I've Been Teaching Crossfit Since 2008 And I've Never Seen That Before

Workout date: 6/8/15

Welcome to my 100th blog post!  I wasn't expecting to do anything special in today's class, but lo and behold, I managed to do something that elicited the response seen in the subject line.  If you thought I sucked at pull-ups before...well then you are certainly in for a treat!

The main focus for today was Aimee's free pull-up clinic.  And who needs help with their pull-up more than me?  No seriously, if that was ever in doubt, the question was answered tonight.  Definitively.  The class was pretty all-encompassing, so the turnout was large.  We ended up being divided into two groups: the first group was made up of people looking to work on their kip so they could string multiple pull-ups in a row, while the second group was looking to work on the more advanced butterfly pull-up technique.  I was not in the second group.

As we worked our way through the basics, I didn't do too badly.  However, things started to go south once I had to combine a bunch of things.  Stay steady, activate the shoulders, swing your legs, pop your hips, head exploding, other things being said but I've exceeded my limit for processing instructions, and...failure.  Soon my knees were coming up in "let's pretend we're doing toes to bar" fashion.  Then I was basically doing strict pull-ups, trying to crane my head above the bar so that the rep would be legit, even though we weren't keeping score or anything.  But despite this rapidly devolving situation, I wasn't prepared for how bad things were about to get.

It was warm, I sweat a lot, the sky is blue, yadda yadda yadda.  I've started wearing grips so that my hands don't rip during pull-ups, but also to deal with moisture issues I have with my hands.  I used to wear wrist bands after reading that people who get sweaty hands during workouts aren't really sweating from their hands.  Rather, the sweat is running down their arms on to their hands, so if you can block that path (or use something to absorb the sweat along the way), your hands should remain fairly dry.  In order to wear the grips, I had to secure them with my wrist wraps, which I assumed would serve the same purpose as the wrist bands.  Until tonight that was the case.  But tonight...not so much.

I was trying to string multiple reps together and had my grip slip a bit, so I dropped down from the bar.  Everyone else in my group was still going (showoffs!), so it was obvious that I was the weak link.  When it was our turn to go again, Aimee wanted us to focus on pushing away from the bar at the top.  I tried to do it, but struggled, as I tried to do that neck crane thing again.  Aimee wanted me to focus less on getting my head over the bar and more on simply kipping and pushing away from the bar at the top. The butterfly crew came up again as the kippers rested, but soon we were back to the bar.  Instead of doing groups, Aimee wanted to start off the next round watching one person work on pushing away from the bar at the top.  That person was yours truly of course.  Not excited about having all eyes on me, I tried to focus on the task at hand and block everything out.  Michal had been telling me to remain calm and Josh M. had been telling me to put all thoughts out of my head and just start doing pull-ups.  I jumped up to the bar, began my swing, did a pull-up, and pushed away to come back down.  Another swing to the top, then a push away and...oh boy.

I will temper this embarrassing moment by stating that I clearly did what I was asked not once, but twice.  I got to the top of the pull-up and pushed away from the bar.  However, after the second swing, I pushed away from the bar and lost my grip on the bar.  That resulted in me hurtling myself into the wall behind the bar.  Did I mention that all eyes were on me at this point?  Awesome.  I wasn't hurt at all, but it was enough to make me switch to a full grip on the bar for the rest of the clinic (and for the foreseeable future).

For the remainder of the class, I tried to keep improving, but I was probably a lost cause at that point.  At the end, we had to go up in groups of three and do a max set.  I managed a set of four, my biggest of the night, but that was child's play compared to the vast majority of the class.  The kipping pull-up remains a mystery to me and now I can say that it may also be hazardous to my health.

Let's do something that won't result in me flying into a wall (I hope).  Today's WOD was Grace, 30 clean and jerks (135/95) for time.  Cline was joining me at open strength to take this on.  We did some warmup and originally planned to do this head to head while Rachel and Michal counted for us, but they needed some non-Saturday morning dicking around time.  So when Cline was ready to go, I got him started and counted his reps.  Cline had mentioned beforehand that he was torn between using 105 and 115 pounds, but he went through the reps with 115 pounds with ease.  In fact, he wasn't even using his hips to help clean the bar.  It was more like watching someone do a sumo lift high pull as he wrenched the barbell up to his shoulders.  He methodically went through all 30 reps stopping the clock at 3:43.

I got ready to go next and for some reason wasn't feeling super confident.  I doubt it was the pull-up incident from earlier.  It was probably more the case that I was thinking way too much about how to tackle a workout that would take less than 5 minutes.  I had watched Matt B. and Rich A. do this earlier and they took completely different approaches.  Matt did huge sets with small breaks in between while Rich did fast singles the entire time.  I wanted to do a hybrid of the two strategies: one big set to begin with fast singles the rest of the way.  And my big set would not be until I reached failure, it would be until it felt like a struggle to hold on to the bar, making it no longer worthwhile to expend that energy.

That big set would turn out to be 5 reps.  I would have liked it to be in the 6-8 range, but once it started feeling heavy, I went right to the fast singles.  I practiced some of the fast singles during the warmup and I had problems controlling the barbell after dropping it.  Controlling the bounce was a little tricky and grabbing the barbell evenly was tough sometimes as well.  The last thing I wanted to do was try to clean and jerk this weight with my hands uneven.  So I tried to be fast when transitioning from one rep to the next, but it was probably slower than it should have been.  As I was nearing the midway point, I cleaned the barbell up to my shoulders and tried to quickly jerk it, but got no pop from my legs and it went close to nowhere.  I had to bail on it and regroup.  And this really isn't the type of workout where you have time to regroup.

