The Brawl In The Burbs was only five days away and team Run The Giulz had only practiced the events once. The rest of the team wanted to get together over the weekend, but I was in Alabama acting as a pallbearer. Kris and Raj were going to be at the gym on Monday night, so we made plans to run through Polpetta at Open Strength using a new strategy. Before that though, there was a WOD that needed completing at the 6:30 class. Here's what we'd be doing:
Monday's WOD
15 minute AMRAP
10 deadlifts (205/135)
20 wall balls (20#/14# to 10'/9')
10 deadlifts
20 burpees over the barbell
First thing to know about this workout: it was going to destroy my phenomenally weak hamstrings. It would start with the moderately heavy deadlifts. The wall balls were going to break down my legs even more. The burpees over the barbell would be the coup de grace. Second thing to know: it was hot. I write all the time about how humid it is inside the gym, so what I'm about to say shouldn't be taken lightly. August 21st was the muggiest night of the summer. Want proof? As we were warming up, I had to stop for a second and run over to my gym bag. Alicia was standing nearby and wanted to give me a high-five because it was the first time that she had seen me in a while. I raised my hand and made contact with her hand. And then a bunch of sweat splashed off of my hand on to her face. Gross? Without a doubt. But if I had reached the gross stage before this WOD had even begun, then you know it was a scorcher.
The last workout that I had done before going to Alabama was Mary, a workout filled with high-skill movements. This WOD was quite the opposite. A deadlift simply required you to lift a barbell from the floor to your waist. A wall ball is a squat followed by a ball toss to a spot on a wall. A burpee over a barbell requires you to fall to the floor, get up, and hop over a barbell. As you can see, this wasn't the most technical workout ever programmed. It was just going to be sweaty and painful.
The 12 of us attending the last class of the day had staked out a spot for our barbells and a place along the wall. We were ready to take this WOD on. Giulz gave us the 3-2-1 countdown and we were on our way. I got off to a fast start. My deadlift form might not be wonderful, but as long as I'm not dealing with an incredibly heavy weight, I tend to move through my reps speedily. I zipped along through 10 reps of the deadlift at 205 pounds and headed to the wall. I was the first one over there even though my barbell was positioned in the lane furthest from the wall. Go me!
My lead would be very short-lived. I didn't do terribly on the wall balls, going 12 and 8 in round one, but there were others who did all 20 reps without letting their ball hit the ground. With the wall balls completed, I came back to my barbell for 10 more deadlifts. My legs were starting to feel the burn, so I split these up into two equal sets of five reps. The worst part of the workout awaited me. It was time for some super slow burpees. I think I did my first four with some zest, but after that I crawled the rest of the way. The floor below me got damp in a hurry. Soon there were small puddles on the floor straddling each side of my barbell. When I placed my hands on the floor, they would slide out to the sides due to the moisture. That actually helped me get my chest to the floor quicker, but it was a pain in the neck trying to push myself up off of the floor in those conditions. It felt like it took forever to get through those 20 burpees, but the clock informed me that only 5 minutes had elapsed when I was done with round 1.
This was a 15 minute AMRAP and there was no way that I'd match the pace I had in round 1 the rest of the way, so my score was going to be less than 3 rounds. It was now just a matter of how far into round 3 I could get. I went 5-5 on the opening 10 deadlifts and then returned to the wall. Covered in sweat and barely able to breathe, I was forced to break up the wall balls into mini-sets. I would love to lie to you and say that the mini-sets were okay because I took matching mini-breaks, but that isn't what happened. I took my regular, probably-longer-than-they-seemed breaks in between sets that went 5-5-6-4.
