Monkey Business

Workout date: 5/12/15

I had told my new friends from Crossfit BYOB that I would try my best to make it back for the 7:30 class the next day.  If I could get out of my work obligations by, say 7:20, I would be fine.  How hard could that be?

Fast forward nearly 23 hours and I was desperately trying to make my way to my car after one of the most awkward work dinners I have ever had.  (Note: the phrase "you're Korean...well, close enough" should never come out of someone's mouth during a business meal.)  It was now 7:15 and I was not feeling confident that I'd get to the gym on time.  Maybe there would be traffic on the way to the restaurant.  It was not looking good.  I finally broke free and raced over to the gym.  I made it there with three minutes to spare.  Erica was at the front desk and I asked her where I could change out of my work gear.  A quick change and a 6:30 class running late ensured that I would be ready for the beginning of the 7:30 class.

The workout had a similar feel to the one from the day before.  We started with a 400 meter run, then went through a series of drills.  We then did 3 sets of back squats at 70%, 80% and 90% of whatever 95% of our 1RM was.  Having done this fairly recently, I knew what numbers I would use.  It also let me know that the weights I used on the shoulder press the day before were a tad light.  Oops.  For the final set, we were to try and knock out as many reps as possible.  I really wanted to try the new setup that Keith had taught me where you hold the bar lower on your back, but I felt awkward about trying it here.  Most of the people in class seemed to be on the newer side and the owner was stressing proper form to everyone.  Trying something different might lead to confusion and I was a guest at the gym.

I did a warmup set at 135, then did sets at 185 and 210.  235 would be my last set and I wanted at least 6 reps.  I might have had a higher goal if I had my lifting shoes with me.  Since there was a good chance that I could start rolling up on my toes, I felt that six reps would be a victory.  I methodically moved through rep after rep, trying to maintain solid form the whole way.  I reached 5 reps.  Then got a sixth.  And then kept going.  It was only after fighting through rep #9 that I put the bar back on the rack.  I was very pleased with that result.

The cash out had four parts to it: 2 minutes of double unders, then 1 minute of slam balls, followed by 1 minute of burpees, before finishing with 2 more minutes of double unders.  Between each movement, we got 1 minute of rest.  I was not psyched about 4 minutes of double unders, especially after sucking it up on Annie recently.  I'm also starting to suspect that my rope might be too long, so I might be trimming it back in the near future.  We got going and my performance was typical of how I've done with double unders the last month or so: some small sets, one big set, fatigue, etc.  I finished up with 59 reps before getting 60 seconds of recovery time.  For the slam balls, I used a 30 pound ball and did 27 reps before moving on to burpees.  My goal for the burpees was to try and incorporate the tips that Jim C. had given me.  I was getting tired, so it wasn't spectacular, but I did manage 17 burpees during that minute.  Finally, it was time for more double unders.  And I was sucking wind now.  Only managed 33 reps the second time around.

That was it for my Crossfit BYOB experience, although there is an ugly rumor I may have to return in a month.  Before I left, I wanted some t-shirts and came across this guy in the corner:

I asked if he was for sale as well, but sadly he was not.  Apparently he comes out when they have kids classes there and has basically become the box mascot.  Such a bummer.  I was really hoping to top this picture:

"Carmelita" and "Derek" (names changed to protect the innocent)

I paid for my t-shirts, said my goodbyes, and got ready to head home.  Needed to get back to KOP for the start of the Mobility Challenge!  More on that in my next post.

Beer? Bacon? Brisket?

Workout date: 5/11/15

My work travels brought me back down to Plano, Texas.  I am trying to think of a reason why that would be a good thing, but I'm drawing a blank.  It means that I'm spending days in no man's land when I could be spending them with all of the great people at my gym that make me happy day after day.  I expected the trip to be particularly terrible as it would involve many of the bigwigs in the actuarial hierarchy and extensive training via Powerpoint presentations in dark conference rooms.  I was going to need my Crossfit fix, if only to relieve stress/annoyance.

When I came to Plano last year, I was staying in a different part of the city, not very close to my office.  At that time, the hotel that is directly across the highway from my office was booked.  I went to a box in West Plano which was ok, but not wonderful.  It was in a strip mall and very dark on the inside.  Plus two guys totally cheated during the workout, sending me into a mini-rage.  Maybe KOP has a lot more integrity than other boxes or maybe the clientele at that location were more concerned with their "score".  Whatever the case may be, I knew it would be a one-time visit.

This time around there was a vacancy at the hotel near my office, so I got a room there.  I got on the Google-webs and searched out what boxes were a little closer in proximity.  There was one that I remembered passing on the drive to the Plano office last year and sure enough, that was the box closest to my hotel.  The name of the place?  Crossfit BYOB.  Hmmm...now don't get me wrong, I have never been shy about bringing a case or two to KOP, but they never directly advertised it like this.  Maybe BYOB wasn't Bring Your Own Beer.  Bacon?  BBQ?  Bull?  Brisket?  The only B that I could come up with that made sense in relation to Crossfit was Barbell.  Having packed light for this trip, that would be a problem if it were true.

