I was starting feel a bit sore when I woke up but real excited to do the WOD that my brother and I made up. Its chilly and raining out, its going to be awesome.
5 rounds:
6 ring muscle ups
9 below knee to overhead, 100 lbs
12 bastards over a ladder folded and laying down, about 1.5 feet width
block run, about 560m
29:20
We were not sure how this was going to go. Our motivation was to think of a good extended WOD that we could do with the equipment we have. It met all of our expectations and turned out to be quite a strategically brutal workout. It was chilly out and I opted against getting in a full warm up. I got the blood moving and did some stretching, but, my plan was to let the first round get me warm. My strategy for a 5 rounder: I pick it up in rounds 1-3 respectively, round 4 is usually the slowest as I conserve enough energy to go all out in round 5 which is typically my fastest. This was successfully accomplished today. It wasn't really until round 3 that I felt warmed up. The muscle ups were the easiest, rounds 1, 3, 4 and 5 were unbroken, during round 2, I slipped off the rings and was forced to break them up to re-chalk. The below knee to OH were the hardest for me. We only have 10 lb plates so going all the way to the ground was annoying and overkill. We decided that starting each rep just below the knee would suffice. For the first 3 rounds I did power snatches unbroken, for rounds 4 and 5 I did clean and jerks, unbroken. The bastards were just annoying. They drained whatever energy I had left from the barbell lifts. Plus, the ground was wet and muddy which added to my discomfort. The run, which has become significantly easier for me, was a challenge. The bastards left me drained as hell. I spent the first 120m catching my breath and the last 250m speeding up. Overall, very satisfied with my performance.
* * * * *
About 30 minutes after the WOD my body started hating me. My legs are getting sorer by the nano-second. Yesterdays high rep squats have have greatly decreased the accuracy and efficiency of my motor skills. I plan on overdosing on meats and pies tonight with encores Friday and possibly Saturday. I think I am going to take Friday, Saturday and Sunday off to let my body recover. Then it is back to a heavy workload to be ready for The Superfit Games in January and Sectionals in early March.
Friday, November 27, 2009
Thursday, November 26, 2009
Regret is....
...the feeling you get halfway through a WOD that sucks as much as the one today. You can replace the word regret with pain, remorse, anguish, defeat, overwhelming or sexy.
Deadlift:
1x5 225
1x3 265
1x3 285
1x3 315
1x3 330
15 minutes after
AMRAP 20
25 Bastards over unloaded barbell
15 Bodyweight barbell squats, 190lb
4 rounds + 15 bastards
Hole-y Swiss cheese Batman, this was rough.
The deadlifts were a nice warm up but they always end up wearing me out more then I plan. I don't necessarily feel beat after a deadlift workout, but whenever I do a met-con following, I seem to get fatigued faster. I did lighter sets today hoping to avoid this trend. On Tuesday, when envisioning this WOD, I thought I would be able to get 5 rounds plus some bastards. I certainly underestimated the energy that the squats would require. They absolutely took everything I had. The words I listed in the beginning of this post were going through my mind as the sweat dripped off my forehead during every squat attempt. It was the word "sexy" that kept me going. I knew that once I was finished, I would feel sexy as hell. A pro from this WOD was the improvement I noticed in my low-bar back squat. Since I was forced to will most of the squats, the bar tended to shift to on my back, I stuck with a lower position across my shoulders, this increased my efficiency. Regardless, there is no way I could get sloppy on squats. During most met-con's your form breaks down and you are able to complete reps by just muscling the weight or completing reps with bad rhythm. With 190lb squats, for me at least, I could not get sloppy. Every rep from 1 to 60 was strict, below parallel and agonizing, this is the main reason that my legs are now jello and my body is sore, especially my trunk. This WOD kicked my ass and I am glad its over. I feel like I have grown as a Crossfitter after enduring it.
Deadlift:
1x5 225
1x3 265
1x3 285
1x3 315
1x3 330
15 minutes after
AMRAP 20
25 Bastards over unloaded barbell
15 Bodyweight barbell squats, 190lb
4 rounds + 15 bastards
Hole-y Swiss cheese Batman, this was rough.
The deadlifts were a nice warm up but they always end up wearing me out more then I plan. I don't necessarily feel beat after a deadlift workout, but whenever I do a met-con following, I seem to get fatigued faster. I did lighter sets today hoping to avoid this trend. On Tuesday, when envisioning this WOD, I thought I would be able to get 5 rounds plus some bastards. I certainly underestimated the energy that the squats would require. They absolutely took everything I had. The words I listed in the beginning of this post were going through my mind as the sweat dripped off my forehead during every squat attempt. It was the word "sexy" that kept me going. I knew that once I was finished, I would feel sexy as hell. A pro from this WOD was the improvement I noticed in my low-bar back squat. Since I was forced to will most of the squats, the bar tended to shift to on my back, I stuck with a lower position across my shoulders, this increased my efficiency. Regardless, there is no way I could get sloppy on squats. During most met-con's your form breaks down and you are able to complete reps by just muscling the weight or completing reps with bad rhythm. With 190lb squats, for me at least, I could not get sloppy. Every rep from 1 to 60 was strict, below parallel and agonizing, this is the main reason that my legs are now jello and my body is sore, especially my trunk. This WOD kicked my ass and I am glad its over. I feel like I have grown as a Crossfitter after enduring it.
