2011-11-17

AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) in 15 minutes

15 Front Squat 95/65
15 Burpee
Run 200 meters

25# for the FS

2 rounds + 15 burpees

This felt terrible.  slow AND weak.

2011-11-14

Timed Effort

"Litvinov Sprint"
3 rounds, each for time, of:
8 Front Squats, 75% 1RM
200m Sprint

Rest as needed between rounds.

The aim is to SPRINT for 200m.

Post time to comments.

Finisher

100 Hollow rocks
100 superman rocks
alternate between the rocks as needed

------------------------

Used 35# for FS

2:15; 2:15; 2:11

Running felt terrible first round.

only did 75 each of the hollow rock/supermans

2010-04-17

Warmup: Run 400m, burpees, pushups, piked pushups, jumping C2B pullups

WOD:
Run 800 Meters
100 Double-Unders (only did 50)
Run 600 Meters
50 Kettlebell Swings 1.5/1.0P
Run 400 Meters
25 Burpees (stepping, not jumping - for the record, just as hard.)
Run 200 Meters
13 Thruster 115/75 (45# front squats)

Results:
36:45

800m: 5:13
50 DU: 7:50 (included bathroom break)
600m: 4:04
50 1P KB swings: 6:46
400M: 2:54
25 burpees: 4:07
200m: 1:33
13 45# front squat: 4:15

Comments:
This is the hardest I have worked in months and I am certainly paying for it now - but it's the good kind of "I worked hard" sore, and not the "I think I damaged myself" sore which is pretty awesome.

It's the first time I've run instead of subbing rowing in months, too, and it actually went just fine; not fast, or anything, but not problematic for any of my stupid nagging injuries.

My original goal for the double-unders was only 25 - i was afraid that all that jumping would really aggravate my knees, but they were going so well - I got several consecutive (Jump, skip, jump style)- I decided to go for 50. I think that was the right number - because by the time I was done with them just about everyone else was done with theirs, too. I was pretty pleased with how well these went.

When I got to the KB I didn't know whether i was going to just do 25 and stick to 50% volume for all the exercises, or do the whole thing. I decided to tough it out.

I did not jump my feet back or forward on the burpees - I've found that jumping them forward to that really low squat is one thing that is guaranteed to aggravate my knee. I did do a jump and a clap once i was on my feet. I thought these would be easier than regular burpees. they were not. Because I was not jumping forward, they were a lot more like pushups, and between the pushups from the warmup, and the largish quantity of pushups the day before, my arms were not interested in helping out. I found them to be at least as winding as regular burpees. Maybe I'm just out of practice.

The front squats were also just about as hard as I could manage and still pretend to keep any sort of decent form. I opted for them over thrusters again because of my knees. I probably should have incorporated a push-press component - but just the front squats felt plenty hard enough.

Pain Fest

Warmup: ME, BOZ warmup X 3 (10 dislocates + 10 OHS w/ dowel - increasingly narrow grip and squat stance.)

WOD:
Run One Mile
100 Squats
Run 800 Meters
75 Push-Ups
Run 400 Meters
50 Burpees
Run 200 Meters
25 "GI Janes"
Run One Mile

Results:
1:03:20

Exercise	Time	Elapsed
1 Mile	10:55	10:55
100 Squats	5:50	16:45
800m	5:52	22:37
75 Pushups	8:30	31:07
400m	2:58	34:05
50 Burpees	10:12	44:17
200m	1:05	45:22
25 GI Janes	6:13	51:35
1 Mile	11:45	1:03:20

Comments:
This was a bastard of a workout. There were a couple times - particularly once the burpees started where I nearly broke down crying. Having really suffered through 50 burpees yesterday, when i was relatively fresh, I knew exactly how horrible 50 burpees was going to be totally wiped, and that made it harder to just buckle down and get through them.

My strategy for this workout was "slow and steady" I was not worried about breaking any speed records - I knew it would be hard enough just to finish the damn thing.

"Focus" is my new mantra. "I can. I will. I must." is just too many damn syllables for when I can barely think. I used it to help me get back on track with the burpees - I kept losing count and just wanted to throw in the towel. Take a breath, "Focus".

