Old Man PR

Workout date: 2/17/17

I turned 39 on Thursday.

Actually, for someone who tends to despise his birthday, I had a pretty good one for a change.  Jenn had been away on business all week, but she was getting back into town on Thursday night.  She suggested doing a birthday dinner in the city.  I looked through a bunch of restaurants on Open Table, seeing a bunch that I had been to and a bunch of others that were a little too sophisticated for a guy like me.  Then I saw a new one called the Butcher Bar.  The menu (both food and drink) looked interesting.  I read it all of the way to the bottom and that's when I saw it.  They had this epic entree called "The Trough".  You had to reserve it in advance and it contained a large number of yummy sounding meats.

"Don't go fillin' up on the pita!"

Jenn booked a reservation for 8 people and pre-ordered "The Trough" for our table.  I wasn't sure it would be enough food for all 8 of us.  I was wrong.

Lauren appreciates the majesty of "The Trough"

The eight of us were unable to finish that beast, so we sent Jim (pictured on the left in the above photo) home with some leftovers.  I would highly recommend "The Trough" if you are a fellow carnivore.  (Also, order some of the Butcher Bar's gourmet meatballs as a starter.  Carnivores don't order salads.)  The meal was capped off with a giant chocolate chip cookie in a skillet, complete with ice cream on top.  After leaving the Butcher Bar, I had a couple bourbons and then crashed in the hotel room we had booked in the city.  Like I said, it was a good birthday.

A night like that doesn't lend itself to peak athletic performance the next day, but I wanted to get to the gym for two reasons.  Queen Pam had sent me a video on Thursday of her coming super close to getting her first ring muscle-up, so I wanted to get to the gym around one on Friday.  She would likely be practicing muscle-ups again after the noon express concluded.  I did make it to the gym around 1:00, but Pam was tired out from the WOD and wasn't feeling up to getting that first muscle-up.  Wasted trip.  I'm sure that first muscle-up will be happening soon enough.

The second reason for going to the gym was for that workout that had tired Pam out.  It was a benchmark workout that used to get programmed quite often, but hadn't appeared on the KOP blog since November of 2015.  It's a WOD that I used to hate because it had pull-ups, but it now feels like one that I have a shot at.  The WOD is named Helen:

"Helen"

3 rounds:

400 meter run

21 KB swings (53/35)

12 pull-ups

When I did this in November 2015, it was the first time that I was able to complete it with real pull-ups.  My time wasn't wonderful (14:39), but it was something to build off of.  Then this workout disappeared for 15 months.  What's up with that?  The time away didn't help me much because the current state of my pull-ups is nowhere near where it was at the beginning of 2016.  I still had faith that I could beat that mark of 14:39 though, and with this workout appearing 4 times in 2017, I set a goal for myself of breaking 12 minutes by year's end.

That goal wasn't going to be reached on this day, mainly because I was still fighting a hangover when I arrived for the 6:30 class.  Seven of us were there to take class with Coach Giulz.  Joining me in class were both Springs (LC and Bryan), along with Ashley, Esra, Cline, and the Prodigy.  Michal was there for strength again, and she and LC made sure to wish me a happy 39th while razzing me about my age.  The warmup was about what you would expect: a 400 meter run, some drills, a few Russian and American KB swings, and some progressions on the pull-up bar.  We didn't waste much time beyond that because there was a cash-out (of sorts) after the WOD.  Giulz let us know that we should aim to finish in 9-13 minutes on this workout.  So I would need a PR of at least 100 seconds.  No pressure at all.

On our first run of the workout, Cline took off and left the rest of us behind.  In second place was LC, which was a bit surprising to me.  She has never been one to profess a love for running, but recently she's been showing off some serious speed in workouts.  When we did Nancy a couple of weeks ago, LC crushed it with a time of 13:38.  That meant she was fast from start to finish in a workout that included 5 quarter-mile runs.  For this workout, she only had to deal with three such runs, so perhaps she was willing to run even faster.  I thought for sure that Ashley would be the next in line behind Cline during the 400 meter runs, but she had to settle for third behind LC.  Bryan and I were next with Esra and the Prodigy behind us.

When we got back to the gym, I knew I would have to string all 21 of my KB swings.  I've strung all three rounds of KB swings in this workout before and I figured I'd need to do it today if I was going to get under that 13 minute mark.  I'd say I got through about 18 reps before the KB became unpleasant, but it wasn't too difficult hanging on for 3 additional reps.  I moved over to my pull-up bar and did 3 reps before coming off.  At that point I decided just to go with singles.  I had a bad feeling that I was going to end up taking longer breaks if I tried to string my pull-ups.  I might end up taking more time doing them that way.  I'd rather keep hopping up to the high bar and perform singles as fast as I could.  As I headed out the door for my second run, the clock was just beyond 3:30.  Sub-12 was definitely not happening.  Sub-13 was still possible, but I had to sustain this effort for two more rounds.

On the second run, I saw LC way out ahead of Cline and Ashley.  I don't remember where Bryan, Esra, and the Prodigy were as I was simply doing my best to maintain a solid pace while not worrying too much about what everyone else was doing.  That second run was a bit of a breather for me.  I didn't want to be gasping for air when I picked up the KB for my second round of swings.  I made sure to get right into my swings when I got back to the gym and I held on for all 21 again.  At the pull-up bar, I went straight into 12 singles.  I needed at least 1 break along the way.  I just didn't have the ability to do these pull-ups as quickly as I needed to in a workout that was designed to be a sprint.  I didn't see the clock as I headed out for my final run, but I suspected that my chances of staying under 13 minutes were slim.

When I got outside, I saw Cline up ahead of me.  Usually the run is where he separates himself from the rest of the class, but I could tell he was struggling.  I wasn't doing much better as the Prodigy passed me before I got to the annex.  As she went by me, I decided that I needed to push things on the run.  Maybe I'd be able to complete the rest of the work quickly despite being out of breath.  All I knew was that a slow run was going to leave me well short of the time I was aiming for.  I started pumping my arms and moved back ahead of the Prodigy.  I still had a shot at catching Cline.  Josh was waiting at the gym door and kept yelling at me to catch him, to get inside the door before Cline did.  I ended up a stride behind him as we made our way back to our KBs.

As much as I wanted to catch my breath, I told myself that I needed to start swinging my KB before Cline if I wanted to beat him on this workout.  Cline took a moment before starting his KB swings, but I got right into it.  The only problem was that I knew early on in that set that I wouldn't be able to hold on for 21 in a row for the third straight round.  I made it through 12 reps before putting the KB down.  I don't know how many Cline did, but he had to take a break as well.  I completed my final 9 reps and got to the pull-up bar.  I needed to move fast here or Cline was going to make my small lead evaporate.

I got through 3 pull-ups before I had to take a break.  It wasn't one of those small breaks either where I could hold on to the rig, blow the air out of my lungs, and start up again.  This was one where I needed to drop into the dreaded squat and recover.  Cline kept doing pull-up after pull-up and I knew my chances of beating him were gone.  I did 5 singles in my next set, took a small break, and then pushed towards the finish.  As I was doing my 10th pull-up, I saw Cline drop to the floor to indicate he was done.  I completed reps 11 and 12 and dropped to the floor next to him.  Final time: 13:09.

That was a 90 second PR for me, so I couldn't complain.  Michal joked that I hadn't done bad for an old man, so I told her I wanted "Old Man PR" written next to my time.  I wasn't thrilled that I fell apart at the end, but I was cognizant of the fact that I pushed hard earlier in that round to get ahead of Cline and the Prodigy, both of whom ended up passing me again.  Cline finished in 13:01.  The Prodigy was 3 seconds faster at 12:58.  I didn't quite meet the time domain that Giulz put out there, but I'd say keeping it within 10 seconds of the outer range was good enough.

The cash-out was 50 pistols for time.  Or at least I thought it was.  For some reason, there was an option in this cash-out to not record your time if you didn't want to.  Booooo!  The wheel landed on one of my favorite movements and now we're not keeping score?  Shenanigans, I say.  I thought I would get through my 50 pistols in under two minutes, but about midway through the cash-out, I discovered that my right leg wasn't being agreeable.  On almost every other pistol on my right leg, I had to stop and do it over because my leg would begin to give way as I went into a squat.  Not sure why that happened, but it didn't slow me down terribly.  I wrapped up my 50 pistols in 2:36.  That would be the last exercise I'd do for 4 days as friends, family, and a long holiday weekend kept me away from KOP.

Tuesday preview: Dudes After Dark features the return of a movement that I like but isn't allowed in class very often anymore: the jumping muscle-up.

Horrible For Me, Fine For You

Workout date: 2/15/17

If there was another metcon scheduled for Wednesday night, there is a good chance I would have taken the day off.  The Valentine's Day Massacre had left me with my fair share of aches and pains.  I suspected the gym might be nice to us and give us a pure strength WOD to let us recover from that experience and that is just what they did.  Here's what was programmed for Wednesday:

Wednesday WOD:

Strength:
2RM Hang Squat Clean

Cash-out:
50-40-30-20-10
Double Unders
Air Squats
Time cap: 8 minutes

That seemed rather mild compared to what we had to do the night before, so I got my butt over to the gym.  After all, my birthday and a holiday weekend were coming up, so it was possible that this would be my last visit to the gym over the next 4-5 days.  Better get something in before I let myself fall apart.

