Day: March 31, 2013

Kevin’s New Toys

I went over to Kevin’s for a garage session tonight. He got a bunch of new equipment so I got to try most of it.

4×10 Reverse Hyper

Loaded 70# for the first set and then 120# for the last three. Quite the interesting machine. It made my back really spicy almost immediately.

3×7 GHR

I held a 5# plate on the 2nd and 3rd set. Tried to use a 10# plate on the 3rd set but couldn’t even get 1 rep.

5×5 Seated Good Mornings

Used 75#, 95#, 115#, 125#, and 125#. I’ve only done good mornings a few times and this was the first time doing them seated, which I think I like better than standing.

Earthquake Bar Bench Press

Did 10 reps and then a static hold at the top. Did 50# and 90# with a 20 second hold and then 100# with a 30 second hold. We used steel plates for these. We did try 120# with a mix of plates and KB, but it was not happening because the KB are so unstable.

Back Squats

The plan was to do 5×5 at 75-80% of 1RM, but we were a little too fried from 13.4 this morning and all the back work. We did 5 reps at 135#, 185#, 245#, 225#, and 225#. The first two sets were going to be warm-up sets and then into the sets of 245# but we knew the 5 sets were not going to happen after that first one, so we dropped it down and cut the number of sets short. Then we dropped back down to 135# for a max rep set. Kevin stopped at 20 reps and I stopped at 30, deciding we wanted to be able to walk tomorrow.

We jumped back on the Reverse Hyper for a quick set of 15 with 70# to stretch the back out.

It didn’t seem like that long while we were lifting, but it was a solid 2 hours.

2013 CrossFit Games Open Workout 13.4 (Redo)

welcome-back-balloonsI arrived home in Saginaw, MI at about 1pm yesterday. My Survival Fitness (CrossFit Saginaw) family surprised me with a welcome back party at the gym last night. I thought I was going in to witness a 13.4 throwdown between Matt and Casey, but they got me good. I felt bad not drinking with everyone, but I was exhausted so I wanted to be able to get a quality night of sleep, plus I was doing 13.4 today.

I didn’t get quite as much sleep as I hoped for, but it sure is nice to be back home in my kick ass bed. Went in early to warm-up and got going head-to-head with Brent a little after 11am. I scored a 73 in my first attempt, but knew I could smoke that score. I was hoping to get up close to 90 if I could execute the strategy improvements I wanted to.

I warmed up with a 500m row, some PVC pass-thrus, a bunch of stretching and rolling, and some TnG C&J reps at 95# and 135#.

Open Workout 13.4

Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes following the rep scheme below:

  • 3 Clean & Jerk (135#)
  • 3 T2B
  • 6 Clean & Jerk (135#)
  • 6 T2B
  • 9 Clean & Jerk (135#)
  • 9 T2B
  • 12 Clean & Jerk (135#)
  • 12 T2B
  • 15 Clean & Jerk (135#)
  • 15 T2B
  • 18 Clean & Jerk (135#)
  • 18 T2B
  • If you complete the round of 18, go on to 21. If you complete 21, go on to 24, etc.

I wanted to get through the 3 & 6 sets of C&J unbroken and I did. I also wanted to get through all of the T2B through 12 unbroken, but I had to break up the 12 with a quick jump off the bar and then back on. Matt was there yelling at me not to take the step away from the bar when I went to singles and it really helped me a lot. I knew I was in good shape when I got to the round of 15s over 30 seconds faster than my first attempt. I think I had somewhere between 20 and 30 seconds to get the 15 T2B done, but my hips were not having it. I struggled to get 7 reps. Had the time to get really close to 90, but my body said no. I’m really happy with a 9 rep improvement though. I knew I had a lot more in the tank than what my first attempt showed, but that’s understandable since I did it right after the announcement with no time to strategize.