the front squats, I only managed 5.  Needed another short break.  As I squat cleaned into my next rep, Michal was yelling at me not to drop the bar until I was done with the round.  Message received, loud and clear.  I finished the last 10 reps and went back to the wall.

I desperately wanted to get these 15 handstand push-ups in two sets.  In my first set, I got 7 reps before needing to come down.  Not so bad, I should be able to get the last 8 in the next set.  As I went through the second set, I started to fatigue when I hit 5 reps.  But I pushed through rep #6.  Then rep #7.  And then I fell off the wall.  That sucked.  Not wanting to waste time on a pity party, I got upside down again almost immediately and did that lone rep to finish off the round of 15.

As I headed back to my bar, Chris was finishing up his front squats for the final round.  I grabbed the barbell and did my 8 reps, leaving the final rep to be part of the front squat transition.  I knew I wouldn't get away with breaking up the front squats this time, so I made sure to push through that set of 9 reps.  Only thing between me and the finish line were the 9 remaining handstand push-ups.  The problem was that my shoulders were smoked.  Come on shoulders, pull it together for 9 lousy reps!

I went to kick up on the wall and it was a mess.  As I slid, I tried to get my body set up on the wall, but I kept tilting.  So I came down off the wall.  That was a waste of energy.  I tried to get my head right before kicking up again.  The second time was much better.  I managed to knock out 5 reps, hoping that I could do 4 more in the next set.  Instead, it was reminiscent of the end of my cash-out the night before.  I did 2 reps after I kicked up on the wall, but then I needed to come back down again.  Just need two more reps.  The main difference between last night and tonight was that I was confident I could get 2 more ring dips.  I was pretty exhausted from tonight's workout and it's not like I had recent success with handstand push-ups that I could bank on.  Determined to finish, I kicked up again, pressed through one rep and then managed to do it one last time, stopping the clock at 11:36.  Certainly not blazing speed, but I was happy to get all 45 reps using the 2 abmats tonight.  That was an accomplishment for me, getting back to a place where I can reliably do those again.

Afterwards, Chris, Michal, and I did a tire flipping cash-out of undetermined length (ended up being 4 minutes) and undetermined score (45-ish?).

Tomorrow: a Dave WOD!  Running, clean and jerks, and rope climbs.  Based on my excitement level, you can almost certainly expect something to go wrong!

When I Dip, You Dip, We Dip

Workout date: 6/22/15

Sadly, I did not return home from my weekend in NYC with a giant cardboard check.  Didn't even win this online contest I played on Sunday where I simply killed it, only to see some random 30-1 shot come in late in the day to knock me out of the top spot.  Those are the breaks, I guess.  My consolation prize was to come back to the gym on Monday night.  Due to my trip, I had three days off from the gym.  With that much rest, surely I would be setting all sorts of PRs, right?

Well no.  But I wasn't all that broken up about my performance either.  Since it was a Monday, I decided I would do the WOD and then work on some stuff during open strength.  I didn't get a lot done practice-wise there, but I did have a good cash-out at the end of it.  Let's start with the WOD though and it's one that has been programmed quite a few times already this year: the 3RM deadlift.  The first time I did it, I got 355.  Last time, I got 365.  Of course that meant it was time to try for 375.  I had my doubts about it as my 1RM is still 385, so either that was too low or 375 was going to be too high for my 3RM.  We would soon find out.

It was a bro sesh in the annex on a very hot Monday night.  Seems like no matter where you go, be it the main gym or the annex, it ends up being super humid, meaning lots of sweating.  Since the deadlift is so grip intensive, I knew I would be going through chalk like crazy.  I also didn't want to mess around with a ton of practice lifts since you never want to do a ton of deadlifts anyway, but the added incentive of getting it done before my hands looked like they were covered in Elmer's glue was powerful as well.  We warmed up with 135 on the bar just to get the form down and then I went right into my sets.  We were supposed to do 5 of them in total, so I went and grabbed some 100 pound plates (tough guy!) to do my first set at 245.  That wasn't a problem and neither was my next set at 295.

From there, the goal was to go 325-355-375.  325 was where it started to feel tougher, but I did a good job of keeping the bar close to my body as exhibited by the blood stain on my sock (my shins haven't fully recovered from my botched box jump last week).  That left me feeling a little wary about 355 and 375, but this wasn't supposed to be easy.  When it was time for 355, I got very focused on that first rep and began to lift the bar.  It was very heavy, but it was moving, and the first rep is always the hardest.  I moved much more slowly than I had in the other rounds.  And I also overextended at the top as I tried to make sure I locked out the rep completely.  Still it was a successful set.

I took some extra time before my final set as I was not brimming with confidence.  If I did get three reps at 375, then I was going to take a crack at 1 rep of 405.  I was going to take success at 375 as a sign that this was the day I finally lifted 400+.  Before I even attempted it, Matt B. was going to try 375.  And by try, I mean he picked it up and put it down like I did with my warm-up set.  It was impressive.  It gave me new hope that I might be able to do it.  I stepped up to my bar, got set up, firmly gripped the bar, and...went nowhere.  I mean, the bar came off the ground a little bit, but not much.  I decided to take another few minutes and then give it another shot.  My second attempt went better.  I got the bar moving and completed the first rep.  Maybe this could happen!  After tapping the floor, I went into the second rep, but somehow I got off-kilter.  The right side of my body was lifting more than the left side.  Since there were no clips on the weight, I could see the weight on the left side sliding.  It was not a good situation.  It is possible that I could have tried to adjust my body to even things out, but I remembered Giulz running over and yelling at me to drop the bar the last time I did deadlifts in a "goofy" fashion.  I thought better of making an adjustment and dropped the bar.  355 would have to be my score for the day.

