It's become a common occurrence at the gym to see afternoon people pop in for a morning class every now and then. Since I'm not much of a morning person, I have changed things up by attending the noon express once or twice per week. This week, I went on Friday not because I wanted to hit up a different class, but because a friend of mine was getting hitched on Friday afternoon. The plan was to get my workout in, grab a quick shower at the gym, throw on my monkey suit, and consume a lot of beverages at the reception.
It's been a while since I've come to a WOD with the knowledge that I'd be doing something I've never tried before (I think the turkish get-up may have been the last brand new thing I'd done in a WOD). On Friday, we were doing split snatches. I'm not entirely sure what the point of a split snatch is, but I had seen one male athlete do it at Regionals when I went last year. The first workout at Regionals was Randy, a sprint workout where athletes perform 75 snatches with 75 pounds on the barbell. For Regionals athletes, that is a very light weight. However, 75 reps is no joke and some of these guys began to run out of gas as they made it to their final 10-15 reps. The athlete who used the split snatch won his heat. Perhaps this rarely used technique allowed him to save enough strength to get through all 75 reps while the competition wilted at the end.
The split snatch was only part of the Friday WOD. Here's what the entire thing looked like:
3 rounds:
8 split snatches, alternating legs (115/75)
7 bar muscle-ups
400 meter run
I knew I'd be using a box for jumping bar muscle-ups and I wanted to get through this workout using a 15" height. That meant grabbing a 13" box and putting a plate on it. Why the specific height? Because I've gotten used to doing these with a 17" box and don't have a lot of trouble with them. The struggle is real when I go with the 13" box. I've gotten a rep here and there with the 13" box, but nothing consistent. 15" was that sweet spot of challenging but doable.
Aimee walked our class of 13 through some progressions on the pull-up rig as we figured out how we wanted to handle the bar muscle-up portion of the workout. Part of the progression was jumping up to the bar and really pushing down on the bar before we bent our arms and began pulling. I've been given this cue a thousand times and somehow it still hasn't sunk into my brain to do this when I go to attempt any type of gymnastic movement. Aimee had all of us try this before calling us into a small group for further instruction. She had one of the members of class show everyone what good form looked like (never met her before, but I think her name might have been Nikki). Then she did something that she thought I might take the wrong way, but in reality, is something that I've been advocating for at the gym: Aimee asked me if I could demo what bad form looked like.
Now some people might not take too kindly to that request and I understand why. It's possible that I might not react well if it was something that I consider myself good at. ("Hey Dave, hop on up here and show everyone your shitty overhead squat form!") But pull-up movements? This made sense. I was more than happy to show the class what bad pull-up form looked like. It has always driven me a little bit nuts when a coach is chosen to perform this task. For example, it's probably been a solid five years since Keithie has done a bad pull-up. He might be able to do pull-ups in his sleep. So when he's asked to come up and show the class what a bad rep would look like, it just looks goofy. The movement doesn't look natural at all. But guess what has two thumbs and some naturally lousy pull-up form? This guy!
So what did I do as soon as I was given this opportunity? I jumped up to the bar and my form ended up not being too bad. That's just great! I had finally been given the opportunity to be the bad demo guy and I had done a lousy job of demoing lousy pull-up form. (Please don't give up on me, Aimee! I can be crappy again. I know I can!) Part of what had changed was that I got to use the high bar during the demo. When Aimee saw me attempt these progressions earlier, I was on the low bar and that always feels a bit odd for me to use. But the truth of the matter is that the demo form I displayed is not the norm for me and I definitely need to work on not pulling early as I do pull-up movements.
Next up was some split snatch practice using PVC pipes. Because it was my first time ever doing it, it felt awkward to me. Perhaps the hardest part was getting my mind to remember to alternate legs after each rep. When I split jerk, I always send my right foot forward. And as I did these practice reps, my right foot kept going forward. Again and again and again. The workout description said we needed to alternate legs, so this was a problem. I finally did a few reps with my left leg out front, but that was still weird for me.
We only had a few minutes to choose our weights and get some practice reps in, so I decided to scale down from the RX weight of 115 pounds. I had only been doing this movement for 5 minutes, so scaling seemed appropriate. 95 pounds sounded manageable to me. I looked around and saw that Tim H, Joe C, and Nick were all scaling down as well, so maybe I had chosen the proper weight for once.
