60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 6 Day 5

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting. Alex came over to lift at 11.

Warm-up

  • Crossover Symmetry Activation
  • 45# Shoulder Presses and Snatch Presses
  • 95# Shoulder Presses

Split Press

  • 3×120#
  • 3×125#
  • 3×130#
  • 3×135#
  • 3×140#

Snatch

  • 2×100#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 1×160#
  • 1×170#
  • 3x1x180#

Missed the first 180#, was way up on my left toes in the bottom of the 2nd, but saved it, and the 3rd felt pretty solid and easy.

Clean & Jerk

  • 2×135#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 1×190#
  • 1×205#
  • 1×215#
  • 2x1x230#
  • 1×235#

I can’t believe how much better my jerks feel in the last week and a half. Work jerk of the day was on the last rep and I’ve had much worse attempts at lighter weight even just 2-3 weeks ago. Decided to add the extra 5# on the last rep since it’ll probably be the last heavy day like this until the week after next.

Back Squat

  • 2×205#
  • 2×240#
  • 2×270#
  • 2×290#
  • 2x2x305#

Felt pretty good on the way up, but those doubles at 305# were rough today.

Snatch Deadlift

  • 7x3x205#

These may have been the most surprisingly hard part of the day. Focused on pushing through the floor and tried to keep a solid back angle, without my hips rising up first. Felt a lot different in my legs than I’m used to.

Finished the session with Crossover Symmetry Recovery.

Rested up and did conditioning at 8pm.

Explosive

10:00 EMOM

  • Odds: 5 Plyo Push-ups
  • Evens: 2 Broad Jumps (for distance)

Conditioning

3 Rounds

  • 20 Burpee C2B Pull-ups
  • 20 Over the box jumps (24″)
  • 1:1 Work:Rest

Regular burpee pull-ups are the way to go with this, but the pull-up bar on my rig is lower than my reach, so I essentially did jumping chest to bar pull-ups. My round times were 2:51, 2:51, and 2:49 with over the box jumps getting better each round. Knowing the burpee portion could really wipe me out, I took a steady pace with them on the 2nd and 3rd round, allowing me to push a little harder through the box jumps.

That was a fun workout. On to rest day!

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60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 6 Day 4

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting. Alex couldn’t make it today, so out in the garage by myself at 5.

Warm-up

  • Crossover Symmetry Activation

Not much messing around today. Get right to that loaded bar!

Muscle Clean

  • 3x#95
  • 3x#105
  • 3x#115
  • 3x#125
  • 3x#135

Snatch

  • 2×100#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 5x1x160#

I think the activation helped open up my shoulders.

Clean & Jerk

  • 2×135#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 1×190#
  • 5x1x205#

Hit myself on the chin with a jerk for the first time in ages. That’ll leave a mark. Other than that, jerks feel like they are improving a lot.

Clean Deadlift

  • 5x2x290#

Dang that’s heavy for a clean deadlift.

Ended with Crossover Symmetry Plyometric.

60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 6 Day 3

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting. Woke up a little sore today, probably mostly from Monday. Lifting with Alex out in the garage at noon.

Warm-up

3 Rounds NFT

  • 3/3 Turkish Get-ups (35# DB)

Haven’t done TGU in a long time. Took breaks between rounds, because 6 in a row got the lungs working.

Snatch

  • 2×100#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 1×160#
  • 1×170#
  • 4x1x180#

Made the first 180# lift, but failed the next two, so added a 4th rep to try and end on a positive note. Missed it too. Not bad misses, just a little forward and probably should have dropped under more on reps 2 and 4. Rep 3 I should have missed backwards but I got uncomfortable and pulled it forward for the miss.

Clean & Jerk

  • 2×135#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 1×190#
  • 1×205#
  • 1×215#
  • 3x1x230#

Made everything. Cleans are feeling really good and made some progress with the jerks today. Last two reps were a little iffy, but the other jerks felt solid. I was starting to push myself under more, even at the heavy weights.

