Caution: No Shoulders Ahead

Workout date: 5/9/17

Please no pull-ups...please no pull-ups...please no pull-ups...YESSSSSSSS!

That was basically what I was muttering to myself while clicking refresh on my phone at 10pm on Monday night.  I'm not sure whether Tuesdays have intentionally become the day when we do pull-up intensive workouts or whether it's simply a nasty coincidence, but I was ready for a Dudes After Dark where I wasn't staring up at the pull-up bar and hating life.  I got my wish on this Tuesday.  Not only were there no pull-ups to be found, they were being replaced by a movement that I'm very fond of.  Goodbye pull-ups, hello rope climbs!  Here's what we were doing in the Tuesday WOD:

Tuesday's WOD:
15 push presses
5 rope climbs (15')
12 push presses
4 rope climbs
9 push presses
3 rope climbs
6 push presses
2 rope climbs
3 push presses
1 rope climb
*The RX weight for push presses would be 3/4 body weight

The Dudes After Dark lineup was pretty standard.  LC had seven sassy students on her hands, with half a dozen dudes (Rob C, Noel, Neil, Cline, EJ, and myself) and one non-dude (Esra).  We all seemed to have the same question before the workout began: what weight should we use for the push presses?  Typically the RX standard for a barbell movement will include a specific weight that all the men will use and a specific weight that all the women will use.  Throwing body weight into the mix meant most of us would be shouldering different loads in this workout and we'd need to figure out whether that load was right for us.  (Note: We should probably be doing this in regular workouts, but there is a tendency for classmates to go "Oh you're using 135?  I'll use 135 too."  I'm as guilty of this as anyone else.)

Rob, Neil, and I started talking about whether we would go RX for this WOD.  I was considering it as that meant I'd be using 155.  That didn't sound like an overwhelming weight if I broke up my push presses into sets of three (or even five) early on.  My 3RM push press is 195.  The question was whether I'd be able to maintain that for the entire workout.  I had a feeling that I might not be able to.  I also didn't want to slow down dramatically at the end of this WOD because it felt like it was meant to be a longer sprint type of workout.  It was probably better for me to go lighter and move at a faster pace.  I decided to go with 135 instead.  This looked like a workout that I should excel at, so if I chose my barbell weight properly, then I expected my time to rival the best times of the day.  The majority of the top times fell in the 13-14 minute range, so 14 minutes became my goal for this workout.

Rob is lighter than me, so his RX weight was going to be 145.  He felt comfortable using that for this workout.  If 145 was the RX standard for me, I probably would have used it as well.  That left Neil.  I asked him if he was going RX and I got a resounding "hell no" from him.  I could never work in a carnival guessing people's weights because I thought that Neil weighed just a little bit more than me.  When he told me he weighed 30 pounds more than me, I was surprised.  I also completely understood why he had no desire to attempt the RX standard.

LC put us through a short progression to warm us up on the push press.  It's a fairly basic movement, so there's not a lot to go over.  The key aspect that LC wanted us to remember is that we could not re-bend our knees when pressing the barbell overhead.  If we did, that was a push jerk and the rep would not count.  LC then asked me if I would mind being the demo guy for the rope climb.  Sure, why not?  LC asked me to demonstrate the S-hook and I immediately realized why not.  I had forgotten how to do the S-hook.  I did my best to fake it, but LC took a look at me and then said to the class "not like that".  Oops.  The worst part is that the J-hook I use isn't textbook either, but I could fake the proper technique on that one better than my lame attempt at the S-hook.

With 5 ropes available and 7 of us in class, LC wanted to avoid any congestion issues, so she had us divide into two heats, with the second heat starting one minute after the first.  Being the procrastinator I am, you might think that I volunteered for heat two, but that wasn't the case.  LC just happened to place me there along with Cline and Neil.  I am really grateful that I ended up in the same heat as Cline because he pushed me through the majority of this workout.  I patiently waited for a minute as heat one got to work.  Then it was my turn to go.  For the first round, I was just going to feel out how many reps I wanted to do in my leadoff set.  Given that I had dropped my barbell weight down to 135 pounds, I was hoping to complete 15 push presses in two sets.  I made it through 9 reps before putting my barbell down.  I might have been able to do a couple more, but there was no point in burning myself out this early on.  I had completed a solid chunk and put myself in position to finish the round with only two sets.  That's just what I did as I moved through the last 6 push presses and got over to the ropes.

