Air Supply

Workout date: 7/28/15

On Monday, it was the peg board.  On Tuesday, it was sandbags.  We've gone into full "train for the Crossfit Games by doing Crossfit Games events" mode!  Since we do not have a large stadium in which we could duplicate the Sandbag 2015 event, the sandbags were incorporated into an event from the Masters/Teen competition:

20 minute time cap
800 meter run
25 sandbag ground to shoulder (athlete chooses weight)
25 box jump overs (17"/13")
25 chest-to-bar pull-ups (SCALE!)
50 wall balls
25 chest-to-bar pull-ups
25 box jump overs
25 sandbag ground to shoulder

Let's run through these before I get to the carnage which was my workout:

• I don't like sandbags.  They are super awkward to handle and, more often than not, I drop them on my head or my feet.  I definitely need a remedial course in how to handle them.  At first, I misread the workout and thought we were going ground to overhead.  That led to Steph V. and Faby laughing at me as I struggled to get the sandbag over my head with anything resembling control.  Finally someone told me that I only needed to get the sandbag to my shoulder.  Not great, but much better.
• Box jump overs!  Love these things!  Can just pogo back and forth like crazy.  Ya know, assuming that I'm not exhausted when I get to them.
• Chest-to-bar pull-ups...well, at least I'd get some more pull-up practice.
• I'm ok with wall balls for the most part, but I struggle severely with them when I'm out of breath.

Why would I be out of breath?  Hmmm...maybe because it's insanely muggy inside the gym.  I'd been warned that this week would be brutal due to the heat, but I was sweating just standing around before the workout.  I needed paper towels several times during warmups to dry off.  20 minutes of working out was not going to be pleasant.

The 7:30 class was just me and Michal.  When we set off on our run, I told her she could take off, but she ran with me.  The girls at KOP are really nice about staying with the slow guy.  As we hit 600 meters, she mentioned picking it up.  I sped up a little then and a little more once we hit the home stretch (apparently I wasn't supposed to speed up the second time).  We got back in the gym around the 4:15 mark.

I chose a 75 pound sandbag because the 45 pound sandbag seemed too easy and there was nothing in between those two weights.  Even though these wore me out, I think I chose correctly.  They were awkward as expected, but once I got that worked out, I was able to do larger sets.  The bigger issue was breathing.  I was struggling already and we were only about 6 minutes into the workout.  I tried to push, telling myself that I'd recover on the box jump overs.  Eventually I got done with these, but Michal had already started her chest-to-bar pull-ups at that point.  I was way behind.

Thinking I could make up time on my beloved box jump overs, I started bouncing back and forth.  Except I had to stop after every 4 or 6.  Even these were painful.  And to compound problems, I was stopping when I was off of the box instead of stopping on top of the box.  By stopping on the box, I could have kept using the spring from bounding down.  By stopping on the side, I had no momentum to use.  I would have corrected this problem had I gotten back to the box jump overs but...

...lying in wait were the pull-ups.  I wasn't even going to attempt the chest-to-bar variety today.  All I really wanted was to get through the set of 25 in a reasonable amount of time.  I couldn't even manage that.  I didn't struggle with the actual pull-ups all that much, but I couldn't breathe.  I would do 2 fast singles, sometimes 3, before needing to crouch down and try to get some air.  And the air I was breathing in was so damn hot and thick that it wasn't doing a lot to help me recover.  My pace slowed considerably and I began to become concerned that I wouldn't even finish the wall balls.

I did slowly manage all 25 pull-ups and then I got to the wall balls.  I felt like I could have done some huge sets here if only I could breathe, but my lungs were not cooperating.  Instead, I did sets of 5-9 reps the whole way, finally capping off my set of 50 with less than one minute remaining before the time cap.  I walked over to the pull-up bar and tried to get some reps in before time was called.  I had 4 done when the countdown began.  As Rachel got down to 3 seconds, I made one last swing and finished off my 5th pull-up to record a score of CAP + 70.

I could have done some things better during this workout, but my score likely wouldn't have changed too much.  Pull-ups are definitely my sticking point and I can't imagine any scenario in which I would have completed both rounds of 25.  I was happy that I made it through the wall balls because there were points during the workout where I had real doubts that I would get that far.

Afterwards, Rachel went over kipping with me.  The night before, I had practiced kipping on my own and Jess C. said to me "one of these days, you're just going to get it and knock out a bunch of them".  My problem has been that I'm out of control when I kip.  In order to make sure I get high enough, I violently close my shoulders and throw down my feet as hard as I can.  While this gets my chin up over the bar, it makes it nearly impossible for me to string reps.  As I talked through everything with Rachel, I stumbled upon another dilemma.  Was it better for me to continue with my inefficient kip so that I would be able to do pull-ups without a band during workouts, or should I de-construct my kip to learn it properly?  That would mean going back to a band during workouts, but at least I wouldn't be developing bad muscle memory.

There was one other alternative: I could magically start kipping correctly and use that in workouts.  But I think this blog has covered how well believing in magic has worked out for my Crossfit endeavours.  I decided that I needed to really focus on what I was doing differently than Rachel.  I watched only her knees and feet while she kipped.  Then I watched her do some more reps to see how much she leaned back as she closed her shoulder angle.  I even got on a box to examine how much of her hands were wrapped around the bar as she did her pull-ups.

The result: my hands were probably fine, I was laying too far back after closing my shoulder angle, I only needed a slight knee bend, I didn't need a violent leg drive but only a small flick, and my toes should be pointing down.  So I was only doing 4 things wrong in this one movement.

I got on the bar to give it a shot and, what do you know, I was able to efficiently knock out three in a row.  Why only three?  Because I'm a big wimp, my hands were hurting like a mother, and I dropped.  But the feel of those pull-ups was much different.  No longer was I doing an ab exercise (drawing my knees up and shooting them down is the equivalent of a flying crunch).  Instead, I was using my arms more and keeping the movement under control.  Progress!  On that note, it was time to head home.

Wednesday preview: 1RM Jerk plus rope climbs to the ceiling.  Aw yeah!