Strength Becomes Cardio

Workout dates: 10/27/15 and 10/28/15

Tuesday marked the unofficial midpoint of my second back squat program.  I think technically the midpoint is after my next 6x2 session, but psychologically, this is the peak of the mountain in the program.  As you go up the mountain, your volume increases from 6x2 to 6x6 while the weight stays the same.  Once you hit 6x6, you make your way down in volume from 6x6 to 1x1 as the weight gradually increases.  This session was also a big deal because Jim had told me last time around that the 6x6 and 5x5 days were the toughest.  I had messed up the last set in my 6x5 session, so I needed to improve to get through 6x6 unscathed.

I had two things in my mind as I mentally prepared for 6x6 day: don't rock on your feet and take your time.  The rocking on my feet problem has been persistent.  At least during the first program I eventually got my feet to comply and stay rooted in the floor.  I haven't had the same luck since I bumped up the weight from 235 to 265 pounds.  With more weight on the barbell, I think there has been a greater urgency to get the weight back up from the bottom of the squat, by any means necessary.  That generally means getting up on my toes and not using my still-developing hamstrings.  It's a tactic that will only work for so long.  When I get down to the other side of the mountain, I will need all of my leg muscles to handle the heavy weight I'm expected to lift.

Taking my time seems a little more common sense in that this wasn't some metcon where the clock was running and I needed to hurry.  But there is a little more to it than that.  You have to have the belief that you can stand with the weight on your back, stay calm, and make any adjustments you need to make.  You have to be able to quell that sense of urgency I was just speaking about.  Once you know that you can hang out for a few extra seconds with that barbell on your back, you can get through the sets properly.

I had mixed results with these two objectives.  I still had issues with rocking on my feet.  One thought I had was that maybe I'm too focused in staying in my heels.  I'm supposed to be pushing with my entire foot, but if my weight is all in my heels when I go to squat, perhaps my body reacts by rolling forward on the way up.  I got to watch Justin H while he did back squats next to me.  Justin is a guy who used to lift all the time at our gym, but hasn't been around as much recently.  He tends to have very good form with his lifts.  I watched his feet as he did his squats and you would have thought those things were cemented into the floor.  Didn't even twitch a little.  I would love to get to that point, but I'm not there yet.  The one positive I can say is that I fought against any rocking during my lifts, trying to wake those hamstrings up out of their slumber.  For the most part, I did a good job of this, especially in the later sets.

When it came to being patient, I did an excellent job.  Right from set one, I knew this was going to be the toughest squat session I had ever done.  I had some rocking in the early reps, then when I got done with 4 reps, I needed to reset my breathing.  I took this opportunity to reset my feet as well.  I had 265 pounds on my back, had done 4 reps, and now I was standing there holding it as I got ready to go again.  I didn't freak out with thoughts that I was ruining my chances of getting the final two reps.  When I felt ready, I did rep 5, caught my breath again, then did rep 6.  When I placed the bar back on the rack, I needed a breather.  I always joke about the lifters sitting in chairs during Open Strength, but I would have paid someone to get me a chair to sit in after each set.  Instead, I found a wooden shelf to sit on.

The sets after that were pretty similar.  I tended to have rocking issues mainly on my second rep.  I would re-gather myself after 4 reps.  And when that sixth rep was complete, I was breathing heavily.  At the end of four sets, I was sweating like it was August again.  That was definitely the point where I became most worried about whether I could complete all six sets.  But once again, I took my time, not stepping back up to the barbell until I felt ready again.  There was little to no rocking during set five, although I did need to pause after 4 reps as became the habit during this session.  After one more break of several minutes, I told myself to just do what I had done during the first 5 sets.  I didn't need to be extraordinarily amped up or anything to get through it.  Simply repeat the process.  Like in the fifth set, there was barely any rocking.  There was a pause after four reps.  There was a lot of sweat and heavy breathing.  And there was a smile on my face after I stood up with the sixth rep and placed the barbell back on the rack.  I was wiped out, but I had made it through the six sets.

What does one do when they're feeling exhausted from working out?  They go work out some more, of course.  Luckily, I knew that the WOD was not metcon focused, so I wasn't too worried about how it would go.  And I lowered my expectations as well, knowing I had expended a lot of energy getting through the back squats.  The Tuesday WOD was:

2RM Push Press (5 sets)

Cash out:
10-8-6-4-2 GHD Sit-ups
50-40-30-20-10 Double Unders
*Alternating between the movements

With the cash out taking people in the range of 3-7 minutes, I figured I had enough energy to make it through.

We had the option of working as partners for the push press, so I naturally chose Matt B.  Did I know he was going to kick my ass in the push press, even if I showed up fresh?  Yes I did.  He was nice enough to let me think I could hang with him for at least a little bit though.  We started out with some warm up at 95 pounds before doing our first set at 135.  No problems there.  Then we went to 155.  Still no problems.  At 175, I was working much harder than he was to get two reps.  I told him I was only moving up to 185 for the fourth set, but that I'd be happy to put on more for him.  He immediately said "I'll try 205".  Well damn, that's quite the jump!  Then he backed it up by knocking out two reps at 205 like he was bored.  Meanwhile, I put 185 on the barbell, struggled through the first rep, let the barbell crash down on my chest, then struggled through a second rep, before ungracefully crashing the barbell down on the rack.  I was not going to be able to do much more than that.

Matt made another big jump to 225 (show off!).  I would have bet money that he was going to get it, but he made three attempts at this weight and couldn't get it overhead.  Guessing he would have gotten 215, but he stuck with 205 for his score.  Then I attempted 195.  I went to do the first rep and couldn't get it overhead, but I caught the barbell on my front rack instead of letting it drop.  Matt told me that I wasn't taking a big enough dip, so I dipped lower and tried again.  Got the barbell over my head!  I controlled the barbell back down on to my front rack and prepared for the second rep.  Sadly, this rep would resemble the first one despite a lower dip.  Today was 2RM day, not 1RM day, so I got no credit for 195.  I thought since I tried three reps during that set that maybe I'd get 195 if I took another swing at it.  But when I made a second attempt, I couldn't get the first rep again.  I wasn't all that disappointed.  I thought 200 would be ambitious given what I had just done in the annex, so even 1 rep at 195 felt like a win for me.

Cash out time!  I had to trim the new jump rope that I got weeks ago because I've done nothing but let it sit in my bag since the day it arrived in my mailbox.  Pull-up practice has definitely taken up any time I might have previously devoted to double under practice.  Once again, lowered expectations on this cash out.  The GHDs didn't seem like they would be too much of a problem as the rep scheme there was on the low side.  However, I wasn't sure the double unders would go so well due to lack of practice and waning energy at that point in the night.  Things played out as expected.  During the first round of 50 double unders, I got a couple of sets in the teens, but needed to pause after each of them to shake out my legs.  After a couple of very short sets where I messed up, I did manage to rattle off the last 16 in a row to get back to my GHD.

In the round of 40, my reps were much more broken up, including some sets where I got tired and stopped before the rope hit me.  The set that ended the round was probably my best set (I get very determined to reach the finish of double under rounds).  After another visit to the GHD, I walked back to my rope, going 9-9-12 to complete the round of 30.  Michal and "Megs" were warming up for the 7:30 class and started getting on my case.  I was very tired when I got back to my rope for the fourth time.  It had gotten tangled up when I dropped it at the end of the last round and my brain was not processing how to untwirl it.  Michal was yelling at me to get going, while "Megs" was telling me that I should just be like "20...done."

With the rope straightened out, I got going, this time with a little bit of a chip on my shoulder.  I wasn't mad at them, but I wanted to prove I wasn't falling apart at the end.  I got a nice set going and became determined to hold on for the entire twenty reps.  17...18...19.  The rope passed underneath my feet two more times as I did one last jump.  I threw the rope to the ground, turned to "Megs" and said "20...done".  The "done" part was absolutely correct as I got over to the GHD and did two sloppy sit-ups.  I came back to my rope and honestly don't remember if I got all 10 or if I messed up along the way.  Oh well.  I had my mini-moment of glory during the round of 20.  Final time: 6:42.

Wednesday preview:  There is no Wednesday preview!  Because driving in the rain is so incredibly hard (sarcasm), I was stuck in traffic most of the afternoon on Wednesday, not making it to the gym in time to do a workout.  Instead, I went to the annex and worked on squat cleans.  At lower weights, my form looked okay.  Once I got to higher weights, I struggled whipping my elbows through to catch the clean.  I failed at 205 a bazillion times before finally succeeding in very ugly fashion.

After that, I helped out Rachel as she became the 38th person at our gym to complete Wolverine.  I counted her reps and did the runs alongside her (2.25 miles is a decent amount of running just on its  own).  She finished in 76:54.  It looked grueling.  I am going to have an incredibly hard time keeping the workout under 90 minutes on Saturday.  Assuming I get through it.  But that's the next thing on the agenda.  So check in on Sunday to find out if I made it through 60 clean and jerks, 120 pull-ups, 600 sit-ups, and 2.25 miles of running while wearing a costume.  (The costume will definitely be worth it!)

Why Guys Like Cline Won't Date Me Anymore

Workout date: 10/26/15

Monday was the start of an insanely busy week for me.  Normally the end of October is significant because I'm headed to the Breeders Cup, my favorite event on the horse racing calendar (Opening Day at Saratoga and the National Handicapping Championship are very exciting times for me as well).  Due to a mix of factors, I won't be able to attend this year's Breeders Cup, which opened up my calendar to a host of other things.  Here's a quick summary of things on tap this week:

• Breeders Cup: Just because I ain't going don't mean I ain't betting.
• World Series: The Mets are still playing baseball.  My mind is blown.
• Getting Doctor Coach Sommelier VP Giulz from the airport: To quote #mckeithie, we miss her face.  (Okay, he might have said butt, but he usually says face)
• Poker tournament: It's for charity.  But it still has that authentic gambling feel to it.
• Wolverine: 120 pull-ups along with a host of other movements.  Only 37 people have completed it.  I'd like to be #38.  Or whatever number I would be after all of the people who finish before me on Saturday write their names on the board.

Thank goodness that I got my Wolverine costume together last week or I'd really be running around like a maniac this week.

