I wasn't expecting a full parking lot when I arrived for Competitors Class at 7am on Saturday, but I certainly thought I'd see more than 1 car in the parking lot. Was this a joke? Had Rachel pulled a prank on me, getting me to abandon my weekend slumber even though Competitors Class had been cancelled? I walked inside and saw three people: Rachel, Giulz, and Josh M. Giulz always parks next to the side door on Saturdays and Josh had caught a ride with her, which explained why Rachel's car was the only one in the main parking lot. I spent the first 10 minutes or so wondering when the rest of the class was going to show up, but it soon became apparent it would only be the four of us. That better be a damn good breakfast I was getting when this was over!
The setup for Competitors Class was what it typically is: an Olympic lifting segment followed by a long metcon. Occasionally, there is a cash out at the end, but there wasn't one written on the board today. (I wouldn't have been able to do it even if there had been one, as you will soon see.) The Olympic lifting was being done in my least favorite format: the EMOM. To be specific, it was my least favorite version of my least favorite format, because this EMOM involved increasing weights. The EMOM was 10 minutes long and required 2 clean and jerks per minute. I asked Giulz whether we needed to squat clean every time and she said that while it wasn't necessary, it would be better to do so. Having gone through the futility of trying to do squat cleans in an EMOM with increasing weights three weeks earlier, I decided to exercise my option of power cleaning my way through it this time.
Why do I dislike this format so much? Because I firmly believe that it is not testing fitness or strength. I also think it puts you in a situation where you quickly have to neglect your form. All it really tests are your "pit crew" skills. By that, I mean it tests how quickly you can run to each side of your barbell and change the weight on it so that you are ready for your next lift. If you are simply removing clips, sliding on a plate, and then putting clips back on, maybe this transition only takes 20 seconds. But if you're removing plates and putting new ones on, then this requires a solid 30 seconds at least. So now you only have 30 seconds to execute your 2 clean and jerks. It's simply way too rushed and I'm not just saying that because I admittedly suck at EMOMs.
I set up extra plates around my barbell and organized them so that I would be able to change my weights as quickly as possible. I planned out which 10 weights I would use (starting at 115 pounds, increasing 10 pounds each time, ending at 205). Josh called me out for not facing him as I set up my area, so I rearranged my extra plates so that I could face him during the EMOM. Josh and I were in the middle of the gym, while Rachel and Giulz were on the platform. Rachel wasn't facing Giulz. In fact, she was still working off of blocks. What was up with that? Turns out Rachel was not doing this half of the class with us. Competitors Class had turned into Dudes After Dark with even less of a turnout.
We got ready to go and my mindset was to treat this like I would treat Grace, at least early on in the EMOM. I wasn't going to reset after cleaning the barbell. I was going to go directly into my jerk, then tap the floor and go right into rep #2. That would give me enough time to change my weights and have 10 seconds or so to recover before the next minute began. 115 and 125 were not a problem. I needed to throw on the 45 pound plates for 135, so I quickly did that, then went over to help Josh as he had already fallen behind on his weight changes.
At 135, 145, and 155, I was able to do two quick clean and jerks each time, but I could tell that I was going to have to drop the barbell in between reps in the later rounds. It was also at about this halfway point of the EMOM where I was just barely finishing up my weight change when the buzzer sounded to begin the next round. Aggravation began to set in as I had gone as fast as I possibly could, yet I was inevitably falling behind. The other problem I was having involved my hands. Taking care of my hands has become a daily routine, but there had been some recent workouts that had left them very sore. As I hit the second half of this EMOM, it became too painful to use a hook grip. I needed to go with a regular grip and take my chances on cleaning the heavier weights.
With my hook grip gone, the clean and jerks at 165, 175, and 185 were definitely more difficult, but I got through them. My pace had slowed, which meant that I was behind on the EMOM. I would add 10 pounds to one side of the barbell, make my way to the other side, hear the buzzer, finish adding the weight to the other side of the barbell and begin the next round with time already having elapsed in that minute. I was nearing the end of the EMOM, so that didn't bother me too much. If I had 20-25 seconds for my final round, I thought I'd be able to finish on time.
At 195, things got messy. No hook grip, no time to dilly dally, and a lack of proper form resulted in two very ugly clean and jerks. I got through them, but I used a lot of back in order to do both the clean and the jerk. The buzzer went off to begin minute 10 as I wrapped up adjusting the weight on one side of the barbell. When I finished changing the weight on both sides, the clock showed 9:40. I felt like I needed 20 seconds to get two lifts in, but I also needed a few seconds to compose myself. If I ended up running a few seconds over so be it. Turns out I needed more than a few seconds. I went to clean 205, badly hyperextended my back trying to catch it, then dumped it. I had reached the point where I was risking injury to get this stupid EMOM complete. No thanks. I didn't even bother finishing the final round. I was fine with completing 9 rounds. I'm not sure how many rounds Giulz and Josh completed, but they weren't done at the end of 10 minutes either.
