On Wednesday I did a workout that didn't sound all that appealing to me and I actually did well. In order to maintain balance in the universe, I was going to need to get my butt kicked in a similarly non-appealing workout. And the universe does not like to be off-balance for long, despite allowing me to be lopsided for 37 years.
Thursday's workout was an 18 minute chipper that focused heavily on the arms. Here's a look at it:
AMRAP in 18 Minutes:
50 calorie row
40 KB swings (53/35)
30 push-ups
20 pull-ups
10 deficit ring rows (using 13" box)
Before we even warmed up, I was chatting with Chris about this workout and I gave him a prediction. Everyone knows how much I hate pull-ups. Push-ups I'm a bit more fond of. But having done workouts like this one in the past, I predicted that the push-ups would be the downfall in this WOD, not the pull-ups. There were only 30 of them, but I suspected that this would be the point where everyone's arms would fatigue much more than they might expect. (Okay, okay...maybe this only applied to me because I'm lacking arm strength, but it was possible that others might encounter the same issue.)
Warmups began with an ice breaker as Doctor Coach Sommelier VP Giulz asked us what our safe words were if we had one. I didn't realize that I had one just then, so my reply was the epically boring "don't have one". Then we went through each of the movements in the workout. The class was a large one with 11 people in it (seems to be the magic number these days for some strange reason), but this was not a workout conducive to a big class. Each athlete needed space for their rower, space to do KB swings, space to do push-ups, a spot on the rig to do pull-ups, and a spot on the rings for ring rows. Now add in that Open Strength was taking place in the gym as well as a fundamentals class for a new athlete and you have space issues. Space issues have been particularly problematic for me recently as I've been trying to use a high bar when doing pull-ups or toes-to-bar. Most people are using the low bars for these movements. Because of the alternating setup of low bars and high bars, and because you are swinging back and forth during these movements, using one high bar effectively takes away the space for using two low bars. And using one low bar takes away the space for using two high bars. With most people on low bars, you can see how there is very little high bar real estate available. This would be the case again during this workout.
I had set up shop at the near end of the gym where Jason was teaching the fundamentals class. I asked him if I was okay doing pull-ups on the high bar behind my rower and he said yes, as his student was going to be working one space over. Cool. Except when the workout started, I discovered that the student was doing lifts from the rack, which meant that one end of his barbell was sticking out underneath my high bar. No bueno. So some adjustments needed to be made on the fly.
But before getting to those dreaded pull-ups, there was plenty of other work that needed to be done. 3...2...1...and let the rowing begin! With 18 minutes of unpleasantness ahead of me, I had no intention of exhausting myself on the initial row. The plan was to make nice big pulls while keeping my breathing under control. I surprised myself at how quickly I was moving through the 50 calories. The coaches always tell you to try your best to get 1 calorie on each pull, but that's really ambitious for someone like myself. However, this was the first time where I did a long row and came close to making that happen. I was done with the 50 calories in about 2 and a half minutes when I was expecting it to take closer to 3 minutes. I got off of my rower about a second or two after Adam, who was working alongside of me.
Despite taking great care to control my breathing during the row, I immediately felt the effects of the first element of the workout when I went to swing the KB. My plan here was a set of 25 and a set of 15 for the 40 reps, but that fell apart when I needed to put the KB down after 12 swings. I did not want to have to break up the last 28 reps into 3 sets, so I knew I had to hold on a little better for the rest of the round. The next 14 reps were unpleasant, but I held on until they were complete. After a short break, I hung on for 14 more reps. Adam and I put down our KBs at the same time and got started on our push-ups together.
As predicted, this is where it fell apart. I started with a set of 10. Then I got a set of 7. I kept shaking out my arms while I took a rest in between sets. With 13 reps left, I was hoping to go 7 and 6, but I barely made it through 5 reps in my next set. Adam finished up his push-ups and moved on to his bar, as our in sync workouts came to an end here. I managed to get another set of 5, before completing my push-ups with a shaky set of 3. It was now time to find someplace to do pull-ups.
With the fundamentals athlete essentially blocking three of the high bars and Adam blocking two with where he was doing his pull-ups on the low bar, there was nowhere for me to go. I scanned the pull-up rig at the other end of the gym, but most of the folks in class had already begun their pull-ups and were using the low bars. I decided I could use the high bar to the right of Adam, but I would jump on it while he rested. If I had any luck, he would be done soon and I'd have that space to myself. It actually ended up working that way, but for a different reason. When Adam saw me do a couple of reps on the high bar to his right, he moved back one space to the open low bar there and completed his pull-ups at that station. Thanks for helping me out Adam!
