I've Never Seen A Guy Bend Like That Before

Workout dates: 7/20/15 and 7/21/15

King and Queen was fun to watch, but it probably would have been best to leave it at that.  If you're participating in the gym's big event, you want to perform at your highest level.  If you're lucky, maybe you breakthrough and go beyond anything you've achieved before.  When the opposite happens, it's a bit of a stomach punch.  There was a period on Saturday from the end of the second WOD until about 8pm where I was in a bit of a daze.  In an ideal world, I would have put together 5 tremendous performances and nipped at the heels of the guys battling for the final spot on the podium.  But to not put it together for any of the WODs was disappointing.  Confusing.  Frustrating.

As many of you know, my passion outside of the gym is handicapping horse races.  Each of the last two years I have been lucky enough to qualify for the National Championship.  You prepare for that big weekend, studying races, studying charts with the hopes that you're going to come out on top.  During the first two days of the contest, everyone competes.  But to make it to the final day, you have to have been in the top 10% the first two days.  Stringing together 10 pull-ups seems like an impossible goal to me.  Making the top 10% at the National Championship?  Not impossible at all in my mind.  I've been handicapping for 28 years.  Why should I think I'm not as qualified as anyone else?  Unfortunately, in each of my two appearances, the end of day two has marked the end of my run.  And in both years, I haven't been particularly close to advancing.  I had those same mix of emotions: disappointment, confusion, frustration.  When I return home from Vegas, I often go several weeks before diving back into handicapping.  It simply takes time to recover from it all.

I was beginning to feel the same way on Sunday before making the decision that I would go into Open Strength on Monday and just do some stuff for me.  No trying to improve.  No coming up with a program to do.  Just going in and trying to set some 1RMs to make myself feel better.  First on the list: back squat.  I'm not entirely sure when I last tested my 1RM for the back squat, but I do know that I did 5 reps at 265 at the end of May, meaning that my 1RM should be higher than 275.  I started by doing a warmup set of 5 reps at 135 and 185.  I meant to do 3 reps at 225, but for some reason I racked the bar after 1 rep and didn't feel like picking it back up to do 2 more reps.  Why not go for 1 rep from here on out?  I went up to 255 and handled that rep comfortably.  I wasn't sure where I wanted to go after that.  285 seemed like an aggressive jump.  265 seemed like a waste.  Plentus had always said never tie your PR, but 275 felt like the next logical step on the way, so I put that on the bar.  Maybe doing 275 would give me some perspective on how much higher I could go.

The answer seemed to be much higher.  I knocked out 275 in the same manner that I handled 255.  I thought 285 would be the number I would be testing out, but now I was recycling the thought that a 10 pound increase was a waste.  I would try 295.  I added 20 pounds to the bar, took a few minutes to recover, then went for the lift.  It was considerably tougher than 275, but at no point did I get concerned about completing the lift.  I stood up, racked the bar, and mentally prepared to break 300 for the first time ever.  I could have added just 5 pounds to make it an even 300, but the lift at 295 gave me the confidence to try 305.  Once again I spent a couple minutes to recover, then I tried the lift.  I started to rise from the bottom, but then I got stuck and had to dump the bar.  On my second try, the weight felt heavy, so I rushed the lift.  After crashing to the bottom, I had no chance and bailed again.  Leslie came over to talk to me about how fast I dropped to the bottom of the squat and reminded me that I needed to stay in control of the weight on the way down.  I prepared for my third and final try.  I got the bar off the rack, slowly made my way down, but could find no legs to propel me back up.  Three fails at 305 and it was time to move on to something else.

I wanted to clean 225.  That's a bit of a lie.  I want to clean and jerk 225, but I suspect that if I clean it, I'll be able to jerk it.  So I have to figure out a way to clean it.  I used a similar progression for the cleans as I did with the back squats.  Practice lifts at 135 and 165.  I started to practice squat cleans at 185 as I knew a squat clean would be necessary if I was going to get 225.  The squat cleans at 185 and 205 were not pretty and I had real concerns about getting 225.  Sure enough, I failed at 225.  Over and over and over again.  I gave it at least 8 tries, but to no avail.  Jim C was watching me and gave me some good feedback.  He told me that I was getting the bar high enough, but I was not keeping it close to my body.  Once I got that down, I'd get the clean.  So where do we go from here?  Well, I'm probably going to practice a lot of deadlifts at 225 as my deadlift form has been suspect recently for the same reason: not keeping the bar close to my body.  Maybe if I can get the muscle memory going, I can finally clean 225.

