Lower

Workout date: 5/22/16

With KOP's second annual Prom in the books as of Friday night, I returned to the gym two days later for some Sunday school.  By the time I came in for some cardio work on Sunday morning, I had gotten almost three days of rest since showing up for the noon class on Thursday.  The WOD was all tabata-based.  In fact, had there been one more movement included (a four-movement rotation rather than a three-movement rotation), the structure of the WOD would have been tabata-like as well.  I think I'm happy there wasn't a fourth movement as I could barely walk after doing this workout anyways.  Here's what the Sunday WOD looked like:

Tabata Row (calories)
Tabata Air Squats
Tabata Assault Bike (calories)
Tabata Row
Tabata Air Squats
Tabata Assault Bike
*A tabata is 8 rounds long with 20 seconds of work each round followed by 10 seconds of rest
**One minute rest between each station

The main reason I came in for this workout is because I'm trying to improve my cardio as much as possible and this was definitely a WOD where my lungs were going to be tested.  I knew this would do a number on my legs as well, but I underestimated how much pain I would be in during this workout.  I didn't even make it all of the way through the rotation the first time before I was hunched over in agony.

Coach Rachel had 12 attendees in her 10am class and because this workout involved the use of bikes, we had to stagger the start.  Even with the staggered start (6 people per group), not everyone could use an assault bike as we only have 5 of them at the gym.  There are 2 airdyne bikes though and I didn't hear anyone complain about having to use the assault bike's gentler cousin instead.  Before beginning the workout, we partnered up on a bike and I agreed to share one with Matt E.  He was going first and I was beginning once the first tabata had ended as part of the second wave.  Next to me in the second wave was Ben and he ended up being my partner during this workout more than Matt simply because we went through this beatdown side-by-side.  (We also spent the one minute rest periods sharing a marker and slowly writing the number of reps from the previous movement on our whiteboards.)

There were only three people in the 9am class, but based on their scores, I figured that 400 reps was a reasonable goal.  The key would be pushing through the air squat tabata as that would certainly pad your score more than the rowing and the assault bike would.  After the first wave had completed their first tabata on the rower, it was time for Ben, myself, and the rest of the second group to begin our workout.  Since we were only doing 20 second bursts, I decided to put the damper higher than I normally would put it when rowing for calories and it seemed to pay dividends.  For the first few rounds of that initial tabata, I was getting about 10 calories every 20 seconds, which was a lot for me.  That number decreased as the rounds wore on, but I was happy with my final score at the end of the first tabata.  With the one minute break upon us, I scrawled 62 on my whiteboard.

"Sandbagger!"  That's what Ben said to me as I handed him the marker to write down his score.  Even though I thought I had done well on the row, I was evidently mistaken as Ben scribbled down 69 for his score.  He thought I was saving energy for the remaining tabatas, not knowing that I am incredibly average when it comes to rowing.  I let him know that 62 was a good score for me and that there was no way I could keep up with guys like him, Cline, and Matt on the rower.  Where could I keep up with them?  On the air squats.  The second tabata began and I started cranking out rep after rep, hoping to do one per second early on.  At the first 10 second rest, I had 18 reps, so I adjusted my expectations.  I tried to hold that pace of 18 every twenty seconds, but soon it began dropping down to the 15 range.  My legs were burning as I hit the end of this tabata, but this was the section where I needed to go all out, even if it meant a worse performance on the assault bike.  My score for the first air squat tabata was 125.

I paid the price when I got to the assault bike.  I needed 30 seconds of my minute break just to stand up after all of those rapid-fire air squats.  When I crawled on to my bike, I had less than 10 seconds before we were starting again.  I tried to pedal hard, but my calorie counter was still on zero halfway through the first round of the tabata.  I did get it moving eventually, but when the 10 second break hit, I only had 2 calories.  Oh boy.  The good thing about the assault bike though is that it keeps counting calories as the wheel spins, even if you're no longer pedaling.  So I had 3 calories on my monitor when I began the next 20 second sprint.  I got 3 calories the first few rounds, then 4 calories in the middle rounds as my legs loosened up, before getting 5 calories per round near the end of the tabata.  I finished with 32 calories on the bike and 219 reps for my first pass through the three stations.

That was about where I hoped to be as I knew there would be a drop off the second time through.  A drop off of 38 reps would be 181 and that would give me a total of 400 for the workout.  Seemed reasonable enough.  Only I gave back most of those 38 reps right off the bat in my second go round on the rower.  If Ben thought I was sandbagging with a score of 62, he must have thought I was really taking it easy when I finished the second rowing tabata with a score of 36.  Welp.  And it wasn't like I got my legs back in preparation for the all-important air squat station coming up.  I managed one strong round at the beginning of the air squat tabata, then tried to fight through the pain of the remaining seven rounds.  After the fourth 20 second burst of air squats, I decided to lay on the ground for most of my 10 second break in order to let my legs relax, if only briefly.  I repeated this routine the rest of the way, but could only manage 10-12 air squats per round.  I gave it everything I had in the final 20 seconds, finally managing to get back to 15 air squats.  I had lost 22 more reps as my score was 103 for the second air squat tabata, matching Ben exactly.

I wanted no part of the assault bike after the air squats were done.  I barely got to my bike in time to start the final tabata.  Making things worse was the fact that half the class was done.  I wanted to pay one of them to switch places with me.  During certain rounds, I would close my eyes, pedal like crazy, then open them to find that only 12 seconds had passed and I had 8 more seconds to go before the way-too-brief 10 second rest.  At least I didn't have a huge drop off here like I had at the other stations, although to be fair, when your initial score is 32, it is really hard to have a huge drop off.  I managed 31 calories on the assault bike in round two.  Final score for the WOD: 389.

That was a little below what I wanted, but definitely acceptable.  And honestly, I was in so much pain at the end of this WOD that my score could have been 137 and it wouldn't have bothered me.  The pain from this workout would linger in my legs for the better part of the next three days.  So what would I work on during Open Strength?  Anything that focused on the upper body.

With the front squat program over, it is time to focus on something non-squat related once again.  To me, the obvious choice is pull-ups.  I will certainly be putting more time into my double unders and my handstand push-up/walk progressions, but my performance on Jackie was the kick in the butt I needed to start focusing on pull-ups again.  Even if I'm exhausted, it shouldn't take me over 4 minutes to knock out 30 pull-ups.  There are people in the gym who can do that in 30 seconds.  A little more pull-up competency would go a long way in improving my workout times.  So what did I work on?  The infamous "push away at the top".  And what I've learned is that the push away at the top is impossible if you are not coming at the bar at the correct angle.  If you pull straight up, there is no way to push away at the top.  What you need to do is pull yourself into the bar when doing a kipping pull-up as that will allow you to almost spring-load your arms, making the push away a natural motion.  If you're pulling yourself in to the bar, you need to be away from the bar as you are swinging.  How do you get there?  Close that shoulder and lean back.  It is totally counterintuitive at first, but makes sense when you practice it.  It is the same motion that Clay was trying to teach me when he was helping me with my toes-to-bar.

In workouts, I tend to do sets of two if things are going well, with the occasional set of three near the beginning because I am still fresh.  My goal today was to do sets of four reps.  Not four reps with a dead hang in there somewhere.  I wanted four solid kipping reps with a push away from the top.  I also wanted to try a looser grip on the bar.  I think some of my grip issues come from having a death grip on the bar during my pull-ups.  But I've learned I don't need to hold on that hard in order to do gymnastic movements on the bar.  If my hands weren't throbbing in pain, I could probably hold on for longer sets.  One by one, I began doing sets of 4 reps.  I was happy with my form and my ability to push away at the top like I am always told.  The lighter grip helped a little, but at the end of every 4 reps, my hands still hurt.  Not sure how I'm going to get around that problem.  I did 5 sets before calling it a day on pull-ups.  Michal showed up during my later sets and only saw some of my practice, but my unofficial pull-up coach let me know that my form looked good.

After that, I went back to practicing handstand holds by doing more of the 10 second holds with one foot off of the wall.  The holds themselves aren't too bad, especially when you hold your foot only a few inches away from the wall.  I tried a couple of sets where I really extended one leg back from the wall and those were considerably tougher.  Several of those sets resulted in me looking like a chopped tree slowly falling to the earth, but I did successfully complete 1 set where I kept a leg extended quite a bit off the wall.

From there, I grabbed a couple of abmats and practiced handstand push-ups.  My reps with two abmats were going smoothly, so I wanted to try getting one with only one abmat.  This has been my plateau for a while now as my arms seem to give way before my dome can make contact with that singular abmat.  I never have a good sense of how close I am to the abmat, so I decided to take a video of myself attempting a handstand push-up with one abmat.  Then I'd have a much better idea of how close I truly was.  Plus I could then post it on here and give everyone a laugh.

The video ended up being worse than expected, so it won't be making an appearance in this blog post.  I got the video rolling and had my phone in a perfect spot to capture my head and the abmat.  Then I went to kick up on to the wall and failed.  Nothing like letting a rolling video screw with your mind.  I shook out my arms, took a second, then kicked up on to the wall properly.  I bent my arms and hoped to feel my head hit an abmat, but I had no such luck.  When I got to the point where I couldn't get any further, I pressed back up.  I was going to go for a second try, when Michal (who may not be  my unofficial handstand push-up coach) chimed in that I needed to go lower.  Ummm, yeah, I kinda knew I needed to go lower when my head didn't hit the abmat.  It struck me as such a silly thing to say that I went into a bit of a laughing fit as I hung upside-down.  There was no point in making a second attempt now.  And since most of the video was just me laughing upside-down, I erased it.  (Note: I did watch it to see how close my head was to the one abmat.  The answer?  Not very close.)  That was enough practice for me for the day.  I changed my shirt and gingerly walked to my car hoping that the next day's WOD wouldn't be leg-heavy.

