Your Setup Is So Adorable

Workout date: 3/22/16

Based on my experience doing 16.4 on Monday night, you might think that I skipped coming to the gym the next few days.  After all, there was no Open workout to complete, at least not until Friday.  But Tuesday turned out to be the first good day I had since Indy's passing.  For the first time in four days, I laughed really hard.  I think I enjoy laughing more than most people and having it absent from my life for four days was noteworthy.  What brought on these desperately needed chuckles?  A Crossfit controversy naturally.  Josh Bridges is one of the more famous Crossfit athletes out there and he had turned in the top score for Open Workout 16.1.  In order to win the cash prize for the best score worldwide, you have to submit video of your performance.  With 16.1, that wasn't a problem.  When Bridges submitted a video to show that he had the best score in the world for 16.4 by an astounding 15 reps, he brewed up a full-fledged shitstorm from the Crossfit community.  In the video, Bridges and three other athletes from the top scoring gym in the world (Crossfit Invictus) are shown blowing through the workout while not even coming close to meeting the acceptable standards that all of us average Joes had to abide by when doing 16.4.  People were outraged, even more so when Crossfit HQ did not respond to the controversy.  From the anger came some truly funny responses and videos that cracked me up.  So I guess I owe Crossfit Invictus a thank you for trying to cheat the system.

(Note: Eventually Crossfit HQ did slap Bridges with a 15% penalty for his farce of a video submission.  In typical HQ style, they buried the story by posting it as the live announcement of Open Workout 16.5 was taking place.  Then Dave Castro took a shot at Opex [a gym caught cheating in a video taken of them doing 16.1] during the cool down show rather than say anything about Bridges, who is one of HQ's boys.  Hard to expect anything different, but still disappointing.)

Perhaps being inundated with the Bridges stuff made me go to the gym on Tuesday night.  Perhaps I wanted to try and get back into a normal routine.  Or perhaps I simply could not miss Dudes After Dark.  Whatever the case may have been, I did get my act together and showed up for the 7:30 class.  The WOD was another of the one part skill, one part strength variety.  The skill was working on getting a ring muscle-up.  The strength aspect was finding a 3RM back squat.

This class ended up being a legit Dudes After Dark session as Cline and I were joined my Mark, who I was meeting for the first time.  None of us had anything resembling a muscle-up, but Coach Rachel walked us through some progressions anyway.  I tried to hang from the rings with straight arms while keeping a false grip, but my wrist would slide on the ring and I'd fall into a normal grip again.  The only way I could maintain the false grip was with bent arms.  The problem with having bent arms (besides not counting as a real muscle-up if I somehow miraculously catapulted my body up over the rings) was that I struggled to get a kip going.  So as I always say after one of these sessions, there is a long way to go before I get a muscle-up.

At least I know how to back squat.  The three of us left the rings and headed over to the racks.  We were all fairly close in height, but only two racks were set up at the height we needed.  I offered to share a rack with Mark, while Cline would use the one right next to us.  That setup was short-lived though.  Rachel watched Mark as he did some warmup reps and decided that he should be squatting to a box.  I moved over and shared a rack with Cline, who had already begun his sets.  I was going to do a warmup set at 135 before doing working sets of 185-225-245-265-285, but (if I remember correctly) there was already 155 on the barbell when I joined Cline.  So I did my warmup set with that.  From there, I did my first two sets at 185 and 225.

If anyone has watched me set up to squat, you know that I have a somewhat unique routine that I go through.  I've described in earlier blog posts what I am thinking about when I go to squat.  I am visualizing a former KOP coach (Plentus) standing on the other side of the barbell, yelling at me about bringing intensity into the lift as soon as I grab it off the rack.  This actually happened in one of my first front squat sessions at KOP.  Plentus noticed that I was kinda nonchalantly grabbing the barbell, walking away from the rack, squatting down, and then failing to muster up enough energy to stand the weight back up.  Not being an aggressive person, I had a hard time overcoming this problem.  My first adjustment was to grab the barbell from the rack, take a few steps back, try to get myself fired up and then do the squat.  Still wasn't working.  Plentus drove home the idea that I needed that intensity as soon as my hands touched the barbell.  So by the end of the class, every time I went to do a set, he would run over in front of me and begin yelling like a crazy person to get me fired up.  And it worked.

That has stuck with me to this day.  Whenever I am about to do a set of squats, I stand several paces away from the barbell and try to get my thoughts right.  I'm not hoping that I get three reps of my back squat.  I'm telling myself that I'm going to crush three reps of my back squat.  When I step up to the barbell, I try to grip the barbell exactly the way I want it for the set.  As I'm adjusting my grip, I alternate yanking on the barbell with each arm, trying to psych myself up for the lift.  When it finally feels right, I lunge forward, taking a bunch of tiny steps in place as I gear up to take the barbell off the rack.  It is similar to the stutter-steps I take when I approach the wall during wall ascents.  Finally, I step back from the rack, make sure my breathing is right, and then I go.

Why am I describing all of this?  Because when I went to do the next set at 245, it didn't go so well.  I was up on my toes for all three reps, even though I know better.  I kept telling myself to stay in my heels, but it didn't happen.  Was I successful in completing the three reps?  Yes.  But I was angry at myself when I put the barbell back on the rack.  Rachel and Cline didn't really get why I was so upset about the set, but Cline tried to make me feel better by assuring me that my "setup was so adorable".  My form may have sucked during that set, but it was a relief being able to laugh again, and that comment certainly made me snicker.

My 3RM back squat is 300 pounds, but the issues at 245 made me think that I didn't have my A-game today.  Plus time was running out in class and I wasn't certain that I'd be able to get two more sets in.  So rather than do 265 and 285, I split the difference and did one final set at 275.  Was it ugly just like the set at 245?  Sure was.  In fact, I think I was on my toes for all three of those reps as well.  But I did manage to stand the weight up three straight times, so I guess it counts.  Final score: 275.

Wednesday preview: My old friend rope climbs makes an appearance in a WOD, though he is overshadowed by a lot of running.  Like a half mile at a time.