Demo Guy

Workout dates: 1/7/16 and 1/8/16

Who was the most excited person in the gym when pistols were listed among the skills we'll be practicing every 3 months as part of the 2016 benchmark series at KOP?  Yup, the guy who likes all the weird stuff.  On Thursday, we had some skill work with pistols followed by a cash out that featured tons of pistols.  Assuming you could do strict handstand push-ups.  And it turns out that my ability to do strict handstand push-ups varies greatly from day to day.

Before all that though, we had some strength work to complete.  The first part of the WOD required us to find a 3RM push press.  Last year, a 2RM push press was scheduled a few times, so I never really tested out whether or not I could get that third rep.  I managed 195 pounds for two reps, but that was a minor miracle.  It was tough enough getting two reps at 185.  I'm not exactly sure what my best 3RM for push press was prior to Thursday, but I knew for certain that I had never done 3 reps at 185 before.  So if I could get 3 reps at 185, it would be a new PR for me.  Am I giving away too much too soon?  Don't worry, I'll draw out the story.

With 13 people in attendance for the 6:30 class, we needed to partner up due to the limited rack space.  Generally the most important consideration in choosing a partner for a strength workout like this is choosing someone who is about the same height as you (so you don't have to move the rack height) and Erik fit the bill.  Having not worked out with Erik a lot, I wasn't sure how much weight he was going to want on the barbell.  I talked about warming up at 95 pounds and then going to 135 to begin the real lifts, but Erik seemed to hesitate when responding about how he felt using 135.  That surprised me as he looked like he could handle quite a bit more than 135.  I'm not sure if he had some initial jitters or if I simply misinterpreted his response, but he ended up following the same pattern as me, warming up with 95 and then completing the first set with 135.

After that, we diverged.  I felt good about going up to 155, while Erik took a smaller jump to 145 instead.  We were both successful there, so we each made similar-sized jumps to our next weight, with Erik advancing 10 pounds to 155, while I advanced 20 pounds to 175.  155 would be the first bump in the road for Erik, although he was successful with the weight during his second attempt.  175 was considerably tougher for me than 155, especially that first rep when I was just trying to get going.  But as is the case with me when I do deadlifts, once I have the barbell in motion, things go alright from there.  Made it through 175 on my first attempt.

Erik and I made one more 10 pound increase to our barbells.  My first attempt at 185 was a complete disaster.  Not sure whether I forgot to move my head or what the deal was, but I started to arc the barbell out away from me before trying to press it over my head.  That may be the worst possible way to push press.  Didn't even get one rep.  Erik had a similar issue with his first attempt at 165 as he barely got started on his first rep before needing to drop the barbell.  I took a second shot at my goal weight, keeping in mind that I shouldn't duplicate any part of my first attempt at 185.  Got the first rep, got the second rep, and...got about half of the third rep.  My arms buckled as I tried to press out the final rep and the barbell came crashing down.  That sucked.

With time winding down for the strength portion of the WOD, Erik decided that he would try 165 one more time.  And he made it look pretty easy.  Once that first rep was out of the way, he methodically took care of the other two before putting the barbell back on the rack.  I was torn about going again after my arms went to jello on the third rep of my previous attempt, but watching Erik confidently destroy 165 pounds made me want to give it one more try.  Plus, Erik had told me that I was almost strict pressing during try #2.  (Translation: take a bigger dip and use those legs more, dummy!)  That is exactly what I did.  I took the barbell off the rack, took a bigger dip, and drove upwards like I was trying to throw the barbell at the ceiling.  The third rep was still a little shaky, but I had driven the barbell high enough that it didn't require a huge press out.  185 was a success and I had a new 3RM push press PR.

Screw all that stuff, let's do some pistols!  As we circled around getting ready to practice pistols, Doctor Coach Sommelier VP Giulz asked me if I could do strict handstand push-ups.  I replied "with two abmats", which was enough to get her seal of approval.  She told me I would be the demo guy for the cash out.  Being the demo guy for pistols was a piece of cake.  Slow pistols, fast pistols, hunched over pistols...I was more than happy to demonstrate how those were done.  I was a little more tentative about flipping upside down and showing off my handstand push-ups.  I was able to do a few for the class, but those things always come and go.  In fact, I'd experience how quickly they come and go in just a few minutes.

Everyone set up an area to do their cash out.  Many people grabbed boxes so that they could do a pistol scale where you sit on the box for just a moment to mimic the pistol movement.  Others grabbed dumbbells as the scale for strict handstand push-ups was seated DB presses.  The cash out looked like so:

AMRAP in 7 minutes
10 pistols (5R/5L)
5 strict handstand push-ups

Now I had recently done a cash-out at the noon Express class where we were doing 10 box jumps and 5 strict handstand push-ups.  I got through 10 rounds of that, meaning I completed 50 strict handstand push-ups.  If I could duplicate that here, I could have a huge score, since I expected I would be completing the pistols quickly.  And that still looked like that might be the case when I finished my second round and looked at the clock to see 1:05.  Could I get 10 rounds again?  Or maybe more?

In a word: nay.  I knew from the start that my handstand push-ups were not as fluid as they had been in that earlier cash out.  After completing my third round of pistols, I discovered that they were not only no longer fluid, they simply no longer existed.  I tried 4 times to do the handstand push-ups, but my T-Rex like arms failed me.  Knowing that I was going to be stuck at this point unless I changed things up, I ran down to the other end of the gym and grabbed a pair of 35# dumbbells.  From that point forward, I did seated DB presses.  I may have been rattled by this failure, as I began to struggle on some of my pistols as well.  That third round had absorbed more than two minutes of the cash out and now I was trying to play catch up.  Instead I was going too fast and messing things up.  With 30 seconds left, I finished my 6th round.  I immediately tried to bang out a bunch of fast pistols, but I had to pause after 6 reps.  After a quick shake of the legs, I completed the final 4 reps, a few seconds before time was up.  Final score: 6+10.

Not exactly what I was hoping for, but this once again proves how important it is that I develop something that could be confused for arm muscles.  Speaking of things that need development, I saved my double under practice for after the WOD.  Cline was working on his as well, but he's pretty solid in that department.  Whereas I might get a big set every so often, Cline is much more consistent in churning out meaningful sets.  He was working on doing 5 sets of 50 double unders with 1 minute rest in between and I believe he did the first 50 unbroken.  Meanwhile, I was next to him, slowly getting frustrated as most of my sets were ending in the 5-15 rep range.  Eventually I did a set that crept into the 30s.  I took a seat for a couple of minutes to rest, but then got back up to try again.  I needed another big set.  After a couple of botched attempts where I didn't get more than 1 rep, I finally got into a rhythm.  10, 20, 30...40!  As I hit 40 reps, I noticed I was jumping higher, a telltale sign of fatigue.  But I couldn't mess up now.  Only 10 more and I would hit 50 for the first time.  There was some ugly clomping around, but soon I had completed the 50th rep.  Followed by three more.  53 was my new PR on double unders.  As I collapsed to the floor, I wondered how in the world I was ever going to string 100 in a row, given that I was so tired after 53.  Practice, practice.

Friday preview: No Friday preview!  I went to the gym for Open Strength on Friday, but ended up spending most of my time working with Fayth and Steph C as they prepared for the Girls on Girls competition.  Steph is now a double under machine!  I did practice snatches (foreshadowing: something that would be very helpful on Monday), double unders, toes-to-bar, and push-ups.  But I didn't get in enough work to write a blog post about it.  So it ends up as a blurb at the end of the Thursday post.

Saturday preview: A very tough Competitors Class, but I hang in there.  For the most part.