Low Key Sunday

Yep, still sore. Hurts to much of any pressure on my quads. Did a round of the stretching in the morning, then to the gym for Super Sunday at noon.

Warm-up

  • 3 Rounds NFT
    • 15 Reverse Hypers (210#)
    • 250m Row
  • Crossover Symmetry Activation
  • Bottom Squat Holds

Conditioning

3 Rounds

  • 1:00 Walking Lunges
  • 30s Rest
  • 1:00 Burpee Broad Jumps
  • 30s Rest

Pretty easy day. Still didn’t want to do anything nuts while still recovering from 15.5. Lunges actually felt good to work the quads some. Did 149 total reps.

Gymnastics

E2M 30:00

  • 10 Ring Push-ups
  • 10 V-ups

I did both movements back-to-back and was able to do all of the sets of both unbroken.

Midline

3 Rounds – Partner MB Pass Complex

  • 10 Chest MB Passes
  • 10 OH MB Passes
  • 10/10 Side MB Passes
  • 10 Up MB Passes

Knocked out Crossover Symmetry Plyometrics and did some extra stretching. I’ll do another round of the back stretches tonight.

Oww

My legs ache. All over. My wrists are sore too. 15.5, you win!

I did the back stretches in the morning. Went out to the garage close to 4pm to move.

Warm-up

CS-bands-attached

  • 10:00 Air Dyne (AD2) – 4.28km
  • Crossover Symmetry Activation

Midline

5 Sets

  • 5 Back Extensions (51X3 Tempo)
  • 40s Hollow Hold

Took my time. Hollow holds were tough on the last 2.

Conditioning

20 Rounds

  • 8 Ski (calories)
  • 5 GHD Sit-ups

Might be the first time I’ve used the cals. Pretty casual pace. Just wanted to do something where I could keep moving for a long time. Finished in 23:12.

Did Crossover Symmetry Iron Scap and wow, what a difference with the new set of bands. They feel a lot like there is a lot more resistance than the set at CFi. Huge difference over my ghetto setup too, so money well spent. Did another round of back stretches in the house.

Wrapping up the 2015 Open

This is it! Got to the gym a little after 5.

Warm-up

  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • 3x10x210# Reverse Hyper
  • 1:00 Jump Rope
  • Crossover Symmetry Activation
  • Hip & Shoulder Mobility
  • 2 Pause OHS (45, 10s)
  • Thrusters
    • 5x20kg
    • 5x30kg
    • 3×95#
    • 3×115#
    • 3×125#

2015 CrossFit Games Open Workout 15.5

27-21-15-9

  • Row (calories)
  • Thrusters (95#)

I bumped the damper up to a low 7 instead of just under 5 where I usually row. Started out holding between 1300-1400 cal/hr on the round of 27 and then was around 1150-1200 the other rounds. I went 11-9-7, 9-7-5, 9-6, and 5-4 on the thrusters. Everything I wanted except for that last round when I hoped I’d be able to do 9. I was spent though and had to put the bar down. Quads were on fire! Finished in 9:07. Done!

Good workout, but it was a rough one. I couldn’t get up off the ground for quite a long time and finally had to roll over and push myself up. Then it was over to the fridge for a beverage.

angry-orchard-green-apple

I could tell that my legs weren’t used to squatting, so happy with how it turned out. Will have to see if it’s enough to get me into the top 10% of the world. Now it’s time to rest up this body. Did my back stretches at night while watching March Madness.

What Will Castro Announce?

Get it done in the morning! Fired up the Barbell Shrugged episode with the MusclePharm president (I really like the MP products) and knocked out a bunch of recovery stuff.

Started with the back stretches in the house and then out to the garage for Crossover Symmetry Activation. Jumped on the Air Dyne for 20:00, going 9.94km. Finished up with Crossover Symmetry Iron Scap.

Looking forward to seeing the CrossFit Games Open Workout 15.5 announcement tonight. My guess for the workout was:

Continuous clock with a time for the row and a total time…

  • 15.5 – 1,000m Row
  • 15.5a – 3 Rounds
    • 25 Burpee Box Jump Overs (24/20″)
    • 25 Thrusters (95/65#)

Would be pretty awful. Everyone is betting on some combination of rowing, thrusters, box jumps, and burpees. Wouldn’t surprise me if Castro does something we’re not expecting.

With score validations for 15.4 closing last night, I moved up to 14,800/141,772 for top 10.4% of men in the world. With a good final score I could crack that top 10%.

Update: My Crossover Cords came a day early!