With a brief break to clear my head, I got back into it.  As I made my way into the twenties, the bar was definitely getting heavier and I was taking an extra second to make sure my setup was correct before launching into that next rep.  Cline was yelling all sorts of stuff to me about breaking my PR, breaking three minutes, about being a motherfucker...it was all a bit of a blur.  All I knew is that it felt like I had been going for 10 minutes and it seemed like these guys were simply being nice about cheering me on.  After completing the last rep, I finally looked at the clock and saw 3:10.  Not quite under three minutes, but I nice PR for me, especially since my goal was 3:15 for the workout.

After some standing in the rain and a little bit of rest, Rachel and Michal informed me that they wanted to do a cash out.  Coach Intern Rachel still needs some training on what "cash out" means, as she seems to be confusing it with "WOD".  I talked her down into something that would only take about 10 minutes to complete and we came up with the following:

1,000 meter row
Then 15-10-5 of
Heavy Russian KB swings
Handstand push-ups

Despite being tired, I was okay with a workout involving my new friends, the 80 lb KB and the banded handstand pushup contraption.  Now I honestly don't know how long the workout actually took, but here are the highlights.  Rachel beat me off the rower.  Even though they were only Russian swings, I could only do sets of 5 during the round of 15.  I got into the handstand pushup contraption with no assistance the first time, but only got 5 reps.  Then I needed Josh M.'s help to get back in it for rounds 1 and 2, along with Michal's help (she was done already) in round 3.  I did handstand pushups to end round 1 and did the same for round 2.  I did all 10 KB swings unbroken in round 2.  And I slowly got through the finish with a large amount of sweat (even for me) pouring down on the mat below.

Three activities was enough for me to celebrate my 100th blog post.  I was so tired that I didn't really want to eat afterwards, although not re-fueling my body probably would have been a bad idea.  And naturally, I slept like the dead when I finally put head to pillow later on.

Tuesday WOD: Overheads and deadlifts.  Sounds appealing, but could they be suckering me in to believing this is something I will like.  We shall see.

Mama Said There'd Be Days Like This

Workout date: 6/7/15

As many of you know, I am a bit of a horse racing aficionado.  Every now and then, when the mood strikes me, I have been known to place a wager on a race.  But it had been 37 years since the horse racing world had seen a Triple Crown champion.  How old am I?  37.  That means I have been waiting my entire life to see the greatest accomplishment that can happen in the sport I love.  Go ahead, think about that for a bit.  Throughout my adult life, I have seen horses come tantalizingly close to pulling off this feat, only to fall short.

But on Saturday, I finally got to witness it.  I wasn't there in person.  I'm sure it was a really cool atmosphere, but I probably would not have gotten to see it even if I had a ticket, as I'm sure I would have been arrested for assaulting one of the many patrons there who were holding up the betting lines with questions like "what does it mean to place?", "can I bet on all of the horses?", and "when do the Goo Goo Dolls start playing?".  If I didn't get arrested, I likely would have had an aneurysm.  Instead, I was home in my living room, expecting the worst, only by the time they hit the backstretch, it was clear that there was almost no chance American Pharoah was losing.  They let him on an easy lead and he repelled the one challenge he received from Frosted at the top of the stretch.  It was a magical experience.  Plus, I won a few shekels on some other races, which always brightens your day.

Why am I going on and on about horse racing in a Crossfit blog?  Well, one might wonder if I decided to celebrate like crazy Saturday night, leading to my workout performance on Sunday morning.  To be clear: I did not.  I think I had one beer after the race.  My performance on Sunday was just a case of me not having it.  Some days you have it, others you don't, and I clearly didn't have it for the Filthy Fifty.

Filthy Fifty:
50 box jumps (24"/20")
50 jumping pull-ups
50 KB swings (53/35)
50 steps of walking lunges
50 knees to elbows
50 push presses (45/35)
50 back extensions
50 wall balls (20 to 10'/14 to 9')
50 burpees
50 double unders

So to be fair, not the easiest workout in the world.  It was a massive chipper, which I always get excited about despite the fact that I have never shown any aptitude in these tests of endurance.  I did this in November and my time was 36:26.  There had been a time cap of 35 minutes, but since I was close to the end, they showed mercy on me and allowed me to finish.  There is no indication of scaling on the blog, but I can't imagine I did this RX, since I had nothing in the way of strung double unders at that point, so doing 50 of them at the end of the workout would have taken me forever.

As I got there a few minutes before 10am, I saw the 9am class wrapping up and Derreck was working hard to finish up his workout.  He was plugging away at the burpees and the clock was beyond 30 minutes already.  Yikes.  This was definitely some foreshadowing.  He finished in 39:45 and my anxiety level jumped up a notch.  I had hoped to be in the neighborhood of 30 minutes, but that seemed like wishful thinking all of a sudden.  Still, I'd try my best to maintain an average of 3 minutes at each exercise.  For some movements (knees to elbows!) I would need more than 3 minutes, but on others (walking lunges), I should need less.  Hopefully it would average out.

We got going and Cline was right next to me for the workout.  Since this chipper was a mix of a lot of different things, I thought I would do well to keep up with Cline.  Some of this stuff he was probably faster than me on and other areas I could probably catch up.  Except I fell behind quickly.  After doing 16 box jumps, I tripped and fell on the next attempt.  No problem, just compose yourself and...shit, I did it again.  Can I really not jump on this box?  I took a few seconds extra to compose myself before finally getting rep #17.  I got through the rest of the jumps without a problem, but I definitely slowed my cadence after those two hiccups.  I was the last one to the jumping pull-ups.

