Workout date: 1/19/17
It still amazes me how much a little knee bend can affect the amount of weight I can press above my head. When we do a push press or a push jerk at the gym, I'm able to generate a lot of power from even the slightest of knee bends. I know the knee bend is responsible for most of my power because I'm a disaster when I'm not allowed to use it. The only time I'm not allowed to use a knee bend at the gym is when the shoulder press is programmed, as it was on Thursday. The shoulder press tests pure upper body strength and your legs must remain straight when doing it. For a lot of people, the difference between the press with no knee bend (shoulder press) and the press with the knee bend (push press) can be about 30 pounds or so. For me, the difference in my 1RM for those two lifts is 65 pounds. I don't think that is an indication of how strong my legs are. More likely, it is an indictment of how weak my arms are.
The shoulder press was the featured element of the Thursday WOD. We would be working towards a 3RM. This was one of the benchmark workouts for January. After that, we were supposed to do a 5x5 (5 sets of 5 reps) of the back squat, using 80-90% of the 5RM benchmark number we found earlier in the month. Coach Aimee was leading a baker's dozen at the 5:30 class and she had us start off with a bunch of exercises to warm up our shoulders. (I needed to attend "earlier" classes on Thursday and Friday this week.) Once those were complete, she asked us to sniff around and find someone who smelled like us. This being a strength day and all, there was only going to be one choice for me if he was in class and sure enough he was. I looked over at Matt B, he looked over at me, and from there it was just a matter of choosing what rack we'd be sharing.
As we all got our racks set up, Aimee explained to everyone that we shouldn't be holding the barbell the same way for the shoulder press as we would for a push press, push jerk, or even a front squat. During those movements, you want the barbell flush to your body so that you can use the momentum from your body to drive the barbell upwards. In the shoulder press, you don't have any momentum to use, so keeping the barbell flush to your body only resulted in the athlete having to move their head out of the way for no good reason. She instructed us to hold the barbell in front of our body, something I had never heard before in nearly 4 years of doing Crossfit. (Kinda scary that I don't even know how to do the simple stuff at this point!) I thought I might be the only one feeling this way, but Shawna also mentioned that she had never heard anyone tell her to shoulder press in this manner. I tested it out with an empty barbell and it felt weird to me. In a way, it was testing my arm strength even more because I had to hold the barbell out in front of me whereas before I could let it rest on my body. On the flip side, I guess it was activating my muscles in advance of the lift which seemed like a benefit.
As Matt and I did some reps with the empty barbell and decided on what weights we would use for our sets, Aimee began talking about having to go for jury duty the next day. It was the first time in her life that she had been summoned to serve on a jury and, like almost everyone I know, she was not looking forward to the experience. She began asking us for the best ways to get out of jury duty. We told her she could say things like "I inherently trust cops" or "I've been studying to take the LSAT". The Liz Lemon approach was suggested, although we weren't sure she had enough hair to pull off Princess Leia. There were also some other suggestions thrown out there that may have gotten her an extra visit in front of the judge. I won't share what they were, but they were highly discouraged.
Neither Matt nor I wanted to do a lot of sets with the shoulder press, so we started off with 95 pounds and decided to make fairly aggressive leaps from there. Matt was gonna end up with much more weight on the barbell, so I didn't want him to have to follow along with what I was doing, but he always tends to stay with me until I hit my max. Then he brings out the big guns and goes much higher. Matt had no problem with the set at 95 and neither did I. We went up to 115 and Matt made it look easy. I was still getting comfortable with having the barbell out in front of me, but I did work through 3 reps.
The next jump was to 135, which would tie my previous best. I am typically not an advocate for tying your personal best and if I wasn't trying something new on this day, I likely would have slid on 5 more pounds and went for 140. However, this new technique was very much a work in progress, so getting 135 would have felt like a new PR to me. Matt pressed out 135 three times like he had just woken up and was doing an early morning stretch. It was much more of a struggle for me. As in, I couldn't press it out once. I was able to press the barbell to about eyebrow-level, but couldn't get it any higher than that. Because I had gotten some movement on this try, I decided I'd give it another shot before raising the white flag.
Matt had yet to be challenged and that didn't change when he moved up to 155. He couldn't remember exactly what his 3RM shoulder press was, but he had guessed prior to the workout that it was 155. After watching him do this set, it was clear that he had underestimated his strength. I took on 135 again and duplicated my performance from the first attempt. Got it moving, raised it almost to the top of my head, but couldn't press out that 1st rep completely. I wasn't far off from getting that first rep, so I decided that I would only drop down to 130 for my next set.
Matt moved up to 165 for his PR attempt. I thought I would finally see him struggle here, at least on the first rep. The first rep is always the toughest because you don't have any momentum to use. On the later reps, you get some momentum as you bring the barbell down from the previous rep. Matt took the barbell from the rack, stepped back, and pressed out the first rep like it wasn't a big deal. Two reps later, he had a new 3RM. Matt had told me that his goal was to get a single rep at 185, but at this point, it looked like he might be able to handle three.
We had to slide off the 45 pound plates so that I could try 130. Once we had the barbell set up with the smaller plates, I took on my final set. I wasn't dropping weight again if I missed here. If I got it, there was no point in going back to 135. It was on to the back squat after this attempt. I removed the barbell from the rack and began to press it overhead. It was moving a little better than 135 had. I had enough momentum going that I was able to get past the point where I had gotten stuck with 135. I pressed it out completely and was one-third of the way home. The second rep was easier than the first one, but the third rep ended up more like the first. There was some struggle involved as I pressed it out, but I did get it overhead. Final score: 130.
Enough of this minor league stuff. It was time to get back to the real show. Matt loaded 175 on to the barbell. On his first rep, he finally showed signs of being human. He was able to get it overhead, but the rep was slow and he was grimacing as he pressed it out. That being said, I still had faith he'd get all three because he had completed the toughest rep. He had the second rep halfway up before unexpectedly letting go of the barbell. It was still a hell of an effort and I can't fathom of a day when I'll be able to shoulder press 175 for a single rep.
We moved on to the back squat sets. Matt intended to use 225 pounds for his 5 sets while I was going with 255 for mine. Aimee had mentioned doing some accessory work along with our shoulder press and back squat sets, so we both felt like we needed to pick up the pace a bit to leave time for that. We needed some warmup sets, then we'd have to do 5 heavy sets which would require recovery time in between. What I didn't realize was that Aimee had suggested doing this accessory work during our breaks in between back squat sets, so we had more time for the back squats than I realized. (Note: My accessory work was going to be banded bar muscle-up practice or handstand push-up practice. I couldn't do either of those in between back squat sets though, not with my lifting shoes on.) We threw 135 pounds on our barbell and knocked out a quick set each. Then we moved up to 185 and did another fast set. Matt was ready for a natural progression to 225 from that last set at 185. I was stuck with a tough decision. Do I perform an extra warmup set at 225 and then go to 255? Or do I make a 70 pound jump to 255?
Because I had misunderstood how much time we'd need for the accessory work (which was none since it was being done within the back squat sets), I made the very poor decision of leaping up from 185 pounds to 255 pounds. I didn't want to waste any additional time with an extra set, plus I felt that 255 was a comfortable weight for me to use for a set of 5. When I worked up to a set of 5 reps at 285 pounds in January, the penultimate set was at 255 and it went smoothly. All I had to do was get comfortable during that first set at 255 today and the other four wouldn't be a problem.
Matt did his first set at 225 and then I got ready for my first set at 255. As soon as I walked the barbell back from the rack, I could feel how heavy it was. My body's instant reaction seemed to be "where the hell did this extra 70 pounds come from?" I descended into my first rep and had to push really hard to come out of it. The next four reps were rather slow as well. It was a relief to return the barbell to the rack. I didn't need four more sets to know I had chosen poorly in skipping a bridge set from 185 to 255.
Matt completed four more sets at 225. I completed four more sets at 255. None of my later sets were as difficult as the first one, which is exactly why you let your body get accustomed to how much weight you are about to use rather than making 70 pound jumps. Neither of us did any accessory work, but Aimee didn't seem bothered by that. When we were done, I felt some soreness in my lower back. It wasn't a sharp pain, but it felt like something that might be much worse in the morning. There was likely to be an epsom salt bath in my near future.
Friday preview: A challenging medium-length triplet involving thrusters, toes-to-bar, and double unders. Have I been neglecting last year's obsession?
Tuesday, February 7, 2017
How I Walked Before Crossfit
Workout date: 1/18/17
Tuesday night's workout contained a lot of technical movements. Wednesday's WOD? Not so much. There was a metcon and a strength-focused cash out, but they were both as straightforward as it gets. The metcon portion would have us row for 750 meters five times with 3 minutes rest in between rows. The cash out was 30 L-sit pull-ups (holding your legs straight out in front of you while doing pull-ups) or 30 strict chin-ups (gripping the bar underhand). This was not for time, which was a relief because I was going to have to break those up quite a bit to make it through 30 reps.
Maybe I could make this class sound exciting by talking about how big it was and documenting how all the other people performed! Nope, can't work that angle either. There were only 3 of us in Coach Giulz's 7:30 class: me, Ms. January, and Therese. I mean, we weren't the only ones there. The gym was actually packed with people. It's just that the vast majority of them were there for the Bridgeport Barbell Club.
There wasn't a lot to go over in the warmup and we didn't have a lot of time anyways. Despite being very basic, this workout was going to take a considerable amount of time. At a pace of 3:00 per 750 meters, the metcon would go on for a solid 27 minutes. We'd then need to recover and do the pull-up work. So it wasn't long before Giulz had us setting our monitors so that they would count down from 750 meters and keep track of our 3 minute breaks between sets. Giulz made sure the three of us were ready to go and row #1 got underway.
When I'm trying to keep an easy pace on a row that begins a workout, my pace tends to be about 2:00 per 500 meters. That would result in a time of 3:00 for each of these sets. Since these rows were the entirety of the workout, I felt like I needed to go faster than that. A 1:50 pace per 500 meters would get me to 2:45. I wasn't sure I could maintain that pace for 5 sets, but that felt like the type of goal I should be setting for myself in this workout. Early on in row #1, I was below that pace even though I wasn't pushing incredibly hard. My focus wasn't so much on the number on the monitor, but maintaining a solid pace that wasn't going to break me before I got to the remaining four rows. As I reached the final 250 meters, my pace started to slow down some. It was still a solid start to my workout. Row #1 time: 2:42.8.
Ms. January and Therese were completing their first row as I got up and stretched my legs. We would be spending a lot of time sitting on the rower, so I was going to get up and walk around during the breaks. As I walked towards the rings and back, I began to shake one leg at a time as I stepped forward. Giulz was very amused by my new strut and I told her that this was actually how I used to walk before I joined Crossfit. The functional fitness has helped me walk like a normal person once again.
Most mandatory breaks in the middle of a workout feel like they fly by much too fast, but that wasn't the case in this WOD. I'd often sit back down on my rower with about a minute left in each break. I wouldn't strap my feet in until there was less than 30 seconds left in the break. If anything, I got a little antsy to start rowing again as each of the breaks slowly ticked down. The first 3 minute break ended and I got to work on row #2 alone while Ms. January and Therese enjoyed the last part of their breaks. I approached the second row just as I had the first: a solid, non-exhausting pace with no reason to gun it towards the end. At the end of this row, I felt pretty similar to how I felt at the end of the first row. The only difference was that my time was a little slower. Row #2 time: 2:45.2.
That wasn't bad. 2:45 was the target for me and I hadn't been forced to really push it to get there so far. That would change on row #3. The first 250 meters were fine, but it was that middle section where I started to waver. I wasn't intentionally letting my foot off the gas pedal, I was just starting to feel some fatigue. As I closed in on the last 100 meters, Giulz encouraged me to push, so I picked up the pace until my monitor showed 0 meters left to row. Row #3 time: 2:47.2.
