Without a doubt, my favorite development at the gym has been how popular Dudes After Dark has become. No, it doesn't have 16-18 people in it like some of those Monday 6:30 classes do. But it has a buzz about it. People talk about it as their favorite class of the week. There's a completely different vibe to that class which you won't find in any other class at KOP. Want the strongest evidence of how beloved Dudes After Dark is? Athletes actually sign up for the class in advance! No one does that anymore.
There were a whopping 10 people at this week's Dudes After Dark. That was a big turnout for a class that used to have 4 or less people in it routinely. Making this class a little bit more special was the fact that it was actually taking place after dark for the first time in a long time. (Good call, Actuary Mike!) The 9 people I'd be working out with at 7:30 were Neil, John McHugh, Actuary Mike, Bryan, Ashley, Kris, Esra, The Prodigy, and a drop-in named Sasha. LC told us to run 400 meters to warm up. While running, we were obligated to find out 5 things about Sasha or face burpees when we got back to the gym. I'm a bit torn on this tradition. On one hand, it's great that the members of the gym are interacting with a new face that doesn't know anyone in the class. On the other hand, I have to imagine it's a bit daunting having 9 strangers firing questions at you for two minutes straight. Everyone was nice to me on my first day, but they weren't forced to perform an inquisition on me under the threat of burpees. I liked that format better.
There were two parts to the Tuesday night WOD: a strength EMOM followed by a cash-out. Here's a look at what we were doing:
Tuesday's WOD:
10 minute EMOM:
Build to a 2RM thruster
Cash-out:
2 rounds
20 thrusters (95/65)
30 box jumps (24"/20")
40 deadlifts (95/65)
400 meter run
I haven't been shy about expressing how much I dislike EMOMs. You could never convince me that they aren't the worst type of workout we do at KOP. This EMOM was among the worst of the worst. As a refresher, EMOM stands for "Every Minute On the Minute". In this WOD, we would have to do 2 reps of a thruster at the start of every minute. Would we get to rest for the remainder of the minute? No. We'd have to scramble around adding weight to our barbell in preparation for the next 2 reps. The amount of rest we got was dependent on how good we were at changing plates. That's not a test of fitness. It was mostly a test of how well-organized each athlete was. EMOMs suck.
LC went over the thruster with us. We started off with an empty barbell, then all of us hoarded as many plates as we could for the EMOM. As we got organized, I looked across the way and shared the secret to this workout with Esra and The Prodigy. That secret? It's all in the clips. If you wanted to have any hope of getting rest during this WOD, you needed a nice pair of clips that would easily slide on and off of the barbell as you changed your weight. If you got a bent pair or a sticky pair of clips, the next minute might start before you had finished adjusting the weight on your barbell. Invest some time finding a good pair of clips. It would be worth it.
My plan for this EMOM was to go 75-95-115-125-135-145-155-165-175-185. I had no clue what my true 2RM was. My 1RM was 200 pounds. I had never done a 2RM or a 3RM before. Several years ago, I did a 5RM with 135 pounds. So if I managed to get all the way through the 10 round progression that I had come up with, I'd technically have myself a 50 pound PR. Even if I failed a few rounds early, I'd have a pretty hefty PR. That wasn't such a bad deal.
I loaded 75 pounds on my barbell and got ready for round one to begin. LC started the clock and I did two quick thrusters. I stripped off the 15 pound plates and put on 25 pound replacements. I was getting about 30 seconds of rest this round. The Prodigy was getting much less. It didn't have anything to do with her ability to switch plates quickly. It wasn't like she grabbed a bad set of clips. She just didn't know what an EMOM was. When she had her barbell ready for round two, she picked it up and started to do a thruster. Several of us yelled over to her to wait. She dropped her barbell, unsure of what she had done wrong. We explained to her that she had to wait for the clock to beep, as that would be the signal that the next minute had begun. She smiled and looked a bit relieved. After all, she was getting some extra rest she wasn't expecting.
The first 7 sets that I did weren't bad. My first rep was always a cluster (squat clean into a thruster). Then I went immediately into the second rep. Those sets all took less than 10 seconds. I got slower when it came to changing the plates on my barbell, but I never came close to bumping up against the buzzer for the next minute. It wasn't until I reached 165 pounds that things got tough. I had to power clean the barbell before performing my first thruster. When I extended the barbell overhead, I needed to pause for a second before going into rep #2. I hit the bottom of my squat and then pushed the barbell overhead one more time. Only two rounds left, but the set at 165 let me know they were going to be very difficult.