At the jumping pull-ups, I made up some ground.  I knew I could do sets of 10 quickly and that is exactly what I did.  Tried not to take too much of a break in between, but also wanted to be sane about how fast I was going as there were still 8 more parts to this workout.  Pretty sure I was not the last one done here and I had made up a lot of the ground I had lost on the box jumps.  I was on my last set of 10 when Cline made his way to the KB swings.

After using 70 lb and 80 lb KBs recently, the 53 lb KB did not seem so awful.  I probably should have done all 50 in 3 sets, but I thought my pacing was good doing 4 sets.  Perhaps I was pacing too much.  I was definitely sucking wind already and the clock was closing in on 9 minutes as I got to my last set of 12 swings.  And I hadn't made up any ground on Cline, who was considering using 44 pounds for his KB, but switched to 53 last minute.  Not a good sign.

Next, it was time to awkward lunge back and forth in a very small lane as we counted to 50.  I got about 7 lunges per direction, which would have resulted in 49 eventually, so I made sure to do 1 extra lunge early on to fix this problem.  I had 14 left when Cline headed to the knees to elbows, meaning I was about 20-30 seconds behind him at this point.  Still hanging with him for the most part.  Just got to do well on the knees to elbows.

My one recollection from doing this in November was that the knees to elbows section took forever.  And somehow, I may have managed to take even longer this time around.  I was doing fast singles on the low bar while Cline knocked them out like a champ on the high bar.  But I knew I was in trouble when I could only manage sets of 3 early on.  Shoot, that means 17 sets.  That's no good.  Plus my grip was weakening and I had to hit the chalk bucket several times.  I managed to knock out a set of 5 later on.  And I got it together mentally to finish the last six in a row.  But I was way behind most of the class now.  Plus the clock showed I was over 20 minutes.  Not good.

Not only was I behind, I was spent.  I grabbed the barbell to do push presses and got going.  This felt like it could be a rest area, but I had to make up some time as well.  I tried to focus on my breathing as I knocked out 2 sets of 25 reps.  Didn't feel great, but at least I was making up some of the time I had lost doing knees to elbows.

Have you ever seen a fish flopping around when it is out of water?  It is desperately trying to get back to its habitat, making it known by its violently uncomfortable flailing.  That was me doing back extensions (aka Supermans).  I had no idea how I was going to finish this workout.  Didn't seem like I even had the energy to do this simple movement.  So I would flop around from one rep to the next, hoping to get to 50 as soon as possible.  Not my finest moment.

Didn't get better from there.  The wall balls themselves didn't seem painful, but I had no energy left.  I began to feel a little woozy as I did them.  At one point, while resting, I got a bit unsteady.  The hardest part of the workout came after I hit 25 reps.  I was taking a break, thinking about having to do 25 more of these, along with 50 burpees and 50 double unders.  At that point in time, it seemed like I still had an entirely new WOD left in front of me.  Some people in the class had finished.  Others were close.  And I had slowed to a crawl.  I took a solid 30-45 seconds to internally debate the merits of stopping.  Pros: this catastrophe would be over.  Cons: you gave up, which is only something you do in the most dire of circumstances.  I decided that I would continue on, even if I had to go very slowly through the last 125 reps.

After completing the wall balls, it was time for 50 burpees and I imagine those were the slowest burpees the gym has seen in quite some time.  I had another stumble sideways at one point as the wooziness had not gone away.  Everyone was done, so I knew everyone was supporting me, even though I had zoned them all out.  One by one, I made my way to 50, leaving only the double unders.

It has been well chronicled on here that my double unders, when I'm tired, are borderline non-existent.  They are barely existent when I am fresh.  So when I picked up my rope to finish this workout, I expected about three more minutes of work.  Instead, I somehow got 25 in a row in my first set.  Then I did a set of 12.  And then I finished off the workout with a set of 13.  I have no idea how that little miracle occurred at the end.  Maybe the Crossfit gods decided to show me some mercy.  But I finally got to lay on the floor and recover after 42 minutes and 53 seconds of hell.

Normally after a workout like this I'll be mad or depressed.  Didn't happen yesterday.  For whatever reason, I didn't have it during the Filthy Fifty.  Maybe it's a workout that I will never be good at.  I'm not sure what the explanation is.  But my takeaway was that I maintained a reasonably good attitude even after a poor workout.  And I kept going even when I wanted to stop.  42:53 may be a god awful time for this workout, but I was pleased that I stuck with it.

Monday: Time for a pull-up clinic with Aimee.  And Grace at open strength!

Stranger Danger

Workout date: 6/6/15

Saturday was a very strange morning.  For starters, I woke up early.  As in, I woke up before my alarm went off at 6am.  I laid there intending to get some more sleep, but I was awake.  And for some reason, I wasn't overly tired or cranky despite sleeping less than expected.  I ended up in the shower for a ridiculous amount of time, but I don't think that will ever change.  And when I showed up at the gym, I was in a decent mood.  Very strange.

Attendance at Competitor's Class was sparse, as the only other folks there besides me were Keith, Rachel, and Michal.  The workout was on the lighter side as well.  What was going on?  Perhaps the gambling gods were letting me save my energy to handicap the Belmont Stakes card and root on American Pharoah's Triple Crown attempt later in the afternoon.  We started off with a warmup that looked like so:

2 rounds:
10 push press (barbell only)
20 squats
20 double unders
10 hang power snatch (barbell only)

Simple enough.  The big surprise here though was that I strung all 20 double unders in each set.  Were they done efficiently?  Not even close.  But I got all 20 each time.  I've been struggling with my double unders recently, so it was nice to feel like I hadn't forgotten how to do them.

