Getting my first bar muscle-up was an awesome feeling. It also left me beaten up. I had bruises all over the right side of my chest from throwing my body into that bar over and over again. You would think that I'd want to keep trying to get more and more bar muscle-ups once I got that first one, but I kinda had the opposite reaction to this breakthrough. It wasn't that I wanted to avoid bar muscle-ups. I simply didn't have a strong desire to do them. I think part of the reason I felt that way was because I didn't believe that I "had bar muscle-ups". I had done one, but it seemed like a fluke to me. If I was forced to do them again, I might discover that I didn't truly have bar muscle-ups.
15 days passed before the litmus test arrived. Tuesday night's WOD included bar muscle-ups. Actually, the entire thing was bar muscle-ups. One of this year's benchmark workouts is 30 bar muscle-ups for time with a 10 minute time cap. There was no chance that I'd be getting anywhere near that amount, but I did set a goal for myself. If that bar muscle-up two weeks ago wasn't a fluke, then I should be able to get two more during this 10 minute workout. That seemed like a reasonable standard for proving that I indeed had bar muscle-ups.
I had been texting Bryan throughout the afternoon as he had discovered that some of the Open scores listed in my spreadsheet were wrong. Having been absent from Friday Night Lights when 17.4 went down, I relied on the KOP blog for results and there were some mistakes sprinkled in there. Bryan also mentioned that he would be at Dudes After Dark, which meant that I'd get to do bar muscle-ups with the guy who got his first bar muscle-up the same day I did. The only difference was that Bryan did a second one a few minutes after that first one and both of his bar muscle-ups looked natural and easy. Bryan told me that his goal for this workout was to get 15 reps. He had a smidge more faith in his bar muscle-up abilities than I did. I actually thought he was not giving himself enough credit. I let him know that I thought he could get 20.
LC was in charge at Dudes After Dark like she typically is. She had 8 people in her class and after we went through the initial warmup, she split us up based on our ability to do bar muscle-ups. At least that's what I was told. I wasn't paying attention when she said this, so when I saw the groups split up, I just went with the group that had less people. 4 people went towards the far end of the gym, so I stayed towards the front with Noel and Bryan. Little did I know that I was volunteering myself as someone who could do bar muscle-ups. I made Tia proclaim the same thing by telling her she had to join our group as well. (As always, I'm a sucker for symmetry and I wanted both groups to have 4 people.)
All of us were on the low bars, which typically isn't a problem when there are only 8 people in class. However, I kip pretty wildly when I'm attempting a bar muscle-up. And that wasn't a trait that was only common to me. Bryan and I had a lot of space between our bars, but after a couple practice attempts, it was clear that going at the same time might result in him kicking me repeatedly. Bryan did have the wise idea of having me turn around and face him. That was going to facilitate our ability to alternate attempts considerably.
LC had us practice what we'd be doing in the WOD (bar muscle-ups, banded bar muscle-ups, or chest-to-bar pull-ups) and then abandoned us to take care of a new guy in the lobby. She didn't get her nickname for nothing. She was out there for quite a while, so much so that she had a revolt on her hands inside the gym. We were ready to do this workout and there was no coach on hand to get us started. Cline went over to get the clock remote while I poked my head out the door and gave LC crap about never being in the gym when she's coaching. Just as we were about to start without her, LC said goodbye to the new guy and ran into to operate the clock for us. Our 10 minutes were underway.
I told Bryan to go first (and to keep going if he was in a rhythm) because I didn't want to mess up his attempt to get 15 bar muscle-ups. I wasn't planning on getting very many and I was pretty sure I would need more rest between attempts than he would. I would simply make my attempts when Bryan needed a break. Bryan swung on the bar, leaned back, pressed down, and glided above the bar like it was no big deal. There aren't style points for bar muscle-ups, but he would get them if there were. Now it was my turn. I was feeling a bit nervous because LC had told me right before we began that if I missed on 3 or 4 attempts in a row, I should switch to a band. I hadn't hit any of my attempts in the warmup, so my pursuit of 2 bar muscle-ups in this workout could come to an end quickly if I didn't remember how to do them right off the bat. I got ready for my first attempt, got a good swing, squeezed my butt as I pressed down on the bar, and before I knew it, the right side of my body was hanging over the bar. I used Jill A's tip of leaning forward and letting my body slide over completely before trying to press up. I pressed out when I was ready and I had done it. One down, one to go!
