X-Hook

Workout date: 5/26/17

When I got to the gym on Wednesday night for that workout that would severely humble me, I saw Justin C putting his equipment away.  He had taken part in the 6:30 class.  I asked him how the workout was and what advice he could give me.  He told me the workout was a grip killer, that the KB swings at the end would be so much harder than I'd expect because your grip gets destroyed earlier on in the WOD.

If Wednesday's workout was a grip killer, then Friday's workout escalated things to the homicidal maniac level.  (I'm sure it's only a matter of time before I see a WOD called "Jack the Gripper" on the KOP blog.)  The Friday WOD was almost exclusively grip and shoulders.  There were a bunch of rope climbs.  There was shoulder press involved.  The third movement in this "griplet" (so many grip puns!) was one that I had randomly gotten experience with several years ago.  It involved stepping up to a fairly high box while holding on to heavy DBs.  Here's the Friday WOD:

Friday's WOD:

30 DB (50/35) box step-ups (24"/20")

15 shoulder presses (115/75)

5 rope climbs (15')

24 DB box step-ups

12 shoulder presses

4 rope climbs

18 DB box step-ups

9 shoulder presses

3 rope climbs

When I participated in my first King and Queen competition at KOP, I did DB box step-ups as part of the second event.  The DBs weighed 45 pounds and the box was 20" high.  It was easily the most brutal aspect of that event.  We regularly do box jumps to a 24" box, so you wouldn't think a step-up would be so bad, even if you were holding weight.  Wrong.  It wasn't until I did this event that I realized how much one uses their arms when doing a box jump or a step-up.  Not being able to use them was a huge hindrance.

So it's the DBs that make this movement truly unpleasant, right?  Not entirely.  Don't discount the height of the box.  Because as hard as this movement was with a 20" box, it became much more difficult with a 24" box.  I discovered this over a year later.  When I used to work out with Michal and LC regularly, I would participate in the sick cash-outs that they came up with after the WOD was over.  Some of these cash-outs could run 20-25 minutes, meaning they were more like second WODs than cash-outs.  One night, we did one that included DB box step-ups.  The girls used 25 pound DBs with a 20" box.  I was using 45 pound DBs with a 24" box.  I figured it would be tough, but not all that different from my experience during that King and Queen event.  Instead, I found the movement extremely clunky.  Raising my leg high and pushing my body upwards while my arms hung low next to my sides was simply awkward.  I couldn't do the movement fast and you really don't want to spend any extra time hanging on to those heavy DBs.  I discovered there was a learning curve to the movement.  Because I was struggling to get my foot high enough when I tried to step on to the box straight on, I started swooping my leg up alongside of the box.  I'm sure it looked strange (isn't that the case with everything I do at the gym?), but it helped me move faster.

When I saw the DB step-ups listed in this WOD, I remembered that the side-swoop motion was the way to go.  Could I handle 50 pound DBs this time?  Five extra pounds per DB didn't seem like a whole lot, so I was going to give it a shot, at least when we warmed up.  Coach Keithie asked the six of us in his class (myself, Steve Z, Tia, Steph M, Mariana, and Ashley) to set up our boxes and then test out the DBs we thought we'd use in the workout.  There were 72 step-ups in this workout, so I figured I should be able to do 6-8 in the warmup without struggling tremendously.  I did 6 step-ups with the 50 pound DBs and found them really tough to move with.  Guess I was scaling down.  

But then I got caught up in the choices of the rest of the class.  All of the girls had grabbed sets of 35 pound DBs and they seemed very confident about using them for the WOD.  Really?  It seemed odd to me that they all might be going RX.  Maybe I should suck it up and stick with the 50's.  As the girls did more practice reps, they began to feel the same way I did initially.  The RX weight was a little much.  They start swapping their 35 pound DBs for 30 pound replacements.  With the peer pressure decreasing, I began to feel more comfortable in my choice of 45 pound DBs for this workout.

My 5RM for the shoulder press was 120 pounds, so using the RX weight of 115 pounds for this workout was a no-go.  I also factored in how tired my arms/shoulders would be from the DB step-ups and the rope climbs before deciding that 95 pounds would be plenty for me on the shoulder press.  That left the rope climbs.  How would I be scaling the rope climbs?  I kid, I kid.  There's no way I'd be scaling the rope climbs!  As Keithie had once said, "those are my jam".  That didn't mean there wasn't room for improvement though.  I decided to hit up Keithie for some rope climbing advice.  Because this workout would be so fatiguing on the arms, shoulders, and on your grip in general, I would need to be as efficient as possible when climbing the rope.  And there is no one in the gym who climbs the rope as efficiently as Keithie.  So I asked him if he could teach me to climb the rope the way he does.

I knew if I was going to replicate Keithie's rope climbing technique that I would have to pull my knees much higher to my chest.  There was a lot more to it than that though.  I've always described the "right" way to do the J-hook as more of an X-hook, because when someone like Keithie goes to pull his way up the rope, his feet are crossed like an X.  Then he imitates a pair of scissors, opening up the X during the pull and closing the X when he's ready to clamp on to the rope.  I didn't realize that this X-shape begins at the bottom of the rope.  Keithie explained to me that my right leg should be crossed over my left right at the beginning of the climb.  How the heck was I supposed to get a good jump with my legs crossed over one another?  Turns out I was taking his advice a bit too literally.  I should jump like I normally do, but as soon as my hands grabbed the rope, I was supposed to cross my legs.  From there, you draw them up as high as possible and clamp on to the rope.  Stand all the way up and repeat the process.

I took a few shots at this new technique, but I struggled with it (as you might expect the first time you try something new).  Crossing my legs and climbing felt strange to me.  The technique I normally used made sense to me because the motion was like a J.  I jumped to the side of the rope, lifted my right leg high, and had my left leg sweep the rope underneath my right leg before coming up and over my right foot.  Think of the vertical part of the J as the rope hanging from the ceiling.  The curved bottom is off to the left of the vertical piece, just like my left leg would swing the loose end of the rope upwards as I climbed.  I could get my head around that being a J-hook.  This technique (which I'm still going to call the X-hook) required me to center the rope with my body, cross my legs, and then use that scissor-like movement.  The only time there was anything resembling a J was when I brought my left foot over my right foot to clamp the rope.

On my 4th try, I finally did it right.  It usually takes Keithie two pulls to get to the 15' mark whereas I need 3 pulls at least.  When I'm tired, I need a little 4th pull to get me to the mark.  My form with the X-hook wasn't good enough to get me to 15' with two pulls, but I was close.  I just needed some practice.  Keithie told me that I looked good on this last attempt.  I appreciated that and I let him know that I'd keep practicing it going forward.  For today though, I was sticking with my J-hook.  I didn't have faith that I could do the X-hook correctly for 12 climbs.  Keithie wasn't having it.  He told me to give it a shot in the workout.  I sensed this was going to go poorly for me, but I reluctantly agreed.

Keithie got the WOD started and I made it through 10 step-ups before placing my DBs on top of my box.  That was according to plan.  I thought breaking the step-ups into three sets would save my grip some.  I also didn't want to exhaust myself before trying to climb the rope with a totally new technique.  On my second set of step-ups, I learned an important lesson.  I was side-swooping my lead leg up to the box each time, but as I went for my 7th rep, my foot caught the box.  It killed all of my momentum.  Speed is your friend while doing DB step-ups and I basically had to stop after catching the box.  I placed the DBs down and took a break.  16 down, 14 to go.  I was able to do 8 on my third set and 6 on my 4th set.  As I walked over to my barbell, it looked like I was the last one to get there, but I wasn't too far behind the class.

With all of these movements affecting grip, arms, and shoulders, it seemed like pacing was more important in this WOD than is the case in many others.  95 pounds was a weight I could move fairly well for the shoulder press, but I put it down after 6 reps.  I shook out my arms, tried to keep my break small, then did another set of 6.  Went through the same break routine and finished off my last 3 reps for this first round.  It was time to test out the X-hook.

Usually I would jump right on the rope for my first climb if I had just completed a small set like the one I had done to finish off the shoulder press.  But I took some extra time to make sure I did this first climb properly.  When I felt ready to go, I jumped as high as I could, crossed my legs, and pulled my knees up towards my chest.  I clamped on to the rope and stood up.  I repeated that process and when I stood up, I was surprised to see the 15' mark within reach.  It was the first time I had ever gotten to that mark in two pulls.  The X-hook was a success!  I slid down the rope eager to try it again.  The good news was that I had learned a more efficient way of climbing the rope, one that probably saved me one pull per climb on average.  The bad news is that this would be the only climb of the 12 where I'd reach the mark in two pulls.  For most of the workout, I needed a 3rd mini-pull.  Towards the end, when I got really tired, I needed a decent-sized 3rd pull to get me to that 15' mark.  I paced those 5 climbs pretty well.  I needed breaks in between each climb, but I had to chalk my hands repeatedly anyway, so those breaks were at least productive.  