Next up we had to find a 2RM hang snatch.  Even though snatches are supposed to be easier from the hang, I tend to have a tougher time with this movement when I'm not taking it from the floor ("taking it from the floor" may become my new favorite sorta sounds dirty Crossfit phrase).  I think it has something to do with the fact that I use a lot of momentum whenever I am doing anything in the gym.  When you're in the hang, you don't have any momentum to help you out.  I didn't have a good sense of where I'd end up on this, so I started out fairly light at 95 pounds.  That felt easy, so I went up to 115.  After finding success there, I went to 135, where things definitely started getting tougher.

I did manage to get 135, but only made a 10 pound jump for my next attempt.  And was 145 an adventure!  Up to this point, all of my attempts had been hang power snatches even though I had seen everyone else do some hang squat snatches during their progressions.  I knew I would need to do that soon as well, but in my first rep at 145, the bar pulled me under much more than I pulled myself under the bar.  It was almost like being in a pool and having someone dunk you underwater.  Before I knew it, I was in the bottom of a squat, trying to do an overhead with 145 pounds.  I managed to get it, but I was in full panic mode about how I would get the second rep.  Not wanting to waste my grip, I tried to regroup quickly.  When I attempted the second rep, the same thing happened, only I was aware that it was going to happen this time.  It was still work to stand up the bar, but I managed to rise and complete 145.

I had little faith that 155 could happen, but one rep would have been nice.  I made several attempts, but my form was all off.  I would have to accept that 145 was as high as I was getting in this phase of our class.

The last part of the class was not some 40 minute terror of a WOD (that would be on Sunday).  Instead we were testing out a WOD for an upcoming competiton.  There is a co-ed competition in August that Rachel and Keith are competing in together.  Michal is competing as well with a member of the gym that is hosting the competition.  Their team name is Stranger Danger.  So for this workout, I would be playing the role of Stranger.  Here's the WOD:

3 rounds:
20 toes to bar
20 hang power cleans (135/95)
20 deadlifts (135/95)
20 shoulder to overhead (135/95)

Other important details:

• 10 minute time cap
• Should you complete the workout in less than 10 minutes, you can do bar muscle ups to lower your finish time
• You are not allowed to drop any of the barbells, you must place them on the floor with control before your teammate can grab their barbell
• If you drop a barbell, you and your teammate must do 10 synchronized burpees

Enough details?  I thought so.  When I looked this over, I really believed it was possible that Michal and I could finish under the 10 minute time cap.  There were 2 of us working, so we'd be going faster due to the fact that would get small breaks while the other person was knocking out reps.  Should go fast!

It did go fast...for Rachel and Keith.  They blitzed through this thing in 8:30, leaving more than enough time to get some bar muscle ups in should they so desire (they had no such desires on Saturday morning).  As for Michal and I, we got through round 1 in about 4 minutes, so we knew right off the bat that we weren't meeting the 10 minute time cap.  We did decide to finish no matter what though, and to Michal's credit, she got stronger and stronger each round.  So strong, in fact, that she knocked out about 4 hang power cleans despite the fact that a) we had already completed 20 and b) I was yelling at her to do deadlifts.  I had a few solid sets of hang power cleans and shoulder to overheads to help us finish just under 15 minutes with a time of 14:57.

And that was it for Competitors Class.  Maybe the most laid back version of the year.  I felt like I could handle a 500 rep workout the next morning if need be.

Next blog post: A 500 rep workout.  I do not handle it well.

Unbroken

Workout date: 6/4/15

It's been a long week of tough workouts at the gym and several people (ahem, Giulz and Leslie) were on my case about taking a rest day.  They weren't wrong.  It was probably in my best interest to shut it down for 24 hours.  But then Thursday's WOD showed up on the KOP website.  And it was Nancy, aka the only workout that Dave has a remote chance of getting on the whiteboard for.  So there would be no rest day.  That would have to wait until Friday.  (I swear I'm taking a rest day on Friday.  Even if they run Nancy on back-to-back days.)

A recap of Nancy:
5 rounds
400 meter run
15 overhead squats (95/65)

Last time I did this workout, it was a tug of war between Michal and I that ended with me face down in the mud pit and Michal triumphantly holding the rope.  I wanted revenge this evening, but I also wanted to lower my time quite a bit, as my previous time of 16:17 was nearly two minutes slower than what I needed to get on the whiteboard (14:30).  The key was maintaining a solid pace during the runs.  The second round would especially be key for me.  I wanted to have two rounds done in 5:30.  That would give me 9 minutes to finish the last 3 rounds, which felt doable in my mind.  But having done this workout twice before, I knew that the overhead squats take a toll on your legs right from round one, so I would need to push.

There were 12 people in total in the class, including Rachel and Derreck.  Normally I don't care where I work out, even if it means extra distance or extra time gets added to my score.  But not today.  I set up shop down near the door so I could get in and out quickly.  Michal meant business too.  Last time, she turned around and did the last set of overheads facing me during her five-second victory.  Today was not going to be any different as she put her bar right in front of mine.  I was definitely going to have to earn it today.  We headed out to the barriers that mark the start for Nancy and were sent on our way.

In March, we did this as part of a smaller class and I got out to a lead during the first run and held the lead after every round of overheads (except the last obviously).  That was not the case today.  Olan jumped out to a pretty sizable lead in the first run, while Michal ran just ahead of me.  I wasn't too concerned about the run at this point as I expected to make up time during the overheads.  Except I was not be the first one back out the door.  Michal strung her 15 overheads and took off.  I wasn't too far behind, but Rachel wasn't far behind me either.

