2011-12-18

7 Rounds for time:
7 Burpees
7 Thrusters 95/65


13:36 - Burpees scaled to using knees on the push-up part, Thursters scaled to 15# - the started at 25# but I stripped the bar after the first or second round.


My knees - particularly my left knee - was bugging me after this.


WOD #2: Bouncing the baby to sleep.

OHS and Fran variation

The last round of the OHS cycle, which I'm afraid I only made like 5 workouts of (out of 13):

OHS 15RM

95#

Pretty happy with this, though - 95# has long been troublesome for me to OHS, and to knock out 15 in a row (on the first try!) felt pretty damn good. Then...

45 Thruster 95/65
45 Pull-Ups

12:40(ish) RX

Failed to write down the proper time. Focused much more on form than on pushing, and as a reward my back wasn't TOO unhappy with me afterwards, and I was only ~25% slower than my best Fran time. Did the thrusters 10-10-10-5-5-5, and the pull-ups 10-10-10-8-7. For at least one of the thruster sets, I felt like I was actually achieving some level of efficiency with them.

Joining the sub-10 Fran club

A little over a year after starting CrossFit, I did my first bonafide, RX Fran. And it was a deeply humbling (and humiliating) experience. That was four months ago. Tonight, I revisited The Hardest Workout in CrossFit for the first time, with considerable butterflies in tummy.

21-15-9
95# Thruster
Pullup

9:48RX (pr)

Sub-10 was my goal, but I wasn't expecting to actually DO it. And a PR by nearly 2:30, to boot! I came off the pullup bar and promptly collapsed onto the floor, whereupon I was not able to actually stand up for any length of time for a solid half-hour. I felt so whipped. Jesus, that workout is horrible.

Two, Two, Two Workouts in one!

100 double-unders
25 burpees
75 double-unders
25 KB swing 2.0/1.5P
50 double-unders
25 dead-hang pull-ups
25 double-unders
25 Thruster 115/75

46:18RX

I think this was intended to be a solid mid-length chipper, but for me it was really two workouts: a twenty-five minute metcon followed immediately by a twenty-one minute strength workout. Yep: the thrusters alone took me nearly as much time as everything else combined. This just goes to show how poor my thruster strength is (hardly news).

The new jumpropes are nice, though - I was pretty consistently able to get sets of 10 double-unders, even when really tired.

Nightmare WOD

Walking Lunge 400 Meters

25 Thruster 135/75
50 Double-Squat Wall-Ball 20/14
75 C2B Pull-Ups

Walking Lunge 400 Meters

Partition the Thruster, Double-Squat Wall-Ball, C2B Pull-Ups, as needed. Start and finish with a 400 Meter Lunge. If you've got a ten pound vest, wear it.

Scaled to:
200m walking lunge

25 50# thrusters
50 14# single squat wallball
75 jumping c2b pullups

200m walking lunge

1:25:24

First Set of walking Lunges: 17:54
3 rounds of 15 pullups and 10 wall ball: 5:38, 4:49, 4:39
15 thrusters: 15:06
2 rounds of 15 pullups and 10 wallball: 4:25, 4:47
10 thrusters: approx 7 minutes
Second set of walking lunges: approx 21 minutes
(10 thrusters + walking lunges = 28:02)

OOOWWWWWWW

My knees were shaking like jack hammers by the time I finished my fist set of lunges. It made everything else very hard - particularly the thrusters. Ironically, I did the best wall ball I've done in months. The last round or so was pretty week, and probably not quite high enough, but the first three rounds were all very strong, and I was able to catch the ball on a lot of them, too. My knees were shaking so bad, I really don't know how I accomplished this.

My thrusters went exactly how I expected they would - poorly. Pretty much everyone just stood there looking at the bar wondering how they were going to manage to pick that thing up and squat down with it with barely functional knees. We all managed to struggle through them - though there were plenty of failed attempts, too.

My original plan was only to do 60% or 3 rounds worth of 5,10,15 breakdown. I'm not sure why I decided to finish out the bulk of the workout - maybe I just wanted to put off those last walking lunges a bit longer - but I figured I was already more than half way there - might as well finish it off.