Monday preview: Me and Matt B take on a difficult partner WOD together and the pity circle makes an appearance.

The Wobble

Workout date: 5/19/16

I've had people tell me that they get a chuckle out of how many details I remember from my workouts.  My mind tends to be a vault for useless information, so it is no surprise to me that even though I am not intentionally remembering how many reps I did on my first set of round three of the workout, I do recall it when I sit down to write these posts.  Unfortunately my memory isn't always so sharp when I'm jotting down details from a workout a week ago.  As a result, I forgot an important detail from working out on Monday that I didn't realize until I got ready to write this post.  So I need to provide a quick update before getting into the Thursday WOD.

After completing Jackie and doing some handstand practice, I decided to test out my split jerk again.  You may remember that I had gone to the split jerk clinic and found success in every lift I did up to 225 pounds before time ran out in class.  After doing the handstand work, I felt recovered enough to see if I could move beyond that 225 mark.  My PR for the jerk was 230, but I thought something in the range of 235-245 might be in play.  Here's a recap of my lifts:

• 135 - good
• 165 - good
• 185 - good
• 205 - the obligatory shaky lift that makes me doubt whether I'll be able to make the lift at heavier weights
• 225 - shaky again, but successful
• 235 - failed, Giulz pointed out that I wasn't getting my head through as I went into my split jerk
• 235 - success as I got my head through the second time
• 245 - not even close

I could tell that I had no more juice when I did that lift at 245, so I called it a night at that point.  But I did get a PR at 235 and if I'm not including my PRs in the blog, I'll never counterbalance all of the usual self-deprication.  So there you go, a PR on my split jerk and full details from the Monday night workout.

Why did the Thursday workout remind me about my forgotten split jerk accomplishment?  There were two reasons.  First, the Thursday WOD was finding your 15RM overhead squat, meaning I would be holding heavy weight over my head, just like I had late Monday night.  Second, I experienced a problem during the overhead squats that was similar to a difficulty I was having during the split jerks.  Among the phrases I hear ad nauseam at the gym are "stay in your heels", "push away at the top", and "keep your core tight".  That last one was not going so well this week.  When I talk about getting set up for a heavy squat and making sure my breathing is right, I'm basically explaining how I get my core tight before the lift.  The same principles hold for the split jerk and the overhead squat in regards to getting your core tight during the setup.  Yet I was having a very difficult time with it during both of these sessions.  It was a little more disappointing on Monday since I was only doing 1 rep at a time.  Shouldn't be that hard to keep my core tight for one rep.  But keeping your core tight is probably more essential for overhead squats, so you can imagine how difficult it was to attempt 15 consecutive reps.

I went in for the noon express class on Thursday because I was headed to Atlantic City later in the afternoon to celebrate the 40th birthday of my twin brother, Rodney.  Priorities!

Four-shadowing?  Rodney and me at 4am on the AC boardwalk.  (Rodney is on the left for those of you having difficulty telling us apart.)

If I was going to indulge in some overhead squats, I needed to show up earlier than usual.  So I headed to the noon class along with Queen Pam.  Whenever I take class with Pam, she always asks when I'm going to help her with overhead squats, one of the rare things she struggles with at the gym.  Looked like this would finally be the day!  Aimee put us through some warmups (translation: forced me to sweat before the "workout" even began) and then let us work on our large overhead squat sets.  This was one of our benchmark WODs and when I had done this 3 months ago, I got 15 reps at 135 before failing on rep #15 at 155.  Nothing more aggravating than getting to the very end and failing, so I wanted redemption.  Had to get 15 reps at 155 today.

I didn't wait for Aimee to give us the instruction that we could do less than 15 reps on our warmup sets as I had remembered that from last time.  I did 8 reps at 75 pounds before putting the barbell back on the rack.  I only did 5 reps at 95 pounds, then began feeling guilty about only doing that many.  So when I did my last warmup set at 115 pounds, I did 6 reps.  I'm not sure why doing one more rep put my conscience at ease, but it did.  I looked over and saw that Pam was working together with Denise and both of them seemed to have solid overhead squat form.  They didn't look confident as they did their reps, but their form was good.  I began to suspect that Pam wasn't actually bad at overhead squats, but only needed to have faith that she could do it.  When Pam hit a PR a little while later, that theory was confirmed.

Because the sets are so big during this WOD, you really only want to do two sets, possibly three.  The natural progression would have been to go 135-155 like I had last time, but then I'd be tying my PR if I failed at 155.  I grabbed a couple of 2.5 pound plates and added them for the first set, so that I could at least get a PR of 140 if the second set didn't go well.  Alarmingly, the first set didn't go all that well.  I did two squats, then felt my mid-section sway as I rose from the second rep.  I took a step forward, then steadied myself before continuing on.  I'm not sure if the best way to describe my core during this set would be jiggly or wobbly, but it certainly wasn't solid.  That didn't mean my form wasn't good, only that I was making it more difficult on myself to rise out of the bottom of the squat.  Here's a peek at how I looked during the set at 140:

I do love overhead squat day

The set took a lot more work than I had hoped, but I held on for a new PR.  I would need to do a much better job of keeping my core tight with the set at 155 if I was going to manage 15 reps there.

The cash out involved muscle up practice, but Aimee made it sound optional (the noon express class is 15 minutes shorter than a normal class and these large sets require a lot of time both for the lifts and for recovery).  Since I'm nowhere near a muscle up, I decided to skip the cash out, giving myself some extra recovery time before going after 155.  When it was time to go, I tried to be confident and reminded myself how important keeping my core tight would be.  However, the wobble was back almost immediately as I began the set at 155.  And for some strange reason, I had a stumble again as I tried to rise from rep #2.  I almost dumped the barbell at that point, but I held on and tried to methodically get through the reps.  Over the course of the next 10 reps, I struggled, but I churned through one rep after another.  When I went to do rep #13, I revisited the very poor rep I had done near the beginning of the set.  I barely got out of the bottom and had to work really hard to stand the weight up.  But I only had two more reps to go!  I could suck it up and get through two more reps.  At least that is what I told myself.  As I lowered into my 14th overhead squat, I felt my wrists trembling as they tried to keep the barbell steady over my head.  There was no point in trying to stand up until I had the barbell under control.  My wrists were shaking violently, but the barbell was centered, so I tried to rise.  I didn't get very far before my wrists gave way.  I dumped the barbell in front of me.  Once again, 155 had gotten the best of me at the very end of a 15RM set.

That was a frustrating end to the class, but there was no chance I could make another attempt at 15 more reps.  I'd have to wait three more months before I could get revenge on 155.  I headed home, got cleaned up, and headed to Atlantic City on the party train.  It would be the beginning of my weekend as KOP hosted Prom the next evening and I skipped the Saturday WOD.

Sunday preview: A tabata of tabatas destroys everyone's legs.

Not So Funny Bone

Workout date: 5/18/16

The wall ascent is one of those Crossfit items in the gym that doesn't show up as often as it should.  In fact, it is something that you can't even practice in the gym because all the portable racks and the lifting blocks are stored right next to the 8' wall.  You have to wait until it gets programmed and make sure that you don't miss that day.  I would estimate that wall ascents make an appearance about once every 4-6 months in WODs at KOP.  Last month, they were part of a WOD and I had to miss it.  Drats!  Guess I'd have to wait until early fall before I could climb the wall again.

Or would I?  Tuesday night wasn't all bad as I received a gift at 10pm when the KOP blog announced that the next day's WOD would include wall ascents.  Yes!!!  I had actually done this specific workout last April so this would be a chance to see if I had improved since then.  Here was the WOD:

15 minute AMRAP:
1 wall ascent (8'/6')
10 KB swings (70/53)
1 wall ascent
10 burpees

If you wanted a good score in this workout, you had to make sure you were in a class that didn't have a ton of people in it.  Only one person can climb the wall at a time, so if someone else is on the wall (or even worse, if there is a line of people waiting to climb the wall), then you have to wait your turn. The 7:30 class tends to have a low turnout so I felt safe in choosing that class.  There were only 5 of us there, with 3 guys on the 8' wall (me, Brian, and Rahmad) and 2 ladies on the 6' wall (Nicole and Julie Foucher).  Rahmad is new to KOP and he didn't seem so sure about the 8' wall, but he was like we all were when we first started at the gym.  If all the guys were going up the 8' wall, then he was going up the 8' wall as well!  After a few attempts, he realized what we all realized at the beginning: that it's pretty rare that you can just jump into the RX movement right off the bat.  He moved over to the 6' wall, leaving me and Brian on the 8' wall.  Oddly enough, when I had done this workout last April, me and Brian were the only ones on the 8' wall in that workout as well.

Wait!!!  There was a late arrival to class.  Coach Rachel had gone into a phone booth and transformed into athlete Rachel.  There had only been glimpses of this WOD superhero in recent months, but she had been lured to this workout due to the presence of wall ascents, just as I had.  She joined the group going over the 6' wall, although it should be noted that Rachel and Julie Foucher did get their first ever ascents over the 8' wall during the warmup.

