Going Down. For Real.

Workout date: 9/25/15

Why did I show up for another WOD on Friday?  Probably because of my addictive personality.  But hear me out!  I knew I was taking Saturday off and I didn't want to take two days off in a row.  Plus, on Sunday, I'd be doing my heavy 2x2 back squat session, meaning I wouldn't be doing a WOD that day, so skipping the gym on Friday would almost be like taking three days off.  No, working out 6 days in a row was not my wisest decision and my body was letting me know it needed a breather, but it was going to earn that breather!  All I had to do was get through Friday's WOD.  Here it is:

15 Minute AMRAP:
24 Calories (Row)
24 KB Swings (70/55)
24 Sit-Ups
(EMOM - 3 Toes-to-Bar)

During the day, I looked at the KOP blog to see what the scores were like and boy were they low!  What was that all about?  Almost no one had finished 3 rounds of this workout.  Aimee, the owner of our gym, as well as the best athlete there, had only managed a score of 2+45.  What kind of score could I expect for myself?

The answer: probably a decent one if I had scaled properly.  Naturally, I did not.  This despite running into Silver Fox on my way into the gym and being told "this workout is much harder than it looks".  This despite Samson telling me he had done well by doing Russian swings (to eye level) instead of American swings (overhead).  Nope, just ignore all of the warnings Dave and try to be a superhero.

Perhaps I was too pre-occupied with the toes-to-bar to focus on how difficult the KB swings would be.  I had done one other workout earlier in the year that involved an EMOM of toes-to-bar.  In that workout, we were supposed to do 5 toes-to-bar every minute before completing other work.  A few minutes in and I had trimmed that number down to three.  As the workout went on, I barely had enough time after the toes-to-bar to complete the rest of the movements.  And to top it all off, my hands were bloodied up more than I've ever experienced in a Crossfit workout.  So there weren't a lot of fond memories flooding through my mind as we got ready to take on this WOD.

Joining me in the 6:30 class were TJ, Lindsey, Danielle, and Sir Cline.  In most workouts, I have an idea of where other people are in the workout.  Sometimes I am keying on one person, trying my best to keep up with them.  For maybe the first time all year, I can say that I went through a workout and had close to zero clue with regard to my classmates' progress.  Part of it was the hectic nature of the workout.  Every 60 seconds you were running back to the pull-up bar.  Once your toes-to-bar were done, you were running to one of three stations.  And then you might be rotating stations before going back to do more toes-to-bar.  That chaos made it tough enough to keep track of one's own progress, never mind anyone else's.  The other reason why it was difficult to get an idea of where everyone else was because this was simply a tough workout.

Before we started, I had practiced trying to string toes-to-bar the proper way, using a stomping motion at the bottom of the movement to generate momentum into the next rep.  It didn't go well.  It has been a while since I'd done toes-to-bar and I may have been a bit rusty.  That didn't stop me from trying again when the WOD started.  Somehow my body remembered how to do this just at the right time.  Here's a recap of how I did on each movement:

• Toes-to-bar: My body not only remembered how to string these for the first minute, it remembered how to string them for the first five minutes!  In minute six, I managed two reps, before dropping from the high bar and using the low bar for the third rep.  I stayed at the low bar for the final nine minutes and did "fast" singles.
• Rowing: This wasn't too bad.  Averaged about 12 calories per minute early on, but this would decrease to around 8 later on as I began getting slower on the toes-to-bar, leaving myself less time at the rower.
• KB swings: Oh Dave, you foolish, foolish bastard.  I have done workouts with a 70 lb KB before, so I thought I could grind through the reps required in this workout.  I quickly realized during my first round of KB swings that using so much weight after the toes-to-bar and the rowing was a bad idea.  Less weight or Russian swings was the way to go.  It wasn't so much getting enough thrust to drive the KB over my head.  Rather, the KB never felt steady overhead.  And I had no desire to drop that thing on my noggin.  The goal was medium length sets, but they eventually became smallish sets.  This became the big time consumer in the workout.
• Sit-ups: Not bad at all.  I didn't get to my first round of sit-ups until fatigue had begun to set in a bit, so there wasn't a drop off in my production with these.  I averaged about 12 reps per minute, so it was a similar pace to the rowing.

As my toes-to-bar and KB swing pace slowed, I began to worry that I wouldn't complete two full rounds.  When I headed to the pull-up bar for my final set of toes-to-bar, I had 8 sit-ups remaining in my second round.  I had my fill of toes-to-bar at that point, but with only three left, I tried to wrap them up as quick as I could.  I got over to my abmat with enough time to finish the second round.  Then I jumped on my rower and pulled as hard as I could for about 10 seconds.  Final score: 2+3.

Things I learned:

• I should stick with the high bar for as long as possible because my "fast" singles aren't so fast.
• There are times when I should go lighter on the KB
• I am unable to decipher what song Michal is singing, even when everyone else picks up on it immediately.  (If you'd like to try, ask her to sing it for you.)

Sunday preview: After a much needed rest day on Saturday, it's more of the back squat program and...the Friday WOD again?