Workout date: 7/18/17
You've already seen what my arms looked like after Monday's wall climbing extravaganza. I didn't share pictures of my chest because...well, because I don't take shirtless pictures of myself. That seems a little too Carlos Danger-esque for my taste. You won't be surprised to learn that my upper torso was covered with bruises just as my arms were. Crossfit is rarely confused with organized sports, but it sure felt like I had taken part in Monday night football. I was hoping for a nice, relaxing strength session on Tuesday night that might allow me to recover a bit. Lo and behold, a strength WOD was programmed! Unfortunately, I wasn't specific enough with my telepathic request. This strength WOD would end with not one, but two cash-outs at the end. That didn't sound like a recovery day to me.
There were seven of us sweating our way through another humid version of Dudes After Dark. Esra was the only lady in class. She would have to put up with the antics of Keith D, Neil, Bryan, Bret, Actuary Mike, and myself. During the first half of class, we'd be working our way towards a 5RM back squat. Then we would tackle the following two cash-outs:
Cash-out #1:
Using 70% of your 5RM, 1 min AMRAP of back squats (don't put your barbell down!)
Cash-out #2:
7 minute AMRAP
10 thrusters (115/75)
15 alternating DB snatch (50/35)
I wasn't terribly excited about either of those cash-outs, but I have developed a taste for heavy squats, so I started working on a game plan for my 5RM. This was one of our benchmark workouts for the year and I was trying to keep a streak going. When we had done this in January, I hit a PR of 285 pounds. In April, I hit another PR when I did 5 back squats with 290 pounds on my barbell. Tonight I would be trying to get my third straight PR by doing 5 reps at 295 pounds. How would I get there? I can name that tune in six notes: 135-185-225-255-275-295.
My upper body might have been extremely sore, but my legs were feeling good early on. I rapidly moved through the sets at 135, 185, and 225. Usually I'll pause a couple of times during the set at 225, but that wasn't necessary on this night. The ease with which I did that third set made me reconsider my overall plan. I had been steadily increasing my 5RM by 5 pounds every three months, so 295 was the natural next step, but wouldn't 300 pounds sound so much sexier? I developed a Plan B. If my set at 255 felt really good, I'd go with 285 and 300 for my final two sets. If the set at 225 was a fluke and 255 felt like it normally did, then I'd stick with the original plan of 275 and 295.
Suddenly my fourth set of the night had a lot more riding on it than it typically does. I could have gotten all anxious about it, but instead I watched a couple of the bigger guys in class easily dispatch more weight than I was about to have on my barbell. I had never taken class with Bret, but he was very impressive to watch on the back squat. He would end up doing a set with 345 pounds on his barbell. I always joke that Neil doesn't know how strong he is, but I think he's starting to figure it out. He would wind up with a top set of 315 pounds.
Watching those guys close in on some big-time PR's sent good vibes my way. That crucial set at 255 required pauses, but I was never in trouble. That meant I was headed to 285 for my next set. I was very deliberate on each of the reps in that set, but my form remained excellent. Didn't get stuck at all. Didn't even come up on my toes as I'm known to do. I was really feeling good about my chances on the set at 300 pounds.
Sadly, things wouldn't go my way on the last set. If you told me in advance that I would fail on the set at 300 pounds, I would have guessed that I made it through 3 or 4 reps, then got stuck on a rep and couldn't fight through it. It would have been disappointing, but I would have understood. What actually happened was very different. I took the barbell from the rack and prepared myself for the first rep. The barbell didn't feel impossibly heavy or anything like that. When I hit the bottom of the squat, I was confident that I'd be standing up with the barbell about 2 seconds later. Instead, I barely moved from that position. When I get stuck on a squat, it usually happens after I've come up from the bottom a little bit. Not this time. I couldn't get any drive out of the bottom. As I tried to escape my predicament, I noticed some pain in my right calf. I was not messing around with 300 pounds while cramping. I tossed the barbell off of my shoulders and dove forward. A promising night of back squats came to a disappointing end. There would be no PR for me tonight.
The problem for me was that the next item on the docket was more back squats. They would be lighter back squats, but I wasn't sure how heavy I should go (or if I should do any at all) because of the cramping in my calf. I had some time between my last set and cash-out #1, so I spent it rubbing out the afflicted calf. It felt like I had avoided the truly awful version of a cramp (sharp pain that won't go away) and was experiencing his mild cousin instead. Could I do a minute of back squats with 205 pounds like I had done in January and April? I hoped so. If the pain flared up again, I was just going to stand with the barbell on my back instead of squatting. (The rule for cash-out #1 was that you couldn't drop the barbell or put it on the rack before a minute was up. I was pretty sure I could stand with 205 pounds for 60 seconds, if necessary.)
LC made sure everyone had shed 30% of their 5RM weight and got the clock ready for our sixty second sprint. I made it through about 20 seconds before I started to feel some pain. It wasn't so bad that I needed to stop doing back squats, but it wasn't something I wanted to mess with by trying to sprint for a full minute. I slowed down my pace over the next 30 seconds, then tried to be a hero for the last 10 seconds or so. After getting 18 reps in January and April, I only got 16 this time, although that was pretty good considering the circumstances.
Cash-out #2 was a new one for me. The thrusters were moderately heavy, but there were only 10 per round. Similar story with the DB snatches: moderate weight, moderate volume. Just like the first cash-out, it seemed like something I could get through, but it probably wasn't going to feel wonderful. I split up the first 10 thrusters into equal sets of 5 reps. I thought the DB snatches would turn out to be the easier of the two movements, but it turned out to be the opposite. I kept up my pattern of doing 5 reps per set, but every time I caught a snatch with bent knees, I felt pain. I'm not sure why I didn't experience the same pain when I did the thrusters. All I know is I was glad to return to the barbell. I had to break up the thrusters more the second time around, going 4-3-3. When I came back to my DB, I stumbled upon a pain-free way of getting through the snatches. On my first rep, I grabbed the DB and threw it up over my head. I forgot to bend my knees during the rep, making it a muscle snatch. There's nothing wrong with doing the rep this way. Instead of feeling it in your legs, you notice the strain in your lower back. That was a fair trade for me. I was having leg problems, not back problems. Performing the reps this way was a bit more difficult, but I managed to complete 15 reps in three sets again.
When I returned to my barbell, there was less than a minute left in the cash-out. I did 3 thrusters before dropping the barbell. I was desperate for a break, but I told myself I could have as much rest as I liked once the cash-out was over. As time was ticking down, I picked the barbell up and pushed through 4 more reps. Final score: 2+7.
LC asked us for a summary of our workouts. She went around the room asking what we got on our 5RM and if that was a PR or not. Then she asked us for our scores on the two cash-outs. She told everyone that they did a good job before adding "especially those of you who got PR's". I knew I hadn't gotten a PR, so I felt a little left out by that comment. The only other person in class to not get a PR was Mike. He was more vocal about feeling excluded by LC's comment. This seemed like a wonderful opportunity to give LC a hard time, so I chimed in as well. We both knew that LC had no malice behind her comment, but we decided to have some fun with her. LC tried to make us understand that she wasn't leaving us out, but we kept pretending to be hurt by what she said. Mike and I proclaimed that we would need to console ourselves with ice cream at Frosty Falls.
In the end, nearly the entire class would head over to Frosty Falls for a post-WOD treat. While we enjoyed some ice cream to cap off the evening, we took turns guessing what PR stood for in LC's mind. My favorite interpretation of PR was "Performance Respected", because LC had only shown real love to the 5 athletes with PR next to their names. (I kid, I kid!)
Wednesday preview: The environment inside the gym becomes pretty unbearable. For the third week in a row, I struggle in coach Jenna's class.
Sunday, October 8, 2017
Saturday, October 7, 2017
Like You Would Have Listened
Workout dates: 7/16/17 and 7/17/17
Having taken a rest day on Thursday, I felt like I should exercise one day on the weekend to make up for my unscheduled day off. I wasn't interested in either of the WODs that were programmed, so I decided that my exercise would come in the form of the Flight Simulator on Sunday afternoon. Rather than head to the gym, I would be jumping rope in my driveway. The conditions outside were not to my liking. I often talk in this blog about how much of an effect the heat has on me. I was escaping the humid gym this afternoon, but I wouldn't be getting much in the way of a reprieve. The sun showed me no mercy as I went through some practice sets with my jump rope. Sweat was dripping off of me before I had even started on my 25 minute double under journey. I was probably going to fatigue quicker than normal in this heat, so it was essential that I keep my mistakes to a minimum. Additional attempts at long sets were going to be much more penalizing on this day.
I set the timer on my phone to 25 minutes, laid it on the trunk of my car, clicked start and began the Flight Simulator. Early on, things went well as I got through the sets of 5, 10, 15, and 20 without tripping up. Then I messed up a few times during the set of 25 before completing it. Wasted energy! I was already working hard to calm my breathing between sets and I hadn't really gotten to the difficult part of this WOD. The breaks I took were longer than I would have liked, but I felt they were necessary. The strategy seemed to be paying off when I got the sets of 30, 35, and 40 on my initial attempts at them. If I could just get through the next three sets in a reasonable amount of time, I might be able to complete this workout once and for all.
That dream came crashing down on the set of 45. There's nothing worse than coming close to finishing a big set and then failing right towards the end. I did that three times during the set of 45. 34 in a row? No good. 36 in a row? Counts for nada. Another 34 in a row? I think we've covered this. That was 104 total double unders that did nothing but get my heart rate up. My chances of completing the Flight Simulator today were kaput.
I was eventually able to get through the set of 50 and the set of 45 on the downhill side of this workout, but time was running out on me. At least I think it was. As I took a break before starting the next set of 40, I saw that my iPhone was no longer showing the timer. Instead it was displaying a warning letting me know that the phone could not be used until it had cooled down. I guess leaving my iPhone sitting on the trunk of my car under the hot sun was not the best idea. I took it inside my garage and left it there to cool, hoping that it would be functional again before my 25 minutes were up.
I was now in no mans land, having to guess how much longer it would be until the 25 minute time cap was up. After completing the set of 40 and 35, I checked to see if the timer was functioning again. It was not. I should have just been focused on completing the next set, but there was part of me that worried I'd make it to the end of the entire Flight Simulator only to find that the timer had reset and that I had gone beyond the 25 minutes without knowing it.
Fatigue and lack of focus led to 2 misses on the set of 30. I checked my phone one more time and was supplied with both good and bad news. The good news was that the timer was working. The bad news is that it showed I had 15 seconds left. I had no chance of completing 30 double unders in that time frame, so I was done, six sets short of the finish line. The Flight Simulator had defeated me once again.
