Double Trouble

The Brawl in the Burbs is a team competition held at KOP.  Each team consists of 2 men and 2 women.  Last year was the first edition of the competition and I competed alongside Alison, Diane, and Mr. Intensity in the scaled division.  Diane really wanted to make the podium.  I didn't think that would be too problematic since both Alison and Diane are strong as hell, while Mr. Intensity and I could probably hold our own against the scaled division.  Turned out it was a lot tougher than we thought.  (To be fair, I was hungover and Mr. Intensity started eating burritos mid-competition, so we probably were more deadweight than Alison and Diane were expecting.  Oops.)  With a good performance in the last two WODs, we snuck into the final event, where we managed to finish 2nd amongst the five teams.  That was enough to make the leap to 3rd in the standings and a spot on the podium.

The happiest 3rd place team ever!

Our team name?  The Sweaty Soukas.  It was an easy way to include profanity in our name without being barred from the competition.  At King and Queen of Prussia (KOP's annual competition for members of the gym), one of our Russian athletes got a little tipsy and started teaching us swear words from his homeland.  He seemed to be a big fan of "souka", the Russian word for bitch.  We took a liking to it as well and used it for the Brawl competition.  It has now also become emblazoned on my footwear and is the inspiration for the name of this blog.  The lesson: always learn how to swear in languages other than English.

When the announcement came out for this year's Brawl, Diane insisted that we get the band back together.  The only problem was that Mr. Intensity had a shoulder injury, so we were going to need a replacement.  Mark C. volunteered and the Soukas were among the first teams to sign up for the second edition of the Brawl.  The injury bug has spread though, with Alison and Diane each working through their own injuries.  (Note: it's very possible that one of them had an injury and it simply ended up psychologically affecting the other.  They are that close.)  While they have been rehabbing their injuries on road trips and Caribbean cruises, I have not gotten to work out with them.  The Open may have been the last time I worked out with both of them and that was back in March.  So when Diane asked me if I wanted to get together to practice one of the WODs for this year's Brawl, I happily said yes.

The WOD we would be doing is called Team DT.  Alternating between partners, each athlete does 5 rounds of:

12 deadlifts
9 hang power cleans
6 push jerks

Rachel and I did this one at RX weight (155/105) back on May 6th with a time of 17:14.  Being in the scaled division, we would get a break with the weights being 115/75.  That also meant we would need to move much faster.  For the Brawl, the men and the women work simultaneously using their own bar.  Your final time is based on the completion of work by all four team members.

Since Mark was out of town, we were going to need to adjust this workout to suit 3 people instead of 4.  Alison and I would go first, with Diane going once Alison completed her round.  I would get to rest alongside Alison until Diane was done, then we would start again.  I knew I was going to need to go fast, but I didn't realize how fast I would need to go, nor did I realize how much this workout would take out of me even with the lighter weight.  Those hang power cleans wear down your forearms no matter what weight you are using.

Diane started the clock and me and Alison got going on round one.  I thought the deadlifts would be fast, but Alison was smoking through them, forcing me to pick up my pace.  We finished 11 at the same time, dropped our reverse grip, took a normal grip, then got into the hang power cleans.  I went a little faster than Alison on these (spoiler: not in a good way) and knocked out my final jerk 1 rep ahead of her.  In essence, I was racing her.  In essence, that was a bad idea.

Diane zipped through her rounds as well, making the push jerks look especially easy.  With maybe a 30 second break, it was time for round two.  In that round and the next, Alison and I were synchronized from the first rep to the last, although I was pretty sure she was not aching like I was.  And even though she was sweating like I was, I don't think she was sucking as much wind as yours truly.  We got a little extra break on the third round as Diane paused during the hang power cleans, but that extra break was really only a few seconds.  In round four, I started to fall behind Alison a little as the hang power cleans were destroying me.  My forearms were burning.  Alison finished her push jerks while I had two left to go.  Round five was going to be brutal.

After Diane completed her fourth round, I tried to gear up whatever energy I had left to get through this final round.  Evidently I didn't have that much energy left.  After completing the deadlifts, I had to drop after two hang power cleans.  I shook out my arms before starting again, but could only manage five more.  At this point, Diane had begun her deadlifts as Alison was done.  I shook my arms one more time, got through the last two hang power cleans, then did the six push jerks.  I was very happy to be done.  Diane fought through her last round and stopped the clock at 7:37.  That seemed like a pretty fast time, but unless Mark can go faster than Diane, that time is a bit misleading.  I was slower than Alison, meaning Mark would have to wait on me to finish, likely pushing us closer to 8 minutes.  Alison noticed that I wasn't partial squatting to catch the hang power cleans which forced me to use a lot of arm strength early on.  I will need to work on that.  It may make me a little slower in the early rounds, but if it allows me to string all of my reps in the final round, the adjustment will be worth it.