I arrived early enough for the 7:30 class to see the 6:30 group finishing off the cash-out that I mentioned above.  It didn't sound like something that would be painful at all, but as I looked around the gym, I saw people wincing and slowly moving through air squats.  That was odd.  I had done a ton of work the night before and capped it off with 100 air squats.  Those air squats were the best part of the workout even though I was exhausted.  Doing 150 here didn't seem like it would pose a problem.  As for the double unders, those could be maddening if it was a day when they just weren't clicking for you, but 150 of those didn't sound awful either.  Was this another one of those benign looking combos that was much worse than it looked on paper?  (Spoiler: Yes. Yes it was.)

There were 5 of us in Coach Jenna's 7:30 class: me, Andrew, Keara, Marissa, and Neil.  We also had some people just watching off to the side like Michal, who was waiting to go lift in the annex.  Jenna had us warm up our double unders first because we weren't going to have time to practice them between the strength part of the workout and the cash-out.  Neil is still getting used to double unders, but he wasn't doing himself any favors with the rope he was using.  I had him try out my rope, but he was certain that the rope wasn't the problem.  He just needed more practice.  (Pro tip: Always blame the equipment, Neil!)  I thought my double unders went alright, but Michal gave me a lukewarm review on how they looked.  She wouldn't be impressed by my squat clean form either.

After we spent some time on double unders, Jenna had us get an empty barbell to use for the hang squat clean progressions we'd be working on.  Probably the nicest thing about doing a lift from the hang is that we never have to do reps from "mid-shin" with the empty barbell.  The "mid-shin" position is meant to replicate where the barbell starts when you have plates on it.  Except when you have plates on the barbell, you don't have extra tension on your back and hamstrings as you hold it off the ground.  It simply rests on the ground until you go to pick it up.  With no plates, you have to hold the barbell off the ground while hunched over in an awkward position.  No me gusta.

A major part of the hang squat clean would be the shrug.  We needed to generate power by pressing the ground away with our heels, extend off of the floor, and shrug as hard as we could to elevate the barbell.  Samson captured a picture of Andrew and I working on this in the warmup.  I was impressed with how we looked.  Michal?  Not so much.

Airborne, big shrugs, and...Michal sticking out her tongue

When we had completed all of our progressions, we were told to grab the plates we would need for our hang squat clean doubles.  I wasn't eager to do a lot of sets, so the plan was to go 135-165-195-215.  If I got 215, I'd try for a PR at 230 (PR=225 going into this workout).  But honestly, I wasn't expecting success at 215.  The Valentine's Day Massacre had taken a lot out of me.  I was excited to watch Andrew and Neil though.  Andrew is scary good at Olympic lifts, while Neil has quietly been lifting heavier and heavier in workouts.  I think a year from now, Neil will be one of those people at our gym who crushes me in WODs and I'll be left scratching my head as to how I ever beat him in a workout.  (If I had to choose a female who fits this description, it would probably be Raj.  There are others who fit into this category, but Neil and Raj were the first two that popped into my head.)

I got started with 135 pounds on my barbell and had no problems with two hang squat cleans.  The set at 165 wasn't too bad either.  Things started to get real at 195 pounds.  I still had decent form as I caught each of my two cleans, but the weight was now heavy enough that devoting anything less than my full attention to the lift was going to result in a miss.  I also had to be mindful of the transition into the second rep, as that can often be the most difficult aspect of the 2RM hang squat clean.  I tried to be quick about the transition as it is tough to keep your grip if you hold the barbell at your waist for a prolonged period of time.  After catching the second clean, I had to take a step forward as I stood up with it, but I kept it under control.

Because I wasn't doing a lot of sets, I was taking my time between lifts.  I think Neil started out with less weight on his barbell for his first set, but by the time I was doing the cleans at 195, he had more weight on his barbell than I had on mine.  His form looked a lot better than mine too, as he showed no signs of panic as he moved through his heavier doubles.  What was heavy for Neil and I was light for Andrew.  He was doing more sets than I had planned on doing as exhibited by the growing number of 10 pound plates that were on the ends of his barbell.  He would move smoothly through two hang squat cleans and then add another 20 pounds for his next set.  He was well beyond my PR before I even completed my set at 195 pounds.

The set at 215 pounds was going to be my big test for the day.  I knew I had the ability to do it.  It was simply a matter of whether I could make it happen when I was sore from last night's workout.  I stepped up to the barbell and brought it to my waist.  I lowered into the hang and went for the first clean.  It was very heavy, but I caught it.  I had to take a couple of steps forward (bad sign) in order to stand it up.  I had rep #1 done though.  My classmates yelled encouragement my way as I tried to remain calm, getting my breathing and my feet the way I wanted them before I made the transition into the second rep.  My grip was tested as I moved back down into the hang and I knew the second rep was going to be ugly.  I made the decision to trust in my front squat abilities.  All I needed to do was drop very low and catch the barbell.  I could reset there and front squat 215 pounds.  I drove up with a big shrug and ended up in the predicament below:

Caught it.  Wish I remembered what was next.  Oh yeah, stand up!

I'm sure I was only in that position for 5 seconds max, but it felt a lot longer than that.  You can see the tiniest of smiles on my face as I was confident that I could stand up the weight from this position. There was just a brief delay before the rest of my body (namely, my legs) got the message.  I pushed upwards and had to take another step or two as I got back to standing.  It might not have been pretty (it rarely is), but it was a successful set of two hang squat cleans.

I took three cracks at 230, but there was no part of me that truly believed I could get it after all of the effort it took to do 215.  I did get to watch Neil complete a set at 220.  Andrew did a ridiculous set at 275.  And maybe the best fight of the night went to Marissa as she failed on her second rep at 123 a couple of times before finally standing up both reps in a set.

We moved on to the mysterious cash-out that had posed more problems for earlier classes than I thought it would.  Air squats typically weren't a problem for me.  The rep scheme for the cash-out was the same as it is for Annie (double unders and sit-ups).  In that workout, I've had more issues with the sit-ups, so I wasn't worried about the double unders in here.  8 minutes seemed like a generous time cap to complete this work.  What was I missing?  I heard Andrew ask Jenna about the cash-out and her response was "it was horrible for me, but it will be fine for you".  That didn't sound good.  In my head, I heard Jenna say "horrible for me, fine for Andrew, horrible for you too Dave!"

I had spoken to Matt B after the 6:30 class and he told me that he nearly got all 50 of the double unders to start off the cash-out, but he still didn't finish before the time cap.  That told me that I couldn't mess up my double unders and expect to finish.  We started the cash-out and I was happy to get 34 in a row before hitting myself with the rope.  I took care of the last 16 in my next set and moved on to the air squats.  I didn't move as fast as I typically would on the air squats because I suspected that everyone was getting tired out by doing that.  I wasn't moving slowly, but it was a very controlled pace that I was moving at.  Along the way to 50, I did have to pause twice, but each time I stopped it was very brief.  When those 50 air squats were complete, I was one-third of the way done.  The clock showed just over 2 minutes had gone by.  Well under the pace I needed to avoid the time cap.

The round of 40 was tricky as I suspected it would be, but I didn't need a ton of sets to finish off my 40 double unders.  There were more pauses during the air squats, including one longer pause to shake out my legs, but there really wasn't a point other than that where I needed to stop and rest.  I kept things moving.  A little over 4 minutes had elapsed when I reached the end of the round of 40.  60% done, only halfway to the time cap.  Still not sweating things.

I went 21 and 9 on my double unders in the round of 30.  The air squats definitely began to hurt during this round, but I only stopped for very brief pauses along the way.  80% of the workout was done and there was exactly 2 minutes left before the time cap.  I guess I should have been a bit concerned about the time cap at this stage, but I wasn't.  It was a very strange feeling.  In the round of 20, I strung all of my double unders and had just one brief pause during the air squats.  Jenna gave us the one minute warning as I completed the air squats.  I strung all 10 double unders, then went as fast as I could on the last 10 air squats.  Final time: 7:30.

Considering I strung all of my double unders the last two rounds and only finished 30 seconds under the time cap, I didn't have much room for error towards the end of that cash-out.  Yet there was never a moment when I got nervous about being time capped.  That was very abnormal for a chronic worrier like myself.  Maybe I have more faith than I realize in my double unders.  Or perhaps I knew deep down that I could crank up the speed on my air squats if I really had to.  Not sure what it was, but maintaining that level of calm in situations like this one would be very beneficial for me in future workouts.

Friday preview:  I make it into the gym the day after my birthday in the hopes of seeing Queen Pam get her first muscle-up.  Then I race Cline and the Prodigy in a benchmark workout.

Be My Valen-Cline

Workout date: 2/14/17

When I was a teenager, there was a show on the USA Network called the Gonzo Games.  It was sort of like a hybrid between Double Dare and American Gladiators.  Men and women would participate in various events and at the end of the show, one male and one female would be declared the champions for the day.  I remember watching the very first episode of this show.  A bunch of potential contestants were assembled near the Statue of Liberty.  The contestants picked for this episode would be those people who could survive a test of endurance.  Each person would have to hold a weighted torch above their heads, a la Lady Liberty.  The men and women who kept their torches up the longest got to star in the first episode.  I don't remember how much the torch weighed (probably important), but I do remember that people started dropping out left and right awfully quickly.  And even though I was a scrawny cross-country runner at the time, I told myself that I could have held that torch above my head longer than most of the people on my TV screen.

