They're Like First Graders

Workout date: 4/11/16

As I pulled into the KOP parking lot on Monday night, I had an "oh no!" moment.  I had completely forgotten that a new on-ramp program was beginning, but the packed parking lot was an instant reminder.  I knew I should be avoiding 6:30 classes on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays for the next three weeks, but here I was making a rookie mistake and showing up on day one.  Perhaps they should have given me a name tag when I got into the lobby.

After some crafty driving around a barricade to squeeze into the back of the parking lot, I parked my car and went inside.  There were lots of new faces in the lobby, all of whom had name tags indicating who they were.  But as was the case with the most recent on-ramp class, there were quite a few familiar faces lurking in the group as well.  I went up to one of them, extended my hand, and said "Hi, you're...<squinting at her name tag, pausing for effect>...Anne?  Nice to meet you Anne.  I'm Dave."  I got a disapproving shake of the head, before getting a smile and a handshake from Anne (aka Matt B's mom).  Anne, Stasie, and Jen F were three members who I've shared many a class with, but were doing this on-ramp program to get back into the swing of things.

I said some hellos then went into the main gym where the 5:30 class was finishing up.  There were 16 of us in the 6:30 class, to go along with 11 people in the 5:30 class and at least a dozen in the lobby for the on-ramp program.  So it was a packed house.  As Coach Aimee went to introduce herself to the "newbies", Keithie brought us outside to do a warmup.  He instructed all of us to grab a PVC pipe and form a circle in the lot across the street.  The warmup was simple, but contained more volume than usual.  To get us ready for the push presses we would be doing, Keithie told us to do 50 shoulder presses, then run 200 meters.  That would be followed by 50 push presses and a 200 meter run, concluded by 50 push jerks and a 200 meter run.  Despite using a PVC pipe that weighs next to nothing, my shoulders were definitely warm by the time we were getting ready to head back inside.

Before we could head back inside though, Aimee came out and wanted us to line up from smallest to tallest.  It took a minute or two to get organized, but eventually we got it worked out.  I stood next to Matt B, who is apparently a millimeter shorter than me.  Then Aimee revealed why she had us line up this way.  We would be working in pairs and it was easiest to pair up on the racks if you worked with someone the same height as you.  She said she was going to go down the line and pair us off, but right as she was saying that, she had to stop to deal with some minor commotion.  "Look at these two!"  She was pointing at me and Matt.  "The two of them just moved closer to one another when I said you'd be working in pairs.  They're like first graders!"  She wasn't wrong.  Although I wasn't aware that either Matt or I had slid closer to each other in a subconscious attempt to sway Aimee into letting us work together, I did know that Matt and I love working together on strength days.  I told Matt that Aimee was definitely going to split us up after calling us out, but she ended up letting us work together.

Sixteen was the perfect number for our class as there were 8 racks and 2 people working on each rack.  We marched into the gym in our ascending-height lineup and grabbed a rack, with the shorter pairs at the front of the gym and the taller folks near the back.  Because "Megs" was on the shorter end of the spectrum, she was all of the way down at the rack nearest the front of the gym.  That meant she was too far away for me to watch her and yell at her.  Why would I do that?  Before the warmup, she told me that her back was hurting.  With Festivus five days away, doing strength with a bad back seemed like a poor idea.  I told her she should probably go home and rest, but she assured me that she was going super light for the push presses.  I told her that I know how this goes (mainly, because I've made this same dumb choice before).  She was gonna do the first set, claim that her back felt fine, then end up with a PR.  "No Dave, I'm going really light.  Won't even be close to a PR."  Okay, we'll see...

Matt and I got our barbell set up as Aimee walked us through some instructions on the push press.  Today we were going after a 3RM push press.  This was one of the strength benchmarks this year, so we had done this in January.  I thought Matt and I worked out together that day, but it turns out that was my imagination.  After going through the movement with us, Aimee asked us what we got back in January.  I told her 185 and she replied "you're gonna crush that".  Matt answered 185 and Aimee replied "you're gonna crush that".  (Spoiler: Aimee's reply to everyone who gave a number was "you're gonna crush that".)  As we went to get plates for the barbell, I gave Matt an incredulous stare. I asked him if he really got 185 as this was a movement he has beaten me on pretty handily in the past.  He shrugged his shoulders and said he didn't remember what he had gotten, so he just used my number.  Fair enough.  It was time for both of us to crush 185.

Things didn't start out so great.  Perhaps there was an adjustment period necessary for both of us, but neither Matt nor I felt wonderful about our initial set using only 95 pounds.  As we tried to figure out what we should use for our next set, I told Matt that I wasn't sure how long we had to find the 3RM, nor was I thrilled about doing a ton of sets to get to 185 and beyond.  So despite a first set that wasn't as easy as we expected, we jumped up to 135 pounds for set #2.  It was a good call.  Both of us felt better about the second set than we had the first, even though there was 40 more pounds on the barbell.  Doing 135 also set us up nicely for our next 3 sets, as we could jump 20 pounds each time, with the last set giving us a shot at hitting 195, "crushing" our January score of 185.