My biggest concern about this workout?  My left elbow.  It had begun acting up again earlier in the afternoon and everything in this WOD seemed like something that could aggravate my elbow even more.  Pulling myself up over a wall?  Check.  Swinging a very heavy KB over my head?  Check.  Pushing out of the bottom of a burpee?  Check.  A very solid argument could have been made for skipping this workout to avoid making my elbow worse, but it seemed like sacrilege to miss wall ascents for the second time in a row.  So I made the same deal with myself as I had the night before: if I felt any real pain in my elbow during the workout, I would scale down the movements (or stop).

In order to give a little separation during the initial wall ascent, Coach Jenna sent us off in 10 second intervals after one another to begin.  Brian didn't seem eager to start us off, so I went first.  And I kept a good pace during that first round.  When I had done this workout last April, my score was 5+11 (got through all of the KB swings in round 6).  One round every two and a half minutes meant 6 rounds, so I wanted to try and keep that pace if at all possible.  As I finished my last burpee in round one, I took a peek at the clock and saw I was just over two minutes.  And at the end of two rounds, I was under 4:20.  Six rounds was definitely in play.

Round three was when fatigue began to set in.  I took an extra few seconds each time I got ready to run towards the wall.  I had to talk myself into picking up that heavy KB as I wanted to make sure I got all 10 swings before putting it back down.  And there was definitely some crawling taking place during the burpee portion of the round.  At the end of round three, I saw that getting 6 rounds was going to be tougher than originally thought.  The clock showed 7:10.  There was also a wait at the wall as I had made up a half-round on Brian.  Not that I didn't need that break because I certainly did, but I couldn't proceed on the wall until he had climbed it.  Once Brian disappeared on the other side of the wall, I tried not to waste any time before doing my climb.  My pacing on the KB swings and the burpees didn't feel much different from round 3 and the clock told the same story.  I was beyond 10 minutes at the end of round 4, meaning I needed to pick things up if I was going to get 6 full rounds.

The start of round 5 was similar to the beginning of round 4 as Brian was standing before the wall, trying to catch his breath just like I was.  I knew that I needed to pick it up on the exercises away from the wall if I wanted to avoid being caught behind him, so after he climbed the wall, I did my climb, then got to my KB.  I couldn't stare at it for a few seconds this time, I needed to pick it up, swing it 10 times, and get in front of Brian for the next wall climb.  The burpees took more time than the KB swings anyway, so if I got right on the KB swings, I should have been able to get back to the wall first.  And that is exactly what happened.  I made sure that when I got to the wall that I didn't spend a lot of time there catching my breath there as I didn't want to hold up Brian.  I caught my breath on the next set of burpees as there was a lot of crawling in that fifth round.  Another three minute round left me less than two minutes for round #6.

I had a little bit of a cushion on Brian as I got ready for my next wall ascent, so I once again took a few seconds to prepare myself for the wall ascent.  I got over, came back to my KB, and took some time again.  I was exhausted and the last thing I wanted to do was drop the KB.  When I finished off my 10th KB swing, there was about 35 seconds left to go.  I came over to the wall, took a deep breath, and ran at it.  I got to the top, dropped to the floor, and didn't bother going all the way back to where I had done my KB swings and burpees previously.  I just dropped down and did my burpees over near the kilo plates.  There wasn't much time remaining and I wanted to get in as many reps as I could.  I managed 5 burpees before time was called.  Final score: 5+17.

It was a nice little improvement over last time, but it was also a reminder of how much more my cardio needs to improve.  I'm also beginning to worry more and more about my left elbow, which seems to flare up at the most random times.  (For example, it seems to start aching a lot when I have my left hand resting on the steering wheel while I drive.  Random, right?)  I've been icing it when I'm home, but that doesn't seem to be the cure I need.

Thursday preview: A trip to the noon express class for 15RM overhead squats.  My elbow holds up, but will the rest of my body?

The Most Depressing Class Ever

Workout date: 5/17/16

Year after year, it seems like there is a report on the news during the summer about how we need more rain.  We're experiencing drought-like conditions!  Blah, blah, blah.  Hopefully that report won't run this summer as we just experienced a week filled with Seattlesque weather.  For most of the week it kept on raining.  And when it wasn't raining, it looked like it was going to rain.  I guess even the sun needs a vacation from time to time.  This bleak weather may have contributed to the worst Dudes After Dark class of the year as Chris D pointed out at the end that it was "the most depressing class ever".  Agreed Chris!

Even by Dudes After Dark standards, attendance was light for the Tuesday night class.  There were only three of us: me, Chris, and Christine (Miss January).  The WOD wasn't particularly exciting.  We'd spend the majority of the class working on finding a 1RM clean and jerk.  Not that going for a PR on your clean and jerk isn't exciting, but the process of getting there can be a bit dull.  You do a lift, then you wait around for a few minutes, then you do another lift.  It's basically 10 seconds of action followed by three minutes of biding your time.  The majority of the action would take place during the cash out, but that part sounded very painful.  We were supposed to hop on an assault bike and race to accumulate 50 calories on it as quickly as possible.  For those not familiar with the difference between the assault bike and the airdyne bike, the assault bike is more of a Joffrey Baratheon while the airdyne bike is more like Tommen Baratheon.  (It's not my fault if you're not watching Game of Thrones.)

Rachel had us do a warmup and then we began going through the different progressions for the clean and jerk.  It was the typical step by step process of doing a dip, then moving down to the hang position to do a clean, then moving to mid-shin to replicate the lift from the floor.  And somehow I managed to mess up every single one.  First Rachel told me that my shoulder blades were not pinched back.  Then my chest wasn't upright.  Then my feet weren't in the correct position to jump.  Imagine how startling it is to find out that after playing basketball for decades that you haven't been using the correct position to jump!  Explains why I never made it to the NBA.

The warmups were finally over and I got to load up a barbell.  I put my barbell over on one side of the gym while Miss January and Chris shared the magic platform.  I did a couple of practice reps using 95 pounds and experienced a little bit of pain from my left elbow, which seems to randomly fluctuate between feeling fine and being sore depending on the day.  After these lifts, I had it in the back of my mind that I might not be able to go very heavy this evening, but as it turned out, the discomfort was mild at the heavier weights and it had no effect on my success (or lack thereof) with those lifts.

I moved up to 135 and did a lift there.  Rachel came over and let me know I wasn't fully extending as I performed the clean.  Sweet!  That was one mistake I hadn't made during the progressions.  I pretty much had them all covered now.  As I moved up to 165, I tried to keep in mind the laundry list of things that I had been messing up all night.  The lift felt awkward to me, but Rachel said it was the best one I had done up to that point.  I should point out that we were supposed to do a squat clean for all of these lifts, something I had forgotten with my initial lifts at 95, but Miss January had given me a reminder about it.  Why is that detail important?  Because when I did my next lift at 185, I had a pretty strong clean, but forgot to squat with it.  Just power cleaned it then went right into the jerk.  That earned me some additional razzing from Miss January.

My next lift was a struggle at 205 because I was still trying to make my way through a mental checklist as I went to lift.  I'm often accused of overthinking things at the gym and I'm in general agreement with that idea.  Some of my best lifts have come when I just went up to the barbell and got after it.  You can't completely ignore the details for a successful lift, but the existence of paralysis by analysis when lifting is legit.  Trying to account for 4-5 different flaws as I approached the barbell was not going to result in an optimal lift.  But I did get through 205.  There wasn't a lot of time remaining so I decided to move up to 225 for my next lift, which would tie my 1RM.  I had only done a squat clean of 225 once in my life, so I thought it would be a good challenge to do it again even though it was tying a personal best.  (Note: In general, you don't want to tie your personal bests.  If you get to the point where you're attempting that weight, you should throw on a little extra and go for a new PR.)

I went to do the squat clean and I successfully caught it in the bottom of the squat.  And I wasn't panicked about finding the energy to stand it up.  But the barbell wasn't where I would typically have it for a front squat.  So as I began to stand up with it, I felt it slide.  Once I had stood up fully, the barbell was nowhere near where it needed to be for me to jerk it.  So I spent quite a bit of time trying to shimmy the barbell into place so that I could do the jerk.  Once I got close enough to where it needed to be, I tried the jerk.  That didn't go well.  As soon as I attempted it, I knew it was going to end badly.  Having the barbell close to where it needed to be was not the same as having it exactly where it needed to be.

Rather than finish off with a second attempt at 225, I added 5 pounds to the barbell for one shot at a new PR.  Even if I only cleaned the barbell, it would be a PR.  But I really wanted the full clean and jerk with this weight.  I went through my routine again and then attempted the clean.  I caught it in the bottom of the squat again.  But I decided to take a different approach from what I had used in my previous attempt.  I tried to shimmy the barbell to where it needed to be while I was still in the bottom of my squat.  I thought that if I adjusted it there, it wouldn't slide as I stood up, meaning I wouldn't need to stand with it on my collarbone forever before going for the jerk.  The problem is that you don't want to spend a lot of time in the bottom of a squat with 230 pounds on your body.  When I was finished adjusting the barbell as much as I could, I tried to stand up.  I had spent too much time in the bottom though and there was no getting beyond the sticking point.  I had to bail the barbell.  No PRs today.

Let's get this depressing class over with already!  While Miss January was finishing off her clean and jerks, Chris and I got on an assault bike.  I didn't have a good sense of how long it would take to do 50 calories on the assault bike and the scores from earlier in the day were all over the place.  I ended up deciding that 3:00 would be a good time for the cash out.  I was still messing around with the display on my bike when Chris started so I was a bit behind him.  Finally set, I began pushing through my 50 calories.  Having watched Regionals athletes on the assault bike the prior weekend, I knew that I should resist the urge to stand while pedaling.  They had said it was optimal to keep pedaling with your entire foot on the pedal and to really take advantage of the handlebars.  You got through calories faster if you pulled the moving handlebars back and forth as vigorously as you pressed the pedals with your feet.  This all seemed to be working.  At least until I got to about 25 calories.