I was kinda mad at myself for falling apart so badly on the wall balls, so I tried to channel that rage into the deadlifts. Rather than doing a set of 5 reps when I got back to my barbell, I did a whopping 6 instead. So impressive. I wasn't looking forward to completing the last 4 deadlifts because I knew that the burpees were next on the shopping list, but there was no avoiding them. I got the 4 deadlifts out of the way and then attempted to avoid the water-logged area where I had done my first round of burpees. How was I going to do that? Well most of the moisture was in the area where my hands were, meaning it was off to the sides at one end of my barbell. So I decided to turn around and face the opposite direction for the second round of burpees. There would be no moisture in the area where my hands would now go (at least that was true temporarily). And my feet wouldn't be in the wet area because they are centered during the burpee. It was surprisingly clear thinking for someone who was about to stagger through another 20 burpees.
That second round took me nearly twice as long as the first round did. I had less than a minute remaining when I wrapped up round two. That gave me just enough time to go 6 and 4 on the deadlifts and then follow that up with a jog over to the wall for 3 wall balls. Final score: 2+13.
Even after we were given time to recover and put our equipment away, there was still five minutes left in class, so Giulz suggested that we do an ab tabata. Eight rounds, each 20 seconds in length, where we would do as many sit-ups as we could. After each round, we would get a 10 second break. Perhaps I should do more tabata-style workouts because I always seem to do well with them. I have nothing close to a six-pack, but my abs are strong when put to work for 20 second increments. I did at least 10 sit-ups in every round with my score by round as follows: 12-12-12-11-10-10-10-11.
Neither Kris nor Raj took part in the 6:30 class, so they patiently waited for me to find my second wind before we did "Polpetta: The Remix". As a reminder, here's what Polpetta is all about:
"Polpetta"
2,000 meter row
250 double unders
Four station chipper consisting of:
100 wall balls (14#/10# to 10'/9')
100 knee raises
100 burpees to a plate (25#)
100 shoulder-to-overheads (115/75)
*Time cap: 15 minutes
**Only one person can work on the chipper at a time. While the chipper is being completed, one teammate can be rowing, while another can be completing the double unders.
When we did this originally, Raj and Cline (played by LC) did the double unders. I was on wall balls, while Kris started on the rower. The double unders were done before I finished the wall balls, so LC took over the rowing, Kris came over to help me out on wall balls, and Raj got ready for the knee raises. When Kris finished the wall balls, she joined Raj at the knee raises and I alternated with LC on the rower. Kris and Raj were into the burpees when LC and I finished rowing. The four of us did the burpees 10 at a time. Then Raj and Kris did a set each on the shoulder-to-overheads before the time cap hit. There were way too many moving pieces to that strategy and it cost us at the end.
Fast forward to Monday's Open Strength. I had a new strategy that I thought would be successful. Kris was our All-Star on the chipper, so she would work on that the entire time. Cline was our best rower, so he would do the entire 2,000 meter row. (Cline wasn't there on Monday night, so we pretended that his row would take 8 minutes.) All we had to figure out was the optimal placement for me and Raj. Raj had trouble on the knee raises when she did them the first time and seemed determined to get better at them. I had been having a lot of success with my jump rope, so I was determined to help the cause at that station. So the new plan went like this: Kris and Raj would be on the chipper, I would do all of the double unders, and Cline would row. 250 double unders was a lot for one person, but in this format, there would be no moving pieces like last time. The alternative to this plan was to have Raj do 50 double unders and then move to the chipper. That would leave me with only 200 double unders, a more reasonable amount. We thought about going that way, but it seemed better to try out the format where there was no switching before heading down that road.
How should I break up those 250 double unders? When Raj and LC did this the first time, they did 50 reps in each set. I'm not sure how successful they were in stringing 50 in a row, but they must have moved pretty well given that they were done before I finished 100 wall balls. I thought I would try to do sets of 50 to begin. If things began to break down, I could scale that number back along the way.
