Burpees Are Push-Ups In Disguise

Workout date: 2/23/16

Monday was a good time for my buddy's farewell happy hour because I would have been pretty useless at the gym.  The WOD included finding a 1RM clean and jerk, then a cash out with very tall box jumps and rope climbs.  On a typical day, that would have been a workout that I probably would have enjoyed quite a bit.  But the workouts from Friday through Sunday left me sore to the point of being in pain.  Monday's WOD could have been "get free ice cream if your name is Dave" and I still would have skipped it.  I simply would not have had enough strength to hold on to a cone or a dish.

I wasn't 100% yet when I came back to the gym on Tuesday night for Dudes After Dark, but I wasn't in pain either, so I thought I'd give the WOD a shot.  The first half of the WOD was skill work as we went through a series of progressions for the muscle-up.  Then the metcon was 5 rounds of 5 muscle-ups (or the most appropriate scale) and 20 burpees.  100 burpees didn't sound great, but as was the case with the workout on Sunday, it was something I thought I could grind my way through.

Dudes After Dark was once again crashed by Julie and Michal, making me wonder whether they were trying to become full-fledged members of our fraternity.  (Perhaps they're starting Sisters After Sunset?)  The lineup of guys included myself, Cline, Matt E, and Mike Rot (because there are two Mike R's now, this was how he was recently listed on the blog).  Mike Rot is a two-time graduate of KOP on-ramp classes, but New Year, New You may have gotten him hooked on joining KOP for good.  The six of us headed over to the rings where Coach Rachel walked us through different ring dip holds, transitions from the floor, and jumping muscle-ups.  Even though Michal has done a muscle-up and I've made attempts at muscle-ups, we weren't going beyond the jumping muscle-up in terms of practice.  Michal and I decided to do jumping muscle-ups for the workout, while the rest of the class would do a pull-up/banded dip hybrid for their scale.

I'll try my best to walk you through the play-by-play of the workout, but I'll warn you in advance that this WOD became a blur quickly.  And there wasn't a whole lot of variation between rounds, so I'm not sure you'll get much out of a detailed description of what went down.  The first round of jumping muscle-ups wasn't too bad.  I had moved my rings up to a higher point than I had used for most of the warm-up, so these were intended to be difficult.  Rachel asked me right before we started if I was good with jumping muscle-ups and I said yes, although I added the most I had ever done in a workout was 21 and this WOD required 25.  I just assumed I'd be able to find 4 more reps within me even if I got tired.  Rachel did warn us in advance about how bad the jumping muscle-ups got after the burpees, but it didn't register until I began my first round of burpees.

Why were the burpees so bad?  Sure, doing 20 in a row knocks the wind out of you a bit, but that wasn't the reason why.  No, the reason this was such a deadly combination with the jumping muscle-up is because burpees are push-ups in disguise.  If this workout was written as 5 rounds of 5 muscle-ups and 20 push-ups, I would have strongly considered finding something else to do with my Tuesday evening.  That just sounds awful.  I'm not someone who loves burpees, but at least they sounded more like a cardio segment that broke up the jumping muscle-ups.  Wrong, wrong, wrong.  Every time my chest hit the deck, I needed to push up out of that position.  And each of those push-ups took a little more energy out of my triceps.  I don't have particularly strong triceps to begin with and I needed that energy to dip out of the transition when finishing my jumping muscle-ups.  Once your dips go, it is extremely hard to get them back.  I hadn't been sure if I could do 25 jumping muscle-ups fresh.  But with taxed triceps?  I was in deep doo-doo.

I moved through the first round of 20 burpees at a decent pace and I was still with the rest of the class as I began round two.  Rounds two through five all followed the same pattern for me.  I did 5 very slow jumping muscle-ups, needing to shake my arms out after each attempt.  Along with the 5 successful attempts, I had 1 attempt per round where I got through the transition, but could not dip all the way out of that position.  I think I also had an unsuccessful attempt along the way where I didn't even make it into the transition.  Once I realized that dipping out of the transition was no guarantee, I began to take more rest between attempts, shaking my arms out in the hope that I would not waste energy with a failed rep.  Everyone else had made a lot of progress in their second round of burpees when I completed my second round of jumping muscle-ups.

Having expended a lot of energy on the rings and not wanting to burn out my triceps during the burpees, I began moving slowly through the burpees as well.  I started off rounds two through four with a set of about 6-8, before needing to break up my reps into smaller sets (usually two).  I could look at the floor and gauge how much sweat was pouring off of me, another barometer of how exhausted I was becoming.  My fear of being lapped was something I was trying to use as fuel to keep me moving.  There would definitely be some pity circle action this evening, but if I could limit it to the final round of burpees, it wouldn't be too bad.  Having people yell at me as I struggled through my final jumping muscle-ups would be less desirable.

As I went through round three of jumping muscle-ups, I saw a couple others complete their third round of burpees and move on to round four.  I was about to be lapped, but there wasn't much I could do in terms of speed on the jumping muscle-ups.  If I didn't take my time, I was just going to fail on the next rep.  I began my third round of burpees as a few others wrapped up their third round.  I was starting to lose some time on my burpees as well, but nothing good was going to come from rushing through those.  I needed to be able to breathe and have some energy in my triceps if I was finishing 10 more jumping muscle-ups.

Round four was exactly like round three, only everyone in the class had moved ever closer to lapping me.  As I got through the final few burpees in the penultimate round, Julie completed her workout.  Mike Rot, Cline, and Michal were in hot pursuit.  Matt was not going to lap me, but he had a sizable head start on round 5 when I finally got back to my rings.  I got through 3 jumping muscle-ups before those who had finished began giving me encouragement.  Every jumping muscle-up attempt sucked big time, but they sucked so much worse when I couldn't dip all the way out.  But my mental approach at this point was that the last few jumping muscle-ups would mark the end of the misery in this workout.  I was going for broke when I got to the burpees.

When I finished the last jumping muscle-up, I was the only one still working.  No longer needing to conserve tricep strength for the jumping muscle-ups, I attacked the remaining burpees.  Wasn't sure if I could finish all 20 going rapid fire, but I was going to give it a whirl.  I tried to breathe as I threw my body down to the floor and bounced back up over and over again.  I made it to about 13 reps before I noticed I wasn't taking in as much oxygen as I would like.  I was too close to the end to stop though.  Seven more times I hit the deck, then jumped up and clapped.  Final time: 18:42.

I tend to sit on the floor a lot after workouts, but I try not to lay on my back after it is all over.  I had to make an exception after the burpee barrage I went on to conclude this WOD.  I was exhausted and just needed to lay there for a minute.  Overall, I was happy with the workout.  It was a tough one for me, but I managed to get through all of the jumping muscle-ups, plus I had a strong finish.

That was it for Dudes After Dark.  Now a quick Open preview.  The Open officially begins on Thursday night, although the spectacle each week at KOP will take place the day after the workout is announced.  Friday Night Lights will run each week from 4:30 on and with 103 people signed up at our gym, there will be non-stop action for hours.  Here are my random predictions for the Open as well as my personal goals:

• Winners of the team competition: Tequila Sunrise
• Top individual in the gym: Gordy Jamieson
• Movement that will almost certainly show up in 16.1: Double unders
• Reason: We had a lot of double under volume last week, plus Annie will be programmed sometime this week.  16.1 would be the worst time for double unders to show up in an Open workout, so naturally they will.
• Movement that will show up in 16.2: Bench press
• Reason: This is the hyped "garage gym" workout.  And what movement exemplifies working out in your garage more than the bench press?
• Movement that will show up in this year's Open that has not previously been programmed: Pistols
• Reason: A man can dream.  This likely won't happen, but I can't get through the Open thinking that all 5 workouts will suck.  I'd love to see rope climbs, but pistols seem like the safer bet in terms of "new movements that Dave would like".
• Personal goal #1 for 2016 Open: Feel good about my performance in 3 of the 5 workouts
• Personal goal #2 for 2016 Open: Crack the top 35 in the gym in the individual standings

Wednesday preview: Not psyched about doing tons of pull-ups, but it seems inevitable.  With plans to rest on Thursday, this should be my last workout before the Open craziness begins.

Twenty Minute Workout

Workout date: 2/21/16

Doing the WOD on Sunday was likely not one of my wisest decisions.  The workout on Friday had left me sore for Saturday.  So I showed up on Saturday and made myself even more sore (sorer?).  Sunday was the opportune time to take a rest day.  Except I was almost certain that I wouldn't be able to make it to the gym on Monday and taking two rest days in a row is sacrilege.  The workout on Sunday looked horrible as it was filled with movements that I struggle with, but it seemed like a WOD that I could grind my way through and still be alright.  Here's what it looked like:

Sunday WOD:
800 meter run
42 KB swings (55/35)
21 pull-ups
400 meter run
30 KB swings
15 pull-ups
200 meter run
18 KB swings
9 pull-ups

The only part of that WOD that didn't sound awful to me was the run, but it has been a while since we've done a lot of running in a workout due to the wintry weather.  Part of our warm-up ended up being an 800 meter run, which I was grateful for because it got rid of any doubts I had about a half-mile run out of the blue inducing cardiac arrest.  Adding to my comfort was the knowledge that I wasn't going to have to blaze through Bridgeport during these runs, as they were clearly the recovery phase of this workout.  Running good, rest of workout bad.

The KB swings were a concern because they tend to tire me out quicker than they tire out other people (probably due to bad form on my part).  With my forearms and shoulders still feeling the burn from earlier in the weekend, there was no part of me that was excited about having to perform 90 KB swings.  My hope was that I could hang in there and complete each of the three rounds of KB swings in two sets.  Obviously that would be tougher earlier on, but my logic was that I would be fresher earlier on as well, which would even things out.

As for the pull-ups...well, those have fallen apart again, at least as far as my ability to string reps is concerned.  This is what happens when you don't practice them regularly.  I had very low expectations on how I was going to do on the pull-up bar.  I figured this would be where everyone passed me.  My goal was not to fall too far behind the class as I tried to get these done.

