Liftoff

Tonight we got together to do the CrossFit Liftoff event for fun. Alex lifted, while Bryan and I did all 3 parts.

Warm-up

  • 3×8 Reverse Hyper (140#)
  • Crossover Symmetry Activation
  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Ring Hang

Snatch

  • 3 Muscle Snatch + 3 Snatch Press + 3 OHS
    • 45#
    • 75#
    • 95#
  • All full snatches unless noted
    • 3×115#
    • 2×135#
    • 1×145#
    • 1×155#
    • 1×165#
    • 1×175#
    • 1×185#
    • Fail 195#
    • 1×195# Power
    • 1×205# Power
    • Fail 4×210#

Was feeling light going up, then 175# started to feel some of the weight off the ground. Got in my head with 195 so then powered the next rep. Powered 205# and told myself I had to drop under the rest if I wanted to be able to make some bigger numbers. Was getting under them no problem just couldn’t keep the bar back. Need to put more time into working on them.

Clean & Jerk

  • 3×135#
  • 2×165#
  • 2×185#
  • 1×205#
  • 1×225#
  • 1×235#
  • 1×245#
  • 1×255#
  • 1×265# (PR)
  • 1×270# (PR)

Cleans were scary. I haven’t done any big numbers in awhile other than the 255# clean during the Team Series. Back seemed to hold up well though. Jerks felt pretty good and that’s usually where my head gets me out of it. They said the bar was flying up. I’ll take the 6# PR and no misses. 🙂 Again though, need to spend more time on the lifts now that I’m healthy.

That was a fun bro sesh. Been far too long since we did that.

Conditioning

12:00 AMRAP

  • 3 Snatch (135#)
  • 6 C&J (135#)
  • 9 C2B Pull-ups
  • 54 Double Unders

Did all single snatch and clean & jerk the entire workout. Did 5-4 C2B in the first round, then 3-3-3 for 3 rounds, and convinced myself singles at the end, when I had just over 30 seconds left, would be faster. After 4 singles I finished with a triple. Wish I had tried for 3-3-3 again. Oh well. Finished with 4 rounds plus the snatches, clean & jerks, and 7 of the chest to bar pull-ups. Good workout!

Running Singles

Up at 6am again. WTF! Went to the 9am class.

Midline & Shoulder Warm-up

6 Rounds

  • 20s L-hang (bar)
  • 10s Rest

Done with bent knees held up, of course.

Strength

10:00 EMOM (alt)

  • 8 Push Press (115#)
  • 20s Handstand Hold

Not as hard as I was expecting. I tried to take my feet off the wall some during the holds. 135# would have been a better challenge.

Conditioning

15:00 AMRAP

  • 50 Jump Rope
  • 30 Russian KB Swings (53#)
  • 20 Shoulder Taps
  • 10 Pistols

I did my jump ropes like running with one foot per jump. Much easier to keep a rhythm going than I’ve been able to do with single unders on both feet recently. Shoulder taps got tough, but never came off the wall. Would like pistols to be a lot faster. Finished 5 rounds plus 50-30-20-4.

1:30 AMRAP

  • Row for calories

Really didn’t feel like doing this. Got 47 cals. I think it would have been a 500m in the low 1:30s if I remember right. Really started losing power at about 30 cals.

Stayed after everyone left for a little extra work.

Accessory

E90S 15:00 (alt)

  • 10 Deficit RDL (155#, 4″)
  • 10 Weighted GHD Sit-ups (20#)

I had planned single leg RDLs, but saw the little platform sitting out and got this new idea. Glad I did because it worked great. Ended up giving me about a minute of rest between movements.

Calorie Repeats

Was up bright and early with code on the brain so got working shortly after 6am. Headed to Intuition just after 9am.

Rowing WOD Week 14 Session 2

  • 5 rounds
    • Row 150 Calories
    • 2:00 Rest
  • 5:00 Rest
  • Row 25 cals for time

I started with 20 strokes/minute and increased 1 every round, also increasing pace. Times were 9:27, 9:23, 9:15, 9:10, and 8:58. Shorter rest than we’ve had for pieces this long, but felt fine. The 25 calories were done in 38 seconds, a 1 second improvement from last week. I wore my heart rate strap throughout. Peaked at 145 during the last interval and got up to 162 during the sprint. Total of 11,792 meters for the session.

rowing-wod-w14s1

rowing-wod-w14s1-hr

That big drop off in the chart happened when I walked too far away from my phone during a rest period.

