One Dub Short

Workout date: 1/10/17

I have this incredibly strange ability to figure out what will be part of the next day's programming.  Whatever I spend extra time on post-workout ends up in the next day's WOD.  It's not 100% or anything, but it seems to happen way more often than it should.  Being the superstitious type, I think part of the reason that figure is not closer to 100% is because there have been times where I've worked on something and thought "can't wait to see this on the blog at 10pm".  At that point I've jinxed it.  The Crossfit gods are not going to allow me to manipulate the system like that.  It's only when I'm not paying attention to this cosmic connection that it works out.  That's why it was no surprise that Tuesday's WOD included 250 double unders a day after I had done 180 double unders with Danielle and Ashley.

Dudes After Dark was gonna be heavy on the cardio.  And naturally it was gonna be heavy on the dudes, with 5/6 of the class being male.  (Esra was our honorary dude for the evening.)  LC would be coaching us through the following workout:

Tuesday's WOD:
5 rounds
15 burpees
50 double unders

It's funny that I've reached the point where 250 double unders seems like the pleasant part of a workout, but there was no getting around how badly 75 burpees was going to suck.  Aside from Andrew, no one seemed very excited about all those burpees.  It seemed like a foregone conclusion that he was going to destroy this workout.  I've seen him do large sets of double unders without getting tired, so if the burpees didn't break him, he'd be finished long before the rest of us.

There isn't much to discuss when it comes to burpees, so LC talked to us about double unders.  She asked the six of us to practice doing small sets of them and then checked in with us on whether we felt comfortable doing rounds of 50 for the workout.  The only person who expressed reservations about their double unders was Actuary Mike, but he was better at them than he was giving himself credit for.  He was going to stick with double under attempts while the rest of us signed up for 250 double unders.

With a skill segment taking place after the WOD, there was no point in wasting any more time.  LC set the clock and got us started on round one.  Things started out promisingly for me.  I hate burpees, but I can do 15 of them pretty quickly when I'm fresh.  I grabbed my jump rope and didn't mess up the start like I had done the night before.  Instead, I embarked on a really big set.  I began thinking I might get all 50 right out of the gate.  I was a little disappointed when I tripped up after getting 42 reps, but all I had to do was one more small set and I'd be on to round two in well under two minutes. I began the next set and seemed to have my first round of 50 in the bag.  Then I lost focus at the end.

I'm not sure there's anything more frustrating than getting to the last rep of something and then failing.  When I failed on rep #50, it was simply because I thought I had it and I didn't follow through on completing the rep.  No worries, there was only one rep to go.  I'll just twirl the rope and...hit myself again.  Ok, that was a blip.  Let me get this rep out of the way...nope, hit myself again.  What. The.  Hell.  Instead of pretending that I was beginning a big set, I was doing this stupid thing where I was trying to spin my rope quickly while taking a ridiculously large jump.  Things were going smoothly and then I had to change things up because it was only one rep.  Incredibly dopey of me.  On my fourth attempt at rep #50, I finally got it.

I went from excited about quickly finishing round one to aggravated that I spent so much time getting a solitary double under.  I probably wasted energy being frustrated and that cost me on the second round of burpees.  I didn't make it halfway through the round before it was time to start crawling.  Maybe I could make it up on the double unders.  I got back to my jump rope and wasn't able to shake the problems I had developed at the end of round one.  After several attempts, my rep count was still below 10.  It was time for a sanity break.  I didn't need rest as much as I needed to get my mind right. I had to be calm and I had to be focused to get my double unders back.  When I was ready to go again, things returned to normal.  I had a set of 20-25 reps before completing the round with a medium-sized set.

There was no point in trying to recover my burpee form.  I had reached the "it's okay to crawl, just keep moving" stage.  I didn't enjoy it at all and I know it was slow, but it was effective.  There was no point along the way where I needed to stop like I did during my last round of burpees in "The Seven" workout.  At the jump rope, I had a couple of hiccups to start the round, but soon I had those medium-sized sets going again.  I was breathing hard, but my mindset here was similar to what it was with the burpees: just keep chipping away.

It was during the third round that I started to keep an eye on my neighbor to my left.  His name was Kevin and I had never worked out with him before.  I had been ahead of him during the first round, but he had passed me in round two.  As I was going through round three, I saw that he was only a few burpees ahead of me.  He completed his double unders when I only had about a dozen reps remaining.  In short, he was my new rabbit.  He wasn't so far ahead of me that I couldn't catch him if I got my act together.  During round four, that small margin he had on me remained about the same.  I had to do better in round five to catch him.

I certainly wasn't going to draw level on the burpees.  I did throw in a couple of reps where I dropped down and then popped up off of the floor rather than crawling, but it wasn't that many.  I might have trimmed a few seconds off of his lead.  All I knew was that I needed to find the double under magic I had in round one if I was going to finish before him.  My first set was okay.  I didn't waste time getting into my second set, which concluded with my rep count for round five at 27.  I took a peek over and saw that Kevin was in between sets.  I could rest when I was done.  I got the next set started.  When I reached rep #40, I told myself I could get all the way to the finish.  Just don't stop one rep short again!  I avoided that aggravation by completing the entire set of 23 to end the workout.  Kevin finished five seconds later.  Final time: 13:35.

That wasn't a great time.  Most of the times from earlier in the day seemed to be in the 10-12 minute range.  I was happy that I had some fight left in me late in the workout though.  I walked down to the far end of the gym to cheer Cline on as he finished his last round of double unders.  I had no idea how many reps he had done until he hit himself with his rope and expressed much more frustration than I'm used to seeing from him.  I knew that look.  He had one rep left.  Cline was much better about getting that last rep while mad than I was, so a second later he was done.  I came back down to the front of the gym and cheered on Esra as she finished her workout.  Originally she had expressed disgust at the burpees we would have to do.  As she closed in on the end of the WOD, she didn't seem to love double unders either.  She did a nice job of chipping away at her 50 reps and soon she was done as well.

The skill session that we would be doing afterwards involved handstand work.  Andrew was able to do handstand walks and strict handstand push-ups, but the rest of us needed to work on kipping handstand push-ups.  I think Cline started with two abmats.  His kip looked good.  I think he eventually progressed to only one abmat during this skill session.  Mike had two abmats and Esra was using three.  Their kips looked good too, although they were struggling for completely opposite reasons.  Mike was kipping outwards, causing him to come off the wall.  Esra was kipping inwards, causing her heels to hit the wall before her arms were fully extended.  I told them that they ought to watch each other because if they mixed their styles, they would fix each other's problems.

As for me, I stubbornly attempted handstand push-ups with no abmats.  I got one, but then I started to struggle because I wasn't generating enough force from my kip.  Just because I could do 1 or 2 didn't mean that using no abmats was the best way to improve.  I thought back to how I approached double unders last year and how I had to work on aspects of that movement separately before I was able to pull it all together.  I grudgingly headed to the back of the gym and grabbed 2 abmats.  It would be better to work on that explosive kip with a limited range of motion before I tried to employ it with the full range of motion.  I also wanted to practice getting my head through my arms because LC has told me that it helps her finish her reps when upside-down.  That was also going to be easier to practice with 2 abmats.  I only had 10 minutes to practice it here, but I'm sure I'll continue working on these pieces of the movement after other classes.

Wednesday preview: Fran's first appearance of the year!  It goes worse than I imagined, even though it goes better than it ever has.  Yeah, I was confused too.

Me And Castro

Workout date: 1/9/17

While I may have gotten a little too giddy about my prospects for completing 5 handstand push-ups in a row just because I got two the other day, there are other goals on my 2017 list which have felt within reach for a while.  Among them is a 245 pound clean and jerk.  My best clean and jerk sits at 225 pounds, but I have done a squat clean of 235 pounds and a jerk of 235 pounds.  Those lifts happened months apart, but they happened.  They show that I have the ability to get a clean and jerk of 235 pounds, which would put me a wee 10 pounds shy of my goal.  I've done a lot of work with squat cleans recently and that has helped me go from 225 to 230 to 235.  My jerk has remained at 235 because I haven't tested it in a while, but I've always felt I could do more than that.  Monday was my opportunity to show that I could put the two together.

But first...yes, it's the mandatory weight update.  Only two more weeks to go.  This week's results:

Original weigh-in:  213.2 pounds
Last week's weigh-in:  207.0 pounds
This week's weigh-in:  208.8 pounds

The fluctuations continue.  I think it's safe to say that my weight has leveled out in the 207-208 range.  It's also safe to say that this four-month attempt to eat better has grown tiresome.  I think there are some changes in my diet that will stick, but there are also some other things that I've gone without that I'd really like to include back in my meal rotation.

Coach Giulz had an even dozen athletes in attendance for her 6:30 class.  As we went through some progressions for the clean and jerk, we all needed our own barbell.  There was just enough space for everyone with 12 barbells in use.  I was pretty sure that we'd soon be consolidating though.  The warmup came to an end and I looked over at Matt B.  We were thinking the same thing: might as well work together.  We put one of the barbells away and started discussing how we were going to approach the lifts with our shared barbell.

I had grabbed some 35 pound plates so that we could begin with 115 pounds.  Technically we were supposed to make at least 7 attempts and I was thinking along the lines of 115-135-155-175-195-215-230.  Matt brought over some 25 pound plates after I had already begun loading the 35 pound plates on to the barbell.  I wasn't sure if he had wanted to start with 95 pounds, but he said he was cool with 115 for the first lift.  We kept the 25 pound plates close by anyway.

Matt went first and power cleaned 115 like it was nothing before easily jerking the weight overhead.  I stepped up to the barbell right afterward, choosing to squat clean the weight before jerking it.  This would become the pattern for the two of us.  Matt had little interest in doing squat cleans.  He's so damn strong that he didn't really need to.  As for me, I've been adamant about getting as much practice as possible with my squat clean, so I was going to perform them even at these lighter weights where I would have been comfortable with a power clean.  Matt grabbed some 45 pound plates and we moved up to 135.  Matt had another easy power clean and jerk, I had another easy squat clean and jerk.  Same story on our next lifts at 155.

We had thrown on some 10 pound plates for that lift at 155 and we could have kept doing that to move up in 20 pound increments.  But these lifts were super easy for Matt and he looked extremely bored having to slowly progress to the weights that would actually be challenging.  So I looked at him and asked if he wanted to just take off the 10 pound plates and throw on those 25 pound plates he had brought over at the beginning.  That would be a 30 pound jump, but it would get us to 185, a weight that Matt might find a little more interesting.  Matt shook his head yes, so we went up to 185.  He was still refusing to squat clean, but he was successful nonetheless.  185 was the point for me where the squat cleans began to have some sting in them.  I could catch them in the bottom, but I didn't just bounce right back up.  It was a slow rise back to the standing position before completing the jerk.