Front Squat

  • 2×185#
  • 2×215#
  • 2×250#
  • 2×265#
  • 2×270#
  • 2×275#

Last two sets were programmed to be at 280 but I keep missing that last rep, so I dialed it down today, especially with the heavier cleans now. Still wasn’t easy.

Seated Good Mornings

  • 4×155#
  • 4×165#
  • 4×175#
  • 4×185#
  • 4×195#
  • 4×200#

200# is the heaviest I’ve gone.

Split up the day. Headed out to Survival Fitness for the first time since December 15th to open gym at 8pm. Brent joined me and Matt did some of the rowing with us.

Warm-up

  • 500m Row

Skill

  • 2:00 AMRAP: Shoulder touches
  • Rest 2:00
  • 2:00 AMRAP: Ring Dips

Switched from DU to ring dips since we did a bunch of DU last night. Had to scale the shoulder touches with my feet up on about a 14 inch box and then walked the hands in trying to get to vertical. I did 114 shoulder touches and 32 ring dips. Did 3×5 strict, a set of 5 kipping and then had to start going to 3s and 2s.

Conditioning

  • 1k Row
  • Rest 4:00
  • 500m Row
  • Rest 2:00
  • 250m Row
  • Rest 1:00
  • 125m Row

I added the 250m and 125m to get in some extra, since tomorrow is a rest day and Friday is a lighter day. My splits were 3:30.7, 1:42.3, 49.1, and 22.8. Wasn’t breaking any PRs on the 1k or 500, but it was good high intensity work for the 2nd session of the day.

Update: That 1k row turned out to be a 5 second PR!

Bring on rest day and hopefully a massage!

60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 6 Day 2

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting. Lifted with Alex at 4:30 again. Feel pretty good today after the first 90% day based on new PRs yesterday.

Warm-up

  • Band stretching
  • 45# Snatch Position Work

Muscle Snatch

  • 2×75#
  • 2×85#
  • 2×95#
  • 2x2x105#

Power Snatch Below the Knee

  • 2×105#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 5x1x160#

Power Clean Below the Knee

  • 2×135#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 1×190#
  • 5x1x205#

GHR

  • 2x5x15#
  • 3x5x25#

Conditioning

10:00 EMOM

  • Odds: 15s Air Dyne (AD2)
  • Evens: 30 DU

60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 6 Day 1

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting. Lifted in the garage with Alex at 4:30.

Cutting day 5 of last week short was a good idea. Needed that extra rest. Alex and I both felt great today.

Warm-up

  • Stretching and band pass-thrus
  • 45# Snatch & Clean Position work
  • 75# Muscle cleans and some presses

Muscle Clean

  • 3×95#
  • 3×105#
  • 3×115#
  • 3×125#
  • 3×135#

Snatch

  • 2×100#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 1×160#
  • 1×170#
  • 3x1x180#

Missed first attempt at 180# because my head wasn’t in it. Felt pretty good other than that one.

Clean & Jerk

  • 2×135#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 1×190#
  • 1×205#
  • 1×215#
  • 3x1x230#

Felt light today. Even the jerks felt good for the most part.

Back Squat

  • 2×205#
  • 2×240#
  • 2×270#
  • 2×290#
  • 2x2x305#

Squats don’t seem to be getting any easier, but the volume of weight before squats is going up and includes a lot of squatting, so I guess that’s one way to look at it as a positive.

Conditioning

8 Rounds (Tabata)

  • 20s Burpees
  • 10s Rest

I’m basing these off a set number of reps in each round. Last week I did 7 each round, so bumped my number up to 8 for the first 2 rounds. Made it tough to get 7s the rest of the way, but I squeaked by.

60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 5 Day 5

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting.

