Reviewing Goals

I’m a firm believer that goals are important for many parts of life. They help create focus and purpose.

At the end of June, I set the following goals for the rest of 2012:

  • Dead Hang Pull-ups: 15 in a row
  • HSPUs: 15 in a row (without kipping)
  • 1 Mile Run: 6:00
  • Deadlift: 400#
  • Clean & Jerk: 200#
  • Back Squat: 275#
  • Snatch”: 165#
  • “Cindy: 22 rounds
  • “Fran”: 6:00
  • Muscle-up on the rings

How did I do?

  • I haven’t done a dead hang pull-up test in a long time, but I’m confident I can do 15 in a row by now.
  • Haven’t tested strict HSPU in a long time either, but should be no problem to do 15.
  • I think I’d be close to a 6 minute mile, may try it this weekend.
  • Last time I did a 1RM deadlift it was 415# and it should be 430 or 440# now.
  • I’ve done a 205# C&J in competition.
  • My back squat was up to 285# last I checked and should be 300# or more now.
  • Snatch PR is 155#, but I didn’t work on it much.
  • Last try at “Cindy” came out with 20+6, so I can probably get close to 22 rounds now.
  • Not sure about “Fran” but guessing I can go sub-6 now.
  • I’ve done some muscle-ups, and haven’t really worked on them since I have more important things to improve.

What’s next? Registration for the CrossFit Games starts tomorrow and the Open begins on March 6th. Yesterday I started cleaning up my diet in order to drop my body fat and lean out. I bulked up over the last few months, but with it came a fair amount of fat. I need to lean out so body weight stuff is easier. I’d like to get back down between 180 and 185 pounds.

Other than leaning out, my only other current goal is to finish above average in the CrossFit Games Open. Last year I was still a newb, with only a few months of CrossFit under my belt, so my goal was to beat 10% of men. I ended up beating about 25%. My strength has improved by leaps and bounds this year, which should really help me jump up above average for the 2013 Games. I can’t wait!

What are your current goals?

Burning the Shoulders

Glutes and low back are a bit sore from yesterday’s thrashing of them. Went in at 9am today.

Warm-up

  • 500m Row
  • 30 Sit-ups
  • 30 Supermans
  • 5×2 Turkish Get-ups (1 each side)

I went up in weight for each set of Turkish Get-ups, using 25#, 35#, 40#, 44#, and 50#. The first 4 were using a KB and the last using a DB.

Strength

5×5 Shoulder Press, 2m Rest between sets

  • 10 @ 45#
  • 5 @ 95#
  • 5 @ 115#
  • 5 @ 125#
  • 5 @ 135#
  • 4 @ 140#
  • 3 @ 140#

I was able to do 140# for 5 reps back at Survival Fitness when we last did a 5×5, so I bumped up my 2nd and 3rd sets to 115# and 125# today. I had the 5th rep on my first attempt at 140#, but lost concentration and stopped at the bottom, so I lost all momentum. Took a short rest and came back at it again for 3 reps.

WOD

  • 21-15-9 C2B Pull-ups
  • 21-15-9 HSPU
  • 100 DUs

The WOD actually called for deficit HSPUs on 35# plates, but there’s no way I could handle that for 45 reps, so I went with standard ones and those were hard enough. My time was 16:58. Not great, but I kept plugging away at all the reps. I need to improve my DUs when I’m tired. Shoulders are fried after this one.

Double Strength

After being in Hawaii for a week I was excited to hit the box and throw around some barbells. I think the break from heavy weights was good though. Slept for 11 hours last night after not getting more than a couple of short naps on the flight the night before, so went in for the noon class.

Warm-up

  • 50 Jumping Jacks
  • 40 Mountain Climbers
  • 30 Bicycles (each side)
  • 20 Body Blasters
  • 10 Burpees

First time doing body blasters I think. You get down on your back on the ground, roll up to your upper back and then use the momentum rolling up to your feet and standing up. Get really tough for the last 10 reps.

Strength

5 Sets

  • 5 Deadlifts
  • 2m Rest

With the first set as a warm-up, I did 5 reps at each of 135#, 225#, 275#, 315#, 345#, and 375#. Felt really good and is a big jump for a set of 5 for me.

5 Sets

  • 5 Back Squats
  • 2m Rest

Don’t think I’ve ever done two big strength movements on the same day like this, so was unsure how these would go. Just did sets of 5-7 a couple of weeks ago, so was looking to get higher. I went with 135#, 165#, 195#, 225#, and 255# for 5 reps each. That’s 5# heavier on the last set (compared to 2 weeks ago) and it was a fight on the last few reps. Probably should have gone up a little higher early on and taken smaller jumps in weight, but this felt good.

WOD

  • 800m Run
  • 50 Back Squats (135#)
  • 800m Run

Did the first run at around 3:30 and broke the back squats into sets of 30 and 20. It wasn’t really the squatting that got to me, it was the cardio aspect of it. Probably had close to a minute in the middle of those squat sets. The last run was absolutely brutal, but will keep the legs from getting too sore after the 50 back squats. Finished in a time of 11:18.