That third row left me worried because I definitely had to work during it and I still ended up 2 seconds slower than I had been for the second row. I knew these final two rows were not going to be a whole lot of fun, but I could get through them. Both rows ended up being like the third one. I started off at a decent pace for the first 250 meters, before trying not to let the middle 250 meters get away from me. I quickened somewhat with 250 meters left, then went all out with about 100 meters to go. Row #4 time: 2:49.3. Row #5 time: 2:48.2.
As you might expect on a longer metcon like this one, I was a sweaty mess at the end of it. My average time for each 750 meter row was 2:46.5, right in line with the goal I had set for myself prior to the workout. I sat on my rower, relieved to be done, before I went over and cheered on Ms. January and Therese as they finished up their final rows. Once they had taken some time to recover, the three of us started the cash out together. I say "started" because Ms. January was done way before me and Therese. I was able to knock out sets of 3 chin-ups at a time for a while. I was going for my 7th set of 3 when I failed on the 3rd rep. I guess the universe wanted me to do 6 sets of 3 and 6 sets of 2 for the sake of symmetry.
That failed rep introduced some doubt into my mind as to whether I'd complete all 30 chin-ups, so I began going with longer breaks between sets. The problem was that the Barbell Club had moved on to the back squat portion of their workout and Ashley needed the rack below the bar I was using for chin-ups. I had 6 chin-ups to go when she first came over to see if I was done. I tried to move things along, but my arms were feeling tired, so I couldn't speed up all that much. Finally I got through rep #30 and got out of Ashley's way.
Overall I was happy with how the rowing went. Wasn't as psyched about how tired I became on a non-timed cash out, but I've never been a big fan of anyone from the pull-up family.
Thursday preview: Strength work with Matt B. I make a very poor decision. Aimee tries to figure out how to get out of jury duty.
Tuesday night's workout contained a lot of technical movements. Wednesday's WOD? Not so much. There was a metcon and a strength-focused cash out, but they were both as straightforward as it gets. The metcon portion would have us row for 750 meters five times with 3 minutes rest in between rows. The cash out was 30 L-sit pull-ups (holding your legs straight out in front of you while doing pull-ups) or 30 strict chin-ups (gripping the bar underhand). This was not for time, which was a relief because I was going to have to break those up quite a bit to make it through 30 reps.
Maybe I could make this class sound exciting by talking about how big it was and documenting how all the other people performed! Nope, can't work that angle either. There were only 3 of us in Coach Giulz's 7:30 class: me, Ms. January, and Therese. I mean, we weren't the only ones there. The gym was actually packed with people. It's just that the vast majority of them were there for the Bridgeport Barbell Club.
There wasn't a lot to go over in the warmup and we didn't have a lot of time anyways. Despite being very basic, this workout was going to take a considerable amount of time. At a pace of 3:00 per 750 meters, the metcon would go on for a solid 27 minutes. We'd then need to recover and do the pull-up work. So it wasn't long before Giulz had us setting our monitors so that they would count down from 750 meters and keep track of our 3 minute breaks between sets. Giulz made sure the three of us were ready to go and row #1 got underway.
When I'm trying to keep an easy pace on a row that begins a workout, my pace tends to be about 2:00 per 500 meters. That would result in a time of 3:00 for each of these sets. Since these rows were the entirety of the workout, I felt like I needed to go faster than that. A 1:50 pace per 500 meters would get me to 2:45. I wasn't sure I could maintain that pace for 5 sets, but that felt like the type of goal I should be setting for myself in this workout. Early on in row #1, I was below that pace even though I wasn't pushing incredibly hard. My focus wasn't so much on the number on the monitor, but maintaining a solid pace that wasn't going to break me before I got to the remaining four rows. As I reached the final 250 meters, my pace started to slow down some. It was still a solid start to my workout. Row #1 time: 2:42.8.
Ms. January and Therese were completing their first row as I got up and stretched my legs. We would be spending a lot of time sitting on the rower, so I was going to get up and walk around during the breaks. As I walked towards the rings and back, I began to shake one leg at a time as I stepped forward. Giulz was very amused by my new strut and I told her that this was actually how I used to walk before I joined Crossfit. The functional fitness has helped me walk like a normal person once again.
Most mandatory breaks in the middle of a workout feel like they fly by much too fast, but that wasn't the case in this WOD. I'd often sit back down on my rower with about a minute left in each break. I wouldn't strap my feet in until there was less than 30 seconds left in the break. If anything, I got a little antsy to start rowing again as each of the breaks slowly ticked down. The first 3 minute break ended and I got to work on row #2 alone while Ms. January and Therese enjoyed the last part of their breaks. I approached the second row just as I had the first: a solid, non-exhausting pace with no reason to gun it towards the end. At the end of this row, I felt pretty similar to how I felt at the end of the first row. The only difference was that my time was a little slower. Row #2 time: 2:45.2.
That wasn't bad. 2:45 was the target for me and I hadn't been forced to really push it to get there so far. That would change on row #3. The first 250 meters were fine, but it was that middle section where I started to waver. I wasn't intentionally letting my foot off the gas pedal, I was just starting to feel some fatigue. As I closed in on the last 100 meters, Giulz encouraged me to push, so I picked up the pace until my monitor showed 0 meters left to row. Row #3 time: 2:47.2.
That third row left me worried because I definitely had to work during it and I still ended up 2 seconds slower than I had been for the second row. I knew these final two rows were not going to be a whole lot of fun, but I could get through them. Both rows ended up being like the third one. I started off at a decent pace for the first 250 meters, before trying not to let the middle 250 meters get away from me. I quickened somewhat with 250 meters left, then went all out with about 100 meters to go. Row #4 time: 2:49.3. Row #5 time: 2:48.2.
As you might expect on a longer metcon like this one, I was a sweaty mess at the end of it. My average time for each 750 meter row was 2:46.5, right in line with the goal I had set for myself prior to the workout. I sat on my rower, relieved to be done, before I went over and cheered on Ms. January and Therese as they finished up their final rows. Once they had taken some time to recover, the three of us started the cash out together. I say "started" because Ms. January was done way before me and Therese. I was able to knock out sets of 3 chin-ups at a time for a while. I was going for my 7th set of 3 when I failed on the 3rd rep. I guess the universe wanted me to do 6 sets of 3 and 6 sets of 2 for the sake of symmetry.
That failed rep introduced some doubt into my mind as to whether I'd complete all 30 chin-ups, so I began going with longer breaks between sets. The problem was that the Barbell Club had moved on to the back squat portion of their workout and Ashley needed the rack below the bar I was using for chin-ups. I had 6 chin-ups to go when she first came over to see if I was done. I tried to move things along, but my arms were feeling tired, so I couldn't speed up all that much. Finally I got through rep #30 and got out of Ashley's way.
Overall I was happy with how the rowing went. Wasn't as psyched about how tired I became on a non-timed cash out, but I've never been a big fan of anyone from the pull-up family.
Thursday preview: Strength work with Matt B. I make a very poor decision. Aimee tries to figure out how to get out of jury duty.
Monday, February 6, 2017
Date Night With Samson
Workout date: 1/17/17
Tuesday night is almost certainly Dudes After Dark night unless I have some other obligation. Or unless I receive a better offer for my time. On Tuesday afternoon, I received a text from Samson about the NC State-Pitt basketball game that night. He wanted to know if I was watching the game. Knowing that Samson is a Pitt alum, I figured he had plans to watch it as well. Why not make a night out of it? The game was at 7, so I'd have to skip Dudes After Dark if I was going to cheer on my beloved (and highly disappointing) Wolfpack. I decided to go to the 5:30 class instead, leaving plenty of time for Samson and I to hit up the Taphouse for the game.
When I recapped the Saturday class that I attended, I mentioned that Keithie didn't have very many classes during the week that he coached. The 5:30 class on Tuesday just happened to be one of them, so I'd be getting my second dose of Keithie in the last four days. Speaking of people that I don't see very often anymore, who was that bright yellow fellow standing in the middle of the gym when I arrived for the 5:30 class? The name of that former Crossfitter (now professional distance runner) is Flounder and he was donning the most neon yellow shirt that I think I've ever seen in the gym. I snuck up on him and gave him a hug. If it wasn't for the fact that he knows I almost always go to the 7:30 class, he probably could have guessed who it was. We exchanged insults (as is our custom) and got ready for class to begin.
There were 11 of us in class to take on the following workout:
Tuesday WOD:
3 rounds:
3 bar muscle-ups
6 chest-to-bar pull-ups
9 hang power clean and jerks (155/105)
12 front squats (155/105)
Initial thoughts on this workout:
Tuesday night is almost certainly Dudes After Dark night unless I have some other obligation. Or unless I receive a better offer for my time. On Tuesday afternoon, I received a text from Samson about the NC State-Pitt basketball game that night. He wanted to know if I was watching the game. Knowing that Samson is a Pitt alum, I figured he had plans to watch it as well. Why not make a night out of it? The game was at 7, so I'd have to skip Dudes After Dark if I was going to cheer on my beloved (and highly disappointing) Wolfpack. I decided to go to the 5:30 class instead, leaving plenty of time for Samson and I to hit up the Taphouse for the game.
When I recapped the Saturday class that I attended, I mentioned that Keithie didn't have very many classes during the week that he coached. The 5:30 class on Tuesday just happened to be one of them, so I'd be getting my second dose of Keithie in the last four days. Speaking of people that I don't see very often anymore, who was that bright yellow fellow standing in the middle of the gym when I arrived for the 5:30 class? The name of that former Crossfitter (now professional distance runner) is Flounder and he was donning the most neon yellow shirt that I think I've ever seen in the gym. I snuck up on him and gave him a hug. If it wasn't for the fact that he knows I almost always go to the 7:30 class, he probably could have guessed who it was. We exchanged insults (as is our custom) and got ready for class to begin.
There were 11 of us in class to take on the following workout:
Tuesday WOD:
3 rounds:
3 bar muscle-ups
6 chest-to-bar pull-ups
9 hang power clean and jerks (155/105)
12 front squats (155/105)
Initial thoughts on this workout:
- Can't do bar muscle-ups. I could probably do jumping bar muscle-ups on the low bar instead.
- I could do chest-to-bar pull-ups, but I'd either need to switch to a high bar or move the box I was using for the jumping bar muscle-ups.
- Those first two movements were going to require grip. And there is no bigger grip killer than hang power cleans. So rather than string the hang power clean and jerks together, I was going to save my grip by attempting to do singles as fast as I could.
- The front squat weight was not bad. I wish there was some way I could use 135 for the hang power clean and jerks and 155 for the front squats, but that wasn't going to be an option. That meant I'd use 135 for both.
There were a lot of technical aspects to the movements in this workout, so Keithie didn't waste any time before walking us through them. A couple hands went up when he asked who could do bar muscle-ups. The rest of us would need a scaling option. Keithie asked how many of us could do bar muscle-ups with a band and zero hands were raised. He then asked if any of us had tried, so I was able to raise my hand to that. Since I had some experience with banded attempts, Keithie recommended I continue with that pursuit in the workout. That changed my setup a little bit. I felt it was better to use the high bar for the banded bar muscle-up attempts. I'd bring over a box to stand on so I could get my foot in the band. The high bar would allow me to swing more freely. This caused a dilemma with the chest-to-bar pull-ups though. If I wanted to use the high bar for those, I'd have to move the band out of the way. That seemed like a pain, so I decided to use the low bar for the chest-to-bar pull-ups. Because I was taking up a lot of space (two pull-up bars and a barbell) on a workout that I didn't think I was going to move very fast on, I took up residence at the far end of the gym, the spot where I was least likely to interfere with any of my classmates.