There were 10 of us in class and Doctor Coach Sommelier VP Giulz sent us out to the barrier to get started with the 800 meter run.  As I walked past Giulz, I told her this was gonna be a twenty minute workout and she replied "yeah, I'm afraid so".  My remark wasn't meant to indicate that it would take everyone twenty minutes to do the workout.  The 9:00 class proved that wasn't the case as all of their times were in the 13-17 minute range.  No, I was only speaking for myself.  Let's stay within 3 minutes of the class and I'll chalk it up as a win.

I've grown used to Cline leading the class whenever we do a run, but we had some other strong runners in class on Sunday.  Kyle used to do some of our Endurance classes with a weight vest on and still beat most of us during the runs.  Laura P didn't name her son Miles for nothing.  Her and Coach Tim have done tons of running while preparing for triathlons.  So it wasn't all that surprising to see Kyle and Laura lead the way on the first run, with Kyle setting a very fast pace for the group.  Cline was behind those two, while Alona and I jogged along behind him.  As we got back into the gym, I grabbed my KB and hoped for the best.  I didn't have a set number in mind.  Rather, it was more like a range.  That first set of KB swings wasn't feeling too bad, so I made it all the way through 24 swings before putting my KB down.  That was a good set for me all things considered.  The next set? Not so much.  I could tell I wasn't going to get through the remaining 18 reps, so I stopped after 10, thinking that was a nice split of what I had left.  After one more break, I picked up the KB and completed reps 35-42.  On to the pull-up bar.

I didn't think my first round of KB swings was that bad, but it seemed like everyone had moved on to the pull-up bar as I moved over there.  I wasn't expecting to lose time to the class until I got to the pull-up bar.  Uh oh.  I started off with three sets of 2 reps before realizing that it was going to be singles the rest of the way.  I could have called them fast singles, but on this day, that would have really been stretching the truth.  I would try to do three singles in a row before breaking, but it was obvious that I was not moving quickly.  One by one, the other members of the class headed out for their second run, while I slowly chipped away at my pull-ups.  Eventually I got through rep #21 and headed back out the door.

Shortly after I went out the door, Laura P went blazing by me.  Yes, once again, I was getting lapped in a three-round workout.  Go me.  Twenty minutes was supposed to be a conservative goal for myself on this WOD, but now I wasn't so sure.  I came back from the 400 meter run and got to work on the KB swings, knowing I needed to get moving.  I did 20 reps to start off, then took care of the last 10 reps in set #2.  Not too bad.  Until I got back to the pull-up bar.  Sets of three singles, try to keep the breaks to a minimum.  I saw most of the class leave for their third run.  I saw most of the class return from their third run.  I wish there was a way I could have done those pull-ups faster, but my arms had very little strength left in them.  It was a shock that I wasn't no-repping during those sets.  Every now and then I looked at the clock and it was telling me a story that I didn't want to hear: twenty minutes probably wasn't happening.

I forgot to look at the clock when I finished my 15th pull-up.  I dropped from the bar and tried to hurry out the door.  While running the 200 meters, I thought to myself that if I got back with about two and a half minutes remaining, I could finish in under twenty minutes.  So I wasn't brimming with enthusiasm when I got back to my KB, looked up at the clock and saw 18:15 staring back at me.  Crap.  There was only one way I could crack twenty minutes now.  I began to swing the KB and had only completed a few reps when the cries of "don't put that down!" began coming from the members of the class who were done with the WOD.  I knew I could get about 12, but the remainder was going to require lots of unfortunate grunting.  The grunting commenced and I held on all the way through rep #18.  Halfway through the final sprint.

As I got to the pull-up bar, there was less than a minute to go.  In a perfect world, I could have done three sets of three singles, following the routine I had used in rounds one and two.  But that was not going to get me under my self-imposed twenty minute time cap.  This needed to be a legit set of nine fast singles.  One by one, I swung on the bar and elevated my chin over the top of it.  After three reps I was ready for my break, but I kept going.  By 5 reps, I wanted to stop and shake out my arms, but I kept going.  By 7 reps, I was determined not to stop, despite feeling really lousy in that moment.  As I got my chin over the bar for the final time, I looked over at the clock.  Final time: 19:49.

I had made it!  Hooray for small victories, I guess.  I was proud of myself for the final push, but the rest of the workout left a lot to be desired.  At the time, I was happy that I came in and got the workout done instead of staying home and doing nothing.  But the next day, I was incredibly sore and had second thoughts about how smart it was for me to do a heavy shoulder/arm workout when that part of me was throbbing in pain to begin with.  I did rest on Monday, but I'm not sure how things will go on Tuesday night at Dudes After Dark.

I did stick around for a little bit after the WOD to root Lindsey on as she deadlifted.  Then I watched Cline devotedly work on double unders, so I grabbed my rope and got some practice in as well.  Did a set of hand release push-ups (they are part of WOD #1 for the Festivus Games).  And then I packed my bag and headed home.

Tuesday preview: How will my shoulders and arms respond to muscle-up practice and burpees?  Plus, a preview of the 2016 Open.

Forearms On Fire

Workout date: 2/20/16

I knew I was going to go to the gym on Saturday, but I wasn't sure when I was going because I had three different options as far as workouts went.  I could get up very early and head to Competitors Class at 7am.  I could go to the Open Efficiency Class at 9am, featuring Open workout 14.1, the first Open workout that I ever did.  Or I could go at 11am and test out a couple of the WODs for this April's Festivus Games.  The easiest option to eliminate was Competitors.  Less sleep plus a two-hour workout?  Clearly that was the least appealing option of the three.  However, choosing between the other two options was difficult.  14.1 was essentially my Open baseline and I was very interested in seeing what my score would be if I tried it again.  And 14.1 meant doing a lot of double unders, something recent workouts had shown I needed practice with.

In the end, I decided to put off that test for another day.  The group that is doing the Festivus Games had already run through two of the four workouts for the competition and I felt that it was not in my best interest to miss out on practicing the other two.  Cline, Shawna, "Megs", and Danielle were going to be there at 11 to take on the Floater WOD and WOD #3 and I would be joining them.  Okay, it was more like 11:07 when I got there, but there is something about taking a long shower on the weekend that sucks me in and causes me to lose all track of time.  It's a miracle that I turn up to the gym at all on a weekend.

Here's a look at the WODs we would be trying out:

Floater WOD:
In 3 minutes, complete a 20 calorie row, then use the remaining time to accumulate as many total pounds on the bench press as possible.  Total pounds is calculated as barbell weight times total reps completed.  The athlete chooses their own barbell weight.

WOD #3:
In 8 minutes, complete the following series of movements, then use the remaining time to do burpees over the bar.  The athlete receives two scores, one for the time it took to complete the series of movements and one for the number of burpees over the bar completed.

12-9-6-3
Sumo deadlift high pulls (115/75)
Hang power cleans (115/75)
Shoulder-to-overhead (115/75)

Wait a second...I was doing a 3 minute WOD followed by an 8 minute WOD?  Hadn't I just done a 3 minute WOD followed by an 8 minute WOD not 24 hours ago?  And wasn't my 38th birthday this past Tuesday?  Seems like way too much of a coincidence.  (Note: I was completely terrified that the Sunday WOD would be a 38 minute AMRAP.  Thankfully it was not.)

We started off with the floater WOD and because we only had two benches available (and because I showed up late), I ended up doing this one by myself as the lone member of heat #3.  I decided to go with 75 pounds because using only the barbell (45 pounds) seemed like I was going too light.  This is the type of WOD I'm bound to mess up because it is all about numbers and proper planning, something I have failed miserably with in my Crossfit career.  Luckily I have over two months to plan this WOD out, so I shouldn't be too far off of the optimal weight once April comes around.

I surprised myself with how quickly I got through the rowing part of this WOD.  I had watched Cline blow through 20 calories in the second heat and I figured it would take me a bit more time than him since he's a better rower than I am.  But I made the most of my big pulls, getting 1 calorie on every pull after getting the initial pulls to start the row out of the way.  I made it through 18 calories before my sprint caught up with me, but it wasn't difficult talking my body into doing two more hard pulls to finish up the row.

From there, I moved to the bench.  I probably wasted a few seconds making sure my grip was where I wanted it, something I later discovered wasn't all that important.  Once I got going, I was able to pump out the reps without much of a problem.  I made it to 25 reps before racking the bar.  One issue with this workout is how deceiving it is to do almost two and a half minutes of bench press, even with a light weight.  I forget how many reps I did in my second set (maybe 9-11?), but after that I struggled to get 6 reps per set.  Then it was down to 3.  As the last few seconds of the WOD ticked down, I could barely press out a weight that had felt very easy to me just two minutes earlier.  Final weight: 57 reps at 75 pounds for a score of 4,275 pounds.

When I test this WOD again, I'll probably move up in weight and see if it is worthwhile.  To surpass 4,275 pounds using an 85 pound barbell, I would need 51 reps.  To equal what I did on Saturday using a 95 pound barbell, I would need 45 reps.  My guess is that my total score will not be much higher than 4,275 pounds no matter what I use, but if I can find a weight that bumps it up even a little more, that may be huge for where I place in this workout when we do it in April.

After a little bit of rest, we got ready to take on WOD #3.  I was not excited about this one at all.  Having done Grace and a 2,000 meter row the night before, my forearms were sore even before taking on the floater WOD.  Tack on some additional rowing and a lot of bench press and now my forearms were on fire.  This workout included 30 heavy sumo deadlift high pulls, which were going to destroy my arms even more.  There were 30 hang power cleans, a notorious grip-killer, although the weight was more reasonable for that movement.  And then there were 30 shoulder-to-overheads.  Having done 30 push jerks during Grace with a barbell that was twenty pounds heavier, these shouldn't have been too bad, but after three practice reps, I realized these would be much tougher than I expected.  If all of that didn't exhaust me, I got to do some burpees over the bar.  Yay!