We added those 10 pound plates back on to move up to 205.  Matt completed the clean and jerk without any anxious moments.  I took care of my squat clean, but my jerk was terrible.  It was like a push jerk/split jerk hybrid.  I remembered to split my legs, but they didn't separate very far from each other.  I successfully got the barbell overhead, but after I dropped it, Matt asked me what the heck that was.  I didn't have an answer.  It was like my brain froze mid-jerk.

I had told Matt prior to starting that my goal was 230 and he said that he'd like to get 230 as well.  After completing 205, we could have made two tiny jumps to get there or we could have approached it the way we did after 155, when we simply said screw it and made a larger jump.  I suspected we'd reach the same conclusion here and we did.  Let's just take on 230 and, if we don't get it the first time, we can take several attempts at it.  Matt led things off again and I thought for sure we had reached the point where he'd need to squat clean.  Nope.  He powered that barbell up to his shoulders, then did a split jerk to get it overhead.  Told you he was strong.  I gave him crap about not failing at least one time because now there was a lot of pressure on me to get 230 on my first attempt.  I was nervous, but I was also experiencing good vibes from seeing Matt get 230.  I tried the squat clean and it was very heavy.  I did catch it though.  It was a struggle to get out of the bottom, but stand it up I did.  The adrenaline was pumping like crazy now.  It was PR time.  The clean was the hard part.  Just had to jerk this overhead and I would match what Matt did.

And...I failed.  That goofy jerk I did at 205 was a sign of things to come.  For whatever reason, I didn't do a proper split jerk again.  I was almost able to make it work as I had done with 205, but I couldn't hold it together.  That was aggravating.  Managed the harder part, screwed up the easier part. What was wrong with me?  I got some rest while loading the barbell and then watching Matt take on 240.  We had finally reached a weight that he could not power clean.  He tried to do a partial squat, but it wasn't enough.  The barbell was certainly high enough that he could have gotten it with a squat clean, but Matt had zero interest in going that low.  Same thing would happen on his second attempt at 240.

As for me, I caught 230 in the bottom of the squat on my second attempt, but I was unable to stand it up.  Matt noticed that my knees were bucking inwards as I tried to stand, so I made a mental note to really press my knees out on my third and final attempt.  All of my squat clean practice continued to pay dividends as I caught 230 in the bottom of the squat for the 3rd straight time.  I pushed my hips forward, my knees out, and slowly I rose to standing position once again.  Okay dummy, you know how to do a split jerk, let's not repeat your last two efforts.  I took my time, made sure everything felt right, and then I went for it.  Somehow I performed my worst jerk yet.  I dropped so low that Giulz said it looked like I was performing a squat jerk, which is essentially dropping to the bottom of the squat a second time and completing the second half of an overhead squat.  That was not what I was attempting to do.  As I did with the first attempt, I fought it for a couple of seconds before bailing.  230 was not in the cards for me today.  Final score: 205.

The truest maxim there is in Crossfit is the following: if you don't keep practicing a skill, that skill will erode away.  Doesn't matter how easy it came to you at one point in time.  I used to be much more confident in my jerk than my squat clean, but it seems like my squat clean is now more reliable than my jerk, simply because I practice it more.  If I put some time in with my jerk, I can probably get 230 or 235.  Until I do that though, my best clean and jerk will remain at 225.

We had two cash outs with the first one being lightning quick.  We were supposed to take 60% of our 1RM clean and jerk and string together 10 reps at that weight as fast as we could.  Letting go of the barbell was a no-no.  Even though I only got 205 during the workout, I knew I could get 225, so 60% got me to 135.  Essentially I was testing out whether I could hold on for the first 10 reps of Grace.  My first set during Grace typically is less than 10 reps, so it would be interesting to see if I could go fast and hold on for that long.  I grabbed a new barbell, put on 135, and took up residence in the small area in front of Matt.  We faced each other during this sprint.  Giulz said go and I didn't waste any time in messing up.  I botched the first clean and had to re-grip it before I could do the jerk.  Matt was already on his second rep by the time I got my barbell overhead the first time.  After that, we kept the same pace.  I was able to hold on for all 10 reps, something to keep in mind the next time Grace shows up in the programming.  Matt did his 10 reps in 30 seconds, I did mine in 32 seconds.

While everyone was busy putting away their barbells, I had a chance to talk with Aimee about some of the missing info for the Nutrition Challenge.  She had sent me some of it via text, but there were still quite a few participants that I didn't have data on.  She thought she had sent me everything.  She looked worried as she took out her phone. "I hope I sent it to the right Dave", she began, "because you and Castro are the only Daves in my phone."  That's an interesting spectrum there.  When she texts "Dave", it either goes to the sweaty guy in her gym or the director of the Crossfit Games.  (She was relieved to find that she hadn't mistakenly sent the data to Castro.)

The second cash out was completing 3 rounds of 15 sit-ups on the GHD machine.  With a limited number of GHD machines available, we had time to kill as classmates took their turn doing sit-ups.  That is when I found out that Matt had gotten a PR with his 230 pound clean and jerk.  He didn't even need to squat clean it.  Just ripped it off the floor, got it overhead, and didn't make a big deal out of the fact that he had never done that much before.  I suck at celebrating, but you better believe there will be some awkward excitement when I finally get 230.  Matt and I shared a GHD with Mike C and Bryan and the four of us all got through 3 rounds of 15 sit-ups.  For me, the first two rounds weren't too bad as I can move pretty quickly on the GHD machine.  I felt it more in the third round and my pace slowed about midway through it, but I got to 15 reps.

That should have been it for the evening, but part of me wanted to get some double under practice in. As I took my rope out of my bag, Danielle saw me and asked if I wanted to join her and Ashley during their post-workout workout.  The two of them have caught the competition bug and, as a result, they are doing additional workouts quite frequently.  Tonight, their nightcap would be 3 rounds of 20 calories on the assault bike and 60 double unders.  That didn't sound awful to me.  I'm fonder of the assault bike than most and I was going to practice double unders anyway.  Count me in!

I figured I would be quicker than the two of them on the assault bike.  The key was whether I could hold that lead when it came to the double unders.  Rather than reset one of the clocks, we agreed to start when one of the running clocks hit 7:00.  Then we were on our way.  I had a strong but not suicidal pace on the bike for the first round and I was the first one to get over to my jump rope.  We were all going to face the bikes while we jumped rope, so I could see the girls progress as I got ready to start my double unders.  First set?  Zero.  Second set?  Nada.  Third set?  It was like I didn't know how to do double unders at all.  Three attempts had netted me zero reps.  Making things worse, Ashley had just come off of her bike.  She had caught up to me without even twirling her jump rope.

I took a second to think about what I was doing wrong.  My mind drifted to Keithie's instructions for double unders.  He always says you should be able to hear the rhythm of the double unders.  Jump, click, click.  Jump, click, click.  I realized that I was jumping, but I wasn't hearing any clicking.  That meant my rope wasn't hitting the floor.  On my next attempt, I made a concerted effort to have my rope hit the floor.  I knocked out a set of nearly 30 in a row.  Both Ashley and Danielle were jumping rope with me now, but I had regained my lead.  I made it to 60 reps and headed back to my bike.

The second round on the bike wasn't fun, but I'm pretty good at grinding away calories on the bike.  When I came back to the jump rope, I didn't experience the same frustrations that I had in my first round.  My sets were smaller as my legs grew tired, but I stayed on it.  Made it to round three and told myself that the worst of the pain was going to be on those final 20 calories on the bike.  I pushed through the pain as best as I could and was very relieved when it was over with.  I rewarded myself with a break before I began the last set of double unders.  The girls hadn't been on their bikes very long, so I knew my lead was safe as long as I didn't totally botch this round.  For my first set, I strung 27 reps in a row.  I needed two more sets to get to 60 and then I was done.  Final time: 10:07.

If I was going to keep my weight in that 207-208 range, I figured it didn't hurt to take on an extra workout.  That being said, I had packed in a lot into this one evening.  It was time to head home and rest up for tomorrow.

Tuesday preview: Dudes doing dubs.  And way too many burpees.

In Memory Of Indy

Workout date: 1/8/17

When I left the gym on Friday afternoon, my plan truly was to rest for the remainder of the weekend. There's no denying that I'm a Crossfit junkie though.  Even if I wasn't planning on coming in on the weekend, I had to see what WODs would be programmed.  Once I saw on the blog what was in store for Sunday, I knew that my weekend of rest would have to be scrapped.  There was no way I could skip that workout.

Why is that?  Because the workout on Sunday was a repeat of the hardest workout that I've ever had to do in my nearly 4 years at KOP.  It wasn't some extremely long hero WOD.  It didn't include lots of technical movements like muscle-ups.  It wasn't one of those KB EMOM workouts that I've grown to hate.  It wasn't even Kalsu, which is the Crossfit workout I find to be the most mentally challenging.  The Sunday WOD was a repeat of Open Workout 16.4, the workout I had to do shortly after my dog Indy died last March.  

Open Workout 16.4

AMRAP in 13 minutes

55 deadlifts (225/155)

55 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')

55 calories on the rower

55 handstand push-ups

Indy passed on a Saturday night and I did this workout about 48 hours later.  There is a window of time that you have to complete Open workouts and Dave Castro wasn't extending it because I lost a family member.  Scores had to be in by 8pm on Monday, so I made my way to the gym to get this workout done even though all I wanted to do was stay home and grieve.  I didn't know how I was going to keep from crying as the people at the gym expressed their condolences.  I didn't care what my score would be on the workout.  I just wanted to do my best, submit my score, and go back home.  I have a vague recollection of how things turned out.  Big sets of the deadlift were tougher than I thought they would be.  I needed long breaks on the wall balls.  By the time I got to my rower, I knew I would fall short of getting all 55 calories.  There was a lot of yelling and encouragement while I rowed, which is the only reason that I got to 41 calories in the end, giving me a final score of 151.