The cash-out (first of two for me) was a 400 meter body weight sled pull.  I love sled pulls!  I was hoping that I would still love sled pulls when this was over.  After all, I had just exerted a lot of energy on heavy deadlifts, it was ridiculously hot, and I had done this once before and remembered that it wasn't extremely pleasant.  However, the mule (aka the jackass) is my spirit animal, so I had faith I could keep plugging along and do well with this.  We got going and there was a bit of a bottleneck with the barriers near the parking lot.  I let Prithvi go in front of me, thinking it would not be a big deal, but it turned out that I had unknowingly set myself up for some mental anguish.  Over the course of the 400 meters, any time I was about to pass him, he would speed up and it was kind of driving me nuts.  It reminded of me trying to pass someone on the highway, only they adjust their speed to never let you pass.  Meanwhile, Conn was destroying the cash-out, leaving us all in the dust.  We got to the halfway point and made our way up the hill for the worst section of the cash-out.  All of us would have to stop during this section.  It was simply a matter of how many times you stopped and how long you stopped for.  I tried to keep my stops very brief, but every time I got going again, I would start staggering a bit.  With about 100 meters left, Prithvi stopped again as I trudged along and, for the first time, he didn't push faster as I crept alongside.  I kept moving for another 15-20 meters and then stopped.  Sure enough, he went past me again.

In the last 100 meters, there is a tiny hill you have to go up and I thought I could catch up again there.  Both Prithvi and I stopped at the top of it, but I only stopped for about a second, before pushing forward again.  And once I had some flat ground and could see the finish line ahead of me, it was time to give it everything I had left.  I wouldn't call it a sprint, but it was a fast-paced choppy jog as I motored in to the gym door.  Final time of 7:32.  A minute later, Jimmy and Matt were next to each other at the top of that tiny hill and Jimmy kicked it into high gear with what was much closer to a sprint to finish his sled pull.

Time for open strength.  Or more accurately, time to recover for 10-15 minutes, then do open strength.  My focus was on the jumping bar muscle up withe the 13" box.  This had frustrated me last week, especially since it was something I knew I had done in the past.  Maybe I was just fresh on the day that I did them, because once again I struggled.  I was very close, but not quite getting there.  After a bunch of failed attempts, I was ready to put my box away when I remembered that I should try these with a thin plate on top of the box.  I grabbed a 10 lb plate and put it on the 13" box.  I'd say the 10 lb plate added about 2" to the box.  I got ready, did my swing, and finally made it over the bar before locking out at the top.  That was a relief.  I continued trying these, getting 3 or 4 good reps before failing on a couple and calling it a day with this movement.  So to recap: 17" is easy, 15" is doable, 13" is a memory.  But we'll get back there eventually with some practice.

Rachel and Michal wanted to end the day with a cash-out (number two!) so I agreed to join in.  Hey, I took three days off.  I'm allowed to go a little nuts with my workout when I get back.  We were going to do the following chipper:

500 meter row
25 wall balls
20 weighted step-ups (45/25)
15 GHD sit-ups
10 ring dips

I knew the step-ups would be the worst part.  This was part of an event at King and Queen two years ago and it destroyed everyone.  At least we would only be doing one round of 20 reps here.  The probably was that the girls were going to use a 20" box (it was 17" for ladies at King and Queen), so that made me feel obligated to use a 24" box (it was 20" for guys at King and Queen).  We'll come back to how bad of a decision this was.

We got going and I went pretty hard during the first 250 meters of the row.  To me, this cash-out was a sprint, but I also knew I didn't want to gas myself before getting to the step-ups.  I settled in at a little slower pace for the second 250 meters, but I was still going to be done in under 2 minutes.  Right as I was finishing up, Rachel completed her row and we headed to our wall balls at the same time.  I thought about attempting to string 25 in a row, but again, that seemed a little silly given that the hardest part of the workout was in front of me.  If watching Regionals taught me anything, it was that you need to keep moving but that you should never empty the tank prior to the meat of the workout.  I did 15 reps, then dropped my ball.  I picked up the ball to finish my last 10, but Jess C. no-repped me (correctly) along the way.  No matter, I did an extra rep and headed to my box, now ahead of the girls (to be fair, Rachel was using a 20 lb wall ball like me).

I got to my box and had trouble right from the start.  It was very awkward holding the dumbbells near your legs, then trying to make the extension up to the 24" box.  It was probably too high for this workout.  I awkwardly got through four reps, then had to rest the dumbbells on the box.  This was not good.  Rachel was now at her box and not encountering any problems.  I grabbed the dumbbells, telling myself to keep moving.  But it was still hard to get any kind of rhythm doing this.  Four more reps and the dumbbells were down again as Michal had gotten to her box.  I needed to figure out how to do this quicker.

During that event at King and Queen, a lot of people put their box at an angle so that their foot would have more room to rise and not trip over the lip at the top of the box.  I wasn't going to move my box at this point, but this strategy did help me the rest of the way.  Instead off directly stepping up on to the box, I raised my leg to the side of the box and then swept it over to the top.  This was much better.  I managed to keep it together for six reps, leaving six reps to go for my last set.  Despite my troubles, I was still side by side with the girls.  As I got going on the last six reps, Rachel finished up and headed to the GHD.  With one rep left, Michal was done and headed to the other end of the gym as well.  Finally, I was off to do some sit-ups myself.