The next night, I arrived at KOP to take part in the 6:30 class led by coach Giulz. It was a madhouse. 16 people were in attendance and this was not a WOD that lent itself to a large class. Here's what was on tap:
Monday's WOD:
12 clean and jerks (135/95)
5 wall ascents (8'/6')
12 power snatches (135/95)
5 wall ascents
12 bar muscle-ups
5 wall ascents
5 rope climbs (20' or 15' on the short ropes)
If you're wondering what the short ropes are, those are the new additions to the middle of the gym. We've always had 4 ropes for climbing in the back of the gym. Then we added another one to the middle of the gym. More recently, Aimee has provided two short ropes like the ones used at Regionals and at the Crossfit Games. Because these ropes do not go all the way to the floor, athletes are forced to jump up and climb legless for a few pulls. At that point, they should be high enough that their feet can touch the rope. From there, you can climb the rope as you normally would. When this option was described in class, I think there was some confusion because Giulz said you needed to go legless on those ropes. That was true, but only at the beginning of the climb. There were some athletes that tried to climb the entire 15' only using their arms, which was a brutal task at the end of this long WOD.
Since this workout had many elements and would take considerable time to complete, Giulz quickly moved us from one station to the next to go over each of the movements. I'm sure it was difficult organizing 16 people in a hurry, but she kept us in line. As we went from station to station, I thought about what scales (if any) I should use. The clean and jerk weight was relatively light, so I wasn't expecting any problems there. The power snatches were another story. In the same way that the power clean had drifted from my memory, the power snatch was a lift that I hadn't done a lot of recently. I catch almost all of my snatches in a full squat, but that wasn't allowed today. I'd have to be mindful of that, especially since 135 pounds wasn't going to be an easy weight for me. I gave some consideration to dropping my weight here, but that would require some pit crew work mid-WOD. There was a solid chance that I'd be near the back of the pack during this workout and changing plates was likely to put me even further behind. Besides, it was only 12 power snatches. I could handle that...right? (Really working hard to convince myself that 135 was the proper weight for me.)
The bar muscle-ups were easier to figure out. The chances of me completing 12 bar muscle-ups after all of that other work were slim and none. So my game plan was going to be based on how I felt when I got to that stage of the WOD. If I felt good when I got there, I'd try to get 1 or 2 bar muscle-ups. If I was exhausted (approx. chance: 99%), then I'd do chest-to-bar pull-ups instead.
That left the two climbs: wall climbs and rope climbs. There didn't seem to be much of a choice when it came to either. The 8' wall climb would be difficult, but the 6' wall climb was way too easy. It was sort of like the RX vs. scaled option in the Open. One felt like it might be pushing my limits, while the other wasn't really testing my limits at all. In situations like that, I'm always going to choose the challenge. As for the rope climb, I had no faith that I could pull off a legless climb of any duration at the end of the WOD, so I was going up to the 20' mark.
Giulz split us up into two waves and I wound up in the first wave. Justin C was right behind me waiting to go as part of the second wave. We were packed in tight with our barbells, so I had to remember not to walk back away from my barbell if I was taking a break between reps. It wasn't going to be an issue during the first two minutes, but I didn't want to be in his way later on. Speaking of being in the way, I was definitely concerned about causing a bottleneck at the wall. 9 of the 16 members of class were guys and we all had our eyes on the 8' wall. (Steph M also came over and climbed the 8' wall at one point.) Only one person can climb that wall at a time and you need to wait for the person to both climb the wall and come out from behind the other side before the next person can go. There would be a wait even if we were all fresh. Once we got tired and both waves were going, who knows how long the wait could be? It was important to try and stay out of the way if someone else was ready to go.
There was no point in standing around in the humidity any longer. Giulz got the first wave rolling. The 12 clean and jerks wouldn't take very long to complete, but I didn't rush through them. This was a long WOD and racing through the first movement would be a mistake. After a dozen clean and jerks, I got over to the wall and joined the conga line. When it was my turn to go, I sprinted to the wall, planted my foot, catapulted myself upward, and desperately grabbed the top with my arms. My technique sucked. It was so bad that I couldn't hold my grip. I slid down the wrong side of the wall and came back to the line. There was a chalk bucket near the line of guys waiting, so I went over and whitened up my hands. No point in compounding my technique issues with sweaty hands.
I was able to get up and over the wall on my next 5 attempts. Keithie was blazing through the workout, so I let him skip me in line once or twice. I wasn't super eager to get back in line each time I came over the wall. It was a lot of work hanging on to the top of the wall and pulling myself over. I needed long breaks between reps. When I came down from my 5th wall ascent, I slowly made my way back to my barbell. I was happy that I didn't have to deal with the wall for a while, but the power snatches had me concerned because I felt like I had been hit by a truck already.
These next 12 reps were designed to be "quick singles", but there was nothing quick about my next set. I was tortoise-like in my setup between reps. I had about 7 or 8 completed when I got a bit lazy on one of my snatches. My partial squat came dangerously close to being a full squat, which would have made it a no rep. After dropping the barbell, I had to confirm with Giulz (who was watching me at the time) that it truly was a power snatch. She let me know that it was. That ended up being my wake up call for the remaining power snatches. I might have been tired, but I couldn't afford to lose focus during the workout. My last 3-4 power snatches were much cleaner.
It was back to the wall for more ascents. We were mid-workout now, so all the guys seemed to be in line for the 8' wall. People began to fail on their attempts. And Giulz thought we were a bunch of idiots. She let us know that she thought we were letting our egos get the best of us and that some of us should have been scaling instead of trying to get up the big wall 15 times. I wasn't in much of a mood to hear criticisms given that I was sweaty, exhausted, and beaten up, so I said to Giulz "if you wanted me to scale, you should have just told me." Her response? "Like you would have listened!"
Did she have a point? I'm not sure. I was having a hard time with the wall ascents, but I didn't fail on any of my climbs during my second appearance at that station. I needed a lot of rest between attempts (I let Keithie, Justin, and Conn skip me in line during this round), but I was still getting over the wall. Plus the 6' wall would have been a ridiculous scale for me to use. Call it ego if you like, but I think I made the right choice by sticking with the 8' wall.
With another 5 wall ascents done, it was time to move over to the pull-up rig. Surprisingly, I would do my best work of the day at this station. Three legitimately quick singles of chest-to-bar pull-ups, then a break. Did four sets like that and before long I was back at the wall for the final time. The line was much smaller during my last set there. Some guys were done. Some guys had given in and moved to the 6' wall. Pretty soon, it was just me and Bryan there. I was successful on my 1st attempt of this round, but I didn't chalk up before my 2nd attempt and paid for it. Back down the wrong side I slid. Bryan was going to let me attempt the climb again, but I told him I needed some time before I gave the wall another try. About a minute later, Bryan finished up at the 8' wall. There was no one left to wave in front of me in line. I was the last one working there, on the hook for two more trips over the wall. I took my time because failing on another climb would have made an already deflating situation unbearable. It was painful colliding into that wall and pulling myself over two more times, but I made it happen.
There were still athletes working on the rope climbs, so I immediately felt better once I was finished with the wall. And not for nothing, I'm better at rope climbs than wall climbs, so that helped brighten up my mood. I made sure my hands had plenty of chalk on them each time I was ready to go up the rope. With Keithie in attendance, I also wanted to make sure I didn't disappoint him by using lousy form on my climbs. I'm not sure if he was watching the end of my workout (it had been a while since he finished), but I think he would have approved of my form, especially given how tired I was. I made nice big pulls, drawing my knees fairly high every time I moved up the rope. My only concern was holding on to the rope. My triceps are pretty weak to begin with, but they felt especially non-responsive during these climbs. The chalk kept my hands dry when I started each climb, but every time I neared the 20' mark, my hands felt slimy again.
(Why were my triceps non-responsive? This picture I took the next morning might shed some light on that matter. The wall beat me up pretty good!)
When you are tired and you feel like your grip is going, getting up the rope becomes a mental test. After my third climb, I discovered that I was the only athlete still working. I detected a hint of pity circle in the air. (Despite being the last one working, it actually didn't feel like a pity circle when the rest of the class was encouraging me. Probably because I was in good spirits at the time.) While I rested between climbs, I kept looking at the rope, telling myself I could get to the top. My grip would hold. Just needed to start climbing and have faith in my technique. I tapped the metal near the ceiling to end my 4th climb and slid down the rope. Usually in this situation, I'll start thinking about all of the times I've fallen one rep or one second short in a WOD. Not this time. I kept the positive thoughts flowing. I counted down the pulls as I made my way up the rope a final time. Three more pulls. Two more pulls. One more and you can reach up and slap the metal. I hit it and slid down to the floor. Final time: 28:41.
My time was 4 minutes worse than the second slowest time in my class (although some of the people who went over 24 minutes on this WOD were in the second wave, so it seemed like I was only 2 minutes behind them). Perhaps I should have scaled some things that I didn't and stayed with the class. All I know is that when I came down from that final climb to the ceiling, I felt really proud of myself. It's not often that I overcome mental obstacles at the gym, but I certainly did on this day. There may be some who would say I did this workout wrong given how long it took me, but if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.
Tuesday preview: LC is proud of all of us, but some more than others. Luckily, ice cream makes everything better.
Having taken a rest day on Thursday, I felt like I should exercise one day on the weekend to make up for my unscheduled day off. I wasn't interested in either of the WODs that were programmed, so I decided that my exercise would come in the form of the Flight Simulator on Sunday afternoon. Rather than head to the gym, I would be jumping rope in my driveway. The conditions outside were not to my liking. I often talk in this blog about how much of an effect the heat has on me. I was escaping the humid gym this afternoon, but I wouldn't be getting much in the way of a reprieve. The sun showed me no mercy as I went through some practice sets with my jump rope. Sweat was dripping off of me before I had even started on my 25 minute double under journey. I was probably going to fatigue quicker than normal in this heat, so it was essential that I keep my mistakes to a minimum. Additional attempts at long sets were going to be much more penalizing on this day.
I set the timer on my phone to 25 minutes, laid it on the trunk of my car, clicked start and began the Flight Simulator. Early on, things went well as I got through the sets of 5, 10, 15, and 20 without tripping up. Then I messed up a few times during the set of 25 before completing it. Wasted energy! I was already working hard to calm my breathing between sets and I hadn't really gotten to the difficult part of this WOD. The breaks I took were longer than I would have liked, but I felt they were necessary. The strategy seemed to be paying off when I got the sets of 30, 35, and 40 on my initial attempts at them. If I could just get through the next three sets in a reasonable amount of time, I might be able to complete this workout once and for all.
That dream came crashing down on the set of 45. There's nothing worse than coming close to finishing a big set and then failing right towards the end. I did that three times during the set of 45. 34 in a row? No good. 36 in a row? Counts for nada. Another 34 in a row? I think we've covered this. That was 104 total double unders that did nothing but get my heart rate up. My chances of completing the Flight Simulator today were kaput.
I was eventually able to get through the set of 50 and the set of 45 on the downhill side of this workout, but time was running out on me. At least I think it was. As I took a break before starting the next set of 40, I saw that my iPhone was no longer showing the timer. Instead it was displaying a warning letting me know that the phone could not be used until it had cooled down. I guess leaving my iPhone sitting on the trunk of my car under the hot sun was not the best idea. I took it inside my garage and left it there to cool, hoping that it would be functional again before my 25 minutes were up.