Keithie walked us through progressions for the chest-to-bar pull-ups, the hang power clean and jerks, and the front squats before giving us time to test everything out and make sure that we were happy with the choices we made for the workout. I tried to do a banded bar muscle-up with a medium-sized band, but I didn't come very close. Alicia was working next to me and saw my attempts with the single band. Her recommendation: use two bands. Didn't sound like a bad idea to me. I mean, that's a lot of assistance for a bar muscle-up and probably shows that I'm not nearly as close to getting a real bar muscle-up as I want to believe, but this workout was simply practice towards a longer range goal. I looped a second band around the center of the high bar, put my foot into it, and gave it a whirl. It was much more bounce than I was ready for. I shot up so high that I got freaked out about flipping over the bar. I basically threw my body into the bar to stop my momentum. Keithie watched this disaster and offered some advice. He told me that I was too vertical, which was funny because the problem I've been trying to correct has been being too horizontal on pull-up movements. Guess I needed to find a happy medium. He let me know that I needed to focus on pushing down on the bar, letting my body move back away from it before rotating over it to complete the bar muscle-up. I kept all of this in mind as we got ready to begin.
Keithie set the clock for us and we all got started on round one. I had a little trouble getting my foot into the double band (awesome start!) so I was behind everyone right off the bat. That delay at the beginning would be out of my mind soon enough. I swung into my first banded bar muscle-up attempt and thought about what Keithie had just told me. I pushed the bar down and away from me. I already knew the bands were going to shoot me upward with plenty of force. When I felt I was high enough, I rotated over. This was usually the moment when my chest would hit the bar, followed by that terrible feeling of rejection as the bar screamed "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" (At least that's what I hear as I'm being violently flung away from the bar.) That didn't happen this time. I was over the bar. It took a second to get over the shock. I pressed up and completed the bar muscle-up. Matt B had arrived early for the 6:30 class and I could hear him yell "yeah Dave" from across the gym. Maybe there was hope for me yet on the bar muscle-up front.
I'm sure this initial success made me think that I had this bar muscle-up thing all figured out. The next two attempts were a reminder that one successful rep did not mean the mystery had been solved. I came close on the second attempt, while my right hand slipped a bit as I tried to rotate over on attempt #3. Not great, but I still had two more rounds of attempts. And...oh yeah...there was still plenty of other work that I needed to complete in this workout. That other work began with the chest-to-bar pull-ups. I was relatively fresh when I got to this movement and I was able to get away with some sloppy form because I was on the low bar. I didn't have to jump to the bar and I could use the exaggerated hip pop (think me going horizontal) to brush my chest against the underside of the bar 6 times. I moved on to my barbell where I did three sets of 3 single hang power clean and jerks, with short breaks between the sets. When it was time for the front squats, I did two sets of 6 reps each.
I'd be lying if I said my focus wasn't almost exclusively on the bar muscle-ups at this point. I had made a semi-breakthrough and I wanted to get back to them. These other movements were just tiring me out for no good reason. I climbed on to my box and put my foot in the double band as I got ready to begin round two. First rep: success! Second rep: a little short. I took some additional time before my third attempt because I was concerned that I rushed into the second rep and didn't focus on the technique as much as I should have. Sure enough, my third attempt ended with me pressed out above the high bar. 3 for 6 so far. Much better than I could have expected.
The chest-to-bar pull-ups required more energy in round two than they did the first time around, but I didn't miss on any of the six reps. I had the same plan for the hang power clean and jerks, doing three sets of three singles in a row. The front squats felt much worse than I expected (guess I'm glad I didn't use 155!), but once again I completed them in two sets of six reps. I was well behind most of the class, but I didn't really care. I was headed back to the bar muscle-ups.
I had gotten one successful rep in round one. I had gotten two in the second round. I was destined to get all three in this final round. Having learned my lesson from the last round, I decided to take my time before all three reps. Attempt #1: success again. Attempt #2: my first time experiencing back-to-back successes with bar muscle-ups. I could complete the trifecta with one final solid effort. I shook out my arms, gathered my breath, stepped off of my box, and swung into the band. As I propelled back and up, I thought about when the right moment was to rotate over so that I landed in that perfect position to press out the remainder of the rep. When I felt like I had reached that moment, I went for it. And I failed. Truth be told, I was beginning to tire out and it showed when I barely got my body over the bar on this last attempt. Both of my hands slipped as I rotated and I ended up clinging to the bar like I was hanging on to the top of the wall when we do wall ascents at the gym. 5 out of 9 would have to do for today.
The last round of chest-to-bar pull-ups were very difficult. I'm not sure whether I was tired or if the air came out of the balloon when I failed that last bar muscle-up attempt. Perhaps I simply wasn't all that interested in the workout anymore because I had finished the aspect of it that had captured my attention. All I know is that those final 6 chest-to-bar pull-ups required a lot more effort than the previous 12 had. With the gymnastics portion of the workout over, I returned to my barbell. Once again, I did three singles on the hang power clean and jerks, one right after the other. As I took a break, Keithie came over and told me that he wanted to see me hang on to the barbell and string two reps. It didn't feel wonderful, but I managed to string two reps. Then I got a little mad at myself. Trying to string 9 in a row would have killed my grip, but doing singles was a bit too cautious for this workout. Instead of 3 singles, I would have saved time stringing 3 reps at a time and it probably wouldn't have cost me much in terms of my grip.
Remember how anger works with the barbell? I grabbed my barbell and hung on to it until I completed all four of my remaining hang power clean and jerks. It was now clear that I had wimped out on this segment of the workout in earlier rounds. I wish I had enough anger in me to put together 12 front squats in a row, but there is a limit to how much rage will help you when you're tired. I kept the same routine in round three, completing the 12 front squats by doing two sets of 6 reps. Final time: 16:29.
I sat down near the front of the gym to recover before we headed to the Taphouse. Shawna was also part of the 5:30 class and she was interested in watching the game with us after some recovery time as well. As I sat there and watched the 6:30 class warm up, I became really interested in watching them do this workout, so the three of us hung around and watched them before going over to watch the Panthers and Wolfpack battle. It wasn't the prettiest of games, but it was a tight one. The Wolfpack held a slim halftime lead. Pitt took control for most of the second half before NC State had a late run to regain the advantage. Samson and I started trading stories of how the team we rooted for was more likely to blow this game. The Wolfpack almost made me look like a genius when they nearly blew a 5 point lead with 7 seconds remaining, but the Panthers missed a 3 pointer at the buzzer that would have sent the game to overtime. Chalk up a rare ACC win for the Wolfpack!
Wednesday preview: A WOD that is nothing but rowing. I will do my best to make it sound more interesting than it was.
Keithie set the clock for us and we all got started on round one. I had a little trouble getting my foot into the double band (awesome start!) so I was behind everyone right off the bat. That delay at the beginning would be out of my mind soon enough. I swung into my first banded bar muscle-up attempt and thought about what Keithie had just told me. I pushed the bar down and away from me. I already knew the bands were going to shoot me upward with plenty of force. When I felt I was high enough, I rotated over. This was usually the moment when my chest would hit the bar, followed by that terrible feeling of rejection as the bar screamed "NO SOUP FOR YOU!" (At least that's what I hear as I'm being violently flung away from the bar.) That didn't happen this time. I was over the bar. It took a second to get over the shock. I pressed up and completed the bar muscle-up. Matt B had arrived early for the 6:30 class and I could hear him yell "yeah Dave" from across the gym. Maybe there was hope for me yet on the bar muscle-up front.
I'm sure this initial success made me think that I had this bar muscle-up thing all figured out. The next two attempts were a reminder that one successful rep did not mean the mystery had been solved. I came close on the second attempt, while my right hand slipped a bit as I tried to rotate over on attempt #3. Not great, but I still had two more rounds of attempts. And...oh yeah...there was still plenty of other work that I needed to complete in this workout. That other work began with the chest-to-bar pull-ups. I was relatively fresh when I got to this movement and I was able to get away with some sloppy form because I was on the low bar. I didn't have to jump to the bar and I could use the exaggerated hip pop (think me going horizontal) to brush my chest against the underside of the bar 6 times. I moved on to my barbell where I did three sets of 3 single hang power clean and jerks, with short breaks between the sets. When it was time for the front squats, I did two sets of 6 reps each.
I'd be lying if I said my focus wasn't almost exclusively on the bar muscle-ups at this point. I had made a semi-breakthrough and I wanted to get back to them. These other movements were just tiring me out for no good reason. I climbed on to my box and put my foot in the double band as I got ready to begin round two. First rep: success! Second rep: a little short. I took some additional time before my third attempt because I was concerned that I rushed into the second rep and didn't focus on the technique as much as I should have. Sure enough, my third attempt ended with me pressed out above the high bar. 3 for 6 so far. Much better than I could have expected.
The chest-to-bar pull-ups required more energy in round two than they did the first time around, but I didn't miss on any of the six reps. I had the same plan for the hang power clean and jerks, doing three sets of three singles in a row. The front squats felt much worse than I expected (guess I'm glad I didn't use 155!), but once again I completed them in two sets of six reps. I was well behind most of the class, but I didn't really care. I was headed back to the bar muscle-ups.
I had gotten one successful rep in round one. I had gotten two in the second round. I was destined to get all three in this final round. Having learned my lesson from the last round, I decided to take my time before all three reps. Attempt #1: success again. Attempt #2: my first time experiencing back-to-back successes with bar muscle-ups. I could complete the trifecta with one final solid effort. I shook out my arms, gathered my breath, stepped off of my box, and swung into the band. As I propelled back and up, I thought about when the right moment was to rotate over so that I landed in that perfect position to press out the remainder of the rep. When I felt like I had reached that moment, I went for it. And I failed. Truth be told, I was beginning to tire out and it showed when I barely got my body over the bar on this last attempt. Both of my hands slipped as I rotated and I ended up clinging to the bar like I was hanging on to the top of the wall when we do wall ascents at the gym. 5 out of 9 would have to do for today.
The last round of chest-to-bar pull-ups were very difficult. I'm not sure whether I was tired or if the air came out of the balloon when I failed that last bar muscle-up attempt. Perhaps I simply wasn't all that interested in the workout anymore because I had finished the aspect of it that had captured my attention. All I know is that those final 6 chest-to-bar pull-ups required a lot more effort than the previous 12 had. With the gymnastics portion of the workout over, I returned to my barbell. Once again, I did three singles on the hang power clean and jerks, one right after the other. As I took a break, Keithie came over and told me that he wanted to see me hang on to the barbell and string two reps. It didn't feel wonderful, but I managed to string two reps. Then I got a little mad at myself. Trying to string 9 in a row would have killed my grip, but doing singles was a bit too cautious for this workout. Instead of 3 singles, I would have saved time stringing 3 reps at a time and it probably wouldn't have cost me much in terms of my grip.
Remember how anger works with the barbell? I grabbed my barbell and hung on to it until I completed all four of my remaining hang power clean and jerks. It was now clear that I had wimped out on this segment of the workout in earlier rounds. I wish I had enough anger in me to put together 12 front squats in a row, but there is a limit to how much rage will help you when you're tired. I kept the same routine in round three, completing the 12 front squats by doing two sets of 6 reps. Final time: 16:29.
I sat down near the front of the gym to recover before we headed to the Taphouse. Shawna was also part of the 5:30 class and she was interested in watching the game with us after some recovery time as well. As I sat there and watched the 6:30 class warm up, I became really interested in watching them do this workout, so the three of us hung around and watched them before going over to watch the Panthers and Wolfpack battle. It wasn't the prettiest of games, but it was a tight one. The Wolfpack held a slim halftime lead. Pitt took control for most of the second half before NC State had a late run to regain the advantage. Samson and I started trading stories of how the team we rooted for was more likely to blow this game. The Wolfpack almost made me look like a genius when they nearly blew a 5 point lead with 7 seconds remaining, but the Panthers missed a 3 pointer at the buzzer that would have sent the game to overtime. Chalk up a rare ACC win for the Wolfpack!