While I didn't care about my score then, as time passed, I wanted a re-do on that workout.  I felt as though I could have gotten through that row if I had my mind on business.  There was an extra bonus in play when I saw that this was programmed for Sunday.  I was fresh off of a mini-breakthrough with my handstand push-ups, so if I completed the row, I had a chance at tacking on 1 or 2 more reps to my score.  That was a big deal because many people in last year's Open finished the row only to get stuck when they had to do the handstand push-ups.  Simply getting 1 handstand push-up could move you up thousands of places in the standings.  That type of situation could arise again in this year's Open, so this would be helpful practice.

I showed up for the 10am class along with Dan, Chris S, Aileen and Mooney.  LC would be leading us through this workout, which was light on technical movements unless you made it to the handstand push-ups.  I think everyone in class had a good feel for the deadlift, it was simply a matter of whether you wanted to go as heavy as the workout prescribed.  Everyone knew how to do wall balls and everyone knew how to row.  If you got to the handstand push-ups, you could scale with abmats or by doing a seated DB press.  I had no intention of doing either.  Even if my workout ended with a bunch of fruitless attempts at handstand push-ups, I was going to do this workout using the Open standards.  My goal would be 1 successful handstand push-up.

As the five of us figured out what we would do should we reach the fourth piece of this workout, I kept my eye on Mooney.  He and I have some things in common.  We're both in our late thirties.  We're both bald.  Okay, maybe that's all we have in common.  When it comes to athletic performance, our paths diverge.  That was evident when watching Mooney warm up with some handstand push-ups.  He was very efficient with his reps, bringing his knees down to his chest at the same time that his head tapped the mat.  There was no delay from that position as he immediately shot his legs up once he felt his head touch the floor.  Exactly how I wanted my handstand push-ups to look.  It was quite the difference from my technique: lower head slowly to the floor, move hands around to a comfortable position, slowly draw my knees halfway to my chest, then weakly shoot my feet towards the sky.  Watching Mooney reinforced how much additional practice I needed on my form.

LC made sure we were all ready to begin our 13 minute journey and when we said we were, she started the clock.  I began with 10 deadlifts.  I've done a set of 20 with 225 on the barbell, but 10 seemed like a reasonable starting set.  I was pacing my way through the deadlifts in hopes of not spending all day on the wall balls.  My next set was 8 reps, with the following set of 7 reps bringing me to 25.  Almost halfway done, still pretty calm, all is good.  Six sets of 5 to close out the deadlifts felt like the right strategy, so each time I came back to my barbell, I did 5 reps.  It wasn't fast, but I thought it would pay off in the long run.  It did not.

As I did those sets of 5 reps with decent breaks in between, I started seeing my classmates peel off and head to the wall balls.  Soon it was only Mooney and I at our barbells.  He was still on his deadlifts when I reached 45 reps, so I began to think that maybe I wasn't doing so bad, even though the other three members of the class had the jump on us.  It wasn't until I tried what I thought would be my second-to-last set that I discovered I was in trouble.  Only got 3 before I had to put it down.  I'm not sure if my back and hamstrings had tightened up as I rested between sets, but I was having difficulty lifting that 225 pounds.  Mooney finished up his deadlifts as I did another set of 3.  Being only 4 reps behind him didn't sound like much, but that was going to be two more sets for me.  I completed two sets of 2 reps and joined my four classmates at the wall.

I thought I did much better on the wall balls as compared to my memory of how it had gone down back in March.  My first set was 10 reps and I made sure that the rest of my sets were in the 7-10 rep range.  I also didn't think I took extended breaks between my sets.  Mentally it was draining as it seemed like a long journey to 55 reps, but I thought I stayed on it pretty well.  My bigger issues were physical.  I was definitely tired.  My prospects for getting 1 handstand push-up completed took a big hit when I turned to get on my rower and saw that the clock was already beyond 9:30.

I was in the initial stages of the row when the clock reached 10 minutes.  I had 4 calories so far, meaning I needed a pace of 17 calories per minute the rest of the way to reach 55.  I wasn't feeling it. Even if I somehow managed that pace, it would leave no time for any handstand push-ups.  A minute later, my monitor showed 20 calories.  I knew what I needed in terms of calories per minute, yet I still fell a calorie short of that pace during the first minute.  It was clear that I wasn't going to finish the row.  I felt deflated during that second minute and my pace took a hit.

As LC announced that there was one minute left in the workout, I started to think once again about why I was doing this workout.  It was a second chance at a WOD that I didn't think I had given my all to back in March.  Then a thought came into my head that really upset me.  I felt that if I didn't give this workout everything I had this time around that I wasn't honoring the memory of Indy.  Immediately I began pulling as hard as I could.  I'm not sure I've ever pulled that hard on the rower.  It was a pace that I knew I couldn't hold on to for a full minute, but I didn't care.  I grunted on the pull backwards and yelled "come on!" at myself each time I reached inwards.  I wanted to feel like there was absolutely nothing left to give when that buzzer sounded.  Unfortunately, I reached that point with about 20 seconds left.  That was okay though.  I knew I had given it my best this time, even if I hadn't gotten to the handstand push-ups.  When the buzzer sounded, I was 5 calories short of completing the row.  Final score: 160.

It took me a long time to recover from that workout, but that was alright because I wasn't in a rush to leave the gym.  This year's Nutrition Challenge was starting after the conclusion of our class and I was once again in charge of the spreadsheet that would track everyone's results.  I would not be taking part in this year's edition as I've been doing my own version of a Nutrition Challenge since September.  I grabbed a chair, jotted down everyone's measurements once they were complete, and stuck around to see this year's participants take on the baseline workout.  I also hung out for Aimee's speech on nutrition.  Thankfully I was not called on again to describe what would constitute a proper 3-block meal.  (Apparently I took Aimee's peanut butter and jelly analogy too literally last time.)  A long day at the gym that began around 10am concluded about four and a half hours later.

Monday preview: Heavy lifting with the newly engaged Matt B!  Ashley and Danielle talk me into a post-workout workout.

Looks Naked In Here

Workout date: 1/6/17

Friday was likely going to be my last workout of the week.  (I tend to think of the "gym week" as starting on Monday and ending on Sunday.)  I had come to KOP each of the last four days, with 3 of the 4 WODs being on the tough end of the spectrum.  It isn't like I've been working out on the weekends much anyways, but this week in particular had me thinking that a couple days of rest would do my body good.  So why not make that rest period a little longer by hitting up an early class on Friday?  Sounds like I should stop by the noon express!

I got to the gym and found eight classmates there.  As I begun chatting with a few of them, I noticed that something seemed different about the gym.  It took me a second to figure out what it was.  Then my eyes widened.  It looked as though the entire back wall of the gym had been painted bright white. Only 15 hours had passed since I finished up about 70% of The Seven.  Did someone really come in and paint the entire back wall in the middle of the night?  I had to keep staring at it before it dawned on me what used to be there.  The back wall had been covered with shirts from other Crossfit gyms.  When they removed the shirts, the covered area appeared bright white because the shirts had blocked that section of the wall from the discoloration seen on the other walls in the gym.  The transformation was kind of startling.  Coach Aimee explained that the shirts had been removed because a new gym logo would soon be inhabiting the space on the back wall.  Aimee told us that it was gonna "look naked in here" until the new logo was added.

Once the talk about the wall died down, Aimee went over the very simple workout that we'd be doing this Friday afternoon:

Friday's WOD:

30 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')

2,000 meter row

30 wall balls

If this workout was done with no hiccups, it would take 10 minutes.  Each set of 30 consecutive wall balls would take a minute.  2,000 meters at a nice even pace would take about 8 minutes.  That was in a perfect world.  I felt confident I could do the initial set of 30 wall balls without interruption.  I wasn't so sure how the row would go after a big set of wall balls.  The biggest concern would be that final set of wall balls.  There was no doubt in my mind that my legs were going to be weakened from the first two parts of the WOD.  Could I string another set of 30 wall balls?  If not, could I stop myself from taking long breaks in the home stretch of the workout?

We didn't need too much time to warm up as this workout didn't have a lot of technical elements.  Aimee challenged us to maintain our pace over the course of the 2,000 meter row, something I was likely to struggle with.  If I rowed 2,000 meters in 8 minutes, my pace for each 500 meter segment would probably have the following pattern: 1:50, 2:00, 2:10, 2:00.  I decided to take a chance and go a bit slower on the first 500 meters in an attempt to maintain that 2:00 pace the whole way.  There was a chance it might backfire on me, resulting in a slower overall time, but at some point I need to learn to hold a steady pace on the rower for a long period of time.

The class was filled with people that I could chase.  Rich A, Pam, Mike Sim, and Rob C could all challenge that 10 minute mark in this workout.  That was a good thing.  The more people I had pushing me, the better.  Aimee made sure we were ready to go and then had us get started on the wall balls.  I strung all 30 of mine, but Pam was still the first one to the rower.  I was right behind her with Rich, Mike, and Rob right behind me.

I knew the 2,000 meters was going to feel like a long row, so I tried to settle in with slow, hard pulls.  I knew from the start that I had enough energy to row faster than I was going, but that pace wasn't going to hold up for the duration of this row.  A nice, steady row for me was 1,000 meters in 4 minutes, so my mini-goal was to complete each of the first two 500 meter segments in about 2 minutes each.  At the 500 meter mark, I was right on target.  At the 1,000 meter mark, I was still holding strong as 4:00 and 1,000 meters clicked almost simultaneously on the monitor.  The third quarter of any workout that I do tends to be the toughest for me, so I had to work harder to try and keep the 500 meter pace at 2:00.  Even the extra effort wasn't enough as the third 500 meter segment took about 2:05.  My final 500 meters likely would have been close to that split if I didn't put together a final sprint on the rower.  I stopped the timer at 8:05, so I was able to squeeze out one more segment at a 2 minute pace.

I was second to the rower.  I was second off of the rower.  Rich was ahead of me now, with Pam, Rob, and Mike completing their row.  I had been concerned about how weak my legs were going to be when I got off of the rower, but my legs turned out not to be the problem.  I used my arms a lot in that last 500 meters of the row and I discovered that I didn't want to hold them over my head for 30 straight wall balls.  After 6 reps, I let my ball drop.  I knew everyone on my tail was going to sail on by me if I took any sort of real break, so I shook out my arms and got back on the wall balls.  Five reps later, my ball was on the ground again.  I got mad at myself while I shook out my arms, then got back on it.  A bit better as I made it through 8 in a row this set.  I could see Rob next to me and he was still working on the wall balls.  He had definitely broken up his 30 reps too, so there was a chance that I could still finish ahead of him.  I grabbed my ball and did reps 20-25.  I did the same routine where I shook out my arms, but didn't really take a break.  I got through 3 reps of my last 5 when Rob finished.  Three seconds later, I was done too.  Final time: 11:05.

