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...