Having gotten back from a short road trip on Monday afternoon, I decided to roll the dice and go to the 6:30 class on Monday night rather than the 5:30 class. That meant sharing the gym with the New Year, New You class, but the WOD didn't require much in the way of space. We were finding a 5RM deadlift, and for the cash out we only needed an assault bike, a KB, and an area to do burpees in. Should be plenty of room for everyone!
Okay, maybe that was a bit of wishful thinking. The first sign that I miscalculated how many people would be in the gym at the same time came when I tried to park my car in the KOP parking lot. Generally, the last couple spaces at the end of the lot are left open so that people can park behind the front row of cars. Not all of the snow had melted since Winter Storm Jonas came to town, so there was less parking available than usual. And someone had parked in the last full spot at the end of the front row. Next to that was about 2/3 of a spot, with the remaining area covered in snow. It seemed risky to try and get through that space, but there were plenty of free spots behind the front row. Just had to squeeze through there. After doing a seven-point turn to get my car lined up exactly with the space available, I slowly made my way through the narrow opening. I made sure I wasn't going to hit the car that had caused this problem, but I wasn't sure if I was going to avoid the snow on the right side of my car. As I eased through, I kept waiting for my car to get lodged in the snow, but I made it through. Who knew parking would be as stressful as the workout?
Inside the gym, our class circled around Coach Aimee and she gave us a surprise. The New Year, New You folks would be joining the 6:30 class so they could get a taste of what real classes are like. That was cool. My first WOD at KOP involved deadlifts, so I felt like I was bonding a bit with our new classmates. Combining the new folks into our class meant that there would be 20 of us doing the workout together. Might be some space issues after all. Actually, it turned out okay because we were put into groups of 3 for both the warm-up and the workout.
During the warm-up, I was paired with EJ and Steve, both members of the New Year, New You class. They seemed like nice guys and we had fun with the warm-up, especially once we lost count of the reps and just kept moving along with the KB swings, KB deadlifts, and lunges. After some deadlift instruction from Aimee, we were going to start getting into the 5RM. Steve was concerned about the fact that he was struggling with only 65 pounds on the bar, but I let him know that it shouldn't be a concern. Back in my first class, I only used 65 pounds for the deadlift (true story). And Steve could definitely handle more once he got used to the movement (he ended up getting 185).
We were about to start when Clay suggested that I be traded to another group. Matt Bohen and Nate were working with one of the members of the New Year, New You program. If I went with Matt and Nate, then the group I was originally in would all be new athletes that Clay could work with a little more easily. Plus that would put me in an experienced group of three for the workout. Made sense, so I joined Matt and Nate.
I was fairly certain that I could lift more than Nate, but not as much as Matt, so our order went Nate, me, then Matt. Nate did 5 reps at 135, 185, and 225 along with me and Matt. Nate isn't new, per se, but he still does some things that I remember doing when I had only been at the gym for a few months. Specifically, Nate doesn't drop the barbell. After doing each rep, Nate would gently tap the floor and then raise the barbell back to his waist. After his 5th rep in each set, he would politely place the barbell back on the floor. There was nothing wrong with doing it this way. The only problem is that it puts a lot of strain on your grip when you move through the reps slowly at higher weights. In contrast, Matt and I would pound the weight off the floor after every single rep and then drop the barbell at the conclusion of our fifth rep. Once Nate gets used to dropping the barbell, I think he'll see big gains in WODs like this one.
After we completed 225, Matt and I split off from Nate. Nate was successful at 245, while Matt and I were able to get 275. Nate then tried 275, but was only able to get a couple of reps before having to stop. Matt and I went up to 315 and got another 5 reps there. My 5RM was 320, which I got at the end of Barbulls. For the most part, if you hear a member of the Barbulls class say "my PR in this came at the end of Barbulls", it is a reflection that their current best is below that. When I asked Matt when he was going to split off from me and go much higher, he replied that he didn't know how much he could do. He said "my 1RM is 450, but I got that at the end of Barbulls". See what I mean?
Despite setting that PR at the end of Barbulls, my goal for the night was 345. It had been a very long time since I had tested my 5RM and I figured it was higher now than it was back then, despite the plateau I've hit for my 1RM deadlift. 345 pounds was the second-to-last set that I did recently when we were trying to find our 3RM deadlift and my thinking was that I could probably hold on for 2 more reps. So the next set for me was 345. Nate said he was good with his set at 245 pounds, so it was just me and Matt continuing on. I got the barbell moving and had a smooth first three reps. Then the fourth rep was a lot of work. As I stood up with the barbell, Matt yelled at me to get one more. I pounded the ground with the barbell and slowly stood up, using all the energy I had. 25 pound PRs never get old and I was very happy about meeting my goal for the night.
