Stay Calm And...What's The Rest?

Workout date: 6/3/15

While under the watchful eye of Michal Tuesday night, I did some kipping practice.  Michal has this stuff down, to the point that she has moved on to the more advanced butterfly pull-up.  And I think she may have grown tired of me sucking on the pull-up bar.  (There's also the chance that she has grown tired of hearing me whine about it.  Real coin toss there.)  So after the WOD, she had me work on my kip, focusing more on shoulder activation and less on my legs.  After my usual impressive display of flailing around, she said something to me that I had never considered before.  See, most of the cues I have gotten in terms of improving my kip have been very technical.  This one was not.  She told me <paraphrasing>: "You're very intense when you're trying to kip and you're doing these wild motions.  You need to be calmer on the bar."

Be calm.  Hmmm...this was definitely not a strength for me.  But it made sense.  When watching people kip on the pull-up bar, it always looks so graceful.  So why was I doing what I'll call a "panic kip"?  Mainly because I had no faith I could do the pull-up otherwise.  I immediately started thinking of how I play pool.  If you watch most people play pool, you see them trying to hit shots as hard as they can.  But pool is a game of finesse.  The best players hit their shots with only enough force to get the cue ball to move into position for their next shot.  It is truly a beautiful thing to watch as someone runs a table by maneuvering the cue ball around.

By jerking around my body uncontrollably, I was not getting my body (or my cue ball-like head) in proper position for my next pull-up.  And therefore I could not string reps (aka "run the table").  This would have all been easier to grasp if they gym were covered in green felt.  Oh well.  I calmed myself down, then tried to kip again.  I got 3 reps.  The kip may not have been beautiful, but it was certainly more effective.  Later on, I would get 5 consecutive reps.  Maybe I was finally getting the hang of this!

Fast forward to last night, a workout that looked like so:

20 minute time cap
4 rounds:
20 pull-ups
20 hand release push-ups
20 KB swings (70/55)
20 box jumps (30"/24")

Pull-ups right off the bat and plenty of them!  I'd get to test out my kip immediately.  Beyond that, a few things to note:

1. There is approximately 0% chance I would ever be able to finish this workout.  The 20 pull-ups is probably going to require 2 minutes, with each of the other 3 movements requiring about a minute.  So if I maintained that pace and never got tired, I'd finish right on the time cap.  Good luck with that!
2. We were definitely going big here, although I like that.  I've been practicing with the 80 lb KB to get better at the 70 lb KB in WODs.  Another test.  And we don't do a ton of workouts with the 30" box for box jumps, but it's almost a different movement.  With the 24" box, you can pogo if you're good.  Trying to pogo the 30" box is a really bad idea.  With the 30" box, it is more about explosiveness up, then speed up and down.

I went to practice my kip.  Stay calm, stay calm, jump, and...fail.  What was that?  Ok, calm down, try again...and fail again.  Why wasn't my brain remembering what I did just 24 hours ago?  I finally managed a rep, but it was ugly and didn't result in a second rep right afterwards.  Leslie was watching me and mentioned that my initial swings looked good, but I was messing things up when it came time to pull my head over the bar.  I was not remaining calm.  Leslie had a good suggestion when she said I should do a full kipping swing before even trying to do the pull-ups.  That would get my brain in the right mindset for the kip.

Stay calm, one practice swing.  After hearing "3, 2, 1, go!" we were off.  And the ability to stay calm was gone.  There is a certain amount of adrenaline that goes through your body when you do these workouts and I've just never been a guy that can flip the switch on and off.  It was go time and I was back to my poor kipping ways.  I did manage one set of three after a practice swing got me started.  But beyond that, there were several fails with one good rep mixed in.  After 4 reps, it was time to use a band to try and salvage the workout.  I had brought one over in advance since there was little chance I was magically kipping 80 pull-ups today.  I set it up on the rack so that I could stand on it with both feet.  Only problem is that pull-ups with just that one band are really hard as well.  It took me forever to get done with the first set of 20.

The hand-release push-ups went fairly smoothly, but not incredibly fast.  I prefer hand-release (must take your hands off the floor so your chest hits the floor) to regular push-ups, but my upper body strength was already sapped a bit from the pull-up struggle.  Next was the KB, where I swung 12 in a row before doing the second set of 8.  Then it was the 20 box jumps, which took more than the minute I hoped they would take, but they were tough.

For round 2, I got a second band for the pull-up bar and got through those much quicker.  Still, there was no way I was completing all four movements in 5 minutes.  In fact, it was clear that I would not be finishing 3 rounds during this WOD.  I got done with the pull-ups and went through the hand-release push-ups again.  At the KB, I managed 13 reps in the first set, then took care of the last 7.  And at the box, it was a mirror image of my first round, plodding through the 20 jumps.

I had less than 5 minutes left when I got back to the pull-up bar.  Even with two bands, these pull-ups felt horrible.  When I finished up there, we had less than two minutes to go.  There was less than one minute left when I got back to the KB.  Trying to swing a heavy KB in a hurry is not advised.  I saved one rep at the top that almost buckled back over my head.  When it happened again on the next rep, I had to put the KB down.  Time was running out, but safety comes first.  I picked the KB back up and got a few more reps in before time elapsed.  I finished two full rounds, along with the pull-ups, push-ups, and half of the KB swings in round three.

We ended the class with a sit-up tabata (20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds).  I managed to do 82 sit-ups during that time, although the class had to deal with a lot of unpleasant grunting for four minutes.

Next blog: it's the return of Nancy, a girl WOD that I am actually decent at!  Can I figure out a way to maintain my running pace for 5 rounds in order to get closer to that third spot on the board?