Tapped Traps

Workout date: 10/18/16

It typically takes 48 hours before my body experiences the fallout from a difficult WOD.  Apparently when I was perusing shipping options for my pain on Monday night, I splurged for next day delivery. My shoulders were very sore from the KB swings and the hang power clean and jerks I had done the night before.  My first reaction was that I might have slept wrong or something because I tend to be alright the day after a tough workout.  As the day went on, I realized that wasn't it.  This wasn't a short term problem that was going to go away with a little bit of stretching.  I had beaten myself up pretty good on Monday without noticing it.  What did that mean for Tuesday's WOD?  It meant I was in deep trouble, culminating with a performance at Dudes After Dark that would need to be cut short.

First sign that things weren't quite right?  My daily double under practice.  I haven't become as consistent as I would like in doing quality sets one after another, but on Tuesday, it was a struggle from the start.  I was hitting myself with the rope after just 1 or 2 reps.  Fine, I'll be honest and tell you there were times where I hit myself with the rope before I even got a single rep in.  Eventually I would get some larger sets, but none of it felt fluid.  My biggest set would be 42 reps, relatively low compared to what I've been getting for my top set of the day.

The only time I tend to see Jenn before going to the gym is when I go to a 7:30 class.  She came home at about 6:45 and was immediately confronted with a strange request.  In our house, I'm usually the one that gives back rubs and she tends to be the recipient.  So when I asked her to rub my upper back and shoulders before she had a chance to change out of her work clothes, she knew something was up with me.  I gave her advance warning: it was going to sound like I was in pain while she rubbed the afflicted areas (I'm a bit wimpy when it comes to pressure during massages), but I needed her to try and work out the pain I was feeling.  She had to stop several times as I couldn't internalize my discomfort, but she did her best to help me out before I ventured off to the gym.

Even if I had felt like a million bucks prior to my visit to the gym, I would have been nervous about Tuesday's WOD.  Here's what it looked like:

Tuesday's WOD:

Start with a 400 meter sandbag run (athlete chooses sandbag weight)

Then 3 rounds of:
15 overhead squats (95/65)
15 toes-to-bar
3 rope climbs (20')

Upon completing three rounds of that triplet, perform one last 400 meter sandbag run

Wasn't this a workout that I should be excited about?  After all, it had overhead squats and rope climbs, two of my favorite things at the gym.  If I had never done a workout with those two movements before, my answer would have been yes.  But last year we did a workout with nothing but overhead squats and rope climbs ("Rope Smuggler") and I came very close to throwing up in the middle of it.  I could just put that out of my mind though, right?  Not after Samson posted a photo of someone's regurgitated breakfast in the KOP parking lot post-workout.  My sore shoulders had become a secondary concern.  My anxiety about this WOD being the first one where I lost my lunch took over the top spot.

The butterflies in my stomach were working overtime when I showed up at the gym.  Can't remember the last time I felt that nervous before a WOD.  I've been that nervous before an Open workout.  Had those same feelings prior to an event at a competition.  But your run of the mill daily workout?  This was rare.  Guess I'm terrified of vomiting in front of everyone at the gym.  I would need to face that fear if I was going to participate in this WOD though.  There were 8 of us in attendance for Dudes After Dark and Coach Rachel sent us out on a 400 meter run to learn more about someone in class that we normally don't talk to.  That was going to be difficult for me because I talk with nearly everyone at the gym.  Within this class, the only person who fit the bill of someone I've never really chatted with was a drop-in named Colin and Neil had already engaged him in conversation.  So I took the efficient route of eavesdropping in on their conversation and supplied the cross-street that Colin lived on in Philly when Rachel asked us for something new that we learned on the run.

After the ice breaker, we did some practice with overhead squats using an empty barbell.  We worked on the progressions that lead to toes-to-bar.  Everyone attempted to do a pull or two on the rope, even if they weren't planning on climbing to 20' (or doing rope climbs at all).  That was where I could feel the shoulder soreness the most.  Holding a barbell overhead while doing squats required shoulder strength as did hanging from a bar while you tried to kick your toes up to it.  But the rope climb was where I noticed the most strain.  And describing it as a shoulder issue may not have been entirely accurate.  Right before class I was chatting with someone who had done the Monday WOD (blanking on who it was) and they told me their traps were sore.  Ah yes, my traps!  I guess traps have always sounded like a body part that strong people have and because I consider myself to be rather weak, I don't identify as someone with traps.  Ah-nold has traps.  I have sore shoulders.  But if we're going to be anatomically accurate, the pain I was feeling was more in my traps than my shoulders.