The good news about Michal having the lead was that there was a solid runner in front of me that I needed to keep up with during that second run I knew I needed to be faster on.  I would get to practice my Jill Cardamone impression today.  And I'm sure I did go faster on that run as I didn't want her pulling away.  But her advantage had grown when we came back into the gym for the second round of overheads.  While she had completed about 4 reps by the time I had squat snatched my barbell, I did start to catch up.  And at a certain point, she had to drop her barbell.  I went unbroken, leaving me 1 rep behind as she headed out on the third run.

The third run must have been slower based on the time on the clock during the third set of overheads, but it took a lot of effort to get through.  And my overheads were not as smooth as they were on that day back in March, so I was concerned about having to drop the barbell.  But to get a solid time, I needed to hold on to it the entire workout.  I was a few reps behind yet again, but I started plugging away at my overheads.  Soon Michal dropped.  Then she dropped again a little while later.  I didn't have a good sense of how many reps she had completed, but for the first time, I was confident that I'd be heading out the door first.

My elation with being in the lead was tempered by the fact that my legs were weakening.  When I headed out on my run, the clock read 8:45, meaning that I wasn't going to make the board today, but I still could make 15 minutes, which would be huge.  I leaned forward and tried to run hard, but I was not moving nearly as fast as I was earlier.  On the turn back to the gym, I saw that Rachel was still the same distance behind me, but Michal was now further back.  Round four of overheads was basically sets of three reps and the occasional two reps with pauses in between, but I refused to drop the barbell.  The clock was around 12:20 as I headed out for my final run.  15:00 was off the table.  Maybe 15:30?

The last run was not pleasant at all, but I dug as much as I could.  I knew that even if I was out of breath when I got back, I could probably hang on to that bar and get those last 15 overheads.  Rachel was still the same distance behind, but I had no clue how much she had left in the tank.  For all I knew, she could have one more sprint in her and I'd be racing through overheads to try to hold her off.  Turns out that was a race I might have lost.  I got back in the gym and had at least 5 overheads complete when Rachel made it back.  The clock was nearing 16 minutes and I wanted to at least break that mark.  I kept stringing together two reps at a time and then a pause.  Unfortunately, the last rep came at 16:04.  It was a 13 second improvement, but still a bit of a disappointing finish.  At least I had managed to go unbroken on all of my overheads again.

Rachel finished about 20 seconds later, while Michal came in two minutes afterwards.  She had mentioned that the weight had felt heavy in the warmup and I think it just wasn't her day.  Derreck finished a few minutes after her.  As much as I love overhead squats, Derreck hates them with the same fervor.

With that, it's time for a rest day.  About 36 hours of recovery time before Competitors Class on Saturday morning.

Stay Calm And...What's The Rest?

Workout date: 6/3/15

While under the watchful eye of Michal Tuesday night, I did some kipping practice.  Michal has this stuff down, to the point that she has moved on to the more advanced butterfly pull-up.  And I think she may have grown tired of me sucking on the pull-up bar.  (There's also the chance that she has grown tired of hearing me whine about it.  Real coin toss there.)  So after the WOD, she had me work on my kip, focusing more on shoulder activation and less on my legs.  After my usual impressive display of flailing around, she said something to me that I had never considered before.  See, most of the cues I have gotten in terms of improving my kip have been very technical.  This one was not.  She told me <paraphrasing>: "You're very intense when you're trying to kip and you're doing these wild motions.  You need to be calmer on the bar."

Be calm.  Hmmm...this was definitely not a strength for me.  But it made sense.  When watching people kip on the pull-up bar, it always looks so graceful.  So why was I doing what I'll call a "panic kip"?  Mainly because I had no faith I could do the pull-up otherwise.  I immediately started thinking of how I play pool.  If you watch most people play pool, you see them trying to hit shots as hard as they can.  But pool is a game of finesse.  The best players hit their shots with only enough force to get the cue ball to move into position for their next shot.  It is truly a beautiful thing to watch as someone runs a table by maneuvering the cue ball around.

By jerking around my body uncontrollably, I was not getting my body (or my cue ball-like head) in proper position for my next pull-up.  And therefore I could not string reps (aka "run the table").  This would have all been easier to grasp if they gym were covered in green felt.  Oh well.  I calmed myself down, then tried to kip again.  I got 3 reps.  The kip may not have been beautiful, but it was certainly more effective.  Later on, I would get 5 consecutive reps.  Maybe I was finally getting the hang of this!

Fast forward to last night, a workout that looked like so:

20 minute time cap
4 rounds:
20 pull-ups
20 hand release push-ups
20 KB swings (70/55)
20 box jumps (30"/24")

Pull-ups right off the bat and plenty of them!  I'd get to test out my kip immediately.  Beyond that, a few things to note:

1. There is approximately 0% chance I would ever be able to finish this workout.  The 20 pull-ups is probably going to require 2 minutes, with each of the other 3 movements requiring about a minute.  So if I maintained that pace and never got tired, I'd finish right on the time cap.  Good luck with that!
2. We were definitely going big here, although I like that.  I've been practicing with the 80 lb KB to get better at the 70 lb KB in WODs.  Another test.  And we don't do a ton of workouts with the 30" box for box jumps, but it's almost a different movement.  With the 24" box, you can pogo if you're good.  Trying to pogo the 30" box is a really bad idea.  With the 30" box, it is more about explosiveness up, then speed up and down.

I went to practice my kip.  Stay calm, stay calm, jump, and...fail.  What was that?  Ok, calm down, try again...and fail again.  Why wasn't my brain remembering what I did just 24 hours ago?  I finally managed a rep, but it was ugly and didn't result in a second rep right afterwards.  Leslie was watching me and mentioned that my initial swings looked good, but I was messing things up when it came time to pull my head over the bar.  I was not remaining calm.  Leslie had a good suggestion when she said I should do a full kipping swing before even trying to do the pull-ups.  That would get my brain in the right mindset for the kip.