I was now in no mans land, having to guess how much longer it would be until the 25 minute time cap was up. After completing the set of 40 and 35, I checked to see if the timer was functioning again. It was not. I should have just been focused on completing the next set, but there was part of me that worried I'd make it to the end of the entire Flight Simulator only to find that the timer had reset and that I had gone beyond the 25 minutes without knowing it.
Fatigue and lack of focus led to 2 misses on the set of 30. I checked my phone one more time and was supplied with both good and bad news. The good news was that the timer was working. The bad news is that it showed I had 15 seconds left. I had no chance of completing 30 double unders in that time frame, so I was done, six sets short of the finish line. The Flight Simulator had defeated me once again.
The next night, I arrived at KOP to take part in the 6:30 class led by coach Giulz. It was a madhouse. 16 people were in attendance and this was not a WOD that lent itself to a large class. Here's what was on tap:
Monday's WOD:
12 clean and jerks (135/95)
5 wall ascents (8'/6')
12 power snatches (135/95)
5 wall ascents
12 bar muscle-ups
5 wall ascents
5 rope climbs (20' or 15' on the short ropes)
If you're wondering what the short ropes are, those are the new additions to the middle of the gym. We've always had 4 ropes for climbing in the back of the gym. Then we added another one to the middle of the gym. More recently, Aimee has provided two short ropes like the ones used at Regionals and at the Crossfit Games. Because these ropes do not go all the way to the floor, athletes are forced to jump up and climb legless for a few pulls. At that point, they should be high enough that their feet can touch the rope. From there, you can climb the rope as you normally would. When this option was described in class, I think there was some confusion because Giulz said you needed to go legless on those ropes. That was true, but only at the beginning of the climb. There were some athletes that tried to climb the entire 15' only using their arms, which was a brutal task at the end of this long WOD.
Since this workout had many elements and would take considerable time to complete, Giulz quickly moved us from one station to the next to go over each of the movements. I'm sure it was difficult organizing 16 people in a hurry, but she kept us in line. As we went from station to station, I thought about what scales (if any) I should use. The clean and jerk weight was relatively light, so I wasn't expecting any problems there. The power snatches were another story. In the same way that the power clean had drifted from my memory, the power snatch was a lift that I hadn't done a lot of recently. I catch almost all of my snatches in a full squat, but that wasn't allowed today. I'd have to be mindful of that, especially since 135 pounds wasn't going to be an easy weight for me. I gave some consideration to dropping my weight here, but that would require some pit crew work mid-WOD. There was a solid chance that I'd be near the back of the pack during this workout and changing plates was likely to put me even further behind. Besides, it was only 12 power snatches. I could handle that...right? (Really working hard to convince myself that 135 was the proper weight for me.)
The bar muscle-ups were easier to figure out. The chances of me completing 12 bar muscle-ups after all of that other work were slim and none. So my game plan was going to be based on how I felt when I got to that stage of the WOD. If I felt good when I got there, I'd try to get 1 or 2 bar muscle-ups. If I was exhausted (approx. chance: 99%), then I'd do chest-to-bar pull-ups instead.
That left the two climbs: wall climbs and rope climbs. There didn't seem to be much of a choice when it came to either. The 8' wall climb would be difficult, but the 6' wall climb was way too easy. It was sort of like the RX vs. scaled option in the Open. One felt like it might be pushing my limits, while the other wasn't really testing my limits at all. In situations like that, I'm always going to choose the challenge. As for the rope climb, I had no faith that I could pull off a legless climb of any duration at the end of the WOD, so I was going up to the 20' mark.
Giulz split us up into two waves and I wound up in the first wave. Justin C was right behind me waiting to go as part of the second wave. We were packed in tight with our barbells, so I had to remember not to walk back away from my barbell if I was taking a break between reps. It wasn't going to be an issue during the first two minutes, but I didn't want to be in his way later on. Speaking of being in the way, I was definitely concerned about causing a bottleneck at the wall. 9 of the 16 members of class were guys and we all had our eyes on the 8' wall. (Steph M also came over and climbed the 8' wall at one point.) Only one person can climb that wall at a time and you need to wait for the person to both climb the wall and come out from behind the other side before the next person can go. There would be a wait even if we were all fresh. Once we got tired and both waves were going, who knows how long the wait could be? It was important to try and stay out of the way if someone else was ready to go.
There was no point in standing around in the humidity any longer. Giulz got the first wave rolling. The 12 clean and jerks wouldn't take very long to complete, but I didn't rush through them. This was a long WOD and racing through the first movement would be a mistake. After a dozen clean and jerks, I got over to the wall and joined the conga line. When it was my turn to go, I sprinted to the wall, planted my foot, catapulted myself upward, and desperately grabbed the top with my arms. My technique sucked. It was so bad that I couldn't hold my grip. I slid down the wrong side of the wall and came back to the line. There was a chalk bucket near the line of guys waiting, so I went over and whitened up my hands. No point in compounding my technique issues with sweaty hands.
I was able to get up and over the wall on my next 5 attempts. Keithie was blazing through the workout, so I let him skip me in line once or twice. I wasn't super eager to get back in line each time I came over the wall. It was a lot of work hanging on to the top of the wall and pulling myself over. I needed long breaks between reps. When I came down from my 5th wall ascent, I slowly made my way back to my barbell. I was happy that I didn't have to deal with the wall for a while, but the power snatches had me concerned because I felt like I had been hit by a truck already.
These next 12 reps were designed to be "quick singles", but there was nothing quick about my next set. I was tortoise-like in my setup between reps. I had about 7 or 8 completed when I got a bit lazy on one of my snatches. My partial squat came dangerously close to being a full squat, which would have made it a no rep. After dropping the barbell, I had to confirm with Giulz (who was watching me at the time) that it truly was a power snatch. She let me know that it was. That ended up being my wake up call for the remaining power snatches. I might have been tired, but I couldn't afford to lose focus during the workout. My last 3-4 power snatches were much cleaner.
It was back to the wall for more ascents. We were mid-workout now, so all the guys seemed to be in line for the 8' wall. People began to fail on their attempts. And Giulz thought we were a bunch of idiots. She let us know that she thought we were letting our egos get the best of us and that some of us should have been scaling instead of trying to get up the big wall 15 times. I wasn't in much of a mood to hear criticisms given that I was sweaty, exhausted, and beaten up, so I said to Giulz "if you wanted me to scale, you should have just told me." Her response? "Like you would have listened!"
Did she have a point? I'm not sure. I was having a hard time with the wall ascents, but I didn't fail on any of my climbs during my second appearance at that station. I needed a lot of rest between attempts (I let Keithie, Justin, and Conn skip me in line during this round), but I was still getting over the wall. Plus the 6' wall would have been a ridiculous scale for me to use. Call it ego if you like, but I think I made the right choice by sticking with the 8' wall.
With another 5 wall ascents done, it was time to move over to the pull-up rig. Surprisingly, I would do my best work of the day at this station. Three legitimately quick singles of chest-to-bar pull-ups, then a break. Did four sets like that and before long I was back at the wall for the final time. The line was much smaller during my last set there. Some guys were done. Some guys had given in and moved to the 6' wall. Pretty soon, it was just me and Bryan there. I was successful on my 1st attempt of this round, but I didn't chalk up before my 2nd attempt and paid for it. Back down the wrong side I slid. Bryan was going to let me attempt the climb again, but I told him I needed some time before I gave the wall another try. About a minute later, Bryan finished up at the 8' wall. There was no one left to wave in front of me in line. I was the last one working there, on the hook for two more trips over the wall. I took my time because failing on another climb would have made an already deflating situation unbearable. It was painful colliding into that wall and pulling myself over two more times, but I made it happen.
There were still athletes working on the rope climbs, so I immediately felt better once I was finished with the wall. And not for nothing, I'm better at rope climbs than wall climbs, so that helped brighten up my mood. I made sure my hands had plenty of chalk on them each time I was ready to go up the rope. With Keithie in attendance, I also wanted to make sure I didn't disappoint him by using lousy form on my climbs. I'm not sure if he was watching the end of my workout (it had been a while since he finished), but I think he would have approved of my form, especially given how tired I was. I made nice big pulls, drawing my knees fairly high every time I moved up the rope. My only concern was holding on to the rope. My triceps are pretty weak to begin with, but they felt especially non-responsive during these climbs. The chalk kept my hands dry when I started each climb, but every time I neared the 20' mark, my hands felt slimy again.
(Why were my triceps non-responsive? This picture I took the next morning might shed some light on that matter. The wall beat me up pretty good!)
It actually looked worse than this 24 hours later
When you are tired and you feel like your grip is going, getting up the rope becomes a mental test. After my third climb, I discovered that I was the only athlete still working. I detected a hint of pity circle in the air. (Despite being the last one working, it actually didn't feel like a pity circle when the rest of the class was encouraging me. Probably because I was in good spirits at the time.) While I rested between climbs, I kept looking at the rope, telling myself I could get to the top. My grip would hold. Just needed to start climbing and have faith in my technique. I tapped the metal near the ceiling to end my 4th climb and slid down the rope. Usually in this situation, I'll start thinking about all of the times I've fallen one rep or one second short in a WOD. Not this time. I kept the positive thoughts flowing. I counted down the pulls as I made my way up the rope a final time. Three more pulls. Two more pulls. One more and you can reach up and slap the metal. I hit it and slid down to the floor. Final time: 28:41.
My time was 4 minutes worse than the second slowest time in my class (although some of the people who went over 24 minutes on this WOD were in the second wave, so it seemed like I was only 2 minutes behind them). Perhaps I should have scaled some things that I didn't and stayed with the class. All I know is that when I came down from that final climb to the ceiling, I felt really proud of myself. It's not often that I overcome mental obstacles at the gym, but I certainly did on this day. There may be some who would say I did this workout wrong given how long it took me, but if I had it to do all over again, I wouldn't change a thing.
Tuesday preview: LC is proud of all of us, but some more than others. Luckily, ice cream makes everything better.
Thursday, October 5, 2017
Community Paper Towels
Workout date: 7/14/17
I took Thursday off to recover. If I had to estimate, 40% of that recovery was physical. The other 60% was necessary to heal the mental scars from the shoot through WOD. It was easier returning to the gym knowing that the workout programmed for Friday night was one that I might be good at. It was a benchmark WOD called Gwen that I had missed in January and April. I had never done Gwen before, so let's get familiar with this lady together:
"Gwen"
15-12-9
Clean and jerks
*All reps must be unbroken. The athlete cannot let the barbell rest on the ground.
**The athlete chooses one weight for all three sets.
***Athletes have as much rest time as they would like between sets within the time constraints of the class.
Cycling a barbell and unlimited rest? That sounded like a good deal to me! I just had to figure out what weight was appropriate for me. About 3 weeks earlier, I had done a workout that was three rounds long, with each round ending with 9 unbroken clean and jerks at 135 pounds. If I could handle three rounds of 9 while taking on other movements in between, surely I could handle 15-12-9 with unlimited rest. Based on that logic, I decided that 135 would be too light for Gwen. 145 seemed like my magic number.