Rachel told us to choose a sandbag and get ready for our first run.  I was using a 45 pound sandbag because that is what I used in a partner WOD with Chris D not too long ago.  It was unpleasant trotting along with that thing, but I thought I could manage two rounds with it in this workout.  Plus I had no plans to run hard with the sandbag.  The meat of the workout was back inside the gym, so there was no point in killing myself on the run.  We headed out on the first run to kick off the WOD and by the time we came back into the gym, I think I was ahead of only one person.  The surprising thing was that I hadn't run all that slow.  2:50 for 400 meters is by no means fast, but considering I was toting a sandbag, I thought there was a good chance that the first run might take around 3:15-3:30.  So not a bad start.

Because I knew this was going to be a longer workout, my mind immediately began crafting ways of getting out of doing long sets.  Just break up everything.  Don't kill yourself early on.  Slow and steady something something something.  I know better than that.  Adding additional unnecessary breaks into your workout only leads to a much slower time.  When I picked up my barbell to do the overhead squats, I could have broken up the first 15 reps into two sets.  I know that's what I wanted to do.  Instead I told myself to hold on.  I could do all 15 if I stayed mentally strong.  And that's exactly what I did.  Now if there was some mental trick that could get me through toes-to-bar.

There's always a tradeoff in Crossfit.  Whenever I have dedicated myself to getting better at something, there has been another movement in the gym that I have gotten worse at.  It really just comes down to practice.  You get better at those things that you've devoted time to practicing.  By spending more time on your new obsession, you spend less time on something else, and slowly your aptitude with that movement begins to diminish.  For me, I've been obsessed with double unders recently.  And the movement that I have neglected is toes-to-bar.  I couldn't manage one big set the first time I jumped up to my bar.  That efficient snapping of my body up and down to create momentum for multiple reps?  Non-existent.  All I could do was hang on, do some swooping extra swings and get 3 reps.

The good news was that this was my first workout using the new JAW grips I had purchased.  The Athlete of the Month (Jill H) had mentioned them in her write-up, so I decided to give them a shot.  No complaints while using them in this workout.  Once I developed some faith in them, I hung on the bar longer (assuming I had the energy to do so).  I followed up my first set of three with another set of three before deciding that my grip was strong enough to attempt more than three.  I got five in my next set, making me believe I could close things out with a set of four.  Unfortunately I lost control of my swing after two more reps and had a failed rep that caused me to drop from the bar.  I tried not to rest too much before hopping up and completing the final two reps.  Time to go climb that rope!

Up to this point, things were okay.  It was definitely a tiring workout, but I didn't have doubts about getting up to the ceiling three times if I broke up the climbs appropriately.  And the bit of nausea I had prior to the start of the workout seemed to have gone away, so I had one less thing to worry about.  I walked over to an open rope, jumped on it, and climbed to the top.  Those 20' climbs are no joke, but I was able to make it through the first climb without much of a problem.  After a short break, I made my second ascent to the ceiling.  I needed a longer break before the third climb and that is when I began to get frustrated.

(Warning: This mini-rant is based on the fact that rope climbs are something I'm good at so I magically felt entitled to a rope.  Is that right?  No.  But the point of the blog is to tell you everything I was thinking during the workout and that includes when I'm behaving like a jerk.)

Our gym only has 5 ropes available for use and one of them never gets used because it is slippery and you can't maintain much of a grip on it.  So there are basically 4 ropes for everyone to use.  The gym rule is that a rope is yours until you give it up.  But unless I'm stringing multiple climbs to the 15' mark, I almost never take advantage of this rule.  I know how frustrating it is to have to wait for a rope, so more often than not, I'll alternate with someone if I see them waiting.  If I'm tired after a rope climb, I'll step away from it even if no one is right there waiting because someone might come over while I am recovering and I want them to know they can use that rope.  After my second climb, I stepped away from my rope.  It wasn't long before all three ropes (at the end where I was) were being used.  Except they weren't all being used for climbs.  I think only 1 of the 3 were being used for climbs.  The others were being used for rope pulls or short rope climb attempts.  The problem was that these attempts were being done slowly and with breaks in between.  I got to the point where I couldn't wait any longer.  I looked down the gym to the single rope that is closer to the front and saw it was open.  I didn't move fast enough though as another classmate grabbed a hold of it before I could get down there.  Son of a...  I came back down to the far end of the gym and Neil took a moment to chalk his hands.  That was when I hijacked his rope.  I don't know if he was taking a break or just needed a moment to chalk his hands, but I got impatient and jumped on his rope while his back was turned.  I tried to be quick with my climb so he didn't have to wait long, but I totally stole it on him.  Sorry Neil!

