Cramping two days in a row seemed to be a sign from the Crossfit gods that I needed to take a day off. I was pretty wrecked when I left the gym on Wednesday night, so I didn't think I'd have any regrets about missing Thursday's workout. Then I stupidly clicked on the KOP blog to see what was scheduled. It was an AMRAP of 500 meter rows (not bad), toes-to-bar (not great), and 20 ft rope climbs (NOOOOOOOO!!!!!). I love the challenge of climbing the rope all the way up to the ceiling. Most WODs with rope climbs use the 15' standard, but this was one of those rare ones where we'd go the full 20'. And I was missing it. As much as I wanted to take part in that fun, my body had made it clear that it needed a recovery day. So I showed some discipline and stayed home. (Pretty sure there was a single tear on my cheek the entire day though.)
I might have been rewarded for my good behavior with Friday's WOD. There weren't any rope climbs to be found, but another of my favorite movements was included in it:
Friday's WOD:
50 overhead squats (115/75)
25 ring muscle-ups
*Time cap: 15 minutes
Those were some moderately heavy overhead squats for me, but I thought I could get through 50 in a reasonable amount of time. I just needed to figure out what I would do in lieu of the ring muscle-ups. I certainly didn't have 25 bar muscle-ups. It was either going to be 25 jumping ring muscle-ups or 50 pull-ups and 50 banded dips. (Note: If you substitute in the pull-up/dip combo, you have to do double the reps.)
I haven't been attending a lot of Friday classes, which helps explain why I don't get to see Coach Keithie all that often. I thought I'd be having class with him as a result of taking Thursday off, but it turned out that Keithie was taking Friday off. Oops. Giulz was filling in for him at the 6:30. She would be coaching a quartet of athletes. It was me, Actuary Mike, Tia, and Joe T. Giulz gave us two important pieces of information regarding the workout. First, we could use jumping ring muscle-ups as a scale (hooray!). That was good news, but it was not nearly as interesting as the second piece of info that she gave us. In most WODs, you have to do the workout in the order that it was written. I fully planned on doing 50 overhead squats (broken up into sets) and then moving on to the 25 jumping ring muscle-ups. Giulz let us know that we didn't have to do it that way. We could break up the work any way we wanted. Having some extra flexibility made this WOD much more palatable.
We started out our warmup by practicing the overhead squats. Giulz recommended that we choose a weight where we'd be able to do 5 sets of 10 reps for this workout. The RX weight of 115 pounds fit that bill for me, although I wasn't sure I wanted to do my overheads in five equal sets. Instead, I figured I could hang on for more than 10 reps in my early sets, giving myself a break later on when I was likely to be more fatigued from both the earlier overheads and the jumping ring muscle-ups I had completed to that point.
After the four of us had proven to Giulz that we had solid form on our overhead squats, we moved over to the rings. My classmates were going with the pull-up/dip combo for their scale, but I was sticking with jumping ring muscle-ups. I wasn't entirely sure how high the rings should be set for the movement though. Giulz informed me that the rings should be set at the height of your forehead, but I told her that didn't narrow things down enough for me as "my forehead goes from here to here", pointing to the range from my eyebrows to the top of my bald dome. The midpoint of that range was a suitable height for my rings, so I got them set up and did a few practice jumping muscle-ups to gain Giulz's approval.
Being able to complete this workout in whatever fashion I pleased meant I got to use strategy. If you've read this blog for a while, then you know how often I try to use strategy as a substitute for athleticism. If I broke this WOD up correctly, I could stay under the time cap (or so I hoped). Everyone had gravitated towards their barbell to begin the workout and that was a natural reaction as the overhead squats were listed first, but we weren't required to start there. Maybe it was better to start on the rings. (Maybe I was just being a contrarian.) I suspected that I needed to be fresher to get through the jumping muscle-ups, even though I'd be doing twice as many overhead squats. So as my classmates all prepared to start on the overheads, I was the lone athlete beginning at the rings.
When we kicked off this WOD, I thought I might be able to complete the work in four sets at each station. That was why I did 6 jumping muscle-ups to begin. I took my time between reps because I wanted the jumping muscle-ups to be legit. Giulz told us that if we did jumping muscle-ups, we should resist the urge to "ride the elevator all the way up". What does that mean? Well, because you are jumping, it is easy to complete the muscle-up by jumping to a point where you are basically extended out of the dip at the top. If you couldn't jump, you'd never get that high when performing a muscle-up. You'd land in the bottom of a dip and have to extend out from there. The jumping muscle-up is meant to mimic what a real muscle-up feels like, so you're only meant to jump into that bottom position, not the top position where you don't have to dip out. I tried my best to abide by that standard as I completed my reps.
