Upgrading the Engine

Now that my strength has improved a lot since the summer, I need to get my cardio back and lose some weight. I’ve been eating everything imaginable, putting on 15-20 pounds and increasing my body fat 4 or 5% in the process. Happy with the added muscle, but not the fat. Starting yesterday I’m back trying to eat healthy.

Decided to get in a good cardio burn, with the aim being a 10 minute WOD.

10 Rounds

  • 150m Row
  • 5 Burpees

I didn’t strap my feet in on the rower, so probably lost a bit of power there, but I didn’t want to have to get in and out for each round. I finished in 10:05. It’s nice when things work out as planned. I could have paced myself better, but I wanted to go hard the entire time, knowing I would fade away each round. Need to get those lungs back and it’s not going to happen by taking it easy. I almost pulled the plug after round 5 because I was dying. I told myself you don’t improve by quitting.

I set the rower to do 150m intervals, but the splits are a little confusing because it counted the previous interval’s rest time (or in my case, transition + time to do 5 burpees) as part of each interval. This makes the 500m pace and strokes/minute completely useless to look at. Maybe I set it to do the intervals wrong, who knows.

10x150m-row-5-burpees

Yes, it’s a cut and paste job, because the screen isn’t big enough to display all 10 intervals at once.

What a Bear!

Kind of tired this morning, but went to 9am to get it done.

Warm-up

4 Rounds

  • 15s Jumping Jacks
  • 15s Air Squats
  • 15s Mountain Climbers
  • 15s Jump Squats

4 Rounds

  • 15s Plank
  • 15s Supermans
  • 15s Right Side Plank
  • 15s Left Side Plank

Strength

Find 1RM Front Squat

After hitting my previous 1 rep max (235#) for 3 reps last week, I was looking for a nice PR today. Warmed up with 6 reps at 135# and then went 185#, 215#, 235#, 245#, and 255# for a 20# PR. It was pretty easy too.

WOD

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

  • Modified Bear Complex (Clean Thruster + Back Squat Thruster)
  • 2x DU

I went Rx with 115# and finished just under the time limit with 25:45. Pretty happy with that because a long barbell complex in far from my strength and I held my own. I’ll be feeling that one in my legs for a few days.