So once again, you get a blog post telling you how the ladies at the gym kicked my butt.  The one saving grace of King and Queen being on the horizon is that I can at least go back to having guys kick my butt at the gym.  I'm not terribly excited about competing in that event.  The event itself will be great as it always is, but I'd probably enjoy it more as the scorekeeper or as a mildly intoxicated cheerleader for everyone.  At the very least, the blog will get some quality "exhausted Dave" photos next weekend.

Tuesday is Jenn's birthday, so the next blog post will not be until after the Wednesday workout.  Until then...

The Four of July

Workout date: 7/4/15

To steal a term from Michael Wilbon, it turns out that I have not been giving enough "dap" to the badass ladies at KOP.  Or more specifically, there are some tough women at the gym who have not been given their just due on the blog as of yet.  That's fair.  Someone reading this blog for the first time might think that it's really Rachel and Michal's blog as much as it is my own.  Current Athlete of the Month, Jill C., has been a prominent fixture in the blog.  She is simply continuing the Summer of Jill as Jill A. won the award last month.  No one works harder in the gym than Shawna.  And a wave of newcomers like Laura and Christine are already scribbling their names all over the gym whiteboard.  I could fill another paragraph with the female All-Stars of the gym, but today I'm going to focus on four that I haven't mentioned a whole lot, simply because I haven't worked out with them a lot this year.  They would be Sue, Steph C., Erika, and Kate.  (Or is it Marci?  I'll defer to Cline on this one.)

But before we get to them...Happy Independence Day!  To commemorate the day we told England "yeah, that was nice...now you should get going", KOP was hosting a Friends and Family WOD.  That meant lots of kids showing off how much more energy they had compared to the adults who regularly do this stuff 4-5 times a week.  Youth is so wasted on the young.  To add to the craziness of the workout, we were operating out of the Annex.  For those unfamiliar with the Annex, it is a smaller gym that is separate from the main gym that can accommodate about 10 people for a workout.  Including the kids, we were approximately 30-35 strong on Saturday.  In other words, we were all about to make some friends whether we liked it or not.

In honor of America's birthday, we imported Cline back from Europe.  It was the first time I had seen him in weeks as he had glumly traversed that continent unable to find anything fun to do for more than a fortnight.  Poor guy.  Maybe we could cheer him up by asking him to flip a 1,300 pound tire with us.  I know that always breaks me out of a funk.

We were supposed to be forming teams of 4 for this workout, but that standard went out the window pretty quickly.  Cline and I joined the aforementioned quartet to form Team Chaos.  At first, we didn't have a team name, but when it became apparent that our strategy for the workout would be "uhhh...you do something!", it seemed like an appropriate moniker for us.

The workout was as follows:

25 tire flips
100 pull-ups
200 push-ups
300 KB swings
400 double unders
1,600M run

(Two people may work at a time, except for the tire flips.  Because two people would get crushed trying to flip that thing.)

I wasn't kidding about our strategy.  It was a little out of control.  We were going to start with the pull-ups, but when someone dropped from the pull-up bar, someone else would knock out push-ups.  That meant that there was a running count for pull-ups and push-ups going on at the same time, which had to be communicated to the next person doing that movement.  And we were switching back and forth between the pull-ups and the push-ups.  Got it?  We barely did.  However, we were moving fast enough that we nearly finished the push-ups at the same time as the pull-ups.  Sue and Erika had knocked out a bunch of the push-ups while Steph and Marci led the attack on the pull-ups.  Cline and I tried not to be in the way too much.

From there we moved on to the KB swings.  We had an 18 lb and a 44 lb KB, with a plan of doing 20 swings each then passing on to the next person.  Except Erika started doing 30 reps when she went.  And Cline did 15 one round.  (How could we not be Team Chaos?)  As I grabbed the 44 lb KB and started doing my second set, Cline told me to "just do 35" and then we'd be done.  35?  That escalated quickly.  I thought I was only doing 20 and so did my body as the last 15 weren't the most pleasant feeling reps in the world.  But I was able to hang on the whole way.

The one part of our strategy that did work out well (Cline thought of this - smart man) was doing the run in the middle of the workout so that we could get some rest before finishing things off.  Erika and her son went out to run a 400M together, then Cline and Marci went for a 400M run to cap off our 1,600M team requirement.  When they got back, Steph and Sue got to jumping rope.  They were doing single unders, so they were dividing their reps in half before contributing to the double under score.  Cline and I were chipping away at double unders when it was our turn to go.  Again, with single under amounts being divided by two and then throwing in double under counts and communicating these things across six people...chaos.  Simply chaos.  But we got to 400 reps.

Finally, it was time for the tire flips.  The six of us lined up behind the tire, Cline gave us our cue, and we lifted.  And then we stuck our knees underneath it to prop it up.  And then we pushed it over.  In fact, every rep became "3! 2! 1! LIFT! <pause> KNEE! <pause> PUSH!"  The only exceptions were one time when Cline decided to hell with the countdown and just said "go!" and one time when we all yelled "Hashtag Keithie!" while lifting the tire.  It was exhausting, but slowly we managed to flip that massive tire 25 times.  Final time: 26:38.

