That Was A Nice Front Squat

Workout date: 9/21/16

Coach Jenna was not around for her normal 7:30 class a week ago, so when I saw her for this class, it was the first time I had seen her since the end of July.  That was a bummer because Jenna always seems like she's having a good time while coaching and I think it spreads to the rest of the class.  Without a doubt, she has the best warmups of any of KOP's coaches.  (Bias note: Jenna isn't afraid to throw some basketball into her warmups.  I deeply respect that.)

I'm not sure if basketball continued to be a staple of the warmups while I was gone or whether Jenna threw it in because she saw me for the first time in quite a while, but we did get some b-ball before the actual workout started.  With 6 of us in class, we were divided into 3 teams (Angelo and Mike R, Raj and Julie Foucher, and Ashley and myself).  Each team had to do a front squat with a light medicine ball, then shoot it into an upside-down box some distance away.  Both teammates would shoot 5 times.  Every time someone missed, the team would owe 3 box jumps.  If a team made 5 baskets before taking 10 shots, they could stop shooting.

I thought that me and Ashley would be the favorites in this hoops game, but we did not do very well at all.  Team Male made almost every single shot they took.  Team Female missed a couple of shots at the beginning before catching fire and scoring 5 times.  As for Team Coed, we only sank 2 of our 10 shots, meaning we owed a total of 24 box jumps.  We decided to set up a box and go back and forth as quick as we could rather than do 12 box jumps each on our own.  We were still a team, even though we sucked in the warmup.

Jenna had each of us set up a rack as tonight's workout would be focused on thrusters.  The main part of the WOD would have us find a 3RM thruster.  Then afterwards, we would form two-person teams again to do a 5 minute cash-out where partners switched back and forth between thrusters and toes-to-bar.  More details on that later.

I would set up shop at the far end of the gym, using the rack closest to the bathrooms.  Jenna walked us through some progressions for the thruster and then we began working our way to a 3RM.  The board stated that we were supposed to do 7 sets along the way, so I started very light.  I thought if things went well, I might be able to get 175, so the initial plan was 75-95-115-135-155-165-175.  I whipped through the sets at 75 and 95.  At 115, I went faster than I should have, resulting in some poor form towards the end of the set.  Instead of bringing the barbell from overhead down to my body where I could ride it to the bottom of the squat for the next rep, I held the barbell with just my arms.  This is much less efficient, but the weight was still light enough that I could get away with it and finish the set.  Raj was next to me and saw me shaking my head.  I told her I wouldn't be able to get away with that with more weight on the barbell.

I spent my rest time in between sets chatting with Raj and watching her do her sets.  She was making her thrusters look super easy.  It got to a point that I had to ask her what her 1RM front squat was because she was dropping into her squat without any signs of duress despite the fact that she kept adding more and more weight to her barbell.  It's a toss-up as to whether she makes bridges or thrusters look easier.

It was time to make life easier on myself by keeping the barbell on my body between reps.  I had moved up to 135 pounds and wanted to use better form than I had on my previous set.  I did manage to keep the barbell on my body and I got through the three reps, but the third rep felt more difficult than I expected.  With both Monday's and Tuesday's workouts doing a number on my shoulders, I felt like it would be wise to scale back from my initial progression by dropping 10 pounds off my remaining sets.

My next set was at 145 and even though I was successful in completing 3 reps, I did have to pause at the top of my second one to steady myself before finishing off the set.  I had been signaling to Raj that she needed to add more plates to her barbell after the quick sets she was knocking out and when I turned around after this set, she was making the same gesture to me.  I highly doubt my set looked as smooth as any of hers did, but I also felt like I might be able to get one more set.  When it was time to try 155, I had to push pretty hard to press out all three of the reps at the top, but I was able to lock them out.

I had been a bit slow in doing my sets and it was nearly time for the cash out, so I was happy to stop at 155.  Raj wasn't having it.  She gave me the sign that I needed to add more weight again, so I added 10 pounds to give 165 a try.  And that try was very brief.  I took the barbell from the rack, dropped into my first squat, then began to rise up quickly, trying to generate the momentum I would need to press the barbell up over my head.  As I got upright and began to press the barbell, I could tell that my left side was doing fine, but my right side was not.  My right shoulder felt like it locked up.  Immediately I dumped the barbell.  Someone in class told me "that was a nice front squat", which is probably the nicest thing you could say about that attempt.  Time to move on to the cash out.  Final score: 155.

We had slightly different teams for the cash out.  The guys stayed together, but Ashley was clearly disappointed in my dismal basketball performance earlier and snagged Raj to be my replacement.  That meant Julie Foucher and I were working together.  Here is how the cash out worked:

5 minute AMRAP:
Partner 1 does 10 thrusters (95/65)
Partner 2 does max toes-to-bar
*Partners switch once partner 1 has finished the thrusters

Julie had made a joke earlier about how she had to do workouts using RX standards, so I knew she was going to use 65 here.  And I didn't see a reason to not use 95 pounds if I was doing the cash out.  Did I consider not doing the cash out after my shoulder locked up?  Yes.  But I thought 95 pound thrusters wouldn't be too bad.  If I felt any further discomfort, I would simply stop.

Julie didn't seem eager to do the toes-to-bar, so I started there.  I tried to do fast singles on the low bar, but Julie was blazing through her thrusters.  I only had 5 done by the time we had to switch.  This would be a recurring pattern the rest of the way.  The thrusters were light, so the partner doing those was able to move through them fairly quickly.  Neither of us was very proficient on the toes-to-bar, so we weren't racking up much of a total before having to switch.  In the end, we each did 3 sets of thrusters, but we only managed 29 toes-to-bar as a team.

I was glad that Endurance was on Thursday because my shoulders needed a break.  Monday was a shoulder day.  Tuesday was a shoulder day.  And here on Wednesday, I was experiencing soreness in my right shoulder.  Unless I was doing something severely wrong, there was little chance that I would aggravate my shoulder further by running around a track.

Thursday preview: Time to call an audible!  The Thursday WOD is the first that I've seen in 4 years that includes rope climbs and pistols.  I decide to take the noon express class, then go to Endurance later that afternoon.  I'm a sicko.