When I came back to my box for the step-ups, I saw that Tia was just beginning her 2nd round, so I began focusing on her as the person in class I'd try to keep up with.  (She was also right next to me, so that helped.)  I wanted to go 8-8-8 for this second round, but as was the case in round one, I had to cut my second set short.  As a result, I went 8-6-6-4 to complete my 24 step-ups.  The breaks between sets were considerably longer and I was getting tired quickly.  As I finished off my step-ups, I started to wonder whether I'd have enough energy for the shoulder presses and the rope climbs.

Tia was moving through her shoulder presses when I got to my barbell.  I took a few moments to calm myself before starting my round of 12.  Going 6-6 like I did at the start of round one would have been great, but I wasn't sure I could pull that off.  Perhaps that doubt fueled me to do better.  Nearing the 6th rep of the set, I told myself to hang on for one more.  With 7 completed, I'd only need to get through 5 to finish the round.  Those 5 were definitely tougher than the first 7, but I didn't put the barbell down until I had finished off the 12th rep.  

I moved back to the rope and repeated everything I had done during the first round of rope climbs.  I'm sure the breaks between climbs were longer, but I was getting a lot of solid practice in with the X-hook.  The last climb of the round was the first one where I noticed that I wasn't all that close to the 15' mark after two pulls.  That wasn't a deficiency in the technique.  It was simply a sign that I wasn't getting my knees as high as before due to fatigue.

When I got back to my box for the last round of DB step-ups, I was certain that I wasn't going to catch Tia.  Steve, Steph, and Mariana seemed too far ahead as well.  Ashley was struggling with the shoulder press, so I had a large lead on her.  There was no one left to push me, so I'd have to push myself.  I didn't do a very good job.  The DB step-ups were miserable.  I tripped on the box not once, not twice, but three times in the final round.  Apparently my inability to draw my knees high wasn't limited to the rope climbs.  I went 4-4-4 before completing the last round with 6 in a row, helped by Keithie coming over and encouraging me to hang on.  He wasn't done.  He told me to get all 9 shoulder presses when I walked over to my barbell.  That seemed like a big ask given how tired I was, but I'm a special kind of stubborn.  Amid much yelling and grunting, I held on for all 9 reps.

All that remained were the rope climbs.  After pushing through 6 DB step-ups and 9 unbroken shoulder presses, I needed a breather before that first climb.  When I felt ready, I got through climb #1 without much of a problem.  Same thing with climb #2.  However, I had little left in the way of grip with one climb to go.  I applied an extra thick layer of chalk to my hands and told myself it was just three pulls and then I was done.  They were some pretty slow pulls and I didn't do a wonderful job of raising my knees, but I was able to reach up and slap the 15' mark after the third pull.  Final time: 21:37.

Certainly not one of my finer performances, but I got through this difficult workout and even learned something new along the way.  Rope climbs show up frequently in our programming, so I'm sure I'll be working on the X-hook quite a bit in the upcoming months.

Monday preview: It's Memorial Day, so it's time for Murph.  I haven't done this workout in any form since 2013.  How would it go four years later?

Full Blown Idiot

Workout date: 5/24/17

Because I'm in class with Bryan quite often, we've begun trading some Facebook messages back and forth early in the day to discuss the WOD we will be doing later that night.  Bryan had some reservations about coming back in for Wednesday's workout because he had torn up his hands doing Holbrook the night before.  I had no such concerns.  My grips had done a great job of protecting my hands.  Those grips might look goofy, but they perform as advertised.  I'd be calling on them again in the second half of Wednesday's workout.  Here's what it looked like:

Wednesday's WOD:
3 rounds:
50 double unders
10 overhead squats (135/95)
*5 minute rest*
5 rounds:
3 bar muscle-ups
20 KB swings (53/35)

I was still riding high from my comeback performance on Holbrook, so I was dreaming big when it came to this workout.  Sets of 50 double unders were in my wheelhouse.  I didn't love KB swings, but 20 reps per round didn't sound all that bad.  Know what I do love?  Overhead squats!  My 10RM was 165 pounds, so getting through three rounds of 10 reps at 135 didn't sound so daunting.  I could break those up into two sets of five and be fine.  Even completing 15 bar muscle-ups didn't strike me as impossible.  Twice before, I'd completed 9 in a workout.  Plus I had a breakthrough while doing pull-ups not 24 hours earlier.  Maybe I was about to transfer that pull-up mojo into additional bar muscle-up success!  How far was optimistic Dave's head shoved up his own ass?  When Bryan discussed possible scaling options for this workout, I responded by saying that I was "definitely going full blown idiot and seeing how spectacularly I could fail".  I had no idea how prescient those words would be.

The 7:30 class on Wednesday is usually run by Coach Jenna, but Giulz was filling in for her for the second consecutive week.  She had 4 athletes in her class as Ashley and Jocelyn were joining me and Bryan.  This WOD was going to be on the longer side, so Giulz wasted little time having us get equipment out so that we could walk through the various movements.  We started with the items from the second section of the workout.  We got a lighter KB than the one we would be using in the WOD and did some Russian swings and some American swings.  We then came over to the pull-up rig and went through pull-up progressions before talking about the scaling options for bar muscle-ups (bar muscle-ups with a band, jumping bar muscle-ups, chest-to-bar pull-ups, regular pull-ups, and ring rows).

From there, we turned our attention to the first half of the workout.  All of us got out our jump ropes and we started with single unders.  Then Giulz asked me to demo what 5 consecutive double unders looked like.  Mr. Confidence stood amongst the group, twirled his rope, and immediately hit himself with it before completing a single rep.  "Still at zero", Giulz informed me.  I was able to do 5 in a row on my second try, but that initial failure was the first omen that things were not going to go well for me in this workout.

The last movement to go over was the overhead squat.  Giulz strongly recommended that we choose a weight that we could snatch.  She really didn't want us doing a clean and jerk to get the barbell overhead for these squats.  That introduced some doubt into my mind.  It's not like I couldn't snatch 135 pounds, but my plan coming into the workout was to perform the easier clean and jerk, get the barbell overhead, then take care of the squats.  I did not have a lot of faith that I could power snatch 135 pounds repeatedly, so if I was following Giulz's instructions, I would need to begin my sets with a squat snatch.  That was going to be a lot tougher than the clean and jerk would have been.  As a result, I considered scaling the weight.  Rather than put 45 pound plates on my barbell, I grabbed two 35 pound plates and two 10 pound plates.  I did a few practice reps with just the 35 pound plates on the barbell (115 pounds total) and Giulz was satisfied enough with the reps that she said I could increase the weight if I wanted to.  Operation Full Blown Idiot was a go!

The four of us got ready to begin the double unders and the overhead squats.  Giulz gave us some guidance on how long this first section of the workout should take.  She wanted us to keep it in the neighborhood of six minutes.  Still no alarms going off in my head.  I could do 50 double unders in a minute.  I could do two sets of 5 overhead squats in a minute.  3 rounds at that pace would take me 6 minutes.  Piece of cake!  When it came to the back half of the workout, I was going to attempt to do bar muscle-ups for as long as I could.  With only 3 per round, I thought I might make it through 2-3 rounds before switching to jumping bar muscle-ups.  If things went really well, I might get through all 5 rounds.  As for the KB swings, performing two sets of 10 swings per round seemed perfectly reasonable.  Up until the point that Giulz said "3, 2, 1...go", my plan for this workout seemed very rational to me.  Then it began...

Remember how I flubbed the double under demo during the warmup?  That wasn't an isolated incident.  Or perhaps I should say the set of 5 I did in the warmup wasn't an isolated incident.  I didn't have to worry about doing an unbroken set of 50 double unders because I had a hard enough time piecing together 10 in a row.  I couldn't get any momentum going.  Usually when I struggle with double unders, I'll mess up on that very first rep of the set.  If I can get past that first rep, then I'll usually be fine for a while.  Not on this night.  I thought I'd complete this 1st set of 50 in well under a minute, but instead the clock was showing about 1:30 when I got over to my barbell.  I was able to make this round look respectable when I did two sets of 5 overhead squats with 135 pounds, but that turned out to be much harder than I imagined as well.  As I headed back to the jump rope, I began considering breaking up those 10 overhead squats into three sets during round two.  The clock still hadn't reached 2:30 yet when I finished round one, so I wasn't way behind the pace Giulz wanted.  All I needed to do was get my act together on the double unders.

That didn't happen in round two.  Or round three.  Over and over again, I'd complete 3-5 reps and then manage to hit myself with the rope.  It was like I had completely forgotten how to do double unders.  I think my biggest set during those three rounds of double unders was about 12 in a row.  I knew I had to remain calm to get through them, but as I slowly finished off round two, there was no way I could be anything but angry.

It was about to get worse.  Those overhead squats felt heavier than they should have in round one.  In round two, they were too much for me to handle.  I was able to do a squat snatch, stand up with it, and follow it up with a second rep.  But when I went for a third rep, I careened forward and had to bail the barbell.  I took some time to regroup before doing another squat snatch.  I was barely able to stand that one up.  I was shaking as I tried to do another rep and my lack of stability led to another failure.  My next squat snatch was a miss.  I managed to get the next one and stand it up, but now I was simply snatching instead of overhead squatting because I couldn't tack on any additional reps after the snatch.  Doing one rep at a time was not a realistic option, so I ripped off the 10 pound plates  and chucked them towards the front of the class.  (Don't worry, no one was up there.)  I attempted to squat snatch 115 pounds and failed on my first attempt.  Expletives were yelled.  I got under it the second time and managed to hold on for a few more overhead squats, but three consecutive reps was my max at this moment.  After another break, I did the final three overheads and came back to my jump rope.