Wednesday preview: A WOD that is nothing but rowing. I will do my best to make it sound more interesting than it was.
Wait, Come Back!
Workout date: 1/16/17
I must admit that I was kinda frustrated with this whole "eating healthy" thing after last week's weigh-in. There were only two weeks left until I could go back to eating whatever I wanted, but the results of this four-month test had begun to feel random. Whenever I thought my weight would go up, it would go down (and vice versa). So when I happened to be near a Five Guys this week as I was searching for dinner options, I said screw it. Went in and ordered a burger and a hot dog. I didn't think the burger and hot dog were going to somehow lower my weight. I just wasn't convinced that they would make me gain weight. Two days later, I had a bowl of ice cream for dessert. Over the weekend, I had some pasta. Have I been going to great lengths to avoid these things? Yeah. Do I miss eating them? More than you know. But they are known as comfort foods for a reason and I needed some comfort after last week's weigh-in. I didn't care about the scale this week. When I did step on the scale, it revealed...
Original weigh-in: 213.2 pounds
Last week's weigh-in: 208.8 pounds
This week's weigh-in: 206.0 pounds
Ummm...I just don't get it. I definitely ate worse this week than I have in quite a while, yet somehow I lost nearly three pounds. For my own sanity, it is probably a good thing that this experiment is ending next week.
There was a special WOD lined up for Monday morning as we were honoring MLK Day with a friends and family workout. It was a partner WOD that had one very specific rule:
MLK Day WOD:
Partner workout:
15 minute AMRAP
10 shoulder-to-overheads (115/75)
25 deadlifts (115/75)
50 box jumps (24"/20")
*Partners must switch after every 5 reps
That line beginning with an asterisk was an important one (hence the bold). Not only did each partner have to do an equal amount of work in this WOD, the amount of work that could be done at a given time was also spelled out. Neither partner was going to get much of a break during this 15 minute workout, so I began thinking about the apology I'd likely have to deliver later on.
This WOD was being run all day long at KOP, but the 9:30am class was the special friends and family version. Participants were encouraged to make a small donation to this month's charity, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. (Note: KOP has been raising money for different charities each month. Every time an athlete checks in on Facebook using #checkinforcharity along with that month's "phrase that pays", 10 cents goes to the charity. Many athletes times 30 days or so per month times a dime results in a nice little contribution to these charities.) I arrived at the gym just as Coach Aimee was rounding up the massive group that had shown up for this class. I wasn't sure who I'd be partnering up with. Then I heard Cline swear in front of one of the kids in attendance and it became clear that I had to partner up with him. (The Lord works in mysterious ways. Or something like that.)
Aimee put us through a fun group warmup that was capped off by having everyone run around in a circle as she called out movements. The stars of the warmup were the two ladies shown below:
I must admit that I was kinda frustrated with this whole "eating healthy" thing after last week's weigh-in. There were only two weeks left until I could go back to eating whatever I wanted, but the results of this four-month test had begun to feel random. Whenever I thought my weight would go up, it would go down (and vice versa). So when I happened to be near a Five Guys this week as I was searching for dinner options, I said screw it. Went in and ordered a burger and a hot dog. I didn't think the burger and hot dog were going to somehow lower my weight. I just wasn't convinced that they would make me gain weight. Two days later, I had a bowl of ice cream for dessert. Over the weekend, I had some pasta. Have I been going to great lengths to avoid these things? Yeah. Do I miss eating them? More than you know. But they are known as comfort foods for a reason and I needed some comfort after last week's weigh-in. I didn't care about the scale this week. When I did step on the scale, it revealed...
Original weigh-in: 213.2 pounds
Last week's weigh-in: 208.8 pounds
This week's weigh-in: 206.0 pounds
Ummm...I just don't get it. I definitely ate worse this week than I have in quite a while, yet somehow I lost nearly three pounds. For my own sanity, it is probably a good thing that this experiment is ending next week.
There was a special WOD lined up for Monday morning as we were honoring MLK Day with a friends and family workout. It was a partner WOD that had one very specific rule:
MLK Day WOD:
Partner workout:
15 minute AMRAP
10 shoulder-to-overheads (115/75)
25 deadlifts (115/75)
50 box jumps (24"/20")
*Partners must switch after every 5 reps
That line beginning with an asterisk was an important one (hence the bold). Not only did each partner have to do an equal amount of work in this WOD, the amount of work that could be done at a given time was also spelled out. Neither partner was going to get much of a break during this 15 minute workout, so I began thinking about the apology I'd likely have to deliver later on.
This WOD was being run all day long at KOP, but the 9:30am class was the special friends and family version. Participants were encouraged to make a small donation to this month's charity, the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee. (Note: KOP has been raising money for different charities each month. Every time an athlete checks in on Facebook using #checkinforcharity along with that month's "phrase that pays", 10 cents goes to the charity. Many athletes times 30 days or so per month times a dime results in a nice little contribution to these charities.) I arrived at the gym just as Coach Aimee was rounding up the massive group that had shown up for this class. I wasn't sure who I'd be partnering up with. Then I heard Cline swear in front of one of the kids in attendance and it became clear that I had to partner up with him. (The Lord works in mysterious ways. Or something like that.)
Aimee put us through a fun group warmup that was capped off by having everyone run around in a circle as she called out movements. The stars of the warmup were the two ladies shown below:
They may be a bit camera shy, but they killed the warmup
Once that was wrapped up, we were encouraged to grab a barbell and a box (or two). There were going to be 20 teams all doing this workout at the same time, so we weren't going to have much real estate to work with. Cline and I grabbed a small area over by the rings alongside of Becky and Tim P. They needed more space than we did because they would require both a ladies and a men's barbell as well as a ladies and a men's box. Having their own equipment gave them an advantage on the all-male and all-female teams because they would not have to wait on their teammate to give up the barbell or get off of the box. (Yes, I'm making excuses up front because Becky and Tim crushed us on this workout.)
Cline and I tried to set up our box in a space where we could stand on opposite sides of it. That was our small attempt at diminishing the transition time during this workout. This attempt was futile though. Once we got to the first round of box jumps, we discovered that a team working near the far side of our box was doing their jumps from the side, so they were standing where Cline was going to jump from. It wasn't that big of a deal. We would just alternate jumping from in front of the box every 5 reps. As for the barbell, Cline felt comfortable using 115 pounds for the shoulder-to-overheads (the deadlifts were going to be very light), so we were officially taking this workout on using RX standards.
Since I'm a procrastinator and Cline is a go-getter, he led things off for us. I'm honestly not sure how we could have gone faster on the barbell movements (other than having 2 barbells) as we ripped through 10 shoulder-to-overheads and 25 deadlifts. As Cline was taking care of the last 5 deadlifts, I turned towards our box. Becky and Tim were already on their box jumps as were several other teams. The hell? A few seconds later, Cline told me to go and I did our first 5 box jumps, rebounding on and off of the box. Both Cline and I would go through 5 sets like that (naturally I messed up one of my jumps along the way), but we were on to round two at a breakneck speed.
Our transitions on the barbell may have not been as fast for round two, but we continued to have no issues with the lifts. We only had to do 5 shoulder-to-overheads each and that was a small enough number that we could fight through it even if we got tired. The deadlifts were so light that I wasn't even fully gripping the barbell. I leaned down, cradled the barbell with my fingers, then did 5 reps as quick as I could. At the box jumps, I had one missed rep again, but I continued to rebound through all of my jumps. I also noticed something strange towards the end of this round. The dynamic with me and Cline has always been that I could go heavier in workouts and he had the better engine. (To be fair, Cline has closed the strength gap considerably. He'll soon be overtaking me with his 1RM deadlift.) But Cline was starting to slow down on his box jumps. It was not a good sign for our team if I was the "cardio guy" in this workout.
We were close to 6 minutes in when we finished round 2, so finishing 5 rounds was still in play, but probably unlikely. We continued to move fluidly through the barbell movements. It was the box jump that was the difference in this workout. Some teams moved through it with ease. Others needed to step down and take their time from rep to rep. The third round was the only one where I'd do all 25 of my jumps cleanly. I don't think Cline had any bad reps along the way, but his pace continued to slow down. He was also walking away from the box between his sets, so when I completed a set of five, I'd need to call him over to take his turn again. Becky and Tim were motoring through their 4th round of box jumps as we completed our third. We were sneaking up on 10 minutes at the end of round three, so there was no chance that we'd finish five rounds. It was just a matter of how far we'd get into round five.
Round four began in a similar fashion to the other rounds as we quickly got through the barbell stage. I had more trouble than expected on the box jumps as I had three bad reps in my five sets of five. I didn't have to resort to stepping down at any point though. Cline was still walking away from the box in between sets to catch a breather, but he was never too far away when it was his turn to jump again. I was finishing off the last set of our fourth round when Aimee called out that there was 1 minute remaining.
Even though we had 35 reps to do on the barbell, we had moved through those reps so consistently fast in previous rounds that I felt we had a chance to get back to the box jumps one last time. Cline did 5 shoulder-to-overheads, I did 5 shoulder-to-overheads. Cline did 5 deadlifts, I did 5 deadlifts. I was definitely amped up about getting back to the box, repeating to Cline that we could make it back as he went through his reps. Cline did 5 more deadlifts and then I grabbed the barbell. As I did, Cline ran over to our box. "Wait, come back!" I was trying to do my 5 deadlifts and get Cline's attention because he had to do our last 5 deadlifts per the rules of the workout. He hustled back over as I dropped the barbell. I bolted over to the box, as Cline worked on the remaining deadlifts. Aimee let us know there were 10 seconds left. We were certainly getting at least 1 or 2 box jumps in. Cline yelled to me that he was done and I rebounded on and off of the box as fast as I could. My feet landed on the box for a fourth time in round five when Aimee called time. Final score: 4+39.
I thought we kept up a very strong pace throughout the 15 minutes. There were some teams who were just better at box jumps and as a result, they put up much better scores than we did. (Becky and Tim had a score of 6+4!) It was nice feeling like I had an engine for once, although I'm sure Cline will take back that role in future workouts. Probably the best takeaway I had from this workout was that I could confidently rebound during 24" box jumps for a long time. There will definitely be workouts in the months ahead where I am going to be tired and still need to have faith that I can rebound through a bunch of box jumps. This workout was proof that I have that ability.
Here's a pic of everyone who attended the friends and family class:
A packed house for a good cause
Tuesday preview: No Dudes After Dark because I have a hot date with a KOP athlete! (Or maybe I was just invited out for beer and basketball. What can I say? I'm easy to please.)
Angry Gymnastics
Workout date: 1/14/17
The day off on Friday was definitely necessary. Part of me thought that I should ride that into a 3-day weekend of rest. Another part of me thought that I should work out on either Saturday or Sunday to make up for the Friday class that I missed. I typically do 5 workouts per week unless there are things keeping me from the gym. Since I had a free weekend, there was no excuse for me not to pop in for a workout unless I was being lazy or cherry-picking my workouts. At 10pm on Friday, I took a look at the blog and saw this scheduled for the next day:
Saturday's WOD:
7 rounds:
10 handstand push-ups
2 rope climbs (15')
A WOD containing my newest obsession (handstand push-ups) and one of my favorite movements in the gym (rope climbs)? Yes please. I was dragging my butt in for a rare Saturday workout.