Those look like smiles.  Clearly we haven't flipped the tire once yet.

I had a great time on Team Chaos.  Hopefully I will get to work out with Sue, Steph, Erika, and Marci more often than I currently do as they were fun teammates.  Cline will be back at the 6:30 soon enough, so I don't have to worry about him.

Next blog: an unexpected rest day on Sunday, but Monday brings yet another whooping from yet more female KOP badasses.  Souka, souka!





Team A

Workout date: 7/3/15

While Thursday did not go the way I had hoped, there was still some gold to be found at the end of the rainbow.  And by gold, I mean sleep.  Sweet, glorious sleep.  With Independence Day being observed on Friday for corporate purposes, I could rest my head on Thursday night knowing I didn't have to get up early.  Ok, not super early.  Rachel had asked me to go to the 9:30 class as she was trying to field a 4-person team for the WOD.  So I didn't sleep until noon (which I could totally do!), but I did manage a nice 9 hours before showing up to the gym.

The 9:30 class had a solid turnout with 13 folks showing up in total.  Due to the odd number of people in class, we split up into 2 teams of 4, 1 team of 3, and 1 team of 2.  The team of 2?  Me and Rachel.  Which meant we would be doing this workout RX(ish) and I would have to put the pedal to the metal in order to not slow her up.

The workout was meant to be done by 2 guys and 2 girls, with the guys completing the work first and then the girls going through a similar gauntlet, but since there were only 2 of us (and really since I don't feel like writing this whole thing out twice), here is what the workout looked like:

40 pull-ups (partner must be holding a deadlift of 225/135 while pull-ups are being done)
60 wall balls (partner must be holding their chin over the pull-up bar while wall balls are being done)
1 100-ft partner carry while also carrying a 100/70 pound dumbbell
40 box jumps (24"/20") - alternating reps between partners
1 100-ft partner carry while also carrying a 100/70 pound dumbbell
2 muscle-ups

Aside from Rachel using the 24" box for box jumps and the both of us doing a jumping muscle-up at the end, we performed the workout RX.

There was a lot to be concerned about in this workout.  Pull-ups were a given, but if I wasn't doing pull-ups, then I was holding that 225 pound deadlift, which didn't sound like a picnic either.  The most daunting task seemed to be holding your chin over the bar while your partner did wall balls.  I could see that breaking down very easily, meaning the wall balls could be going on for a long time.  I wasn't concerned about carrying Rachel up and down the gym as I remember doing a partner WOD with Oleg back in the day where I was exhausted, but I was still able to tote him around pretty easily.  But holding on to a 100 pound dumbbell on top of carrying my partner?  That would be a challenge.  I've been struggling on box jumps recently and I knew I'd be tired at that point in the proceedings, so those were probably going to suck.  Oddly enough, the "muscle-ups" part of the workout gave me the least concern.  Something about only having to do one of them lessened my anxiety.

Practicing all of these crazy combined movements set my mind at ease for the actual workout.  Holding on to the deadlift was all about letting your mind drift somewhere else.  I could handle a few pull-ups when needed.  Holding my chin over the bar was awkward because the most comfortable technique I could manage involved cradling my knees up toward the bar.  Despite being awkward, it was effective as I could hold on for 5 wall balls at a time (before practicing, I thought I could hold on for 3 reps max).  Rachel agreed to hold on for 5 reps at a time as well.

I elected to use the fireman's carry with Rachel and we took the dumbbells from the top of the box so we wouldn't have to lean all of the way to the floor.  As suspected, Rachel wasn't nearly as heavy as she advertised, but the surprise was being able to walk pretty briskly while holding on to that 100 pound dumbbell.  The workout suddenly began to feel manageable.  Rachel elected to have me go piggy-back for her part of the partner carry.  I felt unsturdy as the passenger, but she probably felt the same way while I was playing human taxi.

We got started and initially I thought I would hold on for 6-8 pull-ups before dropping the deadlift.  But as I zoned out and stared at the back wall of the gym, I realized I could hold on for a lot more.  Rachel was knocking out pull-ups and then would drop, but I let her know she could keep going as I wasn't straining with the deadlift.  In fact, I could have gone on for longer than the 18 reps that Rachel did, but her hands were getting tired from the pull-ups and she needed a break.  My time on the pull-up bar was mildly successful.  I managed to get 5 reps in before checking with Rachel to see if she was ready to go again.  When she said she was, I got to go back to my happy place, holding 225 pounds on my waist.  Rachel made it to 32 reps before we switched again.  I got 4 more reps in, then she took care of the last 4.  Part one complete.

