Year: 2012

Hungover

Went out last night with the Survival Fitness crew last night, so didn’t get very good sleep and things are a little foggy today. Went in to the noon class, which only had 3 people, compared to 20 that went to the 11am.

Warm-up

  • 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Weighted Step-ups (95# – front rack)
  • 20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2 Floor Wipers (95#)

Nice little workout right there in the warm-up.

WOD

20-15-10-5

  • Curtis Ps (95# – hang squat clean, 2 lunges, press)
  • K2E

Those Curtis Ps are brutal. I started off with 5 in a row, but then went 2 or 3 at a time with a couple of singles. I was pretty out of it, so took the opportunity to really concentrate on my squat clean and push jerk techniques. I broke the set of 20 K2E into 15 and 5, then did the other sets unbroken. Got a good workout, but didn’t really push it today. Finished in 27:41.

“Grace” PR

Feeling so much better today. Hit up the 11am.

Warm-up

4 Rounds

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

Midline

21-15-9

  • One-arm OHS (35# KB)
  • V-ups

The one-arm OHS is such an awkward movement. Using a KB did feel better balanced than when I had used a DB before.

WOD

15:00 AMRAP

  • “Grace” – 30 Clean & Jerks (125#)
  • “Cindy” with the remaining time
    • 5 Pull-ups
    • 10 Push-ups
    • 15 Air Squats

I finished “Grace” in 4:16, which is a 54 second PR since doing it in July. Even with the much faster time it felt much easier. I did the first 7 reps unbroken then did one rep at a time dropping the bar after each rep. Didn’t take any rest time other than setting up for the next rep. With the remaining time I did 9 full rounds of “Cindy” plus 2 more pull-ups. Good workout!

Finisher

  • 50 Russian KBS (71# KB)
  • 400m Farmer’s Carry (40# DBs)

I did the swings unbroken, which isn’t that tough for Russian KBS. My arms wanted to fall off and my grip was really failing in the farmer’s carry, but I held on to those DBs the entire time. Distance was probably 50m more actually because I had to carry them outside and then back in.

Coming off a Cold

I started coming down with something on Wednesday night and yesterday was spent mostly in the napping position. Felt better and better today as the hours passed. Still somewhat tired, but went in to the 4:15pm and then stayed after a bit during open gym.

Warm-up

  • 30-20-10 Air Squats
  • 15-20-5 Burpees

WOD

  • 400m Run
  • 20 Turkish Get-ups (35# KB)
  • 40 Plyo Lunges
  • 400m Run
  • 14 Turkish Get-ups (35# KB)
  • 30 Plyo Lunges
  • 400m Run
  • 10 Turkish Get-ups (35# KB)
  • 20 Plyo Lunges
  • 400m Run
  • 6 Turkish Get-ups (35# KB)
  • 10 Plyo Lunges

My running was pretty terrible today due to being a little rundown, but I can fly through the Turkish get-ups so I made up some time there. Finished in 18:35.

Finisher

5 Sets

  • 10 Ring Dips
  • 2m Rest

Did each round unbroken.

Open Gym

6:00 EMOTM

  • 3 OHS (75#)
  • 20 DUs

I was going to go for 10 minutes but could feel myself getting tired and didn’t want to overdo it with this cold. I also did a few bar muscle-ups, which is pretty good after all of those dips. I don’t think I’ve ever done more than 1 in a day before, but I always try to do them after a WOD.

Weak Bench

Today marks my 1 year anniversary since starting CrossFit. Took a needed rest day from the box today, but did a quick 5×5 of bench press in the garage tonight with Kevin.

  • 5 @ 135#
  • 5 @ 155#
  • 5 @ 175#
  • 5 @ 185#
  • 5 @ 195#
  • 2 @ 205#

When I did this a few weeks ago I got 3 reps at 205#. I’m getting weaker! Actually I think I’m coming down with something. I’ve been coughing and sneezing a lot today, along with some sniffles. Hopefully I’m fine tomorrow.

Froning Style

My hamstrings and glutes are a good sore from the RDLs. Need to do those more often.

Olympic Lifting Class

Went in at 6pm for the OLY class. We worked on snatches by doing progressions with the empty bar. Then we loaded up to a moderate weight and did:

5 Rounds

  • 1 Snatch
  • 2 Snatch Balances
  • 3 Snatch Grip Deadlifts

I started with 95# for the first three rounds and then 105# for the next two rounds. After that we worked on full squat snatch singles. I loaded 115# and tried to work on my technique. Then to finish the class we worked up to a heavy snatch grip deadlift triple. Wow is that a bitch on your thumbs! I did 3 sets, 2 @ 205# and 1 at 235# (I think). I don’t remember all of the weights exactly for any of the lifts.