A much older, much heavier Dave got the chance to prove it on Tuesday night.  Tuesday was Valentine's Day and that meant there was a very special WOD on tap.  One that I had avoided my first three years at the gym.  The name of this WOD?  The Valentine's Day Massacre.

"Valentine's Day Massacre"
Partner WOD
800 meter run
50 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
75 KB swings (53/35)
100 push-ups
150 sit-ups
200 air squats
*One partner must keep a plate (45/25) overhead while the other partner is working.  If the plate ever rests on a body part or comes below the level of the head, both partners must do 50 burpees.

Yeah, that last little tidbit is an important one.  On one hand, no one wants to do 50 burpees.  On the other hand, that is a hell of a long time to hold a plate overhead.  You get to switch back and forth between partners, but the plate must remain overhead during the transfer.  You can switch to a lighter plate, but one partner must hold the heavy plate overhead until their partner gets a lighter plate overhead.  While you're on a "break" from holding the plate, you're busy racing through all of that work listed above.  Because the slower you move through that work, the longer you end up holding the plate.  It's all very messed up.

I had heard all sorts of horror stories about this workout, so I avoided it during my first 3 years at the gym.  A lot of people would do this workout with their significant other, but there's no situation in which Jenn would ever agree to being my partner for this.  I didn't really have someone else in mind to do this with.  The most likely partners for me from the gym would be LC and Michal amongst the girls, with Matt B, John McHugh, and Cline rounding out possible all-male pairings.  One of those five was participating in this WOD at Dudes After Dark and was willing to share this misery with me.

There were seven of us at the 7:30, meaning that one team would have a Valentine's third wheel (aka Siamese twin).  I had been a Siamese twin very recently and wasn't looking forward to doing it again, so I jumped at the chance to be partners with Cline while the other five members of our class figured out how they were going to team up.  In the end, Noel and his friend Ryan worked as a team of two, while Marissa worked with her Siamese partners, Neil and Colin.

I had successfully avoided this workout for years and years, but Cline was an old pro at it.  Since he was the experienced one, I left him in charge of how we should attack this workout.  The first major decision was figuring out how much we wanted to hold overhead.  I was thinking 35 pounds, but Cline had done that already and wanted to use more.  He was on board with my thinking that 45 pounds might be too much, so he suggested 40 pounds.  Except we don't have any 40 pound plates.  We began testing out how tricky it would be to transition two plates (a 25 pound plate and a 15 pound plate) from one person to another.  It turned out to be easier than I thought it would be.  (Keep in mind we hadn't done any of the work yet!)  Since 40 pounds didn't feel awful when we were testing it out, we decided to start with a 45 pound plate.  We also put the 40 pound plate combo on the bench along with a 35 pound plate in case we needed to cut down on the weight we were going to hold overhead for more than 20 minutes.

(Small segue: This month's Athlete of the Month is Kris.  I got a kick out of reading her AOTM write-up.  It made me want to go back and read what I had written in March 2014 when the gym gave me the honor.  In the "what do you still feel you need to work on?" section, I wrote that I "would love to become as determined as Derreck and as intense as John McHugh."  If I could add one thing to that answer, it would be "and learn to suffer like Cline".  I didn't really know Cline back then, but I've done plenty of workouts with him over the last two years.  And no one suffers better than Cline.  I've seen that pain face of his a million times, but somehow he seems to hold on to the barbell or push through whatever movement is killing him.  When I get to that point, I tend to take a break.  In this workout, I would get to suffer along with Cline.)

Holding that plate would be excruciating, but the rest of the workout would be no picnic either.  You could choose what order you wanted to do the work and the smart play was to do the run first.  You could split it up into two 400 meter runs or four 200 meter runs.  Depends how much faith you had at the beginning of the workout.  I had none since this was my first time doing it, so I convinced Cline to go with four 200 meter runs.  There would be extra transitions involved, but neither of us would have to hold the plate for more than 45 seconds at a time.  The next part of the workout would have to be the push-ups.  Getting through 100 push-ups late in the workout might be impossible because your arms would be wobbly from holding the plate.  Had to get the push-ups out of the way as soon as possible.

For the rest of the workout, I wasn't sure what order was best.  My first instinct was to move on from the push-ups and go to the wall balls and the KB swings.  Those movements also required arm strength, so better to get them done earlier on.  But Lindsey gave me some good advice before we started.  She was in the 6:30 class and said that doing all of the arm-heavy movements one after another was too much.  It was a better idea to throw in one of the movements that wasn't arm-heavy (sit-ups or air squats) to break things up.  That is what we ended up doing.  After the push-ups, we would go on to the sit-ups before finishing things off with the wall balls, the KB swings, and the air squats.

The three teams lined up outside to get started.  All of us were doing the run first, though the other two teams decided to run two 400 meter segments instead of the shorter sprints Cline and I were doing.  Cline seemed okay holding the plate while I ran.  I felt pretty good holding the plate while he ran.  I wasn't sure I could hold on to it for over 20 minutes while having to do half of all that other stuff, but it didn't feel impossible right off the bat.  I ran first for our team, so I had the plate last.  As Cline ran the last 200 meters, I walked inside with the plate, barely able to walk in the door while holding it overhead.  Cline came back and I gave him the plate while I started the push-ups.  Things got ugly here quickly.

It had only been 24 hours since my arms failed me while doing 45 push-ups.  Now I was on the hook for approximately 50 of them.  Yesterday I could shake out my arms while I wasn't doing push-ups.  Today I'd have to hold a heavy plate over my head during my "breaks".  This was not going to end well.  Cline and I agreed to do sets of 5 push-ups each.  I made it through my first 3 sets, but each time I got the plate, I became concerned that I wasn't going to be able to keep it over my head.  Cline got us to push-up #30, but I couldn't get us to 35 on my next turn.  I had to stop after three.  Cline told me to switch, but I wasn't any better at holding the plate.  My arms were starting to shake.  We still had all of the wall balls, all of the KB swings, all of the sit-ups, and all of the air squats to go, yet I was already about to lose control of the plate.  When Cline switched with me after doing his push-ups, I let him know that I needed to go to a lighter plate on my next turn.  After a few more push-ups, I ran over and grabbed the 35 pound plate.  No point in screwing around with the two plates.  We'd each be doing 50 burpees if I had grabbed those.

Cline was still doing solid work on the push-ups, but I was struggling mightily.  I apologized to Cline and let him know I'd need to start snaking my push-ups or I wasn't going to be of any use.  At first, I was only getting two per set.  Cline would also do two push-ups, although they were of the legit variety.  We hadn't even gotten to 60 push-ups and we were only doing two at a time.  This was going to take forever to get to 100.  I sucked it up and started doing sets of 4.  Cline began snaking his push-ups and got larger sets as well.  I'm not sure whether it hurt more to do the push-ups or hold the plate, but our prospects for the rest of this workout were not looking good.  All I wanted was for this push-up torture to be over.  Eventually we got to 100 reps and I got my wish.  On to the sit-ups.

Cline led us off on the sit-ups and did 5 reps.  Then I did 5 reps.  My arms were already feeling a little better since they weren't being used in this movement, so I told Cline to do more reps each set if he could.  From there on out, we each did 10 at a time.  With the push-ups, I wasn't sure whether it was better to be working or holding the plate.  With the sit-ups, it was definitely nicer to be on the floor than holding 35 pounds overhead.  There were times during Cline's sit-ups where I started to have shaky arms again, but my body was starting to get used to this torture.  As I did the last 10 sit-ups, I told Cline to walk towards the wall with the plate.  I'd meet him over there for the next part of the workout.

Without a doubt, the biggest surprise in this workout was the wall ball portion of it.  We agreed to go back to doing 5 at a time here, although I'm not sure either of us would have been able to do more than that.  Cline had the pain face on during his first 5 reps and I learned why that was when I went to do my initial set.  I almost had to check the label on the ball to ensure that it was 20 pounds because it felt like the 30 pound ball instead.  I could manage 5 reps, but it was much harder than usual.  When Cline finished his first set of 5, he didn't look like he wanted to take the plate, but he did anyway.  At the end of his second set of 5, I told him to take a few seconds to shake out his arms.  I had reached a point in the workout where I was feeling okay with the plate, so I could manage it a little longer than I could when we were doing push-ups.

After I got us to 20 wall balls, Cline could only do 4 on his next set.  I must admit that I wasn't great in my communications during this workout, but Cline was.  When he dropped to 4 reps, he let me know that he only wanted me doing 4 reps as well.  We alternated back and forth until we got to 44 reps.  Cline did 3 reps and then said "do 3" to me.  That made sense.  There were only six reps left and he wanted us to split them evenly.  Seemed fair.  I did the three reps and he handed the plate back to me.  Only he began walking in the wrong direction.  I thought he dropped to three reps to break up the final six reps of the round.  That was not what was running through Cline's mind.  He thought we had to do 75 wall balls, so he was just going to smaller sets.  When he handed me the plate, he started walking to the wall ball again.  I yelled over to him that we were done and he kinda gave me the "you sure?" look before turning around and going to the KB.

