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.
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