Intermission

Workout date: 8/1/16

For the past two years, we've had something called the gym benchmark series taking place at KOP.  A series of workouts, strength components, and skills are tested in January, February, and March.  Then those benchmarks are tested three more times over the rest of the year.  Athletes can see how much they've improved three months later, six months later, and nine months later.  When we did this last year, there wasn't a particular series that I was looking forward to throughout the year.  Nancy was part of the rotation in 2015, so I was excited to do that workout 4 times, but other than that, I can't say I was eager for the calendar to turn to a specific month.

That has changed in 2016.  Just look at the lineup for the testing taking place in February, May, August, and November!

• Annie - Quick WOD (double unders and sit-ups) that I'm slowly improving on
• Fight Gone Bad - One of those odd chipper WODs that I love doing even if I'm not particularly good at them
• Grace - Most reliable WOD (30 clean and jerks) that I can do
• Jackie - A WOD (rowing, light thrusters, moderate amount of pull-ups) that feels likes its just outside my abilities at the moment, but with some minor pull-up improvement could be in my wheelhouse
• 15RM overhead squat - No one in the gym gets as excited as me about this one
• Rope climb skill work - Ditto

Even skill work on handstand walks doesn't sound awful to me.  Skill work on ring muscle-ups?  Okay, there had to be one thing I didn't like in this rotation, but 7 out of 8 likes is pretty strong.

Monday marked the first day of August and we were getting right into high gear by taking on Fight Gone Bad just two days after the King and Queen competition.  There were 9 of us there for the 6:30 class.  As we went for our usual 400 meter run to begin the warmup, Borden began chatting with me. Because I get involved with a lot of competitions, he wanted to know how I typically feel 48 hours after something like King and Queen.  The truth was that it varied.  After Brawl, I felt really good afterwards.  After King and Queen, I was sore.  During the first two events, I experienced some back pain reminiscent of the type that made me quit the KB EMOM about a week and a half earlier.  That lingered on the next day, but it wasn't as much of a factor when I showed up for Fight Gone Bad.  My traps were the issue on Monday evening.  (Note: I'm not sure I can truly say that I even have traps, but it was in the region where my theoretical traps would be that I was experiencing soreness.)

When we returned to the gym, Aimee split us up into groups of two for FGB as is the usual custom.  Each pair would consist of one person working and one person counting/cheerleading.  There were three girls in class, so someone (Sarina possibly?) who was not in our class ended up helping out as an additional counter.  Cline and I paired up and since we know each other pretty well at this point, Cline volunteered to go first, allowing me to procrastinate and go second.  Cline mentioned that he hadn't done this WOD in a couple of years and that his previous best score was 210.  There was no doubt that he was going to obliterate that today.  He even let me know that his goal was to reach 250.

Need a quick recap of what's involved in Fight Gone Bad?  Here you go:

• 3 rounds
• 1 minute of work at each station
• 1 minute rest after completing a rotation through all 5 stations
• Stations include:
• Wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
• Sumo deadlift high pulls (75/55)
• Box jumps (20" - unisex style)
• Push press (75/55)
• Rowing for calories

Since it takes 17 minutes per partner to do this workout, there isn't a lot of time to warm up or goof around before heat #1 gets started.  I grabbed a small whiteboard, made a little chart to write down Cline's scores at each station and things got underway.

You tend to see the same pattern in this workout: athletes are better at certain movements so they try to score as many points as possible at that station.  The number of reps done at each station decreases from round 1 to round 2, but then stays fairly steady from round 2 to round 3.  So rather then give you 15 separate mini-recaps of how Cline did, I'll narrow it down to 4:

