Fearless, If Not Legless

Workout date: 6/14/17

Jenn and I planned our June trip to St. Lucia nearly a year in advance.  Jenn's sister had her heart set on a specific resort there and we agreed to go with her and her husband.  I'm not sure I can remember booking a vacation as far in advance as we did this one and we discovered pretty quickly why this wasn't the norm for us.  Soon after we booked our stay at the resort, I found out that one of my close friends would be getting married the weekend that we were due to come home.  He asked me to be in the wedding, so we needed to shift the dates of our trip.  (Thankfully we hadn't booked our flight yet!)  That explains why we were leaving and returning on a Thursday rather than on a weekend.

Before boarding my plane on Thursday morning, I made the decision to drop by the 7:30 class on Wednesday night with Coach Jenna.  It was a replay of the week before as Bryan would be the only other person joining me for class.  What made me interested in one last WOD before vacay?  Well, this workout had some rope climb options that intrigued me.  Here's a look at what we'd be doing on Wednesday night:

Wednesday's WOD:
21 thrusters (135/95)
2 rope climbs (legless to 15')
15 thrusters
2 rope climbs
9 thrusters
2 rope climbs

I'd only done 1 legless rope climb in my life, but part of that was because legless rope climbs don't get programmed in workouts all that often.  I believed it was possible that I could get through 6 legless rope climbs in this WOD.  After all, I only had 1 bar muscle-up under my belt before I somehow did 9 of them in a WOD.  Why couldn't I duplicate that magic with legless rope climbs?  (The answer: Because even though I only had one bar muscle-up at that point, I had dozens of recent near misses.  I hadn't so much as attempted a legless rope climb in 6 months, if not longer.  Sometimes I don't fully think these things through.)

Jenna had Bryan and I start off our warmup over at the ropes where she showed us the S-hook and the K-hook.  (Update: Keithie wasn't all that enamored that I had dubbed his rope climbing style the X-hook.  So I told him I would call it the K-hook going forward.  The new name honors the guy who showed it to me.  And X's and K's don't look all that different from one another, especially when you're forming those letters with your feet.)  I urged Jenna to perform a legless rope climb for us, but she resisted the peer pressure.  She let us know that we were more than welcome to try the legless version if we so desired.  I actually was quite interested in trying it, thank you very much.

The one time I successfully completed a legless rope climb to the 15' mark occurred in the annex.  Jill A and I kept getting very close to the mark before losing our grip and having to slide back down the rope.  We each must have missed three to four attempts, but then we both got to the mark on back-to-back tries.  Neither of us had any desire to make any additional attempts once we got a taste of success.  My takeaway from that day was that you needed to go as quickly as possible up the rope because your grip went away fast.  With regular rope climbs, you can take your time.  If your feet are clasping the rope properly, you can even hang out on the rope while letting your arms recover.  But with legless climbs, once your grip was done, you were done, making climbing speed much more essential.  As I got ready for my practice run alongside of Bryan, I reminded myself to go as fast as possible.

I made sure to get myself a nice head start by jumping as high as I could.  Then I began pulling myself up the rope with urgency.  I was closing in on the 15' mark when I felt my arms starting to tire.  Just a few more pulls, come on!  It really didn't look like there was much further to go, but I was beginning to doubt that I would make it.  If I had good technique, I would have kipped myself up for those last few pulls, but I don't have good technique.  I lunged upwards a couple times to get within swatting distance of the 15' mark.  Just when it seemed like I was all done, I was able to get one more pull in.  It was enough to let me slap the 15' mark.  Once I did that, I locked my legs on to the rope and slid back down.  (Note: You only have to complete the climb up without your legs.  You can use them on the way down.)

While I was excited to say that I had completed my second legless rope climb ever, I wasn't so swept up in my achievement that I was going to make a stupid mistake.  There was no way I could make 6 legless climbs in this workout.  I'm not entirely certain I could handle 2 in the same day.  I was switching to an alternative.  The blog stated that if we could not do the legless climbs, we could climb (using our legs) to the 20' mark instead.  I was definitely onboard for that.  The climbs to the 20' mark require nearly twice the amount of climbing that you do when heading to the 15' mark and I was up for a challenge today.

(You might be wondering how the 20' climb is twice as long as the 15' climb.  Is that new math or something?  Well no.  Someone my size can touch about 9' up on the rope when they jump and extend their arm upwards to begin the climb.  So you're only doing about 6' of climbing.  To go to the  20' mark, you climb an extra 5'.  One foot higher and you would be doubling the climb.  At least that's how I see it.)