Because I don't want to be sore going into Wolverine and because I have that weird delay where my body doesn't feel the brunt of a workout until 48 hours later, my plan for the gym this week was to get through workouts on Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday, take a couple of days off on Thursday and Friday, then tackle Wolverine on Saturday.  Maybe that's a little wimpy.  Or maybe I'm doing right by my body for once.  My body has seemed very appreciative of the extra rest days I have taken recently, even if it leaves me sitting home antsy about not going to the gym.

The workout on Monday was Jackie.  I had completely forgotten about Jackie.  During my first few months at KOP, I was atrocious at nearly everything I did.  I would scale workouts like crazy and still struggle to get through them.  The idea of doing a workout RX didn't seem like much of a realistic goal.  I am the stubborn sort though, so I began looking at the different girl WODs online to see which one I might have a shot at performing RX.  I landed on Jackie, which is:

• 1,000 meter row
• 50 thrusters at 45 pounds (empty men's barbell)
• 30 pull-ups

Now that might sound like an odd one for me to choose given what you know about me and my struggles with pull-ups.  But early on in my Crossfit career, rowing and thrusters were two of the very few movements where I showed some competence.  And all of these maniacs around me were telling me how easy kipping was, so it was only a matter of time before I was going to get up on the bar and knock out pull-ups like it was my job.  (Spoiler: kipping is not that easy for everyone)

Despite thinking early on that this would be the workout where I would get my first RX, I had never actually done Jackie until Monday night.  For whatever reason, I've never been available whenever this workout has been scheduled.  I'm sure I would have at least taken it on while using a band for the pull-ups if I had the opportunity.  That would have given me some idea of how tough this workout would be prior to Monday.  Instead, I went into it with some highly optimistic/delusional thoughts with regards to how quickly I could finish it.

I should mention that the WOD was actually called "Jackie Plus", with the extra caveats being that there was a soft 10 minute time cap (if we weren't done with Jackie, we would make note of how far along we got, then finish Jackie and note the time) and that if we finished under the time cap, any time remaining would be used to complete burpee box jumps.  Here were my optimistic thoughts regarding how long the workout would take:

• Row: 1,000 meters could be done in 4 minutes without much stress
• Thrusters: I was just using 115 pounds for these on Saturday!  45 pounds would be a breeze.  Should knock out these 50 reps in 2 minutes
• Pull-ups: When we did sets of 10 on Saturday, I estimated that each set took about a minute to do.  And we did 3 sets of 10 on Saturday, or the same 30 reps we were doing here.  That meant 3 minutes of work.
• Burpee box jumps: 1 minute of pain

Looking at it like that made getting under the 10 minute time cap seem like a slam dunk.  It was not.

We had a nice full class of 11 people, which once again meant some cramped quarters, but it wasn't too bad.  I was working out in between Steph C and Matt B, with Raj and Erika also at the end of the gym I was stationed at, while Cline, Brian, Chris, Danielle, Julia, and Rachel were towards the other end.  Because I was down at the far end with my back to almost everyone else, I couldn't do much in terms of play-by-play during this workout, but Cline filled in the gaps for me post-workout.

We started the row and I was certain Cline would be the first one off the rower.  My goal was to have a nice strong row to begin the workout.  I didn't want to be huffing and puffing when I was done, but something slightly under 4 minutes would be great.  It went even better than that.  I have mentioned that my form has improved on the rower, most notably that I'm using my legs more effectively.  I finished my first 500 in the 1:43-1:44 range, which meant I was under 3:30 pace for the 1,000 meters.  And that was without killing myself on the rower.  Good start!  I did slow down a little on the second half of the row, but I was somewhere between 3:30 and 3:35 as I got ready to do thrusters.  Matt jumped off of his rower at around the same time.

For the thrusters, I wanted to make sure I didn't tax my arms by needlessly holding the barbell in front of my body when it could rest on my body.  This is always easier to do when there is some weight on the bar, so my thought was to be methodical, not rushed, as I did these.  What I did not factor in was how much of an effect the row would have on my ability to do thrusters.  We recently had a workout where we went from a row into thrusters and it was difficult, but again, there was weight on the bar.  I thought with an empty bar I could grit my teeth and hang on through 50 reps.  I was wrong.  I made it to the teens before I had to start fighting.  I managed to hold on until I completed 25 reps and then I put the bar down.  I kept my break small and went back into more thrusters.  It was quickly apparent that I was not going to get the last 25 in a row, so I took another break at 35 reps, before holding on for the final 15 reps.  Cline later told me I was the first one to get to the pull-up bar.  A quick look at the clock told me 7:15 had elapsed.  It was going to be tough finishing under the 10 minute cap.

My breathing was rapid when I got to the pull-up bar, but I took a second to calm myself before jumping to the high bar and stringing 3 reps.  Then I strung two sets of 2 reps.  Then I did 3 quick singles.  Another glance at the clock let me know I was 8:15 into the workout.  I had little doubt that I was going to fall short of beating the 10 minute cap.  I did 3 more sets of two reps before going into singles.  Some of those singles were meant to be sets of two reps, but I didn't have the energy to get the second rep.  As the clock neared 10 minutes, I wanted to make sure I got 20 reps in.  I heard Keith tell Rachel to get over to the burpee box jumps right before the time cap hit, so I knew she had finished.  I knocked out my 20th rep at about the same time.  With 10 minutes elapsed, I had 10 more reps to do.  I had hit the point where they were all going to be slow singles.  I may have been the first one to the pull-up bar, but one by one, other folks in the class were finishing as I kept chipping away at my last 10 reps.  Eventually I got the 30th rep done.  Final time: 11:41.

Our cash-out was tabata burpee box jumps.  Not much to say about this other than I was tired and there was no way I could do more than 4 in 20 seconds.  As is usually my pattern, I started out well and finished well, with the middle not so good.  I went 4-4-3-3-3-3-4-4 for the 8 rounds to finish with 28 reps.

With everything complete, I had some time to talk with Cline and Rachel.  Cline had earlier brought up the topic of the "pity circle", a term I have coined on this blog.  He wasn't the first one to let me know that this term probably isn't the best way to describe the folks cheering me on at the end of the workout.  After all, in those rare circumstances when I'm done and cheering someone else on, it's not like I am pitying them.  I tried to explain it is more about how the person still working feels in that moment, but he had a point.  So there will be no more talk of the "pity circle", nor of the "shapeless support crowd" (there really isn't a good replacement for "pity circle", so I either have to use it or completely let it go).

That led to a conversation about not giving myself enough credit and being unable to take compliments.  Cline talked about how he used to date girls like that.  And that made me realize why guys like Cline won't date me anymore.  (I'm kidding!  I just had Chipotle with Cline the other night.  We went Dutch.)  In all seriousness, I'm sure it is a drag to hear someone be all Debbie Downer all the time and I try my best not to fall into that routine.  That being said, I wrote the following about one of my weaknesses in my very first blog post:

• Confidence - I have very low self-esteem.  Again, I am blessed to be working out with so many good-hearted folks that see me in a different light than I see myself, but it is difficult to bring out the best in yourself when you lack confidence.

It is also difficult to have 35 years of one experience and then suddenly change your perspective based on 2.5 years of a completely different experience.  I am slowly trying to become the person who accepts compliments without immediately saying something self-depricating, but it is hard not to fall back into your default mode.  Like pull-ups and double unders, it is one more thing that doesn't quite feel natural to me yet, but I'm working on it.

Tuesday preview: 6x6 back squat day!  Followed up by some push press, GHD, and double under work.

Back To The Thruster

Workout date: 10/24/15

After receiving a very solid "maybe" in response to whether or not I'd be getting post-workout breakfast on Saturday, I agreed to show up for Competitors Class.  With a Level 1 seminar taking place in the main gym, weekend classes were being held in the annex.  The annex isn't the greatest place to workout when there are a lot of people signed up for class, but luckily there were only 5 of us participating in Competitors Class this weekend.  The downside?  While Rachel had come up with a very cool metcon revolving around the theme of "Back To The Future" day (the day they travel to in Back To The Future 2), it had a lot of movements, meaning things would be tight during that part of the class.

Before we got there though, we had our warmup (athlete's choice) followed by some Olympic lifting work.  While I wouldn't say we reached full-on dicking around status during the first hour of class, we were slow-moving and that continued as we worked on our Olympic lifts.  We were doing hang snatches, which implies a full squat in the movement.  The format was 5x2, followed by 3x1.  I began at 75 pounds followed by 95 pounds.  Did I do a squat during those sets?  No I did not.  Obviously I was not awake yet and it took the sight of everyone else going into a squat several times for my brain to pick up on the fact that I was doing the workout wrong.  Oops.

I did start doing things correctly when I began my third set at 105.  Dropping into the squat isn't much of a problem for me as I kinda feel comfortable in that position.  I don't get the bar as high as some other athletes when I'm snatching, so it has always felt normal for me to dive underneath the bar to secure the lift.  Also, in contrast to the squat clean, I find it much easier to bail on the squat snatch if I haven't executed it properly.  In the squat clean, the bar is on your body, while in the squat snatch it is over your body.  Pushing it in front of you or behind you feels much easier when the bar is over your head.  At least that's my view on it.  (Note: I'm always the weirdo in the gym.)

So the set at 105 wasn't a problem, nor were the next two sets at 115 and 125.  I decided on a progression of 135-145-155 for the singles as my snatch form is not great currently (to be fair, it is not something I have spent a lot of time practicing) and when I'm going from the hang position, I struggle even more.  The lift at 135 went off without a hitch, but Jill A mentioned how slow I was getting the bar over my head.  A little bit of background would probably help.  Even though I think I am moving with speed in these lifts, I have gotten enough remarks to learn that I am not.  However, the tone of these remarks has changed over time from "wow, that is slow, and that is a huge problem" to "wow, that is slow, but good for you that you still have the strength to get it overhead".  Do I still take it in a negative way?  A little bit, but those are my issues.  I have learned to appreciate that people are saying it in a different, more complimentary way these days.

I might have had that comment in my head when I went to do 145, as I tried to be a little quicker with the movement before failing the lift.  The weight wasn't the problem so much as getting my balance in the squat.  On the second try, my balance was much improved and I completed the lift.  Unfortunately, that would be the end of my success, as I tried 155 twice, but each time I was unable to stabilize the weight overhead.