I had recovered somewhat during the sit-ups and the wall balls, but I'd struggle again at the KB swings.  The KB swings themselves weren't so bad, but my arms and shoulders were getting sick of holding that 35 pound plate.  Cline and I did 5 each to lead things off.  Cline then did another 5.  I was getting the impression that Cline was better at holding the plate and I was better at doing the stuff on our work list, so I kept swinging the KB until Cline told me to switch.  When I told him that I had done 7 swings, he told me to stick to 5 reps.  (See, poor communication on my part.  I should have asked if he wanted me to do more reps instead of assuming that he'd want me to.)  The sets of five didn't take very long, but I could feel my arms wobbling a lot as Cline did his swings.  With 200 air squats still to go, I began having doubts as to whether I'd make it to the end.  When we got to 52 swings, Cline told me to drop to 4 swings per round.  Cline got us to 56, I got us to 60.  Cline got us to 64, I got us to 68.  Cline got us to 72 and I got a tiny round of 3 swings to bring us to 75.  Only the air squats remained.

There was nothing better than that round of air squats.  We had 200 of them, but we could have done 200 each and I would have been fine.  We decided to do sets of 10 reps.  That feeling of duress that was present as Cline did KB swings had gone away.  Not only that, it felt good to knock out 10 quick air squats instead of 4 or 5 painful KB swings.  The finish line was drawing nearer and my mood was rapidly improving.  With 40 reps to go, Cline let me know that we were each going to do a set of 20 to finish up.  Holding on to the plate for that set was not so wonderful, but I kept telling myself that it was the last suffering I'd have to deal with for the night.  I passed the plate to Cline, did 20 air squats as fast as I could, and we were done.  Final time: 28:44.

My immediate reaction once we were done was annoyance at myself.  I had avoided this workout for a reason.  Why had I come in and done it this year?  Even if I was desperate for a workout on Tuesday, I could have rowed or something.  Then as some time passed and my muscles recovered, I began thinking of this workout in a more positive light.  It isn't often that I face a mental test at the gym and pass it.  Even though I needed to drop to a lighter plate, I felt that holding on for the duration of this workout was the rare example where I overcame my mental hurdles.  I needed to be able to block out the pain in more of my WODs.  Perhaps this workout would help me progress on that front.

Wednesday preview: The return of the 2RM hang squat clean along with a surprisingly tough cash-out.  Those air squats will get ya!

Forgot A Push-Up

Workout date: 2/13/17

I spent the entire weekend at KOP!  No, not working out.  That would make way too much sense.  Actually, before I get into the time I spent at KOP over the weekend, I should finish off my story from Friday.  A good buddy of mine was leaving RSL (my former place of employment in Philly) after 18 years, so we put together a farewell happy hour for him.  We even got him a cookie cake for the occasion, complete with a warm message that showed how much we would miss him...

Bye Lu!

Needless to say, the farewell happy hour turned into many hours of drinking, leaving me pretty banged up when I got to KOP at 11am for the muscle-up clinic.  Is that the reason I didn't get my first muscle-up (of any variety)?  No, of course not.  I could have been dead sober for an entire month leading up to this clinic and I wouldn't have gotten a muscle-up.  That being said, my bar muscle-up attempts were not my finest.  At one point, Keithie was giving each of us a push as we kipped in an attempt to get up over the bar.  When it was my turn, he let me know he'd be giving me a "big push".  Apparently I needed to be hurled or catapulted to get over the bar because I didn't come close despite the "big push".  It was cool getting to see people like Kevin B and Mike C get their first bar muscle-ups though.

On Sunday, I was in the gym to tally up the final results for the Nutrition Challenge.  Almost everyone who participated saw major improvements in their weight, their body fat percentage, their front squat, or their performance on the baseline workout.  The three dozen or so people that embraced this five-week challenge seemed very happy that they signed up, although they all seemed to be ready to eat an entire pizza once their final measurements were taken.

Despite showing up to the gym on Saturday and Sunday, my next workout wouldn't take place until Monday.  I showed up for the 6:30 class as did 17 other people.  Coach Giulz had her hands full with a class this size, but she made it work.  First up, we were starting over at the rings.  We'd be kicking things off with a small EMOM, one that didn't make me want to punch a wall when it was done.  There are eight sets of rings over at the rig, so we ended up partnering up to get through this 5 minute cash-in.  (Note: There are other rings available away from the rig, but they have much more swing to them and it can be difficult to perform dips on them.  Most of us stayed away from those rings.)  The 5 minute EMOM required us to do 5 dips each minute with Giulz challenging us to do the toughest type of dip we were able to do.  If we could do strict dips the whole time, that was great.  If not, we could kip.  The final option was using a band.  Giulz explained that there were two ways to use the band, which was news to me.  The first one involved putting your knee into the band (this was the way I knew of).  She pointed out that this can sometimes make dips too easy because the band provides a lot of bounce when you hit the bottom of the dip.  This was exactly the position I was in.  I couldn't perform kipping dips for an entire workout, but using a band with my knee in it seemed too easy.  What was this other option that Giulz had alluded to?

For those of us who were between options, Giulz recommended doing dips with your torso in the band instead of your knee.  You wouldn't get as much bounce as you would with your knee in the band, but you'd still get some assistance from it.  Hearing of this new method for the first time made me think back to a workout from January where Aimee gave us new instructions on how to do the shoulder press.  Where were these new techniques coming from?  And why was I just hearing about them now?  I guess I should have simply been happy to find out that there was a way to bridge the gap from the "knee in the band" dips to the kipping dips.  It seemed like some serious improvement was necessary to overcome that gap.

Borden, Ryan A, and I were sharing two sets of rings for this EMOM.  Because everyone was sharing rings, we all couldn't go at the start of each minute, so we rotated around taking turns doing sets of five reps, making sure that we weren't taking more than a minute between sets.  I instantly took a liking to this new method for dips.  The band didn't feel like it was fully supporting my weight, but I was definitely getting a little extra push up out of the bottom of each dip.  I didn't struggle getting through 5 reps in any of my sets, but I wouldn't describe any of the sets as easy either.  I had a nice burn in my triceps when I was finished.  It was a good feeling then.  About 15 minutes later, it was going to be a problem.

The WOD was going to include some tall box jumps, some moderately heavy shoulder-to-overheads, and hand release push-ups.  Here are the specifics:

Monday WOD:
21-15-9
Box jumps (30"/24")
Shoulder-to-overheads (135/95)
Hand release push-ups

This was going to be one of those workouts that was on the verge of being a sprint.  The top folks in the gym were going to be able to blow through this in under 10 minutes.  Someone like me?  I was thinking that I might be able to complete this one somewhere in the neighborhood of 11-12 minutes.  The part of the workout that was most concerning to me was the hand release push-ups.  I don't tend to have a lot of stamina when it comes to push-ups and there was the small matter of how my arms felt having just completed 25 dips.  I would have to go fast on the other two movements and hope for the best when it came to the push-ups.

It is tricky enough to rebound off of a 24" box when doing box jumps, but the thought of doing it off of a 30" box used to scare me considerably.  I've gotten more comfortable with rebounding though, so when Giulz asked me to demo rebounding off of the 30" box, I wasn't all that worried.  It went well in the demo, giving me the confidence to do it in the workout.  As for the shoulder-to-overheads, 135 pounds was a weight I had the ability to do larger sets with, but I thought breaking up the sets might be wiser given that I'd need to save some arm strength for the push-ups.  I could try for 12 and 9 during my first round, but 7-7-7 seemed like the safer bet.  On the push-ups, the plan was to simply keep moving, shaking out my arms whenever necessary.

I got set up on the magic platform with Danielle close behind me.  Kalen and Andrew were behind her.  We were using up every bit of space in the gym to accommodate 18 athletes for this workout.  Across from me was Actuary Mike.  He would end up pushing me through all three rounds of this workout.  We got started on the box jumps and I was able to rebound for a while before needing to stop for a break.  It should come as no surprise to learn that I tripped along the way.  Despite that setback, I maintained a fast pace and got to my barbell at around the same time as the fast guys I was sharing the platform with.

It didn't take long for me to settle on three sets of 7 reps for the shoulder-to-overheads.  There wasn't a whole lotta room in front of me as I did these and I began to get claustraphobic when I started to hear Danielle's barbell hit the floor behind me.  From this point forward, I would check behind me whenever I was taking a break to make sure that I wasn't backing up into her barbell while doing my reps.  I didn't take long breaks in this first round of shoulder-to-overheads, so I was still well ahead of the pace I needed to finish in 11-12 minutes.

Checking the Jumbotron to see how close behind me Danielle is

And then I got to the push-ups.  I did 2 push-ups and then my arms gave out.  Wow.  That was embarrassingly bad.  This round of 21 was going to take a while.  I shook out my arms, determined to get through sets of at least 3 reps for the rest of the round.  For the most part I did, but needing 7 sets to get through this round (I did manage one set of 4 at the end!) translated to 6 breaks along the way.  That very fast start was wasted.  Pretty much everyone that I was ahead of had caught up to me.

When I started the round of 15, I got to my box at the same time that Mike was getting to his.  I was a little faster than him in the round of 21 and I got through these 15 box jumps before he did (although I did trip over my box once again).  I moved over to my barbell with a plan of doing two sets, likely 8 and 7, but maybe 9 and 6 if I could hold strong on that first set.  Instead, my left tricep decided that it needed a break after 6 reps.  I tried to push jerk the barbell overhead, but only my right arm fully extended.  I dropped the barbell and came to terms with the fact that I'd need 3 sets (at least) to get through the round of 15.  I finished off the rest of the round with a set of 5 and a set of 4.