Coach Giulz had only three people in her 6:30 class on Friday night. It was me, Chris S, and Actuary Mike. Because there was going to be a lot of down time in this WOD and there was only one movement to warm up on, we did a lot of dynamic stretching to begin class. When that was done, we grabbed barbells and faced the lobby. Giulz was in front of her three students who had lined up in a triangle formation. I was set up in the middle of the gym, behind both Mike and Chris. Mike was to my front left, while Chris was to my front right. In the middle of the three of us was a roll of paper towels. It was still very warm in the gym and I knew that me and Mike would be sweating a lot. Chris was probably going to be sweating too. So I let my classmates know that I'd be placing a roll of community paper towels in the middle of the three of us in the hopes that it would help all of us be successful in this workout.
Giulz was explaining how important it was to move quickly in this workout, so she showed us a technique that I had learned from Keithie some time back. We were to power clean the barbell, then quickly transition into the jerk. Because you catch the power clean with a slight knee bend, it makes for a natural transition to the push jerk. The weight we'd be using for Gwen would be on the moderate side, so it made sense that we wouldn't have to turn the clean and jerk into a two-part movement. When the barbell is heavy, you will see athletes perform the clean, take some time to reset, then do the jerk. That wouldn't be necessary today.
Giulz wanted to see us do multiple reps with the clean and jerk as we added weight to the barbell just to prove that we had chosen the proper weight. I started with 95, then went to 125, before finishing at 145. I did three quick reps with each. To me, speed was a priority. I lack grip strength, so if I was going to hang on for 15 consecutive reps, I needed to move with some urgency. Mike settled on 110 for his barbell weight, while Chris was going to take on 135.
To say that the three of us had very different ways of attacking Gwen would be an understatement. Mike was the first of us to attempt the set of 15 unbroken clean and jerks. He had talked about doing 120 rather than 110 and I suspect that he might have been able to handle 120 had he tried it. He was very methodical during his set of 15. He didn't move with urgency like I felt I needed to. He also never really stopped along the way to fix his grip. He just plugged away through 15 reps, then dropped his barbell.
Chris was the exact opposite. The way he did Gwen was equal parts impressive and painful to watch. I'm not sure how far along he got before he decided to stop and fix his grip (he would fix his grip by pinching the barbell between his waist and his legs), but it had to have been before he got halfway through the set of 15. I was patiently waiting for my turn, but Chris took somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-4 minutes to get through his 15 reps. To his credit, the barbell never rested on the floor, but the way I imagined doing this workout was completely different from how he did it. I'm pretty sure Giulz didn't envision it that way either because she looked annoyed as Chris pinched the barbell to fix his grip after every single rep late in the set. Technically, he didn't violate any of the rules of the workout as he successfully completed his set of 15 clean and jerks.
With my two classmates having strung together 15 reps, I felt it was only right that I complete the trifecta by doing 15 straight myself. I rattled off 6 very quick reps before slowing down my pace. The next three reps were slower, but I was still able to maintain the Keithie technique. Reps 10 and 11 were considerably harder. I could feel my grip weakening. It wasn't as though I couldn't handle the clean or the jerk, but I desperately wanted to let go of the barbell for a second to give my hands a break. As I cleaned the barbell for a 12th time, my grip gave out on me. The barbell came flying out of my hands. It was extremely frustrating to do that much work and have it count for nothing. (Thoughts of the Flight Simulator flooded my mind.) I wasn't sure where I would go from here, but I knew I needed to take weight off of my barbell.
I may have learned a lesson during my failed attempt at the shoot through workout on Wednesday. Choosing 145 pounds for my barbell weight wasn't truly a mistake because I had never attempted Gwen before. Maybe that was the proper weight for me, maybe it wasn't. But it wasn't a crazy estimate of what I should try during my 1st attempt at this workout. Having failed on that first set though, I wasn't stubborn about what weight I would use to complete the workout and I wasn't stubborn about starting over. I removed 20 pounds from my barbell and decided that I would continue on with the WOD as though I had been successful on the set of 15. It was breaking one of the rules of this workout, but it was the right thing to do. I didn't even wait around long to get on with the set of 12. I was the last of our triumvirate to take part in the round of 15, but I would be the first one to begin the round of 12.
I must admit that I had concerns that 12 reps with 125 pounds would be too easy, but by the time I made it through 8-9 reps, I started to worry about my grip again. And that is when I learned that Gwen is not really about how much weight you can clean and jerk. Gwen was more like a hang clean workout. It was a grip tester. I had shown up thinking this might be a WOD that was in my wheelhouse, but the reality was that it was not. I did hang on to the barbell through 12 reps, but it was tougher than I expected.
Mike went next and had no issues with his set of 12. That left Chris, who must have used up 3 minutes to complete his set of 12. For reference, I've completed Grace (30 clean and jerks using 135 pounds) in 2:35. Grace doesn't require you to string all of the reps (or else I wouldn't be able to do it), but the fact that I could do 30 reps in less time than it took Chris to hang on for 12 should give you an idea of how long he had to fight to maintain his grip on the barbell.
Knowing that I got through 8-9 reps on my previous set before my grip started to wane made life easy for me on the final set. I patiently waited for Chris to complete his set of 12, then got right into my last set of 9. Part of me was still aggravated that I had messed up the set of 15, so I just wanted to have this workout over with. I picked up my barbell and pumped out 9 very fast reps. Not long after, Mike took care of his final 9 reps. Chris still needed an extended session to complete his workout, but he showed a lot of grit never letting that barbell touch the floor during his three sets.
If I was going to attempt Gwen again, I'd probably use 135 pounds. Could I handle 145 pounds? Maybe. I think going through this experience would give me a better shot with 145 pounds. Then again, 125 pounds wasn't easy, so it would probably be wise to work my way up to that weight by starting with 135 pounds next time.
Sunday/Monday preview: I take another shot at the Flight Simulator over the weekend. Then I tackle a very difficult WOD on Monday that includes clean and jerks, snatches, wall climbs, and rope climbs.
I took Thursday off to recover. If I had to estimate, 40% of that recovery was physical. The other 60% was necessary to heal the mental scars from the shoot through WOD. It was easier returning to the gym knowing that the workout programmed for Friday night was one that I might be good at. It was a benchmark WOD called Gwen that I had missed in January and April. I had never done Gwen before, so let's get familiar with this lady together:
"Gwen"
15-12-9
Clean and jerks
*All reps must be unbroken. The athlete cannot let the barbell rest on the ground.
**The athlete chooses one weight for all three sets.
***Athletes have as much rest time as they would like between sets within the time constraints of the class.
Cycling a barbell and unlimited rest? That sounded like a good deal to me! I just had to figure out what weight was appropriate for me. About 3 weeks earlier, I had done a workout that was three rounds long, with each round ending with 9 unbroken clean and jerks at 135 pounds. If I could handle three rounds of 9 while taking on other movements in between, surely I could handle 15-12-9 with unlimited rest. Based on that logic, I decided that 135 would be too light for Gwen. 145 seemed like my magic number.
Coach Giulz had only three people in her 6:30 class on Friday night. It was me, Chris S, and Actuary Mike. Because there was going to be a lot of down time in this WOD and there was only one movement to warm up on, we did a lot of dynamic stretching to begin class. When that was done, we grabbed barbells and faced the lobby. Giulz was in front of her three students who had lined up in a triangle formation. I was set up in the middle of the gym, behind both Mike and Chris. Mike was to my front left, while Chris was to my front right. In the middle of the three of us was a roll of paper towels. It was still very warm in the gym and I knew that me and Mike would be sweating a lot. Chris was probably going to be sweating too. So I let my classmates know that I'd be placing a roll of community paper towels in the middle of the three of us in the hopes that it would help all of us be successful in this workout.
Giulz was explaining how important it was to move quickly in this workout, so she showed us a technique that I had learned from Keithie some time back. We were to power clean the barbell, then quickly transition into the jerk. Because you catch the power clean with a slight knee bend, it makes for a natural transition to the push jerk. The weight we'd be using for Gwen would be on the moderate side, so it made sense that we wouldn't have to turn the clean and jerk into a two-part movement. When the barbell is heavy, you will see athletes perform the clean, take some time to reset, then do the jerk. That wouldn't be necessary today.
Giulz wanted to see us do multiple reps with the clean and jerk as we added weight to the barbell just to prove that we had chosen the proper weight. I started with 95, then went to 125, before finishing at 145. I did three quick reps with each. To me, speed was a priority. I lack grip strength, so if I was going to hang on for 15 consecutive reps, I needed to move with some urgency. Mike settled on 110 for his barbell weight, while Chris was going to take on 135.
To say that the three of us had very different ways of attacking Gwen would be an understatement. Mike was the first of us to attempt the set of 15 unbroken clean and jerks. He had talked about doing 120 rather than 110 and I suspect that he might have been able to handle 120 had he tried it. He was very methodical during his set of 15. He didn't move with urgency like I felt I needed to. He also never really stopped along the way to fix his grip. He just plugged away through 15 reps, then dropped his barbell.
Chris was the exact opposite. The way he did Gwen was equal parts impressive and painful to watch. I'm not sure how far along he got before he decided to stop and fix his grip (he would fix his grip by pinching the barbell between his waist and his legs), but it had to have been before he got halfway through the set of 15. I was patiently waiting for my turn, but Chris took somewhere in the neighborhood of 3-4 minutes to get through his 15 reps. To his credit, the barbell never rested on the floor, but the way I imagined doing this workout was completely different from how he did it. I'm pretty sure Giulz didn't envision it that way either because she looked annoyed as Chris pinched the barbell to fix his grip after every single rep late in the set. Technically, he didn't violate any of the rules of the workout as he successfully completed his set of 15 clean and jerks.
With my two classmates having strung together 15 reps, I felt it was only right that I complete the trifecta by doing 15 straight myself. I rattled off 6 very quick reps before slowing down my pace. The next three reps were slower, but I was still able to maintain the Keithie technique. Reps 10 and 11 were considerably harder. I could feel my grip weakening. It wasn't as though I couldn't handle the clean or the jerk, but I desperately wanted to let go of the barbell for a second to give my hands a break. As I cleaned the barbell for a 12th time, my grip gave out on me. The barbell came flying out of my hands. It was extremely frustrating to do that much work and have it count for nothing. (Thoughts of the Flight Simulator flooded my mind.) I wasn't sure where I would go from here, but I knew I needed to take weight off of my barbell.
I may have learned a lesson during my failed attempt at the shoot through workout on Wednesday. Choosing 145 pounds for my barbell weight wasn't truly a mistake because I had never attempted Gwen before. Maybe that was the proper weight for me, maybe it wasn't. But it wasn't a crazy estimate of what I should try during my 1st attempt at this workout. Having failed on that first set though, I wasn't stubborn about what weight I would use to complete the workout and I wasn't stubborn about starting over. I removed 20 pounds from my barbell and decided that I would continue on with the WOD as though I had been successful on the set of 15. It was breaking one of the rules of this workout, but it was the right thing to do. I didn't even wait around long to get on with the set of 12. I was the last of our triumvirate to take part in the round of 15, but I would be the first one to begin the round of 12.
