Not 92, But 50

Workout date: 12/15/15

I got a personal training day on Tuesday!  Okay, not really, but I was the only one who signed up for the 7:30 class, so Coach Rachel was stuck dealing with only me.  In a normal class, coaches can at least walk around and witness some decent form being displayed by athletes not named Dave.  But poor Rachel had to yell cues at me for the better part of a half-hour because there were no other students to be found.  And I bled on stuff.  We'll get there.

The WOD on Tuesday was purely strength.  We were doing sumo deadlifts.  This used to be a lift that I didn't particularly enjoy because it always felt strange standing in a sumo stance picking up large amounts of weight.  The tradeoff for your funky stance during the sumo deadlift is that you don't have to lift the weight as high.  I had a good experience with sumo deadlifts the last time I did them.  In that WOD, we were finding a 2 rep max and somehow I was able to get two reps at 385 pounds.  That made me believe that 395 was possible this evening.  The setup was two sets of 5 reps, then 3 sets of 3 reps, before finishing off with 2 attempts at a big 1 rep number.

Despite having only 75 pounds on the barbell, my form was dreadful right from the start.  Hips up, neutral gaze, shoulders back, keep the barbell close to your body at all times...these were all cues that Rachel had to say to me over and over again.  I was still a work in progress when I did my final warmup set at 135.  Rachel asked me to pause before starting my sets so that she could make sure my setup for the lift was correct.  Inevitably she would need to correct a few things before I got started each time.  What can I say?  I'm a slow learner.

As for the sumo deadlifts, I did have some initial success.  I did 5 reps at 225 and 275.  Then I did a set of 3 at 305 that was probably my best of the evening in terms of keeping proper form.  My form was so good that the barbell stayed extremely close to my legs the entire time.  How close is that?  Bloody shin close.  (Note: I made sure to wipe down the barbell I was using after the workout was over.)  I wasn't 100 percent sure how I wanted to proceed from there.  I knew that I wanted my two single reps to be at 375 and 395.  I felt like I needed my last set of 3 to be at 355, but that was seeming really aggressive as I progressed through my lifts.  I may have had good form during my set at 305, but the weight still felt heavy.  I decided to try 330 next and, if that wasn't a mess, I'd try out 355.  For the set at 330, I was a little slow getting the bar moving, but once I did, I was able to get all 3 reps.  Based on that set, I thought 355 was definitely worth a try.

While taking a break before the next set, Rachel and I started talking about the caption contest from yesterday's workout and I told her how disturbed I was that people think I'm doing math during the workouts.  I get why they would think that, but it is still pretty bad that people think I am that much of a nerd.  Rachel jokingly threw out a math problem for me and asked what the answer was.  When I instantly answered "92", she had a shocked look on her face.  Perhaps I am that much of a nerd.  Rachel insisted that I scream "92" if I completed the lift at 395.  Sounded like a small price to pay for getting a PR, so I agreed to the stipulation.

After taking a couple of minutes to recover from the lift at 330, I got ready to take on 355.  I got the bar moving and completed the first rep.  Then I did the second rep, but I got very shaky.  This was a lot of weight for me and I was feeling it.  I tried not to let my body get loose as I went to tap the floor after the second rep.  After letting the barbell kiss the ground, I pulled as hard as I could and got that third rep.  It was a struggle, but I was happy to get 355.

Sadly, that would be the end of the positive sumo deadlift mojo.  I added twenty pounds to my bar to do 1 rep at 375.  Really didn't think this lift would be much of an issue.  Boy was I wrong.  First attempt: fail.  Second attempt: fail.  I took some time to regroup before making a third attempt.  Third attempt: fail.  I'm not sure why my body shut down all of a sudden, but it seemed to think I was done after the 3 reps at 355.  Rachel suggested taking some weight off the bar, which I did begrudgingly.  Even that was no help, as my one attempt at 365 went nowhere.  It was a little disappointing, but I don't practice deadlifts nearly as much as I should.  When I start putting in the work, the PR will come.  But for tonight...final score: 355.

There was still reason for optimism though.  I legitimately thought my last real chance at winning one of the Advent challenges had come and gone with my screwed up performance on the rope climbs last week.  That was until I saw what was in store for day 15.  One of my remaining goals for the year was to string 50 consecutive wall balls.  I had made it as high as 44 last month, but 50 had eluded me.  So when I saw that the Advent challenge was 50 wall balls for time, I knew I had to do it.  The bad part?  Ninja Pete had put up a time of 1:34 in one of the morning classes.  That seemed really fast.  At the very least, I knew I had to string all 50 reps to have a shot.  I felt a little better about my chances when Matt B told me at the end of the 6:30 class that his time of 1:55 involved breaking the wall balls into 3 sets, while Ryan A's time of 1:45 came from a set of 35 and a set of 15.  Don't drop the ball and you've got a shot, Dave.

Rachel initially wanted to do this one at a time, and since I was still sweaty from the sumo deadlifts, I told her that she should go first.  The top female coach time was 1:29 by Aimee.  Wall balls tend to go smoother for taller athletes and Rachel is taller than Aimee, so I thought she could beat that time.  The caveat once again was holding on through all 50 reps.  Rachel got going and looked very smooth for the first 30 reps.  It isn't that she didn't look smooth after that point, but I became preoccupied with looking back and forth between her and the clock as she neared the end of her set.  As she got to her final 10 reps, she seemed to be doing a rep every 2 seconds.  With 5 reps to go, the clock read 1:19.  I started yelling "quick, quick, quick, quick" at her and she responded by finishing the last 5 reps in 9 seconds.  Rachel's final time of 1:28 was raffle ticket worthy.

As for me, I suddenly had a bad feeling I was going to blow this.  I have gotten much better with wall balls, especially as far as my breathing is concerned, but this seemed like one of those too good to be situations where the stars seemed aligned for me, only to have storm clouds roll in and cover them up.  My pessimism went away once I got started though.  I was moving swiftly, throwing the ball at the wall with some force so that it would return to me quicker.  The clock was right above me, but there was no way I was taking my eye off the ball to look at it.  I got to 25 reps and still felt good.  As I got to 35 reps, the reps became tougher, but I knew if I got to 40, I was doing everything in my power to finish the last 10.  As I hit the low 40s, I began to struggle as the ball wasn't going as high as it had been up to this point.  Rachel told me to keep the ball above the line and I knew it was time to start jumping on each throw.  After the 47th rep, I needed to jump really high just to get the ball over the line.  There were no style points at the end, but I got all 50 reps in without dropping the ball.  Final time: 1:37.

Was it a little bit of a bummer to string all of the wall balls and not win the challenge for the day?  Yeah it was.  But that feeling went away fairly quickly.  Getting 50 consecutive wall balls was one more thing that I could cross off of my 2015 goals.  Hard for me to hang my head on any day I'm able to do that.

Wednesday preview: It doesn't look like my type of workout, but I'm going anyway.  Strict handstand push-ups, box jumps, and a mile run for the Advent challenge.