Over the weekend, KOP hosted two lifting events: the MaxLift competition on Saturday and the Old Folks Open on Sunday. I wasn't able to go the Old Folks Open (a standard Olympic lifting event for athletes 35 and over), but I did help out at MaxLift. The MaxLift competition is a cool event that is in its second year. In a typical Olympic lifting event, there can be a lot of pressure on the athletes. The room is very quiet. You walk out on to the platform with everyone staring at you. If you have the slightest hiccup in your lift, you will get the dreaded red light (or red paddle if the competition is at KOP). If two out of three judges show you red, your lift does not count, even if you got it overhead. At MaxLift, you could still have that experience if you wanted it as we had a main platform where those same standards were enforced. If you were one of the best lifters on the main platform, you could win a prize. But if you didn't want to be in the spotlight, there were six side platforms where you could earn raffle tickets for prizes if you set a new PR. For the lifts on the side platforms, the standard was "counts in Crossfit", which meant that if you had to press out a little bit to get the barbell overhead, that was okay. Along with the snatch and the clean and jerk, participants could also test out their back squat.
I was judging at platform #2 during the ladies session. The three women I would be assisting with pound-to-kilo math were not from KOP. They were definitely relieved that this was an informal competition because they didn't want any part of the main platform. During the next 2.5 hours, I watched them hit one PR after another. Between the three of them, I believe they had 7 new PRs and 1 tied PR from their 9 lifts. I even got one of them to go up to the main platform for a couple of her back squat attempts. (She finished 2nd in her weight division!) When they weren't lifting, they were looking at platforms 3-5. This was where the majority of the KOP ladies were lifting. The women at my platform kept mentioning the high quality of the form that the home team was showing. That is something I've heard plenty of times at competitions, whether they are of the Olympic lifting or Crossfit variety. KOP does an excellent job of stressing the importance of proper form and athletes from other gyms notice.
I had no formal obligations for the men's session, but I stuck around to watch John McHugh, Luis, Josh M, and Actuary Mike set a bunch of new PRs for themselves. The highlight for me was watching John try to set a new snatch PR during the first 45 minute block of the men's session. His PR was 60 kg and he was trying to get 61 kg here. He took a bunch of attempts at 61, but he kept missing. Most of his failed attempts ended with him bailing the barbell forward as he somersaulted backwards. He must have taken 5 or 6 tries before stopping with about 10 minutes left on the clock. I thought he was done and waiting for the clean and jerk session to begin, but he got a little pep talk from Keithie and gave it one last attempt with less than a minute left on the clock. Sure enough, John got under the barbell, kept his balance, and stood up with 61 kg before the buzzer indicated time was up.
I didn't return to the gym until Monday night. (Guess what? This is your first Monday recap since last summer that doesn't mention how much I weigh. Somewhere Cline is smiling.) Aimee had mentioned after the workout on Friday that I should ice my back, so I did some of that over the weekend. I would say my back felt like it was in the 80-90% range when I came to the gym for Monday's WOD. There wasn't any pain, but I didn't have a lot of faith that I could keep it from acting up again, especially since we had a very difficult workout programmed. The workout was called Mary and it is a new benchmark WOD for us this year.
"Mary"
20 minute AMRAP
5 handstand push-ups
10 alternating pistols
15 pull-ups
All three of those movements fall into the "skill" category, but I was lucky enough to say that one of them would be a breeze for me. I do love me some pistols. I would be getting plenty of practice with my handstand push-ups in this workout, but I was worried about how long I could maintain my form. It was near the 18 minute mark in last week's EMOM when my handstand push-ups abandoned me. I only made it through 16 reps in that workout, which translated to less than 4 rounds here. Sadly, that wasn't even the biggest of my concerns. 15 pull-ups per round was very scary. Not only would those take me a lot of time to complete, it was possible that I could start failing on that movement before I ran into trouble on the handstand push-ups.