One Open WOD Left

My sartorius muscles are feeling better today. Should be back to normal tomorrow. I did the back stretching in the morning, then chiropractor before going to the 5:30 class.

Warm-up

  • CSA
  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Dead Hang
  • Arm Circles
  • 2 Rounds
    • 4 Push-ups
    • 10 Air Squats

The arm circles did not feel good on my left shoulder so I limited them. I did about 6 muscle-ups trying to help Bryan out with the transition to string reps together.

Class was benching and we do it between classes on Wednesday, so I did my own thing during the XWOD.

3 Rounds

  • 15 Reverse Hypers (210#)
  • 30s Hollow Hold
  • 30s Rest
  • 30s Hollow Hold

Conditioning

3 Rounds

  • 1:00 Row (cal)
  • 1:00 DU
  • 1:00 Sumo Deadlift High Pull (70# KB)
  • 1:00 Ball Slams (20#)
  • 1:00 Rest

I did 20 calories on the row each time, dubs got worse, I hate the SDHP movement, and tried to hold on during the ball slams. My reps per round were 138, 125, and 108. Numbers went down mostly due to double unders getting bad. Wasn’t feeling it today. :-/

Bench Press

  • 10×45#
  • 5×135#
  • 3×165#
  • 3×195#
  • 3×210#
  • 3x3x225#

That’s week 6 of the No B.S. bench program. Was supposed to be 20-25# over my base number, but it felt so good last week I went with +30 and had no problem. Gainz bitches!

Forgot to hit CS before leaving, so I knocked out Crossover Symmetry Plyometric when I got home. Can’t wait for my official bands to come in later this week. Will do a little recovery tomorrow and be ready to hit 15.5 on Friday. Then it’s 2 weeks of healing time.

Pressing Doubles

My thighs and groin are sore as fuck! Can’t really think of anything on Sunday that should have caused it. Maybe the lunges? Could be the stretching I’ve been doing. Update: It was definitely the walking lunges. I narrowed the soreness down to my sartorius and found this…

Walking lunges work the sartorius and leg muscles in similar fashion to squats, but with a different movement pattern.

Warm-up

  • Crossover Symmetry Activation
  • 540m Row
  • Bottom Squat Hold

Strength

Shoulder Press

  • 10×45#
  • 5×95#
  • 2×115#
  • 2×130#
  • 2×145#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×160#
  • 2×165#
  • 2×170# (PR)

SWEET!! Beats 167.5# for a double.

Conditioning

10:00 AMRAP

  • 200m Row
  • 5 Burpee Box Jumps (24″)

Substituted the row in place of 3 Bear Complex to stay away from squatting and putting load on the back. Just need to get through a workout tomorrow and then hit 15.5 on Friday before going into cardio mode for at least two weeks. I did 7 rounds plus 31 meters. My row times were 44.1, 44.7, 46.4, 46.4, 46.0, 45.2, and 44.3 seconds.

Midline

8 Rounds (Tabata)

  • 20s Plank
  • 10s Rest

Since I did 10 minutes of planking yesterday I didn’t feel like skipping the rest periods here and stuck to the work/rest ratio.

Rehab

IMG_5748Reverse Hyper

  • 10×210#
  • 10×260#
  • 10×280#
  • 10×300#

Time to start putting some weight on the RH. Great movement for those low back issues.

I did Crossover Symmetry Iron Scap for the first time in ages since I’m now able to get through the activation and recovery protocols without any pain. Forgot how “fun” it is. After that I did my 15 minute back and hip area stretching routine.

Getting CS Official

My thighs are sore from yesterday and maybe a little in my ass, but nothing other than that. Did some 15 minutes of back stretching and then headed out to the garage close to 1pm. CS-bandsDid Crossover Symmetry Activation to start things off. Just the extra bit I’ve been doing this lately I can already tell a difference in my left shoulder. The impingement would bother me in the reverse fly before but doesn’t anymore. I ordered some of the official bands (purple, red, and blue) earlier today since I don’t feel like having a snapped band take out an eye and the correct resistance will help me more. I do the routine enough at home that it’s worth spending the money. I know it works too because it’s the only thing that improved my impingement last year.

Just a recovery type workout for today. 30:00 on the Air Dyne (AD2) with a 2:00 plank hold in the middle after every 5 minutes, for a total of 5 holds. I did the holds on my hands, fists (that was a first), hands, hands, and finally elbows. I feel like doing them on the hands is harder on the shoulders and wrists, but easier on the core. My distances on the AD were 2.53, 2.52, 2.57, 2.51, 2.6, and 2.56 kilometers.