I knew I could do 15 GHD sit-ups in a row, but the last part of the cash-out (10 ring dips) I was unsure about.  I can do ring dips, but once they go, they're gone for good.  I thought I could manage 10, but I knew I would need to be controlled while doing them to make it happen.  So when I got to the GHD, I didn't rush.  I got into a nice rhythm and methodically went through the 15 reps.  (Note: methodically may be my new favorite word.  It is certainly my favorite word running through my head during workouts.)  Rachel finished as I got to about 8 reps.  Michal was flying through her GHDs, finishing when I hit 12 reps.  I kept my pace, finished up, and jogged down to the rings.

Rachel had told me prior to the cash-out that she didn't know if she could do 10 ring dips and I had no idea whether Michal could, so I still thought I had time to catch them.  I needed a big first set though.  I took an extra second or two calming my breath before jumping on to the rings.  What followed was what I would consider a big set: 6 reps.  I might have been able to get to 7 or 8, but it wasn't worth it.  Once they're gone, they're gone for good.  I dropped down and shook my arms.  When I jumped up again, I got 2 more, then decided to drop again.  I could get 2 more in the last set.  Another shake of the arms, then I jumped up, did 2 more and finished with a time of 8:23.  And I had finished before the girls.  Some of these workout plans are actually coming to fruition!

It might not have been the most impressive day of working out and it didn't result in any PR's, but I felt like I put in a really solid day overall and went home feeling good about things.

Productive Rage

Workout date: 6/18/15

This weekend I am headed to Belmont Park to take part in their live handicapping contest.  I've fallen behind with my handicapping, so I'm very excited to have a weekend where I can take part in a major contest.  Hopefully, my lifelong dream of winning a giant cardboard check will come true.  Since I will be in NYC for the contest (and in Philly for a happy hour Friday night), I will be taking three days off from the gym.  That meant Thursday night was my last chance to get in a workout before my break.

What was Thursday's WOD?  Glad you asked...

AMRAP in 12 minutes:
3 bar muscle-ups
6 power snatches (135/95)
9 box jumps (30"/24")

Couple things to note here:

1. Bar muscle-ups are my favorite thing to do in the gym that I can't actually do.  Huh?  Well, when I get to do jumping bar muscle-ups off of a box, then I can do the movement.  And it's a lot of fun.  It becomes a combination of being on a swingset and then feeling like a rock star when you press out above the bar.  I already know I will be way more excited when I get my first bar muscle-up than I will be when I get my first ring muscle-up.
2. I've decided that I will be going lighter for a while with most weights, especially when the workout is in an AMRAP format like this one.  I love the challenge of doing a workout RX, but I don't seem to be improving a whole hell of a lot.  When that's the case, it is time to switch things up.  Could I have stubbornly done this workout with 135 pounds for the power snatches?  Sure.  But 115 seemed reasonable enough.  And I had seen the carnage from the 5:30 class, which confirmed for me that this workout was probably more difficult than it sounded.  As for the box jumps, the 30" box does not get programmed a lot and when it does, it's usually in there for a reason.  So I used the 30" box.
3. My cardio has to get better or this summer will be a disaster at the gym.  It doesn't even matter what the temperature is outside anymore.  That thick, humid, stagnant air is in there to stay, at least until the fall.  I need to be able to get through a medium-length workout (12 minutes fits the bill for me) without falling apart.

We started warming up with bar muscle-up progressions and there were some eye-opening developments during it.  Giulz was explaining how we wanted to essentially be horizontal, while closing our shoulder violently and bringing our hips up to the bar.  She wanted us to try that out without trying to do the transition into the bar muscle-up.  I did this a few times and my hips came much closer to the bar than I ever thought they could have.  Maybe there really is a bar muscle-up in my future.  After that we tried the actual transition into a bar muscle-up and naturally I messed things up.  The odd part though was that by messing up and treating it like a pull-up as I was told not to do, I managed to do some very easy chest-to-bar pull-ups.  This whole sequence was blowing my mind.

When we went to the scale of doing a banded bar muscle-up, I felt very uncomfortable and did not come close to doing it properly.  And I didn't accidentally back my way into some other useful movement.  So banded muscle-ups are not for me.  Time for the box!  I grabbed a 13" box and got ready to go.  The first time I successfully did a jumping bar muscle-up with a box, it was a 20" box.  I tried to use a 17" box, but I couldn't make it work.  With some practice, I finally made it with a 17" box.  From there, I practiced a long time with the 13" box, but that resulted in failure after failure.  Recently, I managed to get my first jumping bar muscle-up with the 13" box.  Then I got another one.  At last, I could get these with the smallest box we use in the gym.

That was true until Thursday.  My first attempt with the 13" box was close, but no cigar.  This happened at least 2-3 more times.  Finally, I managed to complete a rep.  But in this WOD, I couldn't afford to take 5 attempts to get 1 rep.  Perhaps I was just a little rusty.  I grabbed a 17" box and put it next to my station just in case.

After completing the rest of the warmup, it was time to go.  Giulz gave us the countdown and we were off.  Bar muscle-up #1 was a failure.  As was #2.  My sweaty palms caused my hands to slide on failed attempts #3 and #4.  On my 5th attempt, I once again came close, but dropped again.  We were already 30-40 seconds into the workout and I had gotten nothing accomplished.  Not only that, this sweaty hands issue could be something that would sabotage the entire workout.  I considered punching the wall next to me I was so pissed.  Instead, I grabbed the 17" box and replaced the 13" box with it.

Now four inches doesn't sound like a lot, but it made a world of difference in completing the bar muscle-ups.  Still seething, I did three reps in quick succession.  As I got to my barbell, I saw other folks had already made it to the box jumps.  I was way behind.  I did six singles as fast as I could and moved over to my 30" box.  One after another, I jumped on my box, stomping in anger at the top before opening my hips to complete each rep.  By the time I completed my first full round, I had made up a lot of ground on the rest of the class.