My shoulders were feeling spent when I went to do singles on the pull-up bar. As people migrated to the rings, it was me and Alona left over at the pull-up rig. Alona was doing a much better job of stringing her reps, while I was doing a decent job of doing single after single until I completed sets of 4-5 reps. I finished off my 20th rep and headed to the rings while Alona followed right behind me. When we got over there, we were a bit lucky. There are only 8 stations over where the rings are located and 6 of them were in use. Alona and I grabbed the two empty stations and began doing the deficit ring rows. We only had to do 10, which didn't sound that bad, but my shoulders and arms were toast. If I was lucky, I'd get 2 in a set before having to come off the rings and reset my feet on the box again. I was very slow getting through these, reclaiming my traditional last place spot as I was the final person to get back to their rower for round two.
Approximately 13 minutes had elapsed when I got back on the rower. Despite pulling with more urgency than I had during the first round, I was only getting 1 calorie every two pulls. I was on the rower much longer this time around, getting these 50 calories in about three and a half minutes. That left a little over a minute left for the 40 KB swings. I knew I wasn't going to be able to complete all 40 in that amount of time. I did a set of 11 and then a set of 7 reps. As time ticked down, I picked up the KB one last time and got 7 more swings in before time was called. Final score: 1+75.
Not an awesome score by any means, but I wasn't bothered by my score in the end. This was a workout that I expected would be a struggle for me and it was. After a week in which I was pleasantly surprised by some of the results I had, it only made sense that I would eventually come back down to earth. And I'd rather it happen on a workout like this than one where I thought I'd do really well.
The Advent challenge involved scaling the peg board. I had attempted this once or twice before and I had gone nowhere. To get up the peg board, you hang from two pegs and then remove a peg and place it in the hole above the one where the peg was previously. Sounds simple enough, right? Except removing Excalibur from the stone seemed easier to me than getting one of these wooden pegs out of its hole. With my body weight pulling the pegs downward, they would not slide out, so I'd have to jerk them out, which would lead to me falling from the board. The members of our class went up one by one and tried out the peg board. Some were rock stars and climbed to the top or very close to it. Others made it up 2-3 holes for the first time ever. As for me, I didn't even want to attempt it again. I already knew I sucked at it and didn't require further validation. When Giulz and some of my classmates began to say "come on Dave, try it", it dawned on me that Dave was my safe word. Once Dave was said, the action stopped.
I may not have attempted it then, but after watching nearly everyone else go, I felt like a bum and tried it out. I had the same struggle that I had in the past and fell after removing the first peg. Then someone gave me a tip. I was holding my body up on the pegs, feeling that it was necessary to do it that way or I'd never reach the next hole higher up. But the folks who were successful getting up the board said I should try it with my arms fully extended, so that I was hanging low underneath the pegs. It would be harder to reach the next hole, but the peg should slide out more easily. And whaddaya know...it did! I had to lunge towards the next hole when I got the peg out, but I didn't immediately fall off the board like I had done in previous attempts. And I will admit it was a cool feeling when I got the peg into the next hole. Success! In fact, I managed to move up one more hole before failing on the third one. I didn't win any raffle tickets, but I left the gym feeling happy that I accomplished something new.
Friday preview: My final workout before heading on vacation. A 1RM hang power clean and jerk followed by....PISTOLS??? Christmas done come early.
I had set up shop at the near end of the gym where Jason was teaching the fundamentals class. I asked him if I was okay doing pull-ups on the high bar behind my rower and he said yes, as his student was going to be working one space over. Cool. Except when the workout started, I discovered that the student was doing lifts from the rack, which meant that one end of his barbell was sticking out underneath my high bar. No bueno. So some adjustments needed to be made on the fly.
But before getting to those dreaded pull-ups, there was plenty of other work that needed to be done. 3...2...1...and let the rowing begin! With 18 minutes of unpleasantness ahead of me, I had no intention of exhausting myself on the initial row. The plan was to make nice big pulls while keeping my breathing under control. I surprised myself at how quickly I was moving through the 50 calories. The coaches always tell you to try your best to get 1 calorie on each pull, but that's really ambitious for someone like myself. However, this was the first time where I did a long row and came close to making that happen. I was done with the 50 calories in about 2 and a half minutes when I was expecting it to take closer to 3 minutes. I got off of my rower about a second or two after Adam, who was working alongside of me.
Despite taking great care to control my breathing during the row, I immediately felt the effects of the first element of the workout when I went to swing the KB. My plan here was a set of 25 and a set of 15 for the 40 reps, but that fell apart when I needed to put the KB down after 12 swings. I did not want to have to break up the last 28 reps into 3 sets, so I knew I had to hold on a little better for the rest of the round. The next 14 reps were unpleasant, but I held on until they were complete. After a short break, I hung on for 14 more reps. Adam and I put down our KBs at the same time and got started on our push-ups together.