Matt went next and did 5 reps at 345 pounds in much easier fashion that I did. I told him I would give 365 pounds a try, even though that had been my 3RM for a long time. I also told him he should go higher because that set he did at 345 was so much easier for him that it was for me. So he agreed to jump to 385 pounds. I stood at the barbell ready to attempt 365, except as soon as I went to stand up for my first rep, I knew that 5 reps was never going to happen. I dropped the barbell immediately and laughed. I got the "what was that?" look from Nate and Matt and realized that I probably should have given it a better effort than I did. So after shaking out my arms and getting refocused, I went back for a real attempt. I got the barbell moving and locked out my first rep. The second rep was incredibly tough, as the air began involuntarily escaping from my nose and mouth, making it sound like a baby elephant was deadlifting.
When there is a little too much weight on the barbell
I made an attempt at a third rep, but it just wasn't happening. I dropped and called it a day. Matt went up to 385 pounds and looked good through his first three reps, but all of a sudden he dropped his barbell too. We both ended up with 345 pounds for our 5RM, but Matt could have done the 365 I failed at in his sleep.
To finish the class up, we were doing a cash out. It was 6 minutes total, with your score consisting of calories from 2 minutes on the assault bike, number of burpees done in 2 minutes, and finally the number of KB swings (53) you could do in 2 minutes. I had seen scores from earlier in the day in the 90-110 range, which seemed high to me, but perhaps I was underestimating how many calories people were getting on the assault bike. 6 people decided to row instead of using the assault bike, so heat 1 had the 6 rowers and 4 people on the bikes. After two minutes, 4 more people would jump on the bikes. After four minutes, 4 people would take their place. And then me and Matt would get to go.
As much as I love competing against Matt, I wasn't psyched about going last and being the only other person in his heat. 10 of the 20 people in the class would be done before we even got to pedal the assault bike. I was familiar with being the last one done and having people encourage me to the end of the workout, but that was usually because I was the only one still going. Now I was in a situation where I felt like I needed to keep up with Matt. And with KBs being the last movement, that was going to be close to impossible.
Heat 4 finally began and Matt and I got moving on the assault bikes. I kinda like the assault bike, but I don't think it's meant for two consecutive minutes of use. By the time, I heard "45 seconds left", I wanted off of that thing. I kept pedaling along, trying to maintain a decent pace, but I was already thinking about how bad the burpees and the KB swings would suck. Two minutes elapsed and it was time for burpees. I will say that I have improved on burpees somewhat as I rarely do crawling burpees anymore. I wasn't exactly moving like lightning during the two minutes of burpees, but I didn't stop at all. I saw Matt out of the corner of my eye and he looked like he hadn't stopped at all either. Am I the only one who gets tired during these workouts?
We had made it to the final two minutes and we'd be swinging the KB with 18 classmates cheering us on. The inevitable shouts of "don't put that down" rang out, but I was certain I'd be putting it down before Matt. I had reached this segment with only about 50 or so reps, so I wasn't sure how I'd get to the 90 range, but feeling like I was competing with Matt helped push me along. I placed the KB down after about 15 reps, while Matt kept trucking along. I didn't pause long before I began swinging the KB again and Matt finally took a break. Matt had launched into another long set as I needed to pause again before continuing on. I had gone over 80 reps as we closed in on 30 seconds remaining. With 20 seconds left, I needed to put down my KB one last time, before picking it up and resolving to swing like crazy until time was called. Mercifully, time was called and I laid on the floor, as did Matt. Final score: 94 reps.
Aimee was telling the New Year, New You class how important it was to stick around and push your classmates until the end of their workout as it helps them go even harder at the end. Matt had certainly done his part in rewarding the crowd's enthusiasm by holding on for long sets of KB swings. Me? Well, I did muster a thumbs up as I laid on my back. I caught my breath, got up, and went over to help Matt off the floor. As I helped him up, he asked me how many reps I got. I told him 94. When the only response I got was silence, I knew he had beaten me. "How many did you get?", I finally asked. Upon hearing the question, he turned around with a huge grin on his face and said "97!"
Seriously, who did you think was winning this matchup?
With Open Strength going on for 90 minutes after our class ended, I stuck around to practice a variety of things. I tried going through different parts of the kipping handstand push-up. I tried to lower my head to the abmat in a controlled fashion with limited success. I tried to get comfortable bringing my knees down towards my elbows in preparation for the kip. At the very end, I tried a couple of kips with no success. Long way to go on those.
Then I turned to double unders. Good news: I am getting much more consistent with sets of 15-25 reps. Bad news: My pursuit of doing 100 double unders in a row has taken a step backwards because I keep doing sets of 15-25 reps. I managed one large set of 46 reps in a row, but really large sets are so few and far between that the 46 reps felt like I had done 200 in a row.
I finished up with toes-to-bar and kipping pull-ups. I wanted to practice toes-to-bar because I have to get used to doing that transition of looking at the ceiling and then looking at the floor. I need it for not only toes-to-bar, but also for muscle-up progress as well. Still feels weird and I have to get better at committing to it. For kipping pull-ups, I just wanted to get some reps in because it feels like I've let that go without practice for quite a while. And not surprisingly, it didn't go so well. Gotta practice.
Tuesday preview: My second attempt at Jackie RX. Very bad workout planning. And then some extremely helpful tips as I continue to pursue a kipping handstand push-up.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.