Usually when I get mad during a workout, things begin to fall apart.  Yesterday was different.  I knew I could do the movements, but I was pissed off that I had lost so much time at the beginning trying to do bar muscle-ups with a 13" box.  And I knew I could do those too.  I was angry that I can't control my sweating and how it affects me any time I do something involving my grip.  I was livid that my score was going to be lower than it should have been, even though I had scaled appropriately.  But all that rage ended up driving me for 12 minutes.

Round two might have been even faster than round one (minus the time spent failing on the 13" box).  I got right into the bar muscle-ups and knocked them out very quickly.  I did a power snatch, dropped the bar, and re-gripped it to go right into the next rep.  And on the box jumps, I made sure to only pause between reps long enough to have my feet set to explode into the next rep.  If I could keep up this pace, I could complete 5 rounds, which was a score I would have been happy with before all the bar muscle-up trials and tribulations that marked the start of this workout.  But keeping up this pace for 12 minutes was not a trademark of mine.

Round 3 was more of the same on the bar muscle-ups and power snatches, although they were starting to get heavy.  And I was certainly feeling it on the box jumps.  I did not want to trip over the 30" box, so I was making sure I was composed before going into each new jump.  That required more time, but I was not taking any real breaks.  I heard Giulz say we were past the halfway point and the rage returned.  I was getting 5 rounds.  I started yelling "come on" at myself as I did each box jump.  I had to find more to get through these last two rounds.

The bar muscle-ups had become a formality and I ripped through 3 reps to start round four.  The power snatches were most definitely not a formality.  More time was required on the setup of each rep as I was tiring and did not want to mess up a rep.  A no rep now would be wasted precious energy.  I got through all six and returned to the box jumps, which went like they did in round three, although I imagine they were a little bit slower.  Four rounds complete, less than three minutes to finish round five.

I got my breath and yelled at myself one last time before starting round five.  I needed to complete this.  I was tired and I had spent a lot of energy to get to this point after a bad start.  But I needed to stay strong through the entirety of these 12 minutes.  This is where I typically started hitting the wall and if I did again, I'd fall short of my goal.  I did the 3 bar muscle-ups as quick as I could.  I got to the power snatches and did "fast" singles for 4 reps, then needed a second or two before doing each of the last two reps.  With just over a minute left as I headed to the box, five rounds seemed like a sure thing.  As I had before, I completed each jump, then took only enough time to get my feet ready for the next jump.  I was not getting nearly as high as I had been earlier, as I was landing in a squat on the box, then standing all the way up.  As I drew closer to finishing the round, I tried to pick up the pace.  And that was a mistake.

With 3 box jumps left, I stepped down from the box, then tried to go right into my seventh rep.  I did not come close to jumping 30" off the ground.  I fell over the box, getting my hands somewhat in front of me to brace my fall.  There was a stinging pain in my right shin from where I made contact with the box (after the WOD, I discovered I had a bit of a gusher on my shin).  Time was ticking away, but I needed 3-5 seconds to regroup before continuing.  Once I felt ready, I jumped again and made it this time.  With my confidence restored, I finished off round five as I heard there were less than 30 seconds left.  I ran over to the bar, did 3 more bar muscle-ups, then managed one last snatch in the final five seconds to end the workout with a score of 5+4.

It sucked not being able to do the bar muscle-ups with the 13" box, but I was proud of how I handled the rest of the workout.  After falling way behind, I ended up almost a full round ahead of the person with the second highest score in the class.  I kept things moving and managed to use my rage as fuel rather than letting it become a detriment.  I hope I remember how to do this in the future!

Hope everyone has a nice weekend!  I'll be returning on Monday.  Keep your fingers crossed that you see me hauling around a giant cardboard check with me.

Pretend You're About To Be Punched

Workout date: 6/17/15

Tonight's workout had something in common with Monday's workout: at first glance, it did not appear to have enough substance to it for a full blog post.  And who knows, maybe when I get to the end of this post, I'll realize it was only half a page and I'll hit publish anyways.  Trying to pull the combo blog twice in one week seems cheesy, so you're getting a full recap of...me finding my 3RM front squat.  Yup, that's the entire WOD.  (Don't get me wrong, I am not complaining about the end of the run of Hero WODs that we had going for a while there.  My body appreciates the break.)

Making things even more awkward was the fact that I was doing the 7:30 class by myself.  Angie probably wreaked enough havoc yesterday that people were sensibly taking a rest day today.  I didn't feel wiped out from yesterday, although I might have if, you know, I did the entire workout.  Finding a 3RM didn't sound too bad, especially since there wasn't a cash out afterwards.  So after warming up with a run and some KB work, I set to finding my 3RM front squat.

My goal for the day was 245.  My 1RM was 260 and Keith told me that I should be able to do 92.5% of that for my 3RM.  Off the top of my head I thought that was about 242 (correct answer: 240.5), so 245 seemed like a realistic number.  I didn't want to do too many sets, so I started with 135, then jumped up to 185 before going up by 20 pounds from there.  Having 45 minutes or so to do 5-6 sets of 3 reps is a ton of time, especially early on when the weight feels light enough that you just want to get going on your next set.  But I did try to pace things so that I would give myself the best possible shot at reaching 245.

After taking care of 135 and 185, I went to 205.  As I finished the set, I told Keith that my last rep wasn't so great, but he told me I was being overly critical and that the set looked good.  Hmmm...if my form hadn't broken down yet, maybe there was hope 40 pounds from now.  He did remind me to keep my hips forward as I drove out of the hole and to really explode from that point, rather than simply standing up.  I took a solid 4-5 minutes before attempting 225.  That set went surprisingly well.  It was time to take on 245.