I'll be shocked if I'm not viciously sore tomorrow.

The most crippling WOD ever

Walking Lunge 400 Meters

25 Thruster 135/75
50 Double-Squat Wall-Ball 20/14
75 C2B Pull-Ups

Walking Lunge 400 Meters

Partition the Thruster, Double-Squat Wall-Ball, C2B Pull-Ups, as needed. Start and finish with a 400 Meter Lunge. If you've got a ten pound vest, wear it.

DNF after one hour - did not do 20 thrusters and the last 400m

This workout had people laughing, it was so ridiculously difficult. The walking lunges completely killed hip function, such that everyone wanted to do nothing but pullups because they weren't as hard on the hips. Very painful.

Barbell complex

Complete as many rounds as possible 20 minutes of:
95 pound Thruster, 5 reps
95 pound Hang Powercleans, 7 reps
95 pound Sumo Deadlift High-pull, 10 reps

I got 5 rounds using a 45# bar. we were going out for Daniel's b-day afterward, and i didn't want to be too tired and sweaty, so i took it kind of easy.

Barhell

Complete as many rounds as possible 20 minutes of:
95 pound Thruster, 5 reps
95 pound Hang Powercleans, 7 reps
95 pound Sumo Deadlift High-pull, 10 reps

5 rounds + 5 Thrusters RX

Designed to be a metcon, I think - this was really more of a strength workout for me. Very well constructed, though - each rep scheme was just about exactly as many as I could do in one set before reaching exhaustion.

Fight gone ladder

WOD:

Choose one of the following movements:

Row for calories (sub Kettlebell SDHP 55#)
Wall-Ball 20/14 (sub Thruster 45#/30#)
Sumo Deadlift High-Pull 55#/75#
Box Jump 24"/20"
Push-Press 55#/75#

With a continuously running clock do one rep (or calorie) the first minute, two reps (or calories) the second minute, three reps (or calories) the third minute... continuing as long as you are able.

Use as many sets each minute as needed.

Results:
I decided I really needed to work on my wallball, but there was only one 14# wallball, so I subbed 2 15# dumbells and did thrusters instead.

The first ladder round, I made it through round 10. barely - I finished rep # 10 at about 55 seconds.

The second ladder, i thought I might try push-press, but the thrusters had kind killed my CNS, and just holding the bar felt hard - and my legs were shaking. But I wasn't quite ready to sit the round out, so I went back and did more thrusters (not really sure what possessed me). I did 12 more rounds - starting from 1 rep/1 round, but I did them on my own schedule. if i didn't finish in a minute, that was ok. I generally was able to get between 6 and 8 reps in a minute.

It was a total of 133 thrusters, and my quads have not forgiven me since.

ok, NOW we're back

Taking time off - even just a week - always results in some disturbance of workout equilibrium. After the months of training for the games, I stopped getting sore from just about anything we did. Then I didn't do much for a week, came back and did 280 weighted squat movements in Wednesday's morning, which severely crippled me for several days. It was like the Potomac CrossFit workout all over again.

Sunday's workout went much better. Still a little sore, I was feeling functional by the time we were warmed up.

3 Rounds

16 Kettlebell Swings 2.0/1.5P
12 Burpees
8 Hang Power Clean 135/95
4 Thruster 135/95
Run 400 Meters

21:17, scaled to 115#

Everything was unbroken. I was sharing a bar with Matthew and Bill, but Max started us several minutes apart, so it wasn't really an issue until the last round, when I caught up with them (and lapped Matthew, who was hangdogging). The swings felt good, the burpees went by fairly quickly, and I had just the right amount of weight on the bar for the cleans and thrusters to allow me to do the sets unbroken, but just barely. It felt good to be back.

Rediscovering intensity.

