It's been a long time since I've taken a class in the annex. It's wonderful that we have extra space available in case the main gym is being used for a seminar or some other event, but that space is better suited for strength work than a Crossfit WOD. I've been to too many annex classes where we were all crammed together or we didn't have enough equipment for everyone. That makes the classes much less enjoyable. My biggest reason for going to KOP as often as I do is to enjoy taking classes with others. If I'm not going to enjoy working out in the annex, then there is no point in signing up for those classes.
Wednesday night's class was not held in the annex, but it might as well have been. The 7:30 class has been sharing the gym with the Bridgeport Barbell Club's eight-week program. This was the second to last week of the program, but they had a huge turnout for their class. They had been allocated the front half of the main gym, but they were tightly packed just like the folks doing the WOD would be. At the far end of the gym, there were only 5 of us. However, each athlete would need a lot of space to complete the following workout:
Wednesday's WOD:
50 calorie row
50 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
25 deadlifts (225/155)
25 handstand push-ups
25 chest-to-bar pull-ups
*Athletes must complete 2 power cleans EMOM (155/105)
To summarize, each athlete needed a rower, 2 barbells, an area to do wall balls, and an area for handstand push-ups/chest-to-bar pull-ups. Five stations x five people = 25 stations within half the gym. To say it was tight would be an understatement.
As Jenna spoke to the five of us about the workout, Ms. January felt compelled to reach over and rub my belly. Having just finished four months of trying to slim down, this wasn't the type of endorsement that I was looking for. Maybe she was trying to compare my baby bump to Julie's. Perhaps she thought rubbing my belly would bring her good luck. I'm not sure what her motivation was, but she did it nonetheless. It made me think of a shirt that I had purchased during my recent trip to Mexico.
This is why I keep my shirt on at the gym
The upcoming workout was going to make me feel about as good about my fitness as that pre-warmup belly rub did. Let's start with the worst aspect of this workout: it was an EMOM. Every minute on the minute, we would need to complete two power cleans before we could proceed with the rest of the listed work. Some people like EMOMs. I despise them. You end up rushing back and forth between exercises. I believe that this format leads to athletes using poorer form than usual as they hurry to get work done before they are forced to return to the EMOM movement. This format also gets really annoying after a while. I get that EMOMs test your mental strength more than other formats, but I'll redirect you to my initial point about why I do Crossfit. I can deal with pain. Volunteering to be annoyed makes no sense to me. And this ended up being one of the most annoying WODs I've done in my time at KOP.
The class consisted of Kevin T, Ms. January, Julie Foucher, Noel, and myself. This was a workout that wasn't in my wheelhouse and we had limited space, so I took up residence at the far end. My hope in these situations is that I'll stay out of the way of my fellow athletes. Unfortunately, the problem during this workout was that my space ended up being taken over. It was unintentional that it happened, but in a workout where you are penalized with more and more work for going slowly, having to finagle my way around other people's equipment drove me nuts. In a way, I was my own worst enemy. There is a hump near the far end of the gym and one of my barbells had to be below it. Later on, it would invite friends over and that's when my problems began.
Before I cover where things went bad, I should talk about the portion of the workout where things actually went better than expected. For this workout, I chose to use 135 for my power cleans, 205 for my deadlifts, and 2 abmats (with kipping) for my handstand push-ups. The workout began with two power cleans, something we would be doing every 60 seconds. I was facing Noel each time I did my power cleans. Just over the top of the hump laid my deadlift barbell. Beyond that was Noel's deadlift barbell and then his power clean barbell. At the start, there was space between all of these barbells and they were centrally located. After two quick cleans, I got to work on my row. It is becoming a common occurrence for me to complete calorie rows faster than I used to. I finished the 50 calories before the third minute was up. I even ran over and did 1 wall ball before the buzzer to begin minute four could be heard. Everyone else was still working on their row.
Going from the wall to my barbell, doing two power cleans, and returning to the wall took about 20 seconds. In the remaining 40 seconds at the wall, I put together a large set of about 15 or so. Some of my classmates had come over and began their wall balls, but I knew I had a good sized lead on them. It is rare for me to be ahead in workouts, so I always try to push and maintain my lead whenever it feels like someone is going to pass me. I was really getting winded over the next few minutes as I tried to do medium-sized sets of wall balls, but the effort paid off when I was the first one to the deadlifts.