Was actually feeling pretty good today. Lifted with Alex at 3:30 again. My body lied to me…

Warm-up

  • 4x 20-30s Handstand Hold
  • PVC pass-thrus
  • Band pulls
  • 45# Snatch Positions

Muscle Snatch

  • 3×75#
  • 3×85#
  • 3×95#
  • 2x3x105#

Snatch

  • 2×105#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 1×160# (F)
  • 2x1x170# (M-F)
  • 2x1x165# (F-M)

Felt terrible. I haven’t had that many misses in a day this entire challenge, other than PR day. Did 2 broad jumps for distance after each of the last 4 singles.

Clean & Jerk

  • 2×135#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 2x1x190#

The C&J felt a little better than the snatches, but still pretty weak. We packed it in early and skipped the back squats and good mornings.

Conditioning

4 Rounds

  • 10 T2B
  • 10 Ball Slams (15#)

I attempted to do the conditioning after Alex left, but I even had to change that on the fly. It was supposed to be two 4 minute AMRAPs of the above movements with a 2 minute rest in between. After 3 sets of 5 T2B I was pretty much doing singles! Finished 4 rounds in 4:45.

Time to rest up for the beginning of week 6 on Monday.

60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 5 Day 4

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting.

Made a quick trip up to Rogers City yesterday to meet my new niece. Jumped on Dad’s Air Dyne before hitting the road back home.

Conditioning

  • 20:00 Air Dyne at 50-60% effort

Kept my RPM just below 60 on the AD2 and finished with 330 calories, which is pretty close since I’ve done 340 in 10 minutes before. Good way to start the day.

Lifted at 3:30 with Alex in the garage.

Warm-up

  • Band pass-thrus
  • 45# Snatch Position Work
  • 75# Muscle Snatches and Snatch Presses

Power Snatch from below knee

  • 2×100#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 5x1x160#

Felt a little slow and missed the 4th rep at 160#.

Power Clean from below knee & Push Jerk

  • 2×130#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 1×190#
  • 5x1x205#

Alex told me to be faster with the push jerks and it really helped.

Front Squat

  • 2×185#
  • 2×225#
  • 6x2x250#

Added in those couple of extra warm-up sets since all of the lifts were power variations. Still took a couple of the 250# sets to start feeling ok with the weight.

Snatch Deadlift

  • 5x2x185#

Even these felt heavy! I hope the extra conditioning I’ve added this week isn’t the cause for my sluggish feel. Maybe it was the quick trip with 5 hours of driving.

60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 5 Day 3

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting.

Happy New Year! I really needed the rest day yesterday after hitting the first two workouts of the week within 14 hours. I also played about an hour of half court basketball on Tuesday night. Got a nice nap in during the day yesterday too. Alex came over around 10 to lift.

Warm-up

  • PVC pass-thrus
  • 45# Shoulder Presses
  • 95# Shoulder Presses

Jerk Balance

  • 3×95#
  • 3×125#
  • 3×135#
  • 3×145#
  • 2x3x155#

Snatch

  • 2×100#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 1×160#
  • 4x1x170#

Missed the 4th attempt twice.

Clean & Jerk

  • 2×135#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 1×190#
  • 1×205#
  • 4x1x215#

Missed the last jerk because I was trying to get my front foot out more. Lost my balance and couldn’t save it.

Back Squat

  • 2×205#
  • 2×240#
  • 2×270#
  • 3x2x290#

Felt really heavy today.

Seated Good Morning

  • 4×135#
  • 4×155#
  • 4×165#
  • 4×175#
  • 4×185#

Went a little easy on these today. Supposed to be a light week. 🙂 Took up just under 2 hours for all of the lifting.

Conditioning

5 Rounds

  • 30s Over the Box Jumps (24″)
  • 30s Rest

I was planning to do 10 rounds thinking I’d get like 10 per round. Got 15 though in the first round so quickly decided 5 rounds would be enough. I don’t want to kill my legs for the next two days. Did 15-13-14-14-15.

60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 5 Day 2

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting. Lifting on short rest so I can head out of town for New Year’s Eve. Out in the garage alone again at about 10am. I’m really missing the community aspect of CrossFit lately, but going to stick with this challenge, especially if it works out adding in some of my own conditioning work to the program.