That seemed like an excellent plan when I completed the first 50 in a row in 34 seconds. I was hoping to complete the double unders before the row was done (theoretically) with the idea that I'd be joining Kris and Raj in the early stages of the burpees. Based on how well the initial 50 reps went, I was now thinking I might join them on the knee raises. Cart...way ahead of the horse. The next set was not 50 in a row. It likely wasn't even 10 in a row. That set of 50 consecutive double unders was not an indicator of how the remaining 200 would go. I floundered the rest of the way. It wasn't even an instance where I lost my cool and mentally let things get away from me. I just lost the rhythm for double unders. It got to a point where I was only doing 2-3 at a time. Kris and Raj weren't interested in doing all of the burpees, so they stopped while I was still flailing away. Had Cline been there, he would have been off of the rower. It took nearly 9 and a half minutes to get the 200 double unders that remained after my strong opening set. That was not going to be good enough for the Brawl. It was back to the drawing board on strategy.
I certainly didn't have any interest in working on anything else at Open Strength after that experience, so I got in the car and spent my drive home trying to come up with another way to conquer Polpetta.
Tuesday preview: LC is not happy to see me or her husband in her class. The WOD comes with some very strict rules.
The 12 of us attending the last class of the day had staked out a spot for our barbells and a place along the wall. We were ready to take this WOD on. Giulz gave us the 3-2-1 countdown and we were on our way. I got off to a fast start. My deadlift form might not be wonderful, but as long as I'm not dealing with an incredibly heavy weight, I tend to move through my reps speedily. I zipped along through 10 reps of the deadlift at 205 pounds and headed to the wall. I was the first one over there even though my barbell was positioned in the lane furthest from the wall. Go me!
My lead would be very short-lived. I didn't do terribly on the wall balls, going 12 and 8 in round one, but there were others who did all 20 reps without letting their ball hit the ground. With the wall balls completed, I came back to my barbell for 10 more deadlifts. My legs were starting to feel the burn, so I split these up into two equal sets of five reps. The worst part of the workout awaited me. It was time for some super slow burpees. I think I did my first four with some zest, but after that I crawled the rest of the way. The floor below me got damp in a hurry. Soon there were small puddles on the floor straddling each side of my barbell. When I placed my hands on the floor, they would slide out to the sides due to the moisture. That actually helped me get my chest to the floor quicker, but it was a pain in the neck trying to push myself up off of the floor in those conditions. It felt like it took forever to get through those 20 burpees, but the clock informed me that only 5 minutes had elapsed when I was done with round 1.
This was a 15 minute AMRAP and there was no way that I'd match the pace I had in round 1 the rest of the way, so my score was going to be less than 3 rounds. It was now just a matter of how far into round 3 I could get. I went 5-5 on the opening 10 deadlifts and then returned to the wall. Covered in sweat and barely able to breathe, I was forced to break up the wall balls into mini-sets. I would love to lie to you and say that the mini-sets were okay because I took matching mini-breaks, but that isn't what happened. I took my regular, probably-longer-than-they-seemed breaks in between sets that went 5-5-6-4.
I was kinda mad at myself for falling apart so badly on the wall balls, so I tried to channel that rage into the deadlifts. Rather than doing a set of 5 reps when I got back to my barbell, I did a whopping 6 instead. So impressive. I wasn't looking forward to completing the last 4 deadlifts because I knew that the burpees were next on the shopping list, but there was no avoiding them. I got the 4 deadlifts out of the way and then attempted to avoid the water-logged area where I had done my first round of burpees. How was I going to do that? Well most of the moisture was in the area where my hands were, meaning it was off to the sides at one end of my barbell. So I decided to turn around and face the opposite direction for the second round of burpees. There would be no moisture in the area where my hands would now go (at least that was true temporarily). And my feet wouldn't be in the wet area because they are centered during the burpee. It was surprisingly clear thinking for someone who was about to stagger through another 20 burpees.
That second round took me nearly twice as long as the first round did. I had less than a minute remaining when I wrapped up round two. That gave me just enough time to go 6 and 4 on the deadlifts and then follow that up with a jog over to the wall for 3 wall balls. Final score: 2+13.
