Ever since things went poorly during Nancy on Tuesday night, I had the condition of my back lingering in my mind as I worked out at the gym. I was too stubborn to take more time off from KOP, but I wasn't going to do anything that led to a serious injury. If I felt like a movement was going to re-aggravate my back, I was either going to scale back on it or not do it at all. The main component of Friday's WOD was a 10RM deadlift. If you asked me what movement I'd like to avoid until my back felt 100% again, I would have told you the deadlift. Having to hang on to the barbell for a long set was even worse. So I went to the Friday nooner knowing that there was a better than average chance that I'd be dialing things back during the strength element of this workout. (Remember this as you read the remainder of this post, as I clearly forgot to dial things back once I got to the gym.)
10 of us were there for Coach Aimee's noon express. She had us huddle in close together and form a tight semi-circle with our barbells as we warmed up with lighter deadlifts. Aimee was stressing the importance of keeping the barbell close to our body. It would be tough to hang on for a set of 10 if we let the barbell get away from us. I shared a barbell with Gordy and Noel, with the three of us working through small sets at 135 pounds. Once Aimee was comfortable with everyone's form, she let us split off to start working on our sets of 10. We had a relatively long cash-out planned for the end of the WOD, so we were only supposed to be doing 3 real sets after our warmup was complete. The most weight I had used for a set of 10 deadlifts was 275, so my plan was to go 225-255-285 to give myself a shot at a PR.
Early on, everything felt fine. I didn't want to jump from 135 to 225 directly, so I did a half-set at 185 to bridge the gap. I was conscious of my speed because I didn't think hanging on to a heavy barbell for a long time was going to do my back any favors, so I moved quickly through my reps. The set at 225 instilled some false confidence in me. I didn't expect it to be an easy set and if my back was unhappy with me, I figured this would be when I heard about it. Instead, I moved through my 10 reps at a fast pace and didn't experience any back pain. Great! Let's load on 30 more pounds and stop worrying about any potential back problems! I took a few minutes before I started the set at 255. Honestly, that set was also going better than expected, at least through the first 7 reps. That's when I felt pain. It wasn't such a horrible pain that I needed to drop the barbell immediately. I was only 3 reps from finishing the set and I felt like I could hang on for those (and I did). That was it though. The pain let me know that I shouldn't do another set at a higher weight, so I called it quits after two sets. Final score: 255.
Generally cash-outs are less than 10 minutes long and involve a couple of simple movements. The cash-out on Friday resembled a metcon that might be the featured part of the WOD on most days. I guess if it was 3 rounds instead of 2, it could have been. Here's the cash-out:
2 rounds:
21 deadlifts (185/135)
15 burpees over the barbell
9 bar or ring muscle-ups (athlete's choice)
No joke, right? I should have been smarter about the deadlifts after experiencing pain during the strength part of this WOD, but I decided that 185 pounds was on the lighter side for me and I could break the 21 reps into two or three sets. I'll be fine! (Wrong.) Burpees over the barbell would suck because...well...burpees. The only part of the cash-out I was interested in was the bar muscle-ups. It was cool getting a handful of those using a band in a workout I had done a few weeks prior. I didn't think I could get all 18 asked for in this cash-out, but it would be nice to get 8-10 of them. More than anything, this was an opportunity to practice my technique. The better that technique got, the better the chance that I could get a bar muscle-up sans band by the end of 2017.
Aimee started the clock for the cash-out and I held on to the barbell for 12 reps. That was way too many. By the time I got to that 12th rep, I was feeling as much pain (if not more) than I had at the end of that set with 255. Try to be a superhero and you find out how human you are. Three sets of 7 reps might have worked out, but I had to go and hold on until I was physically unable to continue. Very, very dumb. I took a break to stretch out my back before coming back to the barbell. The break didn't help. I thought I could do sets of 5 and 4 to finish off the round, but I ended up having to do singles for the last 9 reps. It should be no surprise that I was well behind the rest of the class already.
My burpees were on the slow side. I did a few good ones before resorting to crawling. I didn't stop at all though. When I made my way to the bar for muscle-ups, I rejoined most of my classmates, even if they were nearly done with round one. I climbed on to my box, put my right foot in the band, and made my first attempt at a banded bar muscle-up. It ended with me pressed out above the bar. One for one! My form must have been horrible though because Aimee came over and asked me to correct some things. On attempt #2, I was rejected by the bar as I tried to do the bar muscle-up properly. Aimee looked at me and said "never mind, go back to what you were doing". I did just that and had a successful attempt #3.
That would be the last successful bar muscle-up of the round for me. The main thing that Aimee wanted me to correct was pushing the bar down and getting my body back behind the bar rather than in front of it. How far ahead of the bar was I? During one attempt, my feet hit the wall that I was facing. That is pretty hard to do unless your body is way out in front of the bar. I needed to fix that if I was going to get some successful attempts in round two.
If I had done the deadlifts in round one like I did them in round two, I might have saved myself some unnecessary pain. I did two sets of 5 reps, a set of 6 reps, and then a set of 5 reps to complete the second round. Five reps was about all I wanted to do based on how I was feeling, but I snuck an extra one in there during the second-to-last set so that I didn't end up one short. When I got to the burpees, a lot of the class was finishing up the cash-out. I heard loud cheers as Queen Pam completed one bar muscle-up after another, managing to do all 18 in the workout without the assistance of a band. Meanwhile, I grinded through my burpees, crawling along and trying to pretend that 15 didn't sound like an incredibly large number at this point in time.
When I got back to the bar, I was the only one still working. Was there a pity circle or an ovation oval helping me finish? I'm not really sure. I heard some people encouraging me on, but I had sorta blocked out the world as I made my last 9 attempts. I was tired, sweaty, and in pain. I made a couple of attempts where my hands slipped as I tried to transition over the bar. As a result, I landed on my arms. I now had pain in both of my biceps to go along with the pain in my back. I started taking longer breaks between attempts so that I could dry off my hands. The longer breaks were also meant to help me get just one more bar muscle-up as my attempts in round two were not very close. After 8 straight failures, I had one attempt left. I was going to push away from that bar with everything I had left and this workout on a high note. At least that is what I told myself. The reality of the situation was that I had little left to give, so it shouldn't have been a surprise when the bar rejected me for the 9th consecutive time in round two. Final time: 14:08.
I was ready for the weekend. I needed a few days off to make up for my poor decision making. My body was battered. Here's what my right bicep looked like post-workout (it looked worse over the weekend):
Your arm is not supposed to look like this after bar muscle-ups
Aimee wanted me to work on that push away from the bar, so I did stick around for about 10 minutes to work on some drills with her. I'll continue to do these drills on my own so that I get better at the push away, as I need that for all gymnastic movements that I perform on the bar. I also need to build up some shoulder strength because even when I do push away from the bar properly, I get tired out quickly.
Monday preview: A difficult benchmark WOD that I'd never done before goes better than expected. Actuary Mike joins me in developing an obsession with handstand push-ups.
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