Giulz sent us on our way and I managed to hang on through all 12 sumo deadlift high pulls in round one.  My thought was that this was the worst part of the workout and if I could hold on, I'd have 40% of it done right off the bat.  Or I may have burned myself out.  When I moved on to the hang power cleans, my forearms were toast.  I did 3 reps before dropping the barbell.  Then I managed 4 more.  Since there was no point in dropping after the final 5 reps (the clean leads you right into the shoulder-to-overhead), I dropped after four more reps.  Just a terrible round of hang power cleans.  After doing the last hang power clean, I thought I'd push through a bunch of jerks to make up some time.  Only I dropped after 4 reps.  It was partly due to being out of breath, but really my failure had more to do with having little to no arm strength left.  I was genuinely concerned that I wasn't going to make it to the burpees over the bar at the end.

After getting it together and finishing the last 8 push jerks, I got ready for round two.  I did two sets of 3 reps on the sumo deadlift high pulls before resorting to singles.  For the hang power cleans, I did two sets of 4 reps, before using the last rep to transition into the push jerks.  Having ended round one with 8 push jerks in a row, I convinced myself that 9 was possible and held on for the entire set.  Four minutes had elapsed.  I was 70% of the way through the workout and it should have been a piece of cake for me to get to the burpees over the bar, but I was still doubting my ability to finish.  The sumo deadlift high pulls were all ugly singles now.  For the hang power cleans, I did 5 in a row, then the last was once again a transition before holding on for all of the push jerks.  One round left.

I took a break to get some air back into my lungs, then went into the final set.  Three more singles on the sumo deadlift high pulls.  I couldn't in good conscience drop the barbell after two hang power cleans even though I really wanted to.  So I did all three reps, then knocked out three very tired-looking push jerks.  I believe there was about a minute left.  I thought about the other day when I cranked through burpees over the bar at the end of the workout, just throwing myself at the floor and hopping away like a deranged bunny.  I got through two burpees over the bar like that before realizing there would not be a repeat performance.  I did try to push through as best as I could knowing the workout was almost over, but I didn't have enough energy left to rip through them with reckless abandon as I had in that other workout.  Final score: 9 burpees over the bar.

That was it.  No additional practice of anything afterwards.  I was exhausted and ready to head home.  Hopefully Sunday's workout would not require too much arm strength.

Sunday preview: A workout requiring a lot of arm strength.  Son of a...

The Secret To Crossfit: Don't Stop

Workout date: 2/19/16

I have not-so-secretly been waiting for Grace to show up as the WOD once again.  Last year it was part of the yearlong gym benchmark series and it had been included as part of the 2016 series as well.  I saw early on in January that my first crack at it would be sometime in February.  For the last 3 weeks, I have refreshed the blog each night hoping it would be the next day's workout, but it wasn't until late Thursday night that I got my wish.  I would get my rematch with Grace on Friday.

Why was I so obsessed with Grace?  In my end of 2015 recap, I listed a Grace time of 2:59 as my #1 goal for 2016.  I had come close to breaking three minutes for the workout on multiple occasions last year, only to come up short.  In fact, I did this workout 5 times in 2015 with my best time being 3:10.  But there was something nagging me about Grace.  On 2 or 3 of my attempts last year, I wasn't feeling 100% when I did this workout.  As readers of this blog know, I am not exactly brimming with confidence on a lot of things, but there was part of me that was confident I could finish Grace in under 3 minutes if I was feeling good the next time I did it and if I could keep it together mentally.  I had a bad habit of falling apart in the middle of this workout, so I needed to treat it like a long set of wall balls: stay focused on my breathing and keep pushing along even when my body was urging me to take a break.

Getting ready to head to the gym for class at 6:30, I was a bundle of nerves.  It's the same feeling I have right before a competition.  There's an eager anxiousness to do the workout mixed with some self-doubt.  A big reason that I lack confidence is because of how often I fail.  It is one thing to fail at things you know are outside the scope of your abilities.  But when you fail at something you truly believe you have the ability to do, it takes a toll on you.  I knew I could break three minutes in this workout, but how was I going to react if I dropped the barbell after rep #30 and the clock said 3:01?  I tried to block those thoughts out of my mind as much as I could.

At the gym, we were formally sharing space for the last time as it was graduation day for the New Year, New You class.  After this class, they'd be headed to gen pop with the rest of us.  Not that we needed a lot of space for Grace.  We'd be working in pairs per usual, with one partner counting for the other partner who was working.  There were 8 of us in class, so we only needed space for 4 barbells.  I was pairing up with Cline and he asked whether I was interested in going first.  Typically, I procrastinate and go second when we do heats for workouts, but I had been impatiently waiting for this one.  As long as Cline was okay with it, I wanted to go first.

Cline had to run to the bathroom, so I had an extra minute to think about what laid ahead of me.  Bad thoughts crept into my head, but I kept repeating to myself that I could do this.  Just breathe.  Cline was back and ready to count for me, so Coach Miranda got us started.  Grace is a strange workout in that people have all sorts of different strategies for a WOD that is simple in nature.  I have tended to do it in the same general way in recent attempts.  I start with a large set, then go to smaller sets if I still have some energy for that, then move into fast singles.  In my last attempt, I strung the first 6 reps, which felt like too low of a number.  I also remember stringing something like 10 reps in a row one of the first times I did this and being completely burnt out for hanging on too long.  So as I started moving through my initial reps, I think I had settled on trying to do 8 reps and feeling things out from there.  As I closed in on 8 reps, I wasn't smoked, but it felt like a good point to give my grip a quick break.  I had no clue how fast I had done those reps, but I was not going to look at the clock until I was done.

My breathing was still somewhat under control as I picked the barbell back up again.  Could I do a set of 4 reps here?  No, I could not.  I did a set of two, then dropped the barbell.  Shook my arms quickly, then got into another set of two.  I thought about doing 1 more set of two but decided against it.  It was time to blast through 18 quick singles.  There was still the possibility that I could fail on a rep, but my main concern was not losing time resting from this point until the finish.  Once that barbell hit the floor, I needed to re-grip and get that weight back over my head.  Three singles later and I was halfway done.

It was around this point that someone said how much time had elapsed.  Not sure if it was said to me or someone else, but I remember that it was close to 1:10.  Staying at my current pace would mean a time of about 2:20, but it wasn't like there was another set of 8 in my future.  These next 15 reps would be slower, so I had to stay on it.  As I worked my way to 20 reps, I made sure to use my legs as much as possible on the cleans so that my arms didn't wear out.  And even though I was coming up on my toes a little bit during the jerks, I was staying in my heels enough that I didn't have any failed reps at a stage when I've had failed reps before.  With 20 successful reps in the books, my confidence began to grow again.  These last 10 reps were going to suck, but I had gotten through the hard part.  All that was left was to bear down and get to the end.

When I had fallen apart in the middle of my last attempt at Grace, I told myself that I needed to have 21-22 reps done by the 2:00 mark if I was going to crack three minutes.  My mind began to wonder how much time had elapsed as I finished my 22nd rep.  Every time the barbell hit the floor, Cline would yell "come on, come on...right back on it!"  It was getting tougher and tougher.  I was trying to get back on it immediately, but I was also being meticulous about getting my setup perfect for each rep so that I didn't blow it.  I had just finished either my 24th or 25th rep when I heard Mr. Intensity yell "2:08, you got this Dave!"  2:08?  I was in the home stretch and well ahead of the pace I thought I needed.  I hadn't taken any breaks so far and I wasn't about to start now.  I went through the remaining reps one after another, only turning to look at the clock as I held my 30th rep over my head.  Final time: 2:38(ish).

Why 2:38(ish)?  Cline said it was 2:37 and I saw a glimpse of 2:37 when I looked at the clock, but Miranda called it 2:38 and I tend to go with whatever the coach said the time was.  I dropped the barbell and took a second to comprehend what had just happened.  And then I awkwardly celebrated with a fist pump and a profanity.  Gotta work on that.  My celebration game is pretty weak.

Cline and I switched places and I got to count/root him on as he did Grace.  Cline has been bumping up his weight by 10 pounds each time he's done it.  He was using 125 pounds for Friday's attempt and Mr. Noodle Armz looked awfully strong as he completed the workout in 3:44.  He only had one shaky rep along the way, at around rep 12.  Once he got that out of his system, his form looked great as he plowed through the final 18 reps.  Looks like Cline will be taking on Grace RX when she makes her return in May.

The cash out was a 2,000 meter row and I really thought I had a chance of getting a PR here as well.  My best time was 7:42.7 for 2,000 meters and that was on a row that started out as merely practice.  I happened to feel really good halfway through it and then pushed hard through the back half to get that time.  With my form having improved on the rower, I thought I could crack 7:30 if I was serious about the attempt from the beginning.  And maybe I could accomplish that fresh, but after doing Grace, my previous best was in no danger of being overtaken.  My first 500 meters was around 1:46-1:47, but I could tell even then that I was not going to be able to hold on to that type of pace the rest of the way.  The next 500 meters was just over 2:00.  The third 500 meters was closer to 2:05.  If I was going to break 8:00, I needed to move on the last 500 meters.  My grip strength was beginning to fail and I had to re-grip and try to pull hard at the same time as I hit the last quarter of the cash out.  I did manage to finish in under 8:00, but not by much.  Final time: 7:57.5.

All things considered, that wasn't too bad.  Cline is a much better rower than me and I was only about 11 seconds behind him.  No double PR, but a 32 second PR on Grace was going to keep me happy for a while.  Afterwards, I joined the graduates from the New Year, New You class for a couple of celebratory beers.  I felt like I had earned them.

Saturday preview: I'll be doing the Festivus Games in April and it's time to practice a couple of the workouts.  And they are eerily similar in length to what I did on Friday.

Rage Burpees

Workout date: 2/18/16

I walked into class on Thursday night feeling very refreshed.  I ended up taking full advantage of my rest day on Wednesday.  No rowing, no double unders.  I got caught up in all the work I was doing and ended up having a very productive day from a non-Crossfit perspective.  It did help me out physically though.  I've been having issues with my right knee, but when I woke up on Thursday morning, the nagging knee pain I had grown accustomed to was missing.  My wrists weren't sore either.  My beaten up hands didn't feel quite so beaten up.  Maybe there was something to this whole "rest day" thing.