Part two of the workout was the worst section of this workout, but we made our way through it.  Holding your chin above that bar wears on your arms rather quickly, but I was able to keep my chin over the bar for all 5 reps each time it was my turn.  When I felt myself descending, I would tilt my head back so that my chin stayed over the bar, as if I was doing a butterfly pull-up.  We agreed to do 2 sets each then switch, so it was 10 reps before we got a real break.  And make no mistake, the wall balls were the break during this segment of the workout.  We tried to move swiftly, but there was definitely a need for pausing and shaking out your arms between sets of 5.  I was concerned about how slow we may have been going as I saw other teams doing the partner carry already, but we finished up without taking any extended breaks.

From there, it was my turn to carry Rachel and the 100 pound dumbbell.  Going from the front to the back of the gym was a breeze.  The way back?  Dicey at best.  I knew I needed to just keep my legs moving, but my grip on the dumbbell was slowly unraveling.  I squeezed my hand and kept taking steps as fast as I could.  Finally we were back to the orange cone where we started and I could drop the dumbbell.

The box jumps were worse than imagined because I forgot one detail: partners had to alternate reps.  So while it would have been nice to recover from the partner carry while Rachel knocked out 10 box jumps, that simply was not an option.  Rachel was fast with her box jumps, while I was something less than fast.  But as we neared 20 reps, I suddenly remembered an important detail.  After the box jumps, I was essentially done.  All I would have left is a piggy back ride and one jumping muscle-up.  This was the finish!  With the finish line going from out of view to directly in front of me, I pushed myself to jump on that box as soon as Rachel stepped down from it.  20 reps later and we were done.

My work may have been done for the most part, but I was still concerned that I might injure Rachel due to all of the gravity I was bringing to the party that would be her partner carry.  I'm currently in the 205-210 range, while she would need to hold a 70 pound dumbbell on top of that.  That 225 pound deadlift hold seemed pretty wimpy all of a sudden.  Rachel took off down the gym and as we got to the far end, I thought she was going to stop as she slowed noticeably.  Apparently she was only using caution as she turned.  We were headed back down to where we started.  The weight definitely got heavy towards the end of the carry as Rachel began to grit out each step, not wanting to have to pick the dumbbell back up again.  And she was not happy that her pants were falling down.  But she soldiered on and made it back to the orange cone.

Rachel carrying two heavy dumbbells

To make it official, we needed to run over to the rings and knock out 1 jumping muscle-up each.  Since I had done nothing in the past minute or so except cause my partner lower back pain, I jumped up to do mine first.  Then Rachel jumped up to do hers and stopped the clock at 13:24.

It was a hard workout, but not nearly as impossible as it first seemed.  And I didn't hold my partner up too much during it.

Next blog: Chaos on the 4th of July!

Completely Thrustrated

Workout date: 7/2/15

JINX!!!!  Jinx, Jinx, Jinx, Jinx, Jinx!

People often tell me that I am too hard on myself.  The truth is that I would love to be a confident guy.  But life experience has taught me that this is not meant to be for me.  I'll often get to the verge of becoming confident about something and that is when God, karma, fate, or whatever other higher power you believe in, steps in and sets me straight.  I didn't even want to write my last post because I knew what was coming on Thursday.  The best you can do is take a deep breath, clear your mind, and tell yourself "today is going to be different".

Thursday was not different.  After a string of pretty solid workouts, I was getting ready to do one that I should have excelled at.  The workout was dubbed "Thruster Thursday" and consisted solely of thrusters, one of my favorite movements.  Unless Aimee is planning "Overhead October" later in the year, this was going to be the most Dave-friendly programming there could be.  Here is how the workout was setup:

Every minute on the minute for 5 minutes, do 5 thrusters at 75/45.
At the end of every 5 minutes, add 20 pounds to the bar and continue (clock is continuously running).

Thrusters at 75 and 95 pounds should be no problem.  At 115 they would likely get tough.  And at 135 I would need to give it everything I had.  But still, getting to minute 21 seemed like an achievable goal, especially when I saw earlier scores that were 20 rounds or higher.  Perhaps I should be thinking 22-23 minutes.  I was giving that even more credence when I got to the gym for 6:30 class and saw Keith finishing off his workout in minute 27.  Let's get confident and make it to the 22nd minute!

I did not get to the 22nd minute.  Not even close.  I did keep my temper tantrum to less than 60 seconds though, which is progress on some front I suppose.  We got started with the first round of five minutes and I used 75 pounds.  It was light as expected and I finished my set of 5 thrusters in about 14 seconds, almost precisely every time.  But at the end of the fifth set, the first red flag appeared.  We needed to put 20 more pounds on the bar.  Despite moving fairly rapidly, it took 25-30 seconds to make this change.  It took me that long while still relatively fresh and with 45 seconds to spare.  How was this going to play out later on when I was huffing and puffing with maybe 30-35 seconds to spare?  Magic 8-Ball said: "Not good.  Not good at all."

