Compression Shirts: Not For Everyone

Workout date: 8/21/15

We found out early on the week of August 17th that we would be doing a special WOD on Friday.  Unfortunately, it was being scheduled due to some tough news affecting one of our own.  Andrea Brennan is one of the best athletes that has come through KOP's doors, but she had recently been diagnosed with breast cancer.  The August 21st workout would be in honor of Andrea and to help raise money as she prepares to kick cancer's ass.  The rep scheme was chosen to match Andrea's date of birth (1/9/1980 - 35 years old).  Here's what the WOD looked like:

35 Minute AMRAP:
100 Situps
1 Snatch @ 75% of 1RM
9 Handstand Push-ups
19 Pull-ups
80 Double Unders

All participants were also encouraged to wear pink.  I know this may be shocking to some, but I actually do not own any pink clothing.  Well, before August 21st I did not.  Because I never want to miss out on the chance to wear something a bit outside the norm, I headed over to Dick's Sporting Goods to see if they had any pink clothing for men.  At first, it seemed I was out of luck.  Looking through the men's sections, it seemed that light red was as close as I could get to pink.  I wandered over to the ladies side and found plenty of pink items, but I also found a section of pink athletic clothing that specifically raised money in the fight against breast cancer.  This was great.  I could donate by buying this clothing and donate when I got to the gym.  Bonus!

It quickly dawned on me though that none of these shirts hanging before me might fit over my ample frame.  I held up the largest shirt I could find and it looked like it would be no match for my man boobs.  But this "shirts for breast cancer research" section got me thinking that there must be a male counterpart somewhere in the store.  After all, it's not like only women raise money for the cause.  So I headed back over to the men's side of the store.  Determined to find a pink men's shirt, I finally came across 4-5 pink compression shirts in the corner of a rack.  A small portion of their purchase price also went to breast cancer research.  Perfect!  Except compression shirts weren't meant for guys like me.  I grabbed my normal XL size and tried one on in the dressing room.  It did not agree with me at all.  I'd need to grab the 2XL option that I left out on the rack and take my chances.  I also managed to find some pink socks that benefited breast cancer research.

The results?  Well...

Someone find that man a baggy shirt, pronto!

Let's move beyond the fashion part of this workout, shall we?  For the most part, folks were forming teams to take on this workout.  All members of the team had to do the snatch, but aside from that, the work could be split up.  With my back still feeling a bit sore, there were several parts of the workout that had me concerned.  The snatch, in particular, had me worried.  I decided the wise move was to only use 115 pounds, even though 75% was closer to 130 pounds.  I also wasn't sure how my back would react to doing a ton of sit-ups.  As I worried about this, that, and the other thing, I remembered why we were doing this workout: a friend of ours was battling cancer.  And I was worrying about back pain?  From that point forward, I put my back concerns out of my mind and set my thoughts towards crushing this workout.

I paired up with Matt E. and Josh P. for the workout.  We agreed to split all movements evenly for the first round and then re-assess after that point.  We moved through that first round pretty quickly.  I was the fastest at the sit-ups.  All of us could handle 115 pounds on the snatch.  I did handstand push-ups with 2 abmats, while Matt and Josh did stinkbugs (a more upright version of a push-up where you tap your forehead to the ground in front of your hands during each rep).  I made it through 6 pull-ups, but I knew that would be my biggest problem as the workout progressed.  And finally, I made it to the low 20's to start off our run through the double unders, but as was the case with the pull-ups, Josh and Matt were going to be more proficient than me with this exercise.

When we got to round two, I took on more sit-ups, Matt took on more stinkbugs, and Josh took on more pull-ups.  For double unders, we each tried to do a big set and that tended to be enough to get us to our total of 80.  This was the setup we used for the majority of the workout, although later on I would need more help with the pull-ups, so I took on more handstand push-ups in exchange.  When we finished round 3, I was starting to feel some fatigue, but the clock only read 13 minutes and change.  More than 20 minutes to go.  Uh oh.

The magic of photography.  I almost look like I know what I'm doing.

Luckily, the three of us worked very well together.  We kept a solid pace and there was little in the way of downtime as someone would pick up reps when someone else got tired.  As time winded down, we pushed to finish a 7th round.  Josh calmly knocked out double unders getting us to 80 with a few seconds left.  I hit the floor and got us some quick sit-ups before the clock hit 35 minutes.  Final team score: 7 rounds + 6 reps.

I definitely enjoyed working out with Matt and Josh, plus we were able to raise a decent amount of money for Andrea.  It was a nice way to finish up my week at the gym before heading to Maine for vacation.  Injuries always bug me, but I had gotten a bit lucky that mine happened right before a planned week away from the gym.  Hopefully some R&R would have me as good as new when I came back to the box.