Open Gym always sounds like something that I should be highlighting on my calendar. It takes place on the first Sunday of every month at KOP. Two hours to come in and work on whatever you want. (Note: Open Strength is meant to be more of a lifting session, but the Monday night version has basically turned into Open Gym. It's just more crowded than your typical Open Gym.) I tend not to come into the gym on the weekend, but there is some appeal to being able to work on anything of my choosing without having to worry about bumping into a horde of classmates. For some reason though, I keep missing Open Gym over and over again because I'll have something to do the day that it is scheduled. The planets finally aligned for me in early August. I wasn't out of town and I had nothing planned in the late morning/early afternoon. I had plans later that night, but I'll touch on that later on.
I really needed to get back
into the gym on Sunday because my rest day on Thursday turned into an
unexpected three-day weekend from exercising when I had to skip class on Friday
at the last minute. I could have gone in on Saturday, but that didn't
sound as good to me as Open Gym on Sunday did. I had been itching to come
to Open Gym for a long time just so I could do one specific workout that hasn't
been programmed since November 16, 2015. That WOD will always remain
stuck in my brain. Of my four and a half years as a member of KOP, that
night will go down as the worst.
Here is the WOD that we did
that night:
Infamous WOD:
3 rounds:
10 toes-to-bar
20 overhead squats (95/65)
40 double unders
100 ft overhead walking
lunge with plate (45/25)
Most people completed this
workout in just under 20 minutes. Not me! I wasn't even close.
I thought this would be a decent workout for me given that it took place
at a time when I was working on toes-to-bar. It also had two overhead
movements in it and I tend to be better than average at those. The double
unders looked like the only possible stumbling block. I was still inconsistent
with double unders at the time, but I thought I could chip away at them.
40 per round wasn't some huge amount.
The double unders proved to
be my undoing. The first round took me forever and I fell well behind the
rest of the class. I became frustrated and let it affect me on all of the
other movements. My overhead squats got slower. I was stopping
after each trip down the floor (25 ft) on the overhead lunges. The
toes-to-bar weren't awful, but each time I dropped off of the bar, I was fuming
about the rest of my performance. I began swearing as I failed over and
over again on the double unders. After hitting myself a couple times in a
row, my rage cause me to whip my rope against the reverse hyper. I
finished the workout in 29:01, 6 minutes after the second-to-last person in
class and a solid 10 minutes beyond the average time for the day. My
performance was bad. My behavior during the WOD was worse.
That is only half of the
story though. People have bad days in the gym. They yell. They
swear. They throw objects. And usually the community realizes that
someone is having a tough time of it and tries to make them feel better.
I've joked about the pity circle in this blog, but even that is rooted in
the support that the community shows. That was not the response I got
after this WOD. There were a couple of people that stuck by my side as I
slogged through the end of that workout. But what was more startling to
me was the backlash I received. Some people decided to criticize me
privately about that WOD. Others felt it was okay to lay into me
publicly. It was the polar opposite of what I've come to expect from the
KOP community. And it pissed me off.
Time passed and I put that
experience behind me (mostly). It was one of those forgive but don't
forget situations. I've been patiently waiting for the workout to appear
in the programming again so I could get some redemption, but it didn't show up
in 2016, nor did it show up during the first half of 2017. So I started
to plan on doing it at an Open Gym. Sunday was the opportune time to get
my revenge as my double under skills have never been better.
LC was hosting Open Gym and
Kris was there, but they were the only other inhabitants of the gym besides
myself. (Tia would show up later on.) This WOD required quite a bit
of space, but I didn't have to worry about being in anyone's way. I had
the entire back half of the gym to myself. I warmed up with some
toes-to-bar. They haven't appeared in the programming as much as they
used to, so I had some concerns about my form being rusty. I did a few
small sets where I was able to string together reps, which was good enough for
me. If I could manage 3-4 in a row, I'd just need 3 sets per round and
that wouldn't take a ton of time to complete. The overheads didn't feel
as light as I hoped they would, but I wasn't planning on doing 20 in a row
there, so as long as I could get through a set of 10-12, they would be fine.
I moved over to the jump rope and completed two sets of 20 double unders
without incident. If I could replicate that in the workout, I'd crush my
old time. Finally, I grabbed a 45 pound plate and set up cones to mark
the beginning and end of a 25 ft stretch. I lunged about half of that
length before deciding that was enough for the warmup. As long as I kept
moving on the lunges, I figured I would be fine.