How long has it been since I've come in for a Saturday workout? Let's put it this way: I had completely forgotten that this was Coach Keithie's regular gig nowadays. I used to attend a lot of Keithie's classes because he taught throughout the week. Now he only coaches a couple of classes during the week, but he handles both classes scheduled on Saturday morning. So it was a pleasant surprise to come in and see that he would be coaching.
There were 9 of us ready to face our fears of being upside-down and 15' above the gym (not at the same time of course). There was no way that I was going to attempt 70 handstand push-ups without the help of some ab-mats. This would be another instance where I'd go with 2 ab-mats and do my best to kip every single rep. Practicing the kip has transformed this movement from a shoulder test to a core test. If I hadn't taken a rest day, I feel certain that my core wouldn't have been able to handle this much work. With the day off on Friday, at least I had a chance of completing this WOD.
Keithie talked with us about handstand push-ups as well as the seated DB press that we could do as a scale should this large amount of handstand push-ups be too much for us. I did not want to give in and do the DB presses. I didn't even want to grab a pair of DBs to have on standby because I was concerned that I'd give in and switch to them if I ran into some major adversity on the wall. The plan was to keep chipping away at the 70 handstand push-ups even if it left me behind the rest of the class. As much as I try to avoid the pity circle, I was going to accept its embrace on this day if necessary.
(Update on the "pity circle": Cline has pointed out to me on several occasions that he is not a fan of this term. After reflecting upon whether or not I should continue to use it, I realized that I have to be more judicious in my use of this phrase. Back when I coined the phrase, it felt appropriate to use. I would be working long after the class was done and there is photographic evidence that everyone was bored out of their minds waiting on me to complete my workout. That has changed more recently, as my classmates have been very enthusiastic about helping me reach the finish line when I fall behind. So the term "pity circle" is probably not appropriate in those situations. I'll work on a new phrase...)
Even though there were 9 of us in class and only 5 ropes available for climbing, this was one of the rare instances where I wasn't concerned about being held up on the rope climb portion of this WOD. I knew that the handstand push-ups were likely to spread us out fairly early on, so the chances of 6 of us hitting the ropes at the same time were slim. I also didn't plan on spending a lot of time on the ropes, so if one was free, I was going to do two quick climbs and then get out of the way.
Aimee had done this workout in under 10 minutes during the 9am class, but the other two times on the board were in the 17-19 minute range. That was about 2:30 per round, which seemed like a reasonable pace. I expected the 2 rope climbs would take about 30-45 seconds to complete (depending on which round I was in), so I'd have 1:45-2:00 to do 10 handstand push-ups. That sounded like a lot of time to complete 10 handstand push-ups, so I began to daydream about going lower than 17 minutes. My goal for this workout would be to complete it with a time in the 16-17 minute range.
Early on, it looked like I might have done a really solid job of figuring out what a good time would be for me on this workout. I moved through all 10 handstand push-ups in one set during round one, then completed two quick rope climbs. I had to split up the 10 handstand push-ups in round two, but it only required two sets. After shaking out my arms, I got over to the rope and briskly climbed it twice. A peek at the clock let me know that I was under 4 minutes with 5 rounds to go. Even if I reverted to that pace of 2:30 per round, I'd be smack dab in the middle of the range that I had set for myself prior to the workout.
Round three was where I found out that I was in trouble. I made it through 5 handstand push-ups, but then I really began to struggle with stringing together more than 2 reps at a time. I think I had my first failed rep at the mid-way point of this round. I tried to remain calm as I always tell myself that getting upset never helps you with skill movements. (Note: It does seem to work with barbells though, so let that rage erupt when you need to pick up heavy stuff.) I made it through the final 5 reps and did my two rope climbs, but another glance at the clock showed that nearly 3 minutes had elapsed during that round. If I held that pace, I was looking at a final time of 19 minutes. Things had changed quickly and they weren't about to get any better.
During rounds 4, 5, and 6, I tried to get two reps in every time I got upside-down. That was easier said than done. Sometimes I only got 1 rep. Other times, I tried to shoot my legs up, but I couldn't muster enough power to press out a single rep. It was slow going, getting through 10 reps each round. Keithie came over and gave me a pep talk that was similar to the ones LC has been giving me recently when I've failed on my handstand push-ups. He let me know that I wasn't firing my legs upward with the required amount of energy to complete the rep. It felt like I was giving it everything I had whenever I was hanging there upside-down. I wasn't sure how I could produce more power, especially since I was tiring out as the workout progressed.
My solution? Try to use that barbell rage in a gymnastics movement. It was the only remaining solution I could come up with. I began drawing my knees down to my chest, then letting out a yell as I fired my legs towards the ceiling. I actively started concentrating on how mad I would be if I had to resort to the DBs to finish off the later rounds. Getting angry didn't help me string together additional reps, but it did help me avoid failed reps. I was able to balance out my emotions on the rope climb ("my jam", as Keithie called it), where I could relax and feel confident for a short time before heading back to the wall.
My arms and my core were smoked as I chipped away at the final round of handstand push-ups. I was still managing sets of two here and there and knowing that it was my last round helped me take shorter breaks between those sets. I knew most of the class was done because I kept hearing additional voices cheering me on, but I had one classmate near me who was still working, so we hadn't reached full-blown pity circle status yet. I was relieved when I pressed out that 70th handstand push-up. I jogged over to my rope and did a quick climb. Then I stupidly tried to jump right back on again and messed up gripping the rope. I was well beyond the time range I had set for myself so I'm not sure why I was in such a hurry for that second climb. Guess I just wanted to be done. I regrouped, jumped up on the rope again, and had no problems getting to the 15' mark. Final time: 20:59.
I still don't feel comfortable in the kip position for handstand push-ups and I haven't figured out how to reliably produce enough power for consistent reps. I don't think it's the smartest idea to practice handstand push-ups without ab-mats until I get the hang of the kip, so it will probably be a while before I go after my goal of 5 consecutive handstand push-ups without ab-mats. As was the case with pull-ups and double unders, I need to break the movement down and work on morsels of it before I take on the entire thing. I have faith that I will still complete my handstand push-up goal before the year is through.
The cash-out was a 500 meter sprint on the rower. I've had more and more confidence on the rower lately, so I was looking forward to this cash-out prior to the WOD. After wearing out my arms with 70 handstand push-ups, I was less eager to take this on. My best previous time was 1:33.6 and I recalled going at a pace of about 1:26 for the first half of that row. I needed a solid 10 minutes to recover from the WOD before I grabbed a rower and set the monitor for a 500 meter sprint. During the first 250 meters, I kept a fast pace, but it was hanging steady at around 1:28. If I couldn't get it to 1:26 early, I knew I wasn't setting a new PR today. Just past the halfway point, my arms told the rest of my body that they were done for the day. I kept driving hard with my legs, but my pulls became weaker and weaker. This was not even going to be close to 1:33. Final time: 1:40.6.
That was not some of my finer work on the rower. I told myself that I'd have to test out my 500 meter time again when I wasn't so crushed from handstand push-ups.
Monday preview: My second-to-last weigh-in and a partner WOD with Cline for a good cause.
The day off on Friday was definitely necessary. Part of me thought that I should ride that into a 3-day weekend of rest. Another part of me thought that I should work out on either Saturday or Sunday to make up for the Friday class that I missed. I typically do 5 workouts per week unless there are things keeping me from the gym. Since I had a free weekend, there was no excuse for me not to pop in for a workout unless I was being lazy or cherry-picking my workouts. At 10pm on Friday, I took a look at the blog and saw this scheduled for the next day:
Saturday's WOD:
7 rounds:
10 handstand push-ups
2 rope climbs (15')
A WOD containing my newest obsession (handstand push-ups) and one of my favorite movements in the gym (rope climbs)? Yes please. I was dragging my butt in for a rare Saturday workout.
How long has it been since I've come in for a Saturday workout? Let's put it this way: I had completely forgotten that this was Coach Keithie's regular gig nowadays. I used to attend a lot of Keithie's classes because he taught throughout the week. Now he only coaches a couple of classes during the week, but he handles both classes scheduled on Saturday morning. So it was a pleasant surprise to come in and see that he would be coaching.
There were 9 of us ready to face our fears of being upside-down and 15' above the gym (not at the same time of course). There was no way that I was going to attempt 70 handstand push-ups without the help of some ab-mats. This would be another instance where I'd go with 2 ab-mats and do my best to kip every single rep. Practicing the kip has transformed this movement from a shoulder test to a core test. If I hadn't taken a rest day, I feel certain that my core wouldn't have been able to handle this much work. With the day off on Friday, at least I had a chance of completing this WOD.
Keithie talked with us about handstand push-ups as well as the seated DB press that we could do as a scale should this large amount of handstand push-ups be too much for us. I did not want to give in and do the DB presses. I didn't even want to grab a pair of DBs to have on standby because I was concerned that I'd give in and switch to them if I ran into some major adversity on the wall. The plan was to keep chipping away at the 70 handstand push-ups even if it left me behind the rest of the class. As much as I try to avoid the pity circle, I was going to accept its embrace on this day if necessary.
(Update on the "pity circle": Cline has pointed out to me on several occasions that he is not a fan of this term. After reflecting upon whether or not I should continue to use it, I realized that I have to be more judicious in my use of this phrase. Back when I coined the phrase, it felt appropriate to use. I would be working long after the class was done and there is photographic evidence that everyone was bored out of their minds waiting on me to complete my workout. That has changed more recently, as my classmates have been very enthusiastic about helping me reach the finish line when I fall behind. So the term "pity circle" is probably not appropriate in those situations. I'll work on a new phrase...)
Even though there were 9 of us in class and only 5 ropes available for climbing, this was one of the rare instances where I wasn't concerned about being held up on the rope climb portion of this WOD. I knew that the handstand push-ups were likely to spread us out fairly early on, so the chances of 6 of us hitting the ropes at the same time were slim. I also didn't plan on spending a lot of time on the ropes, so if one was free, I was going to do two quick climbs and then get out of the way.
Aimee had done this workout in under 10 minutes during the 9am class, but the other two times on the board were in the 17-19 minute range. That was about 2:30 per round, which seemed like a reasonable pace. I expected the 2 rope climbs would take about 30-45 seconds to complete (depending on which round I was in), so I'd have 1:45-2:00 to do 10 handstand push-ups. That sounded like a lot of time to complete 10 handstand push-ups, so I began to daydream about going lower than 17 minutes. My goal for this workout would be to complete it with a time in the 16-17 minute range.
Early on, it looked like I might have done a really solid job of figuring out what a good time would be for me on this workout. I moved through all 10 handstand push-ups in one set during round one, then completed two quick rope climbs. I had to split up the 10 handstand push-ups in round two, but it only required two sets. After shaking out my arms, I got over to the rope and briskly climbed it twice. A peek at the clock let me know that I was under 4 minutes with 5 rounds to go. Even if I reverted to that pace of 2:30 per round, I'd be smack dab in the middle of the range that I had set for myself prior to the workout.
Round three was where I found out that I was in trouble. I made it through 5 handstand push-ups, but then I really began to struggle with stringing together more than 2 reps at a time. I think I had my first failed rep at the mid-way point of this round. I tried to remain calm as I always tell myself that getting upset never helps you with skill movements. (Note: It does seem to work with barbells though, so let that rage erupt when you need to pick up heavy stuff.) I made it through the final 5 reps and did my two rope climbs, but another glance at the clock showed that nearly 3 minutes had elapsed during that round. If I held that pace, I was looking at a final time of 19 minutes. Things had changed quickly and they weren't about to get any better.