As soon as I started the last run I found myself plagued with NaST - 'There's no way ..." "My feet hurt, my knees hurt, I think I'm getting a side stitch." ... "Focus" would get me through a couple steps, but I just couldn't keep the bad thoughts at bay and I was sure that I wasn't going to get through it without walking. And then I decided to try a technique Ynez has talked about using with food. I gave myself permission to stop if i really wanted to; if it got unbearable I could absolutely stop at any time, but I was pretty sure I had a little left in me - enough for a few more steps anyway. I dunno - something about having permission to stop shut my contary self right up - there were no more excuses about why it was too hard to continue - and then all I had to do was keep putting one foot in front of the other. it was a LONG ass mile - but I ran the whole damn thing - in fact I ran every step of all the runs. Except for the GI Janes - where I used somewhat lower rings so I could do jumping pullups, this workout was pretty much Rx.

I definitely feel like I have reachieved my ability to work through the suck, and I am very happy to have finished this workout. Max has promised to make tomorrow's workout another killer - which means I need to get myself to bed.

Overtraining is the new training

This week begins the enacting of Gita's new motto, "overtraining is the new training," in which we ride the line of volume, strength and endurance for the final six weeks leading to the Games. It got off to a good start:

Run One Mile
100 Squats
Run 800 Meters
75 Push-Ups
Run 400 Meters
50 Burpees
Run 200 Meters
25 "GI Janes"
Run One Mile

45:11 RX

Max came up with this one, and it was a well-designed bit of agony. The movements stacked together nicely in such a way that each one made the next one harder (burpees after pushups are brutal). While I'm not particularly proud of my time, I'm pleased that I was able to pick a pace and maintain it with only a few pauses for breath throughout. Well, except for the GI Janes - those were slow as molasses.

Beach Burpees!

The weather got nice, and Daniel convinced me to get out of the house to get active. I was feeling super sluggish and had had a low grade headache most of the weekend, but knew I would feel better if I got moving. Daniel got on the internet and found a park about .5 mile away that looked like it probbly had some lawn as well as some actual beach,so we headed down there.

We jogged there as our warmup.

Once there we discovered the lawn was prety much taken so we opted for a beech workout:

AMRAP in 20 minutes of approx 200m sprint + 15 burpees.

I got 8 full rounds (in 20:30)

Round	Sprint	Burpees
1	0:32	1:50
2	0:31	2:10
3	0:38	2:06
4	0:35	2:05
5	0:33	1:56
6	0:32	2:07
7	0:31	2:04
8	0:32	1:48

Super Fun (in that major suck fest sort of way) :) I was very impressed with myself for keeping up with Daniel so well. I kept expecting him to lap me - but I figured out by round 3 that using the same burpee angel every time was helpful while he kept trying to make new ones, and i think that probably made a big difference. Also - I am pleased that all of my splits are so consistently in the same time range.

50% Blog week, too.

It has been a crazy hectic week with bad food and bad sleep big work deadlines and 50% workouts or no workouts and I just haven't had time or energy to devote to blogging.

Despite the 50% nature of the workouts, I feel pretty beat up. Probably mostly due to getting 2-3 hours less sleep per night than usual, and not eating particularly well.

Thursday, I did not make it to the gym @ all.

Friday's workout of OHS and pullups went OK - I managed to use 25# for the OHS - I thought I was going to sup pushups for pullups but my wrists hurt too much after the OHS. The first round, I tried paralette Pushups for a more neutral wrist position, but i got 5 before collapsing. Round 2 I did jumping pullups instead - and only got 11. My pullups have been weak/missing all week - i think from trying to get them legit on Wednesday, and the OHS on Friday. So - basically I got two sets of OHS done with some useless attepts at exercise in between.

For the first set of OHS I managed to get the firt 8 unbroken, and then in 2's and 3's after that. The 2nd rund i only made it to 6. OHS are hard.

Saturday's workout was a good one. Though i was glad to only be doing half volume.
My total time was 13:40

Round	SDHP	Burpees	Run 200m	Total
1	0:57	1:41	1:18	3:56
2	1:33	1:47	1:09	8:26
3	1:59	2:07	1:08	13:40

The running went well :-) The first roud of SDHP actually went quite well, too. Burpees just always suck.

Ok - I've just got to save this and move on - more to come: sunday's lifiting, and monday's climbing.