Warmup: ME, pullup practice, pushups,

WOD:
3 Rounds

16 Kettlebell Swings 2.0/1.5P
12 Burpees
8 Hang Power Clean 135/95
4 Thruster 135/95
Run 400 Meters

*Subbed 1.25P KB, 55# for cleans and thrusters.

Results:

Exercise	1	2	3	Total
16 Heavy KB Swings	1:16	2:22	3:36
12 Burpees	1:28	1:26	1:22
8 Hang Power Cleans	3:21	1:24	3:16
4 Thrusters		2:34	4:29
400m Run	2:19	2:29	2:31
Elapsed Round Time	8:24	10:18	15:17	33:59

Comments:
I very nearly did not finish this workout. The cleans and the thrusters were a weight that was hard when it started, and that I could just barely continue to do as the workout went on, and when I was nearly finished with the 3rd round of cleans, the bar slipped out of my right hand, and as a (stupid!) knee-jerk reaction, I tried to catch the bar instead of just getting out of its way. It hit me pretty hard in the thigh and gave me a bit of a charlie horse.

It took a few minutes to be able to squat at all let alone with weight, and even though I only had 4 thrusters left, I wasn't sure I was going to be able to do them. But I'd dnf'ed so many work-outs lately, that I just decided this wasn't going to be one of them. My classmates were awesome at cheering me throgh the final few reps.

I was pretty pleased with the height I was able to get with the 1.25P KB - most reps were eye or even forehead level.

Another Games WOD (modified)

Legs very sore today from Wednesday's workout. Didn't really have any choice but to take it somewhat easy on the workout - anything involving bending my legs slowed me down.

In this workout you move from each of eight stations after three minutes. The stations are:

squat cleans (100/155 lb.)
toes to bar
box jumps (20/24 inches)
muscle-ups
Single-Arm Push-Press 1.5P/1.0P
double-unders
thrusters (95/135 lb.)
pull-ups (chin over bar)
burpees
walking lunge steps with 45/25 lb. plate overhead

The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of "rotate," the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep.

190. Scaled the cleans and thrusters to 95#, and didn't get any muscle-ups (big surprise there).

What a slog

First workout back after the games, and I was just happy to be working out again - I'd had essentially a week with plenty of activity, but nothing really physically strenuous, and I was feeling antsy.

Run 800 Meters

5 Rounds:
Barbell Hang Squat Snatch 45# 28 Reps/18 Reps
Barbell Thruster 45# 28 Reps/18 Reps

Run 800 Meters

56:29 RX

That happiness didn't last very long into this. I worked in with James (there was a shortage of bars), which made it take a bit longer, but I don't think I would have blazed through this anyway. I started out with sets of 7 on the snatches, but bumped that up to 10/10/8 in the third round. Likewise my thrusters went from 10/10/8 to 14/14, the last four of which typically had horrible, rounded form at the bottom. First run took 3:15, and the second took 4:30 - I could barely walk when I started it. The rounds took between 9 and 11 minutes.

Terrible no good very bad day

Warmup: ME and ... don't remember what else

WOD:
5 Rounds

Barbell Hang Snatch 45# 28 Reps/18 Reps
Barbell Thruster 45# 28 Reps/18 Reps

Run 800 Meters
*Subbed 15# body bar for snatches and thrusters

Results:
33:47 - DNF after 3 rounds.

Round	Run	1	2	3	Run
Run 800m	6:02
18 Hang Squat Snatches		5:06	5:15	5:03
18 Thrusters		1:48	1:54	2:15
Run 800m					6:20

Comments:
Ugh. I thought that after essentially a week off, my first workout back would go pretty well. This workout started terribly and continued terribly. At about the 300m mark I got the worst side stitch I've had in quite a while, and had to walk a great deal of the first 800 - hence the disastrous time. I haven't had to walk an 800 run in months. Particularly not the first run.

The squat snatches were also ridiculously hard. 18 15# squat snatches just should not take 5 minutes - not even when i had to power snatch the bar and then do an OHS - which was what most of them ended up being.