After calling from the office to make sure that drop-ins were okay, I made my way over to Crossfit BYOB for the 7:30 class on Monday night.  I must admit, it was really nice having a one-minute, traffic-free ride to the box.  It also meant I was early.  (Do you believe in miracles?!?!)  Speaking of miracles, this box was situated in a strip mall (maybe that's a Plano thing?) in a very precarious location:

Burgers from Christ?  Who's passing that up?

(Not pictured: a bar two doors down)

I hear the burgers are heavenly.  Sorry, I couldn't resist the temptation.  Please forgive me.  (Okay, I'm done now.)

As the picture shows, BYOB actually stands for Build Your Own Body, which makes way more sense that anything I came up with.  You could have given me one thousand guesses and I would have managed a no-hitter on that one.  I went inside, met the owner, and filled out the required "don't blame us if we kill you" paperwork.  Then, almost immediately, two women came over and introduced themselves as Erica and Janelle.  They welcomed me to the gym and let me know where the warmup would begin.  After letting them know that I was best known for my ability to saturate the floor at my gym, they introduced me to Wade.  Wade was a bit shorter than me, but evidently held the BYOB crown as the bald guy who sweats a lot.  He seemed like a really good dude as well, although I'm partial to the bald, sweaty type.

I joined the three of them on a 400 meter run and then a series of drills.  For the workout, there would be a strength component (3 rep sets of Shoulder Press) and then two short WODs which were going to be used as the baseline for a summertime contest they are doing at the gym.  You could choose three levels for the two workouts.  Level 1 was the easiest version.  In the first WOD, there would be a 5 minute AMRAP of 5 box jump overs (17"/13") and 10 sit-ups.  There would then be 3 minutes of rest before WOD #2, which was a 3 minute AMRAP of squat clean thrusters (45/35).  Those choosing to do level 2 would use a 24"/20" box and hanging knee raises instead of sit-ups, with a weight of 95/65 for the squat clean thrusters.  And for the fire breathers in level 3, the box would be 30"/24" with toes-to-bar instead of hanging knee raises, and weights of 155/105 for the squat clean thrusters.  Got all that?

Before deciding on a level, we did the shoulder press first.  The owner asked me if I had found my 1RM recently and I replied no, but that I had done a 3RM recently of 135.  He told me to use 95% of that before applying the percentages that were listed for the WOD (when you read tomorrow's blog, you'll see why there may have been some miscommunication on this).  For the 3 rep sets, we were to do 1X3 at 70%, 1x3 at 80%, and then as many reps as possible for 90%.  I would up using 95, 105, and 115 as my weights.  After a warmup set at 75, I found that 95 and 105 were not that difficult.  At 115, my form slowly began to deteriorate, but not before knocking out 8 reps in my final set.

As much as I wanted to use the 30" box and do toes-to-bar, there was no way I was doing 3 minutes of squat clean thrusters with 155 pounds, so I opted for level 2.  I could not remember the last time I did a hanging knee raise, but those things took their toll on me much more than I was expecting.  As I did the first part of the WOD, the message running through my mind was "don't slow down!"  If I could pull off 10 rounds in 5 minutes, that would be amazing, but there could be no breaks.  I ended up not taking breaks, but those 5 minutes flew by quickly.  After completing round 9, the owner yelled out 10 seconds, just enough time for me to get 5 last box jump overs in.  9+5 (140 reps) felt like a really good score for me on that workout.

180 seconds later, it was on to part two.  As a thruster fan, you would think this would be right up my alley, but that first WOD was clearly meant to fatigue you.  The first 40 seconds went smoothly, but then the pain set in.  There were definitely breaks, although I tried my best to keep them small.  As I struggled in the final minute, I wanted to make sure I got at least 20 reps in.  When time was called, I had done one better with a score of 21.

I said goodbye to my workout buddies at BYOB and let them know that I would try to make it back the next night for another 7:30 class.  And make it back I did.  Part two of my Plano trip tomorrow!

White Steve PR-Vey

Workout date: 5/8/15

My last blog post was about Team DT from last week.  Here is a pic of Michal fighting her way through the end of that workout.  Or...

...this is a photo of me winning the 2015 Crossfit KOP Wet T-Shirt Contest.