The set at 175 was similar to the set at 165. That left the final set at 185. I didn't hurry when stripping the 15 and 5 pound plates off my barbell to replace them with a 25 pound plate. I knew that even if I wasn't ready to go when the buzzer went off, this was the last round and I had the whole minute to complete my two reps. The buzzer sounded and some members of class got right into their last 2 thrusters. Others were like me and took a good 10-15 extra seconds before stepping back up to the barbell for their final encounter. I began my last set with a power clean that wasn't too awful. I made sure I felt comfortable before attempting the first thruster. It did not go well. For a moment, I thought I might not be able to fully press the barbell out at the top, but I got it there. That was the good news. The bad news was that the best place to rest when doing multiple thrusters is with the barbell overhead. It took a lot of energy to get it up there. Now I'd have to hold it there for a few more seconds before I was ready to try thruster #2. When I felt ready to go, I let the barbell crash down on my body. I hit the bottom of my squat and tried to spring right out of it. Coming out of the squat was not a problem. Pressing out the barbell was. If I ever let it stop moving, I would have been screwed. However, I never lost the momentum that I had built up from firing out of the squat. It was a very slow press out, but thruster #2 was a success. Final score: 185.
Had I taken a few days off and maybe got a massage or something before the cash-out, I think I would have approached it with a lot of confidence. It wasn't a ton of thrusters. The cash-out I had done with Bryan last week had given me an idea of how I would feel doing box jumps after an activity that included squats, so I was ready for that. The deadlifts were super light, so I expected to blitz through those. And I had been running more recently, so the two quarter-mile runs in this workout were not as daunting. The problem for me was that I had done 16.1 the day before. I was feeling the pain from all those lunges. 20 thrusters were going to hurt. 30 box jumps were going to hurt. The run was going to hurt. There was even a chance the light deadlifts could hurt. And we were doing two rounds of all that! My legs were going to be a mess at the end of this.
I was set up more towards the front of the gym and we were all facing the back of the gym. That was nice because I got to see nearly everyone's progress as we did this cash-out. I started off going 10-6-4 on the thrusters. The box jumps seemed to be painful for everyone, so even though I had to break those 30 reps up into smallish sets, I did alright on those relative to the rest of the class. When I got to the deadlifts, I was only behind Neil. Those suckers were much worse than anticipated. I thought I would get 40 reps done in two sets, but after 10 reps, I dropped the barbell. Plan B: 4 sets. The breaks I took in between sets of deadlifts were longer than the breaks I took during the thrusters and the box jumps. My legs were in a lot of pain, but I was also starting to feel it in my back as well. Neil headed out the door for the first run as I rested between my 3rd and 4th set. Ashley was quicker than me on the deadlifts and she got out the door before me as well.
I told you how much Neil hates double unders when I recapped a recent partner WOD that I had done with him, but if there is one thing that Neil has loudly professed a hatred for at the gym, it would be running. When I headed out on the 400 meter run, I wasn't sure if I'd catch Ashley, but I thought I'd definitely make up some ground on Neil. Nope. In fact, he might have stretched his lead over me on the run. What the hell? Running was the one thing that had acted as an equalizer in workouts that I did with Neil. Now I didn't even have that? The days of me being competitive with Neil might have come to an end already.
When I got back from the run, I went 10-6-4 yet again on the thrusters. The box jumps were still very much a grind. This time when I got to the deadlifts, I was behind both Neil and Ashley, so I knew they were going to be out the door way ahead of me. I went with sets of 5 rather than 10 in round two. That seemed to work out better because I was able to keep my breaks smaller. I feel pretty certain that I did those 40 deadlifts quicker than the forty I did in the first round. It didn't matter though. I wasn't even halfway through the deadlifts when Neil went out for his last quarter-mile run. I had at least two sets to go when Ashley left me behind.
I was sore everywhere as I headed out on my last run. My greatest concern was my stiffening back. It's hard to run with anything resembling decent form if your back tightens up. I put my head down, pumped my arms, and hoped for the best. It ended up going better than expected. My stride seemed like it was lengthening over the last 100 meters as I sprinted (sorta) back into the gym. Final time: 19:42.
I felt so good at the end of that run that I didn't lay down on the floor and rest. I fist bumped Neil and Ashley, went to the doorway, and cheered on the rest of the class as they finished up. I thought everyone was already out on the run, but as a couple people came in, John McHugh went running by us heading outbound. I waited for the last few of my classmates to get to the finish line before jogging out to meet John. He's run with me at the end of workouts numerous times and this was my chance to return the favor. I met up with him about 150 meters from the finish and we ran it in together from there.
Class was supposed to end at 8:30, but we hung around until 9:15. Various groups of people were chatting away. When one conversation ended, people moved around and talked to someone else. There was a really good vibe in the gym that night. It didn't feel like folks were there to do the workout and then hurry home. It felt like no one wanted to leave, that everyone was genuinely enjoying each other's company so much that they lost track of time. It was great to experience, but it also made me nostalgic. This type of thing happened so much more back in the day. Now it seemed pretty rare. I could only hope that it would become commonplace again.
Wednesday preview: Actuary Mike, Neil, and I scare off a potential classmate. Neil's Crossfit spreadsheet is the stuff of legend. I discover that I may be trying too hard when it comes to wall balls.
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