Pop And Lock (In Reverse)

Workout date: 7/6/16

My apologies for not writing in almost a week, but with Brawl In The Burbs coming up next weekend, I've been working on creating a very sexy spreadsheet for the competition.  My plan for the Brawl was to avoid double duty this year and that has come to fruition, only it has turned out to be a total 180 from how I thought things would play out.  Earlier in the year, I let my beloved Soukas know that I was not interested in doing this year's Brawl.  I was going to stick with my strengths (scorekeeping) rather than my weaknesses (competing).  Then a few weeks ago, I received a message from Cline saying that Luke had tweaked his back and they needed someone to take his spot for the Brawl.  Having a friend ask for a favor is kinda my kryptonite, so I reluctantly agreed to fill in.  The good news?  I tested most of the Brawl workouts in their RX versions during Competitors Classes earlier in the year, so hopefully this competition won't seem nearly as painful as it typically does.  As for the scoring, Giulz asked another member of our gym (Alan) if he would do the honors.  I still got to tinker around with Excel to create a scoring system that will be very user-friendly for Alan and will contain all of the information teams could possibly want during the competition.

You haven't missed out on a whole lot since I last wrote as I went to the gym for workouts on Wednesday and Thursday, then took a long weekend away from KOP.  That was probably wise, although I did have to fight my inner-Crossfit addict to keep from coming in once on the weekend.  You would think that the Mets training staff has been working on me with all of the nagging injuries I've been piling up.  My biggest problem?  My knees.  My right knee has been bothering me for a few weeks.  Then last week, my left knee got in on the act.  No problem.  After all, who needs knees to do Crossfit?  <Welp>

I guess it could be worse.  I'm not experiencing a lot of pain in my knees.  I think they just need some WD-40.  I go to extend my leg and my knee locks up, preventing me from getting full range of motion.  After a couple swings of my leg, I'll eventually hear a popping sound which lets me know that I can finally extend my leg completely.  I doubt either the lock or the pop is a good thing, so I've decided to gear down a little bit.  With Brawl coming up and a possible appearance at King and Queen at the end of the month, I can't afford to put too much wear and tear on my body during daily WODs.

The WOD on Wednesday looked like one I could handle without beating myself up further.  The first part of the class was spent finding a 3RM push press, one of the strength benchmarks at KOP this year.  That would be followed by a 5 minute cash out that would include muscle-ups (scale!) and power cleans.  I went in for the usual 7:30 class, bumping into Matt B and his mom Anne on the way in.  They were both soaked in sweat, a bit unusual for a workout that seemed low-key compared to most of the WODs we do at KOP.  They let me know that it was super hot inside the gym, but I held out hope that nightfall and fewer classmates would cool down the gym during my hour inside.  Matt pushed me to get 205 for my 3RM as he had come close to getting it in the 6:30 class before having to settle for 185.  I had gotten 185 in January and 195 in April, so 205 in July seemed like the logical progression.  Had I been feeling 100%, that would definitely have been my goal.  (Truth be told, it was still my goal, but I lowered my expectations on hitting it due to my knees.)

There was no Coach Jenna on this Wednesday evening as Giulz was filling in for her.  She'd be coaching three of us as Nicole and Julie Foucher were in class with me as well.  We started off with some shoulder mobility exercises before walking through the finer points of the push press.  We then tackled some of the elements of the cash out so that we could transition quickly from the first segment of the workout to the second segment later on.  I thought about pushing for jumping muscle-ups as my scale for the cash out, but it sounded like our main choices were dips (regular or banded) and ring rows.  Giulz spent some time working with me on kipping my dips.  The technique she showed me was much more controlled than what I've done in the past.  She explained that all I needed to do was press out of the dip right as I drew my knees up towards my chest.  Sounds simple enough, but my timing wasn't so great as I tried to do it.  Still I thought I could make it 5 minutes using a combination of strict dips and these new kipping ones, so I decided not to get a band ready for the cash out.  The power cleans were 135 pounds for RX.  That seemed very reasonable, so I went with that.