Have you read nearly 80 blog posts from me this year and thought "these would be better with a little less Dave and significantly more wit"?  Then I would highly recommend clicking on this:  https://shiteatinggrin.wordpress.com/2015/05/09/double-shot-of-pr-love/

Awww...you came back!  That was very kind of you!  Although I do have to tell you, this post will seem eerily similar to the one you just read.  Because the star of the show today was Cline.  Or White Steve Harvey, his new nickname.  Never in my life did I think I would have to give more detail if I was referring to someone as White Steve Harvey, but with this new nickname, I'm afraid further explanation is in order.  See, there has already been a White Steve Harvey in my life.  It wasn't a very creative nickname when it was originally used.  Jenn worked with a guy named Steve Harvey.  He was white.  And he liked to tell jokes.  Scratch that: he used to attempt to tell jokes, would forget the setup, and then dove straight into the punchline.  The first time I was introduced to him, he asked me what I did for a living.  After responding that I was an actuary, he told me he knew this great actuary joke.  The joke began with an actuary not making eye contact, then he couldn't remember how the rest went.  About 10 seconds went by as he tried to remember how it went before finally going with "well anyways, actuaries have no social skills!"  Nice to meet you too, White Steve Harvey!

Cline earned that nickname by rocking a quality outfit from the Steve Harvey collection at the KOP Prom.  Advantage: KOP White Steve Harvey.  Cline is also all about doubling up on the WODs.  When I was re-doing 15.1 at the Annex during the Open, I saw Cline do a WOD, then take on 15.1.  Insane.  15.1 was bad enough on it's own.  Friday we got a Crossfit BOGO as we were doing Annie (50-40-30-20-10 reps of double unders and sit-ups) and then finding a 1RM for our clean and jerk.  Plus, it was approximately 137 degrees inside the gym.  Who's ready to get sweaty?

The answer was White Steve Harvey.  To be fair, he probably didn't get as sweaty as me, but he killed it doing Annie, then he really killed it on the clean and jerk.  Maybe that guy should do two WODs per day.  Would make reaching 200 for the year a lot easier...just sayin.  I had done Annie back in February along side of Cline and he smoked me on it.  For the rematch, I was simply hoping to break 10 minutes as my time of 11:28 was not wonderful.  We got going and I was rattling off double unders.  Made it through 35 in a row before tripping.  Cline managed to do 49 before missing on number 50.  He did one more and was on to the sit-ups, but I was not far behind him.  Giulz was coaching us and had recommended anchoring our sit-ups with dumbbells on our feet rather than doing butterfly sit-ups.  The consensus seemed to be that this helped most people, but it did not help me.  Still, I got through the round of 50 pretty fast and was a little beyond 2 minutes when I got back to the jump rope.

The round of 40 did not go as smoothly, but I was not tremendously far behind Cline when I got back to my sit-ups.  Surprisingly, the sit-ups started to become tough.  I tried to keep a good pace, but I was losing time.  When I finished up this round, I was only a couple of ticks under 6 minutes, meaning I was on 10 minute pace.  Ugh.  Even worse was when I could not do a double under to save my life as I began the round of 30.  I lost a ton of time here and completely lost contact with Cline.  Getting back to the sit-ups didn't help as I struggled there again.  For the round of 20, the double unders were slightly better and I pushed hard to get through the sit-ups with the finish line in sight.  The light bulb went back on in my head when I strung the final 10 double unders, then did the last 10 sit-ups.  Sadly, I could only manage a time of 11:51, 23 seconds worse than last time.  Cline was done about two and a half minutes earlier.

Having exhausted myself despite a very slow time, I now had the pleasure to lift heavy weights.  I've been dreaming of clean and jerking 225 pounds for a while, but after nearly 12 minutes of suck, I was pretty sure tonight would not be my breakthrough.  But surprisingly, I started to go through a progression of lifts and ended up successful on all of them, including one at 215.  Maybe I could get 225 tonight!  I ended up making 4 attempts at 225, all failures.  I was close on the second clean, but couldn't quite keep it under control.  Everyone kept telling me to shoot my elbows through, and I was trying, but it just wasn't happening.  So I remain frustrated at 215.

Cline?  He said sayonara to any plateaus he may have had.  His max clean was 160 and max clean and jerk was 150.  Let me say this: when I watched him clean the bar at 175, it was like his mind went "What's that bar doing on the ground?  I'll just nonchalantly bring it up to my shoulders.  Ahhh...that's better!"  It was absurdly easy looking.  After setting a 25 pound PR with a successful jerk at 175, he cleaned 185 without much of a problem.  The jerk didn't work out, but that was a 25 pound PR on his clean as well, officially making it a double Brett Mercer PR night for Cline.  Impressive stuff!

That was the last WOD before hitting the road for work, but there will be a couple of on-the-road blogs from my adventures in Plano coming soon!

Last Of The Yemenicans

Workout date: 5/6/15

Monday was a grueling workout.  Tuesday was a grueling workout.  What's on tap for Wednesday?  Just some light jogging, perhaps some sit-ups...oh no wait, it's another grueling workout.  Perhaps they know that I'll be away for almost a week starting this upcoming weekend, but KOP is showing no mercy to me this week.  Tonight's destruction of Dave's will was Team DT.  DT is normally an individual workout that consists of 5 rounds of 12 deadlifts (155/105), 9 hang power cleans, and 6 push jerks.  Team DT just means 10 rounds, with each person required to complete an entire round before their partner can start working.