I didn't waste any time doing the first rope climb.  I would describe my rope climbing style as a scamper.  The textbook J-hook involves wrapping one foot up over your other foot to cinch the rope.  That gives you a very stable position and takes the pressure off of your arms during the climb.  I approach it a little differently.  The reason the J-hook is faster than the S-hook is because you are sacrificing some stability in order to transition from pull to pull quicker.  My scamper sacrifices even more stability for speed.  Is it the most efficient way to climb the rope?  No.  Is it faster?  I think so.  I should probably practice the proper J-hook for workouts where I need to be more efficient, but if I'm focused on speed in a rope climb workout, I like my scamper.

Before the workout began, I envisioned doing 2 or 3 rope climbs without a break to kick off the round of five, but it didn't play out that way for me.  I came down from that first climb and needed a break.  Not a long one, but my lungs were burning a little more than I expected.  I took 5-10 seconds and then made my next climb.  That would become my pattern for most of this workout.  Those breaks might have been longer if I didn't have Cline next to me.  He had good speed on his climbs and his breaks weren't very long either.  Each time he came down from a climb, I knew it was my cue to get moving on my next climb.

With my 5th climb completed, I came back to my barbell.  There were 3 less reps to do in this round, but I was pretty certain that I would need three sets rather than two.  Four reps of this heavy-ish push press was all I could do with solid form.  Cline's barbell was behind me, so I wasn't able to see how fast he was going.  If he was going to pass me here, there wasn't a lot that I could do about it.  My breaks between sets of the push press were longer than my breaks between rope climbs and I got worried that I was pacing this workout too much.  I was still thinking "this is a sprint" and I certainly wasn't sprinting.  I made it through two more sets of 4 push presses to complete this round and my mind was already on the next round.  I couldn't break that one up into three sets of three.  I had to push myself to go 5 and 4 when I returned to my barbell.

I kept a similar pace on the round of 4 rope climbs, but Cline did as well.  He wasn't that far behind me getting to the rope.  He was still quick getting up to that 15' mark and his breaks continued to be about the same duration as mine.  I completed my 4th rope climb and Cline was hot on my trail as we came back to the push presses.

The middle of a workout is usually where I fall apart, but I managed to hold on to my pace in this WOD and that's how I began to separate from Cline.  I'm not sure if Cline did three sets of 3 reps in this round, but I stuck to my plan of going 5 and 4 for my 9 reps.  When I got back to the rope, I stuck with my pattern of immediately going into the first climb.  I couldn't tell if I was keeping my breaks the same length, but I'm a big believer that I can climb to the 15' mark even if I'm struggling to breathe, so I was always starting the next climb before I was fully recovered.  My biggest concern was that my forearms were tiring out.  This was the type of workout where using the efficient rope climb technique would have helped me out.  My pulls up the rope began to weaken.  On my last climb of this round, I wound up a few inches short of the 15' mark and needed an extra mini-pull to complete the climb.

It was apparent that the third round of this workout was where the rope climbs became really difficult.  I noticed it because of that extra pull that I needed to do.  I also noticed it because everyone else in class seemed stuck at their ropes.  Cline, Rob, Noel, and Neil were all going much slower on their climbs.  They were also starting to fail on some of their climbs.  I had pulled ahead of the rest of the guys, but I told myself that they could still catch me.  I needed to have that push to the finish.