Coach Giulz had eight of us in her 6:30 class. She had us begin with some drills going back and forth across the gym. Samson had been snapping photos of the earlier classes, but he couldn't help take a couple of me doing the drill that has his name attached to it. Here's a shot of me doing the "Samson stretch":
Lopsided Superstar
Giulz then asked us if we had done Mary before. She seemed surprised that I hadn't, but I remember all of the workouts I've done that have had pistols in them. She went through the elements of the workout in order. We each had to decide whether we wanted to do handstand push-ups (with or without ab-mats) or whether we'd do a seated DB press. As is the case with any handstand push-up workout, I was desperately trying to avoid having to fall back on the DB press. I would once again be practicing kipping reps with 2 ab-mats.
We then moved on to pistols. I even got to demo those for the class. I wasn't the only one with pistols though. Heleen is a new member of KOP who seems to pick up tough movements really quickly. Giulz asked her if she could do pistols and right off the bat she was able to do a few. (Must be nice!) Everyone else in class was going to use a box to help them with their pistols. The idea with the box is that it is low enough so that you get most of the range of motion of a pistol. After your butt taps the box, you come right back up. You're not supposed to rest on the box in the middle of the pistol. It is only there to help the athlete keep their balance during the one-legged squat.
The last piece we had to go over was pull-ups. I've worn out my hands plenty of times during the pull-up progressions that we typically do, so I put on my new grips before the class even started. We had to do 5 shoulder activations, 5 kip swings, and 5 kip swings with raised knees before wrapping things up with 5 kipping pull-ups. I did a set of 3 and a set of 2 to get through my five pull-ups.
As everyone prepared for the start, Giulz told us that we should try and complete at least 5 rounds. That was right on the borderline for me as far as what I thought I could complete. It would only take me about 20 seconds to get through pistols each round. Was 3:40 enough time to do 5 handstand push-ups and 15 pull-ups each round? It should have been, although I felt confident that it was going to take me a lot longer in later rounds than it would in round one. Making it to the 6th round of pull-ups became my goal for the workout.
Actuary Mike was working out next to me and he would be the one I'd see in my periphery throughout this WOD. I knew he was excellent at pull-ups and since that was the largest chunk of this workout, he was probably going to be well ahead of me. I was surprised to see he was going with 2 ab-mats for the handstand push-ups because I had done a recent workout with him where he expressed doubt that he could do them with 3 ab-mats. As for the pistols, he was using a box. He wouldn't be moving as quickly as I would be at that station, but it probably wasn't going to take him a long time to get through 10 pistols.
Giulz got us started and I wasted no time in botching my first handstand push-up attempt. During the warmup, I had a hard time keeping my lower back on the wall as I lowered my knees down to my chest for the kip. If you don't keep your back on the wall, you're likely to hear someone yell "timber!" as you slowly fall away from the wall during your handstand push-up attempt. That's what happened here. I kicked up on to the wall, didn't keep my back on it, and then fell off. As I got ready to kick back on to the wall, I saw Mike having no problems with his reps. Damn! Had he gone from "can't do these at all" to "already better than Dave"? I got back on the wall and was able to string 3 reps before coming back down. Mike was already on to his pistols. I was able to string the remaining 2 handstand push-ups, but I think I was the last one in the class to leave that station.
Time to make up some ground! I walked outside of the pull-up rig and began doing pistols. Ten reps later and it was on to the pull-up bar. I had passed a lot of people with my sprint through the pistols. I'd need that ground I gained because I was expecting to lose a lot of time on the pull-ups. My plan was to try and hold on for one larger set before giving in and doing singles. While Mike was off to my left churning through one pull-up after another, I was working my way through a decent set of five reps. My next two sets would be doubles. Then I gave in and went to 6 singles. Before sliding over a bead on my counter to mark one round completed, I took a glance at the clock and saw that I had finished it in just under 2:40. That was a good start. 5 rounds seemed very doable. If I could keep my pace from really falling off, 6 rounds was a possibility.