As you might have guessed, I was way behind the rest of the class by now.  My third round of double unders put me even further behind because it was no better than either of my first two rounds.  I threw my rope towards those discarded 10 pound plates as I approached my barbell for the final time.  Giulz told me that I didn't need to keep squat snatching the barbell and she was right.  I could power snatch 115 pounds comfortably.  That gave me the extra stability I needed for bigger sets.  I did a set of 6 overheads to begin, then finished off the 1st half of the workout with a set of 4.  Time as I hit intermission: 10:58.

I'd say that was a smidge off of the time that Giulz had recommended.  As I began my mandatory 5 minute rest, the other three members of the class were about to conclude theirs.  I didn't even want the 5 minute rest.  I certainly wasn't moving fast enough during the first half of that workout to require one.  After about a minute, I was all set to go again.  So I got to stew for 4 minutes.  Joy!  I no longer had any confidence that I could do bar muscle-ups, so I grabbed a 13" box and a 25 pound plate for jumping bar muscle-ups.  I sat on that box while I watched Bryan, Ashley, and Jocelyn work on the second half of the WOD.  As the clock closed in on 15:58, I thought of the one thing that would bring me a little happiness in this terrible workout: getting a bar muscle-up.

The idea of getting a bar muscle-up after failing so spectacularly on double unders and overhead squats seemed very far-fetched, but I was coming off of a 5 minute rest period.  It would either happen on my first couple of attempts or it wouldn't happen at all.  I wasn't going to spend all night trying to get one because I was already well behind my classmates.  The clock hit 15:58 and I put everything I had into my 1st attempt.  If it wasn't close at all, I'd bring over the box and begin jumping bar muscle-ups.  If it was close, I'd give myself two more attempts.  Or...

...I could get one on my first try!  It wasn't pretty and it involved me slowly rotating over the bar like a rotisserie chicken, but I got a bar muscle-up.  It was the only one I would get as my next couple of attempts weren't particularly close, but it gave me the boost I needed to complete the workout.  Because let's face it, I kinda wanted to quit after the double unders and the overheads went so poorly. I finished off round one of bar muscle-ups by jumping from my 15" box/plate combo for two reps.  Then I came to the KB and did two sets of 10 reps.  This was already going much better than the first half had.  The only problem was that four rounds remained.  And my classmates were nearly done.  They would soon be doing a lot of cheerleading.

The remaining 12 jumping bar muscle-ups went much easier than I expected.  I've always depended on the 15" box/plate combo because the 17" box seemed like too much help and the 13" box was not enough.  But now that I have the ability to do a bar muscle-up every now and then, maybe I don't need as much assistance when I turn to jumping bar muscle-ups.  I'll be trying out the 13" box next time around.  The only issue on the jumping bar muscle-ups was that my hands had become sweaty and I needed to dry my hands (grips) off after every rep.

For the KB swings, I decided to go 8-6-6 for the next three rounds.  When I started round 4 of my KB swings, Giulz and my 3 classmates began cheering for me enthusiastically, thinking it was my last round.  It was not.  It was kinda embarrassing completing the 20th swing, hearing some loud cheers, and having to tell all of them that I still had another round to go.  Yes, I was that far behind.  Because I went through my final 3 jumping bar muscle-ups quickly, my arms were more fatigued than they had been previously when I got back to the KB.  Giulz wanted me to go 10-10, but I had to put the KB down after 5 reps.  I did another 5 after that.  As I took my last break, Giulz implored me to hold on for the remaining 10 and I was able to do so (although there was much unpleasant grunting).  Final time: 28:26.

My body had let me know in no uncertain terms that I needed a rest day.  I just wish it had been a little clearer that I needed one on Wednesday.  Oh well.  I got through this WOD about 5 minutes after everyone else in class.  That's pretty hard to pull off, but I was especially putrid on this evening. I'd be resting Thursday and waiting until Friday for my next workout.

Friday preview:  Keithie teaches me how to improve my rope climbs.  The WOD includes a movement that I tested out back in the day with LC and Michal when they made me do psychotic cash-outs after class.

Fran's Tasting Menu

Workout date: 5/23/17

Tuesday's have become known for three things this year:

1. Dudes After Dark (duh)
2. Workouts with insane amounts of pull-ups
3. Birthdays

Not just anyone's birthdays.  For some odd reason, the diehards who attend Dudes After Dark have seen their birthdays end up on a Tuesday in 2017.  Last month, Neil's birthday fell on a Tuesday.  LC has already informed us that her birthday will fall on a Tuesday in August.  And on May 16th, Cline celebrated his birthday.  Wait, isn't this a post about events occurring on May 23rd?  Well yeah, but like Neil, Cline avoided coming in on his actual birthday.  We'd have to wait a week before we could all celebrate the day he came into the world.  How do Crossfitters celebrate birthdays?  The correct answer should be "ice cream cake", but unfortunately the real answer is "burpees".  Typically the number of burpees we would perform would match the attained age of the guest of honor, but unless Cline is much older than I think he is, we probably went overboard with our "celebration".

The warmup was a tabata-style rotation through three stations: the ski erg, a burpee station (for Cline's b-day), and an air squat station.  We'd spend 20 seconds at each station before moving on and we did three full rounds through the rotation.  There were five of us in class, so we had a pair starting at the ski erg (Neil and the belated birthday boy), a pair at the burpee station (me and Bryan), and one lone lady starting with air squats (Ashley).  Bryan and I were facing each other at the burpee station and I did my best to be synchronized with my partner even though I knew he was faster than me at burpees.  I couldn't help but be distracted by Bryan's smiling during the burpees because...well because no one should ever smile during burpees.  They are an instrument of the devil.  The delirious look on Bryan's face was freaking me out.  I was very relieved every time we moved on to the ski erg.  Since there were 5 of us doing 20 seconds of burpees three times over, I'd estimate the class honored Cline with close to 100 burpees.  That's more than enough to cover him for next year too.

Now that we had Cline's birthday covered, it was time to deal with another Tuesday tradition: a workout with way too many pull-ups.  I estimated we did 100 burpees in the warmup.  I wouldn't need to estimate that we'd be doing 100 pull-ups in the WOD.  We would be taking on Holbrook for the second time this year.  It was a hero WOD that had been selected as one of our 2017 benchmark workouts.  Here's what it looks like:

"Holbrook"
10 rounds
5 thrusters (115/75)
10 pull-ups
100 meter sprint
*1 minute of rest between rounds

You can think of this workout as Fran's Tasting Menu.  You get 10 tapa-like courses of thrusters and pull-ups with just a hint of sprints added in for flavor.  My memories from doing this in February included:

• Initially freaking out about having to do 100 pull-ups, especially in a workout that included thrusters and sprinting.  How in the world was I going to keep my time in the realm of respectability?  And how was I going to stay within shouting distance of the rest of the class?
• My solution to those two questions was to go light on the thrusters.  Rather than try and use the RX weight of 115 pounds, I scaled down to 95 pounds.  I thought the thrusters might tire me out for the pull-ups and I needed to save as much energy as I could if I was going to get through 100 of those.
• I did a decent job of staying with the class, although Steph C and Cline got away from me towards the end of the workout.  I was concerned that this workout could take me over 30 minutes, but I managed to finish one second shy of 27 minutes.
• I nearly got hit by a car on the final sprint of the night, so I was going to need to stay alert on the traffic situation during those 100 meter sprints.
• Cline told me at the end of the workout that he used 105 pounds for his thrusters.  I tend to go slightly heavier than Cline when it comes to barbell movements, so this was a role reversal.  Perhaps I was a little too cautious with my choice of thruster weight.

LC had each of us go through our standard pull-up progressions first before we turned our attention to the thruster.  Each of us grabbed an empty barbell to practice with as LC broke down the movement and made sure we displayed proper form.  Then she told us to grab plates so that we could get our barbell ready for the workout.  I wasn't the only one that remembered I had gone light on the thruster back in February.  As we loaded up our barbells, Cline turned to me and asked me if I was going to be sandbagging again.  Super offensive.  I mean, he was 100% accurate in calling me out for going so light in February, but words hurt.  I planned on redeeming myself by using 105 pounds this time, while attempting to beat my previous time of 26:59.  Cline was also using 105, while Neil was going with the full 115.  Ashley and Bryan would be using 75 pounds.

When I did this in February, it was as part of a larger class, so there were more targets that I could latch on to in hopes that I wouldn't fall way behind everyone.  If I was going to stay with this class, I would need to keep up with Neil and Cline.  Bryan was strong on pull-ups, so he was going to be quick in this workout.  Ashley had only done 5 pull-ups per round in February and it sounded like she was going to do the same here.  There was no chance I'd be going twice as fast as her on the pull-up bar.  That left Neil and Cline.  Neil was likely to be a little faster than me on the thrusters and Cline was going to be faster on the sprints.  As for pull-ups, I rated us all as pretty even.  The deciding factor in how the three of us finished might just come down to how well we held it together for 10 rounds.