Tonight's class was full of what I would call the regulars that I work out with: Giulz, Rachel, Michal, Cline, Matt E, Conn, and Borden, among others.  Earlier in the day, I had spoken with the three girls and we set up our teams for the night's workout.  Giulz and Michal would work together, while I would try my best not to disappoint Rachel.  I had done this workout twice before: once as an individual (using 105, took 10:46) and once as part of a team (using 125, team time 18:50).  Those attempts were both more than a year ago, so why not go nuts and try to RX this bad boy with 155 pounds?  Plus I wasn't about to screw up Rachel's RX by scaling.  I might be slow, but ruining the team RX would be unforgivable.

We got warmed up and then I decided I would go first.  As far as planning goes, there was only 1 new wrinkle that I was adding today.  I let Rachel know that since this workout was so grip intensive, I was going to use a mixed grip (one hand facing you, one hand facing away from you) for the first 11 deadlifts and then drop.  During DT, it makes the most sense to drop with 1 rep left if you're going to drop at any point, since each movement leads directly into the next.  So needing a regular grip for the hang power cleans, I would do the 12th deadlift with the regular grip and then go right into the hang power cleans.  If I had to drop on the hang power clean, I would drop after the 8th rep, so that I could do the 9th rep and go right into the push jerks.  For the push jerks...well, I was going to need to string all 6 or do some extra cleans.

Round 1 started and things went fine, although it was apparent 155 pounds was not going to be a picnic.  I finished the round in about a minute.  Just 4 rounds to go for me!  I can do this.  Rachel did her first round and blitzed through it even faster than I did.  The problem with partnering up with someone who is good is that you get very little rest.  And you feel like an ass when they have to wait forever as you do your set.  I would be feeling like an ass soon enough.

The toughest part of this workout for me was undoubtedly the hang power cleans.  Stringing 9 of them was tough enough, but then to go into 6 push jerks?  Agony.  For round 2, I knew I wanted to drop after the 8th rep, but my cleans were already becoming shaky.  So I went for two sets of 4 with a break in between.  Once I finished the hang power cleans, I made sure I got all 6 push jerks.  Two rounds down!  I'm just going to sit here and recover...oh, Rachel is done.  My turn to work again.  This is going to end badly.

For rounds 3 and 4, the story was the same.  11 deadlifts with a mixed grip?  Check.  1 deadlift with a regular grip leading into 2 sets of 4 hang power cleans?  Check.  1 last hang power clean leading to 6 push jerks?  Check.  The biggest problem was that my hang power cleans were slowly descending in height, as in they would rise from just above my knee to just above my belly button, where I used my waterbed-like physique to roll the bar up to my shoulders.  Who says jiggle isn't useful?

During this time, Rachel was methodically cranking through her rounds.  I hadn't looked at the clock much, but I started to as we approached the last round.  I once again did the 11 deadlifts, then 1 leading to 4 hang power cleans.  And then I had to change it up.  My grip and my arm strength were nearly gone.  Instead of another set of 4 hang power cleans, I needed to do two sets of 2.  With 1 hang power clean to go, I got the bar to my shoulders, pushed through 6 jerks, and it was time to cheer on Rachel as she brought us home.  Her 5th round looked nearly as crisp as her 1st round and before I knew it, she was done, stopping the clock at 17:14, which is a really good time!  I mean, I wish it hadn't taken me 11-12 of those minutes, but still, not too shabby.

Next to us, Giulz and Michal were working and Michal was doing a total Dave workout.  I am very partial to the Dave workout.  After all, it has my name attached to it.  It probably wasn't called that to be flattering, but you take what you can get.  Anyway, Michal had struggled a bit with shoulder-to-overheads on Monday using 95 pounds.  Today, she said "screw it" and decided to go for the RX weight of 105 pounds.  It was ambitious.  Perhaps a little crazy.  But she was determined, and I'm always impressed by that.  When Rachel and I had finished, Michal was finishing up her push jerks for round 3.  She was rushing a bit and failing on some of the lifts.  I could sympathize, because when you get tired and the weight gets heavy, you just want to get that weight off of you as quickly as possible.  When she finished, she looked pissed, especially since there were still two rounds to go.  Giulz did her round, then it was back to Michal.  She got through the deadlifts easy enough, struggled some with the hang power cleans, then worked through her push jerks.  She was trying to get two at a time, but the second rep was becoming problematic.  Eventually she had to do them one at a time.

After Michal finished her 4th round, Giulz got back to it and finished up her workout.  Then everyone got behind Michal and tried to help her complete things for her team.  Things that came out of the mouths of her support group included vulgarities, food items, and Katy Perry lyrics.  One by one, she knocked out those heavy push jerks and after nearly 38 minutes of work, Giulz and Michal were done.  I've been there before (hey, I'm the namesake!) and I know it's no fun finishing something like that off.  But I have to hand it to my friend from Yemen: she would not be denied!

