Kipping Is Appreciated But Not Necessary

Workout date: 7/26/16

My long weekend away from the gym began with a five-hour car ride.  That wasn't the ideal remedy for my newly developed back problems.  However, a few days free of trying to lift heavy objects was much appreciated by my body.  I came back to KOP on Tuesday evening not overly concerned about how my back would hold up during a hero WOD that I had never done before.  The name of that WOD was JJ and it was one that I had mixed feelings about.

JJ
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 Squat Cleans (185/125)
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Paralette Handstand Push-Ups (7" deficit for men/4" deficit for women)
Alternate between exercises (so 1 squat clean, then 10 handstand push-ups, then 2 squat cleans, and so on...)

Let's clear up the area that I did not have mixed feelings about: the paralette handstand push-ups with a deficit.  I can't even do a regular handstand push-up, never mind a handstand push-up using paralettes that would require a greater range of motion.  If things went well, I'd use 2 abmats and do strict handstand push-ups.

That was one of the things I had mixed feelings about.  My ability to do strict handstand push-ups with 2 abmats comes and goes.  I needed to do 55 of them in this workout, so there was good reason for me to doubt whether I could get through the entire WOD without needing to scale further.  If my handstand push-ups went away, I would need to do seated DB presses.  And if I'm being honest, I kinda hate those.  I get that they work similar muscles, but it feels way too different from handstand push-ups to count as a scale.  (Note: I feel the same way about ring rows as a scale for pull-ups.  I understand that they are a good scale, but it just feels like you're testing something totally different.)

Along with attempting to do strict handstand push-ups with 2 abmats, I needed to figure out how I would be scaling my squat cleans.  I can squat clean 185 pounds, but doing that 55 times was a tall order.  I gave some thought to trying 165 pounds, but going heavy on the squat cleans could have an adverse effect on my ability to get through the handstand push-ups.  I dropped a bit lower in weight, winding up at 155 pounds for my squat cleans.

Dudes After Dark was dude-lite as, for my second class in a row, I was the only guy in attendance.  Joining me at the 7:30 were Ashley and Nooshi.  We warmed up outside with Coach Rachel as the 6:30 class ran a little long.  Once we were back inside, we talked about handstand push-ups.  Rachel wanted us to practice kipping handstand push-ups, but I wasn't all that interested.  I knew I was doing strict handstand push-ups in this workout.  She wanted me to at least attempt one so she could see my form.  She may have reconsidered once she saw how bad my kip was.  Ashley was struggling with hers as well, but at least it looked like a kip.  Nooshi had never been upside down before and worked at doing that.  She wasn't able to get upside down on this night as she was hesitant to swing both of her legs toward the wall, but she was getting closer and closer on each attempt.  My guess is that it won't be too long before she gets upside down.

Rachel had some doubts about my ability to do 55 strict handstand push-ups (as did I!), but I told her I wanted to try and do them for as much of the workout as possible before I went and grabbed DBs.  That response was satisfactory and we moved on to the squat cleans, where Rachel had us go through some progressions with just the barbell and then had us show her a few reps with weight added on.  I did several reps at 125 and, while I wouldn't describe them as light, they gave me confidence that I could handle 155 for the workout.

The warmups were done, it was time to take on JJ.  Rachel started the clock and we did our first squat clean.  I wanted to make sure I was doing solid squat cleans each time rather than doing a power clean that I would end up riding down into a squat.  And right from the start, my form was very good on the squat cleans.  (Foreshadowing alert: I felt that my form was good on 54 of my 55 squat cleans. There was one in the 9th round where I lost my concentration and cleaned the barbell without squatting immediately.  My brain took a mini-siesta and I needed to ride the barbell down into a squat after catching it high.  That was the only time during the workout when that happened though.)

With the 1st squat clean done, it was time to test out how sturdy I'd be on the handstand push-ups.  A couple weeks earlier I had gotten my first ever strict handstand push-up with 1 abmat and I think that helped me in this workout.  Doing them with 2 abmats didn't seem as intimidating as it normally did. I got upside down and raced through 10 reps before coming back down on to the floor.  I flicked over the first bead on my abacus and I was quickly through round one.  After two more squat cleans, I returned to the wall.  I didn't want to try and attempt nine more in a row because I was worried I'd wear myself out and once the handstand push-ups go, it's hard to get them back again.  So I broke up my second round into two very controlled sets: one of 5 reps and then one of 4 reps.  I slid bead #2 on the abacus.  I had finished two rounds and barely two minutes had elapsed.  Maybe I could keep my total time on this workout in the neighborhood of 20 minutes.