At the end of round 3 I stood around for a few minutes trying to decide whether I was going to continue. A couple other people had dropped out after round 2 or 3, so it was tempting. I was also having a hard time keeping my right knee out, and by the end of the third round it was feeling positively abused. I was afraid there might be injury if I kept going - and, in all honesty, I was extremely glad to have any excuse to stop. I decided I might as well finish out the run - but at about 250m the side stitch returned with a vengeance, so rather than limping through the full 800 I just called it done and staggered back to 'base'.

It was all pretty horrible.

More fun with thrusters

12-9-6

Deadlift 250#/185#
Thruster 115#/85#

7:29 (thrusters at 95#)

I was tempted to try this RX, but considering I could barely do push-jerks at 115 on Wednesday, I didn't have much hope of completing this in under 10 minutes at the RX weight. It was plenty hard as it was - the deadlifts were fine, and (I think) unbroken. The thrusters took far longer.

CrossFit Level 1 Certification, Day One

Today was the first day of my level 1 CrossFit Certification, and I am pretty wiped. This hotel has really crappy wi-fi and there’s nothing on TV, so I think I’m just gonna try and write up this post, then maybe take a bath, try to do some stretches, and go to bed.

It was a long day. And highly illustrative of how much further I have to go in just about every aspect of my fitness. The certification is broken into learning sections, each taught by a different local trainer, interspersed with practical application sessions and a couple workouts. From everything I’ve read and seen, it is a highly typical cert. None of the information presented has been new to me – it’s all widely available in Journal articles and videos online, sometimes nearly the entire lectures. However, the breakaway sessions have been informative and useful in many ways, both personally and (future) professionally.

We started out with “What is CrossFit?” led by Andrew (Drew) Thompson, the overall coordinator of the cert. From there we went straight to the first fundamental movement group – the squat series (air -> front -> OH), led by a guy named Stefan. We broke into smaller groups and went outside to practice. Austin from CF Unlimited was our coach for this session, and he immediately pulled me into the center as his demo of “what not to do” – why? Because I lose the lumbar arch quite quickly, and lean way forward – which I knew. And, apparently, collapse my knees in, which I didn’t know. He gave me some effective (and painful) work to do to try and fix that, and proceed to hammer me on my knees throughout the rest of the day – nearly every movement we did, he was at me telling me to get my knees out. So, apparently, there’s something new to focus on.

Afterwards, we did bottom-to-bottom tabata squats, which were VERY painful, especially as I tried to do as much as I could with my new cues to good form – it’s so much easier to do it wrong! I scored 8, and it looked something like this:

14-14-13-12-10-9-8-8

My hip flexors were KILLING me afterwards, and I was walking somewhat wobbly.

As an aside: I’ve been thinking the past two weeks that my squat is really bad. I don’t know if it’s actually WORSE than it was, or if I’m just more aware of it, but I do know that my hip flexors hurt more than they ever used to. I suspect I may have ingrained some poor movement patterns with my poor-form heavy back squats – not to mention strengthened my body out of balance (ie, quads). I have a lot of work to do in undoing those faulty patterns and re-establishing (or establishing for the first time) proper form and ROM. I’m going to really focus on this, starting immediately, as I will never be able to do well with front or overhead squats until I get my air squat sorted out. I can’t tell you how disheartening it is to realize how much I suck at such a fundamental movement after working at this so long, but that’s pretty much the story of my whole day.

Session two was “What is fitness?,” led by Dave Castro (whose parents own the ranch, apparently). His folks were kind enough to cook us all lunch (there are about 60 of us!), so we got homemade steak and chili and salad instead of having to head into town for food. It was awesome.

The afternoon sessions were devoted to the send sets of fundamental movements. Freddie Camacho led a session on Press, Push-Press and Push-Jerk, and apparently my chest goes forward too much even on the slight dip of a push-press. Then Jolie led the section on Deadlift, SDHP and Med Ball Cleans, and also trained our breakout group – again, she was constantly telling me to get my chest up.