I had the same issues with the hand release push-ups in the round of 15, so it's safe to assume that I required 5 sets to get through them.  The breaks between sets were almost certainly longer.  It was a helpless feeling kneeling on the floor, unable to get my arms to do what I wanted them to do.  Eventually I got through the 15th rep and moved on to the final round.

As I stood up to walk over to my box, I saw that Mike was walking towards his.  We had completed the round of 21 in about the same amount of time.  Same deal on the round of 15.  I needed to find another gear if I was going to beat him on the round of 9.  Just one problem: Mike had gotten better at the box jumps.  Neither of us were rebounding at this late stage of the workout, but Mike wasn't even taking a step away from the box when he came down from the previous rep.  He was jumping right back up into the next rep.  I was trying to go quickly, but the best I could do was stay a rep behind him the whole way.  Our barbells were far from each other, so I wouldn't see Mike again until I came back to the push-ups.

I returned to my barbell and didn't waste any time doing 5 reps.  That was perfect.  I was going to take a short break, pick the barbell up, do the last 4 reps, and I'd have a head start on Mike on the push-ups where he was certainly going to go faster than me.  I picked up the barbell, did rep #6, rep #7, and half of rep #8.  Half of rep #8?  Once again, my left arm wouldn't fully extend, although this time it hardly extended at all.  When I dropped the barbell, it came down almost vertically, something I'm not sure I've ever done before.  I shook out my arms and told myself that last rep was a fluke.  I got the barbell back up on to my shoulders and executed two push jerks, leaving me 9 push-ups from the finish.

As I went to the floor, I saw that Mike was still doing shoulder-to-overheads, so I got the head start I needed if I was going to finish before him.  It was all about doing 3 sets of three with small breaks in between.  I did the first set of three and while I was shaking out my arms, I saw that Mike was done with his barbell.  Better get right into that second set of three.  I got through that, shook out my arms, and squeezed out the last three reps.  Final time: 12:30.

That was slower than I hoped and it was all due to the deadly combination of dips and lousy push-up form.  I was able to finish just before Mike, who stopped the clock at 12:33.  I sat on the floor and watched as Danielle was wrapping up her workout.  Her workout partner/rival, Ashley, was down near the front of the gym.  Danielle was starting her last round of hand release push-ups while Ashley still had the barbell on her shoulders.  They had the same dynamic going that Mike and I did, with Danielle doing her best Dave impression.  She was in the lead, but struggling with the push-ups.  Suddenly Ashley was on to her push-ups and she was moving through them quicker than Danielle was.  I was yelling to Danielle to hurry up and she finished one push-up ahead of Ashley.  That led to this exchange:

Me: You got her by a push-up.
Danielle: <wide-eyed and angry> I DID NOT!
Me: <confused> You did, I was watching.
Danielle: I DID NOT FORGET A PUSH-UP!

Ahhh...now I get why she was angry.  "You got her by" came across as "you forgot".  She thought I was saying she shorted the end of the workout when I was really congratulating her on beating Ashley in that final sprint.  We worked out the miscommunication and Danielle let me live.

After the workout was over, I joked with Mike about working on handstand push-ups like we had done the week before.  Neither of us had the arm strength to practice handstand push-ups, but we both had some interest in working on something else during Open Strength.  That's when Raj, Ashley, and Danielle brought out their jump ropes.  We weren't the only ones interested in some extra exercise.  I asked the girls what they were planning on doing and they told us they were going to do the following "cash-out":

4 rounds:
25 double unders
10 calories on the assault bike
25 double unders
*1 minute rest between rounds

This was similar to a post-workout cash-out that I had done with Ashley and Danielle in January, but this one involved less work on the assault bike.  That meant I'd have to be more proficient on my double unders if I was going to keep up this time around.  The five of us got our bikes set up and then chose an area to do our double unders.  We waited for the running clock to hit a full minute and then got underway.  I only had one hiccup along the way to getting those first 25 double unders, but that was enough to let Ashley get the lead on me.  And I would never catch her from that point forward.  Out of the 8 sets of 25 that we had to do, I did two of them unbroken and I still couldn't catch her.  The closest I came was on the last round when I went all out on the assault bike.  When I got off of my bike, Ashley hadn't started her double unders yet, so I guess we were tied for a moment.  Then she rattled off 25 in a row while I rushed and messed up several times.  I still didn't do too bad though.  Raj finished after me, followed by Danielle.  Mike had some issues with his jump rope and didn't finish.  Final time: 10:56 (includes 3 minutes of rest).

That was enough fun for one night.  There would be plenty more in store for me on Tuesday.

Tuesday preview:  Love is in the air.  And so is a heavy plate.  For nearly a half-hour.  There's a reason I skip the Valentine's Day Massacre workout every year.  I wish I had remembered that reason prior to coming into the gym on Tuesday.

Mild Celebrations

Workout date: 2/10/17

The workouts on Tuesday and Wednesday left me craving a rest day on Thursday.  My pride was telling me that I should suck it up and go in on Thursday, but then Mother Nature intervened and gave me an out.  We had the snow equivalent of a flash mob on Thursday morning, which led to the cancellation of the early classes.  Not that I was heading to any of those classes, but I took those cancellations as a sign that I should stay home and wait until Friday to come back to the gym.

Friday is typically nooner day for me and there weren't any random hurricanes rolling through the area that let me weasel my way out of skipping the gym again.  I got in the car and headed to my regular class.  The workout on Friday would be more Open prep.  As the Open gets closer and closer, we have seen more and more Open workouts from years past pop up as programmed WODs.  We'd be doing some extensive traveling in the way back machine as this Open workout came from 2012:

Open Workout 12.2
10 min AMRAP
30 snatches at 75/45
30 snatches at 135/75
30 snatches at 165/100
Remaining time for snatches at 210/120

Just the setup of this workout was fascinating to me.  If this workout were programmed today, the weights would almost certainly be different.  When guys do a workout with 75 pounds on the barbell, the equivalent weight for females is 55 pounds.  135 pounds for the men typically translates to 95 pounds for the ladies.  165 and 115 tend to go hand in hand.  As for 210, that isn't a weight that gets programmed very often, but 205 is.  When the guys need to use 205 in a workout, the ladies tend to use 135, so let's call 210 and 140 equivalents.  Based on the weights chosen for this workout back in 2012, it seems like the bar has been raised for the women of Crossfit over the last 5 years.

(Note: It's not like the women of KOP can't handle these tougher standards.  They still routinely kick my butt even though they go heavier than they had to once upon a time.)

Aimee had a class of nine awaiting her at the express, although only 7 of us would be doing this workout.  The royal couple (Queen Pam and King JP) were going to do the Nutrition Challenge instead, as they didn't want to wait until Sunday to come in and do it.  The first part of that workout was 10 minutes long, so it would sync very well with our WOD.  After their 10 minute metcon was over, they would spend the next 15 minutes trying to find a 1RM front squat.  I would probably spend that 15 minutes contemplating why I signed up for this class.

With only 1 movement in the workout, the warmup was pretty simple.  Get the shoulders loose.  Make sure your snatch form is on point.  Work on the technique for stringing reps.  Wasn't a whole lot more to it than that.  From there, it was on us to choose appropriate weights for the workout, grab the plates we would need to transition from one round to the next, and pick out an area to work in.  As was the case in an express class from a month ago, getting organized turned out to be more confusing than expected.  Initially it seemed as though we were all going to be facing the whiteboard for this workout, so Nicole N and I turned our barbells that way as we got ready.  (Note: Nicole and I were neighbors for this workout, so we were talking to one another about how we'd get set up prior to the workout.)  Then Tim H and Rich decided to use the magic platform, meaning they'd be facing the back of the gym.  If we were all going to face the same direction, then Nicole, myself, and several others needed to turn our barbells to the left.  We did that, but then we discovered Pam and JP were still facing the whiteboard because it made more sense for them to face that way during their workout.  Nicole turned her barbell once more, but I wasn't changing directions again.  I was fine facing the back of the gym, even though that meant me and Nicole would be perpendicular during this workout.

I was using the RX standards for this workout because I was almost certainly going to use the RX standards for the Open workouts.  I might as well get used to doing whatever I was told to do.  The first round (75 pounds) likely wasn't going to pose too much of a problem, but that was a big leap to the second round weight of 135 pounds.  My back issues had come about because I had stupidly made a 70 pound jump between sets of back squats.  This would be a 60 pound jump on a much more difficult movement.  I was definitely concerned about how this would play out.

That second round of 30 snatches at 135 pounds had a name: Isabel.  She has a cousin named Grace.  Grace is 30 clean and jerks for time using 135 pounds and I can motor through that in less than 3 minutes.  But 30 snatches at that weight?  That was going to be tough.  I didn't exactly have a good history when it came to Isabel.  I had to research what my best time ever was for that workout and saw that it was 6:13.  It took me over 6 minutes to do it fresh.  Here I would be doing it after 30 snatches at a lighter weight.  If I could manage all of that in under 10 minutes, I'd be ecstatic.  Just to throw a cherry on top, I decided my goal for this workout would be 61 reps (or 1 snatch at 165 in round three).

Aimee checked on us to make sure we were ready and when we all gave her the thumbs up, she sent us on our way.  I hate stringing snatches because maintaining that wide grip feels awkward to me, but  I tried to put that out of my mind.  I was determined to start this workout off with a big set and I did a decent job of that by completing 16 snatches in a row before dropping my barbell.