Stay calm, one practice swing.  After hearing "3, 2, 1, go!" we were off.  And the ability to stay calm was gone.  There is a certain amount of adrenaline that goes through your body when you do these workouts and I've just never been a guy that can flip the switch on and off.  It was go time and I was back to my poor kipping ways.  I did manage one set of three after a practice swing got me started.  But beyond that, there were several fails with one good rep mixed in.  After 4 reps, it was time to use a band to try and salvage the workout.  I had brought one over in advance since there was little chance I was magically kipping 80 pull-ups today.  I set it up on the rack so that I could stand on it with both feet.  Only problem is that pull-ups with just that one band are really hard as well.  It took me forever to get done with the first set of 20.

The hand-release push-ups went fairly smoothly, but not incredibly fast.  I prefer hand-release (must take your hands off the floor so your chest hits the floor) to regular push-ups, but my upper body strength was already sapped a bit from the pull-up struggle.  Next was the KB, where I swung 12 in a row before doing the second set of 8.  Then it was the 20 box jumps, which took more than the minute I hoped they would take, but they were tough.

For round 2, I got a second band for the pull-up bar and got through those much quicker.  Still, there was no way I was completing all four movements in 5 minutes.  In fact, it was clear that I would not be finishing 3 rounds during this WOD.  I got done with the pull-ups and went through the hand-release push-ups again.  At the KB, I managed 13 reps in the first set, then took care of the last 7.  And at the box, it was a mirror image of my first round, plodding through the 20 jumps.

I had less than 5 minutes left when I got back to the pull-up bar.  Even with two bands, these pull-ups felt horrible.  When I finished up there, we had less than two minutes to go.  There was less than one minute left when I got back to the KB.  Trying to swing a heavy KB in a hurry is not advised.  I saved one rep at the top that almost buckled back over my head.  When it happened again on the next rep, I had to put the KB down.  Time was running out, but safety comes first.  I picked the KB back up and got a few more reps in before time elapsed.  I finished two full rounds, along with the pull-ups, push-ups, and half of the KB swings in round three.

We ended the class with a sit-up tabata (20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest for 8 rounds).  I managed to do 82 sit-ups during that time, although the class had to deal with a lot of unpleasant grunting for four minutes.

Next blog: it's the return of Nancy, a girl WOD that I am actually decent at!  Can I figure out a way to maintain my running pace for 5 rounds in order to get closer to that third spot on the board?

And So We Meet Again

Workout date: 6/2/15

Kalsu.  Even the name alone is oddly intimidating.  It shouldn't be, because it is simply the last name of a famous college and professional football player who was killed in combat in Vietnam.  For some reason, it does not seem to get advertised as a Hero WOD, but it definitely is, both in intensity and in spirit.

How does Kalsu work?  Pretty simple format really, which likely explains why people underestimate how grueling this workout truly is.  The goal is to do 100 thrusters (135/95).  That's a lot of thrusters.  Oh, but did I mention there are burpees as well?  How many burpees you ask?  Well that depends on how fast you complete the 100 thrusters.  At the beginning of every minute, you have to do 5 burpees before you touch that barbell.  And there is something quite destructive about the combination of thrusters and burpees, as anyone who did Open workout 14.5 last year could tell you.

Haven't hit 100 thrusters at the end of a minute?  Back down to the floor you go for 5 more burpees.  Basically, at the end of every minute, you are being punished for not being done.  And the more you are punished, the less work you are able to do on the barbell.  Which means more punishment.  It's a vicious cycle.

About three months into my Crossfit career, I did this workout.  It was a complete bro session, with me filling the role of little bro.  Paul was coaching the class and stood us in a line.  As he made his way down the line, he asked us if we were doing 100 reps or 50 reps (Half Kalsu is a popular scale).  One by one, all the guys said 100 reps.  When Paul got to me, I gave him a look like I was offended he even asked the question.  "100 reps!"  I'm no fool.

I'm a fool.  I did 50 reps that day using 75 pounds on my barbell.  And it took me 17:57 to do.  That means I did 90 burpees during the workout.  There were minutes where I crawled through my 5 burpees only to discover there were only seconds remaining, forcing me to go right back into burpees without chipping away at my thruster total.  That's the thing with Kalsu: there is no rest.  You might be able to sneak in a breather for a few seconds, but if you truly want rest, you have to give up.

Despite my love of attempting everything RX, I had a healthy enough respect for this workout to not even consider it.  135 was out of the question and 115 seemed like a longshot as well.  I was going with 95 pounds, with a goal of completing the 100 reps in 20 minutes.  That would be 5 burpees and 5 thrusters per minute.  Sounded good since I was making this decision while I still had a clear mind.

There are two ways you can approach Kalsu:

1. You can go crazy in that first minute or two, trying to knock out as many thrusters as possible while you are still fresh.  You will take a big bite out of that total of 100, but you won't be fresh very long and you will have to grit your way through the remainder of the workout.
2. You can be methodical.  Want to be done in 20 minutes?  Do 5 burpees and 5 thrusters every minute.  No more, no less.

Again, having received a previous ass-whooping from this workout, I decided that option #2 was the wiser choice, with a slight modification.  There was no way that I was going to get away with doing 5 thrusters in that first minute and then standing around until minute 2 began.  I would definitely hear about that.  So my first minute would be all about comfort level.  When the reps stopped being smooth, I would drop the bar.  But I would be doing more than 5 reps.

