Monday night's workout was all about crushing our legs, so it wasn't too surprising to see that Tuesday's WOD was arm-focused. I remember that last year we had some weeks at the gym where there would be 3 or 4 workouts in a row that targeted the same muscle group, leaving us unable to walk or pick up groceries by the time the weekend rolled around. This year there seems to be a better mix of workouts throughout the week. Speaking of a better mix, it was nice to see the bench press thrown into the rotation. Admittedly, it is difficult to work the bench press into a metcon-type WOD, but I would argue that the bench press is the lift that people generally are most familiar with. Wall ascents and atlas stones aren't easy to work into metcons either, but we make that work, so why not have more bench press days? 2017 just might be the year when bench press becomes more prevalent at KOP.
Tuesday night means two things:
- Dudes After Dark
- Lots of pull-ups
I'm not sure how this trend developed, but I've started blaming Ms. January for it. I see her at the start of every Dudes After Dark right as I'm putting on my grips and she always has this grin on her face that seems to be saying "glad I'm not doing all those pull-ups". (That grin might also be saying "SUCKA!") Two weeks ago, we had the time-capped workout where we were supposed to do 105 pull-ups. Last week, we had the 20 minute workout that included chest-to-bar pull-ups (most people did 50). Since variety is the spice of life, we had L pull-ups as part of this Tuesday's WOD. What are L pull-ups? They are strict pull-ups with your legs directly out in front of you (so your body is shaped like an L). You need a lot of upper body strength and tight control of your core muscles to be able to do them. Do those sound like things I have? Yeah, not so much.
Here's a look at the details of this workout:
Tuesday's WOD:
15 minute AMRAP
15 bench press (135/95)
10 L pull-ups
There were 5 of us joining LC for Dudes After Dark (Cline, The Prodigy, Neil, Andrew, and myself). LC told us to grab a light medicine ball and go out for an 800 meter Indian run (person at the back sprints up to the front, repeat over and over and over again). Usually the last person goes for their sprint as soon as the new leader of the conga line is established, but this warmup would be different. That light medicine ball was being tossed back through the line and the person in the back couldn't go until they had the ball. It took about 150 meters or so before everyone got comfortable blindly tossing the ball up in the air, trusting that the person behind them would run up to where the tosser just was in order to catch the ball. By the time we were headed back towards the gym, Cline felt comfortable enough with the group that he was tossing it over people's heads to those in the back to speed up the process. As we passed the annex, the ball was being tossed to me and I saw LC up by the side door of the gym. Rather than pass it back again, I sprinted to the front of the line and kept going. As I jetted towards the entrance of the gym, I hurled the medicine ball at an unsuspecting LC. (It was funnier in my mind than it turned out to be in practice.) I got some strange looks from the rest of the group once they got to the gym, but sometimes you just need to change things up at Dudes After Dark.
LC asked us to pick out a bench and an area on the pull-up rig to do whatever form of pull-ups we chose for this workout (only Andrew was able to do L pull-ups). The Prodigy seemed conflicted about which bench she was going to use and she asked me which one I wanted. I didn't care, but she didn't want to pick. So I chose the one in the middle of the gym for her. She'd be able to use a low bar for the pull-ups without bumping into anyone else and that bench was lower to the ground than any of the others. When I pointed that out, she asked me if I was making short jokes at her expense. I was not. LC then came over and let The Prodigy know that she needed to raise her bench higher because she would not be able to reach her barbell if she laid on it at its current height. I suggested putting 20" boxes underneath each leg of the bench. (Now I was making short jokes. How long did you expect me to hold out?)
The Prodigy would be doing banded pull-ups for this workout, while Cline, Neil, and myself would be attempting to do strict pull-ups. Luckily, I had some recent practice with strict pull-ups as a result of doing them with Josh M after some of the Monday classes I had been to. I certainly wasn't looking forward to doing a lot of them, but I wasn't as intimidated by the prospect of having to do strict pull-ups as I would have been without that extra practice. As for the bench press, I decided that scaling the weight would be a good idea. I know that I've done 15 consecutive reps with 135 pounds before, but this wasn't one set I was doing. I was doing a 15 minute workout where my arms were not only going to get tired from the bench press. They were going to be destroyed from the strict pull-ups as well. With that in mind, I felt the saner way to go for this WOD was to drop down to 115 pounds, a weight I felt that I could move even if I got tired.
There wasn't a whole lot to go over in terms of the mechanics of the workout. For the bench press, you took the barbell off the rack, brought it down to your chest, then pushed it back up to where you started. For the strict pull-up, you hung from the bar and pulled yourself up without using a kip. You'd be hard pressed to find a workout with less complexity than this one. With there being no good reason to delay any further, LC got us started on the early side. The five of us laid on our respective benches and LC started the clock.
I mentioned that I had experience doing 15 consecutive reps of bench press at 135 pounds, so I knew that I could go unbroken during that first round with 115 pounds. I decided against it though. This workout reminded me of WODs that include dips. Once your triceps go on the dips, it's hard to get them to respond again. You end up stuck. You can't push through workouts like that. You have to wait until your body is willing to comply again. I didn't want my arms to be dead 2 minutes into this workout, so I decided to break things up early. I did 10 reps of the bench press, placed my barbell on the rack, and shook out my arms. I didn't care if I was the last one to the pull-ups. I had a good sense of my limitations on this WOD. When I felt ready again, I did the last 5 reps. I headed to my pull-up bar with my arms feeling relatively fresh.