I must admit that I had concerns that 12 reps with 125 pounds would be too easy, but by the time I made it through 8-9 reps, I started to worry about my grip again. And that is when I learned that Gwen is not really about how much weight you can clean and jerk. Gwen was more like a hang clean workout. It was a grip tester. I had shown up thinking this might be a WOD that was in my wheelhouse, but the reality was that it was not. I did hang on to the barbell through 12 reps, but it was tougher than I expected.
Mike went next and had no issues with his set of 12. That left Chris, who must have used up 3 minutes to complete his set of 12. For reference, I've completed Grace (30 clean and jerks using 135 pounds) in 2:35. Grace doesn't require you to string all of the reps (or else I wouldn't be able to do it), but the fact that I could do 30 reps in less time than it took Chris to hang on for 12 should give you an idea of how long he had to fight to maintain his grip on the barbell.
Knowing that I got through 8-9 reps on my previous set before my grip started to wane made life easy for me on the final set. I patiently waited for Chris to complete his set of 12, then got right into my last set of 9. Part of me was still aggravated that I had messed up the set of 15, so I just wanted to have this workout over with. I picked up my barbell and pumped out 9 very fast reps. Not long after, Mike took care of his final 9 reps. Chris still needed an extended session to complete his workout, but he showed a lot of grit never letting that barbell touch the floor during his three sets.
If I was going to attempt Gwen again, I'd probably use 135 pounds. Could I handle 145 pounds? Maybe. I think going through this experience would give me a better shot with 145 pounds. Then again, 125 pounds wasn't easy, so it would probably be wise to work my way up to that weight by starting with 135 pounds next time.
Sunday/Monday preview: I take another shot at the Flight Simulator over the weekend. Then I tackle a very difficult WOD on Monday that includes clean and jerks, snatches, wall climbs, and rope climbs.
Dizzy Up The Boy
Workout date: 7/12/17
I didn't have to worry about having one of my classmates beat me by a second for a 3rd consecutive night. That's because when I showed up to coach Jenna's Wednesday 7:30 class, I discovered that I would be doing the WOD by myself. I don't want you to have the impression that I attempted this workout in an empty, cavernous gym. It was actually filled with about a dozen people. Everyone else was just there to take part in this week's session with the Bridgeport Barbell Club. I wish I had joined them in practicing Olympic lifts rather than taking on this ridiculous WOD:
Wednesday's WOD:
5 rounds:
15 shoot throughs
20 KB swings (70/53)
30 calories on the rower
Shoot throughs are one of the hardest movements we do in the gym and this WOD had 75 of them. It's not that shoot throughs are technically complex, they just destroy your core and they do it quickly. To perform a shoot through, you plank on a set of paralettes as if you were going to do a push-up. Why are you set up that way? Because you're about to do a push-up. When you come out of the push-up, you swing your legs out in front of you without touching the floor. Now you're ready to do a dip. After completing the dip, you swing your legs backwards to where you started. And once again, your feet may not touch the floor along the way. So a shoot through is basically a push-up, a swinging crunch, a dip, and a reverse swinging crunch. That's one rep. 75 of them is craziness.
But there's more! There were 20 heavy KB swings per round. The 30 calories on the rower sounded like the most pleasant part of this WOD, but even that wasn't going to be a picnic. It was also likely to be about 140 degrees inside the gym. A peek at the scores early in the day showed that most athletes went beyond a half hour on this workout even if they scaled it.
Without watching anyone do this workout, I could have told you it was going to be terrible. But getting a glimpse at the 6:30 class finish up should have made me pivot and head right back out the door. There were 5 people in that class, with Neil and Conn closest to the front door. I watched them as they slowly worked through reps, sweating as badly as your follicly-challenged narrator typically does. Whenever they stopped working, they had this distant stare in their eyes that portrayed hatred for whoever came up with this heinous workout. Neil was the first one done at around the 34 minute mark. That didn't seem like a bad time to get through this entire WOD. Except Neil had stopped after 4 rounds. Uh oh. Run to your car! Run around Bridgeport and then to your car! You can claim you exercised that way. Just don't do this workout! Despite all I had seen, I made the incredibly poor decision to stick around and do this workout anyway.
Jenna walked me through each of the movements in the warmup. The shoot throughs were just as difficult as I remembered, so I made an attempt at a wise decision by letting Jenna know that I was scaling down from 15 per round to 10. 50 shoot throughs was plenty. When it came to the KB, I wanted to prove to myself that I could handle more than 10 consecutive swings with the 70 pound version. Even if the 20 reps at that station would eventually require 3 sets, I felt like that wasn't too much to ask. In retrospect, maybe I should have looked at the big picture and went with a lighter KB. That might have saved me later on. But sometimes I look at subsets of these workouts and think "I just want to prove to myself that I can do that". I knew my shoot through form would be lousy and that even doing 10 of those per round would take me a long time, but I didn't care. I wanted to show that my KB form had improved and that I could use the heavy KB in a metcon.
There was nothing to talk about with the row. I guess I could have done less calories than the 30 that were prescribed, but it seemed like this was the station where I'd get to catch my breath a little bit. Why not stay at that station as long as possible?
So to recap: I thought this workout would be near impossible. I watched a handful of people do this workout. What I saw not only confirmed my suspicions, it actually let me know that this WOD would be worse than I had given it credit for. And after all of that, the only scale I used was dropping 5 shoot throughs per round. I may have reached for the brass ring.
Here's a round-by-round summary of how things went for me:
- Round 1: Completed 2 shoot throughs at a time. Felt like I was breaking those up pretty well. At the KB swing, I went 12-8. Was happy how I held on for what I would call "big sets" with the 70 pounder. The row didn't exactly provide recovery, but it was also not as taxing as the other two stations were. Round 1 time: about 6:30.
- Round 2: Still attempted 2 shoot throughs at a time. Began failing on the swinging reverse crunch. Had to stop and re-do a few of those. My breaks between sets of 2 became longer. I was sweating a lot, so wiping off the paralettes between sets became a ritual. I went 12-8 on the KB swings again (hooray!), but the row was much more unpleasant than it had been in round one. Round 2 time: about 8:00.
- Round 3: Needed a decent break after completing round 2. Began the internal debate as to whether I should do all 5 rounds or stop after round 4. (Spoiler: I ended up going with a third option!) Tried to stick with doubles on the shoot throughs, but the paralettes had gotten so slick that I was drying them off after every rep. Missed more of the swinging reverse crunches, had to re-do them. At the KB, I went 8-6-6. Took a ton of effort to make that happen. I was miserable during my 30 calorie row, but I kept it close to 2 minutes like I had done in round two. Round 3 time: nearly 9:30.
- Round 4: Shoot throughs are becoming a mess. My right hand slid off the paraclete on my 4th rep, so I went flying forward as I did the swinging crunch. Landed just in front of my paralettes. Hopefully nobody saw that. (Everyone saw that.) Was beginning to feel light-headed as I tried to complete the shoot throughs. When I got to the KB, I only made it through a few swings before dizziness became a major concern. After 4 swings, I stopped to try and get my equilibrium back. I did another swing, but felt woozy again. It didn't feel safe swinging that 70 pound KB. Jenna offered to get me a lighter KB, but the more I thought about it, the more it seemed swinging any weight over my head was a bad idea. I put up the white flag and stopped right there.
The combination of intense heat and me biting off way more than I could chew forced me to put a DNF on the whiteboard after about 28 minutes of work. It is rare that I have to throw in the towel on a workout that isn't an EMOM, but this was way too much for me. I should have scaled a lot more than I did. (Perhaps 5 shoot throughs per round and a 53 pound KB next time?) I think I made the right call on stopping when I did because I could have injured myself or one of the others in the gym. (I definitely could envision myself losing my grip on the KB and accidentally launching it at one of the unsuspecting BBC members.) It was a bad WOD combined with some bad decision-making. I tried to make up for it by making one good decision. Thursday would be a rest day.
Friday preview: My first tussle with Gwen. One of my classmates has a very unique way of doing this WOD.
Wednesday, October 4, 2017
Box Jump Nancy
Workout date: 7/11/17
Tuesday night are all about Dudes After Dark and usually our fearless leader on those nights is LC. But just as I certainly don't make it to Dudes After Dark every week, neither does LC. I've been there when Steph has filled in to coach. I've been there when Giulz has filled in. I'm pretty sure that Jenna has presided over at least one Dudes session. There was a different face greeting us at this Tuesday's edition though. Jill A (one-time coach, now Crossfitter extraordinaire) was there to cover for LC this week. Was she ready for the always sassy group that awaited her? Probably not, but there were only 4 of us in attendance this week and we kept our sassiness to a reasonable level. At least by our standards anyways.
The quartet that was taking part in Tuesday night's fun included Jessie (who typically turns up at the noon express), Bryan, Neil, and myself. We would be doing a workout that was much more pleasing to me than the shoulder press/chest-to-bar pull-up combo had been on Monday night. Here's a look at Tuesday night's WOD:
Tuesday's WOD:
400 meter run
21 overhead squats (95/65)
21 box jumps (24"/20")
400 meter run
15 overhead squats
15 box jumps
400 meter run
9 overhead squats
9 box jumps
If you asked me which of the named Crossfit workouts is my favorite, I would tell you Nancy. Nancy includes a lot of running (five 400 meter runs to be exact), but it also includes 75 overhead squats. That is a whole lot of my favorite lift crammed into one workout. The problem I have with Nancy is that the overhead squats take a toll on my legs and hinder my running ability after a couple of rounds. Those last three 400 meter runs tend to be much slower than the first two. If only there was a workout with a lot of overheads and not so much running...
Voila! Tuesday's WOD was basically a three-round version of Nancy with box jumps added in. The overhead squats were going to make your legs feel unsteady for the box jumps and the combination of the overheads and box jumps were going to make those quarter-mile trots a little more painful than you would like, but at least there weren't five rounds to deal with. That made this workout seem much more palatable than Nancy is. The only fly in the ointment was that it was very humid on Tuesday night. And if it's humid outside the gym, it's borderline unbearable inside the gym.
After completing a 400 meter warmup run, Jill walked us through the finer points of the overhead squat. Barbell should be positioned over your head like a bagel cutter. Wide grip on the barbell. External rotation of the shoulders. Weight in your heels. Knees out as you descend into the squat. Keep your core tight. She also had us practice rebounding through box jumps. It looked like all of us were comfortable with that technique.
It is pretty rare that I think of myself as the runner in any group, but there was a solid chance that I was going to be leading the pack in this class. I had run with Bryan before and he tended to track me Jill Cardamone-style rather than break off on his own like Cline might. Neil hates to run. It was possible that Jessie might smoke all of her male counterparts, but I didn't recall her loving running WODs and the warmup run didn't give me the impression that she was eager to run three-quarters of a mile in this workout. That left me as the likely pacesetter, at least on the first run. I was also expecting to excel on the overhead squats. If I could handle the box jumps, then I'd be the first one done in our class. At least that's how I had it worked out in my head.