As much as I love to divulge every detail that I can remember from the workout in these blog posts, there was no way I was going to be able to remember all of my splits from this workout.  I noted what my time was at the end of round one and at the end of round ten (obviously), but everything in between was a bit of a blur.  You are constantly looking at the clock in this workout, but that is so you can see when your one minute of rest begins and ends.  I did try to figure out what my pace was as I went along in this workout to see if I was on track to beat my time from February, but it was too hard to remember the times at the end of every round I completed.  Sorry!

LC had told us that we should be able to complete 5 unbroken thrusters with the barbell weight we chose and that is precisely what the Dudes After Dark quintet did to kick off this workout.  When I got to the pull-up bar, I planned on doing sets of 2 pull-ups as fast as I could.  After completing my 5th set of two, I turned to run out the door.  As suspected, Bryan and Ashley were out leading the way.  I headed out the door alongside of Neil and we were joined by Cline before we hit the turnaround point.  The three of us came back into the gym together.  Time at the end of round 1: 1:10.

That was a nice quick round for me.  My splits per round were definitely going to get slower as this workout progressed, but if I could sneak in some sub-1:30 rounds early on, it would help even out those slower 2:30-ish rounds that were inevitable later in the WOD.  Round 2 began and I knocked out 5 more thrusters before sticking with the plan of doing five sets of two pull-ups.  Those 10 pull-ups took longer than the initial 10, but when I headed out the door, I was right behind Neil and Cline.  I hadn't dropped away from them.  Yet.

I didn't feel all that winded as I got ready for round 3, but this was where my performance began to tail off.  I made it through the 5 thrusters, but then I struggled on the pull-up bar.  The second pull-up of each set was becoming eerily close to a strict pull-up.  After four ugly sets like that, I decided to finish the round with 2 singles instead.  When I made my way out the door for the sprint, I saw that Cline and Neil were already at the turnaround point.  I was 50 meters behind them.  If I continued to be this far off their pace each round, they might lap me by the end.  I was not pleased.

Round 4 got off to an even rockier start.  Maybe I was rushing things because I was behind, but as I transitioned from the end of my third thruster into the start of my fourth thruster, the barbell got away from my body.  I couldn't control it and had to drop it.  I was quick about picking it back up again to complete the last two thrusters, but I'm sure LC began to have doubts about whether I chose the correct weight for this workout.  I was dead last.  I was supposed to go unbroken on my thrusters in every round, yet here I was dropping the barbell in round four.  The optics weren't good.  At the pull-up bar, I tried to get back to sets of two, but I only completed two sets like that before moving to singles.  Things were looking pretty bleak, but this would actually be the moment when I turned this workout around.  

As I did the first couple of singles, I noticed that I was getting my chin way over the bar as I wildly kipped myself upwards.  It dawned on me that I was probably wasting precious energy kipping that hard and propelling myself that high.  I needed to get my chin over the bar, not my entire neck.  So I decided to experiment a little bit.  Why not try and use a less forceful kip?  Sure, there was the chance that I'd not kip hard enough and get a no rep.  If that happened, I could go back to the wild kip.  But if this worked out, maybe I'd save enough energy to keep Neil and Cline from lapping me.  The lighter kip worked on my last few singles of round four and as I headed out the door, I saw that Neil and Cline were beginning the run back towards me.  I hadn't lost much ground to them in round four.  More importantly, I was feeling better about my chances of staying somewhat close to them.

For the rest of the workout, I completed all of my thrusters unbroken.  I'm not sure why, but I still felt compelled to start my pull-ups with a set of 2 before trusting in the singles with the light kip.  For the last 8 pull-ups of each round, I did two blocks of 4 quick singles.  That happened in each of the next four rounds.  When I headed out the door for sprint #5, Neil and Cline were no longer inward bound on their run.  They were still outward bound, meaning I had made up time on them.  As I headed out for the 6th sprint, I was right behind them, back in the same position I was when we had done round #2.  When I completed the 10th pull-up of round 7, I ran out the door knowing that Neil and Cline were still doing pull-ups.  I was now ahead of them!  I had worked so hard to push the pace and make up the deficit that I didn't want to let them catch me again.  I extended my lead even further on round 8.  I was headed back towards the gym before either of them started their run.  Now I was the one with a lead of over 50 meters.

As I took my required 60 seconds of rest before round nine, I made the decision to quit with that set of 2 I was doing to begin my pull-ups.  The singles with the light kip were working so well that there was no reason for me not to do all 10 reps that way.  I could go 4-3-3 on my quick singles and likely move faster than I had been the last four rounds.  After completing my 5 thrusters, I did 4 quick singles like I planned.  As I began the next set of 3, LC started yelling to me to stay on the bar.  I'm not sure if she meant "string those reps" or "don't take a break", but I interpreted it as the latter.  Rather than go 3-3 on the last 6 reps, I kept leaping up to the high bar until I completed all six pull-ups that remained.  My sprint was more of a jog, but I completed all 100 meters before Neil or Cline had finished their ninth round of pull-ups.

I lied.  I have a general idea of what the clock said at the end of round 9.  It was close to 23:00.  I know that because I remember thinking that I needed to finish the last round in under 2 minutes to break 26 minutes total.  (Round 10 wouldn't begin until around 24:00 due to the mandatory 1 minute rest period between rounds.)  I'd have to hustle, but it wasn't an impossible task.  I wasn't racing Neil and Cline anymore, I was racing the clock.  When my minute was up, I did those 5 thrusters as quickly as I could.  At the pull-up bar, I began with 4 quick singles.  I tried to keep the break short.  I had dreams of duplicating round 9 where I stayed on the bar until the remaining 6 pull-ups were done.  That was not to be.  I had to break these ones up into two blocks of three.  I did keep the break between those blocks relatively short though.  When pull-up #100 was finished, I bolted for the door.  I hesitated for a second to make sure I wasn't about to get crushed by a truck, then I sprinted to the turnaround point and back.  Final time: 25:39.

I'm not sure I can think of another Crossfit workout that I've done where I managed to completely turn around my fortunes in the middle of it.  Nearly 40% of the way through this workout, I was struggling badly.  Then I figured something out and picked up the pace the rest of the way.  I ended up a minute ahead of Cline and two minutes ahead of Neil after worrying early on that they were going to lap me.  It was great figuring out something that helped me with my pull-ups, but I think I was even prouder of the fact that I kept pushing the pace all the way until the end.  I could very easily have fallen into a lull once I caught back up to Cline and Neil.  Instead I kept finding ways to motivate myself and avoid letting up.  And I beat my time from February by 1 minute and 20 seconds with 10 more pounds on my barbell.  I'll definitely be trying this workout with the RX weight of 115 pounds the next time it gets scheduled.

Wednesday preview: The toll from two hard days in a row gets paid on Wednesday night when I foolishly decide to push my limits.  My body decides not to comply.

Greased Pig

Workout dates: 5/21/17 and 5/22/17

Crossfit can be an incredibly frustrating experience.  Most people find it very exciting when they start Crossfit and see huge gains in their lifts or learn a movement that they had never been able to do before.  Inevitably every athlete begins to plateau a bit.  Your PRs begin to taper off and it takes a hell of a lot more work to eek out a tiny bit of improvement.  Those "aha!" moments are fewer and farther between.  So when one of those moments do actually happen, you become very eager to push the envelope.  A week earlier, I had done a version of Annie that included a 7 minute time cap.  I didn't make the time cap, but I finished the workout anyway.  Annie requires athletes to complete sets of double unders and sit-ups of decreasing lengths (50, 40, 30, 20, and 10).  They don't have to be consecutive, but if you want to shoot for a time as fast as 7 minutes, it's better if you don't have to break along the way.  I broke only once during the double unders in that workout, about midway through the set of 40.  For someone who has struggled with double under consistency, that performance resonated as an "aha!" moment for me.

To truly test how far I had come with my double under consistency, I had to take on the workout that just missed the cut in terms of appearing on my "top 10 goals for 2017" list.  That workout is known as the Flight Simulator.  Unlike Annie, you are required to complete unbroken sets of double unders in the Flight Simulator.  Inconsistency results in a lot of wasted effort.  If you flawlessly complete all of the sets in the Flight Simulator unbroken, you only have to do 500 double unders.  Mess up along the way and that figure could grow quickly.  Here are the details on the Flight Simulator:

"Flight Simulator"
5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40-45-50-45-40-35-30-25-20-15-10-5
Unbroken sets of double unders
Time cap: 25 minutes

That middle section from 30 up to 50 and back down to 30 again is where you truly get tested in this workout.  I've blazed through the first four or five sets when I've done this in the past, but I've lost my way once the middle section began.  There's nothing worse than getting through 99% of those larger sets and then hitting yourself with the rope.  You get no credit for any of that work, but you feel all of the repercussions both physically (fatigue) and mentally (frustration).  The best I've done is get through the first round of 45 in this workout.  Even though I know there's a lot of work on the other side of that 50 rep set, I've always felt that if I could get over that hump, I'd have a really good shot at completing the entire workout.  I just couldn't waste so much time and energy on incomplete sets.