Quick Sunday WOD

After flying through the night from Hawaii back to Phoenix, I wasn’t going to do anything today since I really haven’t slept. Then Tara posted this little challenge on Facebook and I can’t resist a good challenge.

WOD

3 Rounds

  • 20 Sit-ups
  • 20 Air Squats
  • 20 Push-ups

I sat on a pillow so I didn’t get ass-burn from the carpet, and had that pillow under my chest when doing the push-ups, making sure I come down on it a bit to get my elbows to 45 degree angles. Finished in 4:09 with only the push-ups slowing me down.S

Aloha Hawaii

Last day in Hawaii. My flight leaves at 11pm, so got up for one last workout in the fitness center. Went for my “go to” travel WOD, which I’ve been saving all week. Warmed up with a 400m run on the treadmill first.

20130126-085557.jpg

WOD

  • 100 DB Hang Squat Clean Thrusters (30# DBs)
  • EMOM (except for at the beginning), do 5 burpees.

Last time I did this was back in San Diego in September, with a time of 15:35. Today I finished in 14:37, almost a minute faster! I think it was due to a good first minute where I got 14 reps in and then 8 in the next minute. Went to 7s for the next 4 or 5 minutes and then 6s the rest of the way. No rest minutes, but I did make sure to leave myself about 10-15 seconds of rest time at the end of every minute before starting up burpees again. I wonder if that helps very much in the long run or if it would be faster to keep working nonstop the entire WOD.

I walked an easy 400m on the treadmill to bring my heart rate down, because this one really gets you going. Great workout!

Flying Solo

Legs are a little sore from the squats, hill sprints, and lunges yesterday so thought I’d take it easy and just do some cardio, but work on a skill at the same time. Went out to the parking lot with the jump rope. Warmed up with 100 single jumps.

Flight Simulator

5-10-15-20-25-30-35-40-45-50-45-40-35-30-25-20-15-10-5

  • Unbroken DUs

I got up through 35 in about 4 and a half minutes and then hit a wall. Since the last time I tried this, I also stopped and turned around at 35, I finally decided to do the same today. Took me a bit to get that set of 30 unbroken in and 25 was a struggle too, but after that it was fast and easy. Finished the Flight Sim 35 in 11:03, which is 3:48 faster than when I did it just over a month and a half ago. I’d say that’s pretty good progress on my DUs.

I did another 200 single jumps to cool down some. Not a big workout, but got the blood pumping, which felt good.

Hawaiian Hill Sprints

The time zone shift hasn’t bothered me too much. We’ve been getting to bed early due to exhaustion, so getting up early has been easy.

Warm-up

Ran a little loop that was probably about 400m.

WOD

20130124-083206.jpg10 Rounds

  • 20 Air Squats
  • Hill Sprint (maybe 70 yards?)
  • Walk down the hill

There’s a picture of the hill. I sprinted from the end of the driveway up to the top of the hill and then walked back down for recovery each round. All of the air squats were done unbroken and I tried to go top speed on them. Counting all of the walking, my total time was 18:49.

Strength

12:00 EMOM

  • Odds: 12 Weighted Lunges (40# DBs, 6 each leg)
  • Evens: 20 Kroc Rows (40# DB, switch arms each time)

I was going to try for 20 and 25, but that was a bit ambitious and didn’t leave enough rest time, so I actually did 20 lunges in the first round.

Wednesday in Hawaii

Hawaii is really nice! 🙂 Needed to get my sweat on this morning though. Warmed up with about a 400m run up a hill, back down, and in a little loop.

WOD

“Annie”
50-40-30-20-10

  • DUs
  • Sit-ups

Started out shaky with my DUs so I was worried this would take ages. Found my groove in the round of 40 and then did 30-20-10 all unbroken. Total time was 7:41, a PR by 45 seconds.

Strength

10:00 EMOM

  • Odds: 15 Goblet Squats (40# DB)
  • Evens: 15 Push Presses (40# DBs)

Did this in the little fitness center they have here in the resort where we’re staying. Did everything unbroken and although neither was easy or completely difficult, it was a nice challenge. I tried to go for speed along with quality in the goblet squats because I really need that quickness for my air squats.

Short and sweet, but a nice little workout. Just what I needed.

Aloha!

Arrived in Hawaii on the beautiful island of Kuaui yesterday for a work trip. 🙂 Yeah, I know it’s rough! Did a few things in my room this morning.

3 Rounds

  • 1m Air Squats
  • 1m Rest

I didn’t do anything else to warm-up before this, so was a little slow coming out of the gate. Got 57, 59, 59. Need to get that up to around 70.

100 HR Push-ups

Finished in 5:42, a new PR by 4 seconds! I actually thought my best time was in the 5:30s, so am really happy after looking at the history.

Tabata Sit-ups

Kept a steady pace during each working interval and was able to get exactly 10 each time for a total of 80.