Before doing 245, Leslie yelled at me (poetic license!).  Okay, she didn't really yell.  But she did offer me her belt for my attempt.  I declined because I didn't want to change things up before this lift (foreshadowing alert).  What I really wanted to do was get the number out of my head.  Let's not make the brain think this will be any harder than it already is.  I took another break of 5 minutes or so, just walking around getting loose.  Finally it was time to get after it.  I got the bar off the rack and it felt pretty heavy.  Not the first impression I wanted to have, but so be it.  It was important to have a solid first rep, if only to get in the right mindset that I could handle the other two reps.  And the first rep was solid.  As was the second one.  The third rep?  Not pretty at all as the bar started sliding off of my left shoulder as I stood up.  I did manage to keep it under control though and 245 was mine.

Just as Keith had given me the cue with my hips, Leslie gave me a cue on my breathing.  She noticed that I was holding my breath in during the squat, when I should really be using that inhaled breath to press my midline forward.  She told me to pretend that I was about to be punched.  How would I brace myself in advance?  The same way I would brace myself for a punch is how I should brace myself for the squat.  She also gave me the example of how an unopened soda can can't be crushed, but once you pop the top, it can be crushed.  You would think someone who has drank as much soda as I have would have a eureka moment given such an analogy, but as you're about to see, I did not.

Having succeeded at 245, I thought I should give 255 a try.  With a 1RM of 260, this was definitely pushing things, but hey, if I failed, I failed.  I got ready to go after another break, remembered Leslie's breathing advice, grabbed the bar, went into a squat, and started to come up.  Not came up, started to come up.  The combination of a shaky final rep at 245 and trying something new with my breathing at this juncture led to me thinking way too much before bailing.  I briefly thought about trying it a second time, but I was good with 245 for the evening.

Was it wise to try the new breathing technique in the midst of trying to set a PR?  Probably not.  I do think Leslie's tip will help me in the long run, but I should be practicing it with lighter weights before taking on a 255 pound front squat with it.  Something to work on at the next open strength class.

Angie Harmin'

Workout dates: 6/15/15 and 6/16/15

There really wasn't enough to write about from Monday to devote an entire blog post to it, so I decided to wait a day and combine two recaps so that you could have a ridiculously long blog post like you have become accustomed to.  Always looking out for both of my readers.

Monday's WOD was purely running.  I've done workouts like this at Endurance class, but due to my work schedule this year, I have missed all Endurance classes this spring, a trend which will likely continue throughout the summer.  The workout is simple, but there is an important concept behind it.  You run 400 meters six times, with 90 seconds of rest in between.  Does 90 seconds sound like enough rest?  Not really.  For most of us, that means heading back to the starting line for the next round as we're trying to get our breathing back under control.  The concept of working again when you're not quite completely recovered is an important one in Crossfit (especially for me), as the tendency (in long workouts in particular) is to stop working until you're completely ready to go again.  Those breaks end up being much longer than you realize while you are taking them, causing your final time to be much higher than you would have hoped.  If you can get to that place where you can start the next set when you are only partially recovered, then you're ahead of the game.

Here were my times for the 6 rounds:

1. 93 seconds
2. 95 seconds
3. 100 seconds
4. 99 seconds
5. 103 seconds
6. 99 seconds

Add it all up along with the five 90 second breaks and you get a final time of 17:19.  Not great, but I was happy that I managed to be fairly consistent the whole way.  Wish I had a bit more left in the tank for that final round as I was hoping that one would be closer to 90 seconds, but like I said, I haven't been to Endurance and my cardio leaves a lot to be desired these days.

For strength, I did the bench press routine I had tried out not too long ago.  Warmed up with 10 reps of the bar (45 pounds), then 10 reps at 95 pounds.  After that it was sets of 10 at 135 with two minutes between rounds for as long as I could go.  Like last time, I wasn't able to complete the fourth set, but I did manage 6 reps in the final round this time whereas last time I believe I only got 4.  From there, I went and worked on strict pull-ups, doing a set of 4, then several sets of 3.  Wrapped things up with those banded sit-ups I had done last week.  Once again, I did 3 sets of 30.  Made it through the first two sets unbroken.  The third set was a train wreck as I only got to 11 before breaking.  I did very small sets after that, finishing off with some single reps to get to 30.

Tuesday's WOD was one of my least favorite workouts in the gym: Angie.  Angie goes like this:

100 pull-ups
100 push-ups
100 sit-ups
100 air squats
(Must complete one movement entirely before moving on to the next one)

You can see the problem already.  100 pull-ups?  That's funny.  How am I supposed to manage that?  The answer: I wouldn't.  Part of me thought about scaling to 50 reps for the workout, but that seemed like too much scaling.  My plan would be to set a time cap on myself for the pull-ups (10 minutes) with the hope of getting 75 reps in.  If I was closer to another number (60, 85, something else), then I'd use that for the workout.

I got the thick green band ready because I knew this was going to fall apart quickly with anything less.  We got started and I managed a set of 10 and two sets of 5 in the first minute.  20 down already, good start!  Except that was all I had for pull-ups.  After that first minute, I was averaging about 6 pull-ups per minute, usually doing two sets of 3 pull-ups.  At that pace, I might be able to sneak in 75 within 10 minutes.  Next to me, Ben was working at about the same pace as me, although he was doing actual pull-ups.  And he seemed determined to knock out all 100 reps.  It was impressive stuff.  As the minutes ticked by, I became a little worried about fatiguing even more and not getting to 75 reps before 10 minutes had elapsed.  Finally it dawned on me that I could be more efficient if I did singles.  I had thought that singles might leave me discouraged should I fail on one of them, but I ended up not failing.  With a little push at the end, I got to 75 reps at about the 9:15 mark.