Tomorrow will be a rest day, although it probably would not hurt to get some rowing and burpee practice in.  One more workout on Friday before I take off for NY and Texas.  If I manage to work out at all while I am on the road, I will be sure to post about it here.

Cinco De Waldo

Workout date: 5/5/15

"Dave is good at rope climbs."

That was a text I received yesterday.  For those of you that know me well, you know that I tend to shy away from anything complimentary that is said to me (sorry, it's a reflex), but I was okay with this one.  For a long time, I struggled to get up the rope at the gym, but these days, I look forward to the workouts that include rope climbs.  Of course, I would have looked forward to yesterday's WOD more if I hadn't scraped up my right shin (the one that gets abused during rope climbs) while doing Monday's workout, but these things happen.

The workout for Tuesday night was the following: a descending rep scheme of rope climbs (6-5-4-3-2-1) with a 400 meter run after each round.  There was a soft time cap of 20 minutes, which meant that if you got back in the door to start your final round prior to the clock hitting 20 minutes, you could continue on and finish the workout.  And let me tell you, I really wanted to finish this one.  I have gradually been able to do more and more rope climbs during workouts.  I remember the first time I did a workout with 6 rope climbs in it.  It was all I could do to reach the 15 ft mark on that 6th climb, but I held on for dear life and made it, even though I was spent.  Now I'd be doing 6 climbs in round one!  Craziness.

Having done the Ronald McDonald House Plane Pull on Saturday morning, I was decked out with a new t-shirt and, more importantly, new striped socks to provide some degree of protection to my beaten up shins.  Unfortunately, the feedback from everyone I ran into was that I looked like the hidden protagonist of "Where's Waldo?"  Perhaps I should re-think my wardrobe choices.

While doing my usual pre-workout planning, I figured that the running portion of the workout would take approximately two and a half minutes per round.  That isn't very fast, but the rope climbs were certainly going to take some of the starch out of me.  That meant 15 minutes of running in total, 12:30 of which would fall under the soft cap.  As a result, I would have 7:30 to complete 20 rope climbs to make it under the cap.  All of that translated to this workout being a sprint.

As much as I would like to claim that I remembered all of the splits and what happened in each round, I have to admit that my brain switched to survival mode at a certain point during the workout.  And with the weather getting hotter and my brain overheating, this is probably going to happen more and more over the summer.  But I vividly remember the beginning and the end, so I can at least fill you in on those details.

Our class had 7 people in it: me, Alona, Jen, Michal, Rachel, Christine, and Brian from CT.  Jen and Christine were not going to climb the rope, but the remaining five were.  That was a bit of a problem since there were only 4 ropes and this was a sprint.  Waiting around for someone to give up their rope was going to be an issue with a time cap involved.  I decided that I would wait and stagger my start.  A two minute wait sounded about right to me, with the thought really being that I needed to wait until someone headed out on their first run before going.  As Alona, Michal, Rachel, and Brian got going, I hung out.  Brian was incredibly fast and finished all 6 of his rope climbs in about 1:15.  With a rope now open, I decided to join in on the fun with a 1:30 stagger.

Getting up and down the rope the first 2-3 times was not so bad.  After that though, it became work.  I kept moving at a pretty good pace during that first round and finished my 6th rope climb in about 1:40.  Even in the moment that blew my mind.  I got going on the run, trying to maintain a solid pace while attempting to let my arms recover.  I think I finished that first run in around 2:30.  I was okay with that pace, as long as I wasn't sucking wind when I got back.  I started on the round of 5 rope climbs and things deteriorated quickly.  I knew I was ahead of Michal and Rachel's pace after the round of 6, but when they headed back out the door during my round of 5, I was no longer so sure.  My first two climbs went as expected, but climbs 3 and 4 destroyed me.  I jumped up for climb #5, made it a few feet, then had to come back down.  My grip was gone.  My arms were tired.  I began to doubt whether I could get this climb, never mind the 10 more on the horizon.  I shook my arms out, slowly climbed, hit the mark, and came back down.  Off for another run.

From that point forward, it was impossible for me to do consecutive climbs.  It was one climb, take a break, regroup, do another slow climb.  At one point, I stopped on the middle of the climb.  I had a strong hold of the rope with my hands and feet and really had no concerns about falling.  But I was drained.  It was the first time I had ever stopped to regroup mid-climb without feeling the need to come back down.  I would eventually finish that climb.  After the run at the end of the round of 4, I looked at the clock and knew I wasn't going to make the soft cap.  Such a bummer.

I got through the round of 3 climbs and saw the clock say 19:47 (18:17 for me), which meant I had 1:43 to get back in the door to break 20 minutes.  Knowing I would not have any rope climbs left, I pushed with what I had left on the final run.  And there wasn't much left.  But I did that last run in a respectable 1:53, meaning I came in the door at 20:10, capped with 3 rope climbs and 2 400M runs to go.  It would have been great to finish this one, but at that moment, all I really wanted to do was sit in front of the fan and guzzle down my 1.5 liter bottle of water.