During rounds 4, 5, and 6, I tried to get two reps in every time I got upside-down. That was easier said than done. Sometimes I only got 1 rep. Other times, I tried to shoot my legs up, but I couldn't muster enough power to press out a single rep. It was slow going, getting through 10 reps each round. Keithie came over and gave me a pep talk that was similar to the ones LC has been giving me recently when I've failed on my handstand push-ups. He let me know that I wasn't firing my legs upward with the required amount of energy to complete the rep. It felt like I was giving it everything I had whenever I was hanging there upside-down. I wasn't sure how I could produce more power, especially since I was tiring out as the workout progressed.
My solution? Try to use that barbell rage in a gymnastics movement. It was the only remaining solution I could come up with. I began drawing my knees down to my chest, then letting out a yell as I fired my legs towards the ceiling. I actively started concentrating on how mad I would be if I had to resort to the DBs to finish off the later rounds. Getting angry didn't help me string together additional reps, but it did help me avoid failed reps. I was able to balance out my emotions on the rope climb ("my jam", as Keithie called it), where I could relax and feel confident for a short time before heading back to the wall.
My arms and my core were smoked as I chipped away at the final round of handstand push-ups. I was still managing sets of two here and there and knowing that it was my last round helped me take shorter breaks between those sets. I knew most of the class was done because I kept hearing additional voices cheering me on, but I had one classmate near me who was still working, so we hadn't reached full-blown pity circle status yet. I was relieved when I pressed out that 70th handstand push-up. I jogged over to my rope and did a quick climb. Then I stupidly tried to jump right back on again and messed up gripping the rope. I was well beyond the time range I had set for myself so I'm not sure why I was in such a hurry for that second climb. Guess I just wanted to be done. I regrouped, jumped up on the rope again, and had no problems getting to the 15' mark. Final time: 20:59.
I still don't feel comfortable in the kip position for handstand push-ups and I haven't figured out how to reliably produce enough power for consistent reps. I don't think it's the smartest idea to practice handstand push-ups without ab-mats until I get the hang of the kip, so it will probably be a while before I go after my goal of 5 consecutive handstand push-ups without ab-mats. As was the case with pull-ups and double unders, I need to break the movement down and work on morsels of it before I take on the entire thing. I have faith that I will still complete my handstand push-up goal before the year is through.
The cash-out was a 500 meter sprint on the rower. I've had more and more confidence on the rower lately, so I was looking forward to this cash-out prior to the WOD. After wearing out my arms with 70 handstand push-ups, I was less eager to take this on. My best previous time was 1:33.6 and I recalled going at a pace of about 1:26 for the first half of that row. I needed a solid 10 minutes to recover from the WOD before I grabbed a rower and set the monitor for a 500 meter sprint. During the first 250 meters, I kept a fast pace, but it was hanging steady at around 1:28. If I couldn't get it to 1:26 early, I knew I wasn't setting a new PR today. Just past the halfway point, my arms told the rest of my body that they were done for the day. I kept driving hard with my legs, but my pulls became weaker and weaker. This was not even going to be close to 1:33. Final time: 1:40.6.
That was not some of my finer work on the rower. I told myself that I'd have to test out my 500 meter time again when I wasn't so crushed from handstand push-ups.
Monday preview: My second-to-last weigh-in and a partner WOD with Cline for a good cause.
Friday, February 3, 2017
Express Yourself
Workout date: 1/12/17
I knew I was using up a lot of time with these little sets, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do unless I convinced myself to keep rebounding until I tripped and fell. JP and Pam were back on their rowers. I had taken a few glances at the clock and it wasn't looking good for me as far as completing the second row was concerned. When I did finish my 50th box jump, I had slightly less than two minutes to go.
It may not have been a banner day for me with the overhead squats or the box jumps, but I was stronger than expected on both rows that I did. Seeing as my legs were tired and I had less than two minutes before time was called, I thought 30 calories seemed like a good target to shoot for. Was I probably going to fall short of that mark? I believed that would be the outcome. But that turned out not to be the case. I got into a solid rhythm. As the clock ticked towards 15 minutes, I realized that 30 calories was within reach. I pulled as hard as I could in the waning seconds and actually made it to 32 calories in round two. Final score: 232.
Another exhausting workout in the books, but I headed into my rest day with a much more positive feeling than I would have if I went into it after doing Fran.
Saturday preview: A rare Saturday appearance means fun with Coach Keithie. There are rope climbs, handstand push-ups, and one of the worst 500 meter sprints I've ever done on a rower.
With my core destroyed from GHD sit-ups and Fran, I went home Wednesday night committed to taking Thursday off. I didn't commit to avoiding the blog though, and when I saw that Thursday's workout included 100 overhead squats, I knew that I'd have to postpone that rest day until Friday. Here's the entire Thursday WOD:
Thursday WOD:
15 minute AMRAP
50 calorie row
100 overhead squats (45/35)
50 box jumps (24"/20")
I had to show up for this workout! It was gonna be one that I'd like and one that nearly everyone else would hate. Gotta take advantage of a rare opportunity like this one!
I decided that I would hit up the noon express because I typically go on Friday and that was now going to be a rest day for me. There were only 7 other people in attendance, but it was mostly the regular noon crowd: JP, Queen Pam, Tim H, Erika L, Jessie, Ina, and Nicole M. Coach Aimee led us through our warmup. Once that was complete, she asked us to set up our rower, our barbell, and our box. We might have needed more direction that that because we soon discovered that about half the class had set up their stations in a north-south direction, while the rest opted for an east-west setup. It looked very disorganized, but with only 8 people in class, there was enough space to make it work. The crazy setup led to this interaction between me and Aimee:
Aimee: We should just call this the "do whatever you want" class.
Me: Or we could call it "express yourself".
Aimee: You are so good at...<long pause>...that.
I'm not sure if Meatloaf took over Aimee's body mid-response, but I'm at a point in my life where I'm trying not to deflect away compliments anymore, so I'll gladly accept being good at "that".
Aimee walked us through proper form on the rower. Then she had us work on our overhead squat technique. Because we were doing 100 of them, we were using a very light weight (an empty barbell). This part of the workout wasn't going to be about struggling with the load. It was going to be about how much pain you could endure before needing to put the barbell down. Finally there were the box jumps. Aimee encouraged us to get comfortable rebounding on and off of the box. During the warmup, she had us practice rebounding on boxes of increasing height, from 13" to 24" (for the guys). If we were going to rest during the box jumps, Aimee wanted us to rest on top of the box, not on the floor. (Remember this!)
I looked at the scores from earlier in the morning and saw that only Kevin B had made it back for a second round of overhead squats (more than 250 reps). That became my goal. I thought I would be decent on the row, strong on the overhead squats, and then I'd do my best to chip away at the box jumps. If I left myself about three and a half minutes for the second row, I should be able to sneak in a few overhead squats at the end.
I thought my initial row would take just under three minutes. As is my custom, I had no plans of racing through the row at the beginning of the workout. About 17-18 calories per minute seemed like a reasonable pace. It went even better than that. I had 21 calories at the end of the first minute. I was at 40 by the end of minute two. I was done with my row at about the 2:30 mark. That wasn't the only surprise for me. I was done with the row before JP, something I never would have bet on.
I moved over to my barbell and got to work on the overhead squats. I didn't know how long I could hold on for, but I knew that first set needed to be very large. During Nancy, I was able to do sets of 15 reps using 95 pounds. This was only 45 pounds, so I was thinking that I could probably do 30-40 in a row. It was early in that first set that I realized I had neglected to account for the effect of that 50 calorie row on my legs. After about 20 reps, I wanted to put the barbell down, but I managed to make it to 30 reps before my first break.
Even with an empty barbell, I could tell getting to 100 reps was going to be much more brutal than I imagined. My core was still wrecked from the GHD sit-ups on Monday and from Fran the night before. My legs were a bit tingly from the row and the first 30 overhead squats. I gave myself one piece of advice: just go fast during the overhead squats. I didn't have a number in mind as far as how many reps I would do in my remaining sets. The goal was to go fast and put the barbell down when it hurt too much to keep going. Keep my breaks short and go fast again.
I think I did at least 10 reps in every set the rest of the way. I know some people told me afterwards that their approach was to do 10 sets of 10 reps and that may have been the saner way to go about this. I had gotten 30 reps completed to start things off, but I may have tired myself out more than I needed to. After each remaining set, I'd place the barbell on the floor (no dropping empty barbells!) and walk around a little bit to shake out the soreness in my legs. Erika was working directly in front of me and every time she saw me walking around, she'd encourage me to get back to my barbell. I'd use that as my cue to begin my next set. I was taking a break before my final set when I saw JP move on to his box jumps. With 2 or 3 reps left, I saw Pam move on to her box jumps. I wasn't terribly far behind either of them, but I thought the overhead squats would be the segment where I gained time on them. Instead, they had gained time on me.
I was relieved to be done with the overhead squats, but I had some genuine concerns about the upcoming box jumps. My legs didn't seem like they had a lot of spring in them and I was on the hook for 50 jumps. Add in that I was supposed to be rebounding on and off the box and suddenly I could envision myself crashing into the box a bunch of times due to fatigue. Luckily it only happened once. My sets were on the smaller side though. My first set was only 3 reps long. It is hard to talk yourself into doing more when you feel like you are about to fail. Eventually my sets became 4 reps long, then 5 reps. I think I even had one set of 6 in a row. In between sets, I looked like this:
Thursday WOD:
15 minute AMRAP
50 calorie row
100 overhead squats (45/35)
50 box jumps (24"/20")
I had to show up for this workout! It was gonna be one that I'd like and one that nearly everyone else would hate. Gotta take advantage of a rare opportunity like this one!
I decided that I would hit up the noon express because I typically go on Friday and that was now going to be a rest day for me. There were only 7 other people in attendance, but it was mostly the regular noon crowd: JP, Queen Pam, Tim H, Erika L, Jessie, Ina, and Nicole M. Coach Aimee led us through our warmup. Once that was complete, she asked us to set up our rower, our barbell, and our box. We might have needed more direction that that because we soon discovered that about half the class had set up their stations in a north-south direction, while the rest opted for an east-west setup. It looked very disorganized, but with only 8 people in class, there was enough space to make it work. The crazy setup led to this interaction between me and Aimee:
Aimee: We should just call this the "do whatever you want" class.
Me: Or we could call it "express yourself".
Aimee: You are so good at...<long pause>...that.
I'm not sure if Meatloaf took over Aimee's body mid-response, but I'm at a point in my life where I'm trying not to deflect away compliments anymore, so I'll gladly accept being good at "that".
Aimee walked us through proper form on the rower. Then she had us work on our overhead squat technique. Because we were doing 100 of them, we were using a very light weight (an empty barbell). This part of the workout wasn't going to be about struggling with the load. It was going to be about how much pain you could endure before needing to put the barbell down. Finally there were the box jumps. Aimee encouraged us to get comfortable rebounding on and off of the box. During the warmup, she had us practice rebounding on boxes of increasing height, from 13" to 24" (for the guys). If we were going to rest during the box jumps, Aimee wanted us to rest on top of the box, not on the floor. (Remember this!)
I looked at the scores from earlier in the morning and saw that only Kevin B had made it back for a second round of overhead squats (more than 250 reps). That became my goal. I thought I would be decent on the row, strong on the overhead squats, and then I'd do my best to chip away at the box jumps. If I left myself about three and a half minutes for the second row, I should be able to sneak in a few overhead squats at the end.
I thought my initial row would take just under three minutes. As is my custom, I had no plans of racing through the row at the beginning of the workout. About 17-18 calories per minute seemed like a reasonable pace. It went even better than that. I had 21 calories at the end of the first minute. I was at 40 by the end of minute two. I was done with my row at about the 2:30 mark. That wasn't the only surprise for me. I was done with the row before JP, something I never would have bet on.