The workout was another that was going to test my double under stamina.  On Sunday, I faced 200 double unders and hit the wall.  So naturally, when I saw that I would be required to do more than 200 double unders on Thursday, I jumped (sorry, had to do it) at the chance for more practice.

Thursday WOD:
90 double unders
9 squat snatches (155/105)
9 burpees over the bar
80 double unders
8 squat snatches
8 burpees over the bar
70 double unders
7 squat snatches
7 burpees over the bar

That works out to a whopping 240 double unders, with some other goodies mixed in there as well.  My goal for this workout: get through the first round of 90 double unders quickly and not fall apart in rounds two and three.  The snatches and burpees were essentially filler.  (Note: This is not to say that I thought the snatches and burpees would be easy.  Rather, it is to point out that I would be judging my performance in this workout almost solely on how I held it together for the double unders.)

Doctor Coach Sommelier VP Giulz walked us through warm-ups for each of the movements.  While testing out what weight I would use for the snatch, I thought I had a moment of clarity.  95 pounds seemed too light, while 115 felt doable, but it also seemed like a weight I could have a lot of trouble with if I was too tired out from the double unders.  I tried out 105 pounds and that felt like the perfect weight for me in case I got a bit wobbly later on in the workout.  What a proud Goldilocks moment for me!

Despite there being 12 of us in class, I was given a boatload of real estate to do the workout.  Hmmm...maybe the class was telling me that I should be a little more liberal with my deodorant application.  Before the workout began, I ended up with less space as Kenton (who was doing this workout RX) was down in the area where barbells can't be dropped.  Everyone who was in front of me moved down my way so that he was no longer in the forbidden zone.  Rachel ended up being the closest athlete in my zip code once the WOD began.

Giulz sent us on our way and I didn't have the most promising start.  My first set was 16 reps.  Not bad, but it would have been nice to get a bigger set to kick things off, especially since I was fresh.  It seemed like everyone else's jump rope was still whirring while I got ready to do my next set.  I'm not entirely certain what my biggest set ended up being for this workout, but 16 may have been it.  I had a lot of single-digit sets along the way which was very frustrating.  When the clock hit 1 minute, I had done 41 double unders.  Again, not bad, but it felt like I could have had a lot more done if I had maintained any sort of consistency.  For the rest of the round, I plugged away with small-to-medium sets.  I didn't check the clock when I finished my 90th rep, but as I turned to begin my snatches, I saw that most, if not all, of the class had moved on to their barbells.  I did not want to be behind this early in the workout, but there I was playing catch up already.

As soon as I started doing the squat snatches, I realized that I probably chose a safe weight rather than a proper weight.  I was a bit fatigued from the double unders, but I wasn't destroyed by them.  Rachel was in front of me using the same weight I was and didn't appear to be having a lot of trouble with it and my 1RM snatch is higher than hers.  Kenton was throwing around 155 pounds!  I think 115 would have been a lot more appropriate for this workout.  That's what I would go with if I had it to do over again.  I went 9 for 9 on the squat snatches, moving through them at a solid clip.  Then it was on to the burpees over the bar.  During this first round, I thought about the movement too much.  This was the type of movement where I needed to just throw my body into it and sprint through the reps, a lesson I should have learned from the light thrusters I did during Jackie.  Instead, I struggled because I contemplated splitting up the reps.  JFDI Dave.  Taking a little longer than I should have, I completed the 9 reps and walked back over to my jump rope.

If I could get through this round of 80 double unders more efficiently than I had the first round, I could still be in store for a decent time.  The clock was showing a time in the 5:20-5:30 range (the cargo net was in my way, so it was hard to read the clock).  Do round two in 5:00, round three in 4:30 (after all, the reps were decreasing) and I'd be done in 15 minutes.  I'd be happy with that.  That was not meant to be, however.  Early in round two, I discovered that my body only wanted to do sets of 5 double unders.  Like clockwork, I would do 5 reps, then hit myself with the rope.  I even began trying to jump higher on the 6th rep just to break the cycle, but it was to no avail.  Over and over again, it was 5 and done.  Extremely frustrating!  As I neared 50 reps, I saw that Rachel was on her burpees over the bar.  Getting lapped in a three-round workout was not something I would be pleased with.  Even if it was going to require 6 more sets of 5 reps, I had to get these double unders done and move on.  It probably took more than 6 sets (I had some clunker sets in there as well), but I reached rep #80 and happily tossed aside the jump rope.

At the barbell, I did 4 sets of two quick squat snatches.  As I began the third of those sets, Rachel tossed her rope to the side, indicating I was only 4 reps away from being lapped.  I quickly did reps 5 and 6, took a break, then did reps 7 and 8.  After settling my bar, I got to work on the burpees.  There was no thinking this time around.  I did a burpee, hopped over the bar, and repeated that sequence 7 more times.  Not sure you could do 8 burpees over the bar faster than I did them.  I was not getting lapped!  (Note: I did get lapped.  Not by Rachel, but by Kenton.  The double under stamina needs a lot of work.)

As I got ready to do my last 70 double unders, I saw the clock read 12 minutes and change.  That meant round two took over 6 and a half minutes.  If the last round took that long, I'd be pushing 19 minutes.  And if it took longer...well, I didn't want to think about that.  I felt the same way about exceeding 20 minutes on this workout as I did about being lapped: I was not cool with it.  But urgency was not helping my double under proficiency.  Five...five...five.  Why couldn't I do more than 5 double unders in a row?  I noticed more and more of the class was finishing as I tried desperately to get one more big set to help me put a dent in the remaining double unders.  Just couldn't make it happen.  I wasn't sure how close to 20 minutes I was, but when I eventually got that 70th double under, I knew I was going to have to move quickly through the snatches and the burpees.

Back at my barbell, I attempted to do 7 squat snatches in a row with basically no break.  I did a rep, dropped the barbell, and immediately went into the next one.  One...two...three...four...whoops, maybe not four.  On my fourth rep, I got a little too amped up, popped the barbell over my head but with enough force that I couldn't maintain control of it.  So I bailed it behind me.  I took a couple seconds to recover, then went back to the sets of two strategy.  Did four and five, brief pause, then did six and seven.  All that was left was to sprint through the burpees.

I was not pleased with how the double unders went.  I was a little ticked off that I couldn't string those last seven squat snatches like a maniac.  And I had the sense that I was the last one in class still working, something that happens with me way too often.  So I had a lot of rage boiling inside me when I got to those last seven burpees.  I was tired and I wasn't psyched about having to do burpees, but I threw my body to the ground over and over again as if someone had told me that I had only 15 seconds left before the clock was going to hit 20 minutes.  As was the case in the previous round, it may have been impossible to do burpees over the bar any faster than I did them.  I was pissed off and I wanted this workout over.  After the 7th hop over the bar, I looked at the clock.  Final time: 18:32.

That time met the parameter Giulz gave us before we started ("this should be a 15-20 minute workout"), but I was the last one done yet again and I was over 5 minutes behind Rachel and Kenton, who both did the workout RX.  Suffice it to say I was disappointed with my performance.  It is nice that I can now do a workout with 240 double unders in it, something that would not have been a possibility 12 months ago.  But the next step is to complete them in a reasonable amount of time.

Friday preview: The workout I've been waiting to have another crack at: Grace.  Time to break 3 minutes in that workout.  Also, a 2,000 meter row cash out.  Could it be a double PR day?

38 Special

Workout date: 2/16/16

I had my concerns about going to the gym on Tuesday night as it was my 38th birthday.  I wasn't concerned about the workout at all.  No, I was concerned that there may be some sort of surprise awaiting me there.  I was concerned that people would be forced to do a ton of burpees because I had showed up on February 16th.  And were those concerns justified?  Of course they were!

I should confess that I let my guard down once I was at the gym.  Despite only showing up a few minutes early, I still got to see the second half of the cash out from the 6:30 class.  Then I was chatting with various people.  I was enjoying myself.  But at a certain point, it dawned on me that it must be well past 7:30.  Where the heck was Coach Rachel?  And as I turned to look out at the lobby, I saw Giulz and Rachel each carrying in a container filled with 12 mini-cupcakes, all two dozen of the desserts aglow with a lit candle.  It certainly looked like a lot of candles, even though they were 14 short if they were meant to represent my age.  Thankfully, they don't sell mini-cupcakes in containers of 38.  I made a wish and then blew out the candles.  Well, most of the candles.  As is normally the case with anything I do in the gym, I needed to break up blowing out the candles into two sets with a small pause to catch my breath in between.

Okay, they got me with the surprise, but at least this special co-ed edition of Dudes After Dark wasn't going to be forced to do 38 burpees with me.  Nope, they were going to do 40 burpees.  Sorry guys.  There were 4 of us in class (me, Cline, Michal, and Julie) plus Coach Rachel.  She had everyone either say something they liked about me, a memory they had of me, or a burning question they wanted to ask me (luckily I'm pretty boring, so I avoided a barrage of questions).  After each person spoke, we did 8 burpees.  What was said during this segment?  I don't recall everything precisely, but Rachel spoke about me giving her "the Dave look", Cline mentioned anal, Michal explained that you never get a second chance to make a sweaty first impression, and Julie pointed out that she hadn't grown to dislike me yet.  Beat that, Hallmark!

Once the Dave lovefest had died down, it was on to back squats.  We were supposed to be doing working sets (translation: challenging sets) with a rep scheme of 5-5-3-3-1-1-1.  Having struggled with my front squat the night before, I wasn't expecting great things in this workout, but I still wanted to give myself the possibility of hitting a PR.  After all, it was my birthday.  Things are supposed to fall into line for you on your birthday.  But if I'm being honest, a new PR was a longshot.  I haven't been putting in the time to squat like I had been late last summer and fall.  Technically, my PR was 330, but I figured 320-325 would be difficult for me to get.