That wasn't horrible.  I wish I didn't break up the last round of wall balls into 5 sets.  I was happy that I didn't really take breaks between those sets as I have the tendency to do.  I just took a second to make my arms feel better then got right back on it.  Rich flirted with 10 minutes for his time.  Mike and Pam probably strung all 30 wall balls at the end.  If they broke it up, it couldn't have been more than two sets.  I had my chance to finish ahead of Rob, but I didn't hold on for those last 11 reps.  That's the type of situation where my mental strength needs to improve.

You would think the last thing I'd want to do after the workout was handstand push-ups.  After all, my arms were tired out and I had struggled through a bunch of them the night before.  But I already know that handstand push-ups are going to be my 2017 obsession, that one movement I'm so sick and tired of not being able to do that I keep practicing it until I become semi-competent at it.  I was talking with Pam for about 10 minutes before I decided to give in to the obsession.  I grabbed a large mat for the floor near the wall and 2 abmats for my head.  My intention wasn't to do a lot of reps.  It was to work on that powerful leg kick that you need to finish each rep.  I have two problems when I do the leg kick:

1. I don't bring my knees down as far as I should.  The people that make the most out of their handstand push-up kip draw their knees down close to their chest.  From the feedback I've gotten, it sounds like I only bring my knees about half as far down as I could.
2. I don't explode out of that bottom position.  Laying upside down on your head while in the fetal position simply feels weird.  It's going to take some time before I feel comfortable in it.  The idea of producing power from that position is gonna require some getting used to.  Gravity is definitely not my friend in this endeavor.

I set up my abmats and kicked up on to the wall.  I slowly lowered myself down and then drove my legs up as hard as I could.  Success!  Did another one, then came off of the wall.  Those didn't feel too tough, although to be fair, the two abmats greatly decrease the range of motion you need to cover with the kip.  I tossed one of the abmats to the side.  By increasing the range of motion, I'd need a more explosive leg kick and that was the whole point of this practice.  I lowered myself to the abmat, drew my knees down, then kicked up.  Got it!  I went for a second rep and did that one properly too.  If I could do two consecutive reps that well with 1 abmat, then why couldn't I do any without abmats?

I tossed the other abmat to the side.  I was now attempting legit handstand push-ups.  This was the stage where I failed during the handstand push-up clinic, leading me to wonder whether I had ever done one of these.  I kicked up on to the wall and gingerly dropped my head to the mat on the floor.  I imagine that this part of the process doesn't hurt as much for those athletes with hair, but as a bald guy I can tell you it is not pleasant hitting a barely cushioned floor with your head.  I made sure my hands were where I wanted them before drawing my knees down as far as I could before I began to feel unsteady.  I shot my legs upwards with as much energy as I could muster.  My body moved up to a point where I only had to press out a little bit with my arms.  I pressed out the rest of the rep.  As I hung there upside down, I had one of those "hey, did anyone see that?" moments.  That was either my first handstand push-up in years or (more likely) ever.

I was still upside down and stunned when I went for a second rep.  The leg explosion was not as strong and I couldn't press out the remainder of the rep.  I came down off of the wall.  Instead of celebrating, I felt like getting back to work.  You can do handstand push-ups.  Go do some more!  I took a few minutes before getting upside down again.  I was able to get another rep, only this time I successfully followed it with a second rep.  One of my goals that I carried over from 2016 into 2017 was doing five of these in a row.  Would this be one of those magical moments where an athlete figures out how to finally do something at the gym and then belts out a bunch of reps?  Sadly no.  I failed on my attempt to get three in a row.  On my next try, I got one rep and failed on the second one.  My arms were feeling tired again, so I called it a day.  I might not have gotten five in a row today, but that goal no longer seemed like a long-term one.  With enough practice, it might be the first one I cross off of my list in 2017.

Jill A had come in as I was wrapping up my handstand push-up practice.  She thought I was nuts for working on them a night after doing so many in the workout.  I don't think she noticed that I had gone from 2 abmats to no abmats (nor did I tell her), but I did let her know that I felt like I needed to work on them even if they were prominent in last night's WOD.  She'll probably see me working on them after many of my upcoming workouts.

Sunday preview: A second chance at a workout I needed to revisit.  I also help out at the start of this year's Nutrition Challenge.

The Five

Workout date: 1/5/17

The streak of substitute coaches continued on Thursday night as Coach Jill was subbing in for Giulz at the 7:30 class.  When Jill saw me, she told me that she was excited to be coaching her first Dudes After Dark.  While I tend to reserve that name for the Tuesday 7:30 class, it seemed unfair to say that this didn't count as a Dudes class when Jill had shown so much enthusiasm about it.  Plus, her class was 100% dude, even if it was only me and one other guy.

Noel and I were there to take on The Seven.  Pretty ominous sounding name for a WOD, right?  It wasn't meant to sound any more ominous than your typical hero WOD.  The name of the workout is a tribute to seven CIA officers who were killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan in 2009.  The workout is 7 rounds long and requires athletes to do 7 reps of 7 different movements each round.  Here's a look at The Seven:

"The Seven"
7 rounds:
7 handstand push-ups
7 thrusters (135/95)
7 knees-to-elbows
7 deadlifts (245/165)
7 burpees
7 KB swings (70/53)
7 pull-ups

Jill asked if either of us had done this workout and I gave her a shaky affirmative response.  I couldn't remember exactly when I had done it (my first year?).  I couldn't remember what scaling options I had used (I imagine I scaled everything but the burpees.  It's possible that I scaled those too.).  All I could remember was the photo of the memorial that was posted on the blog.  I had definitely seen that before and this was the type of crazy workout I'm sure I felt compelled to do had I seen it on the blog.  It was odd that I couldn't remember anything about it though.  Usually I can remember aspects of any workout that I've done before.  Unless I blocked those memories out of my mind for some reason...

(Note: I looked back at the spreadsheet I kept from my first year at KOP and found the results from my original attempt at The Seven.  I'll include it for comparison's sake below the recap of how things went this time around.)

Knowledge of how I did last time and what I used would have been helpful, even if that attempt took place over three and a half years ago.  The next best source of information?  Feedback from the 6:30 class.  This was a long hero WOD, so members of the 6:30 class were either still finishing up the workout or they were lying on the floor trying to recover from it when the 7:30 class began.  Both LC and Josh M were in the 6:30 class and they came up to me afterwards to warn me about how difficult The Seven truly was.  LC told me that I should seriously consider going lighter if I wanted to complete 7 rounds as she had only done 5 rounds RX and that took just over 30 minutes.  Josh had gone lighter and was able to complete all 7 rounds.  He offered me the barbells he had used: 95 pounds for the thruster and 185 pounds for the deadlift.  Since they are both much better athletes than I am, I heeded their advice.  I'd go lighter and use Josh's barbells for the workout.

Jill walked Noel and I through each of the movements.  For the handstand push-ups, Jill gave me the same instructions that LC had given me during Nate when we did that hero WOD at the end of December.  I could use 2 abmats, but I was not allowed to do strict handstand push-ups.  I needed to get better with my kip, so all of my reps had to be kipped, unless I got to the point that I was physically unable to do any more that way.  I tried out the 95 pound thruster and that felt okay.  115 pounds was my original game plan, but I'm glad I was talked out of that.  Knees-to-elbows would be fine.  How many I could do in a row would come down to grip strength.  I tested out the deadlift with 185 pounds and it felt very light.  I had a feeling that I'd blow through this movement much faster than all of the rest if I kept 185 on the barbell, so I grabbed two 10 pound plates and added them on.  205 still didn't feel tremendously heavy, but it was at least more challenging than 185 had been.  The burpees would suck, but I could do them.  I had managed 8 KB swings with the 70 pound KB during Nate, so there was no reason to think I couldn't handle 7 reps per round here.  Finally, I could manage 7 pull-ups each round, even though they were almost certainly going to be singles.

Right before we got started, I joked with Jill that all I wanted was to have a rock-star first round where I finished in about 3 minutes.  Anything after that didn't matter.  It's a good thing that was my mindset going into this because the first round was the only bright spot for me in this workout.  I didn't string all 7 of my handstand push-ups, but I took care of them fairly quickly.  I did all of my thrusters unbroken.  I hung on to the bar for all seven reps of the knees-to-elbows.  The deadlifts were going to be my "recovery" station.  I got all seven reps there without using up a lot of energy.  I didn't have to crawl at all during my first round of 7 burpees.  I completed all 7 swings of the KB before putting it down.  I had to stop on my way to the pull-up bar, as I noticed my right shoe was untied.  Working out with an untied shoe for 30-40 minutes seemed like a bad idea, so I took a moment to tie it.  I broke up the 7 singles at the pull-up bar into a set of 4 and a set of 3.  That left me close to my goal, as I finished round one in just over three minutes.

I knew that the rounds were going to be much tougher from that point on, but I still had every intention of completing all seven rounds.  Noel and I finished round one at virtually the same time and I was hoping that I could stay with him for the entirety of the workout.  That prospect became less likely during round two.  The handstand push-ups required more break in between reps.  I split the thrusters up into a set of four and a set of three.  Needed two sets for the knees-to-elbows as well, but I needed a "moment" before starting those because the thrusters had taken more out of me than expected.  The deadlifts were once again my mid-round savior, as I got through all 7 quickly.  Noel had gotten a lead on me, but the deadlifts had let me close the gap on him.  The burpees opened that gap back up, as there was definitely some crawling required.  The KB swings were unpleasant but I managed all 7 reps.  The pull-ups were singles again, but like everything else in this round, they took longer than they did in round one.  Approximate time for round two: six minutes.  Double the amount of time round one took.  That sounds pretty bad, but I would have gladly taken six minutes for the upcoming rounds.  Things were gonna get worse.

I've written about squat cleans before and how they start to feel like punches to the gut after a while.  There were no squat cleans in this workout (thrusters were as close as we'd get), but the feeling was the same.  By the time round three started, my core was hurting.  Kipping handstand push-ups?  Core.  Thrusters?  Core.  Knees-to-elbows?  Core.  Burpees?  Core.  Kipping pull-ups?  Core.  I'm sure the deadlifts and KB swings were working my core as well, but they were gentler than the other five movements.  Once the core goes, it's hard to breathe.  More importantly, it's hard to keep moving.  You just want to take a break until the center of your body feels better again.  Mine wouldn't feel better until long after I left the gym.