Wednesday, November 25, 2009
HSPU's Are Your Friend
So I am pretty sure I have developed tendinitis in my left knee. Ever since the Oly lift meet it has been giving some level of discomfort, 24/7. It gets worse when I squat a bunch and better when I rest (shocker). I am trying to just put it out of my head during workouts. It has not slowed me down much, it has just been a nag and forced me to sacrifice good form on some reps. During "Fran" I could feel myself leaning a bit forward and maybe to my right to counter the pain. Its whatever though, I am not going to dwell on it. Just do what I do and hope it heals.
Today was a WOD I had never tried before, I was unsure how it would go. HSPU and weighted pull ups seem like they could give me fits.
21 HSPU
400m run
21 weighted pull ups, 47.5lb
15 HSPU
400m run
15 weighted pull ups, 47.5lb
9 HSPU
400m run
9 weighted pull ups, 47.5lb
16:47
Wow, talk about feeling fresh. I sure did tonight. Even though I did not touch my head to the ground on a single HSPU I couldn't have been more then an inch from the ground on every rep. My ROM was damn near full. Going into this workout I was scared about the HSPU and the weighted pull ups, which I will get to in a moment. The first set of HSPU went 7-5-4-3-2, next set was 8-5-2 and the final set was 9. I was flying through these, up-down-up-down-up-down. It felt great! For the first time in a while I actually enjoyed HSPU's. The runs were cake. They were right around 400m down a hill and back up it. I was running significantly faster then I usually do. The pull ups, these were tough. My original plan was to use 25lbs, but, after checking the message board, I noticed that 45lbs seemed to be the standard. I strapped 45lbs on about a 2.5lb chain, could be a 5lb chain, I will have to check, around my waist for the pull ups. I used a supine grip, otherwise I would never have finished. About 10 reps throughout the whole workout were not deadhang, all the rest were. I was able to get a slight kip for some reps but once the weight started swinging, I either had to step down or hang there and test my grip. I thought this workout was fun. I felt fresh the whole time. It is certainly one of those workouts where I became strength fatigued and not endurance fatigued.
Today was a WOD I had never tried before, I was unsure how it would go. HSPU and weighted pull ups seem like they could give me fits.
21 HSPU
400m run
21 weighted pull ups, 47.5lb
15 HSPU
400m run
15 weighted pull ups, 47.5lb
9 HSPU
400m run
9 weighted pull ups, 47.5lb
16:47
Wow, talk about feeling fresh. I sure did tonight. Even though I did not touch my head to the ground on a single HSPU I couldn't have been more then an inch from the ground on every rep. My ROM was damn near full. Going into this workout I was scared about the HSPU and the weighted pull ups, which I will get to in a moment. The first set of HSPU went 7-5-4-3-2, next set was 8-5-2 and the final set was 9. I was flying through these, up-down-up-down-up-down. It felt great! For the first time in a while I actually enjoyed HSPU's. The runs were cake. They were right around 400m down a hill and back up it. I was running significantly faster then I usually do. The pull ups, these were tough. My original plan was to use 25lbs, but, after checking the message board, I noticed that 45lbs seemed to be the standard. I strapped 45lbs on about a 2.5lb chain, could be a 5lb chain, I will have to check, around my waist for the pull ups. I used a supine grip, otherwise I would never have finished. About 10 reps throughout the whole workout were not deadhang, all the rest were. I was able to get a slight kip for some reps but once the weight started swinging, I either had to step down or hang there and test my grip. I thought this workout was fun. I felt fresh the whole time. It is certainly one of those workouts where I became strength fatigued and not endurance fatigued.
Monday, November 23, 2009
The Weekend
I apologize for the lack of posting this weekend but I stayed at my boy Loudubb's Sarry's moms vacant crib. We were limited in the fact that we had no Internet and only a couple stolen cable channels but unbounded by our will to thrive, cook, listen to Audioslave and sleep in really comfortable beds. I will catch you up on our extremely successful and relatively brutal weekend of fitness.
Friday
AM: Squats
Back Squats
135 lb x 5 reps
185 lb x 3
225 lb x 3
250 lb x 3
250 lb x 3
250 lb x 3
275 lb x 2
Front Squats
5 sets by 3 reps of 190 lb
This was fun. I love the low bar positioning. Never thought I would enjoy squatting 250 lbs. The 275 went up with no sweat. I could have done another rep. I really want to get 315 lb soon. Bodyweight front squats were kind of heavy. Partially because I was a little fatigued from the back squats, mostly because they were bodyweight front squats.