I wasn't able to string together all 5 handstand push-ups in round two, but I didn't completely whiff on the first rep this time. I also noticed that I was starting to push my head through my arms at the end of my reps. This was a tip that LC had given me. I had practiced incorporating it, but in the course of trying to remember all of the other pieces of the handstand push-up, I had generally done a poor job of getting my head through. The fact that I had begun to do it without thinking about it a whole lot was a very positive sign. I probably cancelled out my handstand push-up gains when I went to do my pistols. I had 2 no reps during this round as I was trying to move too fast. I lost my balance both times, so I had to slow down and tell myself to chill. When I got to the pull-up bar, I saw Mike was already on his 3rd round of handstand push-ups. That meant I was way behind him already. I did a set of 3 to begin, then went with 12 singles from there. Two rounds done, just under 6 minutes elapsed on the clock. A solid second round had kept 6 full rounds for the workout in play.
Round three was a good one for me. Strung all 5 handstand push-ups. Strung all 10 pistols. Started my pull-ups with a set of 3 before switching to 12 singles, just as I had in round two. I'm sure the pull-ups were slower as I was beginning to get tired, but when I finished round three, the clock showed just over 9 minutes. Barring a disaster, 5 rounds was definitely happening. And more and more, 6 rounds was feeling realistic to me.
Rounds four and five blurred together a bit for me. I didn't look at the clock between these rounds which probably helps explain why this felt like one big round. I wasn't able to string all 5 of my handstand push-ups in round 4, but that would be the last round where that would occur. I know I messed up a couple of pistols in these rounds as well. At the pull-up bar, it was singles from start to finish. I tried to do at least 4 reps in each set before taking a breather. Occasionally I would make it through 5 or 6 before needing a blow. Prior to the workout, I had my doubts as to whether I could finish 5 rounds in 20 minutes. As I got ready to begin round 6, I saw that five rounds had only taken me 16 minutes.
I was going to be very angry if I didn't get through this sixth round given how consistent I had been after that first round. My time for each of the next four rounds had fallen between 3:10-3:30. I'm not sure I've ever displayed that level of consistency in a long workout. Toss in the fact that I was performing movements that I wasn't exactly proficient in and I'd consider it a miracle that my pace stayed within that narrow of a window. Round six didn't even have to be that fast. I just needed to keep it under 4 minutes.
I kicked up on to the wall and did 5 handstand push-ups. Somehow my form was getting better as I got more fatigued. My head was popping through my arms every time and I wasn't struggling to press out any reps. It was as if all of my sweat had short-circuited my brain, preventing me from overthinking the movement. At the pistols station, it was time to grunt. I moved through those 10 pistols like time was about to run out on me. I don't think I got through 4 reps before I started to grunt, but I didn't care. I was determined not to fall short of six rounds. I was about to do reps #76-90 on the pull-up bar and I wanted as much of a cushion as possible in case my body remembered how much it hates doing pull-ups.
My struggle through the sixth round of pull-ups was one of those where you aren't sure how much of it was physical and how much of it was mental. Let me be clear: I was really tired at this point in the workout. My first set on the pull-up rig consisted of 3 singles and then I took a breather where I started to have bad thoughts like "that set of 3 took a lot out of me, so how am I going to manage 12 more?" Giulz alerted us that there were two minutes left and I resorted to getting mad at myself. 12 pull-ups in 2 minutes wasn't a slam dunk for me when I was tired, so I needed to get moving. I jumped back up to the high bar and made it through a set of 4 singles. Then I did it again. I took one more break before telling myself that I wasn't allowed to stop until rep #15 was done. While I was on that set, Giulz gave us the one minute warning. I was going to finish round six.
I didn't bother moving over the sixth bead on my counter. If my handstand push-up form held up, I thought I had a real chance at completing the pistols in round seven. So I kicked up on to the wall and got all 5 handstand push-ups. I didn't run too far outside of the pull-up rig before I began doing pistols. I got through 8 fast ones before I feared that I was going to fall over. While I got my balance, Giulz told us we had 15 seconds left. I did the last two pistols, then raced over to get a pull-up in. As I came down from that rep, Giulz began counting down the last 5 seconds. I tried to get one more and snuck my chin over the bar as Giulz called time. Final score: 6+17.
There weren't a lot of good things that I could say about the workouts I did in my first week back from Vegas. To do so well in this workout made me very happy. The consistency with which I completed every round from the second round on was a big accomplishment for me. The fact that my handstand push-ups got better as the workout progressed was a really positive sign regarding my new obsession. I didn't completely crack during a workout that included 90 pull-ups. Just couldn't have been happier with how I did in a WOD that initially looked like it might be a struggle for me.