With 6 jumping muscle-ups done, I decided to give myself a break from the rings and moved over to the overhead squats. Giulz requested that we snatch the barbell each time to get it overhead. If we chose a weight that we could not snatch, then our barbell was too heavy. I didn't have trouble power snatching 115 pounds over my head. I got my feet where I wanted them, picked a place on the wall in front of me to stare at, and began to move through my reps as quickly as I could. It wasn't until rep 11 that I started to wobble a bit, but I needed to get through at least 13 if I was going to complete this in four sets. I held on to that 11th rep before doing two more. The plan was still intact.
If I was going to complete the jumping muscle-ups in 4 sets, I had to do more than six reps in at least one of the rounds. So when I came back to the rings, I decided that I would stay there until I completed 7 reps. I could then go 6 and 6 the last two rounds and remain on track. The first 4 jumping muscle-ups in this round were good, but I could tell my form was slowly getting worse. It was partially due to fatigue and partially due to sweaty hands. I forgot to dry off my hands before my 5th rep and I paid the price. My right hand slipped off of the ring as I jumped into my dip. That is never a good feeling. I wiped off my hands and took some extra time before continuing on. The 5th jumping muscle-up (take two!) was solid. My 6th one was less so. The 7th one was my worst of the day. I could probably make my way through two more sets of six, but the quality of my reps would suffer. That tradeoff wasn't worthwhile to me, so I adjusted my plan. Scratch four sets, replace with five sets. I could do 4 jumping muscle-ups per set for three sets and reach 25 for the workout without sacrificing my form.
I felt very strong during that first set of overhead squats I had done, so I aimed to hit the same number of reps in set #2. I only made it to my 9th rep this time before I got shaky. I slowed down my pace from there and that allowed me to get to 13 reps again. 26 overhead squats down, 24 to go. Since I was doing three more sets of jumping muscle-ups, it made sense to do three more sets of overhead squats. I could go 8-8-8 if I wanted to, but I really wanted to challenge myself on the next two sets. If I could have the final set be a formality, that would be perfect. I didn't have a set number in mind for the next two sets. I would just feel it out and adjust on the fly.
The jumping muscle-ups became the boring part of this workout the rest of the way. I didn't mess up on any more of my reps, mainly because I took my time. I had one eye on the clock because I didn't want to get time capped. If my math was right, I had a nice cushion to work with, as long as I didn't fall apart on the overhead squats.
When I got to the 3rd set of overhead squats, the goal was to do more than 8 reps. If I could only handle 8 reps, I'd have a real struggle on my hands in sets four and five where I'd need to do just as many overheads. My focus was on balance. I've always thought of balance as the key to overhead squats. It was certainly possible that a barbell could be too heavy for me, but most of my failures on the overhead squat came when I lost my balance. I noted in the first two sets where my balance started to go because that was the alert that my set would be coming to an end soon. In set #1, it was on rep 11. In set #2, it was on rep #9. That trend of earlier deterioration continued in set #3. I was on the 6th rep when I started to involuntarily wiggle. If the barbell was heavier, I doubt I would have made it past another rep or two. But 115 pounds was a weight that I felt comfortable holding overhead for an extended period of time. Knowing that, I could slow down and get through extra reps, just as I had in set #2. After 10 reps, I decided to head back to the rings.
Four more boring jumping muscle-ups led me back to the barbell. My 4th set was pretty similar to my 3rd set, but I ended it after 9 reps, leaving myself 5 overhead squats to complete the workout. A time check told me that I was golden on the time cap. I had about 3 minutes before the cap would hit, with only 4 jumping muscle-ups and 5 overheads standing in my way. I probably took about 15 seconds in between each of my muscle-ups. Then I ran over to my barbell, ready to do 5 super fast overhead squats. I hadn't lost my balance during the first 5 overheads in any of my sets and that remained the case at the very end of my workout. I was completely under control as I zipped through the last 5 reps. Final time: 13:22.
I beat a time cap! I actually beat all of my classmates too, although the three of them finished soon after me as no one was time capped. I probably shouldn't have been so stubborn during my second set of jumping muscle-ups, but I didn't waste too much time before adjusting to a better plan. Overall, it wound up being a good workout to end the week.
Sunday preview: Is it possible that I'm in the annex again on the weekend? Just like last time, we're practicing for the Brawl. Unlike last time, Cline is there to complete the team. We practice the two events that we haven't attempted yet.
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