From there it was time to take on the metcon: "Back To The Thruster"

3 rounds:
10 pull-ups
21 calories rowed
20 dumbbell snatches (athlete chooses weight)
15 burpee box jumps

*After each of these 4 movements, the athlete must complete 3 thrusters at 115/75

The significance?  10/21/2015 is the day they travel to in Back To The Future 2.  3 rounds because the series was a trilogy.  And 3 thrusters because 10/21/2015 was a Wednesday, the third day of the week on the Spring calendar.

My main concerns during this workout:

• Pull-ups:  Always pull-ups.  Even though I'm constantly working at them, this seemed like the most likely place where I would fall behind.
• Burpee box jumps:  Because they involve burpees.  And burpees suck.  Also because I needed to set my box up inside the rig in the annex.  Despite there being nothing above my head, I was paranoid that I would clumsily ram my head into some of Rogue's finest equipment.
• Thrusters:  While we only had to do 3 reps at a time, 115 pounds is no joke when it comes to thrusters.
• Breathing:  Rumor had it that the time cap for this metcon would be 45 minutes.  I didn't see how it could take that long, which generally means it would take even longer than 45 minutes.

With only 3 rowers at our disposal, Michal, Shane, and Jill agreed to do the workout as it was written, while Rachel and I decided to start at the dumbbell snatches and loop through each round from there. We had limited options on the dumbbells, so I went with a 45 pound dumbbell for my snatches.

Once we started the metcon, my goal was to not get smoked by everyone else there.  I could really only keep track of where Rachel was in relation to me because it would have been too confusing figuring out where the other three were when they were doing the workout in a different order.  So here's how it went:

Round 1 - Only slightly behind Rachel on the dumbbell snatches, getting through all 20 without needing a break.  My original thrusters were not wonderful, as I tried to go fast rather than focus on form.  The burpee box jumps were slow, especially since I had forgotten full extension was not necessary at the top.  And because I was reaching out with my hands as I jumped on the box, just in case I tripped and fell forward towards the rig.  I also kept checking above my head to make sure I didn't hit my head on the air above me.  (Maybe I'm claustrophobic?)  The pull-ups went very well on the first round as I made up a little time on Rachel.  Eventually I did catch up on the row and we finished round 1 at about the same time.  Shane joined us on the row, meaning he was already through a round and a half.  

Round 2 - Similar to round one, although I did need to break up the dumbbell snatches into two sets.  The thrusters were much better as I made sure to keep the barbell on my body for the entirety of the movement, except for the part where you need to push press the barbell over your head.  Burpee box jumps were slow yet again, but I didn't fall way behind Rachel.  I finished my 10 pull-ups in about the same amount of time as her, but once again I made up ground on the row, finishing about a calorie behind her.  I was definitely breathing heavy, but there was only one round to go.

Round 3 - Shane finished up well before the rest of us.  From what I could tell, Jill was ahead of Michal and Rachel was ahead of me.  After doing the dumbbell snatches in two sets as I had done in round two, I fell apart on the burpee box jumps.  Lots of crawling on the floor and tired jumps up to the box.  Rachel finished hers when I had 6 left, meaning she had created quite a bit of separation during that movement.  The pull-ups were all singles, but I tried not to stray more than a step from the bar each time I came back down.  I was way too far behind on the row to catch up to Rachel this time, but I still put together a decent final row.  Shane, Rachel, and Jill were done, but Michal and I were nearing the end together.  I got over to my barbell, did three thrusters with solid form and was done with the workout.  Final time: 26:51.  Michal finished less than 30 seconds later.

Although tired, I was happy with how the workout went.  If I'm not several minutes behind everyone else in class, I'm usually satisfied with how I did, with the exception being if it is a workout that emphasizes my strengths.  Then it's all about stopping the clock early.

(Important note: I did end up getting breakfast after the workout.  It was probably luck more than anything, but I'll take it.)

Another rest day on Sunday as I'm beginning to notice that my body requires a few more of these lately.  If I don't set an alarm on the weekend, I can be out cold for 12-14 hours.  That doesn't strike me as normal.  Perhaps my body is trying to tell me something.

Monday preview:  I totally forgot about Jackie!  This may be a workout that I can actually do now!  But can I complete it in the 10 minute time cap?  No, I can't, but read about it in the next blog post anyway.

Found My Hammies

Workout date: 10/23/15

I used to have the ability to predict what the next day's WOD was.  Well, to be fair, it was more of a subconscious ability.  I would stay after a workout for Open Strength and, more often than not, whatever I worked on would somehow pop up in the next day's WOD.  I don't have concrete statistical data to back this up, so you'll have to trust in the fact that I've never embellished any story that I've told on this blog simply for effect.  (Note: If you ever see me writing down random numbers at Open Strength, you might want to buy a Powerball ticket.  You'll thank me later.  From your new private jet.  Assuming it has Gogo In-Flight.)

By committing to a regular back squat routine, I likely have increased the chances of having my Open Strength workout conflict with scheduled WODs.  After all, the back squat is probably the strength movement most likely to appear in a WOD.  It had happened recently and I guess I figured I was safe for a while after it had happened, since it is pretty rare that the same workout pops up again in a short time period.  We have had a lot of workouts show up 3 months apart at the gym this year, but that was because the owner of our gym (Aimee) had sent out a program at the beginning of the year stating this would be the case.  It is not uncommon to go six months or even a year before seeing a workout pop up again.  When we did Kalsu earlier this year, it was the first time I had seen it in about two years.

That being said, back squats are not a specific workout like Isabel is.  Instead, back squats might show up as part of a WOD in many different varieties.  Because back squats are usually taken from the rack, they tend not to appear in metcons very often, but they will appear as a 1RM, 3RM, 5RM, etc.  And there's no chance that I'd be lucky enough to have 3RM day pop up when I'm doing 6x3 or 3x3 in my back squat program.  That means when there's a conflict, I need to choose whether I really want to do the WOD.  That was the case on Friday as the WOD consisted of finding your 10RM back squat and a 2,000 meter row for time.

The only reason this was a difficult decision was due to the row.  I had little desire to find out what my 10RM back squat was.  From all the squatting I have done recently, I would wager a lot of money it was in the 245-255 range.  I had planned on doing my 6x2 session on Friday and there was no reason to mess with the plan.  But I hadn't done a 2,000 meter row for time since May.  Even that was a bit of an accident as I was really just looking to do a little cardio on the rower that day.  Since I felt good halfway through the row, I pushed the rest of the way to PR with a time of 7:42.7.  Now I was curious as to whether I could drop that under 7:30.  I didn't need to do the WOD to find that out though.  I could simply tack it on to whatever else I was working on.

In lieu of the WOD, I decided to do some box squats along with my 6x2 session.  Coach Steph had a point the other day: I need stronger hamstrings.  I've watched Leslie do these all the time, but I had never done them myself.  I had asked Steph what weight I should use for the box squats, but the best answer she could give me was to feel it out as I worked through them.  So I went very light for a variety of reasons:

1. Never done these before
2. Still doing my 6x2 work afterwards
3. Didn't have a rack to use

With the back squat WOD going on at the same time as Open Strength, there were no racks available for me to use.  That meant I would need to clean whatever weight I used (so anything above 225 wasn't happening).  I grabbed a 13" box and made sure it was the proper height for my squat.  I had read online that you didn't want to use a box that left you above parallel when you sat on it, but at the same time, it was also detrimental to use one that left you well below parallel.  The 13" box felt right when I tested it out, so I'll know what to use going forward.  From there, I tested out the movement with an empty barbell (45 pounds) to get the feel for it.  Then I moved up to 95 pounds to see how different it felt with weight on the barbell.  Still not bad.

Having felt comfortable with that, I moved up to 135 pounds and did a set of eight reps.  Oh hello, hamstrings!  The idea behind this movement is that you force yourself to use your hamstrings when coming up out of the bottom of the squat (as opposed to on your toes, like I normally do).  Even at this lighter weight, I could feel my hamstrings being activated more than they typically are.  I took a break before doing another set of 8 reps at this weight.  I didn't want to burn myself out, but I did want to test my hamstrings with a little more weight on the bar, so I used 165 for my final set of 8 reps.  I never struggled with the weight, but it was clear that this movement was forcing me to use different muscles than I was accustomed to using.  Hopefully I will one day develop hamstrings, like that joyous day not too long ago when I finally developed a tricep (look, the bottom of my arm isn't completely flat anymore!).

With that completed, I did my 6x2 session of back squats at 265.  I am still not feeling completely comfortable with that weight, but I also was never in danger of failing to get two reps during each set.  My 6x6 day at this weight is on the horizon though, and I have major concerns about whether I can handle that.  It will take tremendous focus and solid technique to get through it.  Certainly not an impossible task, but not my strong suit either.

With all my squatting done for the night, it was time to play around on the bar.  I have been consistent in doing pull-up work nearly every night I've been at the gym recently, so I wanted to test out my toes-to-bar instead.  Like with pull-ups, it would test both my grip strength and my midline stability.  Plus, it would be wise to work a little more regularly on efficiently stringing toes-to-bar reps (toes-to-bar doesn't come up nearly as often as the back squat does.).  For my first round, I strung together 10 quick reps with good form, which ties my best effort.  Like with kipping pull-ups, I could get more reps by coming to a dead hang and doing single reps, but that is much less efficient.  I did two more sets after that, one of five reps and one of six reps.  I still struggle with keeping my midline tight as I tire out (same issue with pull-ups), but if I could do a set of 21 reps during a workout in three sets like I did here, I'd be very pleased.

Finally, I worked on pull-ups once again.  The newest thing to work on: keeping my feet together during the kip.  I have gotten better at my swing, but it could improve more if I kept my feet together.  Samson mentioned being called "a mermaid", which was a very helpful cue for me as I could visualize that while watching him and Michal do their pull-ups.  I ended up doing three sets of 5 pull-ups.  Hanging on longer than that will require practice, but as I said with the toes-to-bar, if I can duplicate sets like that in a workout, you'll hear no complaints from me.

As for the 2,000 meter row, I decided to put that off for another time.  I'd love to take a crack at it fresh and it didn't seem worthwhile to do it having gone through the squats and the gymnastic work already.  My goal is something in the 7:20-7:30 range.  I think my rowing form has gotten better, but I'm not sure how well my cardio will hold up for a row of that distance.