Even though the time was just above the calories on the monitor, I didn't look at the time once during the cash out.  Perhaps I was trying to will the calorie counter to 50 by staring at it.  All I know is that as I got to the midway point, my legs began to hurt and I was breathing rapidly.  I didn't think I went out particularly fast, but the second half was going to be a real struggle.  I peered to my left and saw Chris on his bike.  He looked like he wasn't enjoying life either, but he seemed to be doing a better job of grinding through the pain than I was.  Rachel started yelling to him to not let me catch him, which sounded like a positive for me as I had started after him.  But when he reached 50 calories, I was only at 43 calories.  Guess I wasn't that close to catching him after all.  I tried for one last strong push to get to 50, but the best I could do was a sustained effort over the last 7 calories.  When I got there, I looked at my time finally.  Final time: 2:44.  (I had actually beaten Chris by 4 seconds.  Yay sustained effort!)

And that's how the most depressing class ever ended.  No PRs, very tired legs, and questions about why I had never learned how to jump properly as a child.  There is always something else to work on.

Wednesday preview: My left elbow doesn't want to play nice for a second day in a row, but I can't miss out on a WOD with the rarely-programmed wall ascent involved.

New Strategy, Similar Result

Workout date: 5/16/16

Another weekend, another few days away from the gym.  My body probably appreciates the fact that I'm giving it some extra rest on the weekend, even though there is always a part of me that want to go to the gym and take on whatever workout is scheduled that day.  I really only know one way to improve: work harder.  So whenever I feel like I am lacking in life (which is damn near always), I put in more hours trying to get better at whatever skill is eluding me.  I didn't really think that "being less sore" would be something that I needed to work at, but if I don't put effort into my recovery, then my body feels like crap for days.  At first I thought rolling out after class and regular epsom salt baths at home would do the trick, but it wasn't enough.  It was only after sleeping in a couple of weekends that I realized how much sleep was helping my body recover.  So now I'm doing my best to get as much sleep as I can, especially on those nights where I come home wrecked after a tough workout.

(Note: I should have known that recovery takes work because I already knew sleeping takes work.  I've had sleeping problems throughout my life.  Finally went to see a sleep doctor about 5 years ago and she explained how I needed to train my body to go to sleep.  I'm sure most people just lay down and they're good, but I somehow struggle with even the simplest things in life.)

With two idle days to let my shoulders recover, I came in on Monday for a test day.  The benchmark we were taking on was Jackie.  Jackie is a triplet consisting of a 1,000 meter row, 50 thrusters (45 pounds for everyone), and 30 pull-ups.  Not my favorite workout (it has pull-ups, duh), but it is one of those workouts that is good for me to do for a variety of reasons.  Most people complete this somewhere around 10 minutes, so the length of this workout should suit me.  At the very least, it is pushing the edges of where I start to fall apart on workouts, so I need to get comfortable handling a workout of this length.  Another reason it is good for me is because it is a workout that involves some strategy.  I made a note when I did this WOD three months ago that pacing out the 50 thrusters did me no good and that I should attack them the next time this workout came up.  Time to try out the new strategy.

Monday nights at the gym have become the most popular workout time of the week.  It used to be extra busy due to the on-ramp program, but now it is Boot Camp that aids in filling up the parking lot on Monday evenings.  With regular classes at 5:30 and 6:30 and Boot Camp at 5:30, you get a ton of people at Crossfit KOP at the same time.  Plus, beach season is almost here!  (That really means nothing to me, but it seems very important to others.)  People want to work out so they look good for the summer, which results in classes like we had on Monday.  18 of us were going to take on Jackie, so that meant we would need to do two heats.  And I knew who my partner would be as soon as I walked in the door.

In the past, if I had gotten to the gym and didn't have a partner for a workout that required one, I would just go along with whoever didn't pair up with somebody.  Often that would be someone newer to the gym and I was okay with that because I've always enjoyed working out with someone I didn't know that well.  It was easier to get to know them if you were spending the class with them.  But now I'm becoming more selfish.  Maybe 2016 has been too hard on me and I've experienced too much loss.  I look around the gym and see that most of the people I began my Crossfit journey with are no longer there.  Even the second wave of people that I bonded with at the gym are mostly gone.  So when I see someone I used to work out with in my class, I get a little nostalgic and gravitate towards them.  And I'll never stop enjoying working out with John McHugh, so I made sure we were partners for Jackie.

Aimee put us through one of her typical rigorous warmups and as we took turns doing each of the movements, John and I had this fantastic exchange:

John: I don't mean to be insensitive, but can I ask you a question?
Me: <amused and curious> Of course John.
John: How much do you weigh?

The reason John asked his "insensitive question" was because we both have struggled with pull-ups.  There are three ways to get better at pull-ups: improve your form, get stronger, and lose weight.  Neither John nor I have wonderful form.  We're both trying to get stronger, but it's a slow process.  And we both come in at over two bills on the scale.  That's a recipe for struggle on the pull-up bar.  Another issue for John was that one of his shoulders was bothering him.  I saw him trying to work it out before class began and he was definitely in pain.  He's stubborn like me though and insisted he was doing the workout.  As he did some practice pull-ups, he looked like he was in pain again, so I suggested we get a box and a band ready for him in case he needed it.  He didn't seem excited about that idea, but after a couple more practice reps, he agreed to let me get them.  Better to grab them in advance rather than have to do it in the middle of the WOD.

John got ready to go and I stood alongside to offer encouragement and to count his reps for him.  He began with the row and he was off to a fast start.  John was not only using big pulls, but he was moving back and forth from the flywheel with much more speed than I intended on using.  My goal was to not use up too much energy on the row, but to keep it at a respectable 4:00 pace for the 1,000 meters.  John was off the row just a smidge beyond 3:30.  He was one of the first people over to the empty barbell and began working on his thrusters.

John might hate pull-ups, but I'm pretty sure he's not a huge fan of thrusters either.  He had a pained look on his face early on as he worked his way through 50 reps.  But he didn't get the nickname "Mr. Intensity" for nothing, so even though he looked like he was hurting, he growled his way through a medium-sized set before placing the barbell on the floor.  With 24 reps to go, I felt confident that John could push through sets of 8 reps, so I let him know he had 3 sets of 8 remaining.  Sure enough, John would pick up that barbell and not put it down until he had gotten 8 thrusters.  When those 3 sets were done, it was time for the last part of the workout: the dreaded pull-ups.

The man, the myth, the legend.  No quit in this guy.

John started working on his pull-ups, but the pain face was even more extreme here than it had been on the thrusters.  Before he reached 10 reps, he asked me to grab the box so he could use the band I had tied to one side of the pull-up bar.  From that point, he was able to grind his way through the remaining reps 1-2 at a time.  John's final time: 11:22.

It was my turn to go and I had my strategy all set: relaxed but efficient row, frantic pace through the thrusters, don't spend all day on the pull-ups.  My best time for this workout was 10:55, the time I had gotten three months ago.  My goal was to break 10 minutes for the first time.  Heat 2 began and I was grateful that Keithie was rowing next to me, because he seemed to have the same idea as me on the row.  He was making huge pulls, but his cadence back and forth from the flywheel was slow.  For a while, we were almost synchronized with our rowing, although I'm sure he was getting much more out of his pulls than I was.  At the 500 meter mark, my time was around 1:50.  I knew my pace would be slightly slower on the back half of the row, so I was on track for something near 4:00.  When I hit 1,000 meters, I was around 3:50.  Not bad.  More importantly, I wasn't winded.  Yet.

I walked to my barbell, took a deep breath, and told myself that I needed to move with urgency on these thrusters.  And I did.  My reps were very fast, but that speed was tiring.  I tried to breathe as I moved through each rep, but it was difficult to keep it under control.  I should have been able to get through 25-30 reps, but after rep 21, I wimped out and put the barbell down.  I needed a break to breathe.  I'm sure the break was longer than I perceived it to be, but I wanted to be ready to plow through another large set quickly when I picked that barbell back up.  Instead I wimped out again.  Did 10 reps, put the barbell back down.  Same thing on the next set.  I guess I should be happy I started off with 21 as that left me only 9 for my final set.  The clock showed just over 7 minutes.  Doing 30 pull-ups in under 3 minutes was going to be tough, especially since my pulse was racing after trying to do fast thrusters.

I got to the pull-up bar with what I thought was a good plan.  I didn't have faith that I could string more than 2 reps, but I told myself that I was doing two sets like this each time before getting a break.  So it was string two reps, drop for a sec, hop back up to the high bar, string two reps, take a break.  It was almost like doing sets of four.  Unfortunately, my breaks were much longer than I would have hoped.  I got up to 16 reps with this routine.  Then I did three sets of two (not consecutive) to get to 22.  I did single reps the rest of the way.  I got through 29 reps, tried to hurry to get the last one done, and failed miserably.  I shook out my arms, got my breath, and did the last one right.  Final time: 11:18.

Not what I was hoping for, although I didn't feel awful about going 23 seconds slower than I had three months earlier.  I felt good about the row.  The thruster strategy wasn't too bad, I just needed to stop being a wimp about it.  And I need to start practicing pull-ups again.  Not every so often.  I need to practice regularly like I had done last spring/summer.  Fatigue did play a role in my struggles on the bar, but my form should be so much better than it currently is.