As much as I hate pull-ups, that is not what gets you in this workout.  I've done a scaled version of Angie once or twice before, so I knew that after smoking your arms on the pull-up bar, the seemingly reasonable push-up segment becomes very painful.  I had hoped to do a couple sets of 10 to knock out a chunk of my 75 reps, but I could only manage one.  Then it was a set of 6.  Then I moved to sets of 4 for a long time.  Then it was down to sets of 3.  It really does mess with your mind knowing that you are doing this simple movement and your body is just slowly failing as you go along.  I was on the push-ups for more than 10 minutes before I managed to unsteadily press out that 75th rep.  It sucked, but at least I was done using my arms for the day.

Sit-ups!  At last, something I wouldn't hate.  If only I had not done 90 banded sit-ups the night before!  (Continuing my streak of doing whatever will be in the next day's WOD at the previous night's open strength class)  But I do enjoy those banded sit-ups because I can certainly feel the burn when I'm done with them.  Another problem I have with sit-ups in the gym is...hmmm, how can I put this delicately?  It tends to leave me with a bit of posterior road rash.  (It was either that or "marks on me bum", but my British accent is terrible even when I write)  So I was dealing with two types of pain as I sat on the mat to do my 75 reps.  I blocked out the butt pain and tried to keep moving through the reps, similar to how I make my way through burpees when I'm tired.  It was very deliberate, but I got better as I went along.  I did sets of 12, 13, 11, 19, 11, and 9 before moving on to the air squats.

I was in the neighborhood of 25 minutes at this point and Giulz had asked us to finish within 30 minutes.  It wasn't going to take me 5 minutes to do 75 air squats (at least I hope not) so I felt good about scaling the workout appropriately.  Once again, I zoned out the pain and tried to keep my sets going as long as I could.  The first set was 40 reps.  Didn't feel that I could manage a set of 35 to end things, so I broke the last 35 reps into a set of 15 and a set of 20.  Final time: 27:19.

There's your double dose for the day.  Wednesday's workout is finding a 3RM for front squat.  Going to search my history and see if I can find out what this number should be and do my best to surpass it later this evening.

Switching Lanes

Workout date: 6/14/15

Two days off from working out was kind of a bummer, but I got back into the gym Sunday morning for a WOD I had not attempted before.  Most WODs tend to be variations of one another: do this many front squats, that many KB swings, use this much weight, do it for this many rounds or this many minutes.  This workout included two movements that we rarely see in WODs: shoot throughs and wall walks.

Several of us were confused on the shoot throughs, because this movement can be done two different ways.  There is the simpler version, where you get a set of parallettes, hold your body over them in a plank form, then shoot your legs through to the front of the parallettes without letting your feet hit the ground.  Then you shoot them back.  Shoot through...makes sense.  There's also the more difficult version where you do a push-up while in the plank position, then after shooting your legs through, you do a dip when your legs are in front of you.  Take a wild guess which one we would be doing.

For a wall walk, you lay on the ground with your feet touching the bottom of the wall.  Then you come up into a plank before walking your feet up the wall as you walk your hands in underneath you.  When you've completed the movement, your body should be almost fully in contact with the wall while your hands are directly below you.  Essentially you are doing a handstand pressed against the wall.  However, that may be the easier end of the deal.  Having gotten into this position, you are required to get out of this position under control.  That means walking your hands out, while walking your feet down the wall.  And since you just expended a lot of energy getting up the wall, the natural reaction is to want to let gravity do the work and plop back down to the floor.  Coming back down under control is unpleasant to say the least.

So here is what we were facing in the workout:

3 rounds for time:
24 calories rowing
12 shoot throughs
6 wall walks

Having thought we were doing the easier version of wall walks, I originally thought this would be a workout where the first two movements would go by fairly quickly with the real work done on the wall.  Instead, the row would be the only "recovery" area along the way.

With my highlighter yellow outfit blinding the other participants, we got started on our first row.  Shane is a younger guy in our class who is a bit of a rowing savant, so it was no surprise that he was the first off the rower.  I followed him off and started the shoot throughs.  I think I made it through five before needing a break.  From then on, it was a lot of work to get through 2 or 3 at a time.  I had brought over paper towels in advance because I knew I would be sweaty and the parallettes become slippery fast.  There was at least one wipedown by the end of the set.  As I headed to the wall, Jill A. and Lindsey had passed me as well.

It is one thing to see how much I sweat when I am fully upright.  But having me work out and then tipping me upside-down for an extended period of time?  That's like not tightening the cap on a bottle all the way and then knocking it over.  Just a complete mess.  The wall walks were tough as is, but they became slippery after a while as there was moisture everywhere in my lane.  Even the wall was becoming wet due to either leg sweat or my mostly soaked clothes pressing up against it at the top of the walk.  As I completed my 5th walk, Coach Intern Rachel told me I should probably use another lane for my next round.  It was that bad.  I took care of my 6th walk and got back to the rower.

At this point, it was clear that I was going to have a slow time, so I didn't have much urgency on the rower.  Plus it was my only chance to get my breath back and not drown the class in my perspiration. Those 24 calories took a while to complete, but with a lot of work out still left to do, I wasn't going to go crazy on the row.  The shoot throughs were sets of 2 and 3 again, with breaks for shaking my arms out and wiping down the parallettes.  Then I headed back to the wall.  I grabbed my paper towels from my original lane and moved down to the last lane in the gym.  Six slippery wall walks later, that lane was soaked as well.  In the meantime, Erika and Sarah had passed me as well.

