Sunrise Strength

Workout date: 3/30/16

There is a new class at KOP called Sunrise Sweat.  Definitely not as catchy as Dudes After Dark, but points given for alliteration.  Anyways, this class is designed for crazy people who want to work out at 5:15am.  Now I've been awake at 5:15am (because I had not gone to sleep yet from the night before, not because I wanted to get an early start on the day) and there is no sunrise to speak of.  In fact, I can confirm that based on the new level of crazy I have indulged in to keep pushing along with my front squat program.  Wednesday mornings not only offer a new 5:15am class, but they also offer Open Strength at 6:30am.  And I have begun to make this part of my Wednesday routine.  (Note: When I got in the car to drive to the gym at 6:20am, the world was still dark.  GTFOH with Sunrise Sweat at 5:15am.)

Why?  Well I've been told that it is better to get my squat work done prior to doing a metcon.  When I did the back squat programs last year, I started making a habit of doing my heavy days (the non 6x2 days) on Tuesday or Wednesday as those were the only days when Open Strength was scheduled earlier than a class.  I could go to Open Strength at 5:30pm and then hit up either the 6:30 or 7:30 WOD.  But that version of Open Strength takes place in the annex and the annex is very hit or miss when it comes to having enough space to do the things you want to do.  I felt pretty confident that there would not be space issues in the main gym at 6:30 in the morning.  So I took the plunge and tried it out for the first time at the end of March.

The scheduling of the class is a little odd in that there is a WOD that begins at 6:00am.  So when I walked into the gym, there were athletes in the middle of a workout.  Clay was coaching, saw me come in, and asked "hey, what are you doing here?"  Totally legit question.  I was partially wondering the same thing.  I told him I had come in for Open Strength and he seemed excited that I had made the early morning journey to the gym.  The Wednesday WOD did not involve using the pull-up rig at all, so I was able to secure a rack down at the far end of the gym without interfering with anyone's workout.

Today was 6x4 front squat day with 215 pounds.  It had been two weeks since I had the first "heavy day" in the program and I remembered that by the end of it, I was feeling confident about my form.  I tried to maintain that confident outlook as I got ready with a set of 5 reps at 135 and a set of 4 reps at 185.  Then it was time for the first set at 215.  The first set always sets the tone as far as how confident I will be during the next 5 sets, so I was hoping not to encounter a struggle right off the bat. And thankfully I did not.  Got up on to my toes a little bit at the end of the set, but overall it was good.  I also felt comfortable doing the first two reps quickly which was a plus.  Sometimes I feel the need to reset my breathing after each rep, but that can take up a lot of time on longer sets.  6x4 day was a stepping stone to the biggest volume day of the program, which would be 6x6 day, taking place in 2 weeks.

There isn't a whole lot to say on how the rest of the sets went.  The first 5 sets were all kinda similar as I focused on speed and keeping my weight in my heels.  The weight wasn't overwhelming and I never sensed that I was in any real danger of needing to drop the barbell.  In my last set, I did the first 3 reps quickly, not needing to reset my breathing after 2 reps.  Again, that was with an eye for what I might need to do when I'll be taking on 6 sets of 6 reps in a couple of weeks.

With that work done, I decided to try out one of the two Festivus Games WODs that I had not practiced yet.  WOD #2 is 6 minutes to find your 1RM thruster.  That didn't seem too difficult and it might end up being an event that I could do fairly well in.  I knew that my 1RM was 195 pounds, but that on the day I got it, I needed 3-4 attempts before getting it.  I wouldn't have that sort of time in this WOD unless I got to that weight very quickly.  So I played around with how I might approach it.  When I started my timer, I did a thruster at 135.  Better to get a score on the board before going after the higher weights.  Then I made a big jump to 185.  I struggled to get this thruster, but I did lock it out overhead.  I'm glad I struggled though as it let me know that I should do a progression (probably 135-165-185) at the competition.

After barely getting 185, I didn't have a lot of faith that I could go much higher.  I took some time before attempting 195.  I didn't get quite enough momentum out of the bottom and I don't have enough upper body strength to compensate for that on the press out.  It was close, but not what I needed to lock it out.  Rather than attempt that again, I decided to go down to 190, take some time, and give that weight my best shot to wrap up the six minutes.  With about 30 seconds left, I power cleaned the barbell up to my front rack.  I squatted, then tried to generate as much momentum as I could upward.  The barbell came off of my shoulders and I pressed with everything I had, but it was ascending very slowly.  A second or two later, I got the barbell past the sticking point and locked it out.  That was a lot of work, but I got 190.