As predicted, this is where it fell apart. I started with a set of 10. Then I got a set of 7. I kept shaking out my arms while I took a rest in between sets. With 13 reps left, I was hoping to go 7 and 6, but I barely made it through 5 reps in my next set. Adam finished up his push-ups and moved on to his bar, as our in sync workouts came to an end here. I managed to get another set of 5, before completing my push-ups with a shaky set of 3. It was now time to find someplace to do pull-ups.
With the fundamentals athlete essentially blocking three of the high bars and Adam blocking two with where he was doing his pull-ups on the low bar, there was nowhere for me to go. I scanned the pull-up rig at the other end of the gym, but most of the folks in class had already begun their pull-ups and were using the low bars. I decided I could use the high bar to the right of Adam, but I would jump on it while he rested. If I had any luck, he would be done soon and I'd have that space to myself. It actually ended up working that way, but for a different reason. When Adam saw me do a couple of reps on the high bar to his right, he moved back one space to the open low bar there and completed his pull-ups at that station. Thanks for helping me out Adam!
My shoulders were feeling spent when I went to do singles on the pull-up bar. As people migrated to the rings, it was me and Alona left over at the pull-up rig. Alona was doing a much better job of stringing her reps, while I was doing a decent job of doing single after single until I completed sets of 4-5 reps. I finished off my 20th rep and headed to the rings while Alona followed right behind me. When we got over there, we were a bit lucky. There are only 8 stations over where the rings are located and 6 of them were in use. Alona and I grabbed the two empty stations and began doing the deficit ring rows. We only had to do 10, which didn't sound that bad, but my shoulders and arms were toast. If I was lucky, I'd get 2 in a set before having to come off the rings and reset my feet on the box again. I was very slow getting through these, reclaiming my traditional last place spot as I was the final person to get back to their rower for round two.
Approximately 13 minutes had elapsed when I got back on the rower. Despite pulling with more urgency than I had during the first round, I was only getting 1 calorie every two pulls. I was on the rower much longer this time around, getting these 50 calories in about three and a half minutes. That left a little over a minute left for the 40 KB swings. I knew I wasn't going to be able to complete all 40 in that amount of time. I did a set of 11 and then a set of 7 reps. As time ticked down, I picked up the KB one last time and got 7 more swings in before time was called. Final score: 1+75.
Not an awesome score by any means, but I wasn't bothered by my score in the end. This was a workout that I expected would be a struggle for me and it was. After a week in which I was pleasantly surprised by some of the results I had, it only made sense that I would eventually come back down to earth. And I'd rather it happen on a workout like this than one where I thought I'd do really well.
The Advent challenge involved scaling the peg board. I had attempted this once or twice before and I had gone nowhere. To get up the peg board, you hang from two pegs and then remove a peg and place it in the hole above the one where the peg was previously. Sounds simple enough, right? Except removing Excalibur from the stone seemed easier to me than getting one of these wooden pegs out of its hole. With my body weight pulling the pegs downward, they would not slide out, so I'd have to jerk them out, which would lead to me falling from the board. The members of our class went up one by one and tried out the peg board. Some were rock stars and climbed to the top or very close to it. Others made it up 2-3 holes for the first time ever. As for me, I didn't even want to attempt it again. I already knew I sucked at it and didn't require further validation. When Giulz and some of my classmates began to say "come on Dave, try it", it dawned on me that Dave was my safe word. Once Dave was said, the action stopped.
I may not have attempted it then, but after watching nearly everyone else go, I felt like a bum and tried it out. I had the same struggle that I had in the past and fell after removing the first peg. Then someone gave me a tip. I was holding my body up on the pegs, feeling that it was necessary to do it that way or I'd never reach the next hole higher up. But the folks who were successful getting up the board said I should try it with my arms fully extended, so that I was hanging low underneath the pegs. It would be harder to reach the next hole, but the peg should slide out more easily. And whaddaya know...it did! I had to lunge towards the next hole when I got the peg out, but I didn't immediately fall off the board like I had done in previous attempts. And I will admit it was a cool feeling when I got the peg into the next hole. Success! In fact, I managed to move up one more hole before failing on the third one. I didn't win any raffle tickets, but I left the gym feeling happy that I accomplished something new.
Friday preview: My final workout before heading on vacation. A 1RM hang power clean and jerk followed by....PISTOLS??? Christmas done come early.
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