It was at about this time that I noticed how much trouble Ashley was having.  She had started out using 2 abmats for her handstand push-ups, but she was struggling with her kip.  She was still in the midst of her first round of 10 handstand push-ups when I finished my second round.  Like me, she didn't seem to want to give in and do seated DB presses, so she ended up adding a 3rd abmat underneath her head.  This seemed to do the trick as she was able to finish her 10 handstand push-ups.  In fact, we kept close to the same pace the rest of the way as we kept crossing paths at both the barbell and the wall.  I would finish up my workout just as she wrapped up her 9th round.

But let's not skip ahead to the end.  Round three was where my pace began to slow even though I was doing my best to keep my body moving.  Squat cleans have a funny way of knocking the wind out of you, something I didn't need while doing a long workout in a humid gym.  After completing my 3 squat cleans, I came back to the wall and split up my handstand push-ups again: 5 in the first set, 3 in the second set.  I'm sure a took a breather or two during that round as I was beyond four and a half minutes when I slid across abacus bead #3.

Round four was the scare round of the workout for me.  I did two sets of two squat cleans.  Then I came over to the wall.  I had done 27 handstand push-ups and had 28 to go.  Halfway done with those (but only 20% done with the squat cleans...yikes!).  There was no way I was going to feel good about transitioning to seated DB presses at this point in the proceedings.  Yet when I kicked up on the wall to do a handstand push-up, my arms gave way and I fell upside down on to the abmat.  Crap.  Were they gone?  Was I really going to have to switch?  I decided to shake my arms out a little bit and take some time before trying again.  I wasn't worried about my time anymore.  I just wanted to finish what I started.  I flipped upside down again and was relieved when my arms worked properly this time.  I started doing reps with a plan of doing a set of four and a set of three.  But once I got going, I didn't want to stop.  I kept moving up and down and before I knew it, I had completed the entire set of seven.  The best part was that I knew each set from here on in would be less than the one I had just done and I had completed that one with a whole lotta doubt in my head.  I was going to get through all of the handstand push-ups.

It was nice gaining that confidence for the remaining handstand push-ups, but they were the easy part of what was left in this workout.  I still had 45 more squat cleans to get through.  It was time to break those up as best as I could.  I wasn't stringing reps at any point of this workout, so when I mention sets, I'm referring to fast singles.  For round five, it was a set of three, a walk away from the barbell, and a set of two when I returned.  Six consecutive handstand push-ups followed and I had reached the halfway point.  In the next round, I went three and three on the squat cleans before stringing together 5 more handstand push-ups.  The clock was nearing 14 minutes.  So much for keeping it close to 20 minutes!

Heading back to begin round seven, I noticed my other classmate, Nooshi.  She was sitting next to her barbell and I couldn't tell whether she might have hurt herself or whether she was simply taking a break.  Turns out it was neither.  I hadn't considered that she could be done, but she blazed through the hang power cleans and the seated DB presses she used in this workout, finishing in under 12 minutes.  She was going to spend considerably more time cheering on me and Ashley than she had getting through JJ.

I wanted to go 4 and 3 for my squat cleans in round seven, but I was definitely beginning to fatigue and I knew I couldn't do more than a set of three.  So 3-2-2 it was.  I needed more breaks to get through the squat clean portion of the later rounds, but I was so quick with the handstand push-ups that I ended up making up for my lack of speed on the cleans.  Round 8 went 3-3-2 on the cleans and round 9 went 3-3-3.  The small sets of handstand push-ups were my break from the squat cleans.  There wasn't much difference in the small walks I was taking away from the barbell between sets of fast singles and the one I needed to take to get over to the wall.  There was just one more round to go.

I may have been more tired than I realized when I got to the final round.  I thought I might be able to go 3-3-4 on the squat cleans if I went for broke at the end, but my first set wound up only being two reps.  I took some time to get my breath back, then got back into it.  From there I did two sets of three, before wrapping up the squat cleans with a last set of 2.  I jogged over to the wall, got upside down, and did 1 last handstand push-up.  Final time: 26:02.

As I knelt next to my barbell, I joined Nooshi in cheering on Ashley as she completed her final round.  It's pretty rare that I see Ashley look as exhausted as I typically do at the end of a workout, but she was working hard to complete this one.  There was an expression of pain on her face when she went to do her squat cleans, but she kept after them better than I did in the later rounds.  And when she had completed that final handstand push-up, I got the impression that she would be more than okay with not doing those again for quite a while.

Wednesday preview: Shoulder presses, push presses, push jerks, and Jenna's demonic cash out.