Saturday preview: A return to Competitors Class featuring a themed workout from Coach Rachel.  Rumor has it that the workout has a 45 minute time cap.  Yay?

The RX Addiction

Workout date: 10/21/15

I've been on a roll recently.  (Don't worry, the ego check is coming soon enough.)  The back squat PR.  The clean and jerk PR.  Completing Badger RX.  A lot of things have started clicking at once and it has been very exciting for me.  What else can I do?  I want to do all the workouts RX!  After doing 90 pull-ups on Friday, my mind started racing through all the workouts that I've had to scale previously because of my inability to do pull-ups.  Let's do Angie!  100 pull-ups to kick off a workout sounds like a fantastic idea!

As you can see, hitting a hot streak in the gym can lead to some serious delusions of grandeur.  That became apparent on Wednesday when we took on Isabel for the fourth and final time this year.  Isabel is 30 snatches for time at 135/95.  Isabel is to the snatch what Grace is to the clean and jerk.  Like Grace, it is, as #keithie dubbed it last night, a one-song workout.  (Note: I requested November Rain for the workout last night, but somehow it was not on anyone's playlist.)  The idea is to choose a weight where you can finish the workout in five minutes or less.

I missed this workout back in April and July, but I was around when it came up in January.  Being the tough guy that I am (ha!), I decided to go for it using RX weight.  It went about as well as you can imagine.  While everyone else was finishing in the time recommended, I slogged my way through 30 snatches in nine minutes flat.  Towards the end, my failed attempts were outnumbering my successful attempts.  That is a really simple way of determining that you have chosen an inappropriate weight for the workout.  After I finished, I swore that I would use 125 pounds next time, as I had already done this workout once before with 115 pounds and finished in around 3:30.

So what did I do on Wednesday, the next time I took on Isabel?  I loaded up my barbell with 135 pounds.  Of course I did.  After all, I'm Superman these days.  Ain't a workout that I can't handle using RX standards!  Why keep to my pledge of using 125 pounds?  I mean, that's a measly 10 pounds less than RX.  That's a weak scale.  Go for the gusto!

There were several reasons to use 125 pounds that I ignored:

• I may have improved since January, but I would need to cut my time in half in order for the RX weight to be the appropriate choice for this workout.  Had I improved that much?  Not likely.
• My PR for the snatch is 175 pounds, but I did that once and it was when I was doing the Olympic lifting program.  Could I do 175 pounds right now?  Nope.  If I tested it right now, my max snatch would likely be in the 160-165 pound neighborhood.  Trying to do 30 snatches at 80% of your current 1RM weight is a bad idea.
• I had injured my left index finger on Tuesday.  When I warmed up for Isabel, I noticed that it was very painful to hook grip the bar.  This was not a workout where I could afford to have my grip fail on me.  So an intelligent person would have gone lighter.

Despite all of these red flags, I proceeded to attempt Isabel with too much weight on the bar.  If I'm being completely honest, I saw that Matt B had done it in the 5:30 class at RX weight and I'm always trying to keep up with him on these strength workouts.  But that's a pretty lame excuse for not choosing the best weight for me.

As we got ready to go, I told myself that finishing in 5 minutes simply meant 6 snatches per minute.  I could manage that.  I could probably manage more than that early on in the workout, which would help me when everything inevitably went to shit.  At least that was the game plan.  Once we got going, I realized there was no possibility of stringing reps.  I hadn't planned on stringing many anyways, but when I felt pain in my finger right off the bat, I decided against it completely.  I was going to drop from the top of each rep and try to keep breaks to a minimum.  When I finished my 6th rep, I took a quick look at the clock and saw I was under a minute.  After 12 reps, I was under two minutes, but with only seconds to spare.  Keeping this pace up was quickly becoming a dicey proposition.

As I closed in on the midway point of this workout, my grip became an issue.  I was alternating between using a hook grip and not using one as I went along, but that non-hook grip was falling apart.  Towards the end of the workout, #keithie offered me chalk.  I passed on it, but I probably should have been more diligent about using it during the workout.  I was so concerned with my finger that I ignored how sweaty my hands had become.

I didn't take a peek at the clock again until I was around rep 22.  I was definitely slowing and as I became aware of it, it may have triggered a desire to see how much time had passed.  The answer was around 4:15.  So much for staying under 5 minutes.  There was no way I was getting 8 more reps in 45 seconds.  Making matter worse was that the pity circle was beginning to form.  Don't get me wrong: I appreciate the support everyone gives me when I'm the last one working in a class.  The problem is that when you notice everyone else is supporting you, it becomes crystal clear that you're the only one still going.  And when you're not super close to being finished, it can be a bit deflating.  Laura A had been facing me during this workout and I saw her stop and rest as I got to 15 reps.  After a few more reps, I noticed she was still sitting next to her bar.  And then it dawned on me that she was done.  Crap.  When I snuck this peek at the clock, I realized that everyone else in the class was done.  I was tired, had 8 more reps to go, and the pity circle had formed.  Double crap.

I made it to 24 reps before I felt the need to go into a squat snatch.  The good news: I managed to squat snatch each of the next two reps, even though I was terrified that I was going to fail at that point.  The bad news: I had no confidence I could pull off 6 in a row to get me to the finish.  Somehow I did manage to execute one more power snatch before I failed.  I knew it was coming.  I was only three reps away from being finished and I thought there was a slight chance I could make it. But deep down, I knew I wasn't making it to 30 reps without blowing it.  I refused to look at that clock, but I knew I was beyond 5 minutes.  From there, I took my time and tried my best not to mess up again.  Rep #28 was ugly.  Rep #29 was ugly.  Rep #30 was ugly.  But I got them done.  Final time: 6:13.

Was it a vast improvement on how I did in January?  Absolutely.  That doesn't mean I didn't let my ego get in the way of choosing the proper weight for the workout.  Even though I "snatched" 30 reps, there were several reps late in the proceedings that were press outs and would not have counted in a legit Olympic lifting competition.  So it was far from ideal.  I also didn't keep the workout under five minutes like it was designed to be done.  I let my newfound confidence get the best of me.  As always, even in failure there is something valuable to be learned.  Next time I do Isabel, there will be 125 pounds on the bar.

Afterwards, we did some bar muscle-up practice.  This is another thing on my radar as far as near-term goals.  However, after trying this on Wednesday night, I may have discovered this is further away than I thought.  Despite improving on my kip, I am not getting high enough to make this happen.  More importantly, I am not committing myself to throwing my body back then pulling myself over the bar in the manner that is necessary to complete this movement.  In some ways, it is similar to doing handstand push-ups and being upside-down.  Until you completely commit to flipping upside-down and being comfortable with it, you're never going to be successful executing that movement.

I decided on Thursday to take an off day.  Maybe that would get my ego in check.  Maybe it was just what I needed after a long week that concluded with a "break" that was far from relaxing.  Maybe my minor injuries needed to heal.  Whatever the case, I felt like a return to the gym was not worthwhile.  It is one thing to gain confidence, but it should never cloud your judgment.  So I'll get back after it on Friday.

Friday preview: 10RM back squat and a 2K row.  Not sure if that's a workout that I would like to do, but we'll see how it plays out.

15 Climbs to 15 Feet

Workout date: 10/20/15

I may not have done the best job of letting my body recover during the three days I was away from the gym.  I drove to Albany on Saturday, getting stuck in all sorts of traffic.  I was up early on Sunday before a day of drinking with some buddies as we rode a bus to and from NYC for the Jets game.  On Monday, it was a long drive from Albany to Washington DC.  Then on Tuesday I drove through more traffic coming back home from DC, before going and grabbing my dog from the vet to cap my long road trip.  I barely had time to change and pack my bag before heading over to the gym.  Even then, I was running late.

When I got to the gym around 5:45, I was more eager for Advil than back squats.  Sitting through that much traffic is bound to give you a headache.  I wasn't able to find any Advil, so I proceeded to the annex without it.  Need further proof I wasn't in the right frame of mind?  After doing my warmup sets (5 reps at 135, 4 reps at 185, 3 reps at 225), Coach Steph told me I should start doing box squats because I'm always up on my toes and not using my hamstrings enough.  That is when I looked down and realized that I didn't have my lifting shoes on.  Those would probably help.

It was 6x5 day as I was closing in on the midpoint of my latest back squat program.  My last session went well and I was hoping to duplicate my performance from "light day" here on "heavy day".  Sadly, it was not pretty right from the start.  In my first set of 5, I had one ugly "walk forward with the barbell" rep and then needed to struggle out of the bottom on my last rep.  My balance was still off.  The same thing happened during my second set.  I got through the reps, but my form left a lot to be desired.  Christine and Bekah were providing encouragement in between their own sets, but more than anything I was hoping that they weren't picking up any bad habits from watching me lift.  That should really go without saying for anyone who watches me lift: do not duplicate what you see in front of you.

Then something changed before the third set.  My headache was going away.  Perhaps endorphins are better than Advil.  Even though I was struggling with my lifts, I wanted to get back after it as my body was starting to feel better.  During the third, fourth, and fifth sets, I continued to have 1-2 reps where I needed to find more to get out of the bottom of the squat.  But every time I was able to stand up with the weight.  I don't tend to think about this much while I am doing my back squats, but it is remarkable how much better I have gotten at not getting stuck in that area about one-quarter of the way up from the bottom of the squat.  This used to be my sticking point and whenever I got there, I would turn into a car spinning its tires in the mud.  It was rare that I'd ever get out of that position.  Now I get out of it more often than not.  Although not always...

When it was time for the sixth and final set, I felt the need to psyche myself up one more time.  Those first five sets were a lot of work, probably more work than they should have been.  But I was only five reps from being done.  I went through my routine, got comfortable with the barbell on my shoulders, and took it from the rack.  The first rep was fine.  The second rep wasn't horrible either.  The third rep...not so good.  As I attempted to come up from the bottom of the squat, I let the barbell roll up on to my neck.  Then I corrected this by rolling it back to where it was.  Mind you, I'm doing all of this while near the bottom of a squat with 265 pounds on me.  This isn't the spot where you want to chill and make adjustments.  You want to get out of the bottom quickly!  I should have bailed the bar by now, but since I hadn't, I continued to try to get out of the bottom of the lift.  It was spinning tires time.  Finally, common sense trumped stubbornness and I bailed the bar.  I was not pleased.