After some time recovering, I joined Steph C and Fayth who were practicing some handstand drills with Shawna over by the wall.  There are a group of girls who have been getting together to do these drills (I think Shawna is the informal leader of the group) and I watched them do this routine the other day.  Since I have nothing in the way of handstand push-ups or a handstand walk, I thought it would be worthwhile to join in the fun.  The drills I tried consisted of getting into a handstand hold, then removing one foot from the wall for 10 seconds, then switching and bringing the other foot off the wall for 10 seconds.  On my first attempt, I only brought my foot about an inch away from the wall.  Shawna had shown us a version of this where she took her leg way off the wall and still maintained her balance, so I wanted to do something along those lines for my second attempt.  I got up on the wall, took one foot away, then pulled it back further.  Spent 10 seconds in that position with each leg.  When I came down from the wall, I said to Shawna "that felt like it was much further from the wall than my first try, but it probably wasn't".  She smiled and replied "yeah, it wasn't much further away" in the nicest way anyone could.  Oh well, just another thing I need to work on.

Tuesday preview: A very bleak Dudes After Dark.

J-Sit Pull-Ups

Workout date: 5/13/16

Jill A has become the newest member of the Crossfit KOP coaching family and I wanted to be there for her first set of classes.  Unfortunately, a very busy weekend caused me to miss out on her coaching debut the previous Friday.  I couldn't miss out two weeks in a row though, so I made sure to pencil in a class the following Friday to support Coach Jill.  What would the workout include?  Well, based on my Carnac-like ability to practice a movement at Open Strength the night before it appears in a WOD, I should have known there would be a lot of shoulder presses in this workout.  And so there were...

Friday's WOD:
Max set of shoulder press (115/75)
Max set of L-sit pull-ups
Max set of shoulder press
Max set of strict pull-ups
Max set of shoulder press
Max set of kipping pull-ups
*90 seconds of rest in between sets

Part of the reason I had practiced the shoulder press after Endurance on Thursday was because I had not done it in a while.  And part of the reason was because I generally suck at the shoulder press.  So this WOD was a combination of one movement that I suck at and three variations of my worst movement at the gym.  Definitely set my expectations low for this one.

Jill put us through our warmup and then explained scaling options to us as it seemed unlikely there would be a lot of people in the gym who could do large sets of the shoulder press at that weight and all three variations of the pull-up that were programmed in the workout.  The main scaling option was to do ring rows.  I wasn't too keen on that option as I've never been a big fan of that movement (probably because it is a cousin of the pull-up) and it also seemed like something that would be much easier than what we were supposed to be testing in this workout.  L-sit pull-ups require holding your body in an L-shape (legs held straight in front of you) as you pulled your body up so that your chin got over the bar.  Simply holding an L-sit without doing anything else is tough enough.  For someone like me, maintaining that position while doing a pull-up is impossible.  A ring row (hanging in a somewhat horizontal position below the rings with your feet on the ground and pulling your body up to the rings while keeping your core tight) was something that got tiring after a while, but pretty much everyone could put together a decent set of those.  I was hoping for another scaling option.

Jill then described a scaling option specifically for the L-sit pull-up (ring rows could be used as a scale for all three varieties of pull-ups).  You could tie a band to one of the low pull-up bars, hang on to another low pull-up bar, and place your feet in the band that was across from you, artificially creating that L-sit position.  The band would help keep your legs up as you worked to do pull-ups.  You would need someone to assist you in getting your feet in the band, but that seemed to be the only drawback.  I had found my L-sit pull-up substitute!  As for the strict pull-ups and kipping pull-ups, I could do those, but my sets were likely to be on the smaller side.

Okay, I had figured out how I was going to handle the pull-ups, now it was time to figure out how much weight I should use for the shoulder press.  Could I use 115 pounds?  Sure, but that seemed like a bad idea since it would wear out my shoulders very quickly, leading to the likelihood that my pull-up sets would be more inept than they typically are.  Before I could figure out what weight would be best for me, Jill informed the class that we should choose a weight where we felt confident we could do 8-11 reps for the three rounds.  Perhaps I'm just the type who likes very precise instructions, but those directions gave me an immediate answer as to how much weight I should use: 95 pounds.  Awesome, I was all set to go.  Let's do this incredibly unpleasant sounding workout!

The first round kicked off and I was able to press out 17 reps before needing to drop the barbell.  The toughest part was not bending my knees later on in the set as it gets really annoying keeping your legs straight while trying to pump through reps as quickly as you can.  As my 90 second rest period came to a close, I asked Jill to help me get my feet into the band I set up.  I tried my hardest to keep my core tight as I had done a poor job of that during the warmup.  Erika R had pointed out that my feet were pulling down the band as I went to do each of my pull-ups.  Basically I was doing J-sit pull-ups instead of L-sit pull-ups.  Not surprisingly, those were much easier.  As I got going with the banded L-sit pull-ups, I kept an eye on my feet as I pulled my chin up to the bar.  I'm sure I wasn't keeping my body in a perfect L-shape, but there was no droopy J-shape either.  I got 7 reps before hopping out of the band.

My shoulders weren't feeling too worn out just yet, so my goal was to get another 17 reps in round two.  As I got to the 10-12 rep range, I started to struggle.  My reps slowed down and I had to work very hard to get the last couple.  I fell short of 17, but 15 was a respectable second round for me.  The bigger issue was that my shoulders were feeling it now.  I had 90 seconds to recover for strict pull-ups and I started to wonder how small that set was going to be.  I've gotten 5 consecutive strict pull-ups once in my life.  A good set for me when I was feeling fresh was 3-4.  Getting only one would be embarrassing.  So I was determined to get two and kept my fingers crossed for three reps.  I hopped up on the high bar and got through two reps easier than I had expected.  Did a third rep.  Then I hung there and tried to talk myself into getting one more.  Usually things end in failure at the gym when I need to give myself a pep talk in advance, but somehow I squeezed out a 4th strict pull-up before dropping from the bar.

I had no idea how many reps were in store for me in my upcoming final set of shoulder presses, but I knew it wasn't gonna be 15.  I think I made it through 5 reps before I had to transition into the slower pace I had at the end of my second round.  From there, I got to 10 reps before needing to drop the barbell.  Just one more set of kipping pull-ups to go.  I did two in a row before dropping into a dead hang.  Then I did two single reps interrupted by another hang.  My grip was starting to go, but I managed to re-grip before getting a 5th pull-up.  My fingers were starting to unwind, but I was able to re-grip a second time.  I got a 6th pull-up in before my grip failed.  Final score: 59.

Most of the scores for the day were in the 50-65 range, so I was very pleased with 59 reps.  This turned out to be the rare workout where I chose the perfect scaling options for myself.  My shoulders were smoked, but I left the gym happy that I performed well on a workout that looked like trouble for me.

Monday preview: After a weekend away from the gym, it's time for a test day as we take on the benchmark workout Jackie.  And I try my luck again with the split jerk at Open Strength afterwards.

Ass To Heels

Workout dates: 5/11/16 and 5/12/16

I've settled into a habit of falling behind on this blog, then trying to fire out 3 or 4 posts in order to catch up with the workouts that took place in the week since I last wrote.  I'd prefer to keep up-to-date on things (falling behind by a day wouldn't be so bad), but it has become difficult recently.  With two other "pursuits" taking up considerable time (especially on the weekends), I've found myself struggling to keep up with this blog.  And here we are again, a week behind.

If I'm being completely honest, part of the problem is that Crossfit (and writing this blog) has slowly slid to third in that pecking order.  There is a distinct lack of motivation for me when it comes to Crossfit at the moment.  If I take on something substantial (like the recent front squat program), then there is motivation to make sure I get a pay off at the end of it.  Putting in two months of hard work and not improving my front squat would have been a huge letdown.  Getting a 35 pound PR made it worthwhile.  But there are only so many programs you can repeatedly take on.  Last fall, I tried to do a second back squat program immediately after I completed my first one and it was too much to handle.  I need variety in my training, but some things hold more appeal when it comes to training.  I have recently been practicing dips at home, but getting to the point where I can do 11 in a row instead of 10 in a row doesn't provide the same thrill that adding 10 pounds to my overhead squat would.

Don't you have 7 goals remaining on your 2016 wish list, Dave?  Yes, I do.  And I'm sure there will come a point where I find some extra motivation to go after them, but right now I look at them and just feel "meh".  I have almost no interest in doing any sort of competition, which is very strange because I'm ultra-competitive at heart.  There is simply something missing at the gym these days.  I think part of it is that most of the people that I used to have mini-rivalries with are either no longer at the gym or very rarely take class any more.  There has been a new wave of members to join the gym and I've developed friendships with a fair amount of them.  Perhaps new mini-rivalries will develop and a spark will get me going again.  But for now, you might have to get used to a wave of blog posts each Tuesday or Wednesday when I feel guilty about having neglected the blog for a week.

(Note: It doesn't help that I'm writing this after, as one member put it, "the most depressing class ever".)

Wednesday's WOD was essentially the dumbbell version of DT.  As much as I like DT, performing it with dumbbells didn't sound like a whole lot of fun.  Later in the week, I saw Danielle's badly bruised shoulders that came about as a result of this workout.  Let's just say I felt validated in my decision to only attend the split jerk clinic on Wednesday night.  I wasn't sure how a split jerk clinic could last an entire hour, but that probably exemplified my ignorance of what goes into this very technical movement.  In the end, there was some extra time left over to practice the split jerk at ever-increasing weights, but if you had asked me prior to the clinic how long I thought you could go over the finer points of the split jerk, my answer would have been closer to 15 minutes rather than the actual 40-45 minutes we spent on it.