• Wall balls - This is always where the biggest fall off happens from round 1 to round 2.  In round one, you are completely fresh and can typically hold on to the ball for the entire minute.  In rounds 2 and 3, you get here after your rest period, but you are far from fresh.  Cline's score in round one was in the low-to-mid twenties before settling into the mid-teens in rounds two and three.
• Sumo deadlift high pulls and push press - I grouped these together because I think Cline's performance on the barbell movements was very similar.  He definitely had the pain face going, but he was very good about doing sets of 5 (or close to 5) before he dropped the barbell.  He was in the high teens for round one, in the mid-teens for rounds two and three.
• Box jumps - Cline was extremely consistent at this station.  He had this technique where he would jump on the box and look like he was going to lose control and fall off, but he held on just long enough to establish that he had control with his hips open before bounding off.  His score at this station remained in the high teens for all three rounds.
• Rowing - Cline's specialty.  Whenever I get to this station in Fight Gone Bad, I'm expecting a low score followed by a break.  Cline actually put up a higher score here than in the barbell movements in rounds two and three.  In all three rounds, Cline's number of calories rowed was in the mid-to-high teens.

After one round, Cline had a score of 97.  His second round score of 79 brought him to 176.  He needed 35 reps for a PR.  And he needed 74 reps to reach his goal of 250 for a total score.  I spent round three counting down (as in how many reps he needed to reach 250) rather than counting up (as in how many reps he had gotten in round three alone).  When Cline reached the rower, he needed 12 calories and it was a lock that he would reach 250.  He found enough in his tank to get 17 calories on that last row, giving him a total score of 255.  He had 79 reps in round three, matching his second round score exactly.

It was now my turn to go, but before I did, I needed to dry off.  Yes, I was already sweating profusely and all I had done was keep score for 17 minutes.  That didn't bode well for me.  This is a draining workout where you need to grit your teeth and grind through it (as Cline had done during the barbell movements).  I didn't need to be wasting energy worrying about sweaty hands or having sweat drip into my eyes as I moved from station to station.

I had done this WOD in January a few hours after getting off a plane from Vegas.  I was mildly hungover after spending a week out there for the NHC, but somehow I set a new PR by scoring 262.  I wasn't battling any alcohol-related ailments in May and put up an even better score of 270.  My long-term goal for this workout is to hit 300, but I know that is way down the road.  I was hoping to reach 275 with a solid performance today.  The key was holding on better after round one.  I think my scores back in May were somewhere along the lines of 110-80-80.  I probably couldn't improve upon my round 1 score, but if I could bump up rounds two and three to 83-82 (not impossible), I could reach 275.

Heat #2 was ready to begin and I got started on my wall balls.  I tend to do 1 rep every 2 seconds and I remember getting 29 reps at this initial station back in May.  I probably dropped off a little early to move to the next station, but I still got 28 reps before moving to the sumo deadlift high pull.  At that station, I tried to push beyond doing sets of 5.  I always feel more comfortable stopping after sets of 5 or 10, but that's all mental.  I did my best to get to 7 reps before dropping the barbell.  Not sure what my score was here, but it was around 20.

I moved on to the box jumps and began rebounding off this smaller box.  In most workouts, the guys have to use a 24" box, but we get a little reprieve in Fight Gone Bad.  I didn't rebound for as long as I hoped, but I kept things moving by stepping off and doing the next rep.  I couldn't afford to take a break in an attempt to start rebounding again.  It was just do what you can in that moment.  I got about 20 reps at this station as well.

The push press is my favorite part of Fight Gone Bad.  We did one version of this a few years ago where we got to pick which station we wanted to start at.  We also got to do the push press from the rack.  I chose that first (as did everyone else) and put up some ridiculous score in the 40's.  It would be nice if I could hold on long enough at this station to reach 30 reps and with better conditioning I probably could, but for now my typical score here is in the mid-twenties.

I mentioned that I am no Cline on the rower and that was proven once again as I hit the last station of round one.  I thought I was making nice strong pulls during my minute on the rower, but the monitor was letting me know those strokes were weak.  I could only get 12 calories to wrap up round one.  My total score for the round was 107.

That wasn't too bad.  275 was going to be difficult to hit, especially since it was so much warmer in the gym than it had been in May.  As I got ready to begin round two, I told myself that I needed to beat 80 reps, even if that meant a fall off in round three.  That was my new goal.  And to reach that goal, I needed a solid start on the wall balls.

I did not have a solid start on the wall balls.