I moved over to my barbell and got to work on the overhead squats. I didn't know how long I could hold on for, but I knew that first set needed to be very large. During Nancy, I was able to do sets of 15 reps using 95 pounds. This was only 45 pounds, so I was thinking that I could probably do 30-40 in a row. It was early in that first set that I realized I had neglected to account for the effect of that 50 calorie row on my legs. After about 20 reps, I wanted to put the barbell down, but I managed to make it to 30 reps before my first break.
Even with an empty barbell, I could tell getting to 100 reps was going to be much more brutal than I imagined. My core was still wrecked from the GHD sit-ups on Monday and from Fran the night before. My legs were a bit tingly from the row and the first 30 overhead squats. I gave myself one piece of advice: just go fast during the overhead squats. I didn't have a number in mind as far as how many reps I would do in my remaining sets. The goal was to go fast and put the barbell down when it hurt too much to keep going. Keep my breaks short and go fast again.
I think I did at least 10 reps in every set the rest of the way. I know some people told me afterwards that their approach was to do 10 sets of 10 reps and that may have been the saner way to go about this. I had gotten 30 reps completed to start things off, but I may have tired myself out more than I needed to. After each remaining set, I'd place the barbell on the floor (no dropping empty barbells!) and walk around a little bit to shake out the soreness in my legs. Erika was working directly in front of me and every time she saw me walking around, she'd encourage me to get back to my barbell. I'd use that as my cue to begin my next set. I was taking a break before my final set when I saw JP move on to his box jumps. With 2 or 3 reps left, I saw Pam move on to her box jumps. I wasn't terribly far behind either of them, but I thought the overhead squats would be the segment where I gained time on them. Instead, they had gained time on me.
I was relieved to be done with the overhead squats, but I had some genuine concerns about the upcoming box jumps. My legs didn't seem like they had a lot of spring in them and I was on the hook for 50 jumps. Add in that I was supposed to be rebounding on and off the box and suddenly I could envision myself crashing into the box a bunch of times due to fatigue. Luckily it only happened once. My sets were on the smaller side though. My first set was only 3 reps long. It is hard to talk yourself into doing more when you feel like you are about to fail. Eventually my sets became 4 reps long, then 5 reps. I think I even had one set of 6 in a row. In between sets, I looked like this:
Aimee did say take your rest on top of the box
I knew I was using up a lot of time with these little sets, but there wasn't a whole lot I could do unless I convinced myself to keep rebounding until I tripped and fell. JP and Pam were back on their rowers. I had taken a few glances at the clock and it wasn't looking good for me as far as completing the second row was concerned. When I did finish my 50th box jump, I had slightly less than two minutes to go.
It may not have been a banner day for me with the overhead squats or the box jumps, but I was stronger than expected on both rows that I did. Seeing as my legs were tired and I had less than two minutes before time was called, I thought 30 calories seemed like a good target to shoot for. Was I probably going to fall short of that mark? I believed that would be the outcome. But that turned out not to be the case. I got into a solid rhythm. As the clock ticked towards 15 minutes, I realized that 30 calories was within reach. I pulled as hard as I could in the waning seconds and actually made it to 32 calories in round two. Final score: 232.
Another exhausting workout in the books, but I headed into my rest day with a much more positive feeling than I would have if I went into it after doing Fran.
Saturday preview: A rare Saturday appearance means fun with Coach Keithie. There are rope climbs, handstand push-ups, and one of the worst 500 meter sprints I've ever done on a rower.
Thursday, February 2, 2017
Mr. Frantensity
Workout date: 1/11/17
Fran was the first Crossfit WOD that I heard people talk about when I joined way back when. I imagined that if you ever wanted to date a Crossfitter, you needed to know their turn-offs (gluten), their turn-ons (long ab tabata cash-outs on the beach), and their Fran time. Back then, I never imagined that I would specifically remember my best times for random workouts. Now I write a blog where I tell you exactly how many reps I did unbroken during the fourth round of a five-round workout. Go figure.
As a reminder, here's what Fran is:
"Fran"
21-15-9
Thrusters (95/65)
Pull-ups
I had done Fran on my own after doing Crossfit Total with Cline and Luke in December 2015. As 2016 drew to a close, I thought it would be a good time to once again test out my Fran time. That attempt at the end of 2015 was my first ever RX run through the workout. I hadn't even completed a pull-up workout without the assistance of a band until mid-February of 2015. Even with a band, my best Fran time was north of 11 minutes prior to that December attempt. My form wasn't very pretty when I did it RX, but I was very excited when I finished just under 10 minutes with a time of 9:51. Despite this accomplishment, it still seemed like there was room for improvement, which is why I wanted to try it again before the year ended. Then Aimee let us know that Fran (like Nancy) would be part of the 2017 benchmarking program with her first appearance scheduled for January. There was no reason to take her on before then. On Wednesday night, Fran made a grand entrance in her return to KOP and I was there to meet her head on.
Before I got a shot at Fran, the ladies of KOP were stocking up on Simple Green and paper towels. As had been the case with Grace the month before, a barrage of females were assaulting the KOP leaderboard with their performances. They would spend most of the day scrubbing each other's names off of the leaderboard. First, Becky made her first ever appearance on the leaderboard at the 6am class, securing the 3rd fastest Fran time in the gym. She begged the rest of the ladies in the gym not to knock her off, but they showed her no mercy. In fact, it was her partner-in-crime, Queen Pam, who would knock her out of 3rd place with her performance at the nooner. About 4 hours later, Jill A would wrestle the bronze medal out of Pam's hands by going 24 seconds faster than her. Finally, Maggie had enough of this battle royale for third place. She went ahead and put up the fastest Fran time ever in our gym (3:26), knocking Jill from the board as the previous top two times slid down a spot.
The guys in the evening classes were not out to knock people off of the leaderboard. We were all simply shooting for respectable times on this workout. I showed up early for the 7:30 class and got to watch most of the guys in the 6:30 class. Cline had stated that one of his goals for 2017 was to complete Fran in under 8 minutes. He came very close on his first attempt of the year, but ended up with a time of 8:25. Bryan S was taking on Fran for the very 1st time. He used 65 pounds for his thrusters and finished with a very respectable time of 8:59. The best performance I saw in the 6:30 class went to Borden. He did a lot of singles on the pull-up bar, but he was a machine working through them. He stopped the clock at 6:16.
I was joining 5 others in Coach Jenna's 7:30 class and I had no ambitions of challenging Borden's time. Truth be told, my goal was exactly the same as Cline's: complete Fran in under 8 minutes. With a previous best of 9:51, that might sound a little aggressive. I did have a plan though. (Don't I always?) I remembered from my last attempt at Fran that the worst part was having to jump up to the high bar over and over again. The thrusters did a number on your legs, so you wanted to limit the number of times you had to jump up to the pull-up bar. For the pull-up studs in the gym, the solution to this problem was simple. They could simply butterfly or kip through 21 reps in a row during their first set. That was not a practical solution for someone of my abilities. My plan was to treat the pull-up section of Fran like I treated Nicole. In Nicole, you have to go run 400 meters whenever you drop from the bar, so it becomes a bit of a grip strength workout. It doesn't matter how ugly your pull-ups are, you hold on to that bar! I might not be able to butterfly or kip pull-ups very well, but I thought I would be able to hold on to that bar for large sets. (Spoiler: I would be mistaken.)
The six of us were tucked into the back half of the gym as the Barbell Club was using the front of the gym. Jenna got us warmed up with progressions on the pull-up bar and then broke down the thruster movement for us. Then she advised us to partner up as we'd be doing Fran in two heats. Keith S and Kevin were a team. Therese and Nicole N were a team. Julie Foucher and I formed the third team. We talked about who should go first and Julie didn't seem all that interested in leading things off, so I wound up taking part in heat one. Aside from that pesky cold that has been haunting me all winter long, I felt good as I got ready to go. Part of me thought that it might be a good idea to string all 21 thrusters in the first round, but it was something I was going to feel out along the way. No sense in committing to that if I needed a break. Jenna made sure heat one was ready and we were on our way.
The thrusters didn't feel too bad during the round of 21, nor did I expect them to. I had used 95 pounds for the thrusters during The Seven workout and that first round of 7 reps was fairly easy. As I neared my 10th rep, I felt like I had a decision to make. The question wasn't whether I could hold on for 21 reps in a row, it was whether or not I'd pay the price for stringing all 21 reps. Something told me that I'd probably get to 15 or so and want to put the barbell down, so it would probably be wise to break up the round of 21. I completed my 12th rep and dropped my barbell. There was a reason for dropping after 12. I wanted to get used to doing sets of at least 9 reps. If I went 12 and 9 here, I could go 9 and 6 in the second round, and then try for all 9 in round three. Again, this would take place in that mythical world where my plans play out exactly as they do in my head.
I completed the second set of 9 reps and felt like I was on pace to break 8 minutes as long as I didn't screw up the pull-ups. I took a moment before jumping up to my bar. I kipped 2 reps, then came to a dead hang. I did another rep, came to a dead hang again, then did 1 more rep before needing to drop from the bar. That wasn't good. During Nicole, my first three sets were 12, 9, and 9. Four was a long ways off from that. On my next two sets, I managed three reps each. I had done a poor job of predicting what part of my body would be wrecked from the thrusters. I thought my legs would be burning, but it was really my core that was on fire. And hanging from the bar wasn't only about grip strength, it was about stretching that same core area while you got ready to do the next rep. (Note: At first I couldn't figure out why my core was hurting so badly this early in the workout. Later on, I remembered that I had done 45 GHD sit-ups on Monday. That would do it. As always, I was feeling the pain two days later.)
My plan was already ruined. I knew after 10 reps that I'd have to take my chances with singles. It took some time to grind through those final 11 pull-ups, but I managed. Round one felt a lot worse than I thought it would feel, but from a time perspective I thought I still had a shot at 8 minutes.
Then came round two. I should know by now that the middle round (or the third round in a four round workout) is where I tend to take my foot off the gas. I'm generally hurting already and, whether I'm aware of it or not, I'm saving something for that final sprint. During round one, I had told myself that I was going to go 9 and 6 for this round of thrusters. Instead, I picked up the barbell, did 3 thrusters and told myself that I would do 5 sets rather than the aforementioned two. Was it out of laziness? No. I can legitimately say that I was struggling and doing smaller sets was less painful. It also gave me more breaks to recover. Was it helpful in my pursuit of 8 minutes? Absolutely not. But I could make up for that with a stellar performance on the pull-up bar.
Oh wait...now I see the giant flaw in my logic! After struggling during the round of 21 pull-ups, I'm not sure what made me think I'd walk over and push through 15 pull-ups in a reasonable amount of time. Especially since I had already experienced the effect that the thrusters had on my core. I finished up my 5th set of 3 thrusters, came back over to my pull-up bar, and the real struggle began. There was lots of bending over trying to get my breath back. There were the always unfortunate no-reps. There was the realization I was falling behind my classmates. All of these things were not helping me complete this workout. Julie was doing a great job of encouraging me along, but I was not moving very fast at all. I knew 8 minutes wasn't happening. I didn't think 10 minutes was happening either. As I closed in on pull-up #15, I began to get really pissed off about how poorly this workout was going.
If there is one thing at the gym that I have randomly gotten better at, it is taking my frustrations out on barbells. When I finished up the round of 15 pull-ups, I wasn't sure if the other people in my heat were finished, but I figured they might be. It felt like one of those moments where everyone was waiting on me to finish. And I was pretty angry about that. So when I got to my barbell for the final round of 9 thrusters, I decided that I was going to use my rage. I wasn't putting the barbell down after 3 reps. With any luck, I wouldn't put it down until I had completed all 9. I went to do the first rep and decided I was going to go as fast as I could. It probably started hurting around rep #4, but I kept going. Plus I kept getting louder. I was doing the best Mr. Intensity impression I could to get through this round. There was a grunt every time I hit the bottom of the squat and a yell every time I pressed the barbell overhead. I was a man possessed. I was a slow, sweaty man, but a possessed one nonetheless.