I was relieved that the EMOM was over, but that might have been a case of me underestimating what remained. The metcon was a partner workout and looked like this:
40-30-20-10
Hang power cleans (115/75)
Wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
Pull-ups
5 minutes rest
4 rounds:
20 barbell-facing burpees
20 push jerks (115/75)
5 minutes rest
4 rounds:
500 meter row
20 GHD sit-ups
10 deadlifts (225/155)
*All work must be evenly distributed among partners
Looking at all of that now, it seems crazy that I wasn't more worried about participating in this metcon. It was a lot of work, but since it was a partner WOD, I got the notion that I would get plenty of rest along the way. Let's just say I needed a lot more rest than I ended up getting. First, Rachel asked who wanted to be her partner. There was awkward silence among Giulz, Josh, and myself. I think we all knew that Rachel's partner was not going to get very much rest as she was the most likely of the four of us to blow through her portions of the workout quickly. I signed my death warrant by making a comment about how 50 pull-ups was going to take me forever. Rachel then said that we should be partners because she struggled with pull-ups too.
(Note: When Rachel says she "struggles" with pull-ups, that means she does 3 butterfly pull-ups, drops down, then does 2 butterfly pull-ups. When I say I struggle with pull-ups, that means I do a single kipping rep, drop down, pray to a higher being that they will get me through this, then proceed to do my next single kipping rep.)
Having Rachel as my partner cut down my rest considerably. Then Giulz made the suggestion that the breaks between the various segments of the metcon should be 2 minutes long rather than 5 minutes long. Bye-bye six minutes of rest! So to summarize, I was going to need to try and keep pace with Rachel during a long-ass WOD in the sauna that we call a gym with minimal rest between the three sections of the workout. How could that go wrong?
Problem #1: Asking a guy with hand pain to do 50 pull-ups when he struggles to do them with pain-free hands. Rachel and I started this workout by alternating back and forth after doing 10 reps of hang power cleans, then after every 10 wall balls. We actually had a lead on Giulz and Josh when we got to the pull-ups. We agreed to go 5 at a time at the pull-up bar. Rachel did 3 and 2, I did not. I did 2 reps, but pushing away at the top did not feel good at all. So I tried for quick singles. Three singles later, it was Rachel's turn again. She kept up her routine, while I went all singles for my second and third sets of five. Giulz and Josh had moved back to the hang power cleans at this point. Rachel finished her last 5 pull-ups, then I went back up trying to string multiple reps again. I got 2, but it wasn't worth it as my hands were seriously in pain now. I went back to singles to finish the round of 40.
For the round of 30, we each went 8 and 7 on the hang power cleans and the wall balls. At the pull-up bar, my singles became slower. I began gripping the bar with only my fingers when I did my pull-ups. It didn't feel all that secure, but my kip was strong enough to get my chin up above the bar on each rep. Giulz and Josh kept extending their lead, finishing their round of 20 before I did the 30th pull-up for our team. For the round of 20, we went back to sets of 10 on the hang power cleans and wall balls. It was nice only needing to do two sets of 5 pull-ups, but I was still very slow. By the time we finished that round, Giulz and Josh were finishing up their 2 minute rest period. For the round of 10, Rachel and I blazed through our 5 hang power cleans and wall balls. I think Rachel managed to hang on for all 5 of her pull-ups. I gingerly got through mine. We finished that segment in 14 minutes and change, more than 4 minutes behind Giulz and Josh.
At least there were no more pull-ups to do. The rest of the metcon didn't look appealing, but I wasn't worried about my hands going forward. The focus from here on out was breathing. Rachel and I were going to go 10 reps at a time again and since 10 barbell-facing burpees take some time, I was getting a bit more than two minutes to recover. It went by fast though. As I watched Rachel do burpees, I didn't count her reps, but simply waited in dread for her to inform me that it was my turn to go. When it was my turn, I kept moving the whole time, but I can't claim that I was moving very fast. Although to be fair, I'm not sure any of us were speeding through those burpees. Rachel had no problem with her 10 push jerks. I tried to do my 10 way too quickly and lost my balance during that first round, something I reminded myself not to do in the next three rounds.