This marked the first time in months that I had to give up in the middle of a set of back squats.  And as I mentioned in my post on Badger, there's nothing more infuriating to me than making it all the way to the end of something only to fail.  Yet here I was again, getting to the last set and failing.  After unloading the barbell to get it back on the rack, I re-loaded it and took a few minutes to get my mind right.  When I felt ready, I attempted the last set again.  It was difficult, but there were no mishaps this time around.  This failure gives me doubts about how 6x6 day will go next week, as well as how the heavier sets will go in weeks to come.  Perhaps a solid showing on 6x6 day will erase some of the longer term doubts.

I had toyed with the idea of rushing through the back squats to make the 6:30 WOD, but when Michal stopped by the annex and let me know that Rachel had a special warmup that she was excited about for the 7:30 class she was coaching, I took my time and signed up for that class instead.  The warmup?  Two rounds of "Never Have I Ever" (KOP coaches sure love that game) involving goblet squats (goblet squats = air squats while holding a KB to your chest).  Luckily, this version did not involve my sexual and criminal past and therefore my participation did not bore everyone to tears.  However, I still managed to get some crap during this game.  In Rachel's version, we went around the class and each person gave their own "Never Have I Ever", as opposed to Coach Steph's version where she called out all of the scenarios.  I was second to go and wasn't ready with something to say. Since we seemed to be keeping it to Crossfit-related things, I said "Never Have I Ever done a 20 foot rope climb".  Apparently I was supposed to come up with something that I have never done because if this was the drinking version of the game, I'd want to avoid having to drink.  (Note: When I play drinking games, it is for the sole purpose of drinking.  Guess I'm a big weirdo like that!)  I learned my lesson the second time around as I have never practiced the final scene in Dirty Dancing.

Ok, enough warmup talk, time for the WOD!

50-40-30-20-10 air squats
5-4-3-2-1 rope climbs to 15'
Alternate between air squats and rope climbs

This was right up my alley.  It has been a while since I've done rope climbs, but I've gotten quite good at them, especially the shorter 15' climbs.  Air squats are sorta like rowing: you can get tired while doing them, but you never really need extensive rest with them.  The only problem with this workout was that we had 7 people in class and only 3 good ropes.  The fourth rope is newer and slicker.  I managed to do 1 rope climb on it before we started just to test it out, but due to the slickness of the rope, it required much more energy.  Best to avoid that rope if possible.  Everyone else in class felt the same way as we congregated around the 3 good ropes.

To make the traffic jam at the ropes as minimal as possible, we had a staggered start.  In the first wave were Sir Cline, Sheila, Kenton, and Ryan A.  Starting two minutes later would be Michal, Laura A, and myself.  Knowing I was going with two super speedy ladies, I decided that I needed to ignore how fast they would do their air squats.  There was no chance I'd stay with them on the air squats, so let them go nuts doing them.  I'd have my chance at catching up on the rope climbs.

The first group started and Kenton was very fast among that quartet.  Ryan was doing rope pulls near the pull-up bars, but the other three were on the 3 good ropes.  The time differential was perfect as Kenton came off of his rope while Michal, Laura, and I were in the midst of our first 50 rope climbs.  By the time we were done with the air squats, all three ropes were free.  Michal whipped through her 50 air squats by the time I had 36 done, with Laura not too far behind her.  I stayed at my own pace.  When I got to my rope, the focus was on securing the rope with my feet and controlling my breathing during the climbs.  The first climb was quick and I went right back up for the second ascent.  As I came down from the second climb, I told myself I needed to go right back up for #3.  My breathing was becoming more rapid, but I couldn't let myself rest during this part of the workout.  Certainly not this early on anyway.

When I came down from the third climb, I needed a second or two to calm my breathing before heading up for the fourth climb.  I repeated this pattern when I came down from climb #4 as I started to get a little excited about the fact that I was going to make it through five rope climbs without a real break.  I slid down the rope and headed to the area where I was doing my air squats.  I had passed Michal and Laura.

I was nearing 10 air squats in my round of 40 when Michal came over to do her air squats.  Yikes, this was going to be like Nancy.  I could already envision Michal coming over to do the final 10 air squats directly in front of me, knocking them out while I helplessly tried to keep up with her.  I needed to stay fast on the rope climbs.  We both finished our 40 air squats around the same time.  Back over at the rope, I managed two rope climbs before giving up my rope.  There was now enough traffic at the rope that it was only fair to share.  I think Sheila was doing mostly pulls at this point, but Kenton, Cline, Laura, Michal, and I were all in need of ropes to climb and none of us wanted the slick rope.  I stood next to it, considering whether it was worth it, but then I decided against it.  If I exerted a lot of effort trying to climb it and then failed, it would ruin the workout.  And honestly, everyone was good about switching on and off of the ropes, so no one was falling behind due to the congestion.  I got done with my fourth climb and headed back for more air squats.  Michal was close behind.

The 30 air squat portion of the workout was the most difficult for me.  I would knock out a set, then pause for a second, then knock out another chunk.  My legs were starting to burn and my cardio was being tested by the rope climbs.  Michal was back to her rope before me.  During this round, the two of us alternated on the same rope for the most part.  That meant I was one full rope climb behind her. Except suddenly I wasn't.  Michal miscounted and jumped on a rope to do a fourth climb as I went to do my 20 air squats.  She was now one full rope climb behind me, but in my head, that meant I needed to finish before she got to her last rope climb.

I pushed to get through the 20 air squats as fast as I could with only the briefest of pauses when I was breaking up sets.  When I got back to the rope, I was staying on the rope for both climbs.  My forearms were starting to fatigue, but my grip wasn't failing as badly as it had in prior workouts where we did a lot of rope climbs.  The only difference was becoming the number of pulls it would take to reach the 15' mark on the rope.  Early on, I was jumping on to the rope, then making three pulls before reaching up to tap the colored band indicating 15' on the rope.  As I got near the end of this workout, that third pull was leaving me about a foot short of reaching the mark, so I needed a fourth pull.  And every extra pull was difficult as I closed in on the finish line.

When I came down from the first climb in the round of two, I shook out my arms, took a step back to get ready for a big jump, then got back on the rope.  The climb was probably a little slow, but I got up there.  I slid down to the floor, worried that Michal was going to catch me.  Instead of running all the way to my air squat spot, I just got out of the rope climb/pulls area and started my last 10 air squats.  Unfortunately, that was where Laura had been and she came down from her last rope climb in the round of three as I hurried to finish my air squats.  Sorry Laura!  I completed the 10th air squat and ran over to my rope, got a decent jump, and used what I had left in my forearms to pull myself up to the 15' mark.  Then I looked at the clock for the first time.  Final time: 11:24.

I was amazed.  That workout felt like it took much longer than 11 minutes and change.  It was an extremely good time for me.  In fact, I was having a hard time remembering when I had done that well in relation to how the rest of the gym had performed that day.  Michal finished at 12:08.  Not sure if I would have beaten her if she hadn't done the extra rope climb.  Sounds like we'll need a rematch on that one.  Please program this workout again, Aimee!

Wednesday preview: Isabel test day.  Last time it took me 9 minutes.  Could I do this workout RX and avoid the pity circle?  (Come on, that is terrible foreshadowing.  You know I can't avoid the pity circle.)

Three Good Things

Workout date: 10/16/15

Knowing that I was going to be away from Saturday through Monday, I got home on Thursday night thinking "you only need to get through one more WOD, then you get three days off".  It was about 8pm when I got home, so I had no clue what would be awaiting me in less than 24 hours, but I assumed it would be something that I could put my head down and grind my way through.  While that eventually proved to be true, my original thought was that said grind would last 12-15 minutes, not 45 minutes.  Oops.

Going to my gym has taught me that I don't know a lot about my body.  From a dieting perspective, that was no big shock.  (Although I would like to note that Friday marked the end of 4 weeks of abstinence from soda and alcohol.  I can be good when I put my mind to it.)  But as far as what muscles are being used in a workout or what muscles I need to stretch afterwards?  I'm pretty clueless.  Meanwhile, both the coaches and a good chunk of the members rattle off this stuff like they are guest starring on an episode of Grey's Anatomy.  So take what I am about to say with a grain of salt.

Having read that Badger was awaiting me on Friday evening, I decided that I needed to get a bit rejuvenated prior to the workout.  I'm not one to take anabolic steroids (because Crossfit is very serious about testing for that stuff...wink!), or to a lesser degree, pre-workout, so my drug of choice was an epsom salt bath.  Most of my body was achy after Thursday's workout.  The gas tank had not hit empty yet, but the idiot light was definitely on and I had every intention of finding a rest stop in the next 30 miles.  After 5 straight days of training, I believe I was dealing with some CNS fatigue.  What is that?  CNS fatigue is Central Nervous System fatigue.  It is the idea that you have put your body through an inordinately large amount of physical stress.  Most people have dealt with going through a large amount of mental stress before.  This is like the physical equivalent of watching a Mets playoff game.

I felt somewhat better after my bath, but in the hours leading up to Badger, I found myself constantly stretching out my hamstrings.  They have been my physical focus recently and they had been sore for most of the week.  I had my doubts about getting through a very long workout with less than 100% hamstrings.  So my thought process eventually became "don't worry about the length of this workout, just grind away at it and you'll be fine".  I wasn't setting any speed records in this workout.  It was going to be more about staying mentally strong.  Oh, and about doing a ridiculous amount of pull-ups.

Don't remember Badger?  Let me refresh your memory:

"Badger"
3 rounds:
30 squat cleans (95/65)
30 pull-ups
800 meter run

When I first attempted Badger this year, it was a complete mess.  Here is one of my favorite photos of the year:

Marisa = not impressed

Talk about a grind.  This was back when I wasn't even considering doing the pull-ups without a band. And despite the assistance, it took me forever to get through the pull-ups.  My final time that day: 49:09.  No extra time was added on due to Marisa's disappointment in my performance.  (Note: Saturday was Marisa's goodbye party as she heads to chiropractic school in Iowa.  Best of luck to Coach Marisa!)

I attempted Badger again in April.  It was a very disheartening experience as I actually tried to do the pull-ups without a band to start the workout, only to fall way behind everyone else in the class before needing to use a band anyway.  My final time was considerably better (43:46), but it seemed like everyone improved 5 minutes or so from how they had performed in January.  I was not around when Badger came up in July, so I got a reprieve from having to do it in the heat.