The plan was to start off with a warm-up set at 135, then attempt to go 225-255-275-295-315-325-335.  I could adjust the numbers along the way if I wasn't feeling it.  Had no problems at 135.  Made the big jump to 225 and got through that without much of an issue.  But the first dark cloud emerged when I took on 5 reps at 255.  I did 2 reps, then had to stop for a breath.  I repeated that pattern again, before taking care of the 5th rep.  I expected that set to be smoother than it was.  I began mentally adjusting numbers in my head.

If I wasn't sold on adjusting my weights lower after that set, I certainly was after my first set of three reps at 275.  The first two reps actually didn't go poorly.  But then I went for the third rep and felt my balance shift forward.  I tried to stand up quickly as I began to stumble forward towards the rack.  I made it up in time, but I didn't have to move very far to re-rack the barbell once I had completed the third rep.  Jumping up to 295 after that performance was silly.  Time to show some good judgment and only move up to 285 for the second set of three.  That decision was rewarded when I completed the three reps at 285 with better form than I had shown with my previous set.

With a little bit of confidence restored, I decided that my three single attempts would be 305, 315, and 325.  That would mean giving up on trying to get a PR, but if I was able to squat 325 tonight without having done a regular squat program in a while, it would feel like I got a PR.  I had gotten 315 when I did CF Total in December, so that seemed like a reasonable middle single in the set.  The 20 pound jump to 305 may have been ambitious, but getting through 3 solid reps at 285 gave me faith that I could handle such a jump.

I went to do the first squat at 305 and it was not wonderful.  Perhaps that set at 285 was the aberration, not the set at 275.  Not wanting to crash down to the bottom of the squat, I lowered myself somewhat slowly, but the necessary explosiveness to get out of the squat was missing.  I had enough strength in my legs to still stand up the weight, but it was a poor lift.  As I added 10 pounds to the bar, I reminded myself that I needed to be controlled on the way down, but explode out of the bottom.  I walked up to my attempt at 315 knowing exactly what I needed to do, but my body didn't cooperate.  The controlled descent was there, but the explosive ascent was not.  I bailed the barbell and knew there was no point in making another attempt.  The truth is that I was lucky to get 305.  315 wasn't happening again until I put some real time into a squatting routine like I had last year.  Once I do start up another routine, I will use 315 (since I got that somewhat recently) as my 1RM rather than 330.

It was cash out time and we would all be doing handstand walks!  Except none of us is able to do a handstand walk.  Time to do something else!  I had seen on the blog that people were doing 3 wall walks (yes, we're using the proper name for that movement again) as a substitute for the 20 ft handstand walk that was programmed.  Rachel told us we could do a 20 second handstand hold instead.  That seemed reasonable enough.  The substitution made the cash out look like this:

8 minute AMRAP
3 handstand holds of 20 seconds
10 GHD sit-ups

At least that was what I was thinking when we got started.  All of us flipped on to the wall at the same time and watched the clock upside down, waiting for 20 seconds to tick by.  When I came off the wall, I got ready to go upside down again, but everyone else headed to their GHDs.  Confused, I started walking towards mine, but I asked Rachel whether we were supposed to do 1 hold or 3 holds. She said it was just one.  Even better!  Handstand holds were definitely going to get old quickly.  Only needing to do one was a blessing.  The set of 10 GHD sit-ups wasn't a problem as I can usually handle about 12 reps before my form starts falling apart.  My apologies to anyone who was behind me as I have a bit of a mooning problem while doing GHD sit-ups.

I was working alongside of Julie, but I had fallen behind her in that first round and she was not shy about getting right back into a handstand hold.  This was already feeling like that rowing/GHD workout I had done a while back where I was a few seconds behind the guy next to me, but could never catch up no matter how hard I pushed.  Twenty seconds was twenty seconds, so there was no gaining time on the handstand hold.  And my ability to do GHD sit-ups quickly was somewhat cancelled out by the fact that I struggle to get my feet into the GHD to begin with.  I followed Julie as we went through the second round, about 5 seconds behind her the whole time.

As we got ready to do round 3, Rachel announced that we needed to do 3 handstand holds per round, not 1.  That was a painful upgrade.  But it also made me think I might be able to catch up to Julie if I kept flipping back up to the wall immediately.  That strategy sounded great in my head, but it was much less pleasant in reality.  I began trying to zone out while I was upside down, hoping to look back at the clock and see I only had 1 or 2 seconds left in my hold.  Except each time I looked, there was about 12 or 13 seconds left in the hold.  I might need to work on my resolve a little more.  The holds were getting worse and worse, but I held on for 20 seconds every time I flipped on to the wall.  And I made it on to the wall every time I attempted to flip on to it.  At least I was being efficient in this workout.  At the end of round three (our first full-sized round), Julie and I were side by side.

Round four was all about being persistent and not pausing between handstand holds.  I began shaking during some of the holds, like I do when I'm trying to hold a plank.  But I was determined to last the full 20 seconds each time.  I think Julie had 1-2 attempts where she didn't quite make it on to the wall, so for the first time I was ahead of her.  I completed my third handstand hold and made my way to the GHD.  There was plenty of room for me to hop on my GHD with no one else over there yet, which allowed me to have a very quick end to my fourth round.

There was less than a minute and 20 seconds left as I headed back over to the wall, just enough time to get 3 more handstand holds in if I was quick about getting back on to the wall after each hold.  When I got upside down for my second hold, there was 51 seconds left to go, meaning I'd come down with 31 seconds left.  That gave me 11 seconds to get back on the wall if I was going to finish the last hold in time.  When I came down from the second hold, I shook out my arms, got ready to flip on to the wall again, and then kicked up.  The upside down clock across from me said 7:36, so I'd just need to hold on for 20 seconds and then I'd get to finish 4 seconds early.  That's exactly what I did.  Final score: 11 handstand holds and 40 GHD sit-ups.

I am extremely grateful that the crew at KOP made my birthday special.  Got lots of cupcakes and hugs.  Giulz, Rachel, and Michal "chipped" in to get me one of the creepiest (in a good way) presents I've ever received.  Cline changed his schedule to make it to Dudes After Dark because it was my birthday.  I cannot adequately express how much it has meant to me to be embraced by my sweat family over the last three years.  Thank you all!

Wednesday preview: Most likely a rest day on some level as I have been sore a lot recently.  Probably will do some rowing at home and perhaps some more double under practice.  Back for another WOD on Thursday.

The Reverse Sucker

Workout date: 2/15/16

I don't think this blog post will be all that long, so this seemed like a good place to post a few updates on the Open, which begins late next week:

• KOP managed to sign up 89 people for the Open.  And I thought it was crowded when New Year, New You was in session!
• The draft for the team competition has been held and I am on the blue team.  I have slightly more blue clothing than orange clothing, so dressing up for the workouts will be easier this year.
• I submitted a proposal to change the way scoring is handled for the team competition, but it was found wanting.  I have updated the spreadsheet I used last year and it is just about ready to go for this year's competition.  There may be a couple of minor updates that need to be incorporated into it.  And as I learned last year, the spreadsheet can never truly be ready until I hear what new wrinkle Dave Castro has put into the workouts.

With Monday being a holiday, a lot of people attended class earlier in the day, meaning the 6:30 class was not as well-attended as it usually is.  There were only 6 of us in class ready to take on bar muscle-ups and push jerks.

Monday WOD:

9 bar muscle-ups

21 push jerks (115/75)

7 bar muscle-ups

15 push jerks (115/75)

5 bar muscle-ups

9 push jerks (115/75)

This struck me as a WOD that would be completed very quickly.  When I saw times in the 8-10 minute range amongst the early crowd, I figured this was yet another sucker WOD that I had initially misjudged.  Perhaps it depended on what kind of scale you used for bar muscle-ups.  My expectation was that I would be doing more chest-to-bar pull-ups (not the worst thing in the world for me to continue practicing), as that is essentially the next level down in the progression of bar movements we do (pull-ups, chest-to-bar pull-ups, bar muscle-ups).  And as is usually the case, I was wrong.  Scales among the early crowd included banded bar muscle-ups and jumping bar muscle-ups.

Doctor Coach Sommelier VP Giulz walked us through some progressions in the warm-up and then had us try out both the banded bar muscle-up and the jumping bar muscle-up.  I got close a couple of times with my attempts at a banded bar muscle-up, but I don't think the band gives me as much support as it might give to some of the lighter members of the gym.  Would it have been worthwhile to use a thicker band?  My guess would be no.  I think I just need to get a little stronger and then the band I practiced with would probably be enough.  The other difficulty I have with the band is that I'm used to doing strict pull-ups with it.  In order to do the bar muscle-up, you need a big kip and that means throwing your body into the band at the bottom.  Still getting used to that.

Sounds like we're going with option #2!  Jumping bar muscle-ups are one of my favorite things to do in the gym, at least in moderation.  They definitely get tiring, so I needed to keep that in mind with 21 of them needing to be completed in this workout.  In the past, I have been able to do jumping bar muscle-ups with a 17" box.  I've only gotten 2 or 3 with the 13" box, so it seemed unwise to try and use that box for this workout.  My sweet spot has been a 13" box with a plate on it, making the height about 15".  But I had never done 21 reps at that height, nor was that factoring in the 45 push jerks we were doing.  All things considered, I felt like the 17" box was the right choice for the workout.  I was probably wrong, yet again.

I was not worried about the push jerks at 115 pounds, so maybe this was where my downfall would be.  Maybe the bar muscle-ups were going to wear me out and leave me struggling on the push jerks. For some reason, I just couldn't see it.  I had done a partner WOD with Matt E not too long ago that included deadlifts and push jerks with a 21-15-9 rep scheme.  We had used 115 pounds for the push jerks and I think I strung the reps the entire way.  So I expected this part of the workout to go very fast.  Could I string them all again?  I thought about it, but there was something telling me that breaking up the sets would be wiser.  I would just need to make sure that I didn't break up the sets too much and that my rest was limited when the barbell was on the floor.

We got ready to go with Michal being the only brave soul to do banded bar muscle-ups.  Nate, Borden, "Megs", and I were all using boxes.  Sarmad was...doing something different.  "Megs" and I were right next to each other and we weren't sure whether we'd bump into each other, so we did a quick test run to make sure we'd be alright.  No bumping during the test run.  That meant it was 3-2-1-go time!