Third round was not much different.  I went a little faster on the row.  I had a set of 4 shoot throughs at one point as I tried to get to the finish line.  My original lane had dried out since the first round, so I went back to that for the final round of wall walks.  Ellie and I were hating life as the last two trying to finish the walks, but we got through them eventually.  My final time for the workout: 25:34.

Afterwards, Coach Intern Rachel PR'd her jerk with a successful lift at 185 pounds, vaulting her up to second place in the gym.  Congrats!

Monday: a pseudo-Endurance workout.  I could definitely use the cardio work!

Challenge Accepted

Workout date: 6/11/15

Yesterday marked the end of the mobility challenge at the gym.  I signed up for the nutrition challenge earlier in the year for the same reason that I entered this competition: gambling.  Everyone puts $5 into the pot and the winner gets the cash (including Jill C.'s change collection).  I fully expected my wallet to be lighter at the end of these challenges.  I had no chance of winning the nutrition challenge unless my metabolism magically sped up to about 5x as fast as it normally is.  My chances were slightly better in the mobility challenge, although I suspected I had decent mobility already, leaving my window for improvement smaller.

I did not win the mobility challenge.

My chances for winning did significantly improve when only 7 people showed up for final measurements and another crack at the baseline workout.  But despite having only 6 competitors to defeat, I managed to finish outside the top 3.  The good news?  Well, my mobility is pretty good.  Dr. Turner explained that for the Apley Scratch test (imagine you're trying to scratch the middle of your back taking the over your shoulder route with one hand and the around the side route with the other hand) the ideal score is a positive 2.  Yesterday I got a positive 3 with my right side and a positive 2 with my left side.  Not too shabby.  For the internal rotation part of the challenge, I scored a 66 on my right side and a 68 on my left side, based on a scale that goes from 0 to 90, with 90 being the best score.  So my upper body mobility is decent and oddly similar on both sides (the other participants tended to have a noticeable difference between their right and left scores).

When it came to the WOD...well...what did you expect?  I had a very good workout on Wednesday, so there was approximately a 100% chance that Thursday's workout would end up a disaster.  After watching Keith, Aimee, and Samson crush the baseline test even more than they crushed it a month ago, I got my turn.  My time last month was 7:24, but I wanted to get that time closer to 6:00.  I was using the two bands attached to the rack again, which should have helped me get through the pull-ups much easier, while my overhead squat weight was 95 pounds, 20 pounds lighter than I used in a workout earlier this week.  Let's do this!

I'll start with possibly the only positive from the workout: I didn't look at the clock.  My mission was to move fast and then find out at the end how I did.  Looking at the clock during a sprint workout is simply wasting time.  Beyond that, there wasn't much positive to report.  To review, the baseline test went like so:

10-1 Pull-ups
1-10 Overhead Squats

That meant 10 pull-ups and 1 overhead squat in round 1, then 9 pull-ups and 2 overhead squats in round 2, and on and on.  I got through all of the pull-ups in rounds 1 and 2, but had to start breaking them up in round 3.  Did I mention I wasn't doing real pull-ups like everyone else, yet I still had to take breaks?  Awesome self-esteem boost right there.  I had to break up the pull-ups into sets of 2 and 3 as time went on.  As for the overheads, I was squat snatching the initial rep like always.  For some strange reason, I dropped the barbell at the end of one of the rounds and hit the top of my head, something I did once during the initial baseline test as well.  Guess I was just trying to be consistent.

I was having a tough time staying in place during the overheads as I rushed to get through them in later rounds.  Finally, I got to the last round, did my 1 pull-up and tried to squat snatch the bar, which I failed.  The weight was light enough that there was no point in attempting multiple snatches, so I did a clean and jerk to get it overhead and got moving on my last 10 squats.  When the 10th rep was complete, I dropped my barbell, looked at the clock and saw...7:37.  Yes, once again I had made my mark in a challenge.  In the nutrition challenge, I was the only person to not change categories from start to finish.  In the mobility challenge, I was the only person whose final workout time was worse than their original workout time.  Thanks body, way to let me down yet again.

That sealed the deal on whether I would win the mobility challenge, but congrats to everyone else who showed improvements in all facets of their mobility.  I can't disclose who won yet, but I'm always impressed when I see people's hard work paying off.

Friday and Saturday are planned rest days, so the next blog will probably show up on Sunday night.  Gotta make sure people have something to read while they are enjoying their Monday morning breakfast.  Enjoy the weekend and stay cool!

Not A Grown Ass Man

Workout date: 6/10/15

I'm a bit of a people pleaser.  I have my limits, but if I get peer pressured into something that I probably was interested in doing anyway, I'll generally bend.  Wednesday was supposed to be my rest day.  Blogged about it.  Was very vocal about it with the folks at the gym.  I planned on doing some mobility just to remain somewhat active, but there would be no working out for me.

And so when I woke up at 7:30 on Wednesday morning, I grabbed my phone to shut off the alarm and saw that I had a bunch of text messages from Giulz, Rachel, and Michal.  "Awesome WOD!"  "It's a partner WOD!"  "We need a 4th!"  Ouch, that last one was definitely directed at the guy who had not had his morning coffee yet.  I looked at the WOD and saw the following:

Teams of 2:

AMRAP in 8 minutes

10 calorie row

20 double unders

AMRAP in 6 minutes

10 burpee box jumps (24"/20")

20 sit-ups

AMRAP in 4 minutes

10 handstand push-ups

20 KB swings (55/35)

18 minutes without a break, except when your partner was working.  And no overhead squats.  Hmmm...didn't sound so awesome to me.  But I love being at the gym and I love working out.  So it didn't take long for me to cave and say I would be their 4th.