Had planned to hit some work in the garage, but got in a killer coding zone at work. I guess I won’t rest tomorrow and will push active recovery off to Saturday.

4 Plates

My lats were a little sore this morning. Maybe from the presses or burpees? Don’t remember rowing every making me sore. Was up and to the 9am class.

Warmup

  • 3×10 Reverse Hyper (140#)
  • Pass thrus
  • Air Squats
  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Jumping Jacks

Strength – Deadlift

  • 10×45#
  • 6×155#
  • 6×225#
  • 3×265#
  • 3×305#
  • 3×335#
  • 3×365#
  • 3×385#
  • 3×405#

I haven’t had 4 plates on the bar since sometime before May. Felt ok, but didn’t want to push it.

Conditioning

  • 21-15-9 American KBS (53#)
  • 21-15-9 Goblet Squats (53#)
  • 30 DU

Good little burner. I went with American swings today since it wasn’t high reps. Unbroken on the weighted movements, but my dubs were shitty again today. Missed in the first set at 25 and missed 2-3 times in the second set, but got the last one unbroken. Finished in 4:17.

Accessory

5 Sets

  • 10/10 Kroc Rows (70#)
  • 5 Strict C2B Pull-ups

Why do the Kroc rows never seem to get easier? I sweat like a pig during them. Kind of a nasty combo with pull-ups. I’m going to try to do all strict pull-ups during accessory work or even weighted ones.

Burpees over the Rower

Took a complete rest day yesterday. Staying up late over the weekend to play Halo and this time change has me all messed up. Plus my nieces were here the last couple of days so I was up way earlier than I like. Headed to the gym around 3pm today for my workout.

Warm-up

  • 10 Revers Hyper 140#
  • 10 Back Squat 45#
  • 10 Shoulder Press 45#
  • 10 RH 140#
  • 4 BS 155#
  • 4 SP 75#
  • 10 RH 140#
  • 4 BS 205#
  • 4 SP 95#
  • 10 RH 140#
  • 4 BS 235#
  • 4 SP 115#

Strength

10:00 EMOM (alt)

  • 4 Back Squat (265#)
  • 4 Shoulder Press (135#)

Squats felt better than the sets of 5 with 245# last week. Shoulder press was rough though.

Rowing WOD Week 14 Session 1

So not only is the focus on rowing for CrossFit, but now we’re adding burpees into the mix!

E2M 20:00

  • 15 Calorie Row
  • 8 Burpees over the rower

Each round is done for time. The numbers were based off the 30 second intervals we did last week. My times were 0:54, 0,:53, 0:53, 0:54, 0:54, 0:57, 0:58, 1:04, 1:09, 0:59. Around the end of round 7 I started to feel sick during the burpees. So I slowed down in rounds 8-9 and somehow powered through round 10 because I didn’t want to go over 1:10 and made it back under a minute.

Then a much needed 5:00 rest.

3 Rounds

  • 15 Calorie Row
  • 8 Burpees over the rower

My legs ran out of juice towards the end of the first round on the rower. Burpees held out pretty well. Took me 3:33 and then I collapsed on the ground for several minutes. Finally got moving and went outside to cool off and walked 400m.

That was one fucking nasty ass workout. One of the hardest things I’ve done recently.

Tricks & Treats

Pretty tired from not getting much sleep the last two nights. Damn Halo! 🙂 We kind of did some fun unusual stuff today at the gym.

Warm-up

Did 4 rounds of Rowling. Hard to do a lot with a big group.

Strength

Speed Bench Press

  • 10x3x155#

Warmed up with 10×45 and 3×135#. Didn’t want anyone to go over 60%.

Conditioning

  • 100 Partner Wall Ball Tosses over object

Most people went over a pull-up bar. Bryan and I went over a stack of boxes for more space. We had them stacked 24-30-30″. Pretty fun going unbroken.

We split into 3 teams and did a relay race with:

4 Rounds

  • 20 cal Row
  • 15 Sandbag Toss over Shoulder
  • Move Shit

I think I had a 20# MB, 35# KB, and 53# KB set out for each team. We had to take all of the objects down about 30-40 feet and then back to the starting point. Teams had 4 people so you got a little rest waiting for your turn. Each station could only have one person working and you couldn’t move on until the person in front of you was done.