The classes were done, and all that remained was the final workout. Past history suggested it would be Fran, and indeed it was. Jason Khalipa led the warmup running the hill, thereby providing me my only moment of the day of feeling relatively fit. There was an awful lot of walking and bitching as we made our way up the hill, but after the hell Gita’s been putting us through, it really didn’t seem that bad to me. I ran the whole thing, and was not more than a little winded at the top. Of course, doing it after heavy deadlifts is another story…

I had a bar claimed for the first heat, but I went to try out the pullup bar and it got stolen from me. This led to my Great Fran Humiliation, which I hope to never repeat. I didn’t get into the second heat, either, which put me in the final heat. They capped the first two heats at 10 minutes, to make room for subsequent heats. Do you see where I’m heading with this yet?

You see, I’ve never actually done Fran before. I did a heavily scaled, very poorly executed attempt when I was barely beginning, before I could do pullups and when 95# thrusters would have simply crushed me into the floor. Somehow, in over a year of extremely frequent crossfitting, I have managed to miss Fran every time it has come up. I swear it’s an accident. So, heading into it for the first time, I really just wanted to get it under 10 minutes. With all the people knocking it out in under 7-8 minutes, I began to think maybe this was something I could do. Turns out no.

I was in fairly good shape through the first round, but then my time plummeted. Part of it was Austin, yelling at me to get my knees out, which made the thrusters REALLY fucking hard. But I can’t blame him – I was slow, and my pullups (I did C2B for the first round, then abandoned that) were one at a time and crappy. In a half-full heat, the finishers narrowed down to just three guys. They called 10 minutes when I was 5 thrusters into my last set. Then Drew said “let’s let them keep going.” To which I believe I responded, “Oh, fuck.”

One guy finished almost immediately, and the other guy gave up. Which left just me, and a circle of 59 people plus coaches yelling at me to finish. It was not pretty. I eked out the remaining thrusters and moved to the pullup bar, where I did 5 pullups and then my grip failed and I nearly took a sideways spill to the concrete. The last four pullups were singles, and barely chin over bar – my grip was completely shot.

Fran
21-15-9
95# Thruster
Pull-up

12:12 RX

So there you have it. My first RX Fran, and it was NOT under 10 minutes, and it wasn’t even (entirely) chest to bar, and it was really, really embarrassing. My thrusters have always been terrible, but since I gained these 15 pounds (without really doing any pull work), my pull-up power has plummeted. So it was a perfect storm of movements I am very bad at, at least now. Yet more to work on.

I’m feeling relatively beat-up (never has work with a PVC dowel been so exhausting). All the signs point to tomorrow being Fight Gone Bad, which at least I have some experience with. Hopefully I won’t embarrass myself too much with that one.

Thrusters are the devil

Warmup: ME, movement drills with a dowell ... not too much else ... waiting around for heat #1 to finish.

WOD:
Five rounds for time of:
95* pound Sumo deadlift high-pull, 15 reps
95* pound Thruster, 15 reps
*Subbed 45#


Results:
28:52

Comments:
I forgot to bring my watch to class so i do not have the splits for this. Which I find totally aggravating.

The SDHP were not a problem. I was generally able to do them in 1 set of 10-12 and then finish out the rest.

The thrusters - well - they're thrusters - they suck. I was able to do them in sets of 3-5 ... which means I probably should have used a slightly heavier weight - except that my time doesn't really indicate that it was too easy. My wrist(s) were really feeling worked by this workout, so I was taking a little extra rest between sets to try to let them ... I dunno - rest. I don't know why my wrists were so unhappy this week, and were just fine last week with a very similar workout. Probably due to using a different bar, and maybe a different grip. last week i used an empty oly bar. this week it was the15# alumalite with 15# bumpers.

Daniel said my form on the thrusters wasn't looking too bad. My depth was excellent, and my knees - while wobbly - were not in danger of actually knocking together. We'll see how squats go tonight.

Pick it up and put it over your head

I can't really say I have an ambivalent attitude towards thrusters. There's not much "ambi" there. I hate the fuckers. Consensus at CFEB is that they are the single nastiest exercise in the CrossFit canon - basically the demon offspring of a burpee and a barbell.