Despite being heavier, the thrusters during the 95 pound round took about 15 seconds for each set as well.  It wasn't like the weight was a struggle, so as long as you were moving, 5 reps was going to take 15, maybe 20 seconds.  The big problem at this point was the heat.  I had tried to control my breathing during the first 5 sets, but I was sweating a lot.  There was one fan on and it was blowing on the strength class, but they were currently sitting in chairs.  During one of the breaks in between the 95 pound sets, I asked Leslie if she could turn it towards me.  Ahhh...that was helping a little, but with the fan far away from me, it did not provide as much relief as it could have.  Not only was the heat beginning to take a toll on me, but so was hearing Giulz tell me to keep my elbows up during the thrusters.  Especially since I was actively focused on keeping them up without the admonishment.

10 rounds in and I began to get worried.  I had thrown on another 20 pounds, but I was starting to gasp for breath during the thrusters.  I had not only sweat through my shirt, I had also sweat through my shorts as well.  There seemed to be no relief.  I looked over at the fan and it was no longer pointing at me.  I had to break up at least 1 set of the 115 pound thrusters, although it may have been 2 sets.  The end was near.

After 15 rounds, I was at the point where I couldn't breathe, yet I had to make a decision whether it was beneficial to breathe at all, as all I was bringing into my body was muggy hot air.  I imagine it's the same type of dilemma one experiences if they're stranded on an island.  Dying for thirst, but that salt water is gonna do more harm than good.  That's how it was starting to feel in the gym.  As I finished loading the bar to 135 pounds, round 16 began.  I managed to get 2 reps, but they were awful.  Giulz was yelling for me to get my elbows up.  I dropped the bar.  I lowered into my squat and tried to breath in some air to recover.  Three reps in the next 30 seconds was doable.  I stood back up, grabbed the bar, and barely completed my third thruster.  And I was done.

I dropped the bar and stormed down to the other end of the gym even though there was time remaining.  There was nothing to be gained from continuing.  The whole experience was extremely frustrating and I had no interest in squeaking out round 16 just to attempt to squeak through round 17.  I took about 45 seconds down at the other end of the gym away from the rest of the class to get my head right before returning to cheer on those who were still going.  Rachel made it to round 21.  And there was no stopping Christine.  She made it all the way through round 25 before deciding she wasn't interested in putting more weight on the bar.  Very impressive stuff.

I hung out for a bit before heading home.  I got to talk with Mr. Intensity, who is back doing WODs again.  He helped me put things back into perspective, at least a little bit.  I wasn't going to go home hanging my head.  And I certainly wasn't going to show up tomorrow looking that way.  But there is never going to be a confident version of me walking through that door, nor will he appear in this blog.  That's not meant to be a downer, it's simply a fact of life.  It doesn't mean I won't be happy at the gym or elsewhere.  I love being at the gym.  If anything, it's an explanation of my mindset.  It might come across as being too hard on myself, but really, it's just softening the inevitable blow.

Friday blog: Partner WOD.  Poor Rachel has to carry my big ass and a 70 pound dumbbell!

The Work Pays Off

Workout date: 6/30/15

I sincerely hope I do not jinx myself by writing this post.  But in the interest of fairness, I need to write about both the good and the bad.  And over the last two weeks, there has been a lot of good.  I managed to beat Rachel in a couple of workouts.  I got a PR on my jerk and my overhead squat, overcoming the plateau of 215 pounds that I had been stuck at.  With those two recent PRs, it was only natural to seek out a third when doing Tuesday's workout.  The strength portion of class was focused on the push press, with the following rep scheme:

5-5-3-3-1-1-1

While the reps were listed like that, everyone who took class was scored based on their highest 1 rep, so it turned into a 1RM push press day.  I last tried this out on February 9th, where I did my first ever 200+ push press as I locked out 205 pounds over my head.  With my jerk PR currently at 225, there wasn't a lot of wiggle room as far as where I could go on my push press.  You can jerk more weight than you can push press, so something in the 210-215 range wound up being my goal for the workout.

The Tuesday class was coached by Miranda (First Jason, then Miranda? Must be Throwback Coaches Week!) and she warmed us up with a series of fun medicine ball drills to get our shoulders activated.  She advised us to start around 50% of our 1RM or lower for the first set of 5, so I loaded 95 pounds on the bar to get started.  Even though this was a light weight, I had to stay focused on form because I learned during one of the Open workouts how easy it is to slip from a push press to a push jerk.  When your body is under any duress, it wants to adjust to become more comfortable.  When I go from shoulder to overhead and the weight begins to become heavy, my body naturally wants to bend at the knees to make the lift easier.  After your initial dip drive, your knees need to stay straight for it to be considered a push press and not a push jerk.  So as I did this first round, I made sure I was locking my knees during each rep.

The set of 5 at 115 wasn't too bad either, although I have this habit of hopping along when doing multiple reps of push press.  I'm all about using momentum in the gym, but the bounces turn into hops, mostly hops forward.  If I did a dozen of these, I would have been up against the wall at the end.  I continued the progression of adding 20 pounds.  I did 3 reps at 135, then tried to do 3 very controlled reps at 155, focusing on properly breathing as I got ready to take on heavier weights for the single reps.