Halloween – Year 4

Today marks the 4 year anniversary since I started doing CrossFit. Changed my life!

Was up late playing Halo 5 last night. First time I’ve done that playing videos games in a few years. Made it for the 10am class. Weighed in before class for the challenge since the party is tonight. On my scale at home, I went from 16.3% to 13.4% body fat and 208.7 to 198.7 pounds. At the gym I think I went from 20% to 17.5%, but that’s with using it on the “normal” setting instead of “athlete” to make it consistent across the board for everyone.


I definitely feel a lot better and have said for a long time that 195-200 is a better weight for me to carry around. That body fat % still seems high though.

Warm-up

  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Ring Hang Stretch
  • Good Mornings
  • Presses
  • OHS

Conditioning

5 Rounds

  • 5 Hang Power Cleans (95#)
  • 5 Front Squats (95#)
  • 5 Push Presses (95#)
  • 5 Back Squats (95#)
  • 5 Burpees over the bar

Went unbroken and took a few breaths between sets that I probably didn’t need to. Finished in 6:39.

16:00 AMRAP

Partners share reps and run together.

  • 40 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)
  • 20 Burpees
  • 200m Run

Weston and I went sets of 10 wall balls and caught the person’s last throw off the way to save time. Went 5s on the burpees. we were in our 5th run when time ran out but finished with a solid pace on the last run, so probably about 16:20-16:30 or so.

Picked up Papa John’s on the way home from the gym. 🙂

Ok, I’ll Do Something

Got up and didn’t feel like hitting the recovery work I had planned. Figured I could use a complete rest day.

After a break from work in the afternoon I decided to get on the Air Dyne (AD2) for 30 minutes. Went at a higher cadence that I normally do for active recovery work, thinking back to the HR training stuff I talked about with Joe on my work trip. I wasn’t wearing my HR monitor, but based effort off the rpms on the monitor. Usually I’m going at about 60 and today I was going high 60s up to 70-71 at the end. Went 10.02 miles / 16.12 km, which is nearly 1 km more than I’d done for a half hour according to BTWB.

Wall Ball Squats

Woke up again! Went to the 9am.

Warm-up

  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Ring OH Stretch
  • 10 Good Mornings (15#)
  • 10 Back Squats (15#)
  • Calf Stretch
  • 10 OHS (15#)

Strength: Overhead Squats

3-3-X-1 Tempo

  • 3×45#
  • 3×95#
  • 3×115#
  • 3×135#
  • 3×155#
  • 3×175#

The closer grips are feeling better and better. Empty bar with a jerk (or even closer grip) is no issue now.

Conditioning

10:00 AMRAP

  • 5x
    • Wall Ball (20#, 10′)
    • Goblet Squat (20#)
  • 15 Russian Kettlebell Swings (70#)
  • 30 Double Unders

The double squat wall balls (not 2-for-1s) were a little confusing. I think I did an extra squat on the 5th “rep” a few times. Kept a pretty steady pace. Missed a few times on dubs. Finished 6 rounds plus the wall ball squats and swings. Picked up the rope but didn’t have time to get any.

Accessory

5 Rounds

  • 10 Decline Push-ups (16″)
  • 6 Ring Rows

All unbroken sets and unbelievably no struggle.

Back to the gym around 6pm

Rowing WOD Week 13 Session 2 – Engine

  • 300 cals at 20s/m
  • 5:00 Rest
  • 200 cals at 22
  • 4:00 Rest
  • 100 cals at 24
  • 3:00 Rest
  • 50 cals for time

Results:

  • 18:40 – 4,616m – 962cal/hr
  • 12:14 – 3,057m – 979cal/hr
  • 5:54 – 1,509m – 1009cal/hr
  • 1:32 – 537m – 1847cal/hr

The distances all include some run off after finishing since there isn’t a way to set a calorie workout on the Concept 2. Total comes to 9,710 meters for the session. In the 50 calorie row I started out holding over 2,000cal/hr through 30 but the burn started to kick in and I was losing power. Not sure why I didn’t think to kick in for a sprint in the last 10 calories or so like I would try to in a distance sprint. Felt pretty smoked after that but would have been a decent 500m time after having spent 36+ minutes on the rower.