Could I really do 90 pull-ups in a workout?  I have been slightly obsessed with pull-ups recently.  Once the back squat program ended, my attention turned to stringing together sets of pull-ups.  Nearly every day I spend time at the gym trying to knock out sets of at least 5 reps.  My kip has slowly gotten better.  I'm still playing around with my grip, but if I can figure that out, maybe I'll be able to stay on the bar longer than I currently do.  With all that being said, 90 pull-ups was a lot to get through.  My personal best for a workout was somewhere between 50 and 60 pull-ups.  I would need 60 pull-ups just to get through round two!

When I signed up for the 5:30 class, I noticed that it would be held in the annex as the main gym would be hosting the Superfit competition the next day.  That could be bad if it was a big class (sorry 6:30 class), but it turned out that only three of us would be working out at 5:30.  It was the entity known as Jalona (Jen and Alona) and myself.  Doctor Coach Sommelier VP Giulz didn't waste a lot of time with the warmup knowing we would need extra time to get through this workout.  So once we had settled on the weight to use for the squat cleans and had chosen a spot to do pull-ups, she sent us on our way.

Round 1:  I believe when I did this in April that I got through some sets of 10 on the squat cleans, which probably explains how I shaved 5 minutes off of my time.  Because let's be honest: it certainly wasn't due to my immaculate pull-up technique.  Having gotten stronger since then, I thought I could at least duplicate that part of the workout on Friday.  That seemed necessary as I had no idea how long the pull-ups could take me, especially if I got stubborn about not using a band.  When I needed to drop the barbell after 5 squat cleans in round one, I knew I was in some trouble.  This was a "light weight", but my legs were burning after only 5 reps.  For the rest of the round, each set was between 3 and 5 reps.  Jen finished up work and then Alona finished her squat cleans as I did my 29th rep.  One rep later, I joined them on the pull-up rig.

When I've practiced stringing together my pull-ups, I haven't been under duress.  Generally, I'll finish a workout, take at least 15 minutes or so to try and remember my name, and then go work on my pull-ups.  As I moved from the squat cleans to the pull-ups, I was breathing pretty heavily.  It wasn't a cardio thing (as strange as that might sound), but more of a sign that my body had been taxed by something that shouldn't have been that taxing.  At least not after 30 reps.  So I needed a moment to compose myself before hopping on the pull-up bar.  When I got going, results were not good again.  I strung together 3 reps.  I may have done that one more time.  There were some sets of 2 performed.  But I'm not sure I even made it to the halfway point of round one before I realized I needed to do quick singles.  (The one bright spot from this development: I learned that I should use the full grip when stringing pull-ups and the monkey grip when doing fast singles.  Store that one away in the old memory banks.)  Not tremendously pleased with myself, I tried to jump right back up again without too much rest between reps.  Jen was on her first run, but Alona was still working across from me.  As I got ready to do rep #26, Alona headed out the door.  I had hoped to stay with her, but I had fallen behind.  With 29 reps done, I jumped up for my final rep.  Naturally I failed, following up the disappointment by yelling out a profanity that rhymes with "phuck".  I'm not sure there is anything that bothers me more at the gym than failing on the last rep.  Was I hitting the end of the road on pull-ups already, without even completing round 1?  I shook out my arms, made sure I stayed tight on my kip, and got the 30th rep.

As I headed out the door for my run, I noticed something unusual.  For most recent workouts that have included running, I have struggled to get my legs moving.  On this run, it took a little bit of the start to stretch my legs out, but once I did, I felt pretty good on the run.  I even made up some time on Alona.  Jen was way too far ahead to catch, but maybe I could stay close to Alona on rounds two and three.

Round 2:  As I came back into the annex, I tried to psyche myself up for the squat cleans.  They were going to be painful, but I had to push through.  As I began my second set, I managed to string together 6 reps.  Good start, but my legs were once again burning.  From there I did sets of 3 and 4 reps primarily.  As I worked through my last 10 reps, I began to take a different resting position.  I had gone down into my low squat resting position a few times, but today was really not the day to do that.  To try and take some pressure off my legs, I began kneeling in front of my bar when resting.  Looked stupid, but it was helping.

I staggered over to the pull-up bar once I had finished 30 squat cleans.  I didn't even attempt to string reps at the beginning of this round.  Grind, grind, grind.  Giulz was telling me not to take more than one step away from the bar between reps, but there were points where I needed to walk over and simply lean on the rig to get some energy back.  Jen had returned from her second run and was working on round three of her squat cleans.  Come on Dave, don't get lapped in a 3 round workout!  After my 14th pull-up, Alona headed out the door.  I was pissed.  My hopes of staying close to Alona were gone.  My legs were sapped.  And I wasn't sure how many more pull-ups I had left in me.  Members of the 6:30 class and of the Open Strength class were beginning to file in.  The pity circle was slowly forming.

I had begun doing sets of 3-4 reps where I would do a pull-up, come down, take one step away, then go right back into the next pull-up.  I tried to push so that I'd finish my pull-ups before Alona came back from her run.  As I completed pull-up #60, I had a tired internal mini-celebration as I knew I had  now done more pull-ups than I had ever done before.  And I had a suspicion that I could get through most of the next round, if not all of it.  My 800 meter run wasn't super fast, but I did get another chance to unwind my legs and prepare for the final round.

Round 3:  Home stretch.  I had seen Jen during my run, but I got back to the annex before she could lap me.  Hooray for small victories!  Alona moved over to the pull-ups right as I began my squat cleans, so she was long gone.  It was time to work alone.  I tried my best to do sets of 5 in this final round, but it was really painful to simply stand with the weight.  Breaks were longer.  Almost every time I took a break, it was in that position on my knees behind the bar.  At one point, I stood up and went over to the wall to stretch my hamstrings.  None of this was fun.  I was almost welcoming getting to do pull-ups.  It seemed stupid to scream while doing 95 pound squat cleans, but that was the only way I could manage bigger sets.  When I finished my last squat clean, I had a very tiny moment of happiness, before realizing there were still 30 pull-ups to do.

Stay tight.  That was all I kept telling myself on the pull-ups.  I had failed on my last rep of round one, but since then I had gotten through the pull-ups with good form.  My mind was always on keeping that hollow rock position during my kip and it was paying off in one successful rep after another.  I stuck with 3-4 fast singles before a break.  Jen and Alona were done.  I was eating into the beginning of the 6:30 class unfortunately, but I was going as fast as I could.  Despite sweating a lot, I wasn't experiencing much of a grip issue on the bar.  The grips on my hands were soaked, but I wasn't sliding as I did the pull-ups.  I gradually made my way through the set of 30, with my confidence increasing as I got closer and closer to being done.  Finally, I swung up for the 90th pull-up of the day.  Seems crazy that I could do that many pull-ups in one workout with all the pull-up issues I have had this year, but somehow it happened on Friday.

Coach Miranda told the 6:30 class to warm up by running the final 800 meters with me.  I honestly didn't even care about the final run at that point.  I was excited about finishing the 90 pull-ups.  As we hit the turn around point on the run, I knew I had less than 400 meters left, most of it downhill.  I tried to lean forward and gain momentum.  I had no idea what my time was, but might as well trim it down as much as I could.  The group pushed me along up the final incline towards Frosty Falls, then it was a small dash down to the annex.  Final time: 45:41.

I needed to sit down.  My legs were jelly, but they'd be getting three days off soon enough.  I wanted to watch the 6:30 class, but there were so many people in it that there was limited space in the annex and I didn't want to be in the way.  I moved around as people went from station to station so that I didn't impede anyone's warmup or workout.  As I recovered, Rachel came over and congratulated me on my PR, although I let her know that since this was my first time doing this workout RX, I could have taken 6 hours and PR'd.  She wasn't having it.  She told me I needed to come up with 3 good things to say about myself concerning this workout (which, if you know me, is approximately 3 more than I would usually have handy).  So here is my best shot at it:

1. Ninety.  Freakin.  Pull-ups.  Who knew?  And the best part is that it now seems semi-realistic that I could do 120 for Wolverine in a couple of weeks.
2. Improvement in my running.  I had reached a point in workouts with runs where they became an insanely slow recovery period for me, tacking on way too much time as I slowly shuffled along.  All three of my runs during Badger were solid.
3. Confidence.  It might not be at the level of the average person from my gym, but it took a certain level of confidence to think I had a legitimate shot at 90 pull-ups.  And that confidence began to really grow near the end of the second round.  Despite being exhausted, I had little doubt during the final round that I was going to make it to 90.  Completely unusual for me.

Sorry for the delay on the blog post, but I spent most of the next 3.5 days on highways, whether I was driving or on a bus.  There was really no time to write all of this out and the recap of this workout required a little extra verbiage.  It was a special one for me.

Tuesday preview: The back squat program gets serious and my first time climbing a rope in months!

Getting Back On Track

Workout date: 10/15/15

Thursday was the last Endurance class of the year.  It really was a shame that I couldn't make it to this class earlier in the year.  I'm not sure I would ever describe an Endurance class as pleasant, but it is hard to argue the benefits.  My cardio the last two years was much better than it was this year and there's no doubt in my mind that it was due to my regular attendance at Endurance.

The lineup at the Upper Merion HS track consisted of Jen and Alona ("Jalona"), Mr. Intensity (John), Flounder, Kevin, and myself.  Perhaps the intensity was ratcheted up because it was the last class for 2015 (or because they don't call him Mr. Intensity for nothing), but John was pushing the pace during our warmup.  Not sure whether that had an effect later on, but it's worth noting.  We did some stretching after the warmup laps were complete and then we were on to our first task: burpee broad jumps.  Coach Tim brought us off the track and on to the football field and told us we were to do 20 burpee broad jumps for distance (not time).  This is where I found out that I hate burpees more than I love broad jumps.  Even doing these slowly sucked.  Alona was a speed demon, moving down the field much faster than the rest of us.  Kevin and I were moving at about the same pace, covering about the same amount of distance on our jumps.  When Alona reached midfield, Tim had her stop and asked her how many reps she had done.  The answer was 16.  Tim let the rest of us know that we could stop when we reached midfield as well.  Kevin and I both got there in 14 jumps.  Not sure how many jumps it took for Mr. Intensity and Flounder, while Jen did 20 before reaching midfield.