Having recently done three sets of 5 strict pull-ups after a Monday WOD, I had hopes of doing two sets of 5 to complete this first round. That didn't happen. My first set was a respectable 4 reps. Not too shabby. I could do two sets of 3 reps and be on my way back to the bench press. Or not. I fell one rep short of the plan during my second set, unable to do more than 2 consecutive reps. From that point on, I knew I wasn't going to be able to do more than 2 in a row. I took my time and made sure I got two more sets of 2 reps. The clock showed that we were about 3:15 into this workout. Four rounds was a possibility if I could maintain sets of 2 on the pull-up bar.
On my second round of the bench press, I was thinking about breaking it up into a set of 8 and 7, but then I ended up doing 9 reps in the first set. Maybe I got confused and thought I was still front squatting from the day before. After a break, I polished off the remaining 6 reps and came back to the pull-up bar. I was able to keep my streak of 2 strict pull-ups at a time going for a little bit. The breaks between sets definitely got longer. I had to struggle to get the second rep of my third set, so I switched to singles for the last 4 reps. The clock had just ticked past 7 minutes as I came back to the bench press again. I was still under the pace I needed for 4 full rounds, but I suspected I was going to fall short of that mark. Those strict pull-ups were starting to fade away and I envisioned needing more and more rest if I was going to complete them.
I figured my only shot at getting 4 rounds done was to pick up the pace on the bench press. I went 9 and 6 again for my two sets, but I took less of a break in between. At the pull-up bar, I was able to do a set of 2 to lead off my third round. After some rest, I tried for another two. Got the first one, didn't get the second one. It was my first no rep of the workout. It wouldn't be the last. As I shook out my arms, I decided that trying for more sets of two was foolish. It would be nothing but singles until I reached 15 minutes. It also dawned on me that if I was only doing singles, it might benefit me to switch to a monkey grip (hands over the bar rather than around the bar) to decrease the range of motion needed. Slowly, I did 6 more singles using the monkey grip. When I went up to do the 10th rep, I was unable to get my chin up over the bar. Another no rep. Dropping to singles had finished off my chances of completing 4 full rounds, but these no reps were now making me wonder how big of a dent I could make in that fourth round. After another long break, I was able to get the 10th strict pull-up of round three.
The clock was beyond 13 minutes now, so I had to hurry to get whatever reps in that I could at this point. My first set at the bench press was (altogether now) NINE reps. I thought that I'd simply repeat what I had done in rounds two and three and finish off the remaining six in my second set. Instead my arms began to give out after 4 reps. Rather than chance dropping the barbell on my chest, I racked it for a second time and shook out my arms some more. The last two reps were not a problem, but I now had less than a minute to sneak in some strict pull-ups.
With the clock heading towards 15 minutes, I had some extra adrenaline pumping in me. That's the only way I can explain how fluidly I did the first two singles on the pull-up bar. The third rep was a struggle, but I gently placed my chin on top of the pull-up bar right before I dropped back to the floor. I hopped back up to do a 4th rep, but I didn't come very close. Another no rep. I knew I had reached the point where my arms needed a break, but there was only 10 seconds left in the workout. I stubbornly jumped up and tried again, but all my strength was gone. After a brief struggle, I came down from the pull-up bar. That was it for me. Final score: 3+18.
Oddly enough, this was a workout where we all scored about the same. The Prodigy had 3+19, Neil had 3+18, and Cline had 3+14. The exception was Andrew, who is a beast. He basically doubled our scores by putting up 6+24. There was no cash-out planned, but someone (Andrew, I think) started joking about doing a partner race to 50 calories on the ski erg. Having no arm strength left, that would have taken me forever. However, this suggestion got the wheels turning in LC's head. She suggested substituting the assault bike for the ski erg and doing a similar cash-out. Andrew and Cline would be one team (with The Prodigy playing the role of siamese twin), while Neil and I would be the other team. We were doing a race to 50 calories on the assault bike. While one teammate pedaled, the other teammate would do sit-ups.
The strategy for Neil and I was to minimize transitions, so we decided to simply do 25 calories each. Neil would go first and I'd be the anchor. I'm not entirely sure what Andrew and Cline's strategy was, but I think it was probably Andrew leading off with 20 calories, Cline handling the next 20 calories, and then Andrew finishing off the last 10 calories. That's purely a guess, but it's the best I could come up with based on how the cash-out played out. Andrew and Neil sprinted on their bikes. Andrew jumped off and tagged Cline in. Neil completed his 25 calories, but Cline jumped off of his bike a few seconds afterwards. I thought I had a solid sprint going when Andrew yelled "done". I thought he was kidding, but they were actually at 50 calories already. My monitor read 37 calories. I tried not to slow down at all, but I'm sure I would have pedaled faster if I was racing someone during those last 13 calories. Final time for me and Neil: 2:24.
Another Dudes After Dark was in the books. I was already dreading doing pull-ups next Tuesday night.
Wednesday preview: My doctor says I need to lose weight and do more cardio, so I get on the rower at home. The WOD is the front squat version of a back squat workout we recently did. Dessert will be served on the GHD machine.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.