The Snack Machine

Workout date: 5/10/17

I usually get one day of ignorant bliss after a workout before noticing the true toll it took on my body.  So when I woke up on Wednesday morning with barely functional shoulders, I should have realized that Tuesday night's WOD was much tougher than I originally had given it credit for.  It is possible that some of the pain I was feeling had come from all of the work I did on Monday night, but it sure felt like this was the aftermath of that push press/rope climb couplet.  I would like to think that I am good about listening to my body, especially at times when it is screaming at me like it was on Wednesday morning.  But sometimes I'm too stubborn for my own good.  Instead of taking a rest day on Wednesday, I decided to go in for a WOD that I knew would be a tough one for me even if I had been fresh.

Part of my stubbornness was due to the fact that Wednesday was a test day.  We were making our second attempt at one of this year's benchmark workouts.  The WOD in question?  Mary.

"Mary"
20 minute AMRAP
5 handstand push-ups
10 pistols
15 pull-ups

I guess my euphoria over not having to do tons of pull-ups at Dudes After Dark was a bit premature.  15 pull-ups per round in a workout that was 20 minutes in length meant I was going to be doing a lot of pull-ups.  When I did Mary in February, my score was 6+17, which works out to a total of 92 pull-ups.  I wouldn't have shown up for this class if I wasn't intending on beating that score, so I was signing up for approximately 100 pull-ups before the night was over.

Coach Jenna had 4 people in her class, although some of us were worried it could end up being five.  Julie Foucher was back for another workout, despite her due date being only two days away.  I've been amazed by all of the WODs that Julie has been able to complete throughout her pregnancy, but I have to say I was worried about her taking on a workout as strenuous as this one when the baby could come at any minute.  Julie assured the rest of us there (Jenna, myself, Bryan, and Therese) that it didn't work like that.  It wasn't as though she'd be three rounds into Mary and then suddenly give birth.  I told Julie that Therese might know that since she's had kids, but that Jenna, Bryan, and I were inexperienced on the topic.  I joked that we were looking at her like a snack machine: the snack you paid for might be stuck at the moment, but with some vigorous shaking, it might tumble out of the machine.  Julie shook her head and laughed at me, despite the fact that I had just compared her to a vending machine and referred to her unborn child as a snack.  (It is times like these when the world should be grateful that I have not fathered any children.)

I used 2 ab-mats for the handstand push-ups when I did this workout three months ago, so I wanted to see if I could handle using only one this time around.  My score could end up being lower than what it was in February, but if I was relatively close to it and used only 1 ab-mat for the entirety of the WOD, I would consider that progress.  After all, I want to eventually get to the point where I don't need any ab-mats for my handstand push-ups.  The final element of this workout was the only one that I wasn't sweating.  I am oddly proficient at pistols and 10 per round wasn't a whole lot.  The pistols were likely going to be a minor speed bump in between handstand push-ups and pull-ups.

We had begun our warmup with a 400 meter run and while we were out jogging, I chatted with Bryan about what his expectations were for this workout.  He was also going to use 1 ab-mat for the handstand push-ups, though he was being more conservative when it came to how many rounds he wanted to finish.  He was thinking in the 5-6 range while I was aiming for the 6-7 range.  Before the workout began, we each practiced handstand push-ups with 1 ab-mat and his reps looked a lot smoother than mine did.  You may be shocked to learn this, but things did not magically change once the workout got underway.  Our pre-WOD predictions weren't accurate for ourselves, but they would have been pretty on the mark had we exchanged them.

After practicing all of the movements, Jenna made sure we were ready to go and then started the clock.  I knew I was in trouble as soon as I got upside-down.  I only made it through 3 handstand push-ups before I came down from the wall and I had to work very hard on each of those reps.  That was not how they were supposed to feel at the beginning of the workout.  As I got ready to kick back up on to the wall again, I saw Bryan move on to the pistols.  He clearly had no issues with that first round of handstand push-ups.  I got upside-down again and managed to complete two more reps, but like the first three that I had done, they were a struggle.  I had brought over an extra ab-mat just in case I started failing over and over again with only 1 ab-mat.  I didn't want to resort to 2 ab-mats until I had to, but as I got ready to start my pistols, I was already sensing that I might be using that second ab-mat much sooner than anticipated.

The pistols were a nice transition from the handstand push-ups.  I didn't go super fast on my first round of 10, but I didn't need to pause along the way either.  As I turned to come back to the pull-up bar, my plan was to knock out sets of two and keep my breaks short in length.  I think I did a decent job of that, although I suspect my breaks were longer than I truly wanted them to be.  The clock was nearing 3:30 as I moved over the first bead on the abacus that I was using to track my completed rounds.

Things fell apart when I returned to the wall for handstand push-ups.  My 1st attempt of round two saw me get upside-down, but I was unable to press out of the push-up completely.  I came back down, shook out my arms, and tried to convince myself that I just rushed into that rep.  If I caught my breath and got settled, I could handle these handstand push-ups.  That was somewhat true.  I squeezed out two reps the next time I got upside-down, although it took everything I had to press each of them out.  On my next attempt, I barely got handstand push-up #3.  I had now reached the point where I was going to be happy if I just completed this round.  I couldn't even do that.  I made two more attempts, but each time I didn't have enough strength to press myself out of the bottom.  Yesterday's workout had destroyed my shoulders and I should have factored that into the equation when determining what scale would be proper for me to use in this WOD.  There was nothing left to figure out now.  I reluctantly grabbed the second ab-mat, set it on top of the other one, and finished off my remaining two handstand push-ups.

I'd like to say that the remainder of the workout went much better for me, but that would be a lie.  I didn't fail on any of my remaining handstand push-ups, but they continued to be much harder than I expected them to be, especially now that I was using two ab-mats.  The pistols were supposed to be my bread and butter, but I would end up with two no reps along the way.  There were also several times where I'd have to stop in the middle of a set just to get balanced.  I've had to do that when doing a large number of pistols (say 50), but it was unusual that I needed to do it with small sets like we had  in this workout.  At the pull-up bar, I only made it through two rounds of doing doubles before I switched to small groups of fast singles.  With time ticking down on me at the end of the WOD, I did manage to hold on for three consecutive reps to begin round #6, but after that it was just singles until time was called.  Final score: 5+24.

That was nearly a full round less than I had done in February.  And because I switched to 2 ab-mats along the way, I don't really get credit for the 8 handstand push-ups I did with only a single ab-mat.  I should have known better than to take on a tougher standard when I wasn't feeling 100%.  (Note: Bryan had no such problems with the tougher standard, crushing this workout with a final score of 7+12.)  If I was being honest with myself, I probably shouldn't have come into the gym at all.  Just because there is a benchmark WOD programmed, it doesn't mean you need to test yourself again to see where you're at.  If anything, there's more of a reason to skip it, since you know it will show up again in 3 months.  It's always better to listen to what your body is telling you.  And if it's saying to me, "hey dummy, take a rest day", then I should heed its advice in the future.

Friday preview: After wising up and taking a rest day on Thursday, I come back Friday to test my 1RM snatch.  Class concludes with an interesting cash-out of squat snatches and bar muscle-ups.  I receive tons of advice on how to improve my bar muscle-up form.