Impressing The Master

Workout date: 11/13/15

I generally hit the gym for evening classes.  I've never been much of a morning person, as I have made evident just about each and every time I've shown up for Competitors Class on Saturday mornings.  Unless I need to be somewhere on a given evening, the 6:30 class works best for me.  Depending on my schedule, I'll switch it up with a 5:30 class or a 7:30 class, but for the most part, you'll find me at the 6:30.  Going to class at the same time nearly everyday means I tend to work out with the same people over and over again.  The other side of that coin is that I unfortunately miss out on working out with some people that I really enjoy working out with.  And no one gets me more fired up than Mr. Intensity!  I didn't get to work out with him on Friday, but he did stick around for my workout.  That meant I needed to put together a good performance.  I would have felt like a bum if he stuck around for an extra hour only to see me fail miserably.

After taking yet another day off on Thursday (I'm so broken these days), I came back on Friday for a barbell-heavy WOD where the number 7 seemed to be the theme.  Here is the workout:

2 rounds:
7 deadlifts
7 hang power cleans
7 front squats
7 shoulder-to-overheads
7 front squats
7 hang power cleans
7 deadlifts

RX weight of 185/125
Mandatory 4 minute rest between rounds
14 minute time cap

So 7 reps of each movement, 7 movements each round, with 14 minutes to complete the two rounds, meaning an average of 7 minutes per round.  Clearly Friday's workout was brought to you by the number seven.

Also...total Sucker WOD!!!  When this was posted at 10pm on Thursday, I had two thoughts: 1) "How heavy am I going to go?" and 2) "How much am I going to beat that time cap by?"  About 10 seconds after those thoughts went through my head, alarm bells started sounding.  The reason this didn't seem so daunting to me was because I looked at it and thought "this is DT with front squats".  DT is a workout where you do 5 rounds of 12 deadlifts, 9 hang power cleans, and 6 push jerks.  I had done this as part of Team DT with Rachel using 155 pounds.  I wasn't super fast or anything, but I got through 5 rounds in a reasonable amount of time.  Were the front squats going to alter the workout that much?  I decided to wait and see how this played out the next morning before I started getting all confident.

How did it play out?  Not well for the beasts in the early morning classes.  Not that they did poorly, but they weren't going nearly as heavy as I thought they would and the time cap was definitely in play.  In fact, Balmer and a drop-in from another gym were the only ones to attempt this workout RX and both were time-capped.  I wasn't seriously considering using 185 pounds, but 165 had seemed possible when I initially thought about what I would use.  Perhaps I needed to reconsider.

I got to see Mr. Intensity because this was one of those days where I was busy in the evening and needed to come in for a 5:30 class.  Mr. Intensity had just finished the 4:30 class with Justin R and Samson among others.  I asked them how it went and immediately got confirmation that this workout was going to be terrible.  The three college kids in class had attempted this RX and all got capped.  Justin had used 155 pounds and got capped.  Mr. Intensity had used 135 pounds and got capped.  Samson had used 125 pounds and finished with 7 seconds to spare.  I asked Justin what the worst part was and he said the front squats.  Stupidly, I still was not rattled, as I felt confident in my ability to get through the front squats.  But having seen the carnage over the course of the day, I decided that 165 was probably not a wise decision.  I'd go with the 155 that Justin used and do my best to finish before the time cap.

My class consisted of Doctor Coach Sommelier VP Giulz, Jen, Alona, and Rob.  We went through some drills and then began to warm up to the weight we would be using.  I feel like there is never enough time to truly go through a progression of weights on the barbell.   Before you know it, the coach yells "we're starting in a minute" and you have to scramble to get the proper weight on the barbell.  So I put 135 on my barbell and tested out each of the movements.  Felt reasonable.  The weight shouldn't have been light enough that you would zip through the 49 reps in each round and 135 seemed like it was borderline.  Deadlifts were going to be very light and 7 front squats didn't seem daunting at the weights I was considering.  The toughest parts of this workout were going to be the hang power cleans (grip killers) and the shoulder-to-overheads (stringing reps to limit how many cleans you would need to do).  But I had done DT with 155, so I believed I could handle those movements with the weight I had already chosen in my head.  Coach Miranda told us to get ready to start in a couple of minutes, so I added two 10 pound plates to the barbell to go from 135 to 155.  A few quick reps to test the new weight and I was ready to go.

I heard "come on Dave" a couple of times from Mr. Intensity as we got our countdown to start.  When the workout started, I treated it just as I had DT.  I used a reverse grip on the deadlift to save my grip strength.  Did 6 quick reps, dropped the barbell, then picked it up with a regular grip for my 7th rep.  Then I went through the 7 hang power cleans.  They were difficult as I expected, but I hung on for all seven reps.  That movement definitely tested out my cardio, but when I brought the last clean up to my shoulders, I realized I had enough in me to go right into the front squats.  I knocked out seven of those and then dropped the barbell for a breather.  One of the keys in this workout was trying to hold on to the barbell as much as possible, especially during the middle of each round.  Every time you dropped it, you were going to need to do another clean and that was going to use up precious energy.  I found this out the hard way when I cleaned the barbell to take care of the 7 shoulder-to-overheads, only to struggle on rep #1 before getting two additional reps and dropping with 4 more to go.  Uh oh. I needed to get all four on the next set as I wasn't certain I could transition smoothly from the shoulder-to-overheads into the front squats.  After another clean, I struggled through the first push jerk of the set again.  However, I steadied the ship after that, getting the other three reps before dropping the barbell.