As I came back to my barbell for the round of 6 push presses, I looked at the clock.  I had glanced at it a couple of times earlier in the workout and I had gotten the impression that I was way behind the pace I was hoping for.  It wasn't until I hit this round that my brain started working again.  The reason I had thought I was going so slow in earlier rounds was because I hadn't subtracted a minute from the clock to account for starting in heat two.  80% of the workout was complete and now I was getting this nice bonus of taking a minute off of my time.  All of a sudden it looked like I had a shot at staying under 14 minutes.  That was another shot of adrenaline that helped me get through the arm and shoulder fatigue I was beginning to experience.  If I kept moving, I could reach my goal.

For the 6 push presses, I did two sets of 3 reps, trying to keep that lone break to the same length of my previous breaks.  When I got back to the rope, I had a very good first climb.  I caught my breath before embarking on my second climb, but I knew right from the start that this was going to be another one where I'd need an extra mini-pull at the end to get to the 15' mark.  Since I was already exhausted, it sucked having to do an extra pull, but I made it happen.  As I slid down the rope, all I could think about was going into a full sprint to complete the workout.  I'd been doing sets of 3 push presses, so I just needed to grab the barbell and do one more set just like that.  I'd been wasting no time going into my 1st rope climb after the push presses, so this was perfect since I only had 1 climb left.  I could belt out this last round in like 30 seconds.

That was the dream anyways.  I got to my barbell, picked it up, and barely got the first rep pressed out overhead.  On the 2nd rep, I did the most blatant push jerk ever.  It wasn't even close to a push press.  I no-repped myself and dropped the barbell.  As much as I wanted to gut out the last round and stop the clock, my arms were having other ideas.  I took a solid 15 seconds to shake out my arms.  Then I picked up the barbell and completed the final 2 push presses.  I ran over to my rope and began the last climb.  Once again I knew my pulls weren't as strong as they typically are and that I would need an extra one to get to the 15' mark.  But this was the end of the workout.  If I needed 3 extra pulls, I would have made it happen.  I slapped the 15' mark, slid down the rope, and wandered out of the way of my classmates before taking residence on the gym floor.  Final time: 13:16.

This was a weird one for me.  I kept thinking that I was taking too much rest between sets/climbs, but somehow I managed to stay under 14 minutes.  Maybe I have Cline to thank for pushing me most of the way.  Maybe I'm getting slightly better at realizing that I'm recovered enough (as opposed to fully recovered) to continue on with a workout.  LC came over to me after I was done and told me that she thought I had done an excellent job with my pacing in this WOD, making this the second Dudes After Dark in a month where she had said that to me.  If I'm starting to internalize what the right pace is for these workouts, that would help me tremendously going forward.

Cline, Noel, Rob, and Neil were still working as I tried to get the feeling back in my shoulders and forearms.  Cline and Noel were close to being done and I cheered them on as they finished up the end of their workouts.  They looked good early on with their rope climbs, but they both reached the point of failure late, causing them to have to scale their climbs at the very end.  They both were done around the 17 minute mark.  I thought Rob and Neil were on the same round as Cline and Noel, but they were actually further back.  They were still completing round three when I came over to cheer them on.  I'm not sure where they encountered trouble early on in the workout, but both of them powered through the last rounds with good form, finishing just under the 22 minute mark.

Neil had mentioned before the workout that he didn't love rope climbs, which seemed odd to me because he's very tall and tall guys have an advantage on the rope climb.  And just from watching his last three rounds, he looked solid to me on the rope.  It made me wonder whether it just took a while to click for him.  Giulz gave us a different explanation.  "Every single one of you climbed the rope wrong", she declared.  That seemed a bit ridiculous to me.  None of us may have used the 100% Crossfit-endorsed J-hook in this workout, but that didn't mean we had climbed the rope wrong.  I would never go up to someone using the S-hook and tell them they were climbing the rope wrong.  People are going to use different techniques on the rope and they will vary in speed and efficiency.  Would I lean towards more efficiency in a workout like this one that was so taxing on your shoulders?    Sure.  But I'd also say most of the rope climb workouts that we do at KOP don't include this much volume (15 climbs).  And when those are programmed, I'm perfectly happy with my scamper.

Wednesday preview: Listening to your body is an important way to stay healthy in Crossfit.  After showing up for Wednesday's WOD, I probably need to have my hearing aid checked.