PM: "Grace"
30 ground to overhead with 135 lbs
4:11 (PR)
Not the easiest WOD to do after a heavy day of squatting but it was short enough that I did not have any lingering effects from the AM workout (I think). I definitely feel like I could get sub 4 minutes....right now. I ended up losing track of my reps, really confusing myself twice during the set. I am pretty sure I did 31 reps if not 32. Trying to think of what rep I was on also effected my time. I am still satisfied with what I got and I was smoked at the end. My legs started to burn during the last ten reps or so. Next time I will have someone count for me.
Saturday
Last night we had "Cheat Night Gone Bad." I think we overdid it. I wasn't feeling to hot at the end. This in combination with the fact that Grainz was very sore, put limitations on the movements we could do for our morning met-con. After some deliberation, groaning, coffee drinking and a lot of sitting we decided on:
400m row
21 knees to elbows
21 push ups
21 dumbbell swings, 52.5 lbs
400m row
15 knees to elbows
15 push ups
15 swings
400m row
9 knees to elbows
9 push ups
9 swings
400m row
14:53
We thought we would take this as an active rest routine, that was, until we started. Once we got the blood moving our pride took over. I wasn't going to let myself do anything unbroken. It was good to sweat out some of the sugar.
Sunday
Its here, the day I have been thinking about for the past week, repeating this workout in my head, over and over again.
"Fran"
21-15-9
Thrusters, 95 lbs
pull ups
3:38(PR)
Well my plan was to do everything unbroken. I did not succeed at this, I had to drop for about 2 seconds on my set of 15 pull ups. My grip was just gone. Everything else was unbroken. Honestly, I thought I had done it faster. The break literally added 2-3seconds to my time, otherwise, I had very little rest in between sets. If I want to improve I will have to pick up the pace of my thrusters. Not something I am looking forward to doing. Regardless, I got sub 4, my last PR was 4:15, I am happy.
I think it is interesting that I can do 90 reps (Fran) 33 seconds faster then I can do 30 reps (Grace). Thats Crossfit.
Friday
AM: Squats
Back Squats
135 lb x 5 reps
185 lb x 3
225 lb x 3
250 lb x 3
250 lb x 3
250 lb x 3
275 lb x 2
Front Squats
5 sets by 3 reps of 190 lb
This was fun. I love the low bar positioning. Never thought I would enjoy squatting 250 lbs. The 275 went up with no sweat. I could have done another rep. I really want to get 315 lb soon. Bodyweight front squats were kind of heavy. Partially because I was a little fatigued from the back squats, mostly because they were bodyweight front squats.
PM: "Grace"
30 ground to overhead with 135 lbs
4:11 (PR)
Not the easiest WOD to do after a heavy day of squatting but it was short enough that I did not have any lingering effects from the AM workout (I think). I definitely feel like I could get sub 4 minutes....right now. I ended up losing track of my reps, really confusing myself twice during the set. I am pretty sure I did 31 reps if not 32. Trying to think of what rep I was on also effected my time. I am still satisfied with what I got and I was smoked at the end. My legs started to burn during the last ten reps or so. Next time I will have someone count for me.
Saturday
Last night we had "Cheat Night Gone Bad." I think we overdid it. I wasn't feeling to hot at the end. This in combination with the fact that Grainz was very sore, put limitations on the movements we could do for our morning met-con. After some deliberation, groaning, coffee drinking and a lot of sitting we decided on:
400m row
21 knees to elbows
21 push ups
21 dumbbell swings, 52.5 lbs
400m row
15 knees to elbows
15 push ups
15 swings
400m row
9 knees to elbows
9 push ups
9 swings
400m row
14:53
We thought we would take this as an active rest routine, that was, until we started. Once we got the blood moving our pride took over. I wasn't going to let myself do anything unbroken. It was good to sweat out some of the sugar.
Sunday
Its here, the day I have been thinking about for the past week, repeating this workout in my head, over and over again.
"Fran"
21-15-9
Thrusters, 95 lbs
pull ups
3:38(PR)
Well my plan was to do everything unbroken. I did not succeed at this, I had to drop for about 2 seconds on my set of 15 pull ups. My grip was just gone. Everything else was unbroken. Honestly, I thought I had done it faster. The break literally added 2-3seconds to my time, otherwise, I had very little rest in between sets. If I want to improve I will have to pick up the pace of my thrusters. Not something I am looking forward to doing. Regardless, I got sub 4, my last PR was 4:15, I am happy.
I think it is interesting that I can do 90 reps (Fran) 33 seconds faster then I can do 30 reps (Grace). Thats Crossfit.
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