My form wasn't bad with only 75 lbs on the barbell

I tried to take a very short break before getting back into it, but that ended up being a bad idea because my next set felt awful and I had to cut it short (4 reps).  From there, I did 2 sets of 5 reps and got to work taking the 15 pound plates off of my barbell and putting on 45 pound substitutes.  I must admit, I was a little lazy during this transition, attempting to roll the new plates over to my barbell when I should have just picked them up and moved with more urgency.  When I was ready for my 1st snatch at 135, I looked at the clock to see how much time I had left.  3:20 had elapsed.  Even if I tied my previous best Isabel time, I'd only have 27 seconds left when I was done with 60 reps.  That wasn't going to be enough time to transition to 165 and complete a lift.  I needed to improve my Isabel time or simply be happy with finishing this round.

I knew before I even started this round that there would be no more stringing of reps.  It would have to be quick singles for the next 30 lifts.  I made my first attempt and was taken aback at how heavy it felt.  I got it overhead, but the steep increase in weight was tough to overcome.  This felt like the 165 pounds I was supposed to be using in round three.  I did 4 reps before taking a break.  As I walked up to try rep #5, I saw the clock showing 4:20.  4 reps per minute was not going to cut it.  I needed 5 reps per minute at least.  Gotta pick up the pace.

I tried to make that next set longer than 4 reps, but after another 4 successful lifts, I had my first missed rep.  I walked away from the barbell, shook out my arms, and tried to get my mind right.  I approached the barbell for rep #9 and saw that the clock was nearing 5:20.  I was definitely screwed.  4 reps per minute might get me to about 26 reps.  That was assuming I could maintain this pace of 4 reps per minute.  If I had more failed reps along the way, I wasn't even going to reach that total.

From that point forward, I did my best to keep churning through reps until I failed on a rep.  Then I'd walk away and try to regroup.  I was fatigued, but this was a strength and form issue as well.  Not giving my body a tiny bit of time to recover was not going to help me get more reps.  Rushing into more snatches without focusing on my form was not going to help me get more reps.  I had to give myself the best chance possible on each rep and put the clock out of my mind.  I would do a few reps and then fail.  This happened on multiple occasions.  By the time I got to the end of this workout, I must have missed on 5 or 6 reps.  When I got to the last minute, I became a little concerned that I might not reach 20 reps in this round.  I hadn't gone into a full squat for any of my reps, but I was willing to do that in the final minute.  Turned out I didn't need to.  I did a partial squat for the last 3 or 4 reps and that allowed me to complete 22 reps at 135 pounds before time was called.  Final score: 52.

That score was a bit disappointing, especially because I had so many failed reps along the way that could have put me within striking range of finishing the round had they been good reps.  I was talking with Rich afterwards and he said something that was very true.  He pointed out that if I had gotten those reps, my adrenaline probably would have kicked in and I might have gone fast enough to reach 60.  Instead, those failed reps were followed with small walks away from my barbell as I shook out my arms and muttered to myself.

I sat on a bench and looked down at the other end of the gym where Pam and JP were testing out their front squats.  They seemed to be taking turns at their respective barbells, with one performing a lift while the other walked down the gym to grab more plates.  15 minutes is a fair amount of time to find your 1RM and neither of them seemed to be in a hurry.  I was probably chatting with John McHugh and not paying attention when I heard a squeal from the far end of the gym.  It was barely audible, but I caught it.  I looked down that way and saw Pam by herself (JP was retrieving more plates).  I asked her what that noise was about and she told me that she had hit a new front squat PR of 175 pounds.  I laughed because her mild celebration was similar to what I do when I hit a PR and no one else notices.

After hearing about Pam's PR, I felt like I needed to get up, get moving, and practice something.  JP asked me what I was going to practice and my initial choices were the pushing away from the pull-up bar drills that Aimee had shown me, with double unders a close second in terms of things I needed to work on.  I put on my grips and started working on the drills, but I couldn't get into it.  I was walking to my bag to trade my grips for my jump rope, but it occurred to me that I didn't really feel like jumping rope either.  What I really wanted to do was work on my obsession: handstand push-ups.  I had gotten 6 in a row with only 1 ab-mat on Monday and ever since then, I had dreams of scratching a goal off of my top ten list for 2017.

The only thing that was holding me back was how I felt physically after the workout.  My traps and shoulders were sore.  I'm no anatomy expert, but I was pretty sure those were important body parts in terms of doing handstand push-ups.  I decided I would test out my form again with 1 ab-mat and if things felt okay, then I'd go after the legit ones.  I set up a mat to the left of where Pam was.  She was now working on her shoulder press while JP hit the showers.  I kicked up on to the wall and got ready for the first rep.  This first rep was going to tell me a lot about how good my form was today and whether I had enough shoulder strength to finish a rep if my kip didn't do all of the work for me.  When I drew my knees down to my chest and didn't fall off of the wall, that was a good start.  I shot my legs upward, extended my head through my arms, and easily got the first rep.  Very good sign!

I did two more reps just like that before stopping.  I was confident with my form and there wasn't much point in wasting energy on reps with 1 ab-mat when the grand prize was getting 5 in a row without the help of ab-mats.  I tossed the ab-mat to the side and gave myself a pep talk before kicking back up on to the wall.  Same thing you did a minute ago.  Your kip is strong enough that you don't need an ab-mat.  Shoot your head through, press hard at the top.  I drew my knees down to my chest without letting my body come off of the wall.  I kipped as hard as I could and everything went as planned.  That first rep felt no different than the ones I had done with an ab-mat.  I went right into the second rep and repeated that first success.  When I got my third in a row, I had a new PR for consecutive handstand push-ups.

That was a really nice feeling getting the third one, but I became serious quickly.  This could be the day I got 5 in a row.  It wasn't that I was simply completing these reps.  These reps actually felt good to me.  Maybe I was in the zone!  Or maybe I was psyching myself out of the zone.  When I went to do the fourth rep, I discovered that either my kip was weakening or I was getting tired out in general. My arms weren't fully extended when I hit the top of my kip, so I was going to have to work for this one.  I pressed as hard as I could with my arms and was able to reach full extension.  4 down, 1 to go.  As I rested upside-down, I gave myself a much sterner pep talk, one that included how disappointed I'd be in myself if I fell 1 rep short again.  I had to put everything I had into this next kip.  I drew my knees down and then exploded upwards with all of my remaining energy.  I must not have had all that much energy remaining because I didn't get as high as I did during my fourth rep.  That didn't mean I couldn't save it though.  There was definitely some rage working as I slowly pushed and pushed until my arms were completely extended.  I had done it!  Check off one of my 2017 goals!

I didn't see any reason to quit just because I had done 5, so I brought my knees down to go after a sixth consecutive rep.  That attempt was a complete disaster.  Should I have known that after the progression of reps 3, 4, and 5?  Yeah, but I figured I'd try it out anyways.

When I came down from the wall, Pam was in the midst of wrapping up a set of shoulder presses.  She looked over at me and we had this conversation:

Pam: Those handstand push-ups looked good.
Me: I got five real ones in a row.  That was one of my goals for the year!
Pam: DAVE!  I couldn't even tell based on your reaction.  You should be more excited!

Truth be told, I was very excited.  Me and Pam just need to work on our celebration game.

Monday preview: Don't ever do push-ups after you've done a bunch of dips.  It will end badly.

Max Speed

Workout date: 2/8/17

Fun with DBs would continue for a second straight night at KOP.  There's no guarantee that we'll be doing DB thrusters in an Open workout this year.  Another popular theory is that we will be using DBs for snatches instead.  The workout programmed for Wednesday had 5 different stations, with the last one being DB snatches.  Was Wednesday's WOD more practice for things we might see in the Open?  My guess would be no.  The choice of 50 pound DBs for the guys and 35 pound DBs for the ladies is one that we don't see often.  So when it showed up as the RX weights for yesterday's workout, it didn't seem coincidental.  On Wednesday, we were going heavier than 50/35 for the DB snatches, an indication that this was not Open prep.  Here's the full workout:

Wednesday's WOD:
3 rounds
Calories on the assault bike (15/12)
250 meter row
30 box jumps (24"/20")
15 push-ups
10 DB snatches (5 left arm and 5 right arm at 70/55)

When I looked at this WOD, I was convinced that I knew where the real work needed to be done.  There were small doses of the assault bike, the row, push-ups, and DB snatches in each round.  30 box jumps per round was not a small dose.  That station followed the bike and the row, so to me it looked like this workout was designed to take the zip out of your legs and then force you to do a bunch of box jumps.  If I could consistently rebound through those 30 reps without taking a lot of breaks, I thought I could put up one of the better times of the day.

Coach Jenna had eight people in her 7:30 class.  We would be sharing the gym again as the Barbell Club concluded their eight-week program.  We had the front of the gym this week.  We actually had a bit more than half of the gym because the turnout for the Barbell Club was less than it had been the week before.  That was mildly helpful, but once again we were doing a workout that required a lot of room when only half of the gym was available.  As a result, the eight of us worked as 4 pairs.  We'd be sharing an assault bike, a rower, and a box.  We didn't need to share DBs because we only needed one each, allowing us to split a pair.  The push-ups didn't require any equipment, so we were good there.  To try and avoid traffic amongst partners, Jenna recommended that the second athlete in each pair should start 2 minutes after the first athlete began.