On Tuesday, it was time to go back to a WOD.  The Tuesday night WOD was:

5 rounds:
5 strict handstand push-ups
10 pistols (alternating)
15 pull-ups

For the HSPUs, I wanted to set up my band again and use that to get full range of motion.  Except I've somehow forgotten how to use it.  Twice I kicked up on to the band and somehow my body fell entirely over the other side of the band leaving me dangling upside down suspended above the floor.  That led to Michal uttering the line that became today's post title.  I'm sure it was a sight to behold.

Knowing that I could not use the band, I switched it out for 2 abmats.  I took a couple practice runs at doing the HSPUs with the 2 abmats and they were fine, so I was set there.  Pistols?  One of the quirky things I do well, so I wasn't worried there.  And then there were the pull-ups.  75 this time around.  In recent workouts, I had managed to do 50 and 42, so why not take a crack at 75?  (Because you're not good at pull-ups, dumbass.)  I put on my grips and prepared to do more pull-ups than I've ever done before.

I won't go through all aspects of every round with you on here because it would be extremely repetitive.  The HSPUs were fine.  The pistols were fine.  The pull-ups were a grind.  They were all singles, but I tried to be quick about getting my hands back on the bar for the next rep.  During the first 2 rounds, things went about as planned, although Michal was about to lap me.  As I neared the end of round 3, my arms were starting to wear down and I had to throw in at least 1 strict pull-up along the way to keep moving.  Things got very slow in round 4 and with 8 reps left, I noticed something very unsettling.  The three ladies in class (Marni, Michal, and Sheila) were all done.  Internally, I yelled "shit!"  And by internally, I mean out loud.  I was nowhere close to being finished, I was tired, and now the pity party was going to begin.  Don't get me wrong, I appreciate the support.  I just wish I wasn't "that guy" as often as I am.

I made my way through the last 8 reps of round 4 and zipped through the HSPUs and the pistols.  I managed 3 reps on the pull-up bar before slipping and needing a break.  My grips were soaked and I tried to dry them off as much as I could.  It was very hard to focus on kipping when your hands were sliding on the bar.  With fatigue setting in, I started doing that weird thing where my right hand slides over to say hi to my left hand.  This was all adding up to not being able to do pull-ups.  Frustrated with the soaked grips, I took them off and went back to the bar.  I did all of 1 pull-up with no grips on and I managed to rip in the middle of my left hand.  Awesome!  Gotta put the grips back on.

For a while, I was stuck, but there was no alternative to finishing.  I was getting the 75 pull-ups.  Slowly I chipped away at the remaining total, before finally stopping the clock at 20:53.  I finished more than eight and a half minutes after the second-to-last person in our class finished.  It was a total train wreck.

Perhaps my initial instincts were correct.  Maybe it's time for a break.  King and Queen was not the National Championship and I don't need several weeks off, but some time away could be good for me.  I think there is definitely a need for me to get my head straight.  Not being able to do the back squat at 305 was mental.  Not being able to do the clean at 225 was mental.  Struggling to finish the last round of pull-ups was mental.  I get to the doorstep of my goals and then my head decides "nope, that's too tough".  That's something that needs to be fixed.

I'm headed out of town for a few days for the opening of the track at Saratoga.  Originally I thought about hitting up some boxes in the area to work out at, but I've reconsidered.  Maybe I need to stop thinking so damn much about all of this stuff and just chill out a bit.  Or maybe that won't work either.  All I know is that it's time to decompress and step away from things for a bit.  Hopefully I'll come back recharged and mentally tough enough to get to the next level.

Enjoy the Crossfit Games this week!!!