Jumped back on the bands for Crossover Symmetry Recovery. I didn’t notice any fatigue or soreness in my shoulders from the 15.4 handstand push-ups until after I got through CSR. I can feel it now!

Did the back stretches again in the afternoon.

15.4 + Super Sunday

Feeling good after not beating up my body since tweaking my back on Wednesday. We had some people coming in from another local gym to do 15.4, so got in at 11 to get it done before Super Sunday started.

Warm-up

  • 1,000m Row
  • Crossover Symmetry Activation
  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Roll back
  • PVC Pass-thrus
  • Cleans
    • 5×45#
    • 5×95#
    • 3×135#
    • 3×185#

2015 CrossFit Games Open Workout 15.4

8:00 AMRAP

  • 3 HSPU
  • 3 Cleans (185#)
  • 6 HSPU
  • 3 Cleans (185#)
  • 9 HSPU
  • 3 Cleans (185#)
  • 12 HSPU
  • 6 Cleans (185#)
  • 15 HSPU
  • 6 Cleans (185#)
  • 18 HSPU
  • 6 Cleans (185#)
  • 21 HSPU
  • 9 Cleans (185#)
  • Etc., adding 3 reps to the handstand push-up each round, and 3 reps to the clean every 3 rounds.

My goal was to get through the 15 HSPU and 6 cleans. Didn’t want to do more than 3 handstand push-ups in a row and all singles in the cleans. I was feeling good on the set of 6 so went 4-2 which was dumb because it doesn’t save any time. Reminded myself after that to stick to 3s, but that even got pretty hard in the round of 12. My tiebreak time after the 9-3 round was 2:20, way ahead of schedule. My HSPU started to die in that set of 12. Got a few no reps over that next part of the workout and was down to doubles and singles. Just couldn’t press out anymore. Cleans were no problem. I didn’t have much time at the end, but just enough to bust through the 6 cleans to hit my goal with 1 second to spare. 66 reps and I’ll take it. Not hard at all on the lungs until the end when I had to bust through the cleans. All about managing the muscle fatigue in this workout for me.

Was a little crazy in the gym this morning so got a later than normal start for the regular workout.

20:00 AMRAP

  • 20 Box Jumps (24″)
  • 20 Burpees
  • 20 Sit-ups
  • 20 Walking Lunges
  • 20 Push-ups

With a lot of people, we set up stations and shared equipment, so some time was spent walking from one area to the next. Tried to keep a pretty casual pace and just keep moving. Did my first round in about 4:40, then it got a little slower the next two rounds. Picked up the pace in the fourth round and managed to get it done with a few seconds left, but was too far away from the boxes. My push-ups even felt good after all the HSPU. I did all sets of 10 until the last round when I did 14-6.

6 Sets

  • 30s Bottom Ring Dip Holds
  • 100′ Farmer’s Carry (62# + 70# KBs)

Didn’t really know how the holds would go since it was the first time trying them. My lift arm started to go numb actually from the ring hold in the last 2 sets. I was able to strict press out of the dip on the first 5, but just didn’t have enough left on the last one.

5x

  • 250m Row
  • ~2:00 Rest

My times were 45.1, 45.4, 46.2, 45.1, and 44.4.

A lot of work overall, but nothing that really destroys you.

Self Maintenance

All human beings should be able to perform basic maintenance on themselves.

Kelly Starrett

Back feels ok. Taking it easy today though so I can do 15.4 tomorrow and then Super Sunday. Out in the garage around 11am.

Warm-up

  • 15:00 of Back Stretching
  • Crossover Symmetry Activation

Saw a routine from Jared Fleming a few weeks ago that he used to help with back problems. I’ve been doing it the last few days. Can’t hurt. Hopefully it’ll help with my tight hamstrings as well.

Conditioning

15 Rounds

  • 150m Ski Erg
  • 1:30 Active Rest
    • 15s Walk
    • 1:00 Air Dyne (slow)
    • 15s Walk

The walk was really the transition time to go around the Jeep from one side of the garage to the other. Forgot to check total distance on the AD. Times on the Ski Erg were:

  1. 31.2
  2. 31.2
  3. 31.5
  4. 31.3
  5. 31.0
  6. 31.1
  7. 31.3
  8. 31.0
  9. 30.9
  10. 31.2
  11. 31.1
  12. 31.2
  13. 31.1
  14. 30.9
  15. 30.4

Accessory

  • 4×15 Banded Reverse Hypers (green)
  • Crossover Symmetry Recovery