Rounds three and four were very similar.  They were even slower than round two.  I tried to just keep moving, but that was easier said than done.  Noel kept extending his lead.  As round four drew to a close, I looked at the clock and saw that it was closing in on 25 minutes.  There was no chance I was going for 7 rounds or poor Jill would be here all night.  Five rounds would be plenty.  That helped me mentally because I could go all out with whatever energy I had left seeing as this would be my final round.

The last round didn't start off well.  My kipping handstand push-up form had fallen apart.  I didn't have the power to drive my feet upwards with enough force to finish reps.  To get seven good reps, I must have made close to 15 attempts.  I brought the frustration from that station over to the thruster.  I've gotten better at taking out my anger on barbells.  I growled through seven consecutive thrusters and made my way to the knees-to-elbows.  Had to break the seven reps up into three sets, but they weren't nearly as bad as the handstand push-ups had been.  Time to crush another barbell.  I came over and whipped through 7 deadlifts.  My body would have been so happy if I just stopped there.  Unfortunately, there was more to do.  I was so tired on the burpees that I had to stop in between a few reps.  All you have to do for a tired burpee is fall to the floor and crawl up, but that was more than I could handle at this stage of the proceedings.  I took a break after the 7th burpee, then grunted my way through 7 heavy KB swings.  I staggered over to the pull-up rig and did a single rep before requiring another breather.  Then I did two sets of 3 singles before dropping to the floor.  Final time: 32:28.

How did that compare to my original attempt at The Seven?  Here's what I did way back on May 15, 2013, two and a half months into my Crossfit career:

• 7 stinkbugs
• 7 thrusters (83 pounds) - I used a ladies bar with 25 pound plates for some reason
• 7 knees-to-elbows - Probably range of motion, although I didn't note scaling this movement
• 7 deadlifts (165 pounds)
• 7 burpees
• 7 KB swings (55 pounds)
• 7 pull-ups (band)
• 5 rounds completed in a time of 38:30

I imagine that whoever my coach was that day was very patient.  If it took 38:30 to do five rounds, I must have been near a half hour when I finished my 4th round.  They would have had every right to say "hey new guy, let's call it a day."  

The Seven is one of our benchmark WODs this year, but I'm not sure how many people are going to be excited to take it on again, much less take it on three more times.  The workout was brutal.  I scaled three of the seven movements and only made it through five rounds.  I will definitely need to be in much better shape if I'm ever going to consider finishing all seven rounds someday.

Friday preview: Wall balls and rowing at the nooner.  Jill catches me practicing handstand push-ups a day after I struggled through 35 of them.

E.F.D.

Workout date: 1/4/17

As much as I enjoy attending the noon express, there is usually a reason for my early workout.  Sometimes it's a happy hour in the city.  Sometimes it's a visit from my parents.  My trip to the nooner on Wednesday was not because I'd be taking part in 2-for-1 drink specials later in the evening.  My folks were on their way back from Florida, where they had been scouting out warmer places to enjoy their winters.  They would be dropping by later on in the day, so I made plans to work out before they arrived in town.

I was surprised to see Coach Steph for the second day in a row.  After filling in for LC at Dudes After Dark, she was subbing in for Gordy on Wednesday.  There were nine smiling faces at the gym to greet her.  I was relieved to see that we had a sprint WOD on tap because my legs were still sore from all the back squats we had done the night before.  The bad news was that even though this workout would be short, it would also be very leg-focused.  Here's the WOD:

Wednesday's WOD:
20 calories on the assault bike
10 clean and jerks (165/115)
20 calories on the assault bike

First trip on the assault bike?  Probably not going to be all that bad.  But I had a suspicion that the second round was not going to be fun after doing those heavier than normal clean and jerks.  I've been naive in the past when it came to workouts like this one where everything seemed manageable.  Based on how short I knew this WOD would be, I was convinced that the brevity of the workout would get balanced out by some considerable pain.

There was some confusion about the middle portion of this sprint, as someone had written "squat cleans" on the whiteboard.  Apparently Gordy had made the 9:30 class perform squat cleans to make the clean and jerks that much spicier, while the very early classes (5:15, 6:00, and 7:00 am) were allowed to do power cleans.  I had no intention of doing squat cleans because I knew I could power clean 165 pounds and be fine.  Power cleans were going to hurt less and be faster to perform.  As Steph texted Aimee to find out what the real standard for this workout was meant to be, I (along with everyone else) began to hope that the reply would be something along the lines of "of course you don't have to do squat cleans!"

A funny thing happened as we warmed up with our barbells awaiting Aimee's reply.  Perhaps it was the "toasters" (Tim H's term for the heaters in the gym) frying my brain, but I started to talk myself into wanting to do the squat cleans.  I've been trying to do them more and more whenever we are progressing towards a 1RM clean and jerk, so why not get 10 reps in at a medium weight here?  Probably because it's gonna destroy your legs for that second ride on the assault bike, dummy!  Aimee wrote back to Steph and told her that we didn't need to squat clean in the WOD, but if anyone wanted to, the extra fitness wouldn't kill them.  And by the time she replied, I had already signed myself up for extra fitness.

We weren't formally divided up into two heats, but we knew that it was going to be necessary since there weren't enough assault bikes for everyone.  Pam, Rich, and John McHugh decided to be the second heat, so I grabbed a bike and got ready to push through this workout.  To give you an idea of what a fast time would be, Mike Sim had done this workout with power cleans in 3:21.  That sounded about right to me, as I could envision completing the first 20 calories in about a minute, the 10 clean and jerks (with power cleans) in about a minute, and then would plan on a good minute and a half for the last 20 calories due to fatigued legs.  Adding on the squat cleans left me guessing as to what a fast time would be, with my best guess being closer to 5 minutes.

I've learned with the assault bike that if you can build up some speed, the calories accumulate very fast.  It's not like the rower where you can pace yourself.  Explosiveness is rewarded on the bike.  That being said, I didn't want to empty the tank on that first ride, so I rode at about 80-90% of my top speed (another guess).  That was enough power to get me off of the bike in about a minute.  Tim was off of his bike before me, but I was perfectly happy with my pace.

There were no plans in terms of how I'd handle the clean and jerks.  It was pretty much go as fast as my body would let me.  The first rep felt heavy, but I completed it, and after dropping the barbell, I felt good enough to quickly do a second rep.  Suddenly, a plan had been formed.  I was going to do 5 sets just like that.  Only problem was that I needed a decent amount of rest between sets.  I refused to look up at the clock, but it seemed like everyone in my heat was picking up a barbell or dropping one as I tried to get my energy back.  I did another set of two.  On the first rep of my third set, I struggled to stand up out of the squat clean.  I was so relieved to rise with it that I almost forgot to do the jerk.  That would have been an incredibly dumb mistake.  During my break after the third and fourth sets, I heard John yelling, trying to encourage me to keep moving.  I did my best to limit the breaks, but those squat cleans were not much fun.  I finally took care of the 10th clean and jerk.  My reward would be a second turn on the assault bike.

Even though my legs were hurting, I thought I could generate some power as soon as I got back on the bike and make life easier on myself as I tried to accumulate the last 20 calories.  However, I couldn't trick the monitor into believing that my legs were moving quickly.  I was working hard, yet the calories were slowly trickling by one at a time.  Things continued on that way until I got to 11 calories and that was when I decided I was going for broke.  I think I had it in my head that I booked through the last 8 calories in that partner WOD I did with Mariana, so I ought to be able to handle 9.  I made it through 5 before I wanted to slow down, but I dug deep and kept sprinting until I had completed the entire 9 calories.  Final time: 5:51.

That WOD definitely burned.  I crawled over to the side and joined Seba as she tried to recover as well.  It wasn't long before heat two got underway and I shared with Seba what I had learned about assault bikes: that they also serve as fans when other people are on them.  I told Seba she should sit in front of Rich's bike as he pedaled away towards his first 20 calories.  Rich's barbell was directly in front of his bike, so he was concerned Seba would be in the way once he was done with the bike, but I assured him that she would just move over to the front of Pam's bike once he was finished.

I spent most of heat two rooting John on.  He was using 150 pounds for the clean and jerk, which appeared to be right on the borderline as far as how much weight he could handle for this workout.  John has been battling a shoulder issue and I was worried that these heavier clean and jerks could make it worse.  John's a warrior though.  He could have had a broken arm and would have kept going.    He had a couple of shaky jerks before finally failing on one.  The issue wasn't that he couldn't jerk the weight.  The problem seemed to be that he was rushing from the clean into the jerk.  When he took his time after the clean to set up his jerk, his form looked great.  So as he worked through the second half of the clean and jerks, I encouraged him to take his time.  Failed reps are aggravating, so might as well avoid them at all costs.  When John got through his 10th clean and jerk, he headed back to the bike.  Rich was done and Pam was close to finishing up as John began his second trek through 20 calories.  There were several times when he decided to rest by taking his hands off of the handlebars, but I kept reminding him that using his arms was going to help him get to 20 calories quicker.  When he reached the halfway point, I told him that he had to go all out with 5 calories left.  He didn't look like he was enjoying himself on those last 5 calories, but sprint through them he did.

As we gave our scores to Steph, I noticed that she had written John's name as "Mr I" for Mr. Intensity, although it was all upper case, so it looked more like MRI.  That made me snicker given John's shoulder issues and his drive to keep working out with it.  (I have a dark sense of humor.)  He wouldn't be the only one in our class with a nickname written next to their time.  Since I heeded Aimee's advice, I was being listed as EFD (for Extra Fitness Dave).  I doubt that nickname will stick, but I was glad that I chose to push through the squat cleans for this workout, even if it meant a slower time.

Thursday preview: A grueling hero WOD called "The Seven".  It's a workout that I thought I had participated in a long time ago, but couldn't remember the details.  Once the workout begins, I remember why I blocked it out of my memory.

Barry Badrinath

Workout date: 1/3/17

Tuesday marked the first Dudes After Dark of 2017 and there was a special guest coach as LC had not returned from a New Years Eve trip out of town.  Coach Steph was filling in and I believe this was her first time coaching this class.  The Dudes class (2/7 non-dude this week) always makes a good first impression and this group was no exception.  Here's a conversation I had with Steph the next day:

Steph: I went to enter in the athletes for the 7:30 class last night and everyone had already signed in.  I was impressed.

Me: We're a high-quality group!