The day ended with a bit of Cinco de Mayo celebration (some people started while we were doing the workout) and a celebration of Miranda's birthday as well.

Next blog post: Team DT.  Will I actually be able to use my arms after the last two days?

Summer Is Coming

Workout date: 5/4/15

On Game of Thrones, everyone lives in fear of winter.  Well maybe not the Starks, but that family seems to be the piñata of Westeros, so being okay with years-long winters isn't a huge help for them.  Here in the real world, I live in fear of summer.  For someone who is a sweaty mess of a human being when the temperature is below 70, summer ends up being my worst nightmare.  There is no amount of water that I can consume to properly replenish all the dehydration I experience during a workout.  And because I'm bald, I'm going to have to spray massive amounts of sunblock all over my head, which will eventually drip down into my eyes and blind me mid-workout.  That is unless I wear a headband, which is pretty close to the worst look a bald guy can go with.

But there is no denying the truth: summer is coming.

Last night's workout was my first real taste of summer, if you don't count the sauna I worked out in during the Festivus Games.  But the WOD was find your 3RM back squat, followed up by chest-to-bar practice, so I wasn't terribly worried about the heat.  In fact, when I got home from work, I started to enjoy a snack that I normally wouldn't eat prior to the workout as I had no concerns about puking during the WOD.  As I got a few bites in, I got a text on my phone from Giulz.  It read "does anyone wanna do a metcon with me at 6:30".  Now my initial plan was to stay for strength after the WOD, so doing a metcon and then finding my 3RM back squat during strength sounded reasonable to me.  I wrapped up my snack and told Giulz I was in.  Michal said she was in as well.  I asked what the metcon was and then drove to the gym when I didn't receive an immediate response.  When I got to the parking lot, I looked at my phone and saw the response: "Marisa is programming it".  Shit.  I want my snack back.  And I'd like to do the WOD instead.

Let's just say that Marisa's programming style is ambitious.  Her workouts have chapters.  Today's monstrosity would be a partner WOD (Marisa and Michal, me and Giulz) consisting of the following:

Chapter 1 - 3 rounds: 400M run (both partners), 40 overhead squats (95/65)
2 minute intermission
Chapter 2 - 3 rounds: 20 pull-ups, 40 shoulder-to-overhead (135/95)
2 minute intermission
Chapter 3 - 3 rounds: 100 double unders, 20 deadlifts (205/135)

A few things worth noting: Marisa clearly has an obsession with the number 3 and one round of all this madness (ok, maybe two since it was a partner WOD) would have been plenty.  This seemed like a disaster.  The fan inside the gym was on, but I was starting to sweat already.  And unfortunately, we were working out at the opposite end of the gym from where the fan was.  Giulz and I talked, especially about the second leg.  She told me she wouldn't be able to do a lot of shoulder-to-overheads and everyone knows about my pull-up prowess (or lack thereof).  So we agreed to shoulder the load on the movements that our partner would struggle with.

We got going and I thought we would stay with Team M&M for most of the first leg.  And honestly, we didn't end up all that far behind them.  But they were very efficient on their overheads, while I was not.  I had a little bit of trouble with where I was standing (on the far end of the gym, there is a drop in the floor and I was walking up and down it when doing that involuntary cha-cha your body does when you get tired doing overhead squats) and actually dropped one rep short of the set of 10 I was supposed to do at one point.  Giulz and I alternated those sets of 10 to get to 40 and then ran.  We finished our first leg right around the point the M&Ms finished their rest and moved on to leg two.  I stared at our barbells and wondered who was going to change the weights while I spent two minutes questioning my poor decision making skills again.  Oh, I guess that would be us.  Damn.

I changed the weight on my bar just in time for the second leg to start.  Giulz was killing it on the pull-ups.  I was not.  When we got to the barbell, Giulz knocked out solid sets of 4 reps while I tried to do as many as possible to make it as much of a team effort as I possibly could.  The M&Ms called over to us to let us know that the reps for shoulder-to-overhead should be trimmed down from 40 to 30, which was a minor relief.  In general, we did about a 75%/25% split on these two movements with Giulz doing 75% of the pull-ups and with me doing about 75% of the shoulder-to-overheads.  And surprisingly, we weren't losing much ground on the M&Ms.  However, Giulz and I were both exhausted when that 90th shoulder-to-overhead was done.  Time to change weights again.  Or vomit.  Whichever was more convenient.

I knew leg three would be where the M&Ms got separation because I'm the weakest at double unders normally and that disparity is even worse when I'm tired.  And I was 20 minutes beyond tired.  Poor Giulz was dealing with a cramp, but was still knocking out much larger sets of double unders than I could.  Meanwhile, the M&Ms were probably knocking them out 100 at a time.  As a result, they were done way ahead of us.  When it came to the deadlifts, we were slowly making our way through those, eventually getting to a point where we alternated singles back and forth.  But towards the end of round 2, I tried to hold on and do a big set.  And when we hit the final round, I grabbed the bar and did 7 to start things off.  We eventually got to 18 and Giulz, who really carried our team yet again, knocked out the last two reps.  Final time: 49:17, nearly 9 minutes after the M&Ms had finished.