Having been repelled by the bar on previous jumping bar muscle-up attempts when I didn't jump high enough, I made sure that I got a strong jump on every attempt that I did in this workout.  If that meant slowing down or taking a short break, I did so.  After doing three fast reps, I slowed my pace over the next 4 reps.  With two reps to go, I stopped and shook out my arms before completing the initial set of jumping bar muscle-ups.  Only bumped into "Megs" twice.  I saw Nate finishing his set at about the same time, so it didn't seem like I was going super fast (unless we both were).  The best times of the day were in the high 5-minute, low 6-minute range.  If I could move through the push jerks efficiently, I thought I could end up around there as well.

My concerns about the push jerks being hampered by the earlier jumping bar muscle-ups went away almost as soon as I cleaned the bar.  It felt like a weight I could move quickly with.  That being said, as I knocked out one rep after another, I came to the conclusion that stringing all 21 reps was a bad idea.  When I got to 12 reps, I dropped my barbell.  I don't think any of the other guys had dropped yet, but I didn't care.  This plan felt right to me and I was sticking with it.  After a brief break, I completed the final 9 push jerks.

As I got back to my bar, I saw that "Megs" and Michal were still working on their initial set of bar muscle-ups.  During my first 9 jumping bar muscle-ups, I could hear "Megs" behind me and she did not sound like she was enjoying herself.  As for Michal, she had already worked out earlier in the day,  getting a PR on her snatch and doing some squatting, so she might have been a little more tired than she realized.  They both finished right as I was about to start my set of 7 jumping bar muscle-ups, so I ended up having the rig to myself.  Like I did with my first set, I pushed through at a solid pace, making every attempt count.  Towards the end of the set, the jumps were becoming tougher and I noticed that my hands were getting sweatier.  Slipping off the bar or sliding over the bar was not something I wanted to experience, so I began wiping off my hands in between reps.  With all 7 reps done, I headed back to my barbell.

Could I do all 15 push jerks in a row?  Another maybe.  But why fix what ain't broken?  I did 9 quick reps, then dropped the barbell for a breather.  Picked the barbell back up, took care of the last 6 reps and it was on to the final round of the workout.  When I got back to my bar, my brain started working and I realized that if I faced my bar from the opposite direction, I would not run into "Megs" anymore.  Apparently my mind is too consumed with bad planning for there to be any room for common sense during a workout.  I got started with the last 5 jumping bar muscle-ups and immediately noticed that my jumps were barely getting me up over the bar.  For the most part, I was slamming my ribs into the bar and pulling myself over into proper position for the dip out.  After drying my hands upon completing my third rep, I became determined to do the last two back-to-back with no pause.  I got them done and headed to the barbell to complete the WOD.

I didn't hesitate in cleaning the barbell as soon as I got over to it and there would be no breaking up the set this time around.  I had done at least 9 reps to kick off the beginning of the first two rounds and I was getting all 9 now.  They probably didn't look as good as the earlier ones and there was some of my trademark unfortunate grunting involved, but I did those last 9 reps as quickly as I could and looked at the clock.  Final time: 5:26.

Did I scale too much?  Possibly.  The only way that people could have ended up with times in the 8-10 minute range was if they were failing on the bar muscle-ups a decent amount of times, so perhaps I should have done the 13" box with the plate.  That might have left me in the 7-8 minute range for the workout.  Live and learn, I guess.

As Nate and Borden were finishing their workouts, "Megs" and Michal were still having issues with the bar muscle-ups.  "Megs" was tired out from all of the jumping she had done and I could tell she was sick of slamming her ribs into the bar over and over again.  Michal reached the point where she couldn't get any more reps with the band, so she needed a box.  She initially tried jumping bar muscle-ups with the 20" box, but it wasn't quite high enough for her, so we got her a plate.  That did the trick.  Both girls were troopers, plugging away at a workout they were not having fun with, eventually finishing within 25 seconds of one another.

The best part of Mondays at KOP?  There is still a full 90 minutes of Open Strength available after the 6:30 class ends.  I had a bunch of things that I wanted to work on and having done less than 6 minutes of work in the WOD, I should have had plenty of energy to get all of it done.  Or perhaps not.  I started with handstand push-up practice and it was my worst session yet.  There are a lot of moving pieces in kipping the handstand push-up and once I get upside down, it's hard for me to keep everything straight.  Maybe too much blood flows to my head and my brain begins drowning.  Whatever it is, all I know is that I am very far away from getting a kipping handstand push-up.

From that disappointment, I decided I would try and get a new 1RM on my front squat.  That would cheer me up.  I had done 2 reps at my 1RM of 265 pounds and the chart on the wall said I should be able to handle 280 pounds for one rep.  I would be perfectly satisfied with 275 this night.  I did 5 reps at 135, 3 reps at 185, then began singles at 225.  After a successful front squat at 225, I moved on to an attempt at 255, which Jess C described as easy.  It was a little tougher than it looked, but it gave me confidence that 275 was going down.  Instead, I failed three times.  In my first attempt, I felt good, but got stuck in the bottom and couldn't get out of it.  Something similar happened in attempt #2, but I felt as though I was slowly rising out of that sticking point.  After fighting it for a bit, I finally had to bail the weight. Attempt #3 was not much of an attempt at all.  It was clear as soon as I hit the bottom of the squat that I didn't have the push to stand back up with it.  No front squat PR.

Ummm...what's next?  Double unders!  Not exactly thrilled with my performance the day before, I put in some more work with the jump rope.  First two sets were solid (41 and 28 reps).  From there it began to fall apart.  I might have gotten one more set of more than 20 reps, but that was it.  Giulz pointed out that my hands flick backwards when I do the second rotation of the rope, something that had been said to me on Sunday as well.  I tried to practice flicking the rope without letting my hands go backwards, but I couldn't get more than 3 reps.  Ugh...always something to work on.

Finally, I threw on my grips and attempted some chest-to-bar pull-ups.  Part of me wanted to get an idea of how long the WOD might have taken if I needed to do chest-to-bar pull-ups rather than jumping bar muscle-ups.  Not sure I got the answer I was seeking.  My hands were really sore at this point in the evening, so I didn't do a whole lot of reps before calling it a night.  My guess is that I would have gone quicker in the first round, but may have been slower later in the WOD,

Tuesday preview: Dudes After Dark - the birthday edition!

Annie Meets Two Jerks

Workout date: 2/14/16

I was late to class on Sunday morning.  After driving more than 4 hours for the fourth time in a week on Saturday night, I decided to indulge in the snooze button a little too much the next morning.  The end result was some razzing from Cline and having Coach Rachel bestow me with a new middle name of "I'm late".  Wasn't so bad.  The extra snooze was definitely worth it.

The main focus of the Sunday WOD was a combo lift, to be followed by a cash out that seemed eerily similar to a benchmark workout we will be taking on sometime later in February.  The combo lift was a push jerk followed by a split jerk without re-racking the weight.  For all of the workouts that I have done over the years at KOP, this is one type of workout that I haven't done all that often.  Coincidence?  Probably not.  This type of workout requires discipline and I'm sure there have been plenty of times where I've seen it scheduled on the gym blog and thought "pass".  Beyond that, it doesn't really seem like much of a functional movement to me.  Is there ever a metcon where you do a push jerk and then immediately follow it up with a split jerk?  Not that I can recall.  So what it boils down to is that this is good Olympic lifting practice.  And since I haven't done a whole lot of that recently, I figured I should probably go in on Sunday and get that work in.

The amount of weight you can use is capped by how much you can push jerk (most people can split jerk more than they can push jerk).  I had a little difficulty remembering how much that was because I have gotten so used to split jerking whenever I have heavy weight on my barbell.  It's a little bit like the struggle I have with single unders now.  I practice double unders so much that it feels awkward doing single unders when I have to.  My natural inclination was going to be to split jerk as I put more weight on the barbell, but I would need to be disciplined (there's that word again!) and only do a push jerk for the first half of the lift.

With 5 of us in class and only 4 racks on the rig, I asked Ben if I could share a rack with him.  He was okay with that.  I didn't know how much Ben could jerk, but we're fairly similar in size, so I figured we could work together and not have to adjust the weights all that often.  Ben later told me his best jerk was 215 (mine is 225), so that ended up being true.  We began with 135 on the barbell.  This was one of the rare times where I didn't have a specific number in mind as far as what my last lift would be.  I needed to feel out the preliminary lifts and figure it out from there.  The WOD was written as though we were making 7 attempts at this, but then there seemed to be talk about only doing 5, so I was going to make jumps in weight based on the idea that I would only have 5 attempts.

The lift at 135 was a good start for both of us.  I wasn't sure whether Ben would want to go up to 145 or 155 next.  Turns out the answer was neither.  He surprised me when he said that we should add 30 pounds to the barbell and do 165 next.  Somebody was definitely feeling more confident than I was about this combo lift.  My confidence wasn't boosted by my attempt at 165, as I instinctively split jerked the barbell with my first lift.  Wrong order dummy.  I could have racked the barbell and started over, but I figured that the lift still counted as long as I did 1 push jerk and 1 split jerk, order be damned.  So I followed the split jerk with a push jerk and then racked the barbell.  Rachel was completely confused by what I had just done, so I explained that I was an idiot and everything was fine.  Ben followed me with a successful attempt at 165, although he admitted that the 30 pound jump may have been a little ambitious.

Sanity returned when we only made a 10 pound jump to 175 for our next attempt.  I also managed to complete the lifts in the proper order this time around.  My brain may have needed one more snooze. The push jerk definitely felt weird, but it was still manageable.  And once I got the push jerk out of the way, I felt confident with the split jerk.  Ben looked better at 175 than he did at 165.  Perhaps it was because his body wasn't dealing with the shock of a huge jump in weight.  We moved on to 185 where things didn't feel that much different for me, as I did an awkward push jerk and then a confident split jerk.  Ben was successful at 185 as well, although it was the first time in the workout that he looked like he was truly struggling with the weight.