The clock was just past 9 minutes, so that first round took 6 minutes and change.  I came back to my barbell and knew that I would need to break up the overheads in this round.  I began with 9 reps in my first set, took a break, and then finished off the last 6.  There was some heavy breathing going on at this point.  Then I got frustrated again because Colin was working where I had done toes-to-bar in the first round, but he moved over for me once he saw me walk back to the rig.  (Maybe my traps affect how petty I am?)  I began with two sets of 2 reps.  The third set was the charm just like it was in round one as I was able to get through 4 reps and bring my total to 8.  That was probably too much as I needed a longer break before jumping up and getting 3 more.  As was the case in round one, I finished the round off with two sets of 2 reps.

The ropes were empty when I got to them for round two.  While I didn't have any problems with my first climb, it was very tiring.  I had only done 4 of these climbs to the ceiling and I still had 5 to go.  How was I going to make that magic happen?  Things got worse when I went to make the second climb.  Each pull up the rope had become noticeably more difficult.  I got past the 15' mark and started to slow.  The "glass half full" outlook on what happened next is that my form on the rope has improved.  About 1 pull from the ceiling, I had to stop.  This would have been a big problem for me in the past because I don't always lock my feet securely when I climb the rope.  And the last thing you want is to be 17' off the ground, tired, and not have a secure hold on the rope.  That wasn't the case this time around.  I stood there high above the floor, tired but not concerned about falling.  When I felt ready, I took one more big pull and slapped the 20' mark before shimmying down to the floor.

I was going to need some time before the third climb.  I wasn't sure how much energy remained in my shoulders and traps.  And even though I was able to comfortably stop along the way on climb #2, that wasn't a habit I wanted to form.  As I was recovering, a couple people finished their toes-to-bar and were headed to the ropes.  No one was going to have to wait for a rope, but I wasn't giving up my rope nonetheless.  I selfishly moved up and put my hand on my rope.  MINE!  Fatigue and patience do not go hand in hand.

I didn't spend a lot of time guarding my rope.  Apparently I have some sort of internal time limit on how long I can stand being a dick to other people, so I got to work on my third climb.  It didn't take long to realize I was in trouble, but this was the last climb of the round and I was determined to get to the top.  I had to stop when my body was at around the 15' mark, meaning I was two pulls away from the top.  My upper body had very little left to give, but I was able to get two more pulls out of it.  I hit the 20' mark one last time and slid back down to the floor.

The clock read 19 minutes, so I had gone from 6 minutes to complete round one to 10 minutes to complete round two.  That wasn't terribly surprising and I wasn't extremely concerned about my time.  Rachel had told us to try and complete the workout between 20 and 25 minutes, but most of the times for the day were in the 25-30 minute range, with a handful of folks over 30 minutes.  As far as I could tell, I wasn't way behind the rest of the class.  So there was no panic about that.  The bigger problem was my inability to raise my arms.  When I came back to my barbell, I had a hard time raising my arms above my head.  I spent a good 30 seconds trying to stretch them out.  I needed my arms over my head for everything that remained and it couldn't be a thing where I could only do it for a few seconds at a time.  I needed to keep them over my head for a prolonged period.  Wasn't happening.  At that point I knew my workout was done.  Or was it?

About another minute passed before I was able to get Rachel's attention and let her know I was tapping out after two rounds.  Then she let me know my workout wasn't done.  "You can still do the sandbag run, can't you?"  Completely slipped my mind.  I squatted down, picked up my sandbag, and slid it over the back of my shoulders.  I started to jog a little, but I was having a hard time holding my arms up to cling to the straps of the sandbag.  Time to readjust.  I put the sandbag down, then tossed it over one shoulder.  That helped in terms of being able to hold it, but I still couldn't jog much.  The bouncing during the jog was causing the sandbag to pound away at my sore shoulders.  This was going to be much more of a speed walk than a jog.  Every now and then I'd jog a little bit and I certainly gave it some extra effort at the very end.  I was very happy to dump that sandbag as I came back in the side door of the gym.  Final time: 25:21.

I wasn't as disappointed with my performance in this workout as much as I was disappointed with my attitude.  I think I did the right thing by stopping after the second round as there was a real chance that I could have injured myself doing round three.  Completing only two rounds ended up being my version of scaling and was likely a better option than super-light overhead squats, knee raises, or only climbing to 15' on the rope.  No real complaints, just wish I had the ability to do all three rounds.

Wednesday preview: I discover that the soreness in my shoulders and traps is not what held me back on Tuesday night.  One jump rope dies, another jump rope is born.  And like a White Walker, I am rejected by the wall.