I gave the Flight Simulator another shot on Sunday afternoon.  I had taken two days (Friday and Saturday) off from the gym and felt pretty fresh.  Part of me wanted to work out because I felt bad about missing the Filthy Fifty WOD on Friday.  I was glad that I had the discipline to take that day off when my body was in need of some rest, but it always sucks missing a workout that you've been waiting to see show up in the programming.  My penance was 25 minutes in my driveway with my jump rope.

The one change I was making with this attempt was with regards to my breaks in between sets.  I've been trying my best to decrease the length of the breaks I take during workouts at the gym.  On Sunday, I was reversing course.  Incomplete sets during the Flight Simulator were a killer.  It was better to rest more and feel relatively certain that I could get the next set before I started twirling the rope again.

I didn't have any hiccups early on.  I had the sets of 5, 10, and 15 done in under a minute.  I began implementing my rest strategy at that point.  I was pretty sure that I could have moved right into the set of 20, but why not give myself an extra 15 seconds or so to rest and increase my chances of getting 20 in a row?  It worked as I got all 20 in my next set.  I took a longer break before getting the set of 25.  As the sets got longer, so did my breaks, but I remained perfect through the sets of 30 and 35.

I was only two large sets away from tying my best score on this workout and I had 20 minutes to work with.  To say things were going well was an understatement.  It looked like I was about to complete my 8th straight unbroken set in a row, but then I caught myself with the rope 32 reps into the round of 40.  That was an obnoxiously large set that I was getting no credit for.  I rested again and told myself not to let it bother me.  On my next attempt, I made it through 40 consecutive double unders.  Then I got 45 in a row on my first try.  I had already tied my best score on this workout and I had 15 minutes remaining.  Today was the day I was going to finish the Flight Simulator.

I did some quick math while I rested.  It took me 10 minutes to do the sets from 5 to 45.  I'd have to do that again on the back side of this workout.  If I maintained that pace, it gave me 5 minutes to complete the round of 50.  That sounded reasonable to me, despite the fact that I had never completed that many in this workout.  I knew I had done it for Annie as well as some other WODs at the gym, so it wasn't like I was incapable of putting together 50 in a row.  I just needed to remain patient.  That patience was tested when I began failing on the set of 50.  I didn't have any crushing failures (like getting 49 before missing on 50), but messing up several times in a row did plant the seed of doubt in my mind.  On the fourth try, doubt turned into excitement.  I made it through 50 reps.  I was now on the downhill portion of the workout with 11 minutes to go.

11 minutes would be plenty of time for me if I had smooth sailing from 45 to 5 like I did on the way up from 5 to 45, but the waters were much choppier downstream.  I'm not sure how many tries it took me to get through the second round of 45, but it was a lot.  I even had a set where I made it to 40 and then failed, which really hurt late in the workout.  40 may have been my lucky number though.  Once I completed the set of 45, I came back and got 40 in a row during my next set.  Time was starting to become a factor, but in my head, I was thinking I only had four real sets to go.  I could get the sets of 15, 10, and 5 in quick succession at the end.  I just needed to get the four medium-sized sets that preceded them.

The time pressure increased when I began messing up on my attempts for the second round of 35.  While failed sets of 30 or more reps would be deflating, it was just as hard to deal with sets that never began.  I started to hit myself with the rope before registering a single rep, a clear sign that I was tiring out.  There was less than five minutes to go according to my phone and my prospects for completing this workout were getting dimmer by the moment.

Eventually I got through the round of 35.  I knew I had to shorten my breaks if I wanted to finish, so it wasn't long before I got into the round of 30.  I completed that on the first try.  I glanced at my phone and saw that there was 2:40 remaining before the time cap.  If I could get the round of 25 and 20 in the next 1:40, I believed I could finish.  I tried to rush into the set of 25, but it just resulted in me hitting myself with the rope twice before getting a rep.  I took a couple seconds to compose myself, then tried again.  It was looking good.  21...22...23...24...<thump>

I had mentally moved on to the next round, but I forgot to finish the last rep of the one I was working on.  When I realized that set was all for nothing, it broke me.  There was no chance I was completing the Flight Simulator now.  I didn't know how much time was remaining, but it didn't matter.  I needed a break.  There was a little over a minute left when I tried again.  I did two sets that fell short of 15 reps.  I was ready to give up when I saw there was about 30 seconds remaining.  That was enough time for one last try.  I had a good rhythm going, but after 20 reps, another set fell apart.  That would be it for me.  The time cap struck while I was on the second set of 25 double unders.  Kinda disappointing after such a hot start, but at least I know I'm on the verge of completing this workout.

On Monday, I was one of a dozen athletes taking part in Coach Giulz's 6:30 class.  There were two parts to the class:

Monday's WOD:
Strength: Find your 5RM deadlift (5 working sets)
Cash-out:
9-15-21
2-fer wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
Deadlifts (50% of your 5RM)

If you don't remember what 2-fer wall balls are, you can think of them as a psychotic version of the regular wall ball.  With the regular wall ball, you break parallel with your squat, drive upwards, and shoot a medicine ball up to a designated mark on the wall.  When the ball comes down from the wall, you catch it and repeat the process.  With the 2-fer wall ball, you have to perform an additional squat while the ball is in the air, so you are doing 2 squats for every wall ball shot.  You know, because plain old wall balls simply aren't hard enough.  Giulz had me demo the 2-fer wall balls for the class, secretly hoping that I would take a ball to the face.  The joke was on her.  I was saving that for the cash-out.

Giulz had us all grab our own barbells as we went through the deadlift progressions.  Once those were done, she mentioned that we could partner up if we wanted to.  Matt B was in class, so I figured we might as well consolidate and share a barbell.  Except we all needed our own barbell for the cash-out.  Matt told me to just throw mine off to the side for now and we could share his barbell.  I was a little concerned that this was gonna screw Matt over because he is better at the deadlift than I am, but he thought we'd end up doing about the same for the 5RM.  We would end up using the same weights for all of the sets.  Only one of us would complete the 5th working set.  (Take a wild guess who!)

We started off nice and light with sets of 5 using 135 pounds and 185 pounds.  225 was our first working set and that was no problem for the both of us.  I wouldn't describe the set at 275 pounds as extremely difficult, but it was the set that let me know things were about to become less pleasant.  I strained to get through 315, while Matt breezed through it.  The second to last set was 335 and I barely maintained my grip long enough to get through 5 reps.  Matt continued to look like he was doing warmup sets.  Before the final set at 355, I told Matt that I was going to get a maximum of 3 reps.  Call it a self-fulfilling prophecy if you like, but after my 3rd rep, my grip failed.  Final score for me: 335.

As for Matt, he made it through four reps before finally showing that he was human.  He winced as he pulled the barbell off the floor for rep #5, but he got it.  I think he probably should have gone heavier than me as we made our way through the sets because he could have ended up with a final score more along the lines of 375 rather than 355 if he had done so.  But he was trying to be accommodating to me and I greatly appreciated the gesture.

For the cash-out, Giulz encouraged us to keep our time under 8 minutes as best as we could.  I had considered going lighter on the wall ball to give myself a better chance of making that happen, but then Matt and Neil grabbed 20 pound wall balls.  I couldn't be tossing around a 16 pound wall ball if they were using 20 pounds.  I reluctantly traded in my lighter wall ball for the RX variety.  For my deadlift, I used 170 pounds for my deadlift (rounding up after taking 50% of 335).  The rep scheme for the cash-out was the always unpleasant increasing kind, going 9-15-21 rather than the typical 21-15-9.  Should the order make a difference?  No.  But mentally it does.  The 21-15-9 setup feels better as you go along, while the 9-15-21 setup feels worse as you go along.

Giulz got the 12 of us lined up and ready to begin.  My thoughts as we got ready to go?  Remember to breathe.  Remember to do that second squat.  Take short breaks.  Don't let the ball hit you in the face!  For the first round, I split up the 2-fers five and four with a short break in between.  Then I strung all 9 of my deadlifts.  Yet somehow I was the last one in class to begin the round of 15.  Was everyone in my class amazing at 2-fers?  It seemed odd to me that no one was remotely struggling.  Maybe I'd catch up on the next round.

Or perhaps I'd fall further behind.  My biggest issue in the round of 15 was how slimy my ball was getting.  It was a very humid evening and the sweat was pouring off of me and on to my ball.  I wasn't picking it up in the same place every time, meaning that I was allocating sweat to every region of the ball.  That would have made it tough to catch even if I wasn't rushing to get a second squat in as it came hurtling towards me.  Adding in that extra squat made it nearly impossible.  It was like trying to grab a greased pig.  I had the ball slip through my hands and hit me in the face once.  After that, I made sure my hands were out in front of me so that if the ball slipped through, it would hit the floor rather than my mug.  Soon the only way I could do consecutive reps was by catching the ball with my arms rather than my hands.  I would then roll it to my hands and continue on.  That process was very slow.  Making matters worse was the pace of the rest of the class.  It still seemed like no one else was taking breaks!  Maybe I was mistaken, but it felt like the breaks I was taking were short, just as I was hoping for.  Yet there was the rest of the class deadlifting as I finished up my 15 2-fers.

