Hold On To Your Balls

Workout date: 10/14/15

As we've started to hit the home stretch for 2015, I've been lucky enough to hit some personal goals (back squat, clean and jerk).  That has been rewarding because I do feel like I work my ass off at the gym and at times it feels like the victories are few and far between.  More importantly though, I feel like the little things are finally sinking in.  Perhaps I've been too caught up in an atmosphere where athletes are throwing big weights around or plowing through round after round of an exercise while I gasp for air.  Maybe the combination of the loud music and the ticking clock have fueled so much adrenaline that I've been overlooking some very important elements that lead to success at the gym.

Tonight, I got to work on two of those elements and I think I did well with each of them.  There's still some room for improvement, but I was happy with how things turned out.  Before getting into all of that, let's take a look at the Wednesday WOD:

40-30-20-10 Wall Balls (20 lbs to 10'/14 lbs to 9')
30 calorie row after each round of Wall Balls

Originally, this workout was written so that it ended with the last round of wall balls.  However, the 6am class did a 30 calorie row after the final 10 wall balls and a trend was set.  Every other class throughout the day decided to do 4 rows as well.

The first element that was important tonight was resolve.  Every workout is like a mini-athletic contest and many times the difference between finishing quickly and taking much more time comes down to how strong you are mentally.  Wall balls are a prime example of how important mental resolve is during a workout.  #keithie was coaching tonight and I thought that was very appropriate as he had given me some advice in the past regarding wall balls and mental resolve.  I don't remember his exact words, but it went a little something like this: "A wall ball is never going to crush you.  Doing one more is never going to injure you.  It isn't like you're doing a barbell movement with a ton of weight.  The ball is 20 pounds maximum.  It is just a matter of whether you can push yourself to keep going."  There is a lot of truth in that statement.  Wall balls can be monotonous.  At a certain point, it may come down to whether you want to do more as opposed to whether you can do more.  If you can get yourself in the mindset that you want to keep throwing that ball up at the wall over and over again, you'll do better than you think.

The second element was breathing.  It sounds like such a simple thing, but I rarely focus on my breathing during movements at the gym.  Well, that is until I can't breath at all anymore and then breathing becomes my sole focus.  Screw the rest of this workout, I'm dying!  (That is only a slight exaggeration of my mindset when I've reached exhaustion in a WOD.)  Perhaps I wouldn't reach that point if I focused on my breathing during each rep of the workout.  I mean, I'm always thinking about something during the workout, so why not make it something that could actually help me?  Duh!

As we got ready to start this workout, I had one goal: string the first 40 wall balls.  Now my all-time best in terms of stringing wall balls had been 34 reps.  However, we were starting with wall balls  tonight meaning that I was fresh going into that first set.  And if I got to 30 reps, I should have enough mental resolve to finish off the last 10 reps.  Hang tough, Dave, that ball isn't going to kill you.

We got going and all you could hear for a while were people throwing their medicine balls against the wall.  There were at least 10 people in the 6:30 class and I don't think any of us were eager to be the first one to let their ball hit the ground.  I didn't want to let my ball hit the ground at all, but if I was going to drop, I didn't want to be the first.  (My competitive side simply never goes away.)  I don't recall what rep I was on when I first heard other medicine balls drop, but I think it was around the halfway point.  Meanwhile, I was exhaling after each throw I made and inhaling as I caught the ball to go into my squat.  I kept my elbows directly under the ball.  I tried to make efficient throws, high enough to exceed the 10' mark, but not so high that they were close to the 11' mark.  I was probably around 25 reps when this started to not feel so wonderful, but I was definitely reaching 30.  And if I got to 30, I needed to find the resolve to get to 40.

When I tossed up the 30th rep, my adrenaline got pumping.  I called myself a lot of names (neither Cline nor Flounder was there tonight, so I had to do it myself) and thought about how it was only 10 more reps to reach the goal I had set.  At rep 37, my body had a lot of interest in doing anything that did not involve throwing a 20 pound ball 10 feet off the ground.  I held strong and got the final 3 reps.  As the 40th rep hit the wall, I turned towards my rower and did a "Dave celebration", which consisted of me silently pumping my fist in a very reserved manner.  That's me getting all crazy.