I wasn't extremely confident about my ability to continue the 20 pound jumps for three more lifts, but I wanted to at least attempt a PR.  So instead of going 175-195-215, I went 180-195-210.  That meant a 25 pound increase for that first single rep, but after that it would be smaller increments getting to a PR attempt.  On each attempt, I would make sure I felt comfortable holding the bar in my front rack, make sure my feet felt right, that I felt balanced, and probably most importanly, that I was properly doing the breathing technique I have been working on.  Despite the 25 pound jump, I was able to successfully push press 180 without tremendous difficulty.

As someone who is still relatively new to weightlifting (35 years of no weightlifting before doing this the last 2 years), I'm always amazed at how fickle these lifts can be.  You would think that a bad lift at a lower weight would mean almost no chance at a higher weight.  Or that a series of easy lifts meant you're going to knock out a stellar PR that day.  Often though, it doesn't work that way.  I was concerned about the lift at 180, but once I popped out of my dip drive, the bar was moving and I could press it out.  Prior to that lift, I had some doubts, but now I was feeling more confident.  I put 195 on the bar, did my dip drive, began to press and...uh oh.  The bar felt like it was moving through mud, only pressing upward ever so slightly.  As other members of the class yelled at me, I was finally able to press it out.  But it was much, much worse than the rep at 180.

With that behind me, 210 seemed like a longshot.  I wasn't sure I could even match my previous 205 based on what just happened with 195.  Still, I had to give myself a shot at getting the PR now that I had come this far.  And based on the rep scheme of the WOD, I was supposed to do one more rep.  So I loaded 210 on the bar.  I watched a few of my classmates show me the way as they took turns successfully hitting PRs.  Finally, it was time for me to go.  No more stalling.  I went through my routine, got a solid grip on the bar, and pulled it off the rack.  Felt heavy, but not "oh my God, this is crushing me" heavy.  In the past, I would rush in situations like this, desperate to get the weight off me, believing that the longer I stood with it, the more energy I was wasting that could be used to perform the lift.  Now I'm more patient.  Made sure my elbows were up, my feet were set.  I inhaled big, pushed against my abs, and dipped.  I quickly popped out of the dip and pressed as the bar came off my shoulders.  And it was moving.  Like much faster than it had at 195.  This lift was much more reminiscent of the 180 lift.  Not sure why that was the case, but I kept pressing until I was fully locked out.  New PR!  210 was my new number.

Feeling good about how well that lift went, I decided to skip 215 and added 10 pounds to try 220.  Once again, I watched some other folks lift as I took some recovery time before digging in.  As with 210, I went through my entire routine, again patiently standing with the weight on my shoulders before going into my dip.  But there was no speed coming out of the dip.  I didn't drive the bar off my shoulders very well and there was only a momentary press upwards before I let the bar drop.  Perhaps I should have tried 215.  Who knows?  Either way, I've never been upset with a PR, so I put my weights away, happy with success at 210.

The skill portion of the workout was finding a max set of double unders.  I was kinda spent after the push presses, so I wasn't expecting much.  I told Ben that my first set was always my best set, so I was going to take a shot at it and then I could probably call it a night.  Sure enough, I got into a rhythm in my first set.  10, 20, 30.  I was closing in on my PR of 44 strung double unders.  35, 40.  Starting to tire quickly, need to hold on!  43, 44...45!  I made it!  Don't stop now dummy, keep going!  46, 47...shit.  So close to 50 in a row.  But 47 was yet another PR and I was happy to pack my bag and leave.

Except there was a vendor at the gym selling protein.  As several of us rotated between doing double unders and trying out a free sample, we ended up being there longer than expected.  Rachel hadn't even attempted a double under yet as I got the itch to try again.  Finally she got going.  And kept going.  And going.  A look appeared on her face that I knew all too well.  It was the "I'm out of juice, but I'm so close to some major number" face.  Could she be about to add her name to the wall of people who have strung 100 double unders?  I wasn't sure.  When the rope finally hit her, she let us know she had done 72 in a row.  Damn.  My 47 in a row seemed totally inadequate all of a sudden.

The ultra competitive side of me told me to go do more.  I managed a set of 4.  Then another set of 4.  Not really threatening 72 with either of those attempts.  Miranda was ready to wrap things up when I told her I wanted one more try.  I started twirling the rope and made it past 4 reps.  Then 10, then 20.  And once I'm past 20, I know it's a good set.  Passed 30 reps, nearing 40 reps, and feeling the burn again.  Hold on, hold on.  40 reps, 45 reps.  46, 47, 48, 49....NOOOOO!  50 unbroken would have been a huge deal for me, but I just couldn't make that 50th rep happen.  Such a bummer.  But considering where I was with double unders at the beginning of the year, 49 in a row is pretty astonishing.  I wrapped up my rope, very pleased with 2 more PRs.

On Wednesday, I woke up sore and was good for once, only coming to the gym for mobility.  We'll see how that works out when I take on Thruster Thursday.  Details in the next blog post.