After 49 minutes of misery, I had no desire to do strength.  I grabbed a chair and sat in the middle of the gym, settling in to watch Rachel and Keithie do the workout we had just finished.  And they really killed it.  It took them only 31 minutes and change to finish that whole thing, as they blazed through the second leg much faster than the two teams who had done it at 6:30.  While they were finishing up, Michal let me know she wanted to still do back squats.  Seriously?  Ugh.  I agreed to do 5x5 at about 75% rather than find a 3RM, because I definitely did not have the legs to pull that off.  The only thing is that Michal starts bargaining these things down.  She wanted to lower the weight.  Then she wanted to do 5x3.  Eventually I decided to go with 5x3 of 225 (approximately 82% of my 1RM).  I did warm-up sets at 135 and 185, then got into the sets of 225.  At first, it felt a little wobbly, but sets 2, 3, and 4 went smoothly, except for 1 rep where I got on my toes.  For my last set, I did the first two reps fine, but really got on my toes for the final rep.  Rachel and Keithie were now watching and Keithie decided to give me a tip which really might help me get to 300 pounds on my back squat.

I have worked hard on staying in my heels during back squats and tonight was a bit of an anomaly since I had done a 49 minute metcon and my poor form probably came about as a result of that.  But that is still a bit of an issue when I go very heavy.  What Keithie showed me was a way of back squatting while holding the bar lower on my back.  I hadn't tried this before and it felt weird (I did a set of 3 at 225 to test it out), but I can certainly say there was no point where I felt like I would tilt up on my toes.  I will need more practice with this style, but it may be the adjustment that helps me get beyond the plateau I have reached with my back squat.

Next blog post: rope climbs galore!  Hopefully I have recovered enough for a WOD involving 21 rope climbs and a mile and a half of running.

The Burpee Whisperer

Workout date: 4/30/15

I won the warmup today!!!  Ok, to be fair, I was the only one competing in the warmup.  And it didn't start as a competition to begin with, it was just your standard, run-of-the-mill warmup.  But then the competitive idiot inside me kicked in.  Let me explain.

After taking a rest day on Wednesday, I woke up on Thursday with my shoulders still on fire.  Any interest in practicing my terrible pull-up form went out the window.  An even worse idea would be the WOD, which was 2 rounds of 1,000 meters rowing, 50 thrusters (65/45), and 30 chest-to-bar pull-ups.  I watched Matt E. and Derreck do this workout while I was at the gym and saw 31-32 minutes of misery.  No thank you!

Instead, I was headed to the gym for strength class.  I wasn't entirely sure what I was going to work on, but I felt like deadlifts needed to be part of the routine.  I squat pretty regularly and Olympic lifts are programmed quite a bit, but I don't spend nearly as much time on my deadlift.  And when I look around and watch other people as they do strength class, I see quite a bit of deadlifting going on.  Hmmm...maybe I should be following their lead.  Beyond that, I was going to figure it out what else I wanted to do as the class went on.  I did know that I wanted to row to warm up, so I grabbed a rower.

Now when I began this blog, I talked about the rower I had at home and how I had these grand plans of getting on it every day and becoming much better at it.  Well...like most home exercise equipment, my rower has become more clothing rack than gateway to better cardio.  It hasn't helped that the renovations on our house will be continuing until hell freezes over (and the contractor can't even commit to that deadline).  But if I'm being honest, I haven't taken advantage of the fact that I could be improving myself at home if I simply woke up a little earlier and put some time in on the rower.

One of the distances I wanted to get good at was rowing 2,000 meters.  I decided to use this as my warmup distance for strength class, if only because I think of it as similar to running a mile on the track.  Another area that I am trying to improve upon is the damper setting I use for my rows.  If I'm rowing for distance, I tend to use a setting of 5-6.  If I'm rowing for calories, I use a setting of 8.  I tried rowing for calories with the damper cranked all the way up to 10 and it was a disaster.  But I'm trying to get in the mindset of "just because something didn't work earlier in your Crossfit career doesn't mean it won't work now".  To that end, I've been rowing with the damper on 7 recently when rowing for distance.  The next time I row for calories, I'll be trying the damper at 9.

So I got going on my row and 500 meters in I was around 1:50.  My concern with the higher damper setting is that I will get tired more quickly, but I felt fine.  In fact, I felt really good.  As I closed in on 750 meters and maintained a pace in the 1:50-1:55 range, I started to have greedy thoughts again.  My PR for 2,000 meters is 7:58, which is a fraction under 2:00 pace for 500 meters.  I was almost at the halfway point of my row, I was well under my PR pace, and I was not huffing and puffing.  Maybe I could PR during my warmup!