We got going with the workout and after doing 5 burpees, I did a set of 7 thrusters followed by another set of 5.  12 thrusters down, 88 to go.  Maybe I had improved enough that this was not going to be a total nightmare.  Or not.  The burpees were a little slower in minute two and I only managed 6 thrusters before it was burpee time yet again.  Uh oh.

I won't bore you with what happened every minute because it would just be "did 5 burpees, did x thrusters".  And honestly I don't remember how many I did every single minute.  What I will tell you is that everyone who does Kalsu is faced with two questions during the workout:

1. Do I really want to keep doing this?  (Entered my mind after 49 reps)
2. (Within 5 minutes of answering yes to question #1) No seriously, is there any point in continuing with this futility?  (Entered my mind after 68 reps)

Without a doubt, this is the most mentally challenging workout we do since there is no rest and the incentive to stop is high.  Plus if you get to the point where you're only doing 1-2 thrusters per minute, you can end up doing this forever.  So there is a lot of questioning that goes on in your head during this workout.  There's a lot of screaming when you try to continue.  There's a lot of sweat (not just from me) that comes pouring out of you as you try to find more.

For the most part, I did 5 thrusters per minute, although dropped to 4 reps later in the workout.  My burpees became so slow that I generally had 15-20 seconds left each minute for thrusters.  I had one round where I had 10 seconds left and managed to only knock out 2 thrusters.  I had one round where I did the first thruster, lost my balance, managed to press it out, but had to drop the barbell.  With only 7 seconds left, I decided it was better to sneak in one of those breathers so that I could go faster on the burpees in the next round, allowing me time to make up thrusters (I did 5 the following round).  I had one round where I did a sidestep twice as I did thrusters because my barbell had crept it's way over to where Michal was working and I wanted to get back over to my area.

Exhausted and feeling like my sneakers were covered in cement, I got to 83 reps.  I knew I could get 4 reps per round if I pushed, but that would leave me at 99 in 4 minutes.  And I was not doing 5 extra burpees to get 1 lousy thruster.  After finishing my burpees for that round, I pushed as hard as I could on the thrusters, trying to bounce up and down as fast as I could.  I managed to get a 5th rep in before the minute elapsed.  Now with 88 reps, I knew I could finish in 3 minutes if I didn't let up.  That is exactly what I did, pressing out that 100th thruster with 21:54 showing on the clock.  I didn't beat 20 minutes, but just getting through 100 reps made me happy, knowing how tough it was getting through only 50 on my first attempt.

Next blog post: Michal may have figured out the key to getting me to kip properly.  Why not test it out on a workout with 80 pull-ups just to be sure?  More pain coming soon.

The V7 Engine

Workout date: 6/1/15

There probably is a connection between having a clear mind and having a good performance at the gym.  Perhaps unburdening myself outside of the gym is a better way to go about things than to use the gym is my version of pseudo-therapy.  All I know is that I had what I would describe as my best night of the year so far at the gym last night and it came right on the heels of getting a lot off of my chest this weekend.

We had 15 people at the 6:30 class, eager to hop in the time machine and test out 13.4, an Open workout from two years ago.  It was a couplet with ascending reps and a seven-minute time cap.  The couplet went like this:

3 clean and jerks (135/95)
3 toes to bar
6 clean and jerks
6 toes to bar
9 clean and jerks
9 toes to bar
And on and on and on...

With only seven minutes to get the work done, this was essentially a sprint, albeit a long sprint.  I knew I would do 135 for the clean and jerk weight.  Getting through the round of 12 would mean completing Grace along with 30 toes to bar.  That seemed like a realistic goal for me, since I have completed Grace in just over 3.5 minutes.  I hadn't done toes to bar in a while and I was concerned about my form being off.  I planned on using the high bar, but changed my mind later on after struggling during the warmup and watching what other folks used.

With so many people in class, we were splitting up into two heats.  Once again I got to work with Matt B.  It really is nice to work with him when we have to pair up with somebody, because I'm not sure there is anyone else in the gym that is as similar to me as he is.  There was no doubt he was using 135, and like me, his only concern was the toes to bar.  Well maybe not the only concern.  I think both Matt and I have engine problems as well.  In Crossfit speak, your engine is your ability to maintain your intensity for longer periods of time.  Some people (like yours truly) tire out pretty badly at a certain point and are deemed to have "no engine".  Other folks can take on a 20-30 minute workout and keep a strong pace throughout.  This longer sprint was going to be a good engine test, as it was right on the border of how long I can go fast for a workout.

Matt prefers going first and I prefer going last, so again, we made a good team.  Matt got going and was throwing around the 135 lb weight like it was a toy.  He strung the first 3 reps.  In the round of 6, he strung all 6 reps.  In the round of 9, he almost pulled off three sets of 3 reps, but had to break the last set into 2 and 1 to finish things up.  When you have the ability to hold on to the bar like that, you save a lot of time.  He was moving fluidly through the toes to bar, doing singles on the low bar.  He was a bit under 3:30 when he moved on to the round of 12.  He did some sets of 2 when he could, but this would end up being where he would switch to singles.  After the 12th rep, Matt had Grace completed and went back to the bar.  His reps there became slower, but we pushed him to finish up the round before time expired.  He finished the round with less than 10 seconds left, ran over to the barbell and got a final clean and jerk in to finish with a score of 61.

Watching Matt made me realize that in a sprint like this, doing toes to bar on the high bar made little sense unless you were very proficient, so I made my peace with doing fast singles on the low bar.  When it came to the clean and jerks, something interesting happened.  Like Matt, I strung the first set of 3 reps, then did 3 fast singles of toes to bar.  But when I came back to my barbell, I decided to ditch the plan of doing sets.  Not sure why, it just happened.  I did a rep, dropped the barbell, and got right back on it to do another rep.  I knew I was going slower than Matt and it concerned me, but it felt like the right way to get through this workout.  And even though I was going slower, I told myself not to look at the clock.