There were 4 guys and 4 ladies in class, so we formed two male and two female pairings.  The three other males in class were Kevin S and two guys who I had never seen at KOP before.  Their names were Max and Connor.  They were both very strong dudes who looked like they could probably handle this cardio-heavy workout.  There was no doubt that they would be using a 70 pound DB for the snatches.  Kevin and Connor paired up, leaving Max to work with me.  We got our assault bike and rower on the settings we wanted and then figured out who would go first.  Neither of us was keen on taking the lead, but Max eventually said he would show the way.  I had high expectations for this workout, but I wasn't confident that I could maintain the two-minute head start I'd have if I went first.  The last thing I wanted to do was have my partner waiting on the bike, the rower, or the box if he was killing this workout.  That would be completely unfair to him.  Turns out it almost happened anyway even though I went second.

Looking at the whiteboard, it appeared that any time under 20 minutes was a solid one with the best times of the day falling in the 16-17 minute range.  My goal for this workout was to wind up close to 18 minutes.  It was ambitious, but if I showed some toughness on the box jumps, I felt like it was attainable.  I also felt confident that if I moved at that pace, I'd never have to worry about being in Max's way.  Max got started along with the other 3 people who were leading off their teams.  I suspected that 15 calories on the assault bike while fresh wasn't going to take long.  I took a peek at Max's monitor and saw he was up to 12 calories very quickly.  I got back to the rower and turned it on so that Max could begin his row immediately after he was done on the bike.  As he started his row, I sat on the bike.  It would still be over a minute until I would begin my workout, but there was no point in standing around.  Max would move on to the box jumps before I got my first crack at the assault bike.

I don't know if I was as quick as Max on that initial bike ride, but I ratcheted up 15 calories in a short amount of time.  The row was all about recovery in my mind.  I mentioned how the bike and the row seemed like they were meant to tire your legs out before the box jumps.  I didn't think you'd be saving much time on this short row by going hard, so I completed it using a relaxed pace.  It wasn't a slow pace, just one that wasn't going to have me huffing and puffing when I got to the box jumps.

I've developed a bad habit of failing on my second box jump.  It is the first box jump you do after rebounding and I think I'm not gauging the rebound properly.  Sure enough, I tripped on my second box jump of round one.  After that, I got into a pretty good rhythm as I bounced off and on the box.  I had one other trip along the way, but other than that, I kept up a decent speed without taking many breaks.  As I moved through my 30 box jumps, I saw that Max was headed back to the assault bike.  Uh oh.  He was going really fast!  I needed to keep pushing so that I didn't cause a bottleneck on our equipment.

With the 30 box jumps done, I hit the floor to begin my push-ups.  I was able to do a set of 10 before needing a break.  I completed the last 5 push-ups and made the short walk to my DB.  I began with my right arm and found the snatches to be more difficult than I thought they would be.  My fifth and final rep was noticeably shaky, a bad sign since I consider my right arm to be stronger than the left one.  Max had already begun his box jumps, so I couldn't take much of a break during the switch from my right arm to my left arm.  I held on for all 5 DB snatches with my left arm and looked up at the clock.  First round time: about 5 minutes.

I felt like I had made good time in round one and the clock told me that I completed it about a minute faster than I needed to for a final time of 18 minutes (6 minutes per round).  Yet Max was catching up to me.  That was disconcerting.  I got on the bike and found my second turn on it to be much harder than my initial ride had been.  Pedaling evenly on the assault bike doesn't seem to generate calories as much as quick bursts followed by breaks do, so that was the strategy now that I was too tired to pedal hard for all 15 calories.  I'd go hard for about 4 calories, then slow down for 5-10 seconds to recover before pushing once again.  I was relieved when the monitor informed me I had 15 calories completed.  The row was going to provide some much needed recovery.  The second row was slower than the first, but not by much.  It was all about preparing for the box jumps.

As I got off the rower and walked to the box, Max was heading to the assault bike to begin his third round.  That told me I had somewhere between 90 and 120 seconds to do these 30 box jumps.  That sounds like plenty of time as I sit here writing about the experience.  In that moment when I was sweating and panicky, it didn't sound like nearly enough time.  I was trying to do sets of 5 or 6 at a time, but I had a trip or two in there along the way.  I had about 10-12 box jumps left when Max moved to the rower.  He was breathing down my neck.  I had to push now and make sure I wasn't in his way when he completed his final row.  I completed jump #30, took a glance to my left to make sure Max was still on the rower, and felt a bit of relief that there was no longer any chance I'd slow up my partner's workout.

The price for pushing through those box jumps was that I was really tired when I got to the push-ups. I thought about doing three sets of 5, but then I remembered how nice it is to have less reps in that final set.  I held on through 6 reps in the first set and 5 in the second set, leaving myself only 4 push-ups in the last set.  I walked over to my DB and tried to manage all 5 reps with my right arm, but I had to break it up into a set of 3 and a set of 2.  I was definitely doing something wrong because these DB snatches were much harder than they should have been.  I took my time setting up on the first rep with my left arm.  As I completed the rep, I figured out what I was doing wrong.  I had been a little loosey goosey as I pulled the DB up, letting it float away from me.  When I took my time and focused on that first rep, I could feel how close I kept the DB to my body.  I also felt how much easier it was to get overhead.  Even though my left arm was my "weak arm", I held on through all 5 reps on this side after needing to break up the reps using my right arm.  Amazing how much good form helps.

I had no one trailing me as I began round three.  I looked at the clock and saw that it was beyond 11:30, so my second round was much slower than the first.  I'd need to go as fast in this round as I had in the second round to finish in 18 minutes.  Based on how tired I already was, that seemed unlikely.  My problems on the assault bike did not help matters.  I didn't begin my third ride with one of those quick bursts I mentioned earlier.  I was hoping for a couple of easy calories before I pushed it.  I must have pedaled for 10 seconds and not a single calorie had registered.  I couldn't spend all night on the bike, so I began a quick burst.  Still nothing.  My eyes stopped focusing on the number of calories and moved to the timer at the top of the monitor.  That wasn't moving either.  Somehow the monitor had frozen and this work I was doing was wasted effort.  I stopped pedaling and pushed buttons until the monitor reset.  When it came back on, I pedaled slowly just to make sure the timer would begin ticking upwards.  Once it did, I started pedaling much harder.

I got through the bike and the row, only to be faced with 30 more box jumps.  I don't think I had any tripping issues in the final round.  I had some fatigue issues, needing more breaks along the way to 30.  Maybe that gave me a little more energy on the push-ups.  Screw dividing them up into nice tidy sets.  I was going for as many as I could get right off the bat.  As many as I could get meant 9.  I shook out my arms while I rested, then tried to get the last 6.  Best I could do was 4 before my arms gave out.  I shook them out once again and finished off the last 2 push-ups.

I had gone into this workout thinking the box jumps would be the toughest part, but the push-ups were worse than the box jumps.  And topping the push-ups were the DB snatches.  I thought I'd be able to handle 5 in a row on each arm from start to finish.  Not so much.  In this last round, I had to break up the reps for both my right arm and my left arm.  I went 3 and 2 on each arm before I could say I was done with the workout.  Final time: 19:48.

That wasn't as fast as I was hoping to go, but considering that I underestimated how tough the push-ups and DB snatches would be, the final time was in the neighborhood of where I wanted it to be.  Max and Connor finished one second apart, registering the two fastest times of the day at 14:38 and 14:39, respectively.  That also made me feel better about my performance.  I was being chased by the fastest guy in the gym all day long.  Really glad he didn't catch me!  (And by catch me, I mean lap me.)

Friday preview: An Open workout from 5 years ago is on the docket.  Afterwards I spend some time on this year's obsession.

The Prodigy

Workout date: 2/7/17

The Crossfit Open will begin again later this month.  That's me containing my excitement.  I have a bit of a love/hate relationship with the Open.  I'll start with the negatives.  (Note: If you ever say to me "I have good news and bad news", I'll always choose to hear the bad news first.  Likely some insight into my psyche there.  Let's move on...)

Things I don't like about the Open:

• I don't like participating.  I consider myself an above average cheerleader and a below average athlete.  The Open not only confirms my athletic inadequacies, it pounds the message into my skull by making me go through it for five straight weeks.  When I first did the Open in 2014, I wasn't thrilled with my performance, but I had an optimistic outlook for the future.  Surely I was going to get better at the Open as I trained more, right?  (Wrong.)