Neither of us had too much trouble at 155, but when we got to 175, I noticed that Matt wasn't dipping very much before trying to press out the weight.  In essence, he was using all arms.  Now Matt is much stronger than me when it comes to the upper body, but there is a point in these lifts where if you don't use your legs, you're going to hit the wall.  Matt made it through 175, but he needed much more dip if he was going to get 195 and ever-watchful Aimee came by and told him so.  As for me, I was doing well, trying to focus on not re-bending my knees as I extended the barbell over my head.  That would be a push jerk and not count for this WOD.  The key to not re-bending your knees is squeezing your butt.  Ashley was struggling with this during thruster practice on Sunday.  She's plenty strong for the thruster weight she was attempting, but she kept re-bending her knees.  We got to the point where the rest of us would yell "butt!" at her every time she came out of her squat.  And it worked.  She started locking out her knees and putting the weight over her head.  As I did my push presses, I would think "butt!" each time and not once did I re-bend my knees.  I was also getting a nice deep initial knee bend, having watched Matt struggle using only a shallow initial knee bend.  I took care of 175 and added 20 pounds to the barbell so we could each go after a PR.

Matt was first and I fully expected him to put the pressure on me by easily knocking out 3 reps, but he looked unsteady from the start.  He barely got the first rep (shallow knee bend again).  After resetting, he went for the second rep, but couldn't extend it overhead.  Crap.  I had been confident about getting 195 as I went through my sets, but watching Matt struggle that much made me worry that I had gotten ahead of myself.  I waited a minute or two, then went up to try and get 195.  My first rep was very good as I got a deep knee bend and I didn't struggle much pressing out the weight overhead.  Same thing with the second rep.  And honestly, not much different on the third rep.  I didn't really hit a sticking point where I had to struggle to press out the weight.  Each time I got the barbell moving, I was able to keep it moving until I completed the rep.  I was psyched.  Not only had I gotten a PR, it felt like there was a real chance that I could go a little bit higher.

Aimee had told us before our attempts at 195 that we had time for two more sets, so Matt was going to try 195 again and I was going to try 205.  When Matt did his first rep at 195, I would have bet money that he was going to complete the full set of three reps.  He finally got a deep knee bend in and the barbell just jumped off of his shoulders.  There was no struggle at all as he pressed out rep #1.  But rep #2 was similar to his earlier attempts.  No deep knee bend, a struggle as he tried to press out the rep, with the attempt ending with Matt begrudgingly dropping the barbell to the floor.  I felt bad because I know he can handle that weight (and then some), but he might be out of practice at the moment.  The two of us picked up the barbell, got it back on the rack, and added 10 pounds.  It was time to take on 205.  I got pumped up, began to approach the rack, and...stopped.

Why did I stop?  Right as I got ready to make my final attempt, Aimee called the entire class down to talk about the cash out.  As in the 14 other people formed a small circle right behind the rack I was using.  Matt looked over at me and began laughing.  There was nothing I could do.  Couldn't tell everyone to beat it so I could do one last set.  As Aimee described the cash out, I told Matt that I would sneak in the set once she was done talking.  Aimee told us that we'd be doing an amended version of the cash out.  The original version was a 5 minute AMRAP of 5 muscle-ups and 10 power cleans (135/95).  Because the vast majority of people in the gym don't have muscle-ups, you could substitute in ring dips (with a band, if necessary).  The amended version would have one partner doing ring dips while the other did the power cleans.  When the partner doing the power cleans finished, they would come over and trade places with their partner at the rings.  The total score for the cash out would be the number of dips we completed.

Aimee let us know we had a few minutes to get ready for the cash out and everyone dispersed.  Back to the push press!  I immediately got set to go, walked over to the rack, and removed the barbell.  Feeling rushed, I began to dread that I was going to fail right from the start.  But I went to do the first rep and pressed it out overhead with only a slight moment in the sticking point.  I brought the barbell back down and went for the second rep.  I was caught in the sticking point even longer this time, but I  kept pushing and locked out my arms.  One more to go!  Come on Dave, make this count.  I got a deep knee bend, popped the barbell off my shoulders, began to press it out and hit the sticking point a third time.  The barbell kept moving, but it was moving slowly.  I didn't realize it at the time, but I was told afterwards that only one side kept moving as the other side of my body was apparently ready to do the cash out instead.  I was so close to getting that third rep, but I ended up having to drop the barbell.  If I had another attempt at it, I think I could have gotten it, but there was no more time.  Still I got two PRs on the day: a 3RM of 195 and a 2RM of 205.  Not too shabby.

Guess who else got a PR?  "Megs"!  She explained to me that her back didn't feel bad during the first set, so she kept going and got a PR.  I know gym behavior so well at this point.

Neither Matt nor I had grand expectations for the cash out.  Neither of us are fond of dips, but we didn't want to use a band.  The power cleans weren't going to be terrible, but completing a set of 10 power cleans quickly only got you more time on the rings.  We joked around about only getting 2-3 dips per set, but we ended up doing better than that.  Each of us got 3 turns on the rings and did 3 sets of 10 power cleans.  I was first on the rings and did 7 dips.  Matt went next and got 6.  We alternated 6-4-6-4 after that and finished with a score of 33.

After a little rest, I did my 6x2 front squat workout using 215 pounds.  It wasn't my greatest series of lifts, but I got the work done.  Just two more days of work before I can take off Thursday and Friday in preparation for this Saturday's Festivus Games.

Tuesday preview: Dudes After Dark is all dudes!  Except for this chick named Karen who shows up and totally ruins the vibe.