Having used 205 pounds for my deadlift in The Seven workout, I felt confident that I could take care of 25 reps in 2-3 minutes. Was I dealing with back soreness when I did The Seven? No. Should I have thought about that before loading up 205 pounds on my barbell for this workout? Yes. I hadn't been experiencing the same pain that I felt during Nancy the night before, but I should have exercised caution when the workout called for moderately-heavy deadlifts as they can really screw with your back. I did my first deadlift and it felt like a 1,000 pounds. I immediately dropped it at the top. If I tried to string reps, I was going to injure myself, so I'd need to work through 25 singles.
When the EMOM buzzer went off, I stepped back to do my power cleans. Only my deadlift barbell returned with me. It was still moving after my last rep and it rolled down the hump to my other barbell. I had to push it back up the hump and keep it from moving before I could begin my power cleans. It was time lost on the actual workout and that meant more power cleans would be in store for me.
Soon, Noel came over and began his deadlifts. The buzzer alerted us that it was time for the power cleans again. This time, both Noel's deadlift barbell and mine rolled down against my power clean barbell. I had to roll each of the deadlift barbells back up and keep them stationary before I could do my power cleans. I was pretty exhausted at this point and this extra work was not putting me in a better mood.
I was grateful when I completed the 25th deadlift and got to move on to the handstand push-ups. I thought there was a chance that I wouldn't have to deal with Noel's deadlift barbell anymore. I was wrong. I'm not sure whether I had moved it off-center or whether Noel had when he finished up the set that he was working on, but his barbell had migrated closer to the pull-up rig. And his barbell was directly in line with where I would be doing handstand push-ups. Unless I picked up his deadlift barbell and moved it over, there was no room for me to stride into the kick up on to the wall. I honestly wanted to punch something at this point.
Lifting Noel's barbell and moving it over seemed like it would take a lot of energy. Plan B was to take a curving, cartwheel approach to my kick up. I would start lined up with the left side of the rack, step towards the center, and kick up to the wall as I made a bit of a left turn. It was pretty effective early on as I had a couple of minutes where I got 4 handstand push-ups before having to go back to the power cleans. That was the highlight of the handstand push-up portion of the workout. Rock bottom would soon follow.
As I reached minute 19, I had 12 handstand push-ups completed. I was now taking breaks before my power cleans because I desperately needed a breather somewhere along the way. When I got back to the wall, I was able to kick up, but I began failing to lock out my arms on the handstand push-ups. I got only 1 rep. I managed to do 2 good reps in the next minute. When minute 21 came along, I started to fail on my kick up on to the wall. Eventually I made it up, getting 1 good rep and then failing on the next one. I was only at 16 reps now and it was beginning to look like I'd need 9 more minutes just to complete the handstand push-ups. That meant 18 more power cleans. Oh, and my reward for completing all of that was 25 chest-to-bar pull-ups and who knows how many more power cleans.
At the start of minute 22, I stood at my barbell shaking my head. I talked myself into doing the two power cleans. Then I trudged over to the wall. Kick up attempt #1 wasn't close. Kick up attempt #2 wasn't close. It felt like my arms wouldn't support my body weight any longer. I shook out my arms and decided to give it one more try. Kick up attempt #3 worked out the way it was meant to. I drew my knees into my chest and tried to shoot my legs upward. My body went up slightly before my arms gave out and I fell down. That was enough for me. I got up and let Jenna know I was finished. Final score: DNF.
I could have jogged over and got some dumbbells to scale the remaining handstand push-ups. I could have continued on to the chest-to-bar pull-ups from there and completed the workout (although additional scaling probably would have been necessary). But you know what? I had no interest in finishing this workout. Not only that, I didn't feel bad about not finishing, which is extremely rare for me. Here's what I did during those 22 minutes:
44 power cleans
50 calorie row
50 wall balls
25 deadlifts
16 handstand push-ups
That looks like a full workout to me! My score might have technically been "DNF", but at the end of the night, I felt good about what I had done, especially given the lousy conditions I had to deal with. Stupid EMOMs!
Thursday preview: Crossfit athletes really hate lunges. Except for me, because I'm weird.
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