It's true.  The crew that shows up at 7:30 on Tuesday each week isn't always the same, but there is something about that class that feels a little bit different than the rest of the classes I go to during the week.

If you didn't enjoy back squatting, then the Tuesday WOD was not for you.  The main component of the WOD was finding a 5RM back squat.  This would be our first benchmark workout for 2017.  There were also not one, but two cash-outs following the strength work.  Cash out #1 was one minute of back squats using 70% of the 5RM you just found.  Cash out #2 was a sprint through 15 KB swings (53/35), 20 KB snatches (same weight, 10 on the right arm, 10 on the left arm), and 30 burpees.  That didn't sound too awful.  I mean, I completely changed my mind after I had destroyed my legs and then had to do that.  But prior to the workout?  Not so bad really.

Steph was getting us started with a team warmup.  There were four stations for each team.  Every 30 seconds, athletes rotated from one station to the next.  At the first station, athletes did burpees.  After rotating, they would have 30 seconds of goblet squats.  When the buzzer sounded, they would rotate to the rower.  Finally, they would wind up at a box with two plastic red cups on top of it.

Wait!  Was this the first ever Dudes After Dark kegger?  Sadly it was not, even though we were playing Flip Cup at that last station.  With seven of us in class, Steph recruited Lindsey to line up across from me at the Flip Cup station.  This was the scoring station in this warmup, as the teams were competing to have the most successful flips of the cup while their teammates did various physical activities at the other stations.  It didn't feel right doing this without beer, but there's a very strong possibility that none of us would have been up for back squatting if we chugged brewskis during the warmup.  Steph started the clock and both Lindsey and I were successful on our first two flips.  Then sober Dave hit the wall.  I couldn't get my cup to flip properly.  I was Barry Badrinath.

Meanwhile, Lindsey looked like some Flip Cup cyborg from a futuristic frat party that was sent back in time to destroy me.  The girl just did not miss.  When it was time to rotate, the score was 13 to 3 in favor of Lindsey's team.  After a few rounds, we tallied up the score and my team lost badly.  The blame fell squarely on my shoulders as I had far fewer points than anyone else on my team.  In true Barry Badrinath form, I was a shell of myself without some adult beverages in play.  If they had given me a six-pack in advance, it could have went down like this:

I'd have to salvage the evening by putting up some big back squat numbers.  Well, big numbers for me.  I was using the rack next to Ryan A, who has the record for the heaviest back squat in the gym at 480 pounds.  That made my recent 1RM of 335 pounds look puny.  My goal for the 5RM was 285 pounds.  During the last back squat program I did (the one I never finished), I had to do 6 sets of 5 reps at 282.5 pounds.  That made 282.5 my 5RM.  The fact that I did 6 sets would suggest that I should be able to handle 1 set at 285, but things don't always work out the way you expect them to.

Steph told us that we should start out with a set at around 50% of our 1RM, then increase the weight by about 10% for the sets after that.  That was about 165 for me, and with increases of 30 pounds from there, I could land squarely on 285.  Perfect!  I expected the sets of five at 165 and 195 to be easy and they were.  I didn't pause at all as I moved through the five reps in each of those sets.  What was surprising was how easy the set at 225 ended up being.  I did 3 quick reps, took a pause before rep #4, then finished off the last two reps.  That definitely got me feeling confident about my chances of hitting the PR set at 285.

While I was taking a break between my sets, I would look over and admire the ease with which Ryan was moving through his sets.  He did a set at 225 like he had nothing on his back.  His version of the 10% increase after that set was slapping another pair of 45 pound plates on his barbell.  315 was no problem for him and he didn't appear to break a sweat while doing his next set at 365.  I stood to the side in awe.  It took everything I had to get that 1 rep the other day with 335 pounds.  He moved through 5 reps at 365 like he was doing air squats with a weight vest on.  Craziness.

The set at 255 was the first one where I really had to take my time.  I got the first two reps before pausing, then I took a moment to reset after the third and fourth reps.  I had the briefest of struggles during the last rep, but I stood up with it.  I had left myself about 7-8 minutes for the set at 285, so in theory, I could try a heavier set after 285, assuming that I didn't fail.  Perhaps thinking that way led to what happened next as I almost made a serious mistake while chasing a new PR.

Steph had asked me to demo the back squat earlier in the class, referencing how I had gotten much better about staying in my heels during the lift.  Sure enough, I was bound to end up on my toes during this strength session.  I took the 285 pound barbell off of the rack and noticed that it felt considerably heavier than 255 did.  The first rep was fine and I continued my pattern of taking only the briefest of pauses in between reps.  As I did the second rep, I got stuck a little bit and had to work harder than I would have liked to get upright again.  Rather than use this as an opportunity to slow down and regroup, all I did was adjust my feet before moving into rep #3.  As I rose from the bottom, I came up on to my toes.  I started to stumble forward just when it looked like I might be able to save the rep.  Feeling like I had lost control of the weight, I was ready to bail it backwards like we are taught to do.  The problem was that the barbell rolled from my shoulder blades up on to the back of my neck.  Not good.  It took an extra second or two, but I regained control of the barbell and was finally able to bail it backwards.

I'm not sure if anyone else in class saw me do this set, but I heard Nicole and Christine gasp as I began to stumble forward with the weight.  Christine even came over afterwards and gave me a heart-to-heart about bailing the barbell backwards.  (I was trying, I swear!)  It was kind of a frightening experience, but I didn't panic.  It took a few extra seconds, but I did what I was taught to do in that situation.  The biggest problem now was getting my head right to attempt that weight again.  How much confidence could I truly have after that fiasco?

I waited a good five minutes before trying 285 again.  The biggest change I made was that this time I slowed everything down.  I did the first rep, came to the top, made sure my setup felt right and reset my breathing before doing rep #2.  No one was going to give me a medal for completing the set quickly, so I was very deliberate and took my time.  The first four reps went very smoothly.  I probably started thinking too much on the last rep as I ended up having to fight it a bit, but I stood up with it.  After a brief scare during the previous attempt, I now had a new 5RM PR of 285 pounds for my back squat.

(For a minute, I was really impressed with myself.  Then I watched Ryan do 5 easy reps with 405 pounds.  Dude totally put my accomplishment to shame.)

We were supposed to use 70% of our 5RM for the first cash out, which would put me at 200 pounds, but it was much simpler to load my barbell with 205, so I used that instead.  Steph said go and got the music blaring as we tried to do as many back squats as possible in one minute, with the idea being that we would not put the barbell down until the minute was up.  I felt like I was moving at a solid pace and had 12 reps done when Steph yelled out something that I couldn't decipher because of the music.  So I took a step back, craned my neck to the side and saw that there was less than 25 seconds to go.  I had seen earlier that 17 was a popular score for this cash out, so I pushed to try and get 6 more reps to finish with 18.  I squeezed out that 18th rep right before the buzzer went off and gladly returned the barbell to the rack.

Reached my goal on the 5RM.  Reached my goal on cash out #1.  There was no chance of me reaching my goal on cash out #2.  My legs were dead after all of those back squats and the second cash out would conclude with 30 burpees.  That wasn't going to be pleasant.  The 15 KB swings to begin the second cash out were fine.  KB snatches have always been awkward for me, so I followed a suggestion that Steph had made earlier of doing sets of 5 reps before switching arms.  With two sets finished on each arm, I moved on to the dreaded burpees.  This portion of the cash out went better than expected, as I got through 13 of them before needing to crawl through reps.  After crawling through several reps, I managed to do some reps with good form again.  Then I went back to crawling through a few more before wrapped things up with 5 or 6 the proper way.  My original goal was to stay under 4 minutes, but I'd have to be satisfied with a final time of 4:28.

I headed home to rest up after an exhausting class.  I knew I'd be back earlier than normal the next day.

Wednesday preview: My parents come in to town, so I hit up the nooner.  The WOD is another leg test and I opt for some extra fitness.

I'm Already Perfect

Workout date: 1/2/17

What better way to ring in the new year than to step on a scale!  I know, that was probably one of the worst things I could have done to start 2017, but it was Monday morning and this was going to be my ritual until the week of the National Handicapping Championship (January 23rd).  How much could my weight have changed in the last six days?

Weight at the beginning of 2016:  208.6 pounds
Weight in September when I decided I needed to drop some pounds:  213.2 pounds
Weight when I got back from Mexico/Alabama:  211.8 pounds
Weight at the beginning of 2017:  207.0 pounds

How did I lose nearly 5 pounds in six days?  My theory is that tequila sticks to your liver the same way that swallowed bubble gum sticks to your stomach.  Except tequila takes 6 days to leave your system rather than 7 years.  Just a theory.  I'm no doctor.  Nor am I a nutritionist.  At best, I'm Cirroc:

I don't know much about training either, but I'm sure you'd rather read about the daily workout than have to hear about my constantly fluctuating weight.  New Years Day is one of the few days of the year that Crossfit KOP keeps its doors closed, so the first opportunity to get a workout in for 2017 came on Monday.  The full schedule wasn't back in effect yet, so the 4:30 class would be the last of the day.  I opted for that class, along with 7 other folks.  Coach Aimee welcomed us in as the 3:30 class finished putting their equipment away.  We stood in a semi-circle around her, with Alicia starting the arc from the left side.  Aimee is fond of ice breakers, so she turned to Alicia and asked her what her New Year's Resolution was.  I felt bad for Alicia, because I've been in that position where you had no time to articulate an answer for whatever random question was about to be thrown your way.  She answered the same way I would have: "ummm...ummm...I dunno".  I was the next person in line, so my mind scrambled to come up with an answer.  Just as Alicia gave up, I came up with one.  Aimee turned the spotlight on me and I replied that my New Year's Resolution was to get my dog to stop biting people (namely, his owners).  The question eventually made its way over to Borden, who was on the right side of the semi-circle.  He gave the best response by far.

Aimee: What's your New Year's Resolution, Borden?
Borden: None.  I'm already perfect.

While this was a fantastic response (especially given the deadpan way in which Borden delivered it), I immediately got the sense that Borden would regret this.  Sure enough, Aimee would spend the rest of the workout ribbing Borden about how perfect he was.

That ribbing started out at the pull-up bar.  The beginning of this WOD was a little different than most in that it felt like we were doing the cash-out at the start.  It was listed as the strength component, but it was over with rather quickly as Aimee kept the breaks very short.  The strength aspect of the WOD was four sets of 4 strict pull-ups.  Doesn't get much simpler than that.  Either you have them or you don't.  I was pretty sure I didn't have four sets of 4 in me, but I'd give it my best shot.