Open stats, plateau is thy name

• Based on the stats above, it is a pretty safe bet that 60 to 65 thousand men worldwide will beat me this year.  About 4,500 to 5,000 men in the Atlantic region will prove fitter than me.  Approximately 1,300 men within the state of Pennsylvania will fare better than me on the five tests that await us starting on February 23rd.  There's not much point in repeating this process.
• I'm not a fan of the team competition at the gym.  It's not a bad idea, I just think there are better ways to do it.  As the guy who keeps score of events like this, it seems like there is some sort of controversy every year when there doesn't need to be.  I'm also a bad teammate because I root for all of the athletes from the other teams.  (Proof that I'm an above average cheerleader.)
• It's clear to me that Crossfit HQ's primary focus with the Open is to ensure that the top athletes get to Regionals and there is nothing wrong with that.  However, they sell the Open as this great event for the community and that is BS.  It is a great event for the community within your gym, but that's because a great community exists there to begin with.  As for the overall Crossfit community, you get to see people cheat at the highest levels and screw people over who deserve to advance to the next stage.  Making matters worse, these people tend to be praised rather than made an example of.
• Workouts have now been divided into two levels: RX (hard) and Scaled (easy).  There should be some sort of intermediate version because there is a huge amount of the Crossfit community that falls in that range, but that would require HQ to listen to the community.
• Because all RX scores go above Scaled scores, athletes might decide to try and get 1 rep of the RX workout rather than do the more appropriate Scaled workout.  This seems contrary to the typical message preached in Crossfit.
• You have to pay $20 for....drawing a blank.  I've heard it's for coming up with 5 workouts that aren't all that different from ones we already pay for.  I've heard it's for the worldwide scoreboard, which takes an absurdly long time to update.  I've heard it's to pay for the update shows and the people who put those together.  Pretty sure I'd rather just hold on to my $20.
• Finally, the director of the Crossfit Games, Dave Castro, seems more interested in proving how clever he is than coming up with workouts that all Crossfit gyms can handle logistically.  The first workout of the 2016 Open left affiliates scrambling at the last minute to try and accommodate their athletes.  An announcement for this year's Open has had the same effect.  (I'll be covering that announcement when I get to the WOD.)

Things I like about the Open:

• That whole cheerleading thing I mentioned.  Unless I show up early for my class or stay late, I rarely get to cheer on a bunch of other athletes at KOP.  I don't have a great track record for finishing workouts early, so during my classes, I tend to get cheered on when I'd rather be doing the cheering.  The Open allows me to cheer on tons of people from my gym and there's nothing I enjoy more.
• It is really cool watching someone do something during the Open that they have never done before.  You just throw them in the workout and they magically do it.  There is this unbridled joy that comes across their face as they look partially in shock that they were able to complete a movement that they had never found success with in the past.  I have yet to make this magic happen in any of my three Opens so far.  (Proof that I'm a below average athlete.)
• The gym gets together and has a great time hanging out every Friday night for 5 weeks.  We'll either stick around the gym or we'll go out after the workout is over.  Aside from Festivus at the end of the year, I'm not sure there's a better event at our gym purely from a social perspective.

Based on the number of bullet points above, it might seem like I have a deep hatred of the Open, but that couldn't be further from the truth.  If I was prioritizing all of the bullet points, the three positive ones would fall in my top four (along with how I feel about participating).  A lot of the points at the bottom of the negative list are just nitpicky things that bug me but aren't deal breakers.  I gave some consideration to skipping this year's Open, but the more I thought about it, the more I felt like I should do it.  (Full disclosure: I asked for new Crossfit sneakers for my birthday.  The new Nanos come with a free registration to this year's Open.  Seemed like an omen that I should do this year's Open.)

So how did a recap of Dudes After Dark lead to this long rant about the Open?  Because the WOD seemed heavily influenced by a recent announcement made by HQ concerning the Open.  They told all affiliates to be prepared for an Open workout with dumbbells this year.  The DB weight would be 50 pounds for the guys and 35 pounds for the girls.  (When affiliates complained about not having a large enough supply of 50 pound and 35 pound DBs, the response from HQ was along the lines of "figure it out".  Yay community!)  That announcement seemed to sync up awfully well with the workout that was programmed on Tuesday night:

Tuesday WOD:

Partner WOD

10 rounds

12 DB thrusters (50/35)

1 rope climb (15')

*Each partner does a full round, partners alternate rounds

Dudes After Dark was 80% dude this week as Heleen joined myself, Cline, Actuary Mike, and Noel for this workout.  Having an odd number of people in class meant we would need to go with the dreaded siamese twin when forming our teams.  We'd sort all that out later on.  LC had us begin the warmup by grabbing some light DBs to practice thrusters.  Thrusters with a barbell can be painful, but I'd much rather do them than something like burpees.  Thrusters with a DB do not hold the same allure.  With the barbell, you can keep the weight steady and under control as you go from the bottom of a front squat to the top of a push press and back down again.  The DBs are much more unwieldy and you can easily start wobbling as you do thrusters with them.  You can have one DB pointing forward and one pointing to the side if you start losing control of them.  The destabilization caused by the DBs makes a tough movement that much harder.

We don't do DB thrusters all that often, but I recalled doing them in a workout with 35 pound DBs and being miserable almost the entire time.  Today I'd be doing them with 50 pound DBs.  Why use 50 pound DBs if I knew I hated doing them with 35 pounders?  Because this workout was a prep for the Open and I was going to have to use 50 pound DBs (for thrusters or something else) unless I decided to do the Scaled workout.  Might as well get used to how this was going to feel.  Before jumping up to the 50 pound DBs, I warmed up with 25 pound DBs.  I did a full set of 12 reps like we were going to do in the workout.  The verdict?  Not bad, but not as easy as I would have hoped.  After all, this was only half of the weight that I'd be using for 5 rounds.

We moved over to the rope where LC showed us the different ways one could climb the rope.  Noel had never used the J hook method before.  He didn't seem thrilled about trying it originally.  Then he gave it a go.  Two pulls later, he was tapping the 15' mark.  He adjusted to that awfully quickly!  Speaking of adjusting, Mike claimed that he had only climbed the rope a few times before.  This story felt eerily similar to the one he had told about his ability to do handstand push-ups.  Sure enough, the guy with almost no rope climbing experience did two climbs in the warmup before making 5 more climbs in the workout.  Those were pretty impressive accomplishments, but they paled in comparison to what Heleen would do.  I mentioned Heleen in yesterday's blog post as someone who picked up tough movements very quickly.  On Monday, she was able to do pistols on her first attempt.  On Tuesday, she watched LC teach the S hook method, then used it to climb the rope all the way up to the 15' mark on her first attempt.  Cline would later dub her "The Prodigy".  Seemed like a very appropriate nickname to me.

LC told us to get the DBs we'd be using in the workout and to use the restroom if we needed to as we would be starting the workout in a couple of minutes.  Cline and Noel had gone to the men's room, leaving Mike, Heleen, and myself in the gym.  Mike asked if the three of us wanted to team up.  We agreed to this setup, meaning that Mike and I would be the siamese twins.  We would both have to complete the round before Heleen could begin her round.  I let Heleen know in advance that she was likely going to have to wait on me (not Mike) to come down from the rope before it would be her turn to go.  Cline and Noel returned and we let them know that they were going to be a team since the three of us had formed one team.  As they got ready, I tried out a few thrusters with the 50 pound DBs.  This was going to be rough.  LC had told us to choose a weight where we could do the first round unbroken and do no more than 2-3 sets for the other rounds.  I wasn't entirely sure I could manage that, but I'd give it my best shot.

Mike and his bald siamese twin led things off for our team.  Just as I've begun doing with barbell thrusters, I focused on going as fast as I could through the reps.  I got through 10 reps before I started to wobble, but I kept it together to finish the last two reps.  Mike and I got to the rope at about the same time.  I raced up and touched the 15' mark, buying myself a few extra seconds of rest while Mike completed his first round.  When he got back down to the floor, Heleen began her first round.  She did her thrusters and then climbed about halfway up the rope before sliding back down.  It was twin time again.

There was no chance that I could string all 12 thrusters again.  I completed 6, took a break, then hung on for another 6.  Mike was on the rope already when I got to my rope, but I climbed fast enough that I was the first twin back to the floor.  There were still three rounds to go, but I was already hoping that Heleen would have some slow rounds so that I could catch my breath.  She would end up giving us a break of about a minute between rounds.  I would soon begin giving her longer breaks than that.

For the third round, I attempted to break my thrusters up into two sets of six reps.  The first set was six reps.  The second round would not be.  I made it through 4 reps and then had to put the DBs down.  Mike was climbing his rope as I shook out my arms and talked myself into doing 2 more thrusters.  As I got to my rope, Mike was headed back down his.  I continued to make up some time on the rope climb, but I knew I was going to be the slow twin from here on out.

While I was watching Heleen complete her third round, I made the decision to try and go 5-4-3 on my thrusters the rest of the way since I wasn't able to handle 12 reps in two sets any longer.  That is just what I did in round four.  Mike headed to his rope as I finished the set of four.  I watched him climb as I caught my breath.  After completing my last 3 thrusters, I walked over to my rope.  Mike was already back down from his climb, so I was definitely holding up our team.  I jumped up, shimmied my way to the 15' mark, and returned to the floor.  Just one more round to go.

After Heleen completed her fourth round, the twins took on their final round.  Not a lot changed from round four to round five.  I went 5-4-3 again on my thrusters.  Mike had completed his rope climb by the time I finished my thrusters.  I was really tired, but I reminded myself that I could climb to the 15' mark even when I was out of breath.  A couple of pulls later, I was slapping the 15' mark and sliding down the rope to let Heleen finish things off for our team.  About a minute or so later, she stopped the clock for us.  Final time: 14:54.

Cline and Noel smoked us in this workout, although the gap might not have been as large if I didn't tire out during those last three rounds.  The 50 pound DBs were really difficult to operate with and if DB thrusters appear in the Open, I will be in a lot of trouble.  At least I know what to expect now.

Wednesday preview: More DB work!  I become convinced that I know what the toughest part of Wednesday's workout is.  Then we do the workout and I discover that I am way off.  Plus, I have to race like hell so that I am not holding up the very speedy guy I am sharing equipment with.