Bad Mornings

Woke up with a sore throat this morning: bad sign. Rebecca's just getting over a cold that knocked her out for a week, and I was thinking I was fortunate to dodge that bullet, but perhaps I didn't. So I'm throwing back the Wellness Formula, and, after today, am taking a recovery week. Until next Sunday, I'm doing half-volume workouts. I'm telling this to everyone I know and asking them to help me enforce it, because I'm not very good about being disciplined in this regard.

This morning:

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:

• Run 250 meters
• Kettlebell Sumo deadlift high-pull 2P/1.5P, 28 reps
• Pull-ups 15 reps (Men C2B)

4 rounds
Not all my pullups were successfully C2B.

This was a good WOD, but the length of the rounds makes for a fairly small window of options. 4 rounds seems solid. Gita got 5 rounds, but nearly killed himself doing it. Most people got 3 and change. The runs were a nice rest, and I didn't find the SDHP to be terribly difficult. The real killer for me was the pull-ups.

With the help of some classmates, I've discovered why my pullups suck so much at Ironworks: the bar is too low! I can stand solidly on my heels and grab the bar, which means that when I kip I have to bend my knees to avoid hitting the floor, and this kills my momentum. If I take off my shoes and use the (slightly) higher part of the bar (by the whiteboard), I can kip much more easily. I hope this knowledge will come in handy in the future.

Afternoon:

The firebreather workouts this month are all one-rep max lifts. Today was back squats. We were all sharing one cage, which made it SLOW, but I was grateful for the opportunity to get feedback on my form. Max and Eric agree: it's cringeworthy. Apparently I'm pitching forward at the bottom of the squat, and then basically good-morninging the weight up. This puts insane amounts of strain on my lower back, obviously, and if it doesn't injure me, it will ensure that I will never get much heavier than I got today.

Back Squat 1RM - best of 5 attempts (Back Squat 1-1-1-1-1)

175-185-190(PR)-195(f)

So my new PR is 190, or 109% bodyweight. Pretty weak sauce. I brought the camera, so here's some video of 175, 190 and the failed 195 - you can see what I'm talking about with the poor form coming out of the hole.



Polly pointed out that one of the Squat Rx videos deals specifically with this problem - in fact, it's common enough that they address it in video #2. There are a number of good stretches and assistance exercises in this video, which I intend to incorporate into my 5x5 nights (with lighter weights):

• Goblet squats
• Wide-stance Squats
• Good-morning Squats
• Box Squats

Hopefully, once I can correct this fault in the form, I'll be able to knock out some higher numbers.

Life is like a bowl of pennies

Today marks a milestone for me - more than just the first of the year. Today was my first experience leading the WOD!

Max knows that I am pursuing my ISSA and, eventually, CrossFit L1 certification, and hopefully with the growth in interest in the classes at Ironworks and GWPC, there will be room for me to join CrossFit Eastbay as a trainer once my certifications are complete. Today, however, with the Touchstone gyms closed and no worries of liability, Max asked if I would be interested in coming up with and leading the WOD offsite at Gita's house in Oakland. Of course I jumped at the chance.

It being the first of the year, I wanted to come up with something that commemorated the occasion, and also felt drawn to the idea of a group-based workout. After some tweaking, the final workout looked like this:

"2009"
1 200m Run up the hill
1 200m Run down the hill
20 Sit-Ups
10 Push-ups
9 Burpees

There will be 49 tokens in a bowl 200m up the hill. Each round will consist of running to the bowl, collecting a token, running back down, doing the reps, and then putting the token by your name chalked on the ground. Once all the tokens are collected, the athletes will have performed a total of 2,009 reps (each run = 1 rep). Your score is how many tokens you've collected.

This is similar to the original workout I had conceived, but we made some last-minute changes. Originally the runs were 400m all the way to the top of the hill, but that fucker is STEEP. I did a test run to the top and back, and it was brutal. Since the WOD gets easier the more people show up, I decided I wouldn't set the distance that far unless more than 15 people showed. 11 came, and there was MUCH apprehension about the steepness of the hill, so I relented and put the bowl halfway up. This turned out to be a good thing. The original workout was also supposed to be 20 pushups and 10 pullups (instead of situps and pushups), but we nixed the pullups after it became clear the wall we'd slung the rings over was structurally unsound - and not really good for pullups anyway (too low).