Tim then laid out what we'd be doing on the track: a set of 200M-400M-400M-200M, followed by a 4 minute break, then a 4 minute tabata sprint, with one more 4 minute break before another set of 200M-400M-400M-200M.  Now I'll warn you in advance: for someone who usually remembers how many reps he did in each set or what time it was at the end of every round, I have little recollection of what my times were during the 200M-400M-400M-200M sets.  Tim rattled them off to us at the end of each round, but it basically sounded like gibberish at that point.  Here is what I can tell you for certain: in nearly every one of those runs, the finishing order was Kevin-Mr. Intensity-Me-"Jalona"-Flounder.  Mr. Intensity won the final 200M sprint.  Flounder was ahead of "Jalona" on the first 200M run (if I remember correctly).  During the tabata sprints, Alona was definitely ahead of me.  And at the end of the second set, Tim accused me of sandbagging the first 200M run.  (For the record, he claimed that I ran it in 44 seconds, while Mr. Intensity ran it in 36 seconds and Jen ran it in 45 seconds.  I guarantee the gap between me and Mr. Intensity was not 8 times as large as the gap between me and Jen on that run.)  In general, my 200M runs were in the low 40's range while my 400M runs were in the high 80's range.

With the curtain closed on another Endurance season, I made my way over to the gym for my 6x2 back squat session.  My first four sessions using 265 pounds had not gone very well.  Maybe 5th times the charm?  I finally felt comfortable with the weight during my small sets of 2 reps.  As usual, I started with 5 reps at 135, 4 reps at 185, and 3 reps at 225.  My first set of 2 reps at 265 wasn't easy, but after I had put the barbell back on the rack, it wasn't long before I was eager to do set #2.  I felt like that eagerness was my body's way of saying "that wasn't bad, let's get back after it".  From that point on, I knocked out set after set with a lot of confidence.  Will I still have that confidence when I take on 6x5 at 265 pounds next Tuesday?  I'm not sure, but it was nice to get the feeling that my body was finally adjusting from using 235 pounds as my regular weight in the last back squat program to using 265 pounds this time around.

A workout would not be complete without pull-up practice.  Samson had texted me that my problems with pushing away from the bar at the top of the pull-up may have had to do with the grip I was using.  I have been using a monkey grip (hand completely over the top of the bar) for quite some time.  Matt B had shown me this once upon a time, explaining to me that it decreased the range of motion necessary for the pull-up.  And since I was struggling mightily with pull-ups, having less range of motion to deal with sounded ideal for me.  Samson's comment got the wheels turning and I may go back to a normal grip (all fingers over the bar except for the thumb, which wraps underneath the bar) from now on.  Why?  Several reasons:

• Better ability to push away at the top.
• My need for a smaller range of motion has decreased.  When I get tired while doing pull-ups, I resort to strict pull-ups.  That indicates that I still have the strength to do the pull-ups, but my kipping form is falling apart.  So if I have enough strength to do pull-ups even when I'm fatiguing, I can probably handle a little more range of motion.
• This grip is much safer.  Earlier in the year, I flew backwards into a wall while attempting to kip in front of a class.  Would that have happened with a normal grip?  No.  Also, there is more potential for me to slide off that bar using the monkey grip when my hands inevitably get sweaty.

The results when I practiced using the normal grip?  The kip looked better due to a better push away from the top, but I wasn't able to do as many pull-ups per set as I had been doing.  Still, if I can be consistent with knocking out 5 reps in a row and feel safe on the bar, I think that is a tradeoff that I am okay with.

I am headed out of town from Saturday through Monday, so Friday will mark my last class before a much-needed break.  My body is a little beaten up at the moment, but I think I can make it through one more class to cap off the week.  How bad could the Friday WOD be?

Friday preview:  It's bad.  Really bad.  A true test to see if I have any chance at Wolverine in two weeks.  A workout that includes 90 pull-ups.  I give you...Badger!

Hold On To Your Balls

Workout date: 10/14/15

As we've started to hit the home stretch for 2015, I've been lucky enough to hit some personal goals (back squat, clean and jerk).  That has been rewarding because I do feel like I work my ass off at the gym and at times it feels like the victories are few and far between.  More importantly though, I feel like the little things are finally sinking in.  Perhaps I've been too caught up in an atmosphere where athletes are throwing big weights around or plowing through round after round of an exercise while I gasp for air.  Maybe the combination of the loud music and the ticking clock have fueled so much adrenaline that I've been overlooking some very important elements that lead to success at the gym.

Tonight, I got to work on two of those elements and I think I did well with each of them.  There's still some room for improvement, but I was happy with how things turned out.  Before getting into all of that, let's take a look at the Wednesday WOD:

40-30-20-10 Wall Balls (20 lbs to 10'/14 lbs to 9')
30 calorie row after each round of Wall Balls

Originally, this workout was written so that it ended with the last round of wall balls.  However, the 6am class did a 30 calorie row after the final 10 wall balls and a trend was set.  Every other class throughout the day decided to do 4 rows as well.

The first element that was important tonight was resolve.  Every workout is like a mini-athletic contest and many times the difference between finishing quickly and taking much more time comes down to how strong you are mentally.  Wall balls are a prime example of how important mental resolve is during a workout.  #keithie was coaching tonight and I thought that was very appropriate as he had given me some advice in the past regarding wall balls and mental resolve.  I don't remember his exact words, but it went a little something like this: "A wall ball is never going to crush you.  Doing one more is never going to injure you.  It isn't like you're doing a barbell movement with a ton of weight.  The ball is 20 pounds maximum.  It is just a matter of whether you can push yourself to keep going."  There is a lot of truth in that statement.  Wall balls can be monotonous.  At a certain point, it may come down to whether you want to do more as opposed to whether you can do more.  If you can get yourself in the mindset that you want to keep throwing that ball up at the wall over and over again, you'll do better than you think.

The second element was breathing.  It sounds like such a simple thing, but I rarely focus on my breathing during movements at the gym.  Well, that is until I can't breath at all anymore and then breathing becomes my sole focus.  Screw the rest of this workout, I'm dying!  (That is only a slight exaggeration of my mindset when I've reached exhaustion in a WOD.)  Perhaps I wouldn't reach that point if I focused on my breathing during each rep of the workout.  I mean, I'm always thinking about something during the workout, so why not make it something that could actually help me?  Duh!

As we got ready to start this workout, I had one goal: string the first 40 wall balls.  Now my all-time best in terms of stringing wall balls had been 34 reps.  However, we were starting with wall balls  tonight meaning that I was fresh going into that first set.  And if I got to 30 reps, I should have enough mental resolve to finish off the last 10 reps.  Hang tough, Dave, that ball isn't going to kill you.

We got going and all you could hear for a while were people throwing their medicine balls against the wall.  There were at least 10 people in the 6:30 class and I don't think any of us were eager to be the first one to let their ball hit the ground.  I didn't want to let my ball hit the ground at all, but if I was going to drop, I didn't want to be the first.  (My competitive side simply never goes away.)  I don't recall what rep I was on when I first heard other medicine balls drop, but I think it was around the halfway point.  Meanwhile, I was exhaling after each throw I made and inhaling as I caught the ball to go into my squat.  I kept my elbows directly under the ball.  I tried to make efficient throws, high enough to exceed the 10' mark, but not so high that they were close to the 11' mark.  I was probably around 25 reps when this started to not feel so wonderful, but I was definitely reaching 30.  And if I got to 30, I needed to find the resolve to get to 40.

When I tossed up the 30th rep, my adrenaline got pumping.  I called myself a lot of names (neither Cline nor Flounder was there tonight, so I had to do it myself) and thought about how it was only 10 more reps to reach the goal I had set.  At rep 37, my body had a lot of interest in doing anything that did not involve throwing a 20 pound ball 10 feet off the ground.  I held strong and got the final 3 reps.  As the 40th rep hit the wall, I turned towards my rower and did a "Dave celebration", which consisted of me silently pumping my fist in a very reserved manner.  That's me getting all crazy.

As I got on the rower, I noticed that Josh M was already on his.  Seriously?  I strung all 40 reps and I wasn't the first one on the rower.  Damn.  And I knew I would not be catching Josh during this workout because he's a stronger rower than I am.  I would just do my best to stay close the rest of the way.  On the rower, I pretty much did the same thing all four rounds, although at different paces.  I would use the first few calories to catch my breath while getting some work done.  From there on out, I would focus on solid form and trying to maintain a nice strong pace.  During the first round, this wasn't much of a problem.  I was able to keep the calories per hour meter in quadruple digits for the most part.  (Note: 900 calories per hour would indicate that 30 calories was taking me 2 minutes, so 1,000+ meant less than 2 minutes of rowing.)  When my monitor showed 30 calories, I was back to taking on the wall balls.

I didn't show nearly as much resolve in my second encounter.  I wasn't breathing heavily when I got back to the wall, but my breathing wasn't under complete control like it was when I started the first round.  I made it through 7 or 8 reps before it became apparent that 30 in a row was not happening.  So I did 12 and then dropped.  I had so much success with my breathing in round one that I wanted a break to get it back under control.  This was probably the longest break I took in the workout.  When I started throwing the ball again, my brain got the idea that I could only handle 12 reps max at this point, so after rep 24, the ball dropped again.  Definitely could have shown more resolve there, although I took one of those "count down from 5 and get back on it" breaks before finishing the last 6 reps.  For round two on the rower, the calories per hour meter hung around the 900 mark, so it is likely that I was right around 2 minutes for the row.

Resolve breakdown #2: I should have gotten all 20 wall balls in the third round, but once my body latched on to the 12 reps and drop program, there was no going back.  Once again though, I didn't take a long break before picking the ball back up and finishing the last 8 reps.  The third row was very similar to the second row, likely taking up another 2 minutes.  As I got off the rower, I told myself that anything less than all 10 reps in this final set was unacceptable.  It ended up being a very easy set as I think my form was slightly better than it had been for most of the workout in terms of where I caught the ball before dropping into my squat.

Just 30 calories to go!  After settling in during the first few calories, I began to slowly accelerate until I hit around 12 calories.  Then it was give it everything you got and hope that everything you got is at least 18 calories.  The monitor showed quadruple digits again as I pulled as hard as I could, hoping to get 1 calorie per pull.  I wasn't that good, but I did get 1 calorie on most of those final pulls.  When calorie #120 registered on the monitor, I was done.  Final time: 13:45.