If I exhausted myself on the thrusters, I wasn't getting up to the ceiling and tapping the 20' mark six times in this workout.  Thus, I decided to scale back the weight on my thrusters.  115 pounds would be plenty for me.  Jenna wanted us to try and keep this workout under 15 minutes and I thought it was very realistic for me to do that with 115 pounds on my barbell.  Jenna watched Bryan and I perform some practice thrusters with the weight we had settled on and then she got the workout underway.

This was the rare WOD where I paced myself very well.  I should probably always have my back to the clock during workouts because it seems like I pace myself better when the clock is not in my line of sight.  I don't think I looked at the clock at all during this WOD, at least not until I completed my final rope climb.  I felt like my breaks were reasonable and that I kept my breathing under control as I moved through the thrusters and the rope climbs.

In round 1, I went 9-7-5 over three sets to get through 21 thrusters.  I took a moment to chalk my hands before I did my first climb to 20'.  The K-hook served me well as I methodically made my way up to the ceiling and then slid back down to the floor.  I didn't rush getting into the second climb, but I made sure not to waste a lot of time either.  I wasn't breathing heavy yet, so I knew I should keep moving.  I've developed some confidence in climbing the rope even when I'm tired, so if I was okay enough to jump up on to the rope, I'd be okay enough to get to 20'.

Back at the barbell, I went 5-5-5 to complete the round of 15 thrusters.  Five reps felt like the perfect amount per set.  I was getting solid work done without exhausting myself.  The breaks between sets were probably longer than they were in the round of 21, but it wasn't like I had to take a knee or go into my resting squat position.  When it was time to climb the rope again, I used the chalk bucket as an excuse for productive rest.  I wanted a breather and I could justify it by spending my break time chalking up my hands.  I think I was equally efficient on these two rope climbs as I had been during round one, but I could definitely feel that my grip was waning.  It was almost like the sensation I experienced at the end of the legless rope climb during our warmup.  My grip wasn't completely gone, but I didn't have much left.  Hopefully I had just enough left for 9 more thrusters and 2 long rope climbs.

There was no point in breaking the tradition of stopping after 5 thrusters, so I did a set of 5 before finishing work at the barbell with a set of 4 thrusters.  I shook out my arms and headed to the rope.  The second to last climb was much more of a struggle than the first four climbs had been.  Keithie would not have been proud of the K-hook I was using.  I wasn't drawing my knees as high as I should have been, partly because I was concerned about my fading grip.  I didn't want to hold myself on the rope very long using nothing but my arms.  I was in a hurry to lock my feet back on to the rope after every pull.  I completed my 5th climb and slid back down to the floor.  At this point, my arms and hands had a very clear message for me: hey, we're tired, stop climbing this stupid rope!  I got the message, but I decided to ignore it.  There are just way too many times where I get to the last rep of something in the gym and fail.  It drives me nuts.  In this instance, I knew I could climb the rope tired.  I knew that if I locked my feet in, I could remain stable on the rope even if my arms were starting to fail me.  I was going to complete this workout.  I just needed to overcome the fear that I would lose my grip 17' above the floor, fall, land on my back, and end up paralyzed for the rest of my life.  That's all.

I chalked my hands one final time and jumped on to the rope.  With proper K-hook technique, I should have had my top hand at the 15' mark after two pulls.  I was barely at that mark three pulls in. I couldn't afford to go for big pulls anymore.  I was using short ones and then making sure my feet were securely clasping the rope.  It was slow, but effective.  I inched past the 15' mark and drew closer to the ceiling.  My forearms were really burning now, but I was almost there.  A couple short pulls later and I was able to slap the black metal hanging just below the ceiling.  Final time: 13:03.

I'm not known for making great choices when it comes to the barbell weight I use in workouts, but I think I did alright on this one.  I might have been able to go up to 125 pounds while keeping my final time under 15 minutes, but then again, maybe I fail on that final climb if I used a higher weight on the thrusters.  I wasn't going to beat myself up too much about it.  It was nice finishing under the threshold that Jenna gave us with time to spare.

It was time to pack my bags and head to the beach!  I'd be back at KOP in a week.

Post-vacation preview: I was only gone for a week, but rumor has it that I was on the beach for two weeks.  Sitting in the sun may have affected my ability to determine pace.  My classmates are dubious that I know how to read the monitor on my assault bike.