There was another large turnout for this clinic, so once again we split into groups to practice.  I paired up with Mike San., a former Barbull buddy that I rarely get to work out with because he is a morning guy and I am most definitely not a morning guy.  And I can't call him Mike S anymore because the gym has reached a saturation point on first names and last initials.  To make things worse, Mike Sim. and Mike San. both work out in the mornings.  (I don't think Jill Hil. and Jill Her. run into the same problem.)  For the most part, Mike and I received assistance from Faby and Tom C during the clinic, while Sarah S and Steph V were helping out groups on the ends of the gym floor.  Faby was the demo guy for all of the progressions as Steph explained what he was doing and why we should do those progressions to improve our split jerk.

The first progression involved doing a split jerk with just the barbell, then doing three shoulder presses from that position.  The idea behind this progression was to make sure that your feet were in a steady enough position that you could press a barbell without losing your balance.  I have to admit that getting my feet into the proper position during the split jerk is my biggest difficulty when doing this movement (or at least I thought it was prior to this clinic).  The front foot needs to stomp forward while the back leg results in a bent knee and your foot up on its toes.  If your stance is too narrow, you can easily topple over.  If your stance is too wide, you may not be able to bring your feet back together to complete the lift.  Neither of those are desirable, especially when you have a large amount of weight over your head.  So it's pretty important not to screw this up.  Yet I screw it up frequently.  The good thing about practicing this was that we were only using an empty barbell, so if I screwed things up, I wouldn't have to fear for my life.

Once we felt comfortable with how our feet should be positioned, we moved on to a progression that I had never done (or seen) before: the tall jerk.  It was a rare movement where I was actually encouraged to be on my toes.  This progression is meant to help you with your speed once you come out of the dip in your split jerk.  In the tall jerk, you stand on your toes with the empty barbell at the level of your forehead.  You then rapidly move from this point to the final position, with your feet split apart and the barbell pressed out overhead.  Starting on my toes and getting underneath the barbell quickly?  Yup, that's all me.  I may have discovered my new favorite movement to practice.

From there, we moved on to the pause jerk.  Just as the name indicates, you begin the dip for the split jerk, pause for a couple seconds, then execute the split jerk.  As I watched Faby demo this progression, I noticed something that he did in his dip that was very different from how I did my dip. When Faby lowered into the dip, his knees did not move forward.  Instead they moved out to his sides.  Obviously Faby knows what he is doing since he practices these lifts all of the time, but I was having a hard time reconciling this in my mind.  Wouldn't you get more drive from pressing straight down and up rather than pressing out to the side with your legs?  I got Tom's attention and pointed out how much Faby's knees went to the side as he dipped and he confirmed that was exactly what you want to do when starting your dip.  "You should think ass to heels", Tom explained.  That was a cue that resonated with me, as each time I thought about it that way during my dip, my knees more naturally went out to the side.  The biggest benefit from doing this was that I stayed in my heels more as I went to dip.  If your feet are pointing directly forward, it is much easier to get up on your toes than if your feet are pointing in more of a 45-degree direction.  It was all starting to make sense to me!  Kinda.

It was finally time to put it all together as the last part of the clinic was working on the complete split jerk.  Mike and I started off with 75 pounds on the barbell, doing 3 split jerks at a time before placing the barbell back on our rack and letting our partner have a shot at it.  At one point, Steph came over to watch me.  She was standing directly behind me, so as I backed up from the rack, I looked over my shoulder to make sure I didn't run into her.  Unfortunately, I didn't check my passenger-side mirror as Tom was standing to my right watching the group next to us.  And so I accidentally clocked Tom in the head with my barbell.  Sorry Tom!  (He said he was ok afterwards.)

As we began adding more weight to the barbell, we also added another member to our group.  Luis was working in a group of 4 at the near end of the gym and asked if he could work with me and Mike as the group he was in wasn't planning on adding much more weight to their barbell.  Wasn't a problem for us.  Eventually Luis started following me on the barbell as we felt comfortable using the same weights.  We went through 95, 115, 135, and 145.  At that point I looked at the clock and saw there was still about 10 minutes remaining.  Should we keep lifting?  Faby gave us the green light, so we kept adding weight to the barbell.

We moved up to 165 and my form at that weight wasn't anything to write home about.  But as tends to be the case with me, the struggles I have with a lift don't always correspond to how much weight is on the barbell.  I wish I was a lot more consistent and that a bad/failed lift meant there might be too much weight on the barbell, but instead it seems to be pretty random as to why I mess up lifts.  That was evident when we went up to 185 and 205, where I had very strong lifts that looked a million times better than the one I did at 165.

Everyone seemed like they were getting ready to go, but Mike, Luis, and Faby encouraged me to keep going after the lift at 205 went so well.  I added another 20 pounds and took on 225.  Now we had reached the point where the weight on the barbell was affecting my form.  It was a successful jerk, but I definitely felt (and I'm sure looked) wobbly as I got the barbell overhead.  That was it for me for the night.  I could have given 235 a try (my 1RM is 230), but I wasn't going to hold everyone up just because I was having a good night.  If I had the ability to jerk 235, I would be able to come back on another night and make it happen.

I considered doing the Thursday WOD prior to Endurance class, but the workout included tons and tons of running.  No point in showing up to Endurance tired out from running.  It was a beautiful Thursday afternoon to do some running as we gathered at the track.  And Tim was back!  Unfortunately, there was also the return of an Upper Merion lacrosse game on the football field just as there had been the week before.  For some reason, the lacrosse teams take up not only the sideline, but the inner lanes of the track as well.  Last week, we simply ran around them, going out to lanes 5 and 6 as we did our 800M and 600M runs.  Tim had some longer runs planned for us, but upon seeing the lacrosse game, decided that we should do a hill workout in the adjoining neighborhood instead.  We did a warmup lap, some stretching, and a couple of striders before jogging over to the hill.

I've done the hill workout before and didn't recall it being particularly pleasant.  This year's renewal was not much different.  The group doing the workout included Alex R, Matt E, Flounder, Luke, Jen S, Kris, and Jill Her. (apologies to anyone I forgot).  The workout was similar to one that we did on flat ground at the end of Endurance season last year.  There would be three rounds, with one 40 second run, one 25 second run, and one 10 second run.  Rest was minimal as we started the next sprint almost immediately once we returned to the starting line.  Between rounds, we got the shortest two and a half minute rest I've ever experienced in my life.

On our first run, I was doing pretty well, only trailing Luke as we neared the crest at the top of the hill.  Both Luke and I were starting to fade at this point and I began to wonder whether we had run so far that we couldn't hear Tim's whistle, letting us know that the 40 seconds was up.  Matt was much steadier and ended up passing us a few seconds before the whistle blew.  Wow, 40 seconds up a hill seems much longer than one would think.  I was in trouble already as I slowly jogged back towards the starting line.  On the 25 second run, I expected Alex to be in front of me, but I was surprised when I was able to run past her, as Matt proved to be the only one I couldn't stay with again.  The 10 second run was right in my wheelhouse, as I was able to sprint past everyone despite not feeling 100% after those first two runs.

For round two, I was behind Matt on the 40 second run, behind Matt and Alex on the 25 second run, and behind no one on the 10 second run.  Couldn't we just do a bunch of 10 second runs, Tim?  No such luck.  I was still huffing and puffing when round 3 began and this time I couldn't keep up with Alex on the longest run of the round.  Matt was still proving the most adept at hill running as he ran away from the rest of us.  On the 25 second run, I ended up behind Matt and Alex once again.  I thought I might redeem myself on my favorite run, the 10 second sprint.  It was the last sprint of the afternoon and even though I was out of breath, I knew I could sprint for 10 more seconds.  But Matt wasn't going to let me beat him a third time on the shortest sprint.  I had reeled him in the first two rounds, but couldn't complete the trifecta.  With the workout over, we jogged back to the track where Tim had us do a modified tabata sit-up cash-out.  There were only four rounds, but each round was 30 seconds long with 15 seconds rest.  I got 17 sit-ups in each of the first three rounds and I pushed like hell to get 19 sit-ups in the final round for an even score of 70, but fell one rep short.  Getting 69 wasn't so bad though as it made Flounder giggle.

I was tired, but I felt like I should get some extra work in at the gym if at all possible.  I needed some recovery time before doing anything, so I watched the 6:30 class do the WOD.  And I watched the girls over by the rings go through their new routine for developing a handstand walk.  Eventually I got my butt up and did some shoulder press because I felt like it had been a while since I had worked on that.  I ended up completing a set of 5 reps at 75 pounds, 95 pounds, 115 pounds, and 125 pounds.

Friday preview: A WOD with lots of shoulder presses in it.  So glad I got that extra work in Thursday night!

Siamese Twins

Workout date: 5/10/16

Tuesday was a struggle.  The excitement of getting 300 pounds the night before probably masked all of the soreness in my body.  When I woke up the next day, I felt like I had been hit by a truck.  I tried to remember the last time I felt that sore and drew a blank.  (It's entirely possible that I drew a blank because my brain was sore as well.)  Despite not going to the gym on Friday, Saturday, or Sunday, there was a strong argument to be made that a rest day would have done me a lot more good than a return visit to the gym.

Only one problem: the WOD had rope climbs!  Not just a couple of rope climbs, but 15 of them!  And you know how much I love rope climbs.  In fact, there was the possibility that my love of rope climbs could get me out of doing other things in the workout that I really did not enjoy doing.  Burpees come to mind.  Here was the format for Tuesday's WOD:

Partner WOD:
60 clean and jerks (155/105)
15 rope climbs (15')
100 burpees
(One athlete works at a time.  Partners are allowed to split up the work any way they want.  They can also perform the movements in any order they like.)

