Heavy Hump Day

Workout date: 4/20/16

I took advantage of the fact that the racks aren't available until 7am on Wednesdays if the WOD involves anything on the pull-up rig.  A peek at the KOP blog the night before told me that there was going to be skill work in the form of bar muscle-up practice, so I was getting an extra half-hour of sleep without any concerns about arriving late to the gym.  I showed up at around 6:50am and the 6am class had yet to get to the cash out of 5 minutes of bar muscle-ups (or whatever scale the athlete chose to do instead), so I lazily took my time to get ready for some heavy front squats.

I didn't expect the workout from Tuesday night would have much of an effect on my squat routine the next morning, but my legs felt less than 100% as I got warmed up.  It could have been the Monday night workout catching up to me (since I tend to feel the effects of workouts two days later, rather than the next day).  Maybe it was a combination of the first two workouts of the week.  Whatever it was, I started to dread the upcoming squat session.  This was the first time in this program that I would be using more than 215 pounds.  I wouldn't say that 215 pounds has become easy, but my body has grown accustomed to doing front squats with that weight.  Adding 15 pounds didn't sound like a lot, but since today was 5x5 day, it was still a considerable amount of volume.

Perhaps I was simply doing too much thinking.  As I prepared to work my way up to 230 pounds, I began internally debating how I should go about it.  Up to this point, I had gone 135-185 and then moved on to my working sets at 215.  Jumping from 185 to 230 seemed ill-advised, so I needed an additional set along the way to make the progression smoother.  Should I go 135-175-205-230?  That was a nice progression, but it would be a pain to load (so lazy!).  In the end, I decided to continue on with what had worked to this point.  I started off 135-185-215 like always, then bumped up to 230 for the working sets.

None of those warmup sets felt as comfortable as they typically do, especially in terms of speed.  I was definitely slower coming out of the bottom than I had been the week before.  A slower ascending speed meant there was a greater chance of me hitting the dreaded sticking point and at that point all bets were off.  Some days I could get out of the sticking point and other days I was screwed.  Hopefully today would fall into the former category.

After doing 5 reps at 135, 4 reps at 185, and 2 reps at 215, I was ready to take on 230 for the first time.  The best way to describe that first set?  Shaky.  I tried to maintain good speed on the first two reps, but there was a little stickiness to that second rep.  I knew I would need to do a brief reset before each of the final three reps.  As I came up from the fourth rep, I stumbled forward before getting control of the lift.  After rep #5, I put the barbell back on the rack feeling very relieved.  I was breathing heavy and I had only done one set.  Not the best start.

As I was recovering, I decided that I needed to take a different approach to the four remaining sets.  Last week, I had focused on speed and trying to string a few reps together at the beginning of my sets.  For whatever reason, my legs were not giving me that option in this session.  So I decided that I would do a quick reset after every rep, but that I wanted to really focus on performing a solid rep every time.  I didn't want to end up on my toes or stumble forward.  I didn't want to hit my sticking point.  I wanted to build up my confidence one rep at a time so that by the time I hit that last set I had no doubts about whether I would finish the session successfully.  One last thing: there was no need to hurry between sets either.  I had about 30 minutes left before Open Strength was scheduled to end.  That was an enormous amount of time to complete 4 sets.  Taking an extra minute or two more than I typically would was likely a wise strategy.

The good news: that plan worked out for me fairly well.  I didn't have any more episodes like I did during the fourth rep of that first set.  Each of the four sets were difficult and I had to work hard to get through them.  I was never in any serious trouble of failing on a rep though.  I was always breathing heavy at the end of a set.  But it was nothing that some recovery time, some water, and a few paper towels couldn't fix.  At the end of the fifth set, I felt like I had completed a tough WOD.  There was no need for me to hang around and do anything else during the remaining time at Open Strength.  My morning was done and I could come back at 7:30 that evening to take on some even heavier weights.