Warm-up

4 Rounds

  • 15s PVC Pass-thrus
  • 15s Air Squats
  • 15s PVC Ground to OH
  • 15s Zombie Kicks

Was already pretty warmed up from the OLY work.

Strength

5 Sets of Kroc Rows – 10 each arm for 4 sets and then max reps in the 5th set.

Used KBs for each round and went 53#, 62#, 71#, 80#, and 88#. I got 17 reps with my right arm and 22 with my left if I remember right.

WOD

No extra rest in between each 10 minute block; the minutes keep going.

10:00 EMOTM

  • Evens: 7 Power Cleans (115#)
  • Odds: 15 Wall Balls (20# MB, 10′ target)

10:00 EMOTM

  • Evens: 5 Power Cleans (135#)
  • Odds: 10 Burpees

10:00 EMOTM

  • Evens: 3 Power Cleans (155#)
  • Odds: 10 T2B

A Rich Froning style workout and I loved it. The EMOTM stuff really allows you to go all out balls to the wall when it’s work time and the rest period is just short enough to recover.

The weight was almost perfect for me. Maybe could have gone 5 or 10# heavier because I flew through the 7 reps in those first 10 minutes, getting them done in about 12 or 13 seconds each time. After 2 rounds of burpees, I figured out why I’ve been so slow lately. I’ve been standing all the way up before jumping. It was taking me 30-31 seconds to get my 10 reps done, which is extremely slow compared to how I’ve done them before when doing 10 at a time. Well, I switched back to jumping as soon as my feet snap up to my hands and shaved 6 seconds of my 10 rep split, right back into my 24 second wheel house. Did all of the T2B unbroken and concentrated on a short kip at the bottom to cycle them faster.

Moving Some Weight

I got a hot stone massage today from Cora because my back was pretty tight from the competition. Planned to take the day off, but was feeling good, so I went in for the 5:30pm.

Warm-up

4 Rounds

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

Strength

5×5 Low Box Squats

We went extra low with a 12″ box for the guys, compared to the 14″ we had used in the last cycle. It felt like we were never going to get low enough to reach the box. It felt soooo much harder. I went 135#, 155#, 175#, 185#, and 195#. But compare that to 5×5 on the 14″ box from 3 weeks ago when I went 135#, 155#, and then 175# for the last 3 sets. Up 20# today with a lower box. BOOM!

WOD

21-15-9

  • Sandbag Get-ups
  • Burpee Deadlifts (25# DBs, jump on 25# plate)

Doesn’t seem bad when you look at it, but it’s a gasser. I had a few misses on my get-ups and fell right back on my ass. I had only done deadlift burpees once before and used a much heavier weight so knew how bad they could be. Having to jump on the plate at the end was even harder. Finished in 9:12.

Finisher

10:00 EMOTM

  • Evens: 10 RDLs (135# in rounds 1-3, 165# in rounds 4-5)
  • Odds: 10 Goblet Squats (62# KB)

It’s been ages since I did RDLs and I don’t think I ever used more than 155#, but my regular deadlift is almost 100# more than it was then. This was a fun finisher, which took about 20-23 seconds of work each minute for me.

Lot’s of weight being moved today. My back held up great too!

Recovering

I wasn’t going to go in today, but Matt posted the workout on Facebook and it wasn’t a super intense WOD, so I went in at noon. Really helped to loosen me up a bit after yesterday’s competition. Helps to recover from the hangover of last night’s Halloween party as well.

Warm-up

  • 100 Butt Kicks
  • 100 High Knees
  • 100 Jumping Jacks
  • 100 Arm Circles (50 forward, 50 backward)
  • 30s Bottom Squat Hold
  • 30s Side Plank (each side)
  • 30s Zombie Kicks
  • 30s Lateral Hops (15s each side)

Strength WOD

3 Rounds

  • 1-2-3-4-5
    • Strict Pull-ups
    • Broad Jumps for max distance
  • 100m Farmer’s Carry

We didn’t time this because the goal was for good quality reps. I concentrated on the hollow body position and active shoulders on all of my pull-ups. Did them all strict too, which is 45 in total. The broad jumps were slow and one at a time, but a sneaky form of cardio because it’s such an explosive movement. I wont over 8 feet on every one of the jumps. For the farmer’s carry I used a 39# and 40# KB is round 1, then a 62# and 71# KB in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, switching hands at 50m each time.