Turns out I would be their 6th.  Giulz ended up doing the workout with Megs.  Rachel ended up doing the workout with Keith.  That left me as Michal's partner.  While it may have been a sucky consolation prize for her, I was excited to have Michal as my partner because I knew she would love to do all the skill work (double unders and handstand push-ups) while I did all of the unskilled manual labor (rowing and KB swings).  It was a good match for this WOD.  I convinced her that we should stick to one movement each for the first and third AMRAP, while we could share the movements in the second AMRAP.

As we got warmed up, I saw Leslie, who is always concerned about my overtraining.  I explained that I had let everyone know that I was taking a rest day, but I still got roped into the workout.  Which led to this exchange:

Leslie: "Dave, you're a grown ass man.  You can say no to them."

Me: "Can I say no to you?"

Leslie: "That would be highly inadvisable."

Fair enough.  Keith laid out the workout for us and he pointed out how inadvisable it would be to have one person on the rower for 8 minutes, especially if their teammate was very good at double unders.  Michal had the same concern.  However, I think I made the stronger point when saying that if you thought my double unders were bad normally, imagine how slow they would be if I was too tired to row.  Advantage: Dave.  Plus I had a plan and my plans never fail.  (Oh boy...)

This plan actually worked for once.  I was going to pace myself on the row.  Certainly not slow, but not breakneck speed just to get 10 calories done.  If I could be consistent, then I felt I could make it through 10 rounds or possibly more.  When we got going, I could see Cline in front of me waiting for Ben to complete his row.  And Cline started doing double unders before I finished my first round, meaning Ben had rowed faster than me.  I didn't let it affect me.  In fact, Ben was done before me the next two rounds as well.  Didn't matter.  Was sticking to my pace.  When he hit the halfway point of 4 minutes, I was on my 6th round of rowing, but I wasn't tired out.  In fact, I picked it up on the second half of the AMRAP.  Knowing that Michal could blow through double under reps super quickly, I pulled as hard as I could in round 12, trying to finish before the clock hit 8 minutes.  With less than 10 seconds left, I hit 10 calories, allowing Michal to get 8 fast double unders in before it was time to move on.

Michal had already told me she would do the first 10 burpee box jumps because she was concerned about how tired I would be coming off the row.  And this was greatly appreciated in the first round of the second AMRAP because I really had gone all out to finish that 12th round of rowing.  I got a bit of a breather as she carried the load, then launched into the 20 sit-ups when she was done.  At that point, I thought we would go back into our plan of each doing 5 burpee box jumps and 10 sit-ups, but I must have still looked tired as Michal did 10 more burpee box jumps.  I did 10 sit-ups before she joined the sit-up party with 10 of her own.  Then I got ready to take on the burpee box jumps.  Surprisingly, they weren't that bad, mainly because we were allowed to pogo off the box today instead of having to establish control at the top of the box.  I'm all about momentum in the gym and I was bouncing from the top of the box to the floor quickly.  We got through four rounds before Michal and I had a minor fight at the beginning of round 5.  She hadn't realized that we could pogo, so she was yelling at me to establish control, while I was yelling back that we didn't need to.  If she had known that, we would have gotten a lot more reps during this AMRAP, but we still managed a solid score.

Finally, we hit the last AMRAP.  I have nothing in the way of a handstand push-up, so that was all Michal.  I was just hoping that I could hold on to the KB when it was my turn.  She finished her set of 10, then I began to swing the KB.  I must admit that swinging the 80 lb KB is showing some returns as the 55 lb KB felt relatively light, despite having done 14 minutes of work already.  I remained mentally focused the whole time and held on for all 20 swings.  Michal worked her way through another 10 handstand push-ups as I dreaded my next round.  When it was my turn again, I swung the KB and kept telling myself to hold on.  When I got to 12 reps, it was painful.  When I got to 15, I yelled.  Not my typical female tennis player grunt, but something to try and pump me up as I desperately held on.  The last 5 reps were likely ugly, but I held on.  Originally I wasn't sure I could hold on for one set of 20.  Making it through two made me very happy.

That being said, I was not excited about the prospects of doing a third round.  I waited for Michal to yell "10!" indicating she was done with her round, but she started to struggle during her last couple reps, specifically the last one.  As time wound down, she managed to get that 10th rep right before the buzzer. 

Thanks to Michal being able to do all the tough stuff, we managed to complete the workout RX.  And I was really proud of our score.  Could we have done better?  Probably.  I could have rowed faster, but I was scared that I wouldn't have anything left for the last two AMRAPs.  It didn't matter though.  For all the times I am upset at the conclusion of a workout, I have to also be willing to give myself some credit when it goes well.  And yesterday went well.

The day ended with some shoulder flossing and dinner and beer at Wegman's.  It also included some great phrases, with my favorite three below:

1. "The Magical Unicorn" - You can believe that it exists, but it doesn't.
2. "The Man V" - I still have a hard time believing this is a positive description, but for those unfamiliar with the term, it is the V-shaped muscular region near the waistline that guys who are in shape display when they take off their shirt. It is essentially a neon sign saying "if you like what you see up here, wait till you see my penis!" I currently have a "Man U", along with a lower case "Man W" in my chestal region. Not all of us get the good parts of the alphabet.
3. "If I'm there, I'm participating" - Not nearly as dirty as it sounds. Then again, it wasn't all that innocent either. Without a doubt, a phrase I will be throwing around just to make people feel uncomfortable.

Once again, I was exhausted when I got home.  But the rest day won't come until Friday.  Thursday marks the end of the mobility challenge.  That means revisiting the baseline test, the ultimate love-hate workout: overhead squats and pull-ups.