I knew it was unlikely that I'd be able to do 15 deadlifts in a row when I got to my barbell, so I tried to do three quick sets of 5.  Seemed like a good plan, but it still didn't help me catch up to the class.  I looked at the clock and I could tell I was going to have a difficult time meeting Giulz's 8 minute deadline.  It wasn't a hard time cap or anything like that, but falling short of it indicated that I had chosen my weights poorly for this cash-out.  After three sets of 5 deadlifts, I headed back to the wall.

It was impossible for me to do more than 2 consecutive reps with how slippery the ball had become, so I grinded away at my 21 reps two at a time.  It was definitely slow, but it was the best I could manage at that point.  By the time I got to my barbell, more than 8 minutes had elapsed on the clock.  Oh, and I was the only one still working.  The plan for the deadlifts was no different from round two. I was attempting to do three quick sets, only this time I had to hold on for seven reps in each set.  I was able to do so.  With the rest of the class encouraging me on, I didn't spend a lot of time catching my breath between sets.  My 2-fers may have been slow, but I was pretty fast getting through those 21 deadlifts.  Final time: 9:10.

I stuck around for Open Strength because...well, because I pretty much always do that on Monday nights.  A successful try at Annie had made me eager to work on double unders on Sunday afternoon. A recent streak of solid attempts at heavy snatches made me want to work on my snatch Monday night.  I had come close to hitting 180 pounds six straight times before finally standing it up on my 7th crack at it.  If I was that consistent at 180 pounds, why wouldn't I think that more was possible?

I began my march to 185 the same way I had begun my march to 180.  I started with 2 squat snatches at 115 and 135.  All four of those attempts went very smoothly.  My next lift was at 155 and I didn't have much issue standing that weight up either.  Then I moved on to 175 pounds.  It's been a long time since I've attempted 175 pounds because that had been my PR forever and I never like tying my PR.  Based on my recent tries at 180 pounds, I didn't think 175 would pose a huge problem for me.  Then I made my 1st attempt at 175.  It wasn't even close.  I had gotten used to seeing the barbell with 180 pounds on it fly high as I snatched it overhead.  It never occurred to me that I'd come up short with 175 pounds.  And I was way short, bailing it in front of my body immediately.

That was a nice little dose of humility I received.  As I rested before giving it another try, I started to wonder whether the WOD had sapped too much of my energy.  Maybe now wasn't the time to try and go heavy on the snatch.  I would give myself two more tries at 175 and if it didn't work out, I could move on to something else or head home for the night.  My second attempt wasn't successful, but it was a confidence booster.  I'm not sure if I was just lazy on that first attempt, but I pulled the barbell much higher this time.  In fact, I pulled so hard that I ended up having to dump the barbell behind me.

One last try at 175.  Over by the rings, I saw Kris.  I think she was doing some mobility work after completing her strength session.  She was now watching me as I made my snatch attempts.  I stepped up to the barbell feeling better about my chances with 175.  I told myself to pull as hard as I did on that second attempt.  If I got it high enough, I would do a better job of controlling it this time around. A second later, I was sitting in the bottom of my squat with the barbell overhead.  It was another one of those awkward moments where I was briefly in shock that I got the lift and completely forgot to stand up.  Kris didn't forget.  She yelled over to me to stand up and eventually I did.  175 wasn't pretty, but I got it.  Kris was upset that she didn't take a video of it on her phone, but I told her it wasn't a big deal since that lift wasn't a PR.  I'd need to hit my next lift for that.

I made the same deal with myself for the lift at 185 pounds.  I'd get three shots and if none of them panned out, I was done for the night.  On my first try, I got the barbell high enough, but it was out in front of me.  It was a miss, but it gave me the impression that I could handle 185 pounds.  Then this happened (and Kris was filming this time):

It was super fluky, but it counted!  When I caught the barbell in my squat, I felt like I was leaning forward.  As I went to correct my position, I somehow bounced upwards.  I didn't sit in the bottom of the squat like I normally do.  Before I knew it, I was standing up with the barbell.  I have no idea how that happened.  This is confirmed by the drunken stagger you see in the video after the lift.  My mind is trying to figure out what just happened while at the same time thinking "you forgot to celebrate, dummy!"  Everyone else is way more excited than me because I'm a dunce.

It took three tries to get 175.  It took only two to get 185.  Why not try 190?  Yes, I was getting extremely greedy now, but I thought I'd give it a shot.  After loading five more pounds to my barbell, I made an attempt at yet another PR.  It did not go well.  I barely got the barbell over my head before my arms started to give away.  The barbell came down, tapped me on my forehead and fell forward as I pushed it away a little too late.  I ended up with a red mark on my dome for my troubles.  It was a clear sign that I had reached my snatch limit for the night.

I finished off the evening with some additional double under practice, but most of my sets weren't very good.  I was definitely running low on energy at this point.  I somehow got through a set of 45 in a row before putting my jump rope away.  I couldn't imagine putting together a bigger set than that.

Tuesday preview: I sorta discover a better way to do pull-ups in the middle of a hero benchmark WOD.  Yay efficiency!

Nichols Plated

Workout date: 5/18/17

Having experienced what traffic was like on the way to the 5:30 class on Wednesday, I decided to give myself an extra 10 minutes on Thursday when I found myself needing to hit up the 5:30 class again.  Did that get me to the gym on time?  Of course not.  Somehow traffic was even worse on Thursday than it had been on Wednesday.  Because I gave myself some extra time, I was only about a minute late when I hustled into the gym.  The 5:30 class was seated in a circle around Coach Aimee, who let me know there was still some space available for me to sneak in.  Aimee had us do an icebreaker where we told everyone our name and our favorite brand of toothpaste.  Then she let us know that we needed to have a partner (ideally of the opposite sex) for this workout.  It wasn't essential that all of the pairs were male-female, but for organizational purposes, Aimee was going to have the "male" partner start first while the "female" partner would start two minutes later.

It was a packed house not only because we had 14 athletes there for the WOD, we also had helpers galore.  I'm not sure if Jeremy was officially shadowing Aimee's class, but he was her right hand man in terms of helping her keep an eye on all of the athletes.  We also had two former interns in attendance: Sarina and Jenna.

The interns mean business!

They were walking around the perimeter of the class, keeping an eye out in case anyone needed help. But in a WOD where we were using a rower, an assault bike, and a barbell, it was unlikely anyone would need help.  It wasn't like someone was going to destroy equipment in the middle of the workout.  That's just crazy talk!

I had been sitting next to Donna while we did the icebreaker, so I asked her if she wanted to be partners.  She was amenable, even though there was a strong chance that she'd be hopping on to a sweat-covered assault bike midway through this WOD.  There were already a bunch of rowers and assault bikes out from the previous class, so Aimee told us to grab our barbells and lay claim to one of the seven bikes that were on the floor.  I was hoping to get an assault bike and not one of the airdynes (those are easier), so when I saw one with nobody on it, I placed my empty barbell next to it and took a seat.  My claim was invalidated about 5 seconds later when Jill A came over and asked me what I was doing sitting on her bike.  I couldn't tell which of the remaining 6 bikes hadn't been spoken for yet as there were now empty barbells everywhere, but after talking with a few other groups, we discovered that there was an assault bike with our names on it.

The only decision that had to be made for this workout was the barbell weight.  Of course, it would probably help if I told you the details of the WOD so that you knew what the barbell was for.  Here's what the 14 of us were taking on in this class:

Thursday's WOD:

12 minute AMRAP

40 calorie row

30 calories on the assault bike

20 power cleans (185/125)

Because I have been so focused on doing squat cleans at the gym, I haven't given myself a lot of opportunities to practice power cleans.  When I was actively avoiding squat cleans, I could power clean a lot of weight.  It was my only option and I practiced it all the time.  Now that I'm basically avoiding power cleans, I've become skeptical of my ability with heavier weights.  About a month ago, there was a workout that included 4 clean and jerks per round over 5 rounds and I was essentially forced to power clean the barbell.  I used 185 pounds and most of the power cleans I did weren't very pretty.  If I went RX in this workout, I'd be doing 20 power cleans again with 185 pounds on the barbell and I suspected they would be a lot harder after getting off of the rower and the assault bike.  So my initial reaction to this WOD was that I should scale down to 165 pounds.

With 14 barbells all in one line next to the pull-up rig, there wasn't going to be a lot of space to move around.  Everyone was going to (hopefully) be very mindful of where their barbell would land when they let go of their power cleans.  If you let it bounce too much or roll away, it was bound to take out the legs of the person in front of you.  If that person was facing you, they might be able to jump out of the way, but if they were not...well, that could be big trouble for them.  That was another consideration for what weight I would use.  I didn't want to choose something so heavy that I might dump it uncontrollably and have it affect someone else's workout.

