My body was still recovering from the Festivus Games late Sunday night when the WOD for Monday was posted. I'm pretty sure I may have began convulsing a little bit when I read it. Here I was trying to get back to normal after everything I had done on Saturday and this WOD seemed to be a mashup of all those workouts I had done over the course of that day. I guess I should be grateful there was no bench press involved. Monday's WOD was called "27's" and here's what it looked like:
"27's"
400 meter run
27 thrusters (115/75)
27 chest-to-bar pull-ups
400 meter run
27 KB swings (70/53)
27 sumo deadlift high pulls (115/75)
400 meter run
27 GHD sit-ups
27 toes-to-bar
Thrusters? KB swings? Sumo deadlift high pulls? Too soon, KOP programming, too soon! At least the Intermediate competitors got some validation on the sumo deadlift high pulls, as the weight used in the competition was equivalent to the RX weight here, indicating that what we took on in WOD #3 was more advanced than intermediate.
The first decision I made regarding this workout was a simple one: scale. Could I do all of this using RX weights? Sure. And having seen that most of the times from earlier in the day were in the low-to-mid twenties range, it wasn't like I had to worry about going blisteringly fast. But this was a workout where I cared more about doing the gymnastics movements RX than the barbell and KB movements RX. 27 chest-to-bar pull-ups was going to take me quite a while to finish, almost certainly putting me behind the rest of the class. Did it make sense to try and be a hero with 115 pound sumo deadlift high pulls then? Not really. I sampled that on Saturday and it was not to my liking. So I began thinking through the workout and deciding how I should scale so that I could keep up with the class. I'd be using the same barbell for thrusters and sumo deadlift high pulls. 95 pounds seemed like a reasonable weight to use for that. Since I suck at KB swings and I'd likely be sweaty at that point in the proceedings, using a 70 pound KB didn't make much sense. 53 would be plenty for me. With those modifications in place, I felt good about completing the rest of the WOD at a pace where I'd be with the rest of the class at the end.
Even though the new on-ramp class was taking place at 6:30, I decided to go in at that time anyway. I like being able to take a later class, plus it flows nicely into Open Strength. Is it a pain to find parking when these on-ramp classes are going on? Absolutely. (Don't get me started on the people who park at the bottom of the parking lot, blocking everyone's ability to reach the empty spots on the other side. Drives me nuts!) Would I likely have to deal with very limited space in a workout like this where you would be transitioning all over the place during it? Undoubtedly. But hey, I generally know when a workout will be a struggle for me and I won't put up a particularly good time. This was one of those WODs. If I had to wait for a GHD machine to open up, I wasn't going to worry about how that adversely affected my final time. This WOD was more about getting the work done.
Aimee was coaching the 6:30 class and that meant there would be lots of warmup. With it being close to 80 degrees when the class started, the result was a fairly drenched t-shirt before the workout even began. The nice weather allowed the coaches the opportunity to bring the on-ramp class outdoors, providing more space to the 6:30 class in the main gym. That was a blessing because I'm not sure how the 13 of us would have managed without all of the extra space. It was still close quarters despite having the entire gym to ourselves. As we went through the warmup, Aimee told us to choose a weight for the thrusters where we would be able to string about 15 reps if we were fresh. 95 pounds met that requirement for me, but just barely. And since I was still feeling a little beaten up from Saturday, I decided that it would make more sense to scale down 10 more pounds and use 85 pounds on my barbell. (Note: I also made one other adjustment. I had planned on using a low bar for the gymnastic movements, but after watching Josh P use the high bar in the 5:30 class, I felt like it was only right that I remain on the high bar as well. If you're tall enough for the high bar, I think you should be on it. That's just me.)
After going through the barbell movements and some practice with the KB swings, we moved to the pull-up rig. The focus here was toes-to-bar and Aimee called out TJ, Cline, and myself for being very slow shooting our legs back downward. Then she mentioned a key point which I had somehow forgotten about. It wasn't enough to simply shoot your legs up so that you kick the bar and then shoot your legs back down to generate the momentum for the next rep. You had to look up as your legs came up (already do that) and look down as your legs go down (was not doing that). As soon as I started looking down between reps, I began having more success. Amazing how remembering one simple thing can dramatically affect your performance.
Aimee sent us on our way and even though I typically run near the front of the pack on the first run of a workout, today I was content to hang near the back of the pack. It was a long workout and I didn't see any benefit in expending energy during this initial phase of it. When I came back into the gym, I grabbed my barbell and power cleaned it. Typically I would do a squat clean to begin my first thruster as that saves you half a rep, but my thinking was that I didn't need to make these elements of the workout more complicated than they needed to be. The chest-to-bar pull-ups and the toes-to-bar were going to be difficult enough. Aimee had mentioned doing 15 reps, but I dropped after 11 reps and as far as I could tell, I was the first one to drop. I hadn't seen anyone else drop, nor had I heard any other barbells hit the floor behind me. I took a small break, then did 10 more reps. One last small break, then I completed the last 6 reps. Even though I had dropped my barbell first, I must have been moving through the thrusters faster than everyone else, because I was the first one to head to the pull-up rig.