As I got on the rower, I noticed that Josh M was already on his.  Seriously?  I strung all 40 reps and I wasn't the first one on the rower.  Damn.  And I knew I would not be catching Josh during this workout because he's a stronger rower than I am.  I would just do my best to stay close the rest of the way.  On the rower, I pretty much did the same thing all four rounds, although at different paces.  I would use the first few calories to catch my breath while getting some work done.  From there on out, I would focus on solid form and trying to maintain a nice strong pace.  During the first round, this wasn't much of a problem.  I was able to keep the calories per hour meter in quadruple digits for the most part.  (Note: 900 calories per hour would indicate that 30 calories was taking me 2 minutes, so 1,000+ meant less than 2 minutes of rowing.)  When my monitor showed 30 calories, I was back to taking on the wall balls.

I didn't show nearly as much resolve in my second encounter.  I wasn't breathing heavily when I got back to the wall, but my breathing wasn't under complete control like it was when I started the first round.  I made it through 7 or 8 reps before it became apparent that 30 in a row was not happening.  So I did 12 and then dropped.  I had so much success with my breathing in round one that I wanted a break to get it back under control.  This was probably the longest break I took in the workout.  When I started throwing the ball again, my brain got the idea that I could only handle 12 reps max at this point, so after rep 24, the ball dropped again.  Definitely could have shown more resolve there, although I took one of those "count down from 5 and get back on it" breaks before finishing the last 6 reps.  For round two on the rower, the calories per hour meter hung around the 900 mark, so it is likely that I was right around 2 minutes for the row.

Resolve breakdown #2: I should have gotten all 20 wall balls in the third round, but once my body latched on to the 12 reps and drop program, there was no going back.  Once again though, I didn't take a long break before picking the ball back up and finishing the last 8 reps.  The third row was very similar to the second row, likely taking up another 2 minutes.  As I got off the rower, I told myself that anything less than all 10 reps in this final set was unacceptable.  It ended up being a very easy set as I think my form was slightly better than it had been for most of the workout in terms of where I caught the ball before dropping into my squat.

Just 30 calories to go!  After settling in during the first few calories, I began to slowly accelerate until I hit around 12 calories.  Then it was give it everything you got and hope that everything you got is at least 18 calories.  The monitor showed quadruple digits again as I pulled as hard as I could, hoping to get 1 calorie per pull.  I wasn't that good, but I did get 1 calorie on most of those final pulls.  When calorie #120 registered on the monitor, I was done.  Final time: 13:45.

I could have shown more resolve in rounds two and three of the wall balls.  I probably could have found a little more energy during some of those rows.  But honestly, I was very happy with my time.  I'm not one of the stronger rowers in the gym and the majority of the workout was spent on the rower.  Could I have maybe trimmed my time down to around 13 minutes?  Possibly.  I'm not sure there is any way I could have gotten down in the 10-12 minute range that some people finished in today.  That is more of a cardio issue than anything.  Today's goal wasn't about time though, it was about getting 40 wall balls in a row.  I could have left after that set and been a happy man, so no complaints here about today's WOD.

While the next class did this workout, "Megs" and I worked on pull-ups.  "Megs" learned band math and did some negatives while showing off her guns.  (She claims that the sleeves of the shirt she was wearing naturally bunched up.  Uh huh.  Sure.)  I managed to string 8 kipping pull-ups together without stopping.  I tried the motorcycle re-grip again with no luck.  Samson and #keithie each gave me tips on improving my form.  Samson took video of me while I did some reps and pointed out that I was coming almost straight down when I pushed away from the bar. He told me that I needed to push away more from the top so that I come through more down at the bottom of the swing.  #keithie noticed that after a few reps I was not keeping my body in a tight hollow rock position.  As a result, I was beginning to draw my knees up, something I should not be doing.  So more stuff to work on, but at least pull-ups are slowly becoming less intimidating.

Thursday preview: The last Endurance class of the year.  Just when I finally started going!