The final token (I used pennies) was delivered at 19:50, which put the WOD right in the sweet-spot of metcon time domains. 11 athletes completed between 3 and 6 rounds (Matthew won with 6 tokens - no surprise - and Rebecca H. edged out Evelyn on delivering her fourth token), and they definitely looked like they were working.

I'm very satisfied with the way this turned out, but I was pretty nervous leading up to it. Since the WOD was not an absolute, but depended on the number of people who showed up, I wasn't completely sure of the scaling until everyone was there, and even then I wasn't sure how far up the hill to place the bowl. I think folks sensed my indecision, and took the opportunity to apply some vocal pressure to make it easier (except lunatic Gita, who was disappointed the bowl wasn't at the top of the hill). As for the actual "training" during the WOD, I was really more of a photographer than anything. Everyone who showed up was a regular at CFEB, and was plenty familiar with the movements, so I didn't need to coach anyone. I could definitely have been better at the exhortation - I'll need to work on that. It was a tremendous learning experience all-told, though, and has given me a lot to think about for the future.

My Woobie's WOD!

I'm so proud of Daniel. I think his first WOD went great. I'm just sorry I couldn't make a better effort at getting it done.

Unfortunately I woke up with a headache accompanied by queasiness, and it had not gone away by the time the workout started. I didn't want to bail completely, so I very slowly worked my way through two rounds plus one run. Alex asked for, and was happily granted, the 'priviledge' of doing all my reps for me, since I got one of the last few tokens.

Unfortunatley, I also managed to delete the time for this workout from my watch - note to self - watch deletes workouts from newest to oldest - NOT oldest to newest ... (LAME!) but since the workout took just about 20 minutes, and i completed 2 whole rounds just before the last round, I'm going to guess that each round took me about 8 minutes.

My minor victory for the day is that I managed to run every step of the three runs I did despite the steepness of the hill and the throbbing of my head.

Oh, and 20 reps of the kitchen sink

This was the workout that wouldn't end:

20 GI Janes
Run 200 Meters
20 Box Jump 30" box
Run 200 Meters
20 KB swing 2.0P/1.5P
Run 200 Meters
20 C2B Pull-ups
Run 200 Meters
20 Weight Overhead Lunge 45#/25#
Run 200 Meters
20 Ankles-to-bar
Run 200 Meters
40 Supermans
Run 200 Meters
20 clap push-up
Run 200 Meters
20 Double-Squat Wall-Ball
Run 200 Meters
100 Double-Unders

41:48
My push-ups were "hopping," and my wall-ball was regular old wall-ball, but otherwise RX

There were five or so newbies in class today. I felt bad for them - this was a really high-skill workout, and there just wasn't enough time to drill them on everything. They seemed to do pretty well, though, whenever I checked to see how they were doing. Mostly I was concerned with my own thing, though.

It is gratifying that Max picked me to be in the first group with the other hardcore athletes, but I'm not quite there yet. I think I need to step up my game and rest less, if I'm ever going to catch up with Alex. (I have a couple personal goals: 1) do a WOD faster than Alex, and 2) be as strong as Jim. The trouble is that they're going to class too, and are also improving, so it's a moving target.) Getting real double-unders will go a long way to faster times on workouts like this, though.

Holy Ow.

Warm up: ME, hands over head squat, wheelbarrow, piggyback rides.

WOD:
Run 800 Meters
25 Push-Ups
Run 600 Meters
50 Burpees
Run 400 Meters
75 Kettlebell swings 1.5P/1.0P
Run 200 Meters
100 Jump Squats
Run 100 Meters
125 Double-Unders

*subbed a 12kg KB for swings, and did 500 single skips in lieu of 125 double-unders.

Results:
56:55

Exercise	Time	Trans.	ET
800m	4:58		4:59
Pushups	2:43	0:39	8:21
600m	3:48		12:09
Burpees	11:29	0:26	24:04
400m	2:38	2:21	29:03
Swings	5:49	0:29	35:21
200m	1:19		36:40
Jump Squats	8:42		45:22
100m	0:40		46:02
Jump Rope	10:53		56:55
Total	52:59	3:56

Comments:
Um, OW!!!