That head start didn't help me for very long. Having not done chest-to-bar pull-ups in a while, I could only manage "fast singles" and, trust me, they weren't all that fast. I knew that would be the case, but it isn't often that we do chest-to-bar pull-ups and I wanted to prove to myself that I could do 27 of them as part of this workout. Soon everyone was on the pull-up rig. Then some folks began to head out the door for their second run. Nearly everyone was gone for their second run as I made it to my 15th rep. That was when Aimee came over and gave me another valuable tip. I've mentioned a few times that I thought I might be close to a bar muscle-up because I've been able to hit the bottom of my rib cage against the bar. Supposedly if I could hit my hips against the bar, then I should be at the point that I could rotate over and get a bar muscle-up. That's great for a bar muscle-up, but it's not what you want to be doing for a chest-to-bar pull-up. See the photo evidence below:
That's me in the background, doing what appears to be a throat-to-bar
See how horizontal I am? There's no chance of me being able to string chest-to-bar pull-ups from that position. As I'm swinging through on my kip, I am pulling up from that position. Aimee corrected this for me. What I needed to do was close my shoulder down on the swing back, then pull in rather than up. By doing that, I not only would hit my chest more often (rather than my lower rib cage), but I would also be loading my arms so that I could push away from the bar (the coaches are always yelling at me to do this, but it's much harder than it sounds). I had been so focused on getting my chest up to that bar, that I had left myself in terrible position during the movement. So the next time chest-to-bar pull-ups are programmed in a workout, I will be focusing on this change with the hopes of doing them two at a time.
In this workout, though, it was 27 singles. Some folks had made it back from the run and were already doing KB swings when I finally finished the chest-to-bar pull-ups (only one no-rep!) and went for a run. I made up some time on the run, but I was still way behind. Aimee had mentioned the possibility of a 25 minute time cap if we weren't close to finishing the WOD and I was very much in danger of being hit with that as I returned from the second run. But my decision to scale paid dividends in round two. The plan for the KB swings was to try and get 15 reps then 12 reps, but as I swung the KB, I began to convince myself that I could hold on for all 27. Unfortunately, I lost my balance on the 17th swing and had to put it down so that I didn't injure myself. Once I was ready to go, I took care of the last 10 reps and moved to the sumo deadlift high pulls. There were at least 3 or 4 other people still on that movement, so I no longer looked like I was way behind everybody. I started off with a set of 8 and then did a set of 6. The weight wasn't bad, but my lower back was starting to tighten a bit and I didn't want to push it with GHDs lurking in round three. I finished things off with a set of 6 and a set of 7, heading out the door for my final run. I had made up so much time that I was now ahead of one of my classmates.
When I returned, I got on a GHD, but as soon as I leaned back, I realized it was set up for someone considerably shorter than me. I moved over to another GHD and found one that suited me better. I did a set of 11 to begin, then a set of 9, and completed that segment with a set of 7. The clock read 23 minutes and change. I was tired, but I was headed to the last movement before the clock had reached 25 minutes. I felt confident that Aimee was going to let me finish the workout. Over at the toes-to-bar, I tried to string reps together using the efficient method but I didn't have enough energy to do it. However, Aimee's tip was paying off. Even though I was essentially swinging from a dead hang, I could string together 3-4 reps easier than normal because I was generating momentum from looking down while swinging my body through on the kip. Still, it was slow going. Most people were done when I started the toes-to-bar. As I rested between sets, I could see people putting their equipment away. Anne and Steph C had come over to cheer me on, thinking that I had only 2-3 reps left, but it was more like 21 remaining when they arrived. They stuck with me through the remainder anyways. I had two no-reps along the way, but eventually I tapped my toes against the bar 27 times. Final time: 28:21.
(Bonus nerd fact: In keeping with the theme of "27's", my final time worked out to 27 minutes and 27 seconds plus 27 seconds plus 27 seconds. The fact that I know that should help you understand why girls didn't talk to me in high school.)
Despite being dead last and finishing more than 9 minutes behind Steph C on this workout, I was happy with how things turned out. I did all of the gymnastics movements RX. I learned some tips that will help me with those movements going forward. I scaled better than I normally do. And I even made a little surge in the middle of the workout, something that is very atypical for me. So lots of good takeaways from a workout that falls nowhere near my wheelhouse.
After some rest and some rolling out, I continued with my front squat program. You never want to be yawning while doing front squats, but I couldn't help myself as I did my 6x2 session with 215 pounds. I'll need to be more alert on Wednesday morning, as the weight increases for the first time. I'll be trying 5x5 with 230 pounds.
Tuesday preview: A WOD called "Pressure Cooker" that involves 270 double unders. They really are pouring salt on my Festivus wounds this week!
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