I was right about the first 400 meter run. I was out on the lead with Bryan close behind me. Neil and Jessie weren't far off of my pace. I wanted a strong initial run to kick off this workout, but didn't want to go so hard that I'd get stuck on the overhead squats or the box jumps. When I came back into the gym at the end of the run, it felt like I had accomplished what I had set out to do. I was the first one back and I wasn't hyperventilating as a result of my efforts.
The surprise came when I got to my barbell. I am well aware of the toll the humidity takes on me, but I didn't expect it to hit me so hard on the overhead squats. I thought I could grind my way through those and then try to deal with whatever adversity awaited me at the box jumps. I didn't plan on putting the barbell down during the round of 21 overhead squats, but as I neared the 10th rep of the set, I realized that it was going to take an all-out effort to complete all 21 in a row. I decided it made more sense to break up the set. I stopped after 14 reps, caught my breath, shook out my legs and then completed the remaining 7 reps.
I was stationed furthest from the side door that we pass in and out of to go running and because we had set up to face the back of the gym, I couldn't see how my classmates were doing while I did my overhead squats. Upon completing my 21st rep, I turned around to go to my box. I thought I would be the first one to the box jumps, but I was surprised to see I had lost the lead. Neil had no problem with the overhead squats and completed all 21 reps without a break. He had completed a couple of box jumps already when I got to the third leg of our triplet. I tried to ignore the burning in my legs, rebounding on and off of the box for as long as I could. I had to stop and recover on top of the box a couple of times, but I had gotten back to even with Neil as we headed out on our second run.
Even though the overhead squats and box jumps had the effect on my legs that I was expecting, I still thought I might put some distance on Neil during the run. Neil isn't shy about expressing how much he dislikes running and he had to be experiencing some of that same burning feeling that I had in my legs. If I could push things at the beginning of this next run, then maybe I could buy myself some time on the next round of overheads and box jumps. Neil had other plans though. I think I'm probably more guilty of keeping an eye on Neil and trying to stay with him than vice versa, but this was clearly one of those days where he was focused on staying with me. He was stubborn on that second run and when he came back through the side door, he wasn't very far behind me.
The 75 overhead squats in Nancy are broken up into 5 rounds of 15 reps. If I have a strong performance in that WOD, I'll hold on and string all 15 reps in every round, even if I'm dragging on the runs. So I should have been able to hold on for 15 overheads in a row in this WOD. It didn't play out that way. I wasn't able to make it to 15 reps in round one of this workout and I wouldn't make it there in round two either. I completed 10 reps and had to put the barbell down. I didn't need to turn around to know that Neil was going to do all 15 of his overheads. While I caught my breath, I heard his barbell come crashing to the floor. When I went to pick my barbell back up, I heard his feet land on top of his box. He was extending his lead on me.
I finished my last 5 overheads and got right into my box jumps. I thought I was moving at a decent pace, but I saw Neil run out the door when I was at about the 9 or 10 mark. It seemed like there was little chance that I could catch him at this point. If I was going to catch him, I'd have to run very fast during the last 400 meters because he had shown he was the better athlete on the overhead squats and box jumps.
It was a bit disheartening to see how far ahead he was when I exited the side doors. It was hard making myself believe that I could catch him when he was almost at Frosty Falls already. I told myself not to think that way. I put my head down and started pumping my arms. No one was going to confuse me with Usain Bolt on that last run, but I steadily built up my pace as I moved along. Neil went by me as I headed to the turn around point of the 400 meters. His lead was dwindling and I tried to use that to fuel my belief that I could catch him. When I got to the final 100 meters, I ran at the fastest non-sprint speed I could muster. As badly as I wanted to catch him on this run, it was pointless if I emptied the tank and couldn't finish the last round of overhead squats and box jumps. Neil made it back inside the gym before me, but I was only a couple of seconds behind him.
When Neil got into the gym, I saw him walk over to his barbell. I kept jogging through the door until I got to my barbell. I couldn't see him once I got there, but I'm sure he noticed the urgency with which I was moving. I got my barbell overhead, determined to complete all 9 squats without a break. As I was coming up out of my 8th squat, I heard Neil's barbell hit the floor. Damn he was fast on those! I did my final overhead squat and hurried over to my box.
I think Neil was taking a few seconds to remove his wrist wraps, but when he saw me marching over to my box, he scrapped that plan and got moving on his box jumps. Back and forth we went. I heard his feet hit the box, then my feet hit my box. I was rebounding as quick as I could, but he wasn't slowing down either. I assumed he was ahead of me, but I couldn't be sure, so I told myself I couldn't stop until all 9 were done. I came down off of my 8th jump and saw Neil was still jumping. But it was his last one. He jumped on his box and I jumped on mine a second later. For the second straight day, I had completed the workout one tick behind one of my classmates. Final time: 13:11.
It was fun racing against Neil to the wire, but it gets old being the bridesmaid. On Monday, I was one second behind Matt B. On Tuesday, I was one second behind Neil. Two weeks earlier, I was one double under short of writing my name on the 100 consecutive double unders board. There was this seemingly never-ending pattern where I kept falling just short of the mark. It's not a great feeling. I've had way too many of those moments and not enough small victories to counterbalance them. That was true both inside and outside of the gym. I left KOP on Tuesday night feeling like I had given it my all, yet once again my all wasn't good enough.
Wednesday preview: Idle hands are not the devil's handiwork. Shoot throughs are.
Tuesday night are all about Dudes After Dark and usually our fearless leader on those nights is LC. But just as I certainly don't make it to Dudes After Dark every week, neither does LC. I've been there when Steph has filled in to coach. I've been there when Giulz has filled in. I'm pretty sure that Jenna has presided over at least one Dudes session. There was a different face greeting us at this Tuesday's edition though. Jill A (one-time coach, now Crossfitter extraordinaire) was there to cover for LC this week. Was she ready for the always sassy group that awaited her? Probably not, but there were only 4 of us in attendance this week and we kept our sassiness to a reasonable level. At least by our standards anyways.
The quartet that was taking part in Tuesday night's fun included Jessie (who typically turns up at the noon express), Bryan, Neil, and myself. We would be doing a workout that was much more pleasing to me than the shoulder press/chest-to-bar pull-up combo had been on Monday night. Here's a look at Tuesday night's WOD:
Tuesday's WOD:
400 meter run
21 overhead squats (95/65)
21 box jumps (24"/20")
400 meter run
15 overhead squats
15 box jumps
400 meter run
9 overhead squats
9 box jumps
If you asked me which of the named Crossfit workouts is my favorite, I would tell you Nancy. Nancy includes a lot of running (five 400 meter runs to be exact), but it also includes 75 overhead squats. That is a whole lot of my favorite lift crammed into one workout. The problem I have with Nancy is that the overhead squats take a toll on my legs and hinder my running ability after a couple of rounds. Those last three 400 meter runs tend to be much slower than the first two. If only there was a workout with a lot of overheads and not so much running...
Voila! Tuesday's WOD was basically a three-round version of Nancy with box jumps added in. The overhead squats were going to make your legs feel unsteady for the box jumps and the combination of the overheads and box jumps were going to make those quarter-mile trots a little more painful than you would like, but at least there weren't five rounds to deal with. That made this workout seem much more palatable than Nancy is. The only fly in the ointment was that it was very humid on Tuesday night. And if it's humid outside the gym, it's borderline unbearable inside the gym.
After completing a 400 meter warmup run, Jill walked us through the finer points of the overhead squat. Barbell should be positioned over your head like a bagel cutter. Wide grip on the barbell. External rotation of the shoulders. Weight in your heels. Knees out as you descend into the squat. Keep your core tight. She also had us practice rebounding through box jumps. It looked like all of us were comfortable with that technique.
It is pretty rare that I think of myself as the runner in any group, but there was a solid chance that I was going to be leading the pack in this class. I had run with Bryan before and he tended to track me Jill Cardamone-style rather than break off on his own like Cline might. Neil hates to run. It was possible that Jessie might smoke all of her male counterparts, but I didn't recall her loving running WODs and the warmup run didn't give me the impression that she was eager to run three-quarters of a mile in this workout. That left me as the likely pacesetter, at least on the first run. I was also expecting to excel on the overhead squats. If I could handle the box jumps, then I'd be the first one done in our class. At least that's how I had it worked out in my head.
I was right about the first 400 meter run. I was out on the lead with Bryan close behind me. Neil and Jessie weren't far off of my pace. I wanted a strong initial run to kick off this workout, but didn't want to go so hard that I'd get stuck on the overhead squats or the box jumps. When I came back into the gym at the end of the run, it felt like I had accomplished what I had set out to do. I was the first one back and I wasn't hyperventilating as a result of my efforts.
The surprise came when I got to my barbell. I am well aware of the toll the humidity takes on me, but I didn't expect it to hit me so hard on the overhead squats. I thought I could grind my way through those and then try to deal with whatever adversity awaited me at the box jumps. I didn't plan on putting the barbell down during the round of 21 overhead squats, but as I neared the 10th rep of the set, I realized that it was going to take an all-out effort to complete all 21 in a row. I decided it made more sense to break up the set. I stopped after 14 reps, caught my breath, shook out my legs and then completed the remaining 7 reps.
I was stationed furthest from the side door that we pass in and out of to go running and because we had set up to face the back of the gym, I couldn't see how my classmates were doing while I did my overhead squats. Upon completing my 21st rep, I turned around to go to my box. I thought I would be the first one to the box jumps, but I was surprised to see I had lost the lead. Neil had no problem with the overhead squats and completed all 21 reps without a break. He had completed a couple of box jumps already when I got to the third leg of our triplet. I tried to ignore the burning in my legs, rebounding on and off of the box for as long as I could. I had to stop and recover on top of the box a couple of times, but I had gotten back to even with Neil as we headed out on our second run.
Even though the overhead squats and box jumps had the effect on my legs that I was expecting, I still thought I might put some distance on Neil during the run. Neil isn't shy about expressing how much he dislikes running and he had to be experiencing some of that same burning feeling that I had in my legs. If I could push things at the beginning of this next run, then maybe I could buy myself some time on the next round of overheads and box jumps. Neil had other plans though. I think I'm probably more guilty of keeping an eye on Neil and trying to stay with him than vice versa, but this was clearly one of those days where he was focused on staying with me. He was stubborn on that second run and when he came back through the side door, he wasn't very far behind me.
The 75 overhead squats in Nancy are broken up into 5 rounds of 15 reps. If I have a strong performance in that WOD, I'll hold on and string all 15 reps in every round, even if I'm dragging on the runs. So I should have been able to hold on for 15 overheads in a row in this WOD. It didn't play out that way. I wasn't able to make it to 15 reps in round one of this workout and I wouldn't make it there in round two either. I completed 10 reps and had to put the barbell down. I didn't need to turn around to know that Neil was going to do all 15 of his overheads. While I caught my breath, I heard his barbell come crashing to the floor. When I went to pick my barbell back up, I heard his feet land on top of his box. He was extending his lead on me.