I asked Kris if she would
start the timer for me and she agreed to help me out. I stood underneath
the pull-up rig and got ready to jump up to the high bar. Kris counted me
down and then said go. I heard the buzzer on the timer go off and a
second later I heard it beep again. It took me a second to realize that
the second buzzer probably indicated a problem. I was completing my 4th
consecutive toes-to-bar when I looked over at Kris. She had a puzzled
look on her face and was still pointing the remote at the clock. That
didn't seem good. She was operating the clock on the wall behind the
pull-up rig, so I couldn't see it. As I was doing the 5th rep, I yelled
over to see if the clock had started. She admitted that the clock was
still on zero. I immediately dropped off of the bar. I wasn't
thrilled that I had done 5 toes-to-bar for nothing, but at least I didn't
complete all 10.
We got the clock snafu
worked out and Kris gave me a new countdown to begin. As I got through my
first couple reps of toes-to-bar, she reassured me that the clock had started.
Here's how I did at each station of the workout:
- Toes-to-bar: Not bad, especially in the first round.
I needed 3 sets to get through 10 reps in round 1, but I didn't take
much of a break between sets. In rounds 2 and 3, I would do a small
set with good form, a small set with lousy form, and then the rest as
quick singles.
- Overhead squats: These would feel worse as I progressed
from round 1 to round 2 to round 3, but I was able to stick to my plan of
completing the 20 reps in two sets. The rest between sets got
exponentially bigger as the rounds went on, but that rest kept me from
needing more than two sets.
- Double unders: My focal point of this workout. I
had fallen 10 minutes behind the average time because my double under form
was so putrid back in November 2015. My time on this WOD was going
to be back in line with everyone else's now that my double under form had
improved so much. Or so I thought. Don't get me wrong, my
double under form was light years better on this attempt than it had been
21 months ago, but it wasn't as good as it was in the warmup. Most
sets were in the 10-15 rep range with some coming in at single-digits.
It took me 3-4 sets to complete the 40 double unders in each round.
- Overhead lunge: This should have been the focal point
of the workout. I told myself to hold the plate over my head for as long
as possible, but I had to put it down every time I completed a 25 ft
portion of the walk. And then that plate wouldn't go back overhead
for a while. It was incredibly hot in the gym like it always is and
that was not something I had to deal with the 1st time I attempted this
WOD. It was a major factor on this day. Every time I picked up
the plate, I had difficulty breathing. I felt my sweaty hands slip
along the sides of the plate as I did my lunges, but I refused to stop in
the middle of any of the 25 ft journeys. It was really tough trying
to get the plate off of the floor whenever I laid it flat, so I gradually
smartened up and held it upright whenever I was resting.
My hope was that I
would complete this WOD in about 22 minutes. That wasn't precisely in
line with the sub-20 minute average of those who had done this WOD back in
November 2015, but it wasn't too far behind their pace and chopping 10 minutes
off of my time seemed kinda greedy. (Don't ask me how I rationalized that
chopping 7 minutes off of my time was not greedy.) As I finished the
second round, I knew 22 minutes wasn't happening. When I got to my last
round of lunges, I knew I wouldn't even be close. When it was all said
and done, my time wasn't much of an improvement at all. Final time:
26:24.
I collapsed on to the
floor after the lunges were complete, feeling a little nauseous due to the
heat. As I laid there, I realized two things:
- I needed to give myself some leniency on my time as the
heat definitely added minutes to it.
- This was not a double under workout. It was a
core workout. The toes-to-bar and the overhead squats did a number
on your core. The double unders weren't much more than busy work
before you headed to the most core-intensive aspect of the WOD. 25
feet isn't very far, but it took a lot of willpower to keep my 45 pound
plate overhead when I wanted to put it down along the way several times.
That's because my core was crumbling.
So did I get the
redemption I've been wanting for so long? Not really. I think I
could probably do this WOD in about 24 minutes under different conditions, but
that is still well behind the average time posted when I went through this the
first time. I thought that initial attempt had taught me the lesson that
I needed to work on my double unders. It wasn't until the second time
through that I learned what really needs work is my core.
I had planned on
doing some other things at Open Gym, but I was crushed after completing this
WOD. I took some time to recover before packing my bag and heading home.
I'd be back at KOP later on though. A group of us were taking a
trip into the city to see Cline do improv comedy. He had been missing
from Dudes After Dark for weeks because he was pursuing a passion of his and
classes took place on Tuesday nights. About 10 of us surprised him as he
took the stage and displayed the quick wit that we've grown accustomed to
hearing in class. He was the only rookie in his show, but I can honestly
say that at least 1 or 2 of the five experienced comedians that he shared the
stage with looked less polished than he did.
Monday preview: A WOD
that I missed a few weeks ago is back. Don't see that very often.
Also, the double under extravaganza continues.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.