Even after we were given time to recover and put our equipment away, there was still five minutes left in class, so Giulz suggested that we do an ab tabata. Eight rounds, each 20 seconds in length, where we would do as many sit-ups as we could. After each round, we would get a 10 second break. Perhaps I should do more tabata-style workouts because I always seem to do well with them. I have nothing close to a six-pack, but my abs are strong when put to work for 20 second increments. I did at least 10 sit-ups in every round with my score by round as follows: 12-12-12-11-10-10-10-11.
Neither Kris nor Raj took part in the 6:30 class, so they patiently waited for me to find my second wind before we did "Polpetta: The Remix". As a reminder, here's what Polpetta is all about:
"Polpetta"
2,000 meter row
250 double unders
Four station chipper consisting of:
100 wall balls (14#/10# to 10'/9')
100 knee raises
100 burpees to a plate (25#)
100 shoulder-to-overheads (115/75)
*Time cap: 15 minutes
**Only one person can work on the chipper at a time. While the chipper is being completed, one teammate can be rowing, while another can be completing the double unders.
When we did this originally, Raj and Cline (played by LC) did the double unders. I was on wall balls, while Kris started on the rower. The double unders were done before I finished the wall balls, so LC took over the rowing, Kris came over to help me out on wall balls, and Raj got ready for the knee raises. When Kris finished the wall balls, she joined Raj at the knee raises and I alternated with LC on the rower. Kris and Raj were into the burpees when LC and I finished rowing. The four of us did the burpees 10 at a time. Then Raj and Kris did a set each on the shoulder-to-overheads before the time cap hit. There were way too many moving pieces to that strategy and it cost us at the end.
Fast forward to Monday's Open Strength. I had a new strategy that I thought would be successful. Kris was our All-Star on the chipper, so she would work on that the entire time. Cline was our best rower, so he would do the entire 2,000 meter row. (Cline wasn't there on Monday night, so we pretended that his row would take 8 minutes.) All we had to figure out was the optimal placement for me and Raj. Raj had trouble on the knee raises when she did them the first time and seemed determined to get better at them. I had been having a lot of success with my jump rope, so I was determined to help the cause at that station. So the new plan went like this: Kris and Raj would be on the chipper, I would do all of the double unders, and Cline would row. 250 double unders was a lot for one person, but in this format, there would be no moving pieces like last time. The alternative to this plan was to have Raj do 50 double unders and then move to the chipper. That would leave me with only 200 double unders, a more reasonable amount. We thought about going that way, but it seemed better to try out the format where there was no switching before heading down that road.
How should I break up those 250 double unders? When Raj and LC did this the first time, they did 50 reps in each set. I'm not sure how successful they were in stringing 50 in a row, but they must have moved pretty well given that they were done before I finished 100 wall balls. I thought I would try to do sets of 50 to begin. If things began to break down, I could scale that number back along the way.
That seemed like an excellent plan when I completed the first 50 in a row in 34 seconds. I was hoping to complete the double unders before the row was done (theoretically) with the idea that I'd be joining Kris and Raj in the early stages of the burpees. Based on how well the initial 50 reps went, I was now thinking I might join them on the knee raises. Cart...way ahead of the horse. The next set was not 50 in a row. It likely wasn't even 10 in a row. That set of 50 consecutive double unders was not an indicator of how the remaining 200 would go. I floundered the rest of the way. It wasn't even an instance where I lost my cool and mentally let things get away from me. I just lost the rhythm for double unders. It got to a point where I was only doing 2-3 at a time. Kris and Raj weren't interested in doing all of the burpees, so they stopped while I was still flailing away. Had Cline been there, he would have been off of the rower. It took nearly 9 and a half minutes to get the 200 double unders that remained after my strong opening set. That was not going to be good enough for the Brawl. It was back to the drawing board on strategy.
I certainly didn't have any interest in working on anything else at Open Strength after that experience, so I got in the car and spent my drive home trying to come up with another way to conquer Polpetta.
Tuesday preview: LC is not happy to see me or her husband in her class. The WOD comes with some very strict rules.
No comments:
Post a Comment
Note: Only a member of this blog may post a comment.