My score was pretty good too! I mentioned that Mike was way ahead of me early on, but he began to slow down in the later rounds as I kept belting out rounds in that 3:10-3:30 range. His final score was 6+24, so I made up a lot of ground on him towards the end. During Open Strength at 7:30, Noel did this workout. Just like Mike, he tore it up on the pull-up bar and he had two rounds done very quickly. But just like Mike, he ended up slowing down, finishing with the exact same score of 6+24. To be within 7 reps of guys who are far superior to me on the pull-up bar was a win for me.
I stuck around for Open Strength mainly so I could work on my jerk. I felt like I had neglected the jerk over the last few months and now my clean was actually better than my jerk. At some point I wanted them to be at about the same level so that I could improve on my current best clean and jerk of 225 pounds. I began with 135 pounds on my barbell. I'd be taking each lift off of the rack, focusing on getting better form with my split jerk. This was a weight where I didn't need to use the split jerk, but as I've learned with the squat clean, it is better to start practicing your technique well before you get to the weight where you need it.
Because I haven't done the split jerk a lot recently, it felt odd to me, even at 135 pounds. I got the barbell overhead, but it felt like I should have been lower when I caught it. Also felt like there should have been more snap to the movement as I drove it overhead. Maybe I was being a little lazy because I knew I could handle 135 without the split jerk. I moved up to 165 for my next jerk and that one felt better. Still didn't feel like I was doing it 100% correctly, but part of me thought that it would feel better after some additional reps. My next two tries were at 185 and 205. Those attempts felt similar to the one at 165. Wasn't sure whether that was a positive or not. On one hand, it was more weight so it should have felt tougher as I went along. On the other hand, I didn't like that nagging feeling that my form was off.
225 was going to be the real test for me. If my form was off here, the barbell was definitely going to go crashing to the floor. The barbell felt very heavy as I took it off the rack. When I was ready to jerk it, I had a brief moment where I thought that I had messed up. Turns out I was simply doing something that I hadn't done in my other lifts: getting low. My knee bend was deeper on this jerk and it took me a second to realize that the barbell was cleanly overhead and that I needed to stand up out of this outstretched position to finish the lift. I got my feet together and dropped the barbell. 225 was a success. With a PR of 235, I decided that I would use 240 for my next attempt. No point in tying my PR. Unfortunately, that was more than I was ready for. I didn't come close to driving it up with enough power to get it overhead. 225 would be a good start for me as I work towards getting my jerk back to where it was.
Mike was still around and I got chatting with him about how he had gone from concerned about using 3 ab-mats to proficient with only 2 ab-mats when doing handstand push-ups. The conversation led us to go one step further. Why not practice handstand push-ups with 1 ab-mat? Since one of my goals for the year is to complete 5 in a row without any ab-mats, I thought attempting to do 5 in a row with 1 ab-mat would be a solid test for me, especially given that my form had improved towards the end of the workout that we had just completed. I kicked up on to the wall and did my first rep. There was no drop off in form from the workout. My kip was strong, my head came through, and I had my first rep. I kept going from there and managed to get 5 in a row. Maybe I was closer to one of my 2017 goals than I thought! Mike got 3 in a row before coming off of the wall. We each tried a second round with 1 ab-mat. I was able to get 6 in a row, while Mike got 2. It was a breakthrough night on handstand push-ups for the both of us. (Note: It was also a breakthrough night for Cline on handstand push-ups. The most he had done in a workout while using 2 ab-mats was six prior to taking on Mary. He did 30 during the WOD.)
If I was going to work on my jerk because I had been neglecting it, I figured I should get some double under work in as well. I knew I was tired and that this wouldn't be the night that I strung together 100 consecutive double unders, but I was able to get some medium-sized sets in, with my best being a set of 35 in a row.
With double under practice was over, I called it a night. It had been a very productive couple of hours for me at the gym.
Tuesday preview: A possible 2017 Open workout preview as dumbbells are thrown into the mix at Dudes After Dark.
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