So for Festivus, the game plan will be to go 135-165-185 and then 190 or 195 depending on how I feel.  It's possible I could get 195 again as I got 190 after doing a long front squat session.  But 185 is a must.  And if I do get 195, taking a crack at 200 would be cool.  I don't have any aspirations of going higher than that.  Based on this test run, there should be plenty of time to get 5 lifts in, possibly 6 if I really need it.

Was that it for the day?  Of course not!  That was it for the morning session, but I came back at 7:30pm to see Coach Jenna and do the WOD that I witnessed the 6am class doing.  The WOD was very deadlift-centric:

Strength: Find a 2RM deadlift
Cash out: 21-15-9 of deadlifts (225/155) and box jumps (24"/20")

I saw Matt E finishing up at the 6:30 class and he began giving me the "you're going to destroy this" speech, but that usually means he destroyed it and that he expected me to try and catch his numbers.  (I'd end up beating him on the strength part, but losing to him on the cash out.  Matt is faster than he lets on.)

There were 7 of us in class, but I pretty much zoned out during this hour.  I had an idea of what I wanted to do for my deadlift sets, although I wasn't sure at what point in my plan I would need to stop.  For the cash out, I was thinking about using 205 instead of 225, but then I saw a bunch of people who deadlift less than me used 225 for the cash out and I felt like scaling the weight was the wimpy way to go.  So I stuck with the 225.

On my deadlift sets, my planned progression was 135-185-225-275-315-335-355-375-395.  We had to do 5 working sets, so the first three sets listed there didn't count in my mind as they were essentially warmup.  Beginning at 275, I had six sets listed, but the final set was only if I was feeling really good and didn't struggle tremendously at 375.  385 was my 2RM (and also my 1RM), but there isn't a lot of consistency in my deadlift days at the gym, unless you consider my long-standing inability to deadlift 400 pounds to be consistency.  It was entirely possible that I might not get 375.  Or it was possible that I might finally break through and get 395 for at least 1 rep.  You never know with me.

Since these were low rep sets, I didn't experience any problems until the set at 335 (although Jenna accused me of showing signs of having a stripper deadlift when I did my set at 275).  335 felt heavy, but I suspected I'd still get through 355.  Could I do 375 or 395?  Probably not 395 and 375 was starting to look dicey.  I took a longer break after the set at 335.  Not surprisingly, the set at 355 was tougher than the set at 335 and at that point I knew 395 wasn't happening today.  I'd attempt the set at 375 and be happy with whatever the result was.  Ok, I probably wouldn't have been jumping for joy if I failed at 375, but I got it, even though Jenna let me know that the second rep was supremely ugly.

Time for the cash out.  In the 2014 Open, there was a workout involving deadlifts and box jumps.  Not knowing how to effectively rebound at the time, I did step-ups, but I heard that a lot of people who did try to rebound during the workout suffered injuries (not at our gym, just speaking generally).  I'm always a little uneasy about my rebounding ability on the box jump as it is, so I wasn't sure how much rebounding I would do in this cash out.  Turns out it would be very little.

For the deadlifts, I was facing a familiar weight of 225 pounds.  This is what we used in 16.4 when I had the plan of attempting sets of 11.  For this cash out, I was scaling back on that.  I would attempt to go 9-6-6, 9-6, and 9 for the three rounds.  And in round one, things went as planned.  When I got to my box, I rebounded off the box twice before losing my balance.  As I thought about it, there seemed to be very little to gain from rebounding in this cash out, so I did step downs from the box the rest of the way.  After completing 21 box jumps, it was back to the deadlift.  I knew quickly that the 9-6 plan was going to need an adjustment.  I did 5 reps and then planned on doing two more sets of that length before heading back to my box.  I was able to manage that and proceeded to take on 15 box jumps.

I was tiring as I made my way through that middle round of box jumps, but I wasn't stopping.  When they were complete, I came back to my barbell hoping to get a set of 5 and a set of 4.  But once again,  plan B was needed.  I made it through 3 reps before needing to drop the barbell.  And since I wasn't entirely sure I could do two more sets of 3, I decided to start ripping singles off the floor.  They weren't the fastest singles ever, but I at least felt like I was continuing to move towards the finish line.  With 6 singles done, I came over to the box jumps and pushed as hard as I could to get done.  Couldn't have any breaks now.  I could rest as much as I wanted after these 9 box jumps.  I got through all 9 without stopping and then sat on my box.  Final time: 6:35.

Now the day was complete.  Time to go home and see whether Thursday or Friday would be a rest day.

Thursday preview: Friday would be a rest day because Thursday was a remix of a workout that we did a month ago.  2,000 meters of rowing and 30 clean and jerks.  Sounds like a workout I could take a liking to.