Rachel mentioned that we should be working on our final lifts, which was great because I was setting up for my 5th attempt.  I told Ben that I wanted to take a crack at 205 and asked him if he wanted to do the same or if he'd rather use a different weight.  Once again, my multiple choice question required a third option.  Ben let me know that he was good with 185 as his final number for the day.  205 would just be for me.  I tried to get pumped up for the lift as I wasn't sure I had ever done a push jerk with this much weight before.  The lift was a struggle as I had to work hard to press out the weight as I stood up, but it counted as a good Crossfit jerk.  I was a bit less confident on the split jerk after having to work so hard to get the push jerk, but my comfort level with split jerks is so much higher than it is with push jerks that the second half of the combo ended up being relatively easy.  I was very happy with a score of 205.

The cash out involved a bunch of sit-ups and a bunch of double unders.  Sounds like Annie to me!  Okay, it wasn't exactly Annie, which alternates between double unders and sit-ups with a rep scheme of 50-40-30-20-10.  There was no alternating in this cash out.  We had to do 100 sit-ups followed by 200 double unders.  Since we hadn't done anything during the first part of the workout that had left me out of breath, I thought I'd be able to handle the 200 double unders by steadily knocking out sets of 15-20 reps.  Turns out I may have overestimated both my cardio and my ability to be consistent with the jump rope.

At least I was consistent with the sit-ups.  Since Cline was across from me (and because he's really good at Annie), I would sneak glances over at him to see how I was doing with my sit-ups.  He was definitely moving faster than me, but he was also taking some breaks as well.  As I got closer to the finish of the sit-up segment, I wasn't sure whether he was ahead of me or whether I was ahead of him.  The only thing I knew for sure was that I wished my feet had been anchored.  The butterfly position was doing a number on my groin area.  I got to 80 reps without stopping, but each rep was definitely unpleasant at this point.  I told myself that 20 more sit-ups wasn't all that much and that I couldn't stop now.  I kept grinding away, expecting to see Cline pop up to do double unders at any moment.  When I reached 95 reps and Cline hadn't finished yet, I felt good about my pace.  Being within 5 reps of him on the sit-ups was sort of an unofficial interim goal within the cash out.  When I got to my jump rope before him, I was really pleased with how I did on the sit-ups.

The lead would be short-lived as Cline had only 3 sit-ups to go and he was going to destroy me on the double unders.  While I was able to get some sets of 15-20 reps in (even managed 26 in a row at one point), I needed a break between sets.  And despite doing a good job of getting back into my next medium-sized set when practicing double unders, I could not find that consistency when I needed it.  Time and time again, I'd mess up the first rep of the set.  Occasionally, I'd get 1-3 reps before getting the medium-sized set going.  When Cline finished up his 200 double unders, I still had about 80 to go.  Rachel had told us that we should finish the cash out in under 10 minutes, but that was looking shaky at best.  When the clock reached 9:30, I still had about 40 reps to go.  10 minutes wasn't happening.  After hitting myself with the rope with 4 reps to go, I decided to go old school and get the last 4 reps in by jumping like a speeding car was coming at me.  At least I was done.  Final time: 10:36.

Once I had recovered, I decided to try and practice toes-to-bar, but I didn't have enough left in the tank to make the practice worthwhile.  I did a couple of sets, then called it a day.

Monday preview: Bar muscle-ups and push jerks with a weight I could move at a solid clip.  Plus post-WOD practice turns into a game of "what can Dave fail at?"

Age Is Just A Number

Workout date: 2/11/16

My favorite thing about the Open is getting to watch people compete in it for the first time.  It is definitely intimidating signing up for 5 weeks of unknown workouts when you're just beginning your Crossfit journey.  At least during the WODs, you can scale the workout down to a level you feel comfortable with.  The format of the WOD may be the same for everyone, but you're not using the same weight or the same standards as everyone else in the class.  For the Open, you are pretty much doing the exact same workout as your classmates (although as of last year, you now have the option of doing an RX workout or a scaled workout).  Immediately one thinks "I can't do what these more experienced folks are doing".  Then they hear "3, 2, 1, go" and inevitably they do much better than they could have imagined.  Maybe they hit a PR.  Maybe they do a new movement for the first time ever.  But nothing beats that "holy shit" look of excitement on their faces.

My second favorite thing about the Open?  Getting to see those people that either don't work out in afternoon classes very often any more or that I don't typically work out with because they do morning/noon classes.  All of us get into a routine and have our workout buddies that we hang with regularly, but there are so many other people at KOP that are great to spend time with that we don't know about until events like the Open bring us together.  I've been lucky enough to get a head start on this by dropping into the Noon Express class every so often and it has been a lot of fun.  And since my weekend was starting with the completion of Thursday's WOD, I thought it would be nice to get it started early by taking class with some of the community that I don't get to be around all that often.

There were 13 of us taking part in the Express class and here is what we signed up to do:

AMRAP in 12 Minutes:
10 Chest-to-Bar Pull-ups
10 Hang Power Cleans (185/125)
20 Double Unders

I signed up to do this WOD for one reason only: to practice chest-to-bar pull-ups.  Say what?  You signed up for a workout to do pull-ups?  Well yes.  As much as regular pull-ups are my nemesis, there is a special hatred I reserve for chest-to-bar pull-ups.  Back in the 2014 Open, they were coupled with my favorite movement, overhead squats.  It seemed grossly unfair that my favorite movement was handcuffed to a movement I could not do.  But Coach Jason gave me a crash course on chest-to-bar pull-ups and I did my first eight chest-to-bar pull-ups ever in route to a score of 18 on Open workout 14.2.

The Crossfit gods mocked me a year later, as 15.2 was a repeat of 14.2.  Were my chest-to-bar pull-ups any better?  No.  On my first attempt, I got 10 chest-to-bar pull-ups.  On my second attempt, only nine.  That was the same night the old lady at Wegman's refused to sell me beer because my license had just expired.  It was a bad night.

With the Open around the corner and chest-to-bar pull-ups programmed for the WOD, it seemed like a good time for me to test my progress with this movement.  Have I practiced these a whole lot?  No. But I discovered during bar muscle-up practice that if I really closed my shoulders hard and looked towards the ceiling, I could hit my chest against the bar fairly reliably.  Did I have enough strength to do it for multiple rounds?  Time to find out.

I had done all of my chest-to-bar pull-ups on the low bar during the Open workouts, but today I would be using the high bar.  Why?  Because at a certain point you just have to get used to the high bar.  No time like the present to do it.  As for the rest of the workout, I decided to use 155 pounds for the hang power cleans.  Could I have used more?  Yes.  But I wasn't sure how long I would be on the pull-up bar.  If I got stuck there and got stuck on the hang power cleans as well, I wasn't even going to finish two rounds.  Better to find a weight that was relatively heavy, but that I felt I could push through in a reasonable amount of time.  After that it was 20 double unders.  Could I replicate those efficient, medium-sized sets in this workout, even when tired out from other movements?  Again, this WOD seemed like a good time to test that skill out.

Coach Aimee walked us through warm-ups, which included some double under practice and a lot of hang power cleans before we moved over to the bar.  After doing some progressions, she asked us to do 1 chest-to-bar pull-up.  Not sure if it was because I was fresh or because I was amped up, but I did another one of those reps where I hit the bottom of my rib cage on the bar, renewing my belief that one day I could get a bar muscle-up.  We did a couple more single reps before Aimee asked us to string three, using Dana to demo how it's done.  I once strung three chest-to-bar pull-ups, but it was on the low bar, and it required me coming to a dead hang between reps.  I gave it a whirl on the high bar, attempting to kip between reps.  Like Mr. Owl counting how many licks it takes to get to the center of a Tootsie Roll Pop, I did "a one, a two, a thrrrrrree".  Not sure how that magically happened, but my confidence in doing this workout suddenly skyrocketed.

My goal was to finish three rounds.  Yes, that meant doing three times as many chest-to-bar pull-ups as I had ever done before in a workout, but I also had 12 minutes for this WOD.  And I had faith that I could make up some time on the hang power cleans and the double unders.  Just needed to have the stamina to do that many chest-to-bar pull-ups.  Aimee got us started and I did a set of two reps.  Not bad.  I jumped up and attempted a second set of two.  Got the first rep, missed on the second rep.  That sucked.  I had to exert a lot of energy to throw my chest towards that bar and it was not a good feeling to miss it.  Also, I was only three reps in and that stamina I was hoping for might already be waning.  Why did I do 6 reps during the warm-up?

I had two more successful reps before failing again.  It was time to regroup mentally.  I could do this, I just needed to close my shoulders as hard as I could every single rep.  Anything less than max effort was simply going to be wasted energy.  I had three more successful reps before taking a peek at the rest of the gym.  I was on the bar closest to the front of the gym, so I could look down the rig and see everyone else.  Correction: I could look down the rig and see everyone else if they had not all moved on to their hang power cleans.  Way behind already.  Awesome.

I finished up my last two reps and got to my barbell.  I had used a lot of energy on the rig, but I didn't have much time to recover seeing as I was already behind the entire class and not by a small margin.  I picked up the barbell and held on through 5 reps.  A small break, then I got through the other 5 reps.  Definitely needed to get through those in two sets.  I came over to my jump rope, hoping that I could duplicate my effort on the hang power cleans and finish the round in only two sets.  Except when I began twirling the rope, I forgot to hit myself with it.  I strung all 20 double unders and got ready for more chest-to-bar pull-ups.  We were just over three minutes into the workout.

I had given up on trying to string the chest-to-bar pull-ups, believing that it was more important to focus on avoiding any no-reps.  I came close to missing the bar a couple of times, with my chest only grazing the bar rather than slamming into it.  But the no-reps were a thing of the past.  10 attempts led to 10 successful reps.  It was slow, but it worked out.  I moved on to the hang power cleans again.

Arriving back at my barbell, I felt pretty certain that I wasn't going to be able to go 5-5 again, so I resolved to go 4-4-2, which is what I ended up doing.  Got back to my jump rope and hoped for another 20 in a row, but the rope remembered to hit me this time after 12 reps.  I got right back on it and finished off my last 8 reps.  The clock showed that we were over 7 minutes in.