WOD

  • 6 x 150m Sprint

You may rest between each sprint, but only in the plank position. As soon as you can no longer hold a plank, start running…

I liked the plank as rest here. Really tried to max out my plank each round and give my lungs as much rest as possible so that I could run hard on each sprint. It was tough getting the legs going at the start of each sprint due to all of the broad jumps taking a toll on the hips.

Finisher

Mobility WOD

I did some couch stretches on the wall and then tried a shoulder capsule movement to help with my overhead position. You lay on the ground with a band attached to something out from the top of your heard. The band then goes under your arm pit and you hold a KB straight up while fighting for a good position. It doesn’t look or sound that tough, but it really works your shoulder.

Battle of the Boxes

Went down to Sterling Height for the Battle of the Boxes, put on by CrossFit Transformation. There were 32 teams and I haven’t seen the official results yet, but I heard we took 18th place. We were 25th going into the last event, which we rocked!

WOD 1

20:00 AMRAP

  • 15 Thrusters (95/65#)
  • 20 KB Swings (53/35#)
  • 50 Double Unders

# of Athletes – 4 (2 men / 2 women)

All 4 athletes will cycle thru this AMRAP for 20 minutes. 3 athletes max will be working at a time, with the 4th resting/waiting to start their next round. Team members cannot move to the next station until the team member in front of them has left that station.
Each team will be given a female bar loaded to 65# and mens bar loaded to 95#, a 53# KB and a 35# KB. BRING YOUR OWN ROPE!!

*Dropping the KB constitutes a 10 burpee penalty to be done immediately before continuing KB swings.

*The 2 athletes that do not compete in this WOD, must compete in WOD 4.

WOD 2

Tug-o-War

# of Athletes – 6 (3 men / 3 women)

This WOD will be scored bracket style, like playoffs or March Madness. It will start with all teams and it will be one game knock out until we crown a champion. Cleats nor gloves are allowed.

The teams that get knocked out round one, will then enter a ball toss event. Each athlete will get 3 attempts to throw as far as possible and the team score will be measured by total distance of each of the athletes furthest throw.

WOD 3

OLY Event

# of Athletes – 6 (3 men / 3 women)

The women will start this event off. They will have 8 minutes to do the following:
Find a 1RM Snatch. *The load on the bar can not decrease.
Find a 1RM Clean & Jerk. *The load on the bar can not decrease.
*The only time the load can decrease is when all athletes complete the snatch and show they are moving to clean & jerk.

Once the girls 8 minutes are up, the guys 8 minutes begin. They will perform the same WOD.

*You don’t have to spend 4 minutes on each, you can spend 7 on one movement and 1 on the other. It’s up to you.

*Highest successful lift from each athlete for each lift will be added together for scoring. It will be scored in 3 ways. Team with the highest snatch, highest clean & jerk, and highest total.

WOD 4

For time and reps:
1) Sand Bag Shuttle Relay (75#, 50#, 25#), MR Front Squats (135/95#), MR Deadlifts (185/115#)

# of Athletes – 4
*The 2 athletes that did not compete in WOD 1, must compete in this event.

The 2 women will start this event off.

Athlete 1 must shuttle sprint each sand bag one length of the field and place the sandbag down. Athletes must show control when putting the sandbag down. No body slamming or throwing it past the line. If your judge feels you weren’t in control, you will perform 10 burpees before you sprint back to start line empty-handed. While Athlete 1 is doing the sandbag shuttle, Athlete 2 is performing max rep front squats (95#). Once Athlete 1 completes the 3 sandbag shuttles they will then start their max rep front squats while Athlete 2 sprints down the field to retrieve all the sandbags. When Athlete 2 returns from the sandbag shuttle the two girls will add 20# to the barbell (making it 115#) and Athlete 2 will then begin max reps deadlifts while Athlete 1 completes the sandbag shuttle for a second time. When Athlete 1 returns she will complete max reps deadlifts while Athlete 2 completes the shuttle run. When Athlete 2 returns from the shuttle run the women are done and then men jump in strip the bar and load it up to 135# then complete the same WOD as the women. Men will increase the bar as a team to 185# to complete the deadlift portion.

WOD will be scored in 3 ways. Shuttle sprint total time, MR deadlifts, and MR front squats.

How did we do?

Event 1 was tough for us because we got caught up on the DUs. I felt good during this WOD and did American KBS with the more of a straight up and down swing for the first time. Made things easier to knock out 20 in a row. My DUs were pretty good but I only got through 2 rounds and the thrusters in my 3rd round. I was actually surprised that we beat 5 other teams is this workout, so their DUs must have been terrible because ours were pretty bad.

The Tug-o-war was a lot of fun. We smoked our first match, but then got it handed right back to us in our second match.