I created a page for all of the details of my garage gym. Let me know if you have any questions by leaving a comment there or using the contact page.

Warm-up

4 Rounds NFT

  • 3 Strict Pull-ups
  • 20s Handstand Hold

Muscle Clean

  • 2×105#
  • 2×115#
  • 2×125#
  • 2x2x135#

Snatch

  • 2×100#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 5x1x160#

Clean & Jerk

  • 2×135#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 1×190#
  • 5x1x205#

Even the jerks felt pretty good today! I’ve started using a timer for my rest between sets to try to speed things up. Was doing 60-90 seconds between snatch sets and 90-120 seconds between C&J sets. Got a nice sweat on by doing that and it should help out my conditioning too.

Clean Deadlift

  • 5x3x235#

I’m going to rest tomorrow, so today is WOD 1 from the program.

Skill/Strength

12:00 EMOM

  • Odds – 10 Pistols
  • Evens – 20s Hollow Rock Hold

Took the first round to find my balance with the pistols and I also realized if I hold my leg to the outside instead of straight out it’s better for balance. Was getting the 10 done in 18-20 seconds. Getting better at the hollow rock stuff because it wasn’t too bad with these.

Conditioning

10:00 EMOM

  • 3 Bar MU / 5 C2B Pull-ups / 7 Pull-ups
  • DU for remainder of each minute

I thought about doing C2B pull-ups, but just did 50 of them a few days ago. I need work to translate into bar muscle-ups, so I tried to do really high hip to bar pull-ups with a big hip pop and strong pull. I did 3 of those each round. I got at least a streak of 20 unbroken DU each minute, with streaks of 25 most minutes. Probably averaged about 35 total DU per round. This workout wasn’t complicated but it really got the heart racing and lungs burning.

I could definitely feel that I was on short rest from the workout about 13 hours ago. Might play some hoops today with my buddy

60 Day Lifting Challenge – Week 5 Day 1

I’m doing the 60 Day Lifting Challenge from Columbus Weightlifting.

I finally finished up the garage gym. The other side of the garage is pretty much all tore down too, but won’t work on that until spring when we can use the saws outside. I’ll get a page up on this site explaining every piece of equipment I have, but you can click through that link above to see more pictures than this.

Garage Gym Renovation

Out in the garage around 6:45pm by myself to lift. I’m really glad this garage project is over because it’s been affecting my fatigue levels for the last week and a half. No warm-up today, right into the muscle snatches to get warm. I’ve been moving weights and shit around the garage all day, so felt warm enough.

Muscle Snatch

  • 3×75#
  • 3×85#
  • 3×95#
  • 3×105#
  • 3×110#

Snatch

  • 2×100#
  • 2×120#
  • 2×140#
  • 1×150#
  • 1×160#
  • 4x1x170#

The 170# lifts were soft. Last attempt was forward and I was almost able to pull it back in while in the hole, but failed.

Clean & Jerk

  • 2×135#
  • 2×155#
  • 2×180#
  • 1×190#
  • 1×205#
  • 4x1x215#

Felt good on the cleans. Even the jerks felt good up until 190#.

Front Squat

  • 2×135#
  • 2×215#
  • 2×255#
  • 3x2x265#

Legs felt pretty weak. What is it with my front squats lately?

GHR

  • 5×10#
  • 5×15#
  • 5×20#
  • 5×25#
  • 5×25#

Moving on up again! Definitely hit the limit with 25#.

I’m going to start adding in a bit of my own conditioning programming because on Saturday I could feel my engine was running on fumes. Going to have to be smart about it though and not have it impact the lifting. If I kept efforts short I should be ok.

Conditioning

Tabata Burpees
8 Rounds

  • 20s Burpees
  • 10s Rest

I wanted to pick a number that would give me some rest during the first 20 seconds and then shoot to get that number each round. I picked 7, which took me 16 or 17 seconds every round. Perfect choice! This was a nice burn and would be great to do every week.