That last bit of information was key.  In some partner WODs, the work needs to be split up evenly among the athletes.  Not in this workout!  If I was lucky, I would end up with a partner who hated rope climbs and would be overjoyed at the thought of doing extra burpees.  A man can dream.

I arrived at Dudes After Dark and discovered that there would be no opportunity to seek out this mythical person who would gladly do burpees while I took care of all 15 rope climbs.  That was because only 3 people had signed up for the 7:30 class: me, Matt E, and Chris D.  The three of us would form one team, with two of us doing the workout as siamese twins (mirroring one another's reps) and acting as the partner of the third person.  Rachel has us do the "hands up, feet up" warmup, where we would have to do some exercise while running around the gym in a circle.  If she yelled "hands up", we had to grab something and hold it over our head.  If she said "feet up", we had to jump on something so that our feet didn't touch the ground.  Last one to comply has to do burpees.  All three of us ended up having to do our fair share of burpees.  I clung to the hope that there would not be a lot more in store for me.  Rachel also asked us for a team name and I rudely said that I was naming the team without really consulting Matt and Chris (sorry guys!).  It had to be done.  I made a promise.

Stupid late sunset messing with the Dudes After Dark moniker!

We practiced on the rope and then went through our usual clean and jerk progressions.  Then we were given 5 minutes to figure out our strategy for the workout.  Matt and Chris decided to be the siamese twins, a lucky break for me as it's much more difficult to work at the same pace as someone else on three different movements.  Next we had to decide on a clean and jerk weight.  Matt and I were fine with 155 pounds, but Chris looked a little uncertain about it.  He insisted that he was good with it though, so we loaded two barbells with that weight.  I couldn't broker a rope climbs-for-burpees deal, so the plan was to split the work evenly.  The rope climbs were the only part of the workout that couldn't be split evenly, so I volunteered to go first and do an extra rope climb.  I love my rope climbs!

The last thing I wanted to do was make my teammates wait on me, so I wanted to be quick on the rope climbs without exhausting myself.  I would get a break between each climb, so I thought I could manage all eight climbs at a solid clip.  My bigger concern was how I would do on the burpees and the clean and jerks.  That meant I needed to focus on my breathing during the rope climbs.  I kicked things off for our team and got up the rope pretty quickly, tapped the 15 foot mark, and came back down so Matt and Chris could take their turn.  My speed was good, but I don't think my pulls were as strong as they could be.  Usually I can take three pulls and reach the 15 foot mark, but I needed a tiny 4th pull to get there on my initial trip.  That didn't change as the WOD went on.

I traded rope climbs with the siamese twins until we got to our 8th rep (4th climb for the twins).  Chris made it up the rope, but Matt was having a hard time with his climb.  After a couple of failed attempts, he chalked up his hands and got up the rope.  Time for some strategy.  I told Matt that he should switch to burpees and that I would become Chris's new siamese twin.  (Note: Rachel would tell us afterwards that siamese twins could not change in the middle of a workout.  Say what?  Show me the siamese twins rulebook!)  For each climb that Chris and I did, Matt would follow it up with 5 burpees.

Since Chris and I were now siamese twins, that meant Chris had to go right back up the rope again with me.  That may have been his undoing as he began to struggle like Matt had on his previous rope climb.  Chris eventually got up to the 15 foot mark, but he called it a day on the rope after that, opting to become Matt's siamese twin once again.  He totally didn't need to do the 5 burpees that Matt was doing since he had completed his rope climb, but he did them anyway.  The final six rope climbs were all mine, with Chris and Matt taking a big chunk out of the burpees by completing 35 of them in total by the time I finished on the rope.  My pace was consistent throughout the remainder of my rope climbs, possibly because I was giddy that I got to do 11 of them.

Alas, I would eventually have to take part in the burpees.  The good news was that I only had to do 35 of them, rather than 50.  Even more surprising was the fact that I didn't slow down during any of my 7 sets of five burpees.  I must have really been concerned about disappointing my siamese teammates.  After trading set upon set of five burpees at a time, we reached 100 reps.  I think we were all happy about being done with the burpees.  All that was left were the clean and jerks.

Since we were splitting those up evenly, it meant that we were each doing a heavier version of Grace.  Before the WOD started, we agreed to do two reps at a time before switching.  Seemed like a good plan and one that we could move through rapidly.  But it was apparent early on that Chris was regretting putting 155 on the barbell.  He did his first two sets of two reps with Matt, but then decided that he wanted to take weight off of his barbell.  Time to switch siamese twins again!  I was completing my second set of clean and jerks while Chris went to get a new barbell.  Since we were at the far end of the gym, we had to yell down to him to just grab new plates.  I became Matt's new siamese twin for reps 9 and 10 of the clean and jerk, then I stripped the barbell I had used so that Chris could load it with his new weight (95 pounds).  Chris then did reps 11 and 12 by himself before going back to being Matt's siamese twin for reps 13 and 14.  We had to do that because we only had one barbell with 155 pounds on it at this point, meaning me and Matt would need to alternate on that barbell.

From there on we maintained a steady pace with only one blip.  After Matt and Chris finished up reps 29 and 30, Matt went over and laid on the floor off to the left of the barbell we were sharing.  It seemed like he might need a bit more of a breather than he had required earlier in the workout.  I completed reps 31 and 32 and told him that the twins were up again.  He gave me a confused look and that's when I realized he wasn't exhausted.  He thought we only had to do 30 clean and jerks.  And he didn't seem excited about the prospect of having to do 14 more clean and jerks each.  We all got back into rhythm again once the confusion had been cleared up and eventually we hit the magic total of 60.  Final time: 21:45.

Despite feeling terrible at the beginning of the day, I have to say this was one of my better workouts of the year.  I did a bunch of rope climbs without exhausting myself.  My burpees were much better than I expected.  And I still had enough left in the tank to quickly do two clean and jerks every time it was my turn.  Even though they were 20 pounds heavier, the clean and jerks felt like they did whenever I start Grace.  I was able to clean the barbell and then immediately drive into the jerk.  After dropping the first rep in each set, I put my hands right back on the barbell and did rep #2 without a break.  Yes, I got plenty of rest during the WOD because it was a partner workout, but I was very pleased that there was no point along the way where I felt like I was holding my partners up.

Wednesday (and Thursday?) preview: The split jerk clinic lends itself to the unexpected pursuit of another PR.  Depending on how Endurance class goes, I may lump these two workouts into one blog post.

Another Awkward Celebration

Workout date: 5/9/16

My weekend wasn't completely lacking in physical activity.  I did a ton of yard work on Sunday and had to get up very early on Monday morning to finish off what I couldn't complete by sundown.  Probably not the best way to get ready for my big test day on Monday, but it had to be done.  As I had mentioned in earlier posts, May 9th was the day I had specifically chosen to see how much progress I had made on my front squat.  In order to finish up on May 9th, I had to pick up the pace on my front squat sessions.  I had been doing a light day and a heavy day each week, but I switched to squatting every other day over the last two weeks.  Why was I so set on accelerating my schedule to finish on May 9th?

• I was tired of dealing with a sore right hand.  There was moderate pain in it every time I went through a squat session, whether it was a light day or a heavy day.  And that pain lingered throughout the rest of the day.  It was killing me every time I had to clean a barbell in class.  Why deal with that for 4 weeks if I could finish the program in 2 weeks and start my recovery sooner?
• Jim C seemed bummed every time he'd see me doing a 6x2 session on Monday nights, so I wanted to schedule my test day for a Monday night.
• My heavy days were on Wednesday mornings, but I heard Clay was leaving KOP and I wasn't sure if the Wednesday morning Open Strength class would be continuing once he left.  By accelerating my schedule, I could get in my remaining heavy days while he was still here.

I'm always looking for good vibes whenever I have something important coming up and the WOD scheduled on Monday provided them.  There was absolutely no chance I was doing the WOD no matter what it was, but it put a smile on my face when I saw that the workout was nothing but front squats.  (Note: The WOD focused on pausing front squats, where the athlete would need to pause in the bottom of the squat for a certain amount of time before completing the rep.  I would be doing everything in my power not to pause during my test day.)  I normally take the 6:30 class on Monday, then linger around at Open Strength in the main gym from 7:30-9:00.  Since I wasn't doing the WOD, I decided there was no point in showing up to KOP until 7:30.

When I got there, I was very surprised.  Several members of the 6:30 class were packing up and getting ready to head out, but the only person remaining in the gym was Giulz.  Almost every Monday night, Jim and Leslie were there, with Jess usually making an appearance a bit later on.  Not this Monday.  I had somehow picked the one night when Jim wasn't there.  There was nothing I could do about it now.  It would just be me on one side of the gym and Giulz on the other as I went through my progression to find a new 1RM.

According to the chart on the wall in the gym, I should have been able to front squat 285 pounds once if I could handle 265 pounds for 3 reps.  So that was the goal: to get at least 285 pounds.  Never mind that I had gotten 265 pounds for two reps before this program began and, based on the chart, should have had a 1RM of 280 already.  I was feeling more confident about my front squat having gotten through the entire program without any mistakes along the way.  In fact, I was feeling confident enough to have a reach goal on my test day.  If all was going really well, I wanted to get 290.  That was a nice thought, but before I tackled 285-290 pounds, I would need to conquer 275 pounds, a weight I had failed at multiple times before.

