With the Brawl In The Fall looming on Saturday, I knew that I was taking Friday off. I thought about taking Thursday off as well since I have the tendency to be sore two days after a workout, but then I saw what was programmed for the WOD. It was a workout that might leave my lungs sore, but probably not the other parts of my body.
"Cardio-kick"
50 double unders
40 calories on the rower
30 burpees
30/25 calories on the assault bike
If I'm being completely honest, the second half of this workout was going to put a hurtin' on my legs, but that pain would only be temporary. The part I was most looking forward to was the double unders. Could I string all 50 reps and get off to a really fast start? The thought of doing something like that was inconceivable at the beginning of the year. Sure, I had done a set of 49 in a row in 2015, but when that set was complete, I needed to sit on the floor for 10 minutes while holding on to the pull-up rig as my body recovered from the shock that had set in from completing that many. Was doing a big set like that worth it in this workout? Would I have anything left for the other three movements? My hope was that all of the double under practice that I've been doing would provide me with the endurance to complete 50 reps quickly (unbroken or otherwise) while not crippling me for the remainder of the WOD.
Twelve of us had shown up at 12 o'clock to take part in Aimee's nooner. The class was filled with familiar faces who typically attend the express, but we were joined by someone who I hadn't seen at the gym in a while: Tre. I think the last time I saw Tre was at the 4th of July WOD that I did with him. I think of Tre as an older athlete at the gym, at least in terms of experience. He's still in his late teens/early twenties, but he's been a member of KOP for as long as I can remember. It's possible that I'm becoming overly nostalgic as the years pass by at KOP, but I always enjoy seeing those folks who were members of the gym back when I started my Crossfit journey.
While Tre was likely to be one of the fastest people in class, he'd have to work hard to get the top time. Queen Pam and Mike Sim. were both at the nooner as well. I'm not sure anyone is better at cardio workouts in our gym than Pam is. And Mike was going to blaze through the row and the assault bike faster than anyone else. My goal was to try and stay reasonably close to Tre, Pam, and Mike, as I suspected there was almost no chance that I'd be able to beat any of them in this workout.
Aimee got us warmed up on the rower with some strict pulls (all arms) before allowing us to use our legs. This method is designed to show how much more power you get in each stroke by focusing on your legs rather than your arms. I think everyone's natural tendency is to pull as hard as they can, thinking that your arms need to do most of the work, but that isn't quite right. (Nor is the idea that speeding back and forth on the rower will help you complete your row faster.) I have definitely struggled with using my legs more on the rower, which explains why I have been stuck in rowing purgatory. I've gotten slightly better on the rower over time, but I can't quite keep up with the Mike's, Cline's, and Josh M's of the world. In short, my form needs work.
Sometimes help comes from unexpected places. Aimee asked us to row with good form for 30 seconds and to take note of how many calories we got. "Good form" meant driving with the legs before using our arms and returning back to the start in the reverse order. It also meant keeping our feet flush to the footholds because we weren't getting maximum power if our feet were coming out of them. (Think of this as "stay in your heels" while horizontal.) After 30 seconds of rowing, we were told by Aimee to row with bad form for the next half-minute. I interpreted "bad form" to mean that I would not stay in my heels as I rowed. When those thirty seconds elapsed, Aimee asked if we got more calories with good form or bad form. And I was forced to respond "bad form", as did several others in class.
How could that be? Well, I can't speak for the others who got more out of their bad form, but I think the reason I did better was because I had misunderstood what good form and bad form meant in terms of your feet. I thought good form meant that your feet essentially stayed glued to the footholds the entire time that you were rowing. Depending on the workout, I've tightened up the straps so that my foot could not move off of the foothold even if I tried. Bad form was simply the opposite, allowing any part of my foot to leave the foothold. In that scenario, I was not efficiently transferring the power from my legs into my stroke. Except that wasn't completely true. What I discovered during this exercise was that I could rock back and forth on my feet to create more power. When I was returning towards the flywheel, I could rock up on to my toes. Then as I began my stroke, I could naturally rock back into my heels and drive my feet down. I guess I always thought of this as "bad form", so I avoided it, but it worked pretty well in practice and I'll be trying it out more and more going forward.
With my rowing discovery complete, it was time to move on to double under practice. Aimee brought out one of her favorite games for this part of the warmup: double under poker. Each person "wagers" that they can do a certain number of double unders in a row. If you fail, you do burpees. If you win, you get nothing. I always ask Aimee if I can fold, stating that it's only fair since life has dealt me a bad hand on the athletic front. That argument doesn't do much for me though as folding is not allowed in double under poker. As a fairly avid poker player, I'm not sure how this game is like poker at all. Calling it double under frogger would make as much sense to me.