On to more front squats.  Another clean was needed, but I pushed through 7 consecutive front squats again before dropping the barbell.  No more cleans needed this round.  To get to the hang power cleans, all you needed to do was deadlift the barbell and this was a light deadlift.  I did 4 hang power cleans before needing a break as the second set of hang power cleans was much tougher than the initial set.  I got the final three hang power cleans in my next set before dropping and changing back to the reverse grip for 7 quick deadlifts.  Round 1 was over in 4:16.  Time for a 4 minute break which I would need all of as the first round took a lot more out of me than I expected.

I laid on the floor for the first 2 minutes of my break.  Mr. Intensity was still encouraging me on, yelling over "you got this!"  Samson had hung around as well.  He came over and told me that I had a shot at 12 minutes, but I disagreed almost immediately.  Another round in 4:16 meant a time of 12:32 and there was no chance of me finishing the second round as quickly as I did the first round.  In fact, I began to worry during the break whether I had gone too slow in round 1.  Giulz had finished well before me, while Jen and Alona were done about 10-15 seconds before me.  What if I needed a solid 6 minutes for round two and I had only given myself 5:44?  I mean, I did have a history of failing right at the end of workouts.  I put myself through some mental anguish as my final minute of rest ticked away.

Time for round two.  The strategy was exactly the same, it was only a matter of whether I could execute it.  Six quick deadlifts with a reverse grip?  Check.  Last deadlift into 7 consecutive hang power cleans?  Check.  Right into 7 consecutive front squats?  No check.  Honestly, it took a lot to hang on through those 7 hang power cleans.  When I finished the last one, I had the barbell up on my front rack for the front squats, but I was struggling to breathe.  Doing one and then dropping seemed like it might damage my confidence in doing front squats, so I took a break before even beginning the set.  I looked at the clock and saw I had slightly less than 5 minutes to get through the final 5 movements.  Seemed very doable.

In fact, after I cleaned the barbell and proceeded to hang on through seven consecutive front squats, I was really feeling good about finishing the workout before the time cap.  I needed a break to breathe again, but another clean led to four shoulder-to-overheads.  I was happy to start off with four this time, leaving only three on the back end, but my lack of cardio was now becoming a major issue.  After taking some time to catch my breath, I cleaned the barbell and finished my last three shoulder-to-overheads.  A look at the clock showed less than 3 minutes to go before the time cap.  Not panicking yet because those deadlifts at the end would be fast.  Just need to find a way to get to them.

Having completed my first 3 sets of front squats by doing seven consecutive reps, the plan was to make it a clean sweep by getting all seven in the final round.  Not so much.  This was actually the one time during this workout where I began to panic a bit about the time cap.  Cleaning the barbell was becoming tough.  Each of the front squats was slow and required a lot more energy than they had earlier.  After four reps, I handed the barbell to gravity and took a break.  I was in my low squat trying to breathe.  "Come on Dave!"  "Almost there Dave!"  Mr. Intensity was trying his best to keep me thinking positive thoughts.  I needed to channel the drive he always has when he finishes off his workouts.  I needed one last clean to get through these three front squats.  The clean was ugly and each of the front squats required grunting, but I got them done.  About 90 seconds until the time cap.

Oddly enough, I was less panicked at this stage.  The hang power cleans were going to be awful, but I didn't think I was going to have to resort to singles.  If I could get two sets of 2 and a set of 3 while leaving at least 15 seconds for the deadlifts, I could make it.  I deadlifted the barbell and did 2 hang power cleans.  Shook out my arms as I heard I had less than a minute left.  I began the next set and got two reps pretty quickly, making me briefly think that I could manage the last five reps in that set.  But when my third rep barely got up to my shoulders, I needed one last break.  Just two more hang power cleans to go.  "Thirty seconds!"  For someone who is rarely confident, thirty seconds sounded like plenty of time to get the final 9 reps in.  I lifted the barbell, did 2 hang power cleans, dropped it only so I could quickly change my grip, then did 7 deadlifts faster than I can ever remember doing them.  Final time: 13:47.

I want to mention two disturbing trends before I end this post on a high note:

1. As you might expect, I collapsed in a heap after I finished.  I think Mr. Intensity and Samson thought I was puking (luckily I was not).  I've been struggling with my cardio during workouts, leaving me a sweaty, useless mess after the WOD.  As a result, people have been generously putting my stuff away for me afterwards.  I appreciate it, but I would hate to think that I've gotten so lazy that I can't put my own equipment away after the workout.  So if you see me laying on the floor after the WOD, kick me instead of putting my weights away.
2. I've been having all sorts of small nagging injuries recently and my neck felt awful after this workout.  I spoke with a couple of specialists this weekend, Dr. Michal and Dr. Rachel, who suggested I may have done something to my shoulders in this workout rather than my neck.  The barbell was never on my back/neck area during this workout so I wasn't sure why it was in so much pain, but it was.  In fact, the pain lasted throughout the weekend.  Perhaps it is just me being old.

As promised, I will end this on a high note.  I was definitely glad to finish under the time cap since Mr. Intensity had stuck around for a full hour expecting to see that.  And I was very happy that I managed to summon a decent amount of the intensity that the master brings to his workouts, although I blew it by not yelling "yes sir!" when I did the last rep.  Then again, that is why he's the master and I am not.

Saturday preview: My second 5K of the year, but my first wearing a kilt.  If you're not willing to embarrass yourself for a good cause, then I don't know what to tell you.