Aimee made sure we were all ready to go and then had us get started on round one. My main focus was on alternating legs, but I quickly found a rhythm with that. I started stringing reps, which is something I rarely do with snatches. I did 4 in a row before putting the barbell down for a quick breather. I did the next 4 in a row and I was on to the bar muscle-ups faster than expected. Maybe I got a little too excited about how the split snatches went, because when I went to do my first bar muscle-up, the bar rejected me like I had worn sneakers to a nightclub. It's always a little disconcerting being flung backwards while mid-air, but I was able to land somewhat gracefully on the box I had jumped from. I took some time to regroup before starting again. Things began to click after that. I did two fast singles, paused, two fast singles, paused again, then got the last three reps so I could head out on my run. Somebody had to be 13th out the door and that person was me.
I caught a few folks on the run and then had a flashback as I passed Frosty Falls. Jodilee and Terri were up in front of me, walking together. Right as I caught up to them, they began running again. People be messing with my mind on these runs! If you're going to walk, please allow me to run a considerable distance by before you start running again. (I'm kidding. I joked with Jodilee and Terri about letting me catch up and then taking off again, but they told me it was a coincidence. One of the other ladies in class had yelled to them to run the last segment just as I was catching up to them.)
I began round two with less anxiety about the split snatches and the bar muscle-ups. For the split snatches, I did two sets of four reps again. On the bar muscle-ups, I did a set of three reps and a set of four reps. I was still behind Jodilee and Terri on the second run, but this time I was able to pass them close to Frosty Falls on the outward bound portion of the run. (Note: They did an awesome job of giving me crap when I went by them. "Ohhhh...look who's running fast now!" Touché, ladies.) I wasn't running extremely fast on this 400 meters, but I kept a solid pace that got me closer to the main pack of the class as I got ready for round three.
It was time for the final round and I wanted to try and string all 8 split snatches. The weight was not a problem at all for me, so why split it up into two sets? I almost made it happen, but on the 6th rep, I lost my balance a bit and decided to drop the barbell. I did pick the barbell right back up though and finished off the last two reps. I wish I could have duplicated my jumping bar muscle-up performance from round two, but my hands were becoming sweaty and I thought smaller sets with the opportunity to wipe off my hands in between was the way to go. So I did three sets of two and one single (with hand-drying breaks along the way) to get through round three.
I wanted to push as hard as I could on that final run, but I guess I wasn't moving all that fast on the first 200 meters. As I closed in on the turnaround point, Jodilee's daughter, Kendall, came running past me. Just as Sarina had done the day before, she was going to make sure I kept things moving. "Come on, you can go faster, you're almost done", she told me. And she was right, I just needed a kick in the butt to make it happen. After the turnaround point, the next 100 meters is mostly uphill. I put my head down and started pumping my arms in an effort to gain speed. I went by Kendall and kept chugging along. As we got to the last 100 meters, I was expecting Kendall to come running by again, so I kept trying to move faster. Once I passed the annex, I did my best impersonation of someone sprinting. Final time: 14:38.
Kendall came in a few seconds after me and told me that she didn't expect me to pick it up that much when she had prodded me along at the 200 meter mark. Guess she didn't realize what a stubborn idiot I am. If you tell me to go faster and I have the ability to do it, then I'll be going as fast as I can. Something tells me that she's going to beat me next time though.
A bunch of us were hanging around afterwards chatting when Terri asked me about the scale I had used in the workout for bar muscle-ups. She was actually doing her scale right in front of me during the workout and I had seen her looking at me while I did them, but I got the impression that she was doing so in more of a "I hope that guy doesn't kill himself" capacity. When she told me she was interested in learning how to do them, I was more than happy to walk through them with her.
KOP has new plates! (And I'm swinging from a 30" box as I explain to Terri the scale I used in the workout.)
Terri needed a few tries to get comfortable with the setup, but after that, she was easily doing jumping bar muscle-ups on the 30" box. My guess is that she'll probably use a 24" box with a plate the next time we have a WOD that includes bar muscle-ups.
Monday preview: Another weekend away from the gym to rest up. Another good decision as I need all my grip strength for my second encounter with Nicole.
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