I could have shown more resolve in rounds two and three of the wall balls.  I probably could have found a little more energy during some of those rows.  But honestly, I was very happy with my time.  I'm not one of the stronger rowers in the gym and the majority of the workout was spent on the rower.  Could I have maybe trimmed my time down to around 13 minutes?  Possibly.  I'm not sure there is any way I could have gotten down in the 10-12 minute range that some people finished in today.  That is more of a cardio issue than anything.  Today's goal wasn't about time though, it was about getting 40 wall balls in a row.  I could have left after that set and been a happy man, so no complaints here about today's WOD.

While the next class did this workout, "Megs" and I worked on pull-ups.  "Megs" learned band math and did some negatives while showing off her guns.  (She claims that the sleeves of the shirt she was wearing naturally bunched up.  Uh huh.  Sure.)  I managed to string 8 kipping pull-ups together without stopping.  I tried the motorcycle re-grip again with no luck.  Samson and #keithie each gave me tips on improving my form.  Samson took video of me while I did some reps and pointed out that I was coming almost straight down when I pushed away from the bar. He told me that I needed to push away more from the top so that I come through more down at the bottom of the swing.  #keithie noticed that after a few reps I was not keeping my body in a tight hollow rock position.  As a result, I was beginning to draw my knees up, something I should not be doing.  So more stuff to work on, but at least pull-ups are slowly becoming less intimidating.

Thursday preview: The last Endurance class of the year.  Just when I finally started going!

Quad Assault

Workout date: 10/13/15

Monday's workout was one where it felt like 28 minutes flew by without much rest.  Apparently the Crossfit gods wanted to rectify that situation with Tuesday's workout.  It was a 20 minute workout that included a whopping 8 minutes of rest.  Yet it felt so much longer than the 28 minute partner WOD we did the day before.  Perhaps I made it worse by having a heavy squat session beforehand.  After all, this brutal WOD was very leg-intensive.  Or it could just be that my cardio sucks.  Spoiler: I'm leaning in that direction.

Let's start things off with the back squat session.  The second heavy session of the program calls for 6 sets of 4 reps at 80% of your 1RM.  Eventually I will get to 6 sets of 6 reps at this weight.  I guess the progression from 6x2 to 6x6 is meant to get your body acclimated to the weight you are using, but I can't help but think that my body is acclimating much more slowly to 265 pounds than it did to 235 pounds.  It is possible that other factors are at play.  I am not nearly as motivated to get 350 pounds on my back squat as I was to get 300 pounds.  Maybe I'm not focusing as much during these sessions as I had during the last program I did.  Maybe my body is sick of squatting for a while.  I'm not sure what it is.  The only thing I know for certain is that my footwork has become shaky again and I am not pleased about it.

Usual warmup routine: 5 reps at 135, 4 reps at 185, 3 reps at 225.  First set of 4 reps at 265: not wonderful.  Got up on my toes for reps 2 and 3, was very slow coming out of the bottom for the fourth rep.  Second set of 4 reps: almost had to dump the barbell during my second rep as I did that weird stumble forward thing, a habit that is becoming much too common.  Recovered and got through the second set, but I began to have serious doubts that I could finish all 6 sets.  On sets three through five, I had at least one rep where I came way up on my toes and each set concluded with a slow struggle from the bottom to complete rep #4.  I was actively trying to stay in my heels, but I kept rocking forward.  It wasn't until the sixth and final set that I made it through 4 reps with good form.  Not sure what changed, but it was nice doing at least one set properly.

Having survived that, it was time to head over to the main gym to take the 6:30 class.  Here is what the Tuesday WOD looked like:

3 Rounds:
4 Minute AMRAP
9 Calories on Airdyne or Assault Bike
15 Box Jumps (24"/20")
21 KB Swings (70/53)
*4 Minutes Rest Between Rounds

4 minutes between rounds?  What kind of madness was that?  This was going to be a truly horrendous workout.  That was confirmed when I watched the tail end of the 5:30 class, which ended with complete carnage: Bodies on the floor everywhere with athletes' chests heaving like they had been holding their breath underwater for a couple of minutes.  Silver Fox once again gave me the warning that this workout was so much worse than it looks.  Alrighty then!

Having botched a recent workout by thinking I could handle swinging a 70 lb KB for a bunch of reps, I decided to go with the wiser decision of using that weight but only for Russian swings.  Making that choice is a big blow to the ego for me.  After all, I am doing everything else RX (including choice of KB weight) except for the length of the swing.  Why go scale when I can get that nice RX next to my name by swinging that KB just a little higher?  The answer: because I lack the proper control when swinging that much weight over my head.  I'm trying to be a little more mindful of form and little less mindful of score/time/RX status when completing workouts these days.  Could I have done this workout RX?  Absolutely.  But I figured it would be better to try and get more reps in while maintaining decent form.

Since we only have 2 Airdynes and 2 Assault Bikes, we partnered up for class.  One person would work while the other person was on their break.  My partner was Mike C, a newer member who I had worked out with one time before.  Each of our groups was told to grab a bike to use.  I hadn't used the Assault Bikes yet, so I didn't know if there was much of a difference between them and the Airdynes.  When Mike chose an Airdyne, it ended up being a moot point.  I told Mike he could go first if he wanted to, so he led things off.

Mike and everyone else in the first wave completed a round through the bike, box jumps, and KB swings in just over 2 minutes, so it looked like knocking out 2 full rounds in 4 minutes was borderline impossible.  So after Mike finished his second trip on the bike, I got on it and cheered Mike through the end of his 4 minutes.  Then it was my turn to go.  I may have been a little too gung ho on the bike as I blitzed through 9 calories super fast.  I paused before starting the box jumps as Marisa had warned me earlier in the day that I would need to shake out my legs and take a second before going into the box jumps post-bike ride.  When I started on the box jumps, I tried my best to pogo the reps.  That went okay, but I still don't have the stamina to do 15 in a row.  If I needed to stop, I did so at the top of the box.  Done with those, I moved on to the KB.  I focused and was able to hold on for all 21 reps, even though it felt terrible.  I was under 2 minutes for round one.  Maybe I could finish 2 rounds!

Once I started pedaling on the bike again, I knew that finishing 2 rounds was a pipe dream.  I was much slower on the bike the second time around.  I got through 9 calories and returned to the box jumps.  The pogo was much more difficult.  At one point, I tripped over the box, which never makes you look like an uncoordinated doofus.  When I finished the box jumps, I ran over to the KB, knowing time was running out.  I managed to get 12 reps in before time was called, giving me a first round score of 81.  I was feeling a wee bit tired.

Four minutes later and it was time to get pedaling again.  The calorie counter on the bike doesn't go up 1 at a time like it does on the rower.  The downside to that is you could end up overshooting 9 calories quite easily.  I reached 8 calories on the bike and was still pedaling like a madman when I noticed it wouldn't click over to 12.  I slowed down, hoping the monitor would just tick over to 9 calories.  When the counter finally did update, I was at 12 calories.  That felt like a waste.  Box jumps were similar to how they were during my first four minutes.  The difference was at the KB.  I could not hold on for 21 straight reps like I had done during the initial four minutes.  I broke it up into 12 and 9 reps.  I was beyond 2 minutes.  I was miserable when I returned to the bike.  Michal was part of the first wave and therefore was on break.  She used her break to come scream in my face while I was struggling on the bike.  I put my head down and focused on pushing the handles with my arms as fast as I could.  With 10 calories completed (it would never land on 9 the rest of the workout), I got to my box.  I did a little bit of pogo, but it was slow going at this point.  More than anything, I wanted to get back to the KB, but it wasn't looking good.  Still had a couple box jumps to go when I heard 10 seconds left.  That was enough motivation to finish the box jumps, but there was no time left to get to the KB.  Second round score: 69.

Two rounds was plenty.  No need to do three rounds.  I mean, Mike had started his third round, but I was already feeling the burn.  Mercy please.  Nope, I was going to have to go through this obstacle course of pain one last time.  I sat on the bike after Mike's second ride of round three and prepared myself for the final four minutes.  Just get to the KB Dave!

Round three was very similar to round two, although with the finish line in sight, I was able to dig for a little more.  First bike ride was okay.  First set of box jumps was not bad, but had some delays.  First KB swings were shaky, but I got through them in a couple of sets.  When I reached the bike again, I resumed the position I had taken when Michal yelled at me last round (I received no such verbal abuse this round).  Pump those arms and get 9 calories!  I had less time remaining in this round than I had in round two when I finished my second bike ride.  However, I was able to string the first 9 reps on the box jump this time.  Then I did two sets of three.  With less than 5 seconds to go, I raced over to my KB.  I got 2 swings in before time was called.  Third round score: 71.  Final total: 221.

Wasn't the greatest score, but it was respectable.  My initial performance on the bike made me want to do the new one minute calorie challenge on the Assault Bike.  Doubt I can last the whole minute at the pace I was going, but we'll see how long I can keep it together.  For the box jumps, I need more stamina, but my pogo wasn't too bad.  I need a lot of practice on my KB swings as they have become a weak point for me.  But that's the thing with Crossfit: there's always something that you need more work on.

Speaking of more work, Steph had us do a two minute cash-out involving light dumbbells that you would alternate shoulder pressing for 15 seconds before holding them over your head the next 15 seconds.  It was not fun.  I had to put down my 20 lb dumbbells between the 1:15-1:30 mark.  Just couldn't handle it for two full minutes.

Later, I decided to do some pull-up practice after rolling out because my new grips had finally arrived.  I worked on stringing as many reps as I could rather than "motorcycling" because I had just done that the day before and I wanted to ensure that I got some volume in.  How did I do?  Got 7 consecutive in my first set, 7 consecutive in my second set, and 6 consecutive in my last set (hit my chin on the bar on the 6th rep).  No dead hangs during those sets.  My swing has become a little more reliable and I felt comfortable pushing away at the top.  As I fatigue, I think my swing stops being in sync the way it needs to be, so I need some work there.  But I am feeling slightly more confident with my pull-ups these days.

Wednesday preview: Wall balls galore.  How far can I go in the workout before needing to drop my ball?