The only problem with that rep is that LC didn't see it. She didn't see the first one I got a couple weeks ago. She didn't see either of the two that Bryan had done that same day. Now she was missing the ones we were doing tonight. As Bryan accumulated more reps to his score, I began failing on my attempts. And naturally, LC witnessed all of those. Each time I sensed that she was going to tell me to switch to a band, I blurted out "I got one on my first attempt!" That didn't seem to be winning her over. The timeline for my second bar muscle-up had been moved up from 10 minutes to within the next minute or so.
With about 3 minutes gone, Bryan was closing in on his 8th bar muscle-up. My prediction of 20 was looking like a better bet than Bryan's goal of 15. I kept getting closer and closer with my attempts, trying to chicken wing the right side of my body over the bar each time, but the bar kept rejecting me. At one point, Tia and I backed into each other (we were facing opposite directions) as we got ready to make an attempt. Tia joked that the butt rub we shared was going to bring us luck. She might have been right. As the clock was closing in on 4 minutes, I got the right side of my body over the bar once again. After leaning forward and pressing out, I turned to my left for acknowledgment from LC. She wasn't looking. Again. She was up at the whiteboard writing on it. I was not having a second bar muscle-up go unacknowledged. RACHEL! <no response> RAAAACHELLLL!!!!!!!! She finally turned around. She smiled upon seeing me above the bar and for the first time in this workout, I felt like I was safe from having to use the band.
I needed a good 30 seconds between attempts from there on out. I had my bottle of water next to me, more so that I could drink from it at the end of the workout, but each of these attempts were taking a lot out of me and the bottle ended up empty before the 10 minutes were up. Maybe taking that much of a break worked out for me. I went from 2 to 3 to 4. I got excited about the idea of completing 5 bar muscle-ups in a workout and before I knew it, I had my 5th one. Meanwhile, Bryan was struggling. I hadn't seen him get over the bar in a while and last I heard, he was still at 8 reps.
I got my 6th bar muscle-up with less than 2 minutes to go. Maybe Bryan had gotten some more reps when I wasn't paying attention, but I was going to pretend that he was still at 8 reps and try my best to tie that mark. With just over a minute left, I got #7. This had become like a mini-Open workout for me. Time was winding down and I needed just one more rep. Could I pull it off or would I fail in the clutch again? With about 45 seconds to go, I took my first shot at rep #8. The right side of my body went up and over. I took great caution to not let my legs swing into the wall or else the rep wouldn't have counted. I pressed out and had reached 8 reps.
I waited about 20 seconds before going for #9. Somehow my body was remembering how to do everything correctly. I was up over the bar again for my 9th rep. With only about 10 seconds left, I hurried into one last attempt, trying to register a double-digit score. If there was any doubt about how much that steady rest had helped me, it was evident in that final attempt. I didn't come close at all. Oh well. I was deliriously happy about how that workout went. Final score: 9.
The most shocking part of that workout was that I ended up beating Bryan. He had stalled out after getting 8 reps in the first 3 minutes. It was very tortoise and the hare. Would I ever wager any money on this ever happening again? Hell no. This workout will come up three more times this year and I still believe that Bryan might be able to finish all 30 at some point. As for me, maybe I'll be able to get to that 15-20 rep range by year-end.
How good was I feeling after the bar muscle-up WOD? Well the cash-out was skill work and we had the option of doing 50 push-ups, 50 handstand push-ups, or a 100 ft handstand walk. Guess which one Mr. Newly Confident chose? Yeah, I knew I wasn't going to get 100 ft, but I don't practice walking on my hands much and one of my goals for the year is to handstand walk 20 ft, so I thought I'd try it out. It didn't go well. Edwin captured my initial attempt in the video below:
SPLAT!
Maybe getting 9 bar muscle-ups and trying to handstand walk in the same hour was a bit ambitious. I didn't have any successful attempts getting up on to my hands and I called it quits about 5 minutes before my time was up. That "landing" evened out the bruising on both sides of my body.
Wednesday preview: A workout with pistols and rope climbs falls right in my wheelhouse, but my limited gas tank leaves me struggling with the KB.
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