I finished my last 5 overheads and got right into my box jumps. I thought I was moving at a decent pace, but I saw Neil run out the door when I was at about the 9 or 10 mark. It seemed like there was little chance that I could catch him at this point. If I was going to catch him, I'd have to run very fast during the last 400 meters because he had shown he was the better athlete on the overhead squats and box jumps.
It was a bit disheartening to see how far ahead he was when I exited the side doors. It was hard making myself believe that I could catch him when he was almost at Frosty Falls already. I told myself not to think that way. I put my head down and started pumping my arms. No one was going to confuse me with Usain Bolt on that last run, but I steadily built up my pace as I moved along. Neil went by me as I headed to the turn around point of the 400 meters. His lead was dwindling and I tried to use that to fuel my belief that I could catch him. When I got to the final 100 meters, I ran at the fastest non-sprint speed I could muster. As badly as I wanted to catch him on this run, it was pointless if I emptied the tank and couldn't finish the last round of overhead squats and box jumps. Neil made it back inside the gym before me, but I was only a couple of seconds behind him.
When Neil got into the gym, I saw him walk over to his barbell. I kept jogging through the door until I got to my barbell. I couldn't see him once I got there, but I'm sure he noticed the urgency with which I was moving. I got my barbell overhead, determined to complete all 9 squats without a break. As I was coming up out of my 8th squat, I heard Neil's barbell hit the floor. Damn he was fast on those! I did my final overhead squat and hurried over to my box.
I think Neil was taking a few seconds to remove his wrist wraps, but when he saw me marching over to my box, he scrapped that plan and got moving on his box jumps. Back and forth we went. I heard his feet hit the box, then my feet hit my box. I was rebounding as quick as I could, but he wasn't slowing down either. I assumed he was ahead of me, but I couldn't be sure, so I told myself I couldn't stop until all 9 were done. I came down off of my 8th jump and saw Neil was still jumping. But it was his last one. He jumped on his box and I jumped on mine a second later. For the second straight day, I had completed the workout one tick behind one of my classmates. Final time: 13:11.
It was fun racing against Neil to the wire, but it gets old being the bridesmaid. On Monday, I was one second behind Matt B. On Tuesday, I was one second behind Neil. Two weeks earlier, I was one double under short of writing my name on the 100 consecutive double unders board. There was this seemingly never-ending pattern where I kept falling just short of the mark. It's not a great feeling. I've had way too many of those moments and not enough small victories to counterbalance them. That was true both inside and outside of the gym. I left KOP on Tuesday night feeling like I had given it my all, yet once again my all wasn't good enough.
Wednesday preview: Idle hands are not the devil's handiwork. Shoot throughs are.
Cheater PR
Workout date: 7/10/17
Previously on Sweaty Souka's Crossfit Adventure:
Previously on Sweaty Souka's Crossfit Adventure:
- A poor showing during Fran made me realize I needed to put some real work into correcting my pull-up form
- My plan for one of the Brawl WODs turned out to be a complete failure
- I re-discovered my power clean and used it to PR my clean and jerk for the 1st time in a couple of years
Monday's workout included a benchmark WOD that I'm not overly fond of: the 3RM shoulder press. The shoulder press is a simple lift that only requires you to have upper body strength. Just one problem: I don't have much in the way of upper body strength. Leg strength? Got that covered. But even though my arms have gotten a bit bigger thanks to Crossfit, it hasn't translated much into gains on the shoulder press. I think it might have something to do with the fact that I still haven't developed actual triceps. Perhaps that will come about during the next 40 years of my life.
There were 13 of us signed up for Monday night's 6:30 class with Giulz. With only 8 racks available, we'd be pairing up for the shoulder press. Choosing a partner for a strength WOD like this is a very scientific process:
- Look around to see if Matt B is in class
- If Matt B is in class, partner up with him
- If Matt B is not in class, awkwardly slink off to the side and wait to see if someone else looks like they haven't partnered up yet
Luckily for me, I only had to go through the first two steps of that process. I knew Matt was going to lift much more weight than I would, but he's about the same height as me (important when sharing a rack) and we typically have fun doing strength WODs together. He doesn't hate working out with me, so we partnered up.
My best 3RM shoulder press came using 135 pounds and it has been stuck there for quite a while. "Stuck there for quite a while" has become a familiar phrase in this blog because it was true for my clean and jerk (until I finally broke through on Sunday) and it has been true for my deadlift. I wasn't nearly as frustrated with my shoulder press stagnation as I was with my lack of progress on those other lifts. The clean and jerk and the deadlift are programmed frequently, either on their own or as part of metcons. I've put in additional work on the clean and jerk at Open Strength. Improvements on those lifts shouldn't have taken several years. The shoulder press was different. It is usually substituted out of metcons in favor of push presses and push jerks. And because it is a bit of a boring lift to work on, I had spent very little time working on it at Open Strength. As much as I would love to get better at various lifts without putting the time in, I know that no practice means no gains. With that in mind, I wasn't expecting to get beyond 135 today. In fact, there was a good chance I'd end up with a score under 135.
There wasn't a whole lot for Giulz to go over when walking the class through the shoulder press, but there was one point that she wanted to emphasize. We all knew that we weren't allowed to use our legs to help boost our barbells overhead, but there was one other unofficial form of cheating that Giulz wanted us to avoid. To get the most out of this lift, we needed to keep a tight core and press the weight overhead without leaning back. She didn't want us doing a "vertical bench press". With a normal bench press, you lay horizontally on a bench and press a barbell upwards. If you arched your back during the shoulder press, you would put yourself into a position where you were doing more of a bench press than a shoulder press. This version of the shoulder press still met the lenient standards of "counting in Crossfit", but it certainly wasn't something that would do wonders for your back in the long run.
I started off very light on my 1st set, going with 75 pounds. Matt was never going to challenge his previous 3RM if he started out that low, so his initial set was at 95 pounds, which I would keep on the barbell for my 2nd set. The last time we tested our 3RM shoulder press, Matt got 3 reps at 165 and 1 rep at 175, so I was fully expecting him to get all 3 reps at 175 today. Watching him easily do his next set at 135 did nothing to change my opinion. It was also a little depressing that my personal best was nothing but a warmup for Matt. Kid is strong!
We both moved up 20 pounds for our next set as I took care of 115 pounds and Matt had no problems with 155 pounds. The 4th set was where we were going to be challenged. We each added 15 pounds to the barbell. 130 pounds was not going to be a PR for me, but it felt like a weight that would probably be right on the edge of where I might fail. If I could get through this set, I'd have a score I'd be happy with and I wouldn't beat myself up too much if I couldn't go any higher. The two things I focus on when doing multiple reps of the shoulder press are having a strong first rep and keeping that momentum going for the remaining reps. If that first rep goes poorly, you're in deep trouble. And if you don't take advantage of the momentum from the first rep (something you don't have when you start your set), then you're screwed. I don't think I've ever come to a stop in between reps of the shoulder press and successfully restarted the set.
When I was able to press out the 1st rep at 130 without too much agony, I felt relieved. I still had two more reps to do, but the toughest part was out of the way. Rep #2 wasn't a problem and there was only the slightest hint of a struggle while pressing out rep #3. I had gotten 130 and now I could take on a PR attempt without feeling any pressure. I had a decent score in my pocket and the last set would be like playing with house money. As for Matt, he was already going after a PR with his next set at 170. He had yet to show any signs of duress during the three sets he had completed, so I was very confident about how this 4th set would go. He did not disappoint. Matt did 3 very fluid reps at 170 and placed the barbell back on the rack. He claimed it was much harder than it looked, but I was betting on him to set an even higher PR on his next set.
I may have been a little more excited about Matt's PR than he was
Success in Crossfit requires a lot of mental fortitude. It's not only about fighting the doubts that you might have in your mind based on your own performances. It's also about erasing bad thoughts out of your head when you see someone else fail. I've found that when I see someone else fail on a big lift, I tend to follow that performance with a miss of my own. The good news is that the inverse also seems to be true. When I've seen someone succeed at the gym, it has subliminally unlocked some confidence that I wasn't aware of.
Watching Matt take care of 170 without much struggle gave me some hope that I could do 3 reps at 140. Just get that first rep and the rest will work out. I took the barbell off the rack and pressed up with everything I had. It didn't move upwards nearly as quickly as it had in my earlier sets, but it didn't stop moving either. After a couple of seconds, it was locked out overhead. I could do this! The second rep wasn't easy, but it was better than the first rep. Do not mess up on the last rep! That is the absolute worst. I brought the barbell back down with speed and tried to bounce it off of me to help in my pursuit of the final rep. It helped somewhat, but not enough to result in a smooth third rep. I was stuck. I was pushing, but the barbell wasn't heading much higher. Trying to find some extra strength, I leaned back while I pushed. It was vertical bench press time. Was it cheating? Maybe. Did it work? Absolutely. The barbell emerged from the stuck position and ended up overhead. I had a new PR. It was a cheater PR, but it counts in Crossfit.
I was hoping that the good vibes would continue as Matt went up another 5 pounds to 175, but I think he might have gotten it into his head that 170 was good enough. His first rep at 175 looked just as good as the three reps he did at 170, but right after he came down with that rep, he suddenly dropped the barbell. It was surprising to say the least. But I think now that 170 is his 3RM, he'll probably crush 175 the next time we perform this shoulder press test.
There are some days when you look at the workout and think "wow, this may have been designed specifically for me!" And then there are days like Monday. The shoulder press may be my least favorite lift. That was being followed up with a cash-out that was not gonna end up on my Top 10 list. Here's what was in store:
30-20-10
Chest-to-bar pull-ups
DB push press (35/20)
*Time cap: 12 minutes
Remember how I said the shoulder press if often substituted for in metcons? It didn't take long to see proof of that. The DB weight for the cash-out was probably light enough that we could have handled doing a shoulder press, but since this was meant to be done quickly (note the time cap), we were given a similar movement that could be done with more speed.
With 13 of us in class, it would be tight quarters if we tried to all do chest-to-bar pull-ups at the same time, so Giulz sent us off in two waves, with the second wave starting two minutes after the first one. There was still going to be some overlap at the pull-up rig, but it wouldn't be nearly as bad as if we all attempted this in one heat. I was trying to be accommodating, so I volunteered to do my chest-to-bar pull-ups on the bar that was closest to the lobby. There was just one issue. There is another bar slightly behind and above that one and I wasn't entirely sure that my head wouldn't clang into it while I was using my wild kip to do chest-to-bar pull-ups. Conn was sitting off to the side waiting for Open Strength to begin, so I asked him if he could tell me how close my head was to hitting this bar as I did a practice rep. Thankfully it wasn't close. Because I get so horizontal on my chest-to-bar pull-ups, my head wasn't getting very far above the bar I was using and therefore didn't come close to the bar that was scaring me.