I'm not sure why Jenna always seems to be coaching when we have deadlift WODs, but that was again the case on Wednesday evening.  The first part of the workout was finding a 3RM deadlift, followed by some skill work with bar muscle-ups, and ending with the 5 minute cash out I mentioned earlier.  As is generally the case with 7:30 classes, attendance was light, with Julie Foucher and Erika R. the only ones joining me for class.  Even though (SPOILER!) I did not hit a PR during this deadlift session, it was a great learning experience for me, one that I hope eventually gets me beyond the deadlifting plateau that I have been stuck on for so long.

Before we go into the good advice that Jenna gave me, let's talk about the bad form I usually exhibit.  It all begins with my stance when I go to deadlift.  I've never felt comfortable with my stance as I get ready to deadlift.  To me, the proper deadlift stance feels very awkward to me.  (Note: I don't feel much more comfortable with my stance while doing the clean and jerk or the snatch, but those stances feel a little more natural than the deadlift stance does.)  I suspect that because I do not feel comfortable in this stance that my body is likely using up precious energy trying to get comfortable, energy that would be better served towards doing the lift.  The stance will continue to be a work in progress.

My other two issues were addressed by Jenna and will likely both help me improve and keep me healthier.  The first issue dealt with gripping the barbell.  Having very weak hands, I've struggled to maintain a solid grip on the barbell, especially when it is loaded up with nearly 400 pounds.  But Jenna explained that our grip should be one where we are almost twisting the barbell (think wringing out some wet laundry).  I really liked this cue because it felt like a more active grip (rather than my typical "it's time to lift, guess I gotta grab the barbell" grip).  As someone who tends to overthink everything, this cue gave me something to think about as I went up to the bar.  It also had the bonus effect of pinning my shoulder blades back naturally, another aspect of the deadlift that I have struggled with in the past.

The second cue was something that I should have been doing already, but apparently is something I slack off with when stringing reps.  When I used to have class with Coach Paul in my first few months at KOP, he would tell me that if I was deadlifting correctly, my shins should bleed from keeping the barbell so close to me during the lift.  And there was many a time in that first year where I left class with bloody shins.  As I've tried to incorporate more speed into sets where I'm doing multiple reps, I have done a poor job of keeping the barbell close to me.  So I cut back on my speed and made sure that my form was proper.  The downside to this?  I was pretty certain that I couldn't hit a 3RM PR going slower and that ended up being true.  But I would point out that the next morning, I woke up and had zero soreness in my lower back, despite making two attempts at a PR lift.  I can't remember the last time I did heavy deadlifts and had no soreness in my lower back.

Jenna gave us 25 minutes to establish a 3RM and I didn't take too much rest as I worked through my early sets of 135, 185, and 225.  I became a little more serious at 275 since I was moving slower and holding on to the barbell longer, but that turned out okay.  From there, I planned on doing four more sets and I was going to take a longer rest (about 3 minutes) between those sets.  At 315 and 345, Jenna remarked that my form looked really good, which I appreciated since it was agonizing doing those sets slowly.  At 365, my form started to fall apart on the last rep, but I managed to hold on for 3 reps. With my PR at 375, I took on 385 for my final set.  The first time I attempted this weight, there was about a minute remaining on the clock.  The barbell moved slightly off the ground, but I dropped it fairly quickly as I knew it wasn't moving fast enough to complete a rep.  I walked away for about 30 seconds and then took a second shot at it.  The second try was better as I got the barbell up near my knee, but it still wasn't moving fast enough that I could lock it out for one rep, never mind three.  Final score: 365.

After that, we played around with different scales for the bar muscle-up.  Jenna mentioned that we didn't have to do the same scale for the entirety of the five minute cash out, so I decided to do 10 jumping bar muscle-ups off of a 17" box and then transitioned to chest-to-bar pull-ups for the remaining time.  I didn't move with the greatest urgency during this cash out, once again hoping to sacrifice speed for some gains in form, but I'm not sure I can even say that.  The jumping bar muscle-ups were fine, but my chest-to-bar pull-ups were not that great.  Cash out final score: 10 jumping bar muscle-ups followed by 7 chest-to-bar pull-ups.

Thursday preview: The death of a legendary musician and my first ever stair workout at the track.