So with that in mind, you can imagine the joy with which we contemplated this puppy:

Five rounds for time of:
95 pound Sumo deadlift high-pull, 15 reps
95 pound Thruster, 15 reps

27:14RX

I'm not terribly proud of that time, but I'm quite happy about that "RX." Our thrusters are typically high-volume/low-weight, so I haven't attempted doing 95# thrusters for reps in many months, and I was worried about being able to do 75 of them. They were quite doable, which means that an RX Fran is now in my grasp. I'm anticipating having to do Fran at the cert next month, and I was afraid I'd have to scale it, which would have sucked. Now, whether I can do it in under 10 minutes or not is a different question...

As for this workout, I spent quite a lot of time resting. I typically knocked out the SDHPs in two quick sets of 8/7 - they weren't terribly difficult. The thrusters I did in sets of five across the board, and - since I didn't want to keep cleaning the bar - I didn't start a set until I was confident I could get five. I focused as much as I could on form, but my lower back was still hurting afterwards - probably from the high-pulls and from rounding my back at the bottom of the thruster.

I broke my ass.

Climbing this morning was my first clue that my body was not recovered from yesterday. I only did three 10B's, telling myself I was going to take it easy, and after the first climb my biceps/deltoids were screaming at me. I reluctantly agreed to listen to them and stop after only three climbs. I was worried about what would happen with the evening WOD.

Turns out the problem wasn't with my arms. It was with my ass.

Five rounds for time of:
Run 400 meters
75 pound Sumo deadlift high-pull, 21 reps
75 pound Thruster, 21 reps

21:08 DNF (3 rounds)

I had a good pace for the first two rounds - probably would have finished around 30-32 minutes, I think. Unfortunately, I developed a very painful cramp in the back of my left hip/glute, particularly on the SDHPs. I've felt a smaller version of this pain before, usually while running up hills, but this is the first time it has ever gotten so intense that it has prompted me to stop.

More stretching is in order, I think, as well as some hard ball rolling after workouts. Hopefully this won't develop into yet another chronic injury like my ankle and shoulder.

"I can stop any time this gets too hard ... "

Warmup: Jog 400m, lots of OHS and hip openers and running in place trying to stay warmed up while waiting for heat 1 to finish.

WOD:
Five rounds for time of:
Run 400 meters
75 pound Sumo deadlift high-pull, 21 reps
75 pound Thruster, 21 reps

Results:

Round	400m	SDHP	Thrusters	Round	Elapsed
1	2:22	7:03		9:25	9:25
2	2:39	1:46	5:51	10:16	19:41
3	2:40	2:03	6:42	11:25	31:06
4	2:46	2:28	7:36	12:50	43:56
5	2:51	2:36	6:25	11:52	55:48

Comments:
This workout was absolutely brutal. I nearly quit about half way through round 1 when some folks were heading out for the run on round 3 and I was still struggling through round 1 (The top finishers got this one done in 22-25 minutes). I forgot to hit the split timer between the SDHP and the thrusters on the first round, but I can guarantee that it was the thrusters that took the most time. I was only getting sets of 1 to 2 reps - 3 if I was lucky.

I just reminded myself of the mantra I discovered yesterday, with a slight (very effective) modification: "You can stop any time this gets too hard to continue." It's a very subtle shift from permission to a challenge. The stubborn mule in me is EXTREMELY reluctant to admit that ANYTHING is too hard, so if I have anything left, I'll keep going. Also, it helps me keep things in perspective. I know what hard is, I know the difference(generally) between pain indicative of an imminent injury and pain that is merely the discomfort brought on by hard work. The later does not count as "too hard".

Interestingly, my thrusters got better as the rounds went on. I found that I was able to string together as many as 5 in a row. The last round of thrusters went a lot faster than round 3 and 4 because Daniel came out to coach me and cheerlead me through it. Everyone else was long done, the sun was going down, and I was losing my determination. It made a huge difference to have him there urging me to pick up the bar and get it done. Thank you, honey!