• First set: Got all 4, had to work to get the last one.  Didn't bode well for completing all 4 sets as prescribed.
• Second set: Got 3, then failed on the fourth rep.  Oh well, maybe I can hang on for 3 the rest of the way.
• Third set: Got 2, then failed on the third rep.  Trending in the wrong direction.
• Fourth set: Got 2, made it most of the way up on my third rep, then needed to cheat with a kip at the very end to get my chin over the bar.

Since we were at the bar already, Aimee transitioned us from strict pull-ups to chest-to-bar pull-ups.  Why?  Because they were an important part of the workout.  Here's the WOD in all its glory:

Monday WOD:

1,000 meter row followed by

3 rounds

50 double unders

15 shoot throughs

15 chest-to-bar pull-ups

*20 minute time cap

Aimee emphasized how much more of a hip pop we needed to get our chest up to the bar as compared to a typical pull-up when you only needed to get your chin that high.  I had that aspect of the kip down pat.  My problem has been using my shoulders the proper amount.  Ever since I got that crash course on doing chest-to-bar pull-ups before the Open workout that included them 3 years ago, I've relied on going horizontal and using an exaggerated hip pop to get my chest to hit the underside of the bar.  Now I use a variation of that for everything I do on the bar.  It explains why my toes-to-bar have gone away.  It explains why I'm in the wrong position to complete a bar muscle-up.  And as Aimee would point out during this warmup, it would explain why I can't string reps of chest-to-bar pull-ups.  (Note: Aimee pointed out that "Mr. Perfect" was struggling to string chest-to-bar pull-ups and that he might want to work on that in 2017.  Poor Borden.  He got abused during this WOD for a really funny ice breaker response.)

Aimee put us through a double under progression, but it seemed like everyone in class had a good handle on double unders.  We didn't need to practice the row, so that left the most dreaded aspect of this workout: the shoot through.  A shoot through is performed using a set of paralettes.  You place one hand on each paralette and assume the high plank position.  From there, you do a push up, then shoot through your feet to the front of the paralettes.  Your feet can't hit the floor as they travel from behind the paralettes to in front of the paralettes.  In this new position, you perform a dip before shooting your feet back to their original position.  When watching someone demo this movement, it doesn't look too bad.  Then when you have to do it, you discover how terrible these things are.  I've struggled mightily in the past when they were included in the WOD.  I should have adjusted other elements of the workout based on this knowledge, but I did not.  I'd pay for that later.

Each of us had a lane that included our rower, an area to jump rope, a large area to do the shoot throughs, and then an area at the pull-up rig to do chest-to-bar pull-ups.  Most of us were doing our double unders between the paralettes and the pull-up rig, an area that was relatively small.  Since I've been known to hop around in various directions as I do double unders, I was concerned about hitting the rig with my rope.  I tried it out as we warmed up and my rope never hit the rig.  Guess I'd be fine during the WOD.  (Yeah, you know where this is going.)

The 1,000 meter row to leadoff a workout has become fairly standard, so I have a good feel for how fast I can go and still feel relatively fresh as I come off of the rower.  If it's a faster workout, I might try to complete it in the 3:45-3:50 range.  In a workout like this one where I knew strength would be more important than speed once the row was done, I felt comfortable finishing in the 4:00-4:05 range.  The clock was about to strike 4 minutes when I let go of the handle on my rower and walked over to my jump rope.

For the double unders, my hope was to complete 50 reps in three sets.  It would be nice to get a couple sets of about 20 reps and then a set to finish off whatever was remaining.  I didn't want to tire myself out here (for the same reason that I didn't want to tire myself out on the row).  If I could calmly do some medium-sized sets, I'd be happy.  Then a funny thing happened.  I forgot to hit myself with the rope and I forgot to get tired.  I was hopping along through 20 reps, then 30 reps, without becoming concerned that I was tiring out.  As I closed in on 40 reps, I grew confident that I could complete the entire set without exhausting myself.  Right after rep #40, I heard a clink and felt the tension in the rope change.  Uh oh.  That's when I had this experience:

I was not forced to drink the blood of Kali afterwards

40 solid reps in the bag before I hopped backwards a little bit and caught my rope on the pull-up rig.  One of the best sets of double unders that I had ever done had been broken up and it stung.  Literally.  The trajectory of the rope was altered when it hit the rig, so when I flicked my rope for the next rep, it snapped directly into the small of my back.  It was an unpleasant, unexpected jolt.  I was muttering to myself and shaking my head when I noticed that Aimee had moved our rowers to give us more room.  Having no interest in mistakenly whipping myself in the back again, I moved up to the free space and completed my 10 remaining reps.

Despite this hiccup, I was still making good time in this workout.  But now I reached what I knew to be the slowest part of the WOD.  The push-up and the dip were the easy parts of the shoot through.  Keeping your feet from touching the floor during the transitions was not just tough, it was tiring.  If your feet hit the floor, you could take ROM (range of motion) for the workout or you could no rep yourself and do the whole thing over again.  I wanted to complete all of the shoot throughs legitimately, so I'd have to take a no rep for any mistakes.  And I didn't want to make a habit of doing extra shoot throughs.  With the fear of extra work hanging over me, I decided I would do the shoot throughs two at a time before taking a rest.  I thought attempting more than two in a row would lead to failed reps and the earlier onset of exhaustion.  It was a slow process getting through 15 reps this way, but it was effective.  I'm not sure if I'd ever done 15 legit shoot throughs in a prior workout, but I was now able to make that claim as I walked over to the pull-up rig for chest-to-bar pull-ups.

My shoulders were fatigued not only from the shoot throughs, but also from the strict pull-ups we had done to start the class.  I had no shot at stringing chest-to-bar reps together.  I would do sets of 3-4 reps where I did a single rep, came down, jumped back up and did the next rep.  Definitely needed some rest between those sets.  As I got to the second or third set, I noticed that I didn't have enough power left in my shoulders to do the reps correctly.  If I was going to complete the chest-to-bar pull-ups, I'd need to rely on my exaggerated kip again.  I made it through the 15th rep and turned around to walk to my jump rope.  The clock was nearing 11:30.  With a 20 minute time cap in play, I had zero chance of completing three rounds and even two rounds might be a stretch.

The second round of double unders was more along the lines of what I expected in round one.  First set: 23 reps.  Second set: 18 reps.  Third set: 9 reps.  The breaks between sets were longer than I would have wanted, but the shoot throughs and chest-to-bar pull-ups had broken me.  I dropped my rope and trudged back over to my paralettes.  I was not looking forward to doing more shoot throughs, but they were next on the list.  After completing a set of two reps, I took a break.  I looked to my left and saw Angelo working on the tail end of his second round of shoot throughs.  While I was slowly performing each step of my shoot throughs to ensure that I didn't have any botched reps, he was quickly bouncing from one step to the next.  Maybe I was putting too much thought into these.  On my next set, I decided to try and go fast.  Not only could I do it, I felt good enough to do a set of three.  I'm so dumb!  This was the way to go.  

Or at least it was until I started failing and hitting my feet on the floor.  I had at least 2 reps where I had to start over again and do the whole thing correctly.  And even though I got a couple of sets where I did 3 reps rather than 2, I probably canceled out my gains by taking longer breaks after those sets.  It was a long slog to get through those 15 reps, but I did finish them eventually.  I guess I can now say I've done 30 proper shoot throughs in a workout.

There were probably about 3 minutes remaining when I got back to the pull-up rig and I didn't make very good use of that time.  I was so tired that I knew I couldn't do sets of reps.  I could barely do a single rep even when I knew I'd be resting after that rep was complete.  Aimee came over to give me encouragement and saw that I was doing the wild kip.  She told me I needed to use my shoulders a lot more.  I made two attempts at using my shoulders more while she was nearby and both of them were complete failures.  My chest was nowhere near the bar.  I had 4 reps done and I began thinking that I'd still be at 4 when the time cap hit.  Aimee walked away to check on some of the other athletes and I went back to the wild kip.  I was able to do 2 more chest-to-bar pull-ups before I failed again.  I got rep #7 right after Aimee let us know there was 30 seconds remaining.  I got back up and hit #8 with about 10 seconds left.  I kipped with everything I had left and got rep #9 right before time was called.  Final time: 21:26 (20 minute time cap plus one second for each of the 86 reps I did not complete).

There was a lesson to be learned from this workout.  I've always been guilty of chasing the RX in WODs.  I try not to overdo it, but if I feel there is a chance that I can meet the RX standards without having a ridiculously low score or a time that falls way outside of the parameters given by the coach, then I'll generally give it a go.  I understand why that isn't the wisest strategy in the world, but I also know my own personality.  (In my defense, I think the people at the highest levels of the Crossfit community are extremely condescending when it comes to this topic.  They claim they don't understand why athletes always feel so compelled to go after the RX.  If you portray those standards as the ones that the "top athletes can handle", don't be surprised when a bunch of overly competitive people go to great lengths to attain that level.  Stop playing dumb, you get it.)

Oh yeah, about the lesson I learned...the lesson is that even if you are able to do all aspects of the workout individually using the RX standards, you might not be able to do them when they are combined together.  I was able to do the shoot throughs and I've done chest-to-bar pull-ups before, but I couldn't do them one after another and I certainly couldn't do three rounds worth of that combo.  If I had to do this workout again, I'd do regular pull-ups as a scale.  Performing the shoot throughs as prescribed was my main focus and I should have been willing to scale something else in order to get through more of this workout.  I'll remember that for the next time I run into a workout that contains multiple difficult movements for me.

Tuesday preview: Coach Steph takes the reins at Dudes After Dark.  Lots of back squats are on tap.  Ryan A puts on a clinic.

2016 Recap

When you write more than 200 blog posts over the course of the year, it's hard to keep track of all the accomplishments and failures you had.  More importantly, it's tough to remember all of the things you should have learned from those experiences.  My 2016 recap is just as much for me as it is for you.  Putting aside Crossfit for a minute, it seems like everyone wants better things out of 2017.  After all, 2016 was the worst year of all time!  But nothing is going to magically change just because the year at the top of your calendar now ends in a seven.

Wait!  7 is commonly thought of as a lucky number.  Maybe the numeric change is all that's needed to turn this world around!  Hmmm...on second thought, that seems too easy.  Let's go back to the motivational message.