I revised my warmup, trying to cut down on some of the volume.  I began with my usual set of 5 reps at 135, but the purpose of that set is mainly to get a feel for the movement and to stretch out my legs. I kept the next set at 185, but I cut the reps from four down to three.  During the program, my next jump would be to 215 for 2 reps, but I decided to skip that and move up to 225 to begin my singles.  Doing a lot of warmup might tire me out for the heavier lifts later.  Plus those lifts might require multiple attempts.  Conserving my energy was going to be important and there was no reason to practice sets of multiple reps in my warmup when I was testing my 1RM.  The single rep at 225 was no problem and I added 30 pounds to my barbell.  The next rep at 255 would be my last one before I went after a new 1RM at 275.  I slowly descended into my squat and pushed away the floor to rise back up.  Only I didn't rise back up.  I hit my sticking point and had to fight harder than I would have liked to stand back up with the barbell.  Not what I wanted right before taking on a weight that I've had difficulty with in the past.

I tend to crack a lot of jokes about the lifters sitting in their chairs between lifts.  There is just something amusing to me about watching someone lift a bunch of weight, then sit down and chill for a while, playing on their phone or passing the time in some other way.  On this night, I was all about that routine.  My normal routine was more along the lines of doing a lift every 2-3 minutes, then walking around in between lifts.  After the brief scare at 255, it was sit my butt down between lifts and wait 4-5 minutes before going again.  I took about 5 minutes before I got up to try 275, but then I felt like I needed to pee.  As I began walking to the lobby door, I thought for a second and stopped.  Was this just my way of procrastinating again?  Was I letting my fear of failing at 275 again get the best of me, causing me to delay trying that lift?  Maybe I was.  I turned back around.  I was taking on 275 pounds right now.  If I wanted to pee, I was going to have to earn it by getting a PR first!  (On second thought, this probably could have turned out very badly.)

I went over to the barbell, went through my routine, and removed it from the rack.  I've added one new thing to my routine, which is to bounce the barbell off my shoulders a little bit when I take it off of the rack.  It's kinda my way of convincing my body that "hey, this ain't so heavy!"  I got my feet in position, took a deep breath, and kept everything under control as I went into the bottom of my squat.  Then I pushed upwards with great urgency (I mean, I did still need to use the restroom).  Didn't hit the sticking point, just rose right up with the barbell.  I had finally gotten 275 pounds!

After another 5 minute break (which included that postponed visit to the men's room), I got ready to try 285 pounds.  On one hand, I was feeling good about my chances because the lift at 275 went so well.  On the other hand, I knew this weight was probably going to be that amount where I was going to be making a visit to the sticking point and I would need to fight really hard to get through it.  Sort of like I did at 255, only worse.  I started my routine and when I tried to do the bounce, I noticed that the weight felt considerably heavier.  The one benefit to knowing that a lift is going to be very difficult is that I almost never lose my focus on it.  I know that if I don't do everything right, I will end up failing with the lift.  I was very locked in when I began my squat, probably because there was a part of me that suspected this could be my last shot at success for the evening.  I controlled my descent to the bottom of the lift and, as expected, I hit my sticking point on the way back up.  I was still rising, albeit slowly.  I never got to the point where I considered bailing the barbell.  A second or two later, I was completely upright, very psyched about getting 285 pounds.  Anything from this point forward was gravy.

I was about to grab a couple of 2.5 pound plates to add to the barbell, as 290 pounds was definitely worth a try.  But then I had another idea.  Why not give 295 a try?  If it was too much for me, I could easily scale down to 290.  And 290 might feel a little lighter after giving 295 a go.  So I took the 5 pound plates off the bar, slid on a couple of 10 pound plates and worked on convincing myself that I could get 295 pounds.  I wasn't doing a very good job.  I think I had already skipped ahead in my brain to the part where I was standing in front of 290 pounds telling myself that I almost got 295 one lift earlier.  As I approached the barbell, I finally had some legit positive thoughts.  Just go through your routine, push those hips forward when you hit the sticking point, keep fighting, and you can get it.  I took the barbell off the rack and did a tiny bounce as I had definitely hit the point where the barbell felt very heavy.  Then the strangest thing happened.  I had my best lift of the night.  Usually when my mind is clouded with doubts, what follows next is the sound of a heavy barbell hitting the floor.  Not this time.  Controlled descent to the bottom, big push off the floor, almost no time in the sticking point, and a genuine "holy crap" moment when I stood up with the weight.

I was a bit delirious at this point.  My next lift was supposed to be the one at 290, the one I did after failing at 295.  In fact, I could envision myself needing several tries at 290.  But now I had done 295 and that plan was out the window.  I even walked around my barbell making sure I had added up the weight correctly.  45 pound barbell, two 45 pound plates along with a 25 pound plate and a 10 pound plate on each side.  Yup, that was definitely 295 pounds and I had just front squatted like it was my job.  I sat back down on the bench in a state of confused euphoria.  I had to try 300 next.  Doing a 300 pound front squat was one of my top 10 goals for 2016.  I figured that this squat program would get me to about 285 and that if I did another one later in the year, I could get to 300.  Attempting it after one squat program had put me way ahead of schedule.  I put a 2.5 pound plate on each side of the barbell, stood back and simply stared at it.  I was still in shock about the last lift.

I took 5 minutes of rest, then got ready to take on 300.  There was newfound confidence running through me thanks to that crazy lift at 295.  I gripped the barbell, took it off the rack, and did my mini-bounce again.  I stared straight ahead.  I took a deep breath.  It was go time.  I began my descent and...dropped the barbell.  Sometimes even when you think you are focused, you aren't focused.  As I lowered to the bottom of my squat, I completely forgot to keep my elbows up.  They went from pointing forward to pointing towards the ground, causing the barbell to fall forward.  I lost control of it and had to let it go.  That was not very good at all.  Giulz and I had been doing our own thing on opposite sides of the gym, but the loud crash of the barbell made her stop and check on me.  She encouraged me to take my time before trying again.  After stripping the barbell, getting it on the rack, and reloading it, I took about 7 minutes before making my 2nd attempt.

Some of the folks who were doing strength in the annex began coming over to the main gym at this point.  Between lifts, Sarah S had made a brief visit.  And right as I made my second attempt, Faby stopped into the gym.  Even though I hadn't told either of them where I was at (or even that this was my test day), I'm sure they both knew that I was going for a PR at this point.  Little did they know I had already hit a 30 pound PR!  As I approached the barbell this time, I reminded myself to keep my elbows up, but I basically pretended that the last attempt had not happened.  I had plenty of good lifts tonight, I just needed to duplicate those.  I went through my routine and when I began my descent into the squat this time, I kept my elbows up.  I pushed through the floor with as much force as I could, but I had hit my sticking point.  For a second, I thought I had it as I was rising ever so slightly.  But after more than three years of doing Crossfit, I think I have a solid gauge of when it's time to bail on a lift.  The barbell went crashing to the floor again.  0 for 2.

I always like to give myself 3 attempts at a lift, but after this miss, I took notice of how tired I was.  I was going to rest for 7 minutes again, but I needed to catch a second wind if my final attempt was going to be a successful one.  For the first 5 minutes, I sat on the bench, not wanting to waste energy moving about.  But I couldn't just walk up to the barbell and attempt 300 pounds after sitting on the bench for 7 minutes.  So with my break time winding down, I decided to march down to the end of the gym and back.  As I walked towards the other end of the gym with some speed, I tried to psych myself up.  This is your last lift, everything you got!  (Basically the most generic pep talk one could give oneself.)  When I got back to my barbell, I didn't waste any time.  I immediately got into my routine.  Giulz yelled some encouragement as I got ready.  Faby yelled some encouragement.  I took the barbell from the rack and it still felt very heavy.  I got my feet planted and my breathing right.  Then I went for it.  It was very similar to the second attempt.  Proper speed on the way down, a big push out of the bottom, and a visit to the infamous sticking point.  Once again, it felt like I was rising inch by inch.  But this time I didn't level out.  I pressed my hips forward and I kept creeping higher.  All of a sudden, I knew I was getting through it.  The only problem was that I was so sapped of energy that I began to doubt whether I could stand completely upright with the barbell.  The spirit of John McHugh must have helped me out in that moment as I looked upward and let out a scream to finish the lift.  I dumped the barbell back on the rack, tremendously excited.  Goal #3 for 2016 had been accomplished!

I turned around and giddily ran over to Giulz.  I went to give her a fist bump, but she went for the high five, so I clumsily slapped her hand at the last moment.  Then I went over to Faby and gave him a high five.  Part of me wanted to run around the gym in excitement, but I kept my awkward celebrations to a minimum.  I began putting my plates away, eager to throw on a dry shirt.  Once I had done that, I knew where I wanted to go to celebrate.  I had earned a root beer float and I was heading over to Frosty Falls, assuming they were still open.  I grabbed my bag and went to fist bump Giulz one more time.  And she held up her hand for another high five.  Clearly I'm a slow learner.  I gave another high five to Faby and one to Tom C (he had shown up after I was done to do farmers carries) before jogging over to Frosty Falls.

Perhaps the biggest disappointment of the night was when I got over to Frosty Falls and saw nothing but darkness.  That was supposed to be my reward tonight.  Bummed out, I walked back towards my car.  Then the light bulb went on.  On my way home, I stopped at Wawa, got some Vanilla Bean ice cream and a bottle of A&W root beer.  I had dinner when I got home, then capped it off with a well-deserved root beer float.  It was a really nice ending to a surprisingly good night.

Tuesday preview: Very sore after the front squat triumph, but I can't resist a partner WOD that is heavy on the rope climbs.