I finished the 9th consecutive thruster, dropped the barbell, and marched over to the pull-up bar determined. I was going to use my anger here as well. I jumped up and did the first rep. I came back down and jumped up for the second rep. Only I didn't get high enough to get my chin over the bar. No rep. Clearly rage only works with the barbell. I took a break and then proceeded to do 4 singles in a row. One more break, then I got through the remaining 4 singles. As I turned around to look at the clock, I expected to see something in the 10-11 minute range. Final time: 9:18.
That performance seemed a whole lot worse than the one from 13 months ago, yet somehow it was a 33 second PR. I felt disgusted more than elated. Confusion was the emotion that I was feeling the most. How could I possibly have gone 33 seconds during that shit show? If I was being really optimistic, I could look at this workout and have the takeaway that if I was even remotely competent the next time around, I should definitely challenge that goal of 8 minutes. However, in that time between when I finished and when I began counting for Julie in heat two, I could only think about how much I had screwed up. It was the least gratifying PR I had ever gotten in Crossfit.
Julie showed me how it was done during her heat as she completed Fran PRX (pregnant prescribed) nearly a minute faster than I did. She was much better about keeping an even tempo throughout the workout even though she was carrying a child. (Note: It only appears like I am carrying a child. It's nothing more than my gut.) Hopefully I can pace more like Julie when we take Fran on again in April.
Thursday preview: I opt out of a rest day in order to do a WOD that includes 100 overhead squats. Also, I follow Aimee's instructions a bit too well.
Fran was the first Crossfit WOD that I heard people talk about when I joined way back when. I imagined that if you ever wanted to date a Crossfitter, you needed to know their turn-offs (gluten), their turn-ons (long ab tabata cash-outs on the beach), and their Fran time. Back then, I never imagined that I would specifically remember my best times for random workouts. Now I write a blog where I tell you exactly how many reps I did unbroken during the fourth round of a five-round workout. Go figure.
As a reminder, here's what Fran is:
"Fran"
21-15-9
Thrusters (95/65)
Pull-ups
I had done Fran on my own after doing Crossfit Total with Cline and Luke in December 2015. As 2016 drew to a close, I thought it would be a good time to once again test out my Fran time. That attempt at the end of 2015 was my first ever RX run through the workout. I hadn't even completed a pull-up workout without the assistance of a band until mid-February of 2015. Even with a band, my best Fran time was north of 11 minutes prior to that December attempt. My form wasn't very pretty when I did it RX, but I was very excited when I finished just under 10 minutes with a time of 9:51. Despite this accomplishment, it still seemed like there was room for improvement, which is why I wanted to try it again before the year ended. Then Aimee let us know that Fran (like Nancy) would be part of the 2017 benchmarking program with her first appearance scheduled for January. There was no reason to take her on before then. On Wednesday night, Fran made a grand entrance in her return to KOP and I was there to meet her head on.
Before I got a shot at Fran, the ladies of KOP were stocking up on Simple Green and paper towels. As had been the case with Grace the month before, a barrage of females were assaulting the KOP leaderboard with their performances. They would spend most of the day scrubbing each other's names off of the leaderboard. First, Becky made her first ever appearance on the leaderboard at the 6am class, securing the 3rd fastest Fran time in the gym. She begged the rest of the ladies in the gym not to knock her off, but they showed her no mercy. In fact, it was her partner-in-crime, Queen Pam, who would knock her out of 3rd place with her performance at the nooner. About 4 hours later, Jill A would wrestle the bronze medal out of Pam's hands by going 24 seconds faster than her. Finally, Maggie had enough of this battle royale for third place. She went ahead and put up the fastest Fran time ever in our gym (3:26), knocking Jill from the board as the previous top two times slid down a spot.
The guys in the evening classes were not out to knock people off of the leaderboard. We were all simply shooting for respectable times on this workout. I showed up early for the 7:30 class and got to watch most of the guys in the 6:30 class. Cline had stated that one of his goals for 2017 was to complete Fran in under 8 minutes. He came very close on his first attempt of the year, but ended up with a time of 8:25. Bryan S was taking on Fran for the very 1st time. He used 65 pounds for his thrusters and finished with a very respectable time of 8:59. The best performance I saw in the 6:30 class went to Borden. He did a lot of singles on the pull-up bar, but he was a machine working through them. He stopped the clock at 6:16.
I was joining 5 others in Coach Jenna's 7:30 class and I had no ambitions of challenging Borden's time. Truth be told, my goal was exactly the same as Cline's: complete Fran in under 8 minutes. With a previous best of 9:51, that might sound a little aggressive. I did have a plan though. (Don't I always?) I remembered from my last attempt at Fran that the worst part was having to jump up to the high bar over and over again. The thrusters did a number on your legs, so you wanted to limit the number of times you had to jump up to the pull-up bar. For the pull-up studs in the gym, the solution to this problem was simple. They could simply butterfly or kip through 21 reps in a row during their first set. That was not a practical solution for someone of my abilities. My plan was to treat the pull-up section of Fran like I treated Nicole. In Nicole, you have to go run 400 meters whenever you drop from the bar, so it becomes a bit of a grip strength workout. It doesn't matter how ugly your pull-ups are, you hold on to that bar! I might not be able to butterfly or kip pull-ups very well, but I thought I would be able to hold on to that bar for large sets. (Spoiler: I would be mistaken.)
The six of us were tucked into the back half of the gym as the Barbell Club was using the front of the gym. Jenna got us warmed up with progressions on the pull-up bar and then broke down the thruster movement for us. Then she advised us to partner up as we'd be doing Fran in two heats. Keith S and Kevin were a team. Therese and Nicole N were a team. Julie Foucher and I formed the third team. We talked about who should go first and Julie didn't seem all that interested in leading things off, so I wound up taking part in heat one. Aside from that pesky cold that has been haunting me all winter long, I felt good as I got ready to go. Part of me thought that it might be a good idea to string all 21 thrusters in the first round, but it was something I was going to feel out along the way. No sense in committing to that if I needed a break. Jenna made sure heat one was ready and we were on our way.
The thrusters didn't feel too bad during the round of 21, nor did I expect them to. I had used 95 pounds for the thrusters during The Seven workout and that first round of 7 reps was fairly easy. As I neared my 10th rep, I felt like I had a decision to make. The question wasn't whether I could hold on for 21 reps in a row, it was whether or not I'd pay the price for stringing all 21 reps. Something told me that I'd probably get to 15 or so and want to put the barbell down, so it would probably be wise to break up the round of 21. I completed my 12th rep and dropped my barbell. There was a reason for dropping after 12. I wanted to get used to doing sets of at least 9 reps. If I went 12 and 9 here, I could go 9 and 6 in the second round, and then try for all 9 in round three. Again, this would take place in that mythical world where my plans play out exactly as they do in my head.
I completed the second set of 9 reps and felt like I was on pace to break 8 minutes as long as I didn't screw up the pull-ups. I took a moment before jumping up to my bar. I kipped 2 reps, then came to a dead hang. I did another rep, came to a dead hang again, then did 1 more rep before needing to drop from the bar. That wasn't good. During Nicole, my first three sets were 12, 9, and 9. Four was a long ways off from that. On my next two sets, I managed three reps each. I had done a poor job of predicting what part of my body would be wrecked from the thrusters. I thought my legs would be burning, but it was really my core that was on fire. And hanging from the bar wasn't only about grip strength, it was about stretching that same core area while you got ready to do the next rep. (Note: At first I couldn't figure out why my core was hurting so badly this early in the workout. Later on, I remembered that I had done 45 GHD sit-ups on Monday. That would do it. As always, I was feeling the pain two days later.)
My plan was already ruined. I knew after 10 reps that I'd have to take my chances with singles. It took some time to grind through those final 11 pull-ups, but I managed. Round one felt a lot worse than I thought it would feel, but from a time perspective I thought I still had a shot at 8 minutes.
Then came round two. I should know by now that the middle round (or the third round in a four round workout) is where I tend to take my foot off the gas. I'm generally hurting already and, whether I'm aware of it or not, I'm saving something for that final sprint. During round one, I had told myself that I was going to go 9 and 6 for this round of thrusters. Instead, I picked up the barbell, did 3 thrusters and told myself that I would do 5 sets rather than the aforementioned two. Was it out of laziness? No. I can legitimately say that I was struggling and doing smaller sets was less painful. It also gave me more breaks to recover. Was it helpful in my pursuit of 8 minutes? Absolutely not. But I could make up for that with a stellar performance on the pull-up bar.
Oh wait...now I see the giant flaw in my logic! After struggling during the round of 21 pull-ups, I'm not sure what made me think I'd walk over and push through 15 pull-ups in a reasonable amount of time. Especially since I had already experienced the effect that the thrusters had on my core. I finished up my 5th set of 3 thrusters, came back over to my pull-up bar, and the real struggle began. There was lots of bending over trying to get my breath back. There were the always unfortunate no-reps. There was the realization I was falling behind my classmates. All of these things were not helping me complete this workout. Julie was doing a great job of encouraging me along, but I was not moving very fast at all. I knew 8 minutes wasn't happening. I didn't think 10 minutes was happening either. As I closed in on pull-up #15, I began to get really pissed off about how poorly this workout was going.
If there is one thing at the gym that I have randomly gotten better at, it is taking my frustrations out on barbells. When I finished up the round of 15 pull-ups, I wasn't sure if the other people in my heat were finished, but I figured they might be. It felt like one of those moments where everyone was waiting on me to finish. And I was pretty angry about that. So when I got to my barbell for the final round of 9 thrusters, I decided that I was going to use my rage. I wasn't putting the barbell down after 3 reps. With any luck, I wouldn't put it down until I had completed all 9. I went to do the first rep and decided I was going to go as fast as I could. It probably started hurting around rep #4, but I kept going. Plus I kept getting louder. I was doing the best Mr. Intensity impression I could to get through this round. There was a grunt every time I hit the bottom of the squat and a yell every time I pressed the barbell overhead. I was a man possessed. I was a slow, sweaty man, but a possessed one nonetheless.
I finished the 9th consecutive thruster, dropped the barbell, and marched over to the pull-up bar determined. I was going to use my anger here as well. I jumped up and did the first rep. I came back down and jumped up for the second rep. Only I didn't get high enough to get my chin over the bar. No rep. Clearly rage only works with the barbell. I took a break and then proceeded to do 4 singles in a row. One more break, then I got through the remaining 4 singles. As I turned around to look at the clock, I expected to see something in the 10-11 minute range. Final time: 9:18.
That performance seemed a whole lot worse than the one from 13 months ago, yet somehow it was a 33 second PR. I felt disgusted more than elated. Confusion was the emotion that I was feeling the most. How could I possibly have gone 33 seconds during that shit show? If I was being really optimistic, I could look at this workout and have the takeaway that if I was even remotely competent the next time around, I should definitely challenge that goal of 8 minutes. However, in that time between when I finished and when I began counting for Julie in heat two, I could only think about how much I had screwed up. It was the least gratifying PR I had ever gotten in Crossfit.
Julie showed me how it was done during her heat as she completed Fran PRX (pregnant prescribed) nearly a minute faster than I did. She was much better about keeping an even tempo throughout the workout even though she was carrying a child. (Note: It only appears like I am carrying a child. It's nothing more than my gut.) Hopefully I can pace more like Julie when we take Fran on again in April.
Thursday preview: I opt out of a rest day in order to do a WOD that includes 100 overhead squats. Also, I follow Aimee's instructions a bit too well.
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