The Olympic lifting event was intense! All 6 of our team members matched or hit now PRs in both the snatch and clean & jerk, which is pretty amazing for such a fast paced event.

For the snatch, I hit 135, missed 145, hit 145, and hit 155. That’s a 10 pound PR. I had every intention of doing squat snatches but when you’re ripping off reps so fast, you lose you heard. I power snatched that bitch. It was not pretty but I got it. In the clean and jerk, I hit 185# with a squat clean, then hit 205# with a power clean and kind of an ugly jerk. Made a quick attempt at 215 but didn’t give it the power I needed to. We were running low on time, so I gave the rest to Casey and he nailed 225. Best clean I’d ever done was 205, but best clean and jerk was 185, so that’s a 20# PR for the combination that is the OLY lift. I’d never attempted a jerk of more than 185, so was also a 20# PR on a jerk. It’s hard to explain how intense this WOD was because you had to make quick lifts and when you weren’t lifting you had to be ready to increase the weights on the bar or jump in for your next rep.

We did really well in the sandbag sprint and think we finished 2nd or 3rd. Should have done pretty well in the max reps lifts for that even too due to our women. I can’t wait to see the results for this event because we jumped up a lot from it.

It was a long day, but a lot of fun. I did mess up my back again, so not too happy about that.

Flippin’ Tires

Up for the 9am today. I was thinking about just doing some rowing, but I have 48 hours to recover before the competition on Saturday, so I’ll be fine. Not feeling too bad after doing “DT” yesterday.

Warm-up

  • 1m DUs
  • 20 Air Squats
  • 20 Reach to the sky and then down to the toes
  • 20 PVC Pass-thrus
  • 1m DUs

In the second minute of DUs I knocked off 78 unbroken, a new PR. That’s 3 PRs this week on my DUs, up from 44!

Strength

5×20 Weighted Sit-ups

I used 20# KBs, a 45# KB, a 60# DB, 30# DBs, and a 62# KB. Crazy how tough these get and how much you can sweat from doing sit-ups

WOD

42-30-18

  • Thrusters (45# empty bar)
  • HR Push-ups

Holy shoulder burner! I knocked out the first 42 thrusters unbroken, but that may have been a bad idea for the rest of the workout. I did 10 push-ups to start, but then it was pretty much 5 at a time for the rest of the workout with a few streaks of 4s or 6s in there. In the second round of thrusters I broke it down into 10-12-8 and then 10-8 in the final round. Finished in 11:13.

Finisher

10 Rounds

  • Tire Flip
  • 100y Sprint (50y down and back)

After doing CrossFit for nearly a year, these were the first tire flips I’ve ever done. Really liked this finisher.

Extra Strength

After I got home I went out to the garage for some dynamic low box squats. In order to keep my body guessing, I went with lower weights than I’ve been using for these, which also let me have faster reps. My legs were pretty tired from all of the thrusters anyway.

  • 2×2 @ 45#
  • 1×2 @ 75#
  • 1×2 @ 95#
  • 1×2 @ 115#
  • 8×2 @ 135#

Now I rest until Saturday.

New Barbells

Up for the 9am this morning on short rest from last night’s 2 hours at the box.

Warm-up

5 Rounds

  • 30s PVC Pass-thrus
  • 30s Zombie Kicks
  • 30s Lateral Hops (15s each leg)

Strength

5×1 Floor Press

Warmed up with a set of 5 @ 135# and then did working sets with 165#, 185#, 205#, 215#, and 225#. Up 20# from last week’s set of 3 and 10# higher than I’ve even bench pressed, although I’ve only done max bench once in the last 5 years and it was after a long workout.

WOD

“DT”

5 Rounds

  • 12 Deadlifts
  • 9 Hang Power Cleans
  • 6 Should to Overhead

Matt told us not to go over 10 minutes on this WOD because you want to keep up the intensity. Rx was 155# which is laughable. I used 115#. You quickly learn how to take breaks without making yourself do extra work. For instance, if you take a break after 11 deadlifts, you get your 12th one as you pick the bar back up for the power cleans. Then take a break after 8 power cleans. You end up doing an extra deadlift to get back into the hang position, but it’s not a big deal and you can then go right from the 9th power clean into your presses. Don’t put the bar down until all 6 are done. Rest in the rack position if you need to. If you aren’t smart about resting, you can do a ton of extra work in this WOD.

I strung together push presses as much as I could, but had to resort to push jerks in the last round with a short rest in the rack position between each one. My time was 7:31.

We got 8 new bars last night, so we’ll be doing a lot more WODs with a barbell. I’m excited!

Finisher

5 sets of 10 Ring Push-ups

Even after all that work, they felt good. Did each set unbroken.