My point is that simply hoping for things to change rarely results in actual change.  The tools to create change in your life (be it positive or negative) are often right in front of you.  You just need to be aware of their presence and be brave enough to use them.  That's the idea behind this recap.  I'm going to lay out the good and bad experiences from the year, explain what I've learned from them, and lay out what my athletic goals are going forward.

The Good

• Top moment of the year: April 16th at the Festivus Games
• It had been a pretty miserable day at the Festivus Games.  I had done okay in my first event before completely blowing it while trying to do double unders during my second event.  I did worse on the bench press floater WOD than I had in any of my practice attempts at KOP.  All that remained was the final event: 6 minutes to find a 1RM thruster.  I had low expectations as I'd never come through in any event in an individual competition.  But everything finally went right in this event.  With Cline yelling at me to hurry up, I did a 200 pound thruster (a PR) with only seconds remaining.
• Takeaways: If you set reasonable goals, you can set yourself up for success.  Sometimes a kick in the ass gets you moving in the right direction.  My public failure with double unders led to a year-long obsession of practicing them.
• Other moments of joy:
• 300 pound front squat on May 9th (Takeaway: Putting in extra work at Open Strength pays off.)
• Strict handstand push-up with 1 abmat on June 16th (Takeaway: I have more shoulder strength than I realize.)
• Nearly 4 minute improvement during 2nd attempt at JJ on October 27th (Takeaway: My cardio improved towards the end of the year.)
• 36 rep improvement on 3rd attempt at Fight Gone Bad on November 7th (Takeaway: Don't be afraid to rebound on box jumps.)
• 46" box jump on December 5th (Takeaway: White men can jump.)
• Over three and a half minute improvement during 4th attempt at Elizabeth on Dcember 13th (Takeaway: Just because you can power clean something doesn't mean you should avoid doing squat cleans.  The more you squat clean, the more likely a performance like this can happen.)
• Lifting the 215 pound Atlas stone to my shoulder on December 14th (Takeaway: There are actually things I do in the gym where I have better than average technique.)
• New back squat PR of 335 pounds on December 30th (Takeaway: My leg strength hasn't regressed since the conclusion of my last squat program.)
• 90 second improvement on Baseline workout on December 30th (Takeaway: You've come a long way in four years.)

The Bad

• Worst moment of the year: August 1st during Fight Gone Bad
• Two days after getting my butt kicked all day long at the annual King and Queen competition, I returned to KOP and tried to get redemption via Fight Gone Bad.  The combination of exhaustion and achy arms led to my decision to quit this workout early in round two.  Bigger picture: Weeks and weeks of frustration with my performances at the gym drove me to step away from Crossfit for 5 weeks.
• Takeaways: It's okay to take a break, even if it is a pretty long one.  Be honest with yourself when it comes to fatigue/injuries.  Continuing to force a square peg into a round hole isn't going to make the peg round.  Well I guess it could, but you'd need to be a hell of a lot stronger than I am to make it happen.
• Other times I experienced technical difficulties:
• KB EMOMs and DNFs on January 19th and July 21st - Coming into this year, there were only two workouts where I had thrown in the towel and called it quits (time caps and scales don't count).  This year alone, I had three such instances.  I covered what happened during Fight Gone Bad.  The other two?  They both occurred in EMOM workouts revolving around KB swings.  (Takeaway: These are clearly more difficult than I've given them credit for, so I need to be very conservative when choosing my KB weight in future EMOMs.)
• Poor performances at individual competitions, specifically the Open, the Festivus Games, and King and Queen (Takeaway: Not everyone is meant to do competitions.  I'll probably still do the Open for the social aspect of it, but there's no reason to continue putting myself through the ringer in other competitions.  There's no shame in being a cheerleader.  Or the scoring guy.)
• Deadlift purgatory and weak hamstrings (Takeaway: If I want my deadlift to improve, my hamstrings must get stronger.  I need to spend more time on the GHD machine.  I also need to simply deadlift more often.  Instead of doing squat programs, perhaps it is time to do a deadlift program.  Unless I want my 1RM deadlift to remain at 385 pounds for a 3rd straight year.)
• Heat issues during the summer (Takeaway: Aimee ain't installing air conditioning anytime soon and I'm not going to start sweating less.  If I'm concerned about the effect the heat will have on me, my only recourse is to scale further.)
• Regression in both pull-up and toes-to-bar abilities (Takeaway: Pull-ups were my obsession in 2015.  They weren't in 2016.  That huge decline in the amount of practice I did on the bar showed when either pull-ups or toes-to-bar were programmed.  It is tremendously difficult to practice everything in the gym, but I can't simply abandon certain movements and expect my skill level to remain the same.  I also didn't spend any time learning to butterfly like I said I was going to do at the beginning of the year.)

Things I Think I Know Now That I Thought You Should Also Know

• If I want to improve my pull-ups and toes-to-bar, I need to incorporate my shoulders/arms more (push down on the way back, push away at the top) and not rely on my cartoonishly large, horizontal hip pop so much.
• Speaking of being horizontal, a bar muscle-up will only come about if I stay more vertical when I kip.
• I need to learn to be aggressive.  It's not in my personality, but it is an essential part of kipping. An aggressive kip will help me get closer to a bar muscle-up.  An aggressive kip will be the key in performing handstand push-ups.  
• Be. Aggressive. Be. Be. Aggressive. B-E-A-G-G-R-E-S-S-I-V-E.  Weren't you paying attention in high school?
• Thrusters hurt whether you do them slowly or quickly.  So do them quickly.

It Must Be The Woman In You That Brings Out The Man In Me

• I think it's a pretty big deal when you complete a workout for the first time using RX standards.  Here's a list of the WODs that I conquered at the RX level for the first time in 2016:
• Chelsea
• Christine
• Sisson
• Karen
• Randy

Made The List, Time To Check It Twice

I came up with a list of 10 goals for 2016.  Even ranked them based on how likely it was that I'd accomplish them.  I didn't truly expect to complete all 10 of these goals, but some major progress on those that I fell short on would be nice.  Time to see how I did:

1. Finish Grace in under 3 minutes
• Status: Complete.  Finished Grace in 2:38 on February 19th.  Later in the year I was able to trim that down to 2:35.
2. Deadlift 400 pounds
• Status: Incomplete.  Made no progress on this goal despite attempting 405 pounds many times throughout the year.  Need to do a deadlift program in 2017.
3. 1 strict handstand push-up with 1 abmat
• Status: Complete.  Got two in a row on June 16th.
4. Finish Nancy in under 15 minutes
• Status: Incomplete.  This workout was not programmed in 2016.  I squeezed it in on December 11th and came close with a time of 15:35.  It will be a benchmark WOD at KOP in 2017.
5. Clean and jerk 245 pounds
• Status: Incomplete.  I've cleaned 235 pounds.  I've jerked 235 pounds.  I've yet to make both happen during the same lift.  Best clean and jerk remains at 225 pounds.
6. Finish Annie in under 10 minutes
• Status: Complete.  Finished Annie in 9:31 on February 28th.  Later in the year I was able to trim that down to 9:04.
7. 5 consecutive kipping handstand push-ups
• Status: Incomplete.  I may have bitten off more than I could chew with this one.  I thought I had done a single handstand push-up (no abmats) when I did a personal training session with Aimee a couple years ago.  After going to the handstand push-up clinic, I started thinking that I probably used 1 abmat during that training session. Whether my career number of handstand push-ups is zero or one, it's going to take a lot of practice to get to the point where I can do five in a row.
8. Front squat 300 pounds
• Status: Complete.  Was able to front squat 300 pounds on May 9th.  Total surprise.  Thought I'd need two front squat programs to get to 300, but I got there at the end of my first program.
9. 100 consecutive double unders
• Status: Incomplete.  Double unders were my obsession in 2016 and my ability to do them improved significantly.  That being said, my ceiling was 78 in a row.  I tend to get tired after about 60 in a row.  Anything beyond that point requires poor form and a lot of luck.
10. 1 bar muscle-up
• Status: Incomplete.  Rumor has it that I get high enough to do one of these, but my kipping technique leaves me too horizontal when I should be more vertical.  Need to use more shoulders/arms and press the bar down to my hips.  My kip should be more aggressive.  Not sure how close I truly am because it is a very technical movement.  May be a lot of small pieces that I need to put together.
11. Bonus!  The unlisted goal that I desperately wanted was to lift the 215 pound Atlas stone.  As you read earlier, the status of this goal is complete.

For 2017, I'll be pulling forward the six goals I did not complete in 2016 and adding four new ones.  I'm also going to throw in a new bonus goal as well.  In order from most likely to achieve to least likely to achieve:

1. Deadlift 400 pounds
2. Finish Nancy in under 15 minutes
3. 100 consecutive double unders
4. Row 2,000 meters in 7:15
• My rowing has slowly improved.  This seems like a good test of my technique and my cardio.  My current best for 2,000 meters is 7:42.7.
5. Clean and jerk 245 pounds
6. Run 5K in 25 minutes
• I was a runner once upon a time!  Ran 18:06 in high school for a 5K.  70 pounds later, I'm much slower.  I ran 28:13 in a very crowded Turkey Trot on Thanksgiving Day.  I'd like to trim over 3 minutes off of that.
7. 5 consecutive kipping handstand push-ups
8. 1 bar muscle-up
9. Complete Elizabeth using RX standards
• I know I could do the squat cleans.  This is mostly a test of whether I can do 45 dips in a workout while fatigued.  Doubt I could do 45 dips completely fresh.
10. Handstand walk for 20 feet
• My big stretch goal for 2017.  I see all those folks at KOP walking on their hands.  Why can't I?  Especially if I start feeling more comfortable being upside-down.
11. Bonus!  I'd like to complete my favorite "away from the gym" WOD: the Flight Simulator.

Pretend You Don't Miss The 80's

• My obsessions over the years:
• 2015: Pull-ups
• 2016: Double unders
• 2017: Handstand push-ups

Because Betty White Survived 2016

I want to close things out by saying thank you to everyone who reads this blog.  At the end of the first year of writing this blog, I mentioned how shocked I was that this blog had over 11,000 page views.  At the end of year two, this blog had more than 44,000 page views.  (Not to mention an additional 4,000 views during the first two and a half weeks of 2017.)  Whether I see you every day or whether I've never met you at all, thank you for reading one crazy person's journey through athletic mediocrity.

For those of you who love spreadsheets, you can check out my complete diary of what transpired in 2016 here.

Tuesday preview: Strict pull-ups.  Chest-to-bar pull-ups.  Shoot throughs.  Some very difficult movements to kick off 2017.