Playing Catch-up - again

My workouts for the past several days have not been very focused or very successful, so I have been less than super excited to blog about them, but I guess I should get them down for posterity's sake.

I've been feeling pretty run down for the last week or so, and I think I might be fighting a bug. I have a very slightly sore throat - though I suppose it could just as easily be allergies - especially from all the dust we stirred up when cleaning out our closets over the weekend. That was a fun project :)

So - Sunday, we ended up doing both the crossfit workout of OHS and then we went climbing. I was tired heading into it, and I planned to focus primarily on form. I didn't really keep track of reps or weights. I think I got to rep 8 of 15 with the empty 15# bar, and failed. I tried 25# and failed on rep 3 or 4, same deal with 20#. I found that the main thing that was failing was actually my wrists, followed quickly by my shoulders. I just couldn't hold the weight up any longer. Daniel got some video of me with the empty bar. At the very least my knees are nice and solid - there's very little wobble. You'll see at the end of the video when my grip fails and I whack myself in the knee with the dropped bar. Glad I wasn't using the heavy bar, and my bruise is only a small one. Any comments on form are appreciated :-)



Climbing almost immediately after was ... not terribly wise or productive. I climbed 2 routes both 5.9's - neither of which should have given me any trouble - both of which were ugly. Particularly the first one. I rested or fell 4 or 5 times on the first - and it was a neat technical stemmy climb up a corner that I would really love to try fresh. I bet it would be fun. I fell fewer times on the second, but it still wasn't pretty. I was happy to just belay after that.

Sunday night we went to a potluck at the Athletic Playground. It's well named. They have lots of toys, a trapeze and aerial silk setups, they offer classes in these things and parkour and handstands - it's an adult, athletic, playground :-) (Though they offer classes for kids, too. Shira - one of the co-owners - introduced us to slam ball. That was fun :)

Monday was climbing at GWPC. I climbed ... 2.5 routes. There's a very easy 9 that I started with, and that went quite well. I tried "neck meat" again(10a), and got 1/2 way up got to a hold i thought was spun (watching Ev climb it later i think it was probably fine) but I just couldn't figure it out. And it was a struggle to get even that far. The whole climb was crap. I couldn't get my feet to stick to the wall, I couldn't find my next handhold. It was panic climbing. Daniel said that it looked like i was over reaching - moving my hands too far up - and that was why my feet wouldn't stick. Sometimes, when I feel uncomfortable on a climb I get sort of frantic, and just reach for anything that looks like it might be close enough to reach. It is not "tree sloth" climbing. It's pretty much the exact opposite. It's not pretty and it doesn't work. My last climb was a new 5.9 just east of the stairwell. The first half of the climb was frantic and graspy, again, and I recognized that, stopped, took a few breaths, tried to recenter myself and continued on to finish the climb. The last half was definitely better than the first.

Tonight was a KB strength WOD.

Double Kettlebell Press 6-6-6-6-6
Double Kettlebell Push-Press 8-8-8-8-8
Double Kettlebell Jerk 10-10-10-10-10

I was glad that it was not a killer metcon, but I knew the volume was still going to be a killer. I did 8kg KB all the way through. THe Jerks were definitely the hardest. I know you're supposed to be able to lift more weight with a Jerk than a PP, but with double KB, the jerk requires a lot more stabilization (unless you really nail the form), and are therefore harder. The most I managed to get in a single set was 9.5 in set 5. Most of my jerk sets failed between 6 and 8. I still completed all reps though. Took for freaking EVER!

Tomorrow we're going to start back in with the 5x5 routine. Max suggested that I move back to back squats, and I'm thinking maybe I'll work on cleans or SDHP instead of bench press ... not really sure yet.