There wasn't a lot of difference between round two and round three, other than the fact that I couldn't help but stare at the clock once I got to the hang power cleans.  My 10 chest-to-bar pull-ups were the result of 10 consecutive successful attempts, although I had another couple of reps where my chest barely caught the bar.  For the hang power cleans, I ended up going to 4-3-3 as my strength began to taper off.  On the jump rope, I made it through 16 reps before messing up, then took care of the last four.  I had done it!  Three rounds complete.  I was very pleased with that.

There was still about 40-45 seconds remaining, so I went over and tried to get in as many chest-to-bar pull-ups as I could.  I did 3 relatively fast singles before needing to pause to catch my breath.  I turned to see there were ten seconds remaining.  I wanted to end the workout on a good note, so I concentrated hard, not wanting a no-rep on my final attempt.  I jumped up on the bar, swung hard, closed my shoulders, looked towards the ceiling and thrust my chest forward.  It hit the bar, I dropped to the floor, and time was called.  Final score: 3+4.

This was one of those workouts where it was hard for me to grasp what I had done until I had some time to roll out, drink some water, and think clearly.  I had gone from a best of 10 chest-to-bar pull-ups to 34 in this one.  I had used 155 pounds on my hang power cleans, but could have gone heavier.  I needed two sets or less to do my 20 double unders in all three rounds.  That's a pretty solid workout for me.  It was a nice way to head into the weekend.

Afterwards, I worked on handstand push-ups with Queen Pam and Shane.  They had lots of good tips for me just as Rachel had, although I discovered that Rachel, Pam, and Shane all do their handstand push-ups somewhat differently.  Maybe this is a movement that I'm going to have to feel out a bit on my own before it clicks with me.  Handstand push-ups could be like swinging a golf club: everybody seems to do it a little differently, but what's important is finding the setup that is right for me.  I'll keep after it.

During the handstand push-up practice, I started talking about all of the little aches and pains I've had recently.  My right knee locks up in the morning and when I drive for long periods of time.  My right wrist is sore after heavy overhead days.  My left calf tightens up after certain workouts.  Pam asked me how old I was and we joked about getting older.  Shane replied that "age is just a number", which is something much easier to accept when you're 19.  Well that number is about to increase for me.  I'm off to visit my buddies to celebrate birthday number 38.  Not sure if I'll be back in the gym until Sunday or Monday.

Weekend preview: Enjoy your weekend!  And if you do the Valentine's Day Massacre WOD at KOP on Friday, do not kill your partner.

Red Flags

Workout date: 2/10/16

I ventured out on Wednesday night for the 6:30 class because I wanted to get home a little earlier than usual.  Did I know that the New Year, New You class would be at the same time?  Yes.  Do I continue to tempt fate by coming to these classes with the false belief that there will be plenty of room if the WOD doesn't involve too much equipment?  Yes.  Is it always crowded anyways?  3-for-3.

I simply couldn't pass up this workout because it sounded like a "Dave special".  For all the times I gripe about pull-ups being in a workout, I should be overjoyed when overhead squats show up instead.  And there were 80 of them awaiting me on Wednesday night.

4 rounds:
20 Overhead Squats (115/75)
20 Box Jumps (30"/24")

Perfect!  I could do this one RX since I'm comfortable with overheads at 115 pounds.  Plus I recently learned that I could rebound off of the 30" box.  I might put up a pretty solid time for this workout!

That enthusiasm began to wane when I realized that this might be a prime example of a Sucker WOD.  Looking at the early times in the day, I noticed that none of the morning superstars in the gym went RX (red flag).  Then I noticed that their times weren't nearly as fast as I had expected, even though they had scaled (red flag).  Eventually some folks started doing this workout RX over the course of the day, but only a couple of the ladies put up times that I would call fast.  As for the guys?  Well, one of the younger college guys didn't finish the workout and his partner in crime took over 21 minutes to finish (these flags simply couldn't be any redder).  Perhaps I needed to reconsider how tough this workout really was.

I was lucky enough to run into Samson prior to the workout.  He's another who loves overhead squats and box jumps.  He let me know that the WOD was much tougher than he expected.  He had used 95 pounds for the overhead squats (a popular choice) and the 30" box.  The writing on the wall seemed to indicate that I might be biting off more than I could chew if I tried doing this RX, so I used the same setup that Samson did.

Nine of us had signed up for class, a number that didn't sound too bad.  But with about half of the gym blocked off for New Year, New You and Olympic lifts taking place on the platform, we had to get cozy with our neighbors when setting up the nine lanes for this workout.  And you really don't want there to be a space issue with your barbell and your box, because you could very easily jump off the box and land on the end of your barbell, a sure recipe for injury.  We staggered the barbells so that we weren't all inches away from a classmate's butt each time we went to start overhead squats.  The boxes weren't staggered as much, but they were set up so that no one had to be concerned about landing on their barbell on the way down from their box jumps.  I was at the far end, up next to the cones that separated us from the New Year, New You class.  I was "up front", meaning I had my back to my eight classmates.  I don't love not being able to see anyone else, but I felt weird about being the only one facing the other direction.  Plus I'd get to sneak a peak at them during the box jumps.

Off we went on round one and things started out well.  I held on for all 20 overhead squats and turned my attention to the box jumps.  The scary part of these box jumps was not only that they were taller than usual, but that your legs had been sapped off energy from the overhead squats, making these jumps all that much harder.  So for my first rep, I jumped on the box and stopped.  I wanted my body to realize that I could make the jump even though my legs weren't at full strength.  From there, I did 4 rebounding jumps.  Then I did another 3 rebounding jumps.  Despite convincing my body that I could handle a regular jump up to the 30" box, I hadn't convinced it that I could rebound over and over again without the real risk of injury, either by slamming my shins into the box or by landing improperly.  After 8 reps in round one, I decided it would be wise to do step-downs for the rest of the workout.

I tried to keep a steady pace through the final 12 box jumps.  With round one complete, I took a look at the clock and saw that the round took about three minutes.  Scary.  I did that round fresh and about as quickly as I could do it, yet it still took three minutes to complete.  Prior to the workout, my goal was to finish in under 16 minutes, as four minutes per round seemed like more than enough time to me, especially since I had scaled down to 95 pounds for the overhead squats.  Now it was looking like 4 minutes per round might be a struggle going forward.

In round two, I wimped out immediately.  My mind decided that it would be great if I could split up the 20 overhead squats into more manageable helpings.  So I went 7-7-6 in my three sets of round two, taking two breaks when only one was probably necessary.  Back at the box jumps, I tried to stay at the same pace that I had used for the final 12 jumps of round one.  These jumps were definitely becoming tiring, but I kept at it, doing sets of 3-5 at a time before pausing to catch my breath.  With round two done, the clock showed that a little over 7 minutes had passed.  That round was 4 minutes long and it wasn't going to get any easier in the final two rounds.

Being a wimp suited me in round two, so I did it again in round three, only I lost my balance near the end of the second set, forcing me to go 7-6-7 this time around.  Back at the box jumps, I made it through 17 jumps before experiencing what I expected to be a common occurrence during this workout: I slammed my shin into the box and fell over the left side of it.  It really was a miracle that it took this long for this to happen.  As I had grown tired, I was jumping on to the box hoping like hell that I would make it and not fall.  I got through 57 jumps before the tired legs on my lopsided body failed me.  And it hurt like a mother.  I walked away from my box, muttered a few expletives, shook out my legs, and then came back to finish my last 3 jumps.  Time check: about 11 minutes and 45 seconds.  I needed to pull off this final round in 4 minutes or I wasn't cracking 16 minutes total.

I took a few extra seconds before starting my final round of overhead squats.  I knew I needed to finish these in two sets rather than three.  I didn't have time for an extra break.  I squat snatched the barbell and began moving through the reps.  My legs were sore, but I was not putting the barbell down until I had done at least 10 reps.  I made it through 12 before dropping.  Where was that fortitude in rounds two and three?  Wimp!  When I picked up the barbell again, I took care of the remaining 8 overhead squats.  Just 20 box jumps to go.  Let's not destroy our shins during this last segment!

Christine was yelling at me as I trudged my way through those final 20 box jumps.  The good news?  I didn't whack my shin against the box again, nor did I fall over the left side.  The bad news?  I was pooped.  I kept telling myself not to walk away from the box when I stepped down from it.  I tried to keep chipping away at what I had left, but it felt like it was taking me forever to get through these last 20 jumps.  At long last, I jumped on the 30" box a twentieth time, stood straight up, and looked at the clock.  Final time: 15:38.

Having no further need to be working my legs, I sat down on my box.  Christine thought I was taking a break and told me to stand up and keep going.  I had to signal to her that I was done.  Despite finishing in a time that I thought was pretty good, only 2 other people were still going when I finished.  Giulz had been done for a while, destroying the workout with a time of 13:09 while doing it RX.  Lauren was completing her final round of box jumps while I sat on my box.  She was showing much better consistency than I had in moving through the jumps to wrap up her workout.  Next to me was Rob, who I knew was struggling during the workout, but I didn't know why.  Turns out he was a bit dehydrated and tightened up mid-workout, so he finished his third round, then stopped at that point.

After putting my equipment away and drinking a bunch of water, I decided to practice double unders while the 7:30 class warmed up.  The part of your brain that tells you that you've done enough jumping for one day was clearly enjoying a siesta.  I tried over and over again to do some larger sets, but even my typical medium-sized sets were not happening, with most of my sets being in the 8-12 rep range.  Even when you have good intentions, there are some days when it is better to go home than to hang around and try to practice.  So I put the jump rope away and headed home for a much-needed epsom salt bath.

Thursday preview: Since I'll be away for at least part of the weekend, Thursday would mark my last workout before a small break.  A workout including chest-to-bar pull-ups, heavy hang power cleans, and double unders.  Once upon a time, this would have been an automatic rest day for me, but I decide to challenge myself instead.