I began to focus more on keeping my pace than I would have had this been a normal warmup.  When I got to the 1,000 meter mark, I was around 3:45 (believe it or not, I wasn't keeping my eye on the exact splits because I was so focused on maintaining the same intensity).  During the third 500 meters, I started to waver a little as the 500 meter pace eclipsed two minutes a few times.  That got me to pull a little harder again so that it went back down below 2:00.  With 500 meters to go, I was around 5:45 and knew that I would be breaking 7:58.  Still, I didn't want to go nuts and spend all my energy on what initially started as my warmup.  Nice strong pulls and a steady rhythm: that's all I wanted during the last 500 meters.  I probably did go a little faster during those last 100 meters as the finish line was in sight.  When the distance to go hit 0, my breathing was pretty rapid, but I wasn't exhausted.  And I was very happy with this:



A 16 second PR?  Yes please!

I was probably relishing this accomplishment a little too much, as I went down to the other end of the gym and started socializing more than continuing with strength.  And I watched the end of that crazy WOD that was going on.  Eventually, I did set up weights for my deadlift.  My plan was to try and do 3 heavy sets of 10 reps.  With a 1RM of 385, I went over to the chart on the wall to see what I should be able to do for 10 reps.  The chart said 295.  Now I wasn't sure if that meant "if I go all out, I should be able to get 1 set of 10 reps" or whether that meant "this is the weight you should use for multiple sets of 10 reps".  I didn't want to fail on the second set (or, gasp, the first set), so I decided to go with 275 instead.

I started with a set of 10 at 135 which was easy enough.  The set at 225 wasn't terrible, but it made me realize that 275 was not going to be fun.  The first set at 275 made me reconsider a little bit.  It wasn't that it was easy, but I could have done maybe 14-15 reps during that first set, which was better than I was expecting.  (What did I have for breakfast yesterday???)  Anyway, having the strength to lift the weight was not going to be the issue.  Grip strength, on the other hand, would certainly be an issue.  As I did set #2, I could feel my hands burning as I held on to the bar for the last three reps.  In fact, the last rep was really painful to hold on to.  However, there was only one set left and I was determined not to fail.  Once I make it that far, I become really disappointed if I don't finish things off.  So after some massive chalking of my hands, I grabbed the bar and made my way through the final 10 reps.  Were my hands in pain?  You betcha.  But it was nice knowing that I could handle that weight for 3 sets of 10 reps.

There was only about 15-20 minutes left in class and I needed something else to do.  I wasn't eager to get on the pull-up bar.  It seemed too late to do sets of anything that required a barbell.  What else could I work on?  Oh yeah!  The fact that I suck at burpees!  Even though that seemed completely unappealing, I knew I needed to do it.  After all, there would never be a day when burpees seemed appealing.  So I stretched a little, went to the middle of the gym, and waited for the clock to tick to a full minute before I went.  30 burpees as fast as I could go, no crawling.  I hit the deck and started rattling them off.  I probably made it to around 20 before the urge to crawl entered my head.  But with only 10 left, I tried to think back to the other night when Lizzie was helping me through the end of my burpees.  My pace slowed a bit, but I finished off burpee #30, then looked up to see I had done it in 1:46.  Not blazing speed, but not awful for me.

Then the strangest thing happened.  For those of you who know Jim C., you know that he is chock full of helpful information, but he's also very quiet.  Almost without fail, if he is going to give me a tip on something I am doing wrong (and there's lots of stuff I do wrong in the gym), he'll give me a quizzical look, then slowly walk over, and quietly let me know how I can improve what I'm doing.  That is not what happened last night.  Now to be fair, I expect Jim to have input on ways to improve when it comes to things like Olympic lifts, since that is what I see him working on every day at the gym.  I was not expecting him to have burpee advice.  And I could not have imagined he would be borderline-giddy about doling out such advice.

While speaking with Jess and Jim, Jim launched into a high-energy explanation of what I was doing wrong.  (I should also point out that Jim had just finished a milkshake that Keithie had brought over for him from Frosty Falls, so he could have been on a sugar high.)  He explained that I was doing a squat thrust (true), then pulling myself all the way in before jumping, all of which was requiring more strength than truly necessary when doing a burpee.  How should it be done?  Before I knew it, he was throwing himself down on the ground to demonstrate.  Throw your body at the ground, shoot those hips way up when rising from the bottom.  This was definitely more efficient than what I was doing.

This illustrated an important point to me.  When I snatch, I am conscious of all the steps I need to go through to do the movement efficiently.  When I try to kip (heavy emphasis on "try"), I am focused on doing all the little things properly so that I have a shot at knocking out multiple reps while on the bar.  But when it comes to something basic like the burpee, I go brain-dead, not realizing there are important aspects to the movement that will make me do it more efficiently.  And because I am not being efficient, I am exhausting myself in longer met-cons, which results in a finish many minutes after the top people in class are done.  I have taken the simple things for granted and it has affected my performance.  Lesson learned.