At the bar, I did 6 fast singles of toes to bar, releasing my hands for a split second between reps to give my grip a break.  I kept that mindset during the 9 clean and jerks: it was ok to do singles, but I needed to be right back on that bar after I dropped it.  No standing around.  You don't stand around during a sprint.  And this wasn't a case of "just keep moving".  This was "gotta move fast".  After 9 clean and jerks, I went back to the bar and raised my hands to grab it.  I could already feel some soreness in my core.  That's no good.  Doesn't matter, gotta move fast.  One by one, I knocked the reps out, at what seemed to me to be the same cadence as I had done the round of 6.  With my goal being completion of the round of 12, I felt it was necessary to look at the clock.  During Matt's round, Coach Steph yelled out when it was the halfway mark of the 7 minute time frame.  I hadn't heard it yet, so I was really hoping she hadn't forgotten to do it for heat 2.  I looked at the clock and saw 3:11.  Those super-short breaks were working!

Knowing I had almost 4 minutes left, the game plan changed.  Barring a collapse, I was finishing the round of 12.  Then it was simply a matter of how many clean and jerks I could throw above my head in the remaining time.  So if I started the round of 15, it was gonna be time to start stringing reps again.  First things first though, do the round of 12.  I made it through 9 reps before I was feeling that "it would be nice to rest for a minute" sensation in my body.  I probably took an extra second before doing each of those last 3 reps, but I internally barked at myself to get back to the barbell.  When I finished that 12th rep, I was happy, because I knew I had pushed myself to keep going.  I was developing a little bit of an engine, even if my engine only lasted 7 minutes.

Maybe I was a little too happy when I got back to the bar, as I lazily swung my feet up underneath the bar on my first rep.  Matt said "one", but I told him I was no repping myself.  From there, I swung with more intensity on each rep as I couldn't afford to be doing extra reps for no reason.  As I hit my 11th toes to bar, I heard "one minute!".  Yikes, time flew during this round.  I grabbed the bar and made sure the 12th rep was legit.  Time to crank out some clean and jerks.

Per usual, I was sweating like crazy and during this last mad dash, it started dripping in my eyes.  But I wasn't doing anything with them except staring blankly ahead anyways.  Believing I needed to string reps, I did my first rep quickly, then let the bar drop directly to the ground while holding on to it.  Not the best execution, especially when I almost blew the next rep completely.  The clean came up lopsided and not very high.  I had to struggle to get it to my shoulders where I could control it for the jerk.  That let me know I would not be stringing anything during the final minute.  Still, I was able to make good progress with the fast singles, along with Matt yelling time updates at me.  With 5 seconds left, Matt yelled "get one more!"  I did a quick clean, then jerked the barbell over my head with a second to spare.

I was tired, but I was also energized.  I knew from looking at the whiteboard that my score of 70 tied for the second highest of the day.  But I also knew that Rachel was in my heat, so that was probably going to be adjusted to tied for the third highest of the day.  As I walked over to her, she was sitting on the floor smiling.  Oh god, remember Dave, no matter how badly she crushed you, be proud of what you just did.  I asked her how she did and she told me she got 69 reps.  Holy crap!  I beat Rachel!  In an Open workout no less!  Where was this 3 months ago?  <Sigh>

I badly needed to rehydrate, but to say I was pumped for open strength would be an understatement.  Monday is the best day for me for open strength as I can do the 6:30 WOD and then still get an hour and a half for strength.  And let's be honest, the first 15-20 minutes of that time is usually spent recovering from the WOD.  Determined to turn my attitude around from Saturday, I was starting with some handstand push-up work.  And I would be trying something I had never done before, but had seen in a video online (wow, that sentence sounded much worse than originally intended).  I believe that the reason my handstand push-up form has fallen apart is because I've gotten used to the abmat being a safety net of sorts for me.  So I need to practice the full range of motion.  To do that, I would use a set of bands tied to the pull-up rig to help me out.  I basically looked like this:

After some mild ribbing and some assistance to get upside down, I did 5 handstand push-ups with full range of motion.  It felt awkward, but apparently looked cool, as Michal and Mr. Intensity asked if they could try as well.  After they took their turns, I churned out two sets of 12 this way.  I have high hopes that this new setup will improve my handstand push-up form.

Know who can do handstand push-ups without all of that?  Michal.  She worked her way through 24 in a row before coming off the wall.  She's determined to get on the whiteboard (she needs 26) and I imagine she'll be writing her name up there soon.  She also was willing to help me out with my pull-up kip.  She noticed that I have been swinging my legs a lot and not activating my shoulders.  With that advice in mind, I am going to focus on shoulder activation for a while and see if that can get my kip to a non-embarrassing level.

Finally, Rachel wanted to do a "cash-out" to end open strength.  You'll see why I used quotes in a second.  The setup was as follows:

3 rounds for time:
500M row
35-40 ft walking lunge (45/35)
100 double unders
35-40 ft walking lunge

Yeah, it was bad.  Because Michal can knock out about 600 double unders at a time, she breezed through the hardest part of the workout, making up any time she was losing on the row or the lunges.  And it still took her over 18 minutes.  Rachel was probably in the 20-21 minute range.  As for me...let's just say that I finished before Steph turned the lights off in the gym.  It was a good workout for me because I need double under practice, but it was pretty brutal.

Next blog post: the return of the hardest workout I have ever done at KOP:  Kalsu!  It will not be pleasant.