I was in heat one and I thought I got off to a pretty good start. I was doing consistent sets of 6 singles before needing a break on the pull-up rig. When I got to the DBs, I was able to manage 12 reps before having to put them down. I went 12-12-6 there and headed back to my pull-up bar. The round of 20 was very tough, as the middle round often is. My sets were shorter and I needed longer breaks. Being the middle of July, it was very warm in the gym and I got tired quickly. It wasn't long before the heavy breathing and the torrential sweating set in. As I neared the end of my 20 chest-to-bar pull-ups, I began to worry that I wouldn't finish before the time cap. I got over to the DBs and tried to make up some time there. Once again, I started with a set of 12 before wrapping things up with a set of 8.
I knew I couldn't dilly-dally on the final 10 chest-to-bar pull-ups if I wanted to stay under the time cap, so I dug deep to churn out one rep after another. I'm sure there were a couple of small breaks sprinkled in there, but I tried not to stray more than a step away from the pull-up bar and I didn't allow myself to drop into my resting squat. That last surge paid off. When I headed back to my DBs, I knew I'd be under the time cap. I picked them up and quickly fired off the final 10 push presses. Cash-out time: 11:17.
As I sat on the floor, I watched Matt (who was in the second wave) finish up the cash-out. He was working through the last of his chest-to-bar pull-ups, so it appeared as though he would crush my time. When he was done there, he was well ahead of my pace. I figured he would do the same thing I did at the end of the cash-out: walk over to the DBs immediately and pump out 10 push presses. Instead, he came off of the pull-up rig, walked to his DBs and took a break. When he finally picked them up, he only managed 5 push presses before placing them back on the floor. He took another decent-sized break and it started to look like I might beat him. Finally, he leaned down and picked up the DBs one last time, working through the last 5 reps to stop the clock at 11:16, beating me by one second. He had to make it close!
I stuck around for Open Strength to work on two things. First, I needed some extra work on my pull-up form. You might think I got enough practice doing 60 chest-to-bar pull-ups in the cash-out, but those were sloppily done, completed in a hurry to beat a time cap. There was not much attention paid to form during that sprint. After I had recovered from the cash-out, I got to work on completing 5 sets of 4 consecutive pull-ups with solid form. I took my time and was able to handle that. Then I moved on to double unders. Just as I wanted to focus on form with my pull-ups, I wanted to focus on remaining calm while doing a considerable number of double unders. There was a good chance that I'd need that in my tool kit for the Polpetta WOD at the Brawl. I did a set of 50 before coming to a stop. The plan was to do another set of 50, but I messed up after a set of 18. I was able to get the final 32 in a row. I got through 100 dubs in 3 sets, without long breaks and with pretty decent form. It gave me hope that I'd be able to complete a large number of double unders while under pressure at the Brawl next month.
Tuesday preview: Another photo finish with a classmate at the end of a metcon. Could I turn the tables and edge out my rival?
Tuesday, October 3, 2017
We Now Return You To Your Originally Scheduled Programming
I may be one of the few diehard Game of Thrones fans who hated Season 7. Pretty much everything about it felt wrong to me. The pacing of the story was way off. The Winterfell storyline made no sense, even when it was resolved in the finale. Major characters disappeared for long periods of time while minor characters got a lot of screen time. If this season ran for 10 episodes like seasons past, perhaps that wouldn't be a problem, but with only 7 episodes to work with, it felt like precious time was being wasted. Perhaps the biggest issue I had with season 7 was that it veered away from the one element that made Game of Thrones different from any other show on television: the fear that a character you cared about might die. Did I think Jamie or Daenerys might die during their clash? No. Did I think Tormund or Jon Snow was going to perish when they took on the Army of the Dead? No. There was only one "heartbreaking" death during season 7 and I wasn't even sure what that character's name was until I read it the next day. To me, season 7 was all about making the fans happy. Let's bring two major characters together and have them flirt all season long even though we know they're related! Let's have the intelligent characters suddenly know nothing and get outsmarted by the characters who haven't proven to be the brightest bulbs! Let's give Ed Sheeran an extended scene on the show!
My gut reaction was to blame the two guys who write the show for TV. If they weren't so focused on their next project, maybe they would spend the proper time fleshing out the story the way it should be done. The more I thought it about though, the more I realized they were doing the best with what they had to work with. For 5 seasons, they could use the books in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series to help write the shows. For season 6, they could tie up the loose ends from what happened at the end of the last book. They even had sample chapters from the upcoming book to help guide them. When it came to season 7, all they had were some broad conversations with the author of the series. They got a general sense of how the rest of this journey was supposed to go and they wrote seasons 7 and 8 based on that information. It wasn't going to play out exactly like it did in the books. It might not even be all that close to George R. R. Martin's original vision. But was that their fault?
I would say no. It has been 6 years since the fifth book in the series came out. The release of that book roughly coincided with the end of its first season on TV. The show was a massive hit, especially with the mind-blowing, unexpected way that it concluded. The actors on the show went from relatively unknown to huge stars. And the genius behind this material? He might not have shown up on your TV screen when you tuned into HBO every Sunday night, but he became a ginormous star in his own right. Everyone wanted to hear from George R. R. Martin when Comic-Con rolled around. And more often than not, he was there. The spotlight shining on him was well-deserved. But while he was soaking in all of this fame, he seemed to forget to do one thing: keep writing.
Why the Game of Thrones review in the middle of my Crossfit blog? Because I have clearly been guilty of pulling a George R. R. Martin. This blog obviously pales in comparison to A Song of Ice and Fire and I haven't been living it up at Comic-Con, but I have been guilty of not putting out new material. I was already a solid 5 weeks behind on this blog before I came to the conclusion that I needed to take a break. It wasn't that I didn't want to write. It was more of a decision that other things in my life needed to be a higher priority. There were things on the home front that needed to be taken care of. Jenn's company underwent a merger and we had to figure out how that would play out. I needed to spend time reconfiguring our investment strategy. We had family issues to deal with after my uncle and Jenn's grandmother died within a week of each other. I put together a preliminary draft of our will. That's the more serious stuff. On the lighter side, Jenn and I apparently traveled a lot. (In all honesty, it didn't seem to me like we were traveling a lot, but almost everyone I've run into recently has mentioned all of the trips I've taken, so it seems like there's a good chance I've been oblivious to how much I've been away from home.)
Add it all up and I am now 3 months behind on this blog. How could I possibly catch up on that much writing? Well, the situation isn't nearly as dire as you might think. Back when I started falling behind on this blog, I would jot down notes on the workouts I had completed. So it's not like I have to think back 3 months and try to recall what happened during those WODs. I have a small cheat sheet for each one. When I completed all of the tasks that I decided were a higher priority over the summer, I developed a plan for getting back on track with this blog. I wasn't going to stress myself day after day after day trying to catch up. I decided instead to do a rough draft of each of the posts and save them in a Word document. They all need some sprucing up, but the transition from what I have now to the published product will take much less time than if I was sitting at my laptop everyday trying to burrow through one completely fresh post after another.
With that in mind, my long-term plan for getting current on the blog goes like this:
My gut reaction was to blame the two guys who write the show for TV. If they weren't so focused on their next project, maybe they would spend the proper time fleshing out the story the way it should be done. The more I thought it about though, the more I realized they were doing the best with what they had to work with. For 5 seasons, they could use the books in the "A Song of Ice and Fire" series to help write the shows. For season 6, they could tie up the loose ends from what happened at the end of the last book. They even had sample chapters from the upcoming book to help guide them. When it came to season 7, all they had were some broad conversations with the author of the series. They got a general sense of how the rest of this journey was supposed to go and they wrote seasons 7 and 8 based on that information. It wasn't going to play out exactly like it did in the books. It might not even be all that close to George R. R. Martin's original vision. But was that their fault?
I would say no. It has been 6 years since the fifth book in the series came out. The release of that book roughly coincided with the end of its first season on TV. The show was a massive hit, especially with the mind-blowing, unexpected way that it concluded. The actors on the show went from relatively unknown to huge stars. And the genius behind this material? He might not have shown up on your TV screen when you tuned into HBO every Sunday night, but he became a ginormous star in his own right. Everyone wanted to hear from George R. R. Martin when Comic-Con rolled around. And more often than not, he was there. The spotlight shining on him was well-deserved. But while he was soaking in all of this fame, he seemed to forget to do one thing: keep writing.
Why the Game of Thrones review in the middle of my Crossfit blog? Because I have clearly been guilty of pulling a George R. R. Martin. This blog obviously pales in comparison to A Song of Ice and Fire and I haven't been living it up at Comic-Con, but I have been guilty of not putting out new material. I was already a solid 5 weeks behind on this blog before I came to the conclusion that I needed to take a break. It wasn't that I didn't want to write. It was more of a decision that other things in my life needed to be a higher priority. There were things on the home front that needed to be taken care of. Jenn's company underwent a merger and we had to figure out how that would play out. I needed to spend time reconfiguring our investment strategy. We had family issues to deal with after my uncle and Jenn's grandmother died within a week of each other. I put together a preliminary draft of our will. That's the more serious stuff. On the lighter side, Jenn and I apparently traveled a lot. (In all honesty, it didn't seem to me like we were traveling a lot, but almost everyone I've run into recently has mentioned all of the trips I've taken, so it seems like there's a good chance I've been oblivious to how much I've been away from home.)
Add it all up and I am now 3 months behind on this blog. How could I possibly catch up on that much writing? Well, the situation isn't nearly as dire as you might think. Back when I started falling behind on this blog, I would jot down notes on the workouts I had completed. So it's not like I have to think back 3 months and try to recall what happened during those WODs. I have a small cheat sheet for each one. When I completed all of the tasks that I decided were a higher priority over the summer, I developed a plan for getting back on track with this blog. I wasn't going to stress myself day after day after day trying to catch up. I decided instead to do a rough draft of each of the posts and save them in a Word document. They all need some sprucing up, but the transition from what I have now to the published product will take much less time than if I was sitting at my laptop everyday trying to burrow through one completely fresh post after another.
With that in mind, my long-term plan for getting current on the blog goes like this:
- Each day I will try to put out two posts
- At this moment, I am 38 posts behind (yikes!), so if all goes well, I'll be current around the time that you get ready to carve into your Thanksgiving turkey
- I'll try to put out new posts on weekends. I'll try to put them out on days when I'm out of town. Blogger allows me the opportunity to set a time for when they will be published, so if everything goes like I hope, I'll be able to get ahead on my two-a-days and have them scheduled to publish when I would like.
I can't promise that everything will go as I would like because as readers of this blog know, my plans have a way of fizzling out. At least that's true when it comes to the plans I make inside the gym. I also may have already lost both of my readers, so this plan could be moot. But when I began writing this blog, I wasn't expecting to have any loyal readers at all, so nothing has really changed. If the only people to click on this blog are the tried and true folks stumbling across it while looking for Russian porn on the internet, I'll take that as a win.
So without further ado, we now return you to your originally scheduled programming...
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