Where the hell have the blog posts been, Dave? I know, I'm almost a week behind on keeping you up to date with my athletic mediocrity. What could possibly replace reading this blog everyday and give you the same level of fulfillment?
- Watching paint dry
- Going to the DMV
- Dental work
- Driving 5 miles on I-76
- Any professional Philly sports event
See, it's always nice to have options.
I have been a little busier than normal this past week and that will continue into this week, but there is a lot to cover, so let's get started with a kinda bland WOD on Wednesday.
Wednesday WOD:
10 minute AMRAP
10 power snatches (135/95)
500M row
Hmmm...not much in the way of strategy with this one. Also a strong likelihood of bunched up scores, so it would be tough to tell a "good" workout from a "bad" workout. Really, the only thing to figure out here was what weight to use. Originally, I was going to go with 125. There was no way of doing 4 full rounds in this workout, so 3 would be the limit. That meant 30 snatches, which is Isabel. I had done Isabel with 115 pounds before in under 4 minutes and I should be able to do 3 rounds of rowing at a pace of 2 minutes per 500M, so that would keep me under 10 minutes. Going to 125 would push my ability to finish 3 rounds under that time cap.
That was all well and good, but sometimes you need to call an audible. When I got to the gym, I saw only a few people went RX (never a consideration for me), but then the number of guys who did 115 was lower than I expected (no one did 125). A lot of the guys who I thought would do 115 ended up going with 95. Then I bumped into Doctor Coach Sommelier Giulz who told me that I should go lighter than I think for the workout. Fair enough. I would try out 115 with the intention of finishing 3 rounds.
We got going and I moved through the first 10 snatches quickly. I broke it up into a set of 6 and a set of 4, then moved on to my rower. Staying at a 2 minute pace was essential to getting through 3 rounds and I was successful on that first row, finishing up a few seconds below that threshold. Back to the snatches. The second round needed to be broken up a bit more. I got 3 snatches to start off, then went into two sets of 2. Knowing I wouldn't get the last three in a row, I did a single, then knocked out the final two reps. Still on a good pace. Unfortunately, I couldn't hold it on the row. The beginning was slow as I tried to get back to that two minute pace. Eventually I did get the display to a point where I was under that pace, but it had taken me a while to get there. Guessing that the second row ended up being closer to 2:10.
As I got back to my barbell for round 3, I still had enough time to complete the round, but I needed to move fast on the snatches. This was the most difficult point in the workout for me mentally. I wanted to remain calm and make sure I maintained good technique on the snatches. On the other hand, time was working against me. I decided to grip the bar and max out that first set for whatever it was worth. It was worth 4 reps and a failed 5th rep. Not too bad, but I was worn out. I wanted to get back to sets of 2, but only managed a single before dropping the bar again. Got 2 reps when I picked up the bar again. Then another single. Just two reps left and I needed to hurry as the clock was about to hit 8 minutes. I got the 9th rep and then...failed on the 10th rep. That took the wind out of my sails. I shook out my arms and then got the 10th rep, but there was no way I was finishing the third round now. I got on the rower and did much better in the final round than I had done in the preceding one, but despite an all-out push in the final seconds, I fell 84 meters short of 3 full rounds.
Not the worst result, but as I mentioned at the beginning, it was kind of a strange/boring workout that I couldn't get too worked up over as far as the results were concerned. Getting that last snatch on the first attempt probably would have gotten me close to finishing, although it would have been very tight.
On Thursday, I did not do the WOD, which was a 30 minute "death by" workout involving burpees and KB swings. I had done it once before and it was pretty unpleasant. Besides, I wanted to keep up with my squat program and work on some other things. So I did the 6x2 rep scheme at 235 pounds for my back squat. I then tried to do handstand push-ups with 1 abmat. This has been eating away at me for some time as doing handstand push-ups with 2 abmats feels somewhat easy, yet I can't get the range of motion to handle 1 abmat. Shawna was watching me as I made a bunch of attempts and told me I was very close several times, but I just couldn't make it happen. More practice required.
To finish up, I decided to get on the GHD as it's been a while since I've been on there. Wanted to do 3 sets of 20 reps. I feel good for about 12-15 reps on the GHD, so I've challenged myself to do 20 reps each time I'm on there. Gotta get used to doing what feels uncomfortable as I'm often told. The first round wasn't so bad. The second round was definitely more difficult. What I hadn't realized was that I had begun my female tennis player-like grunting that I normally reserve for KB swings. Coach Steph was at the computer in the lobby and I saw her looking at me towards the end of round 2. Then she came into the gym and told me that she could hear me from the lobby, which is why she started looking at me. Just when I thought I couldn't embarrass myself any more...
The final round of 20 was very unpleasant, but I got through them. At that point, I decided to call it a day.
Friday preview: Heavy sumo deadlifts and very large atlas stones. It's a World's Strongest Man kind of day at KOP!
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