I wanted to see if I had bigger sets of double unders in me today, so when Aimee asked me for my wager, I told her I was going for 20 in a row. I thought there was a solid chance that burpees awaited me, but I got through 20 consecutive reps without a hitch. Then Aimee let us know that if we were successful in round one, we needed to wager more in round two. Oops. Going for 21 seemed awfully weak-tight for a poker player, so I told Aimee that I was attempting 25 in round two. I must have been super burpee-averse because I made it through 25 in a row without hitting myself with the rope. I headed to the cage, cashed out my fake winnings, and got ready for the workout.
Aimee split us up into two heats since we had a limited number of assault bikes (5). Not everyone was interested in using the assault bikes, so it wasn't a problem to run 6 people per heat. The first heat would include Pam, Mike, Tre, and Tim H, while I was joining Joe M and Erika L as part of the second heat. There was a funny moment when Aimee told those of us in heat two to figure out which bike we would use. For some reason I didn't think Tim was that much taller than me (spoiler: he is), so I tried his bike out after he had set the seat to his liking. And I looked positively silly trying to pedal the assault bike with the seat as high as Tim needed it to be. I'd be using Mike's bike instead.
With three minutes between heats, I had time to run off for a quick bathroom break while heat one got underway. When I came back, I found Mike, Pam, and Tre were all on their rowers. I wasn't paying a ton of attention to their pace, but I knew they had all gotten through their double unders in under a minute. I stood with my jump rope in hand awaiting my turn. When the clock hit three minutes, I set out on my mission to get 50 in a row to begin this workout. The bad news is that it didn't happen. The good news is that something better may have taken place. I got through 27 in a row before the rope hit me. After a decent-sized set like that, I'd usually take a couple seconds to compose myself before attempting the next set. And when I did that next set, it would probably be very small (or I'd immediately hit myself with the rope). Not this time. When that first set ended, I stepped over the rope, began twirling it again, and got 23 in a row to wrap up my double unders for the day. Took less than 45 seconds before I was headed to my rower.
Finishing the double unders quickly was essential because the row served as a bit of a breather in this workout. Not that I was dogging it on the rower, but I was able to calm my heart rate down from the double unders once I was rowing. I also knew the toughest elements of this workout were in the back half of the WOD, so there was little advantage to going nuts on the rower. I kept a nice steady pace, utilizing the new technique I had stumbled across during the warmup. Forty calories later, it was time to smooch the floor as 30 burpees were up next.
I thought that if I focused on my breathing during the burpees that I might be able to get through all 30 of them without resorting to crawling. My estimate was 17 reps off. I got through 13 reps of dropping down, popping up, and clapping before it became necessary to drop to a knee, slink down, step up, and baby hop with a weak clap. I didn't take any breaks during the crawling, so that was a minor victory. Tim was in front of me doing burpees and I did my best to move through my burpees faster than he was moving through them. We completed our 30th burpee at the same time, so I had made up 3 minutes on Tim, who was in the first heat. Unfortunately, I wouldn't keep up with him on the assault bike.
Guessing this was taken during the first 13 reps
When I got to the assault bike, I saw that most of the first heat was laying on the floor recovering. I desperately wanted to join them. The burpees had weakened my legs and knocked the wind out of me. Not the ideal situation for a sprint on the assault bike. I tried to convince myself that I could go faster, but the sane part of me told my body that I was already tired. I slogged through the 30 calories on the assault bike. The only burst I had came with about 5 calories remaining. Final time: 8:40.
I took a spot on the floor, needing a minute or two to recover before I got up and cheered on the people in my heat who were finishing up on the bike. When they had finished, I looked over at the main board to see the times from the first heat. Tre had completed the workout in 7:37. Pam was done in 7:19. Mike had beaten everyone in our class with a time of 7:16. My initial reaction to those times was disappointment. I knew I had slowed down on the burpees and the assault bike, but I thought I had moved fast enough to stay close to the three speedsters at the express. 60-90 seconds behind them in a sprint was not what I had hoped for. My mood changed when I saw the times from earlier that morning. There were a few others who had gone as fast as Tre, Pam, and Mike (Jeff B even went sub-7:00), but there was one name and time that made me feel much better. Aimee had completed this workout in 8:36. While I may have had an advantage on the rower and the assault bike, there was no way that I could feel bad about finishing within 4 seconds of the best athlete in the gym. My cardio still needs some work, but I was looking at my last workout before the Brawl as a positive one.
Saturday preview: Danielle and I take on the Brawl In The Fall! Four workouts in matching t-shirts. Coverage of as many KOP athletes as I was able to watch during the event.
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