When the buzzer sounded to begin round two, I picked up my ball and shot it towards the 10' mark.  It barely cleared the 9' mark.  Cline almost sheepishly said "no rep" after the ball hit the floor and he's not one to be shy about giving me shit.  I think he probably knew something was wrong.  I was coming off of a minute rest and my first shot was a full foot short of the mark.  Plus I didn't even bother to catch it.  I tried to regroup, but I had a sense of what the issue was.  I'm not sure why it suddenly happened, but I wasn't able to fully extend my arms.  I had gone completely T-rex.

The rest of my workout was slightly less impressive than this

For the remainder of the minute, I needed to jump in order to get the ball over the 10' line.  That is something I would typically do if I was at the tail end of stringing 40-50 reps or if I was trying to finish up Karen.  It is not something I would do for single reps after taking a minute break.  I was able to do a few sets of several reps in a row this way, but my score on the wall balls plummeted from 28 in round one to somewhere around 10 in round two.

If you think wall balls were tough with T-rex arms, you can imagine how well the sumo deadlift high pulls went.  I pulled as hard as I could to get two in a row before needing to drop the barbell.  I think I got two more after that.  I didn't control the barbell on the way down and it bounced to the side.  I wasn't really paying attention at that point, so I simply moved over to try and pick it up again.  Little did I know that one end of my barbell was actually under the flywheel of my rower.  I went to make a big pull and only the left side of the barbell rose with me.  The right side caught the rower and I went careening to the right as the barbell flew out of my hands.  It was a silly mistake on my part, just as it was silly to carry on.  I let Cline know I was done and walked out of the gym.  I didn't want to sit around as everyone else continued to work.  I took a walk to the 400 meter mark and back to kill some time.  When I got back, the other people in my heat were wrapping up round #3.  Cline came over and apologized for the incident with the rower, but that wasn't his fault at all.  When the heat was done, I congratulated everyone who completed the workout and then I took my leave.  I haven't been back since.

My body let me know that day that it was time for an intermission in my Crossfit career.  It wasn't just this one incident that got me to that realization.  Today my arms didn't fully extend.  A few weeks ago, I went to get a massage and there was a series of stretches at the end of it.  When the masseur lifted my right leg up, he told me to extend it fully.  Upon hearing that I believed I was extending it fully, his response was "wow".  I had back issues during the KB EMOM workout and during King and Queen.  And during this summer-long heat wave, no one has struggled as much in the gym as I have.  Add it all up and it simply isn't healthy for me to be participating at KOP right now.  Is that a bummer for me?  Absolutely.  Doing Crossfit at KOP has been a huge part of my life for the better part of four years.  But maybe this is happening at a good time for me.  I mentioned how busy I've been, how much traveling I've done and how much traveling I still need to do at the end of this summer.  It's not like I'll be home twiddling my thumbs during this break.  I'll be running around like crazy almost the entire time.

What is the cause of my body breaking down recently?  I'm not 100% sure.  It could be that my body isn't aging like a fine cabernet but rather like a bottle of Boone's Farm that has been left outside of the fridge for a few days after it had been opened.  But I suspect these recent issues have more to do with my weight.  If my King and Queen debacle taught me anything, it is that I need to slim down.  I need to shed at least 11-12 kilos (yes, I'm making you do the conversion).  A slimmer Dave would be putting less pressure on his joints, he'd have a better chance at success with body-weight movements, and maybe, just maybe, he wouldn't sweat so damn much.  It might not be a cure all, but it is almost certainly the first step in fixing my broken body.  Will it suck?  Without a doubt.  But it's gotta happen.

I don't have a specific date in mind for when I'll return to the gym.  Most likely it will happen when I get back from our anniversary trip, assuming that my body isn't still telling me that it's a bad idea to do so.  That means this will be the last Crossfit blog post for a while.  I may repeat what I did last year and write a recap of a handicapping tournament I played in (the one in Vegas would make for a good blog post).  Or if something else feels like an interesting blog topic, I'll try to write to make up for my Crossfit absence.

But in the meantime, I wish all my Crossfit friends well.  Keep killing it at the gym!  I am in awe of the work you all put in, day in and day out.  I'll see you soon.