Fortunately my headache disappeared late yesterday afternoon. However, my shoulders were quite sore this morning when I woke up - I'm guessing it's mostly from yesterday's Push-presses - a lot of reps with a weight that was just barely manageable - but I' m guessing Friday's presses, and yesterday's pullups also did not help. Since I was feeling beat up before the workout even started, I kept telling myself I was going to cut some part of this in half, - the exercises, the running , something, but I'd get to half, and decide that, "what the hell, I'm half way there." My shoulders might not forgive me for my stubbornness. Probably not for a couple days, anyway.

I'm glad I did my six pull-ups for the day this morning before this WOD. None of them were as good as yesterday - i think the best of them was probably nose to bar - the worst, forehead to bar.

I didn't actually mean to record my transition time, and I wasn't consistent about it after I started, but I wanted an accurate time for my runs, and I hit my lap timer right after the pushups were done. In hindsight, this is probably a pretty useful metric to track, since the goal is to get transitions down to a minimum, and since my new watch has so many laps, I might start trying to record transitions, too.

I was pretty happy to get my 800m under 5 minutes. Since there was a lot of volume and a lot of jumping, I decided to wear my trail running shoes to give me as much cushioning as possible, despite the fact that they have made me feel a bit clumsy in the past. They didn't bother me at all today, and I'm glad i decided to wear them. This workout would REALLY have sucked in my little brown shoes.

The pushups were a lot harder than they've been in a long time. I think my first set was 7 or 8, the second set might have been 4 or 5, and all the rest of them were 1's 2's or 3's - mostly 2's.

The only other 600m time I have on record is from the running ladder we did on Oct. 11th, and I did nearly a whole minute better today than I did then, but I'd also run a heck of a lot farther before I got to the 600m run in that workout. Still, overall, I feel pretty good about my runs, today. They weren't super fast, but they were solid - and probably the least tortuous part of this WOD.

The burpees, on the other hand, were far and away the MOST torturous part of today's WOD. I swear they almost killed me. They did reduce me to tears. But I got the fuckers done - about 1 burpee at a time ... in 11.5 minutes. >.< Burpees with burnt shoulders SUCK. I nearly quit on this one.

The 400m run was fine - the time compares pretty favorably with recent efforts - again not super fast, but right about on par with 400m in other recent metcon workouts.

And then we hit the 2:20 of 'transition time' before the KB swings. This was me trying to figure out a)what KB to use, and b) how many reps to do. It was also at this point (when several other folks were just finishing this workout) that Max came to me and asked if I was going to complete the full volume of the workout. I was still totally strung out from the burpees, and really feeling like i was right at the edge of my capacity. I asked whether he thought I should just do half the reps for the remaining exercises. The answer was a speedy 'Yes!' followed by him saying that whatever the rep scheme, I should set a 1 hour time limit for myself.

I decided I'd try to get through 40 reps with the 1P KB. I picked it up swung it back and forth a couple times experimentally, and realized that that was NEVER going to happen, put it down, picked up the 12kg KB, and basically decided that I'd see how things were going @ 40, but since I was using the lighter weight, I should do the full # of reps. I think that having sore shoulders actually probably helped my form with these a bit since I really wanted to use them as little as possible.

The jump squats were not fast, and they were often ugly, but they were not as brutal as the burpees, and therefore were totally tolerable. One of the reasons I managed to make it to 100 with these is that I felt like my 45-47th jumps were probably the strongest ones I'd done so far, and I continued to get some pretty good ones even in the higher numbers.

The skips were actually kind of fun - even though i was pretty tired by the time I got to them. I was able to find a really good rhythm a couple times. My first set was 55 consecutive jumps, and a couple similarly good runs after that, interspersed with sets of 15-20. I was super excited, though, when I managed to get my last 100 skips all in one shot! :-) That was a great way to end an otherwise brutal, un-fun, workout. I think that if I can get 100 skips unbroken, double-unders shouldn't be too far behind, I just need to actually work on getting them.

A CF friend, Ynez, and I were discussing how everybody has their particular strengths - hers is (literally) that she is just naturally quite strong. We decided that mine was tenacity. I definitely would not have made it through the full volume of this workout without that trait. That said, I'm not sure doing the full volume was an entirely brilliant idea. For whatever reason, I seem to be at less than the top of my game this week. And it was supposed to be an EASY week. I am going to think about making next week a half-intensity week, too.

Fortunately, I'll get two full rest days before the next workout because we won't be able to go climbing tomorrow due to Daniel's office holiday party. So I'll see how I am feeling on Wednesday.