The Magic Snatch

Workout date: 6/29/15

Writing lyrics, such a grind
Nearly made me lose my mind
Rhyming words are hard to find
Explains why I'm two blogs behind

Wait, wait, wait...I need to stop doing that.  After spending way too much time trying to come up with rhymes for my Bridgeport Barbell Classic recap, it is a relief to be able to just write a normal blog post about how much I suck at Crossfit.  Ahhh...that's better.

Monday's was a test day at the gym and the WOD we would be testing was Amanda.  We had last done this on March 10th and for those who don't remember how Amanda goes (I wouldn't if it wasn't posted on the KOP blog), here's the workout:

9-7-5
Muscle-ups
Squat snatches (135/95)

When I attempted this back in March, I was just testing out jumping muscle-ups.  It was a miracle that I managed to get 7 of them.  For the rest of the workout, I did ring rows and banded dips.  I used 115 pounds for the squat snatches and finished in 11:14.  The goals on Monday were threefold: 1) to do all 21 jumping muscle-ups, 2) to use 125 pounds for the snatches, and 3) still finish under the 11:14 I posted last time.

The 6:30 class was packed, probably due to the return of one Jason Lyons.  It was good to have class with Jason again as it seems like no one has more fun teaching Crossfit than he does.  The class was also large because the recent Summer Shape Up program had ended and some of the graduates were now making their way into a regular class for the first time.  My initial concern was that there would not be enough rings, but many of the newcomers decided to work on paralettes, leaving plenty of rings for the jumping muscle-ups (or legit muscle-ups if you're so inclined).  The real logjam would be due to lack of snatch space. <giggity>  With 17 people needing to set up barbells, real estate was at a premium.  Those that claimed their territory early were fine, while others...

Okay, so I should have grabbed space first then put on my lifting shoes.  My bad.  Once I had my shoes on, I realized there was only one spot left: the lifting platform.  It had been left out from the meet the day before and everyone made sure to avoid it when figuring out where they were going to snatch.  With 16 people taking a step backwards, I suddenly realized that I had unknowingly volunteered to work out on the platform.  Not good.  First, the platform was perpendicular to the way everyone else was facing, so that was awkward.  And I suspect that because I was the only guy working out on the platform, I looked like a douche.

I warmed up with 95 pounds and got a few lifts in, but I wasn't feeling super sturdy.  As I headed back over to the plates, Jason said we were about to start.  Wait, what?  Hmmm...I didn't feel good about using 125 without some practice lifts, so I grabbed 10 pound plates to move up to 115 again.  Now my goal was to finish in under 10 minutes.

We got over to the rings to start the workout and in front of me was Laura A.  Laura is the latest in a line of female KOP badasses to come into the gym and simply excel at everything.  She's on the board for the 800 meter run and I hear she kills it at Endurance.  She competed in the BBC on Sunday and made all six of her lifts look easy.  And I was pretty certain that she was going to kick my butt in this workout despite sounding like she had little to no experience with jumping muscle-ups.  I would try and keep up with her as much as I could.  Round one began and I started on the jumping muscle-ups.  Getting through this round would be an improvement from March, but the reps started becoming tough as I got to numbers six and seven.  As I struggled, Laura finished her round and ran over to her barbell.  So much for keeping up.

I made it through the last two reps and headed over to the platform.  My focus was on balance.  Whenever I do overhead squats, I try to squat snatch the first rep to get a quick rep in.  And overheads are all about balance.  While I don't enjoy squat snatches as much as I would enjoy, say, a set of 15 overheads, there is enough overlap that I feel comfortable doing them.  Plus, I had recently done an overhead squat with 225 pounds, so 115 pounds was going to be relatively light.  But if I lost my balance, I'd be doing several extra reps and I didn't want that.  So each time I snatched the bar over my head, I thought about nothing but making sure I was balanced and completing good reps.  After nine squat snatches, I went back to the rings with approximately 4 minutes elapsed on the clock.

I was still on pace to break 10 minutes as I began the second round of jumping muscle-ups.  Laura was already working on hers meaning I'd be falling even farther behind.  Perhaps it was middle round syndrome, but this set certainly felt harder than the first, despite doing two less reps.  My grip on the rings was becoming a struggle and I was scraping my arms against the ring straps each time I dipped out at the top of each rep.  But I did manage 7 more, leaving me confident that I could finish the last 5 in round three.

Back over to the snatches and I repeated my routine.  Proper setup, good balance, good lift.  After dropping the bar each time, I tried to get right back on it and proceed to the next rep.  All 7 reps were good and it was back to the rings for one last round.  The clock showed about 7:30, meaning I was behind 10 minute pace.  Time to kick it into high gear!  I would do a jumping muscle-up, shake out my arms, make sure I had a good grip on the rings, then do the next one.  Five reps later and goal #1 was accomplished.  I ran over to the platform to see I had less than 45 seconds left to break 10 minutes.  As much as I didn't want to mess up a rep, I also didn't want to finish and see 10:03 or some nonsense like that.  Would have driven me nuts.  So I picked up the pace and balanced as best as I could.  A couple times I had to sit in the bottom of the squat for a second or two longer to steady myself, but the lifts weren't too bad.  I stood up from my final squat snatch and looked at the clock.  9:56.  Goal #3 accomplished.