Aimee went down the line and watched us each do a rep or two with the weight we were thinking about doing.  Before she got to me, I performed a couple of power cleans on my own with 165 pounds.  They weren't easy, but they weren't a struggle either.  It felt like I should add some weight to my barbell.  Just to be sure, I did two more reps in front of Aimee and she encouraged me to add weight as well.  Using 175 seemed like a wimpy scale to me, so I sucked it up and put the full 185 on my barbell.  A practice rep let me know it was going to be heavy, but not impossible to move through 20 reps.

In terms of my goal for this workout, I was hoping to make it through two rounds on the rower (130 reps).  The scores were a lot more varied than they normally are, so I couldn't just look at the whiteboard and go "oh, the fire breathers in the gym scored 160, so 130 is reasonable for me".  Some of the people that typically kick my butt did have scores that high, but some of them were under 120 as well.  I just figured that two rounds of rowing and a round on the assault bike would take me about 8 minutes, leaving me 4 minutes for the 20 power cleans.  5 power cleans per minute with a heavy weight seemed like a good test for me.  If I could manage that, I'd probably reach 130 reps.

As I mentioned earlier, the setup was to have the male in each group start for their respective teams.  I'd get a two minute cushion before Donna would begin trying to track me down.  We each had our own rower, but we were sharing an assault bike, so if I wasn't off the assault bike by the time Donna finished her row, I'd be holding her up.  I didn't want that.  That didn't mean I would be going at some crazy pace until I got to my barbell, but I did keep it in mind any time I felt like slowing down on the row or the bike.  

I was nearing 40 calories on my rower when Donna began her row.  I had no idea how fast she rowed, but I thought I'd have about two and a half to three minutes on the bike unless she had a very strong row.  I transitioned from the rower to the bike and pedaled at a solid clip.  After two minutes, I was closing in on 30 calories.  That was when Jeremy came by and said to me (and everyone biking alongside of me) that we needed to get off the bikes as soon as we could because our partners were almost done with the row.  I couldn't see behind me, but I began picturing Donna standing there, arms folded, wondering why her partner was holding up her workout.  I picked up the pace at the end of the ride.  When I hit 30 calories, I hopped off and walked over to my barbell.  I looked over and Donna was taking a seat on the assault bike.  I cringed as I thought about how long she had to wait on me.

Finally, he's done with our bike!

(Note: After the workout, I asked Donna how long I held her up and she said not at all.  She said that I got off the bike right as she was loosening up her foot straps at the end of her row.  Donna is very nice, so I'm not sure whether she was just being kind to me or not, but it made me feel less guilty about the situation.)

The row and the bike had the effect I was expecting as I moved on to the power cleans.  My legs had a little give to them and my heart rate was up.  I decided that the best way to split up my 20 power cleans was to do 2 quick singles, then take a break.  If I was good about limiting how long my breaks were, I should be able to manage 10 sets of two in 4 minutes.  The first two breaks I took were not well-managed.  Because I had come directly from the bike and started the power cleans, I hadn't given myself a nice long breather.  I needed that breather after the first two power cleans.  I needed another one after the second set as well.  While taking that second breather, I started to get worried I was taking too long.  I didn't have to worry about being in Donna's way for the remainder of the workout, but everywhere I looked, it seemed like someone was picking up their barbell as I rested.  (Note: This was completely an illusion due to the size of the class.  My classmates were alternating between power cleans and taking rest, but if you're constantly seeing 3 or 4 people in front of you picking up their barbell, you start getting paranoid that you're the only one resting.)

I picked up the pace and shortened my breaks as I went through my next 5 sets of two reps.  While it was good that I was moving through the workout while needing less rest, I'm pretty sure that my form started to deteriorate.  Here's how I looked early on during the power cleans:

Keeping the barbell as close to my body as I could

(Spoiler: Are those cracks I see on the inside plate?)

By the time I reached my 14th rep, I had captured the attention of Aimee.  She came down and told me that I needed to start doing a partial squat as I performed my power cleans.  I was starting to hyperextend my back in an effort to yank the barbell up to my shoulders.  That was not good form.  I could save myself from some unpleasant back pain if I adjusted from no squat to a partial squat.  Sounded reasonable enough to me.  Plus, listening to Aimee's coaching gave me the first extended rest I'd had since I completed my second set of power cleans.  I set up for my next rep, pinned my shoulders back, and began to extend upwards.  As I went for the big pull that would drive the barbell upwards towards my shoulders, I started to squat a little bit.  Then I went sideways.  The right side of my barbell suddenly felt lighter and it had risen much more rapidly than the left side had.  My first thought was that someone had played a prank on me by grabbing the right side of the barbell and assisted me in the power clean.  That wasn't cool at all.  As I dropped my barbell, I turned to my right to see what had happened.  I couldn't believe what I saw.

Aimee was wide-eyed and asked if I was okay.  Next to her feet was half of the 45 pound plate (the inside plate from the photo above) that had been on the right side of my barbell.  Over next to the wall was the other half of the plate.  The plate had broken in two as I went for that big pull.  I hadn't noticed the cracks in the plate that are clearly visible in that photo.  And if you asked me to come up with a scenario where a plate would crack in two, I would have guessed it would happen after being dropped to the floor, not when it was being pulled from the floor.  As I started to comprehend what happened, I turned and walked away from my barbell in frustration.  I was aggravated that this happened to me in the middle of my workout.  There was less than 4 minutes left, so I didn't think there was much point in continuing on.  Donna and I were closer to the far end of the gym, so I was going to have to run up to the front, get a new 45 pound plate, take off the 25 pound plate, and add both plates back on before completing the workout.  That was probably going to take up a good chunk of my remaining time to do and I'd be wasting a lot of energy in the process.  I was ready to sit off to the side and spend the rest of my time cheering on Donna.

Aimee and Jeremy had different ideas.  Jeremy ran to the front and grabbed a new 45 pound plate for me as Aimee stripped off the 25 pound plate.  They reassembled my 185 pound barbell so that I could complete the workout.  I lost about 45-60 seconds as they did this, but there was no way I could refuse to go on after they had gone out of their way to help me out.  Since I had gotten so much extra rest, I decided that I would try to do as many singles in a row as I could.  The frustration probably helped out too.  One by one, I went through those power cleans, employing the partial squat that Aimee asked of me.  I made it through six in a row, finishing the 20 required to complete the round.  Still mildly pissed, I marched back to my rower.

I had just under 2 minutes left when I strapped my feet into the rower.  I wasn't going to reach 130 total reps, but I could make it fairly close to that mark.  I rowed at a fairly even pace during the first of those two minutes before emptying the tank in that last minute.  I managed to complete 80% of the row (32 out of 40 calories) by the time the clock struck twelve (minutes).  Final score: 122.

I didn't have to move at all in order to cheer my partner on during the next two minutes.  Her rower was right next to mine, so I was able to sit on my rower, recover, and yell semi-encouraging things to Donna as she wrapped up her workout.

With Donna and the rest of heat two finished, the topic of conversation became what the heck happened to me during my workout.  I heard a bunch of jokes about how strong I was and that helped lighten up my mood.  By the time I was getting ready to leave, I had begun to take pride in destroying gym equipment.  Even got my picture taken with the poor 45 pound plate who met his end at my hands:

You can always laugh about it after it's over

That plate had been shattered into pieces, but it was my body that felt destroyed by Thursday night.  Friday would have to be a rest day for me, so it was the start of a three-day gym weekend for me.

Sunday/Monday preview: After a successful run during Annie about a week ago, I decide to take another shot at the Flight Simulator on Sunday afternoon.  Then it is back to the gym on Monday for a strength WOD, a sweaty cash-out, and some snatch work to end the evening.

Awkwardly Grinding The Wall

Workout date: 5/17/17

After completing the workout on Friday, I ended up spending some time chatting with Shawna in the lobby of the gym.  Shawna is the one-woman decorating crew for the annual prom at our gym and she was scrambling to finish up her lunch before setting up this year's event.  It reminded me of all the times that I've come in for the Friday nooner and witnessed Aimee scarfing down her lunch as quickly as she could so that class started on time.  Shawna had a bunch of items on her to-do list, but the most daunting one seemed to be conquering the helium tank and creating a balloon arch for the festivities.

I think Shawna figured out the helium tank

Shawna had mentioned that she hadn't seen me in a few weeks.  Even though we've rarely taken classes together in the past, I used to run into Shawna a lot because I tended to take the class right after hers.  I'm not sure if she's started coming in earlier or whether I've started coming in later, but our paths had stopped crossing.  I knew there was one way I could guarantee seeing her and that was by attending her mobility class.  Shawna leads a mobility class in the annex once a month.  She let me know that the May class was taking place on the upcoming Wednesday.  I let her know that I would definitely be there.

Fast forward five days.  I was sitting in traffic wondering why no one in front of me could execute a left turn.  It felt like every driver from New Jersey was blocking my route to the gym.  Shawna's mobility class began at 5:30, so I knew traffic was going to be heavier than it normally is when I drive to the gym for 6:30 or 7:30 classes.  I thought I had built in enough extra time to get to the gym by 5:30, but as I sat there ripping out my non-existent hair, it became apparent that I was going to be late for class.  It was almost 5:35 when I pulled into the KOP parking lot.  I ran inside the main gym to drop off my bag (I was still doing the WOD at 6:30) before heading to the annex for mobility.