As I watched Rachel do her second round of burpees, I became conscious of how much I was sweating. I looked down at my barbell and saw a large amount of my sweat on either side of it. I looked over at Rachel's barbell, then Josh's and Giulz's. If they were sweating, it was being absorbed by their shirts, because there were no puddles on either side of their barbells. The sad part was that my shirt was dark from saturation as well.
Rachel and I moved through rounds two, three, and four of our burpees and our push jerks. My pace on the burpees likely slowed as I went along, but I never stopped mid-round. I got much smarter on the push jerks. I didn't move as rapidly as I did in the first round. 115 pounds wasn't a weight that was going to crush me, so I slowed down, used good form, and steadied my breathing. At the end of the second segment, we were about 5 minutes behind Giulz and Josh, having fallen another minute behind during this section. I needed oxygen and water badly.
The game plan for the final section was to alternate through the movements rather than alternate sets of reps. So for round one, Rachel would row, I would do the GHD sit-ups, and she would do the deadlifts. For round two, I would row, she would do the GHD sit-ups, and I would do the deadlifts. Same idea for rounds three and four. Our rower and deadlift barbells were on the other end of the gym from the GHD, so it made sense to give our partner a head start to move from one area to the next. It also gave me two extra minutes of rest while Rachel began the segment with a 500 meter row. When she was done, I pushed through 20 GHD sit-ups at a moderately fast pace. I knew Rachel was going to take care of the deadlifts quickly, so I had to jog to the rower. My pace for 500 meters was in the 2:15-2:20 range. Rachel did her 20 GHD sit-ups, leaving me with 10 deadlifts to finish round two.
You may remember that I used 225 pounds as my 20 rep weight in that long deadlift workout I did last week, so having to do 10 reps at that weight shouldn't have been a problem. Except this movement was going to take a toll on my hands again. I could feel it as soon as I picked up the barbell. I tried to move quickly, but it seemed better to drop the barbell after 5 reps and give my hands a brief respite. After a few moments, I picked it back up again and did the remaining 5 reps.
For rounds three and four, there wasn't too much that differed from rounds one and two. I began to tire towards the end of my 20 GHD sit-ups, but I didn't stop before I got through all twenty. Might have slowed down a little though. Josh and Giulz were done by the time I had to row again, so Josh came over and pushed me to go faster since it was my last row of the day. I managed to get my 500 meter pace down to 2:00 towards the end, meaning it likely took me about 2:10 for my second row. I walked over to the barbell and got ready for Rachel to tell me to finish things off. She got done and I picked up the barbell, determined to hang on for all 10 no matter what this time. I got to 7 reps before really wanting to drop the barbell, but I knew I could get through the last 3 even if my hands were killing me. After the 10th rep, I dropped the barbell, then dropped to the floor myself. Final time: 43:36.
To say I was a mess at the end of this would be putting it lightly. I was struggling to breathe. I was very dehydrated due to my massive sweating problem. I felt nauseous. And the most worrisome part was that I felt this extreme pressure from the inside of my head making me wonder whether my skull was getting ready to explode. I spent some time in front of a nearby fan. I made my way over to my bag to get the two extra bottles of water I had brought with me. I thought the lobby would be cooler than the gym, but for some reason it wasn't much better. Keithie was there to teach the 9am class and when he saw me stagger into the lobby, he had to check on me to make sure I was alright. After sitting in the lobby for a bit, I finally found the promised land. I needed to throw on my second shirt, so I made my way to one of the lobby bathrooms, where the temperature was at least 20 degrees cooler. I gave serious consideration to skipping breakfast in order to sit in this cool oasis for the rest of the morning. Eventually, hanging out in the lobby bathroom felt weird to me, so I went back to the gym to see if it was time for breakfast. I was still a bit nauseous, so I didn't want to eat immediately. I just wanted to leave the gym.
When Rachel was ready, we each drove over to meet Giulz at her place where we helped her move some furniture before heading off to breakfast. Then we drove to McKenna's Kitchen where I got to enjoy lots of water, some coffee, a full stack of apple cinnamon French toast, and some Irish rashers (supposedly bacon, more like ham). I might have been influenced by watching Rachel take down a full stack of maple bacon pancakes along with an omelette, but now that I was feeling semi-normal again, I felt like I needed more food. I asked the waitress if she could bring me a bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich on an English muffin to finish off my meal. The second serving of breakfast hit the spot. It took a solid two hours, but I finally felt recovered from my Competitors Class ordeal.
Monday preview: If you think I didn't take Sunday off after all that, you're crazy. Monday features a Dave-friendly workout of rowing and rope climbs. Know what isn't Dave-friendly? The heat. And it's back in a big way Monday night.
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