Afterwards, while rolling out, Aimee asked me what I think about while I snatch.  My answer: nothing.  For the most part, I zone out during workouts these days, although I guess my answer could have been "balance".  She let me know that I was doing a good job of having the bar meet my hips, but from there I wasn't doing anything.  As Keith had told me once before, I needed to pull and not rely on magic to get the bar over my head.  (For the record, magic got the bar over my head 21 times during the workout.  Just sayin.)  But it is a good point.  When you don't focus on that final pull, the bar will float, but it floats out just as much as it floats up.  And it doesn't leave you in great position when you get it over your head.  So I need to focus on that a little more as that will definitely help me out when I need to snatch heavier weights.

One more blog to catch up on!  Push presses and double unders from Tuesday night.  Coming soon.

We Didn't Flip The Tire

Sunday marked the debut of the Bridgeport Barbell Classic, the first ever weightlifting meet held by the Bridgeport Barbell Club.  It was an exciting event with a tremendous turnout.  Eight members of the KOP family competed and all eight did very well.

There's just one thing: it was long.  Like really long.  As in 13 hours long.

Now I've been known to ramble on and on in some of these blog posts, but writing a post covering 13 hours at a weightlifting meet seemed excessive.  As I thought more and more about all of the items I would need to cover in such a post, it struck me that I was starting to mimic a certain song.  Suddenly I was channeling my inner Weird Al Yankovic.  Probably because I'm...

Could I put together a song that covered all 13 hours of Sunday's event?  You decide.

In the spirit of Billy Joel, I give you "We Didn't Flip The Tire":

(For those interested in trying to match it up with the actual music from the song, use the following link and start around 33 seconds.)

Sunday morning, early hour
Slow moving, long shower
Break of dawn, mid-yawn, need to find some grub
Volunteer, not gettin paid
First session, gettin weighed
Steph V, Jim C, Bridgeport Barbell Club

<Instrumental - 6 seconds>

Half the gym, filled with boards
Scott and his vocal chords
Lifting order no surprise, first the girls and then the guys
KOPer, anthem sung
First lifter, very young
No fears, drawing cheers, perfect after two tries

We didn't flip the tire
Said the hell with Crossfit
We just like to lift shit
We didn't flip the tire
Don't know why you're WODing
Should be heavy squatting

Loaders sitting on the side
Shawna, she won't be denied
Never budging, Giulz is judging, staring at the floor
Laura, Christine, six for six
Samson taking lots of pics
Lots of bags, filled with swag, for the highest score

Denise, Barb, Kevin G.
Keithie, Jill, and Marci
Coaching help, Gene's the man
There's no lack of helping hands

Donuts, yeah they cost a buck
Aimee Lyons yelling fuck
Getting calls, Frosty Falls, gotta move the food truck

We didn't flip the tire
Said the hell with Crossfit
We just like to lift shit
We didn't flip the tire
Don't know why you're WODing
Should be heavy squatting

Second session, novice girls
No one is reversing curls
Squat cleans always caught
Nearing noon, it's getting hot
Marisa Baumann, new PRs
Attention people, move your cars
Angry lady, parking lot
Run for cover, might get shot

Session finished, grabbed some lunch
Gone an hour, missed a bunch
Open ladies, session three
Sarah, Kate, and Leslie
Jason Lyons in the crowd
Starting to get very loud
Timers that need to pee
Gotta move and set them free

We didn't flip the tire
Said the hell with Crossfit
We just like to lift shit
We didn't flip the tire
Don't know why you're WODing
Should be heavy squatting

Michal with a big red plate
That's not right, you'll have to wait
New loaders at the reins
Rachel, Tom, Shawn, and Shane

Hoping for paddles white
Two of three, you did it right
Guys want to show their gainz
Judging by Miranda Haines

Stalling tactics, stop the clock
One more kilo, what a shock
Jenna K, Intern Ray, Luke represents P-A

We didn't flip the tire
Said the hell with Crossfit
We just like to lift shit
We didn't flip the tire
Don't know why you're WODing
Should be heavy squatting

Novice dudes are finally gone
Dana, Sarah, Josh, and John
Awards time, need the scores
KOPer, dropped her drawers

Announcers giving sponsors thanks
Weights slam on wooden planks
Singlets, no compression shorts
Need new outfits for these sports

Chipwich and Haagen Dazs
No P around, no Frosty Paws
Evening neared, Faby appeared
Lifting with his ginger beard

Keithie lost a lot of pounds
This would be his proving grounds
Failed the snatch, though he tried
Huge clean and jerk, he qualified

We didn't flip the tire...

(Writing lyrics to a song was much harder than expected.  Oops.  Apologies to anyone I forgot to include in the song.)