As I was dropping off my bag, Keithie asked me if I was there for class.  He was coaching the 5:30 and the class looked like they were filtering back in after a 400 meter run.  When I said I was actually there for mobility with Shawna, Keithie replied "oh that's right, I forgot you like the female coaches better".  It was good-natured ribbing in response to a recent post that I had written about the changing demographics of the coaching staff at KOP.  Keithie then told the class about my blog, which means that there may be 1 or 2 more people reading this simply because they were in his 5:30 class.  The real number is probably zero, but a guy can dream.

While I ran over to the annex, I thought about what Keithie had said and felt a bit guilty about it.  My intention in that post wasn't to make it seem like I prefer female coaches.  More than anything, it was to point out that the coaching staff went from feeling like it was all-male to all-female (based on the classes that I attend).  I wish it was more evenly split.  There definitely isn't enough Keithie in my life.  I've enjoyed the classes I've taken with Gordy.  Jason's classes were always fun, but I think he only coaches one class per week now.  Not one day per week.  One class.  So that rules him out.  "Constantly varied" is part of the Crossfit mantra and I'd like to experience a little more variety with the coaches.  A bit of what once was and a bit of what now is.  Maybe I should just get my butt up on Saturdays and come in for one of Keithie's weekend classes.

I scrambled up the stairs of the annex (even tripping along the way) in a sad attempt to limit my tardiness.  When I got upstairs, Shawna was guiding 2 athletes I knew (Donna and Sarah) and 2 that I didn't know (Leah and Natalie) through some stretches.  I grabbed a spot by the wall near the door and tried to blend in.  A few minutes later, Alona showed up and took over top honors as "latest to show up to class".  During the next 50 minutes, Shawna put us through a series of stretches.  Because I've never been the greatest with silence, I tried to lighten up the mood by making jokes whenever I had the chance.  Didn't even matter if I knew the person I was bantering with.  At one point, we were using the wall and a lacrosse ball to work out some spots near our shoulder blades and I had this interaction with Leah (or was it Natalie?):

Leah/Natalie: "I feel like I'm awkwardly grinding the wall right now."

Me: "Are there times when you grind the wall and it's not awkward?"

Leah/Natalie: "Touche."

(I imagine my incessant chatter would get me thrown out of KOP's yoga classes.)

One of the things we talked about during mobility class was whether Alona would end up doing the WOD at 6:30.  She claimed she wasn't sure.  I stated that I would bet just about everything I own that Alona would be taking the 6:30 with me.  Alona and Jen are infamous for pulling two-a-days once Boot Camp starts up, so I couldn't imagine that Mobility class would keep her from today's WOD.  Sure enough, Alona was at the 6:30 with me and 9 others.  Coach Giulz would be advising us on how we should approach Event #2 from the upcoming Crossfit Regionals.

Regional Event #2:

21-15-9

DB snatches (80/50)

Ring dips

*For Regionals, this event had a 6 minute time cap.  We did this without a time cap.

**Spoiler: This is the infamous workout that resulted in many pec tears during Regionals.  There's a good chance that doing this combination of movements quickly is not wonderful for your body, no matter how fit you are.  Thankfully, no one in our class tore a pectoral muscle during this WOD.

To ensure that no one had to wait on a set of rings, Giulz let us know that we were going to run this workout in two heats.  She told us that we should be aiming to finish this workout in under 10 minutes.  We went through the warmup in reverse order of how we'd do the movements in the WOD. The eleven of us gathered over at the rings.  Eight people went to the main ring area, while I joined two others at the rings hanging from the ceiling.  Giulz walked us through some progressions for the dips (holding yourself on the rings, various kips) before asking us to try and do 5 reps of whatever we planned on doing in the workout.  I was going to use the band at my torso method, but there weren't any bands over at the rings I was using.  So I attempted 5 kipping dips without a band.  Good news: I got all five.  Bad news: I could have used those dips later on in this workout.

From there, Giulz had us test out DB snatches.  She wanted us to grab the DB we planned to use in the WOD and do a few reps in front of her.  There was no part of me interested in using the RX weight of 80 pounds.  I've struggled with some of the recent workouts that we have had that included the DB snatch.  When we did Gordy's Masters qualifier event, it began with 100 snatches using a 50 pound DB.  I fell apart rather quickly during that portion of that workout, so I wasn't flirting with going really heavy here.  There were less reps in this WOD though (45 vs 100), so I was willing to go beyond 50 pounds for my DB.  I split the difference between the 50 pounds I had used in the Masters qualifier and the RX weight of 80 pounds, settling on a 65 pound DB.  Matt B was going with the same choice, while Rob C was determined to take on the 80 pound DB.  Giulz let Rob know in advance that she felt 80 pounds was a mistake, going so far as to tell him that if he didn't finish in under 10 minutes using that DB, he would owe her 50 burpees.

Giulz asked us to do two reps with each arm.  I was mildly worried that those four reps would expose my lousy DB snatch form.  None of the reps felt particularly easy, but they made an impression on Giulz.  Just not the one I was expecting.  Usually Giulz will tell me that I'm going too heavy in a workout, but when I put my DB down, she told me that I could go heavier than 65 pounds for my DB.  Matt did his reps next and got the same feedback.  Neither of us were all that thrilled about being told we should grab a heavier DB (although it was nice to hear that the 65 pound DB looked too easy for us).  We reluctantly trudged down to the front of the gym and grabbed 70 pound replacements.  Meanwhile, Giulz was upping the ante on Rob.  She let the class know that if he didn't finish in under 10 minutes, we would all have to do 50 burpees.  I'm not sure if that tactic was used so that the rest of us would peer pressure him into going lighter or whether it was meant to make him feel guilty about the possible consequences for the class should he fail to meet her guideline.  If it was the latter, it worked like a charm.  Rob put the 80 pound DB back and grabbed the same 70 pound version that Matt and I would be using.

Everybody had settled on a DB weight and it was time for heat one to begin.  Matt and I stood next to each other and began going rep for rep on the first round of snatches.  I wasn't convinced that I could make it through 21 in a row, so I stopped after 14 to take a short break before completing my last 7 reps.  I got to my rings just before Matt, but everyone in that heat seemed to arrive at the rings at around the same time.  I had my band set up and got to work on the dips.  I made it through 4 reps before coming down and that felt like the right amount per set for me.  Using the scale where my torso hit the band was also the proper choice for me.  Giulz explained in the warmup that by having my torso hit the band (rather than putting my knee on it), I wasn't getting any assistance in terms of bouncing up out of the dip.  Instead, the band would simply be helping me stay stable on the rings.  The five practice reps I had done without a band showed that I was strong enough for dips.  However, there was the real possibility that my arms would get shaky as they began to tire out.  The band would keep me from wobbling uncontrollably on the rings when I reached that point.

I went 4-4-4-4-3-2 to get through my round of 21.  That doesn't sound too bad, but my breaks became longer and longer as I moved through that round.  I kept trying to shake out my arms, but it wasn't helping a whole lot.  Maybe I shouldn't have wasted energy on proving I could do 5 real reps in the warmup!  As I headed back to my DB, I was either last or second to last in my heat.  Matt wasn't far ahead of me though.  He was working on his second round of snatches when I got back to my DB.  I did three sets of five there with short breaks in between each set.  I had moved pretty quickly with the DB.  Unfortunately the reward for that was a quick return to the rings.

I got through one final set of 4 reps to open up the round of 15, but from that point on, my sets would be much smaller.  Usually 2 reps.  Occasionally only one at a time.  A lot of those one rep sets would be sets that were intended to be 2 reps long, but I couldn't lock out the second rep.  I had several no reps in this round and I'd have several more in the final round of 9.  I started to fall way behind Matt.  Soon, Cline and I were the only ones working.  It took a while, but I got back to my DB.  I angrily did 9 consecutive reps, even though I knew it meant I'd have to go back to the rings less than 30 seconds after I had left them.  I received a lot of encouragement from the rest of the class as I struggled through the remaining dips, but single reps were the best I could manage.  My arms were completely smoked by the time I locked out my 9th dip of the last round.  Final time: 13:16.

I spent most of heat two rooting on Matt E and Rob, while also emphasizing to everyone that Rob had heeded Giulz's warning about not going RX for this workout.  I never have the urge to do 50 burpees, but I certainly wasn't eager to do them after this WOD.  It took Rob 11 minutes flat to complete the workout with the lighter DB, so I'm glad he didn't attempt to do this workout RX.  His decision to scale didn't save us from burpees though.  Giulz told us after heat two ended that we were finishing up with three minutes of burpees or, as she called it, "extra fitness".  Come on!  Giulz ended up showing us some mercy by trimming "extra fitness" in half, so we only had to do burpees for 90 seconds to finish off our day.

Thursday preview: HULK SMASH!!!  I accidentally break KOP equipment.