As we grabbed plates for our first set of push presses, Giulz looked up our results from April.  Having seen that I had gotten 195, she told me that she wanted to see me get 200 today.  Again, I was all for getting a PR, but internally I was prepared for the fact that today might not be my day.  I started off with 95 pounds and did all 3 reps without pausing.  Same deal at 135, although I could tell that it was probably in my best interest to start pausing between reps so that I didn't accidentally do a push jerk during my set.  Still smooth sailing at 155.  That set gave me confidence that I could make my way through 175, but I wasn't sure how much further I'd go beyond that.

At 175, I definitely had to work harder to get through my three reps, but I never hit a sticking point along the way where I thought I might fail.  I decided that if I was going to go after 200 that I should move up to 190 for my next set.  Giulz let us know we had about 7 minutes left to finish our sets, so I didn't waste too much time before trying 190.  I might need multiple attempts at 200.  I might need multiple attempts at 190!  Luckily that wasn't necessary.  I needed to get a strong dip-drive to move the weight, especially on the last two reps, but I was able to press out each rep overhead.

Getting 190 felt like a win to me.  Perhaps I mentally checked out at that point and didn't give 200 my best shot.  Or maybe 190 was simply the best I could do on this day.  On my first attempt at 200, I pressed the bar away from my body instead of directly upwards, giving me no shot at getting it overhead.  I took a couple of minutes before making one final attempt at 200.  On the first rep, I was locked in and did everything right, resulting in a good rep.  On the second rep, I didn't dip low enough, resulting in a weak pop off my shoulders as I tried to drive the barbell overhead.  It got high enough that it cleared my head, but I instantly knew it wasn't high enough to press out.  So I simply dropped it behind me.  Final score: 190.

It was time to move on to the cash out.  I changed shoes quickly because I didn't want to wear my lifters as I tried to kip the dips.  I stripped my barbell down to 135 pounds.  And then I was ready to go.  The format of the cash out was 5 muscle-ups (dips for me) and 10 power cleans each round.  Most people seemed to average about 3 rounds.  I was going to do my best to try and finish 4.  We got started and my first round was very fast.  I did 3 dips, came off the rings, then did my final 2.  I went to my barbell, did 5 power cleans, took a break for a few seconds, then did the remaining 5 reps.  I finished the first round in about a minute flat.  For round two, I went 2-2-1 on the ring dips, slowing down from round one.  My pace on the power cleans did not slow though, as I went 5-5 again.  The clock was close to 2:30 when I completed the second round, so four rounds was unlikely to happen.

Round three was where the dips became very difficult.  I did 2 reps to start again, then had to go 1-1-1.  Back at the barbell, it was 5-5 on the power cleans for the third straight round.  I had less than a minute to go.  I was hoping to finish the dips before time expired and if I could sneak in a power clean or two, all the better.  Neither of those things ended up happening.  I had to do the dips one at a time.  I lost control on my third dip as I began to swing back and forth.  I didn't think I extended fully at the top before coming off the rings, so I no-repped myself.  I got two more dips in before the clock hit 5 minutes.  Final score: 3+4*.

Why the asterisk?  When Giulz asked for our scores, I told her I got 3+4 and did dips instead of muscle-ups.  She stood at the whiteboard for a few moments looking unsure of what she should write.  Seemed pretty straightforward to me.  Unless she thought I didn't do the dips properly.  I'm guessing that was the case, so my score needs an ROM next to it.  (Note: ROM stands for "range of motion".  If an athlete attempts a movement but doesn't meet the standard fully, they have ROM written next to their score.  Examples include not getting low enough in a squat or not touching your chest to the floor in a push-up.)  I was fairly certain that my biceps were hitting the rings on the way down, but I may not have fully extended at the top of all my dips, which would explain why I would deserve the ROM.  I did no-rep myself on the one where I knew I didn't get full extension, but I didn't have a lot of control in the later rounds and may not have judged the rest correctly.

Thursday preview: The hottest day of the year so far and I choose to attend a noon class.  A whole lot of DB snatches mixed in with cardio.  Bring on the paper towels!