Tag: Air squat

Weak with Heavy Overheads

Yesterday I was going to give an update on the Paleo Challenge, but forgot. The challenge officially started last Wednesday, but I started on Monday. After one week I lost 5 pounds and dropped 1% off my body fat. I posted A Week of Strict Paleo on my main blog that outlines what I ate and gives a bit more info if you are interested.

Today is the sorest I’ve been full-body-wise in a long time. Those prowler sprints from yesterday and the back squats on Sunday did a number on my body.

Warm-up

5 rounds:

  • 15 MB Full Squat Cleans
  • 150m Run

Pretty easy warm-up. I used a 20# MB and finished in 8:55.

WOD

  • 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 Clean & Press
  • 1 round of “Cindy”

First, I’ll explain how this works. The number of Clean & Presses increases each time around, but there is only 1 round of “Cindy” to do each round. Make sense? Good. What’s a round of “Cindy” you ask? It comes from the benchmark girl WOD of the same name and is:

  • 5 Pull-ups
  • 10 Push-ups
  • 15 Air Squats

I’m not sure what it is, but when there is heavy overhead work with a lot of reps I really struggle. Look back to the WOD that had fifteen 95# thrusters in each of 5 rounds as an example. Today had a similar outcome. Maybe it has something to do with my height and long arms. Or maybe I’m just a weak-ass pussy!

I used 135# for the clean and press and snuck under the 33 minute time limit, with 2 seconds to spare, for a time of 32:58. The rounds of “Cindy” were actually pretty easy. I did all of the pull-ups and push-ups unbroken each round. I usually split up the air squats to 10-5, but should have pushed myself more there because my endurance fades fast with air squats.

I was going along and for some stupid fucking reason decided to figure out how many reps were left. In total you have 55 clean and press to do, half of those (27) are in the last 3 rounds! I tried to keep pushing as much as I could, but I was gassed. It was a great workout though and I’ve been wanting to get in some moderately heavy clean work, so that was great. The “Cindy” rounds were a good primer for Monday’s Memorial Day Murph.

Since it took me so long to do the WOD I didn’t get to do the Finisher, which was ten 40-yard sprints with a walk back as the rest.

Prowler Sprints

I wasn’t feeling all that motivated today when I was deciding which class to attend tonight. I’m not sure if the busy day with multiple WODs yesterday or walking 18 holes of golf this morning took a lot out of me. I ended up going to the 5:30pm class and felt fine once I got moving.

Warm-up

3 rounds

  • 1m MB Russian Twists
  • 1m MB V-ups
  • 1m Plank
  • 1m Bicycles
  • 1m “Mystery”
  • 1m Rest

I used a 20# MB for Russian twists and V-ups. Each round, the “Mystery Move” changed; first we did side planks, then flutter kicks, and ended with prayer crunches. I was really feeling a burn during this ab circuit due to the leg lifts I did yesterday.

WOD

50 reps of each

  • Air Squats
  • Burpees
  • Box Jumps
  • KBS (Russian)
  • Close-grip HR Push-ups
  • Plyo Lunges
  • Pull-ups
  • Sit-ups

I used a 24″ box and a 53# KB. Since I flew through everything, I did full sit-ups to make it harder. I finished in 23:22 and then did 12 reps on the GHD as a bonus.

The close-grip HR push-ups were a bit awkward because you have to keep the hands far enough apart that you can lift them off the ground when your chest is laying down. Pull-ups felt really good and my kip is getting dialed in. I need to learn those butterfly pull-ups soon.

Strength

10 Sets

  • High grip Prowler sprint
  • Low grip Prowler sprint
  • Rest

Finally I got to use the Prowler! I probably won’t be too excited when I feel the effects tomorrow. Stayed after class a bit to finish these. The Prowler was loaded with 180# of weights so I’m guessing over 200# total. The distance was probably 25-30 yards each way. The high grip wasn’t too bad, but the low grip took everything I had to get the Prowler moving, was much slower pushing, and got harder each time. Here’s a video of Casey and I. I’m shown first pushing it back to our starting line.

One Month Paleo Challenge

We’re doing a one month Paleo Challenge at Survival Fitness. Everyone has to keep a food journal to work on a point system. You get 5 points to start the day. Bad things like a cheat meal or alcohol are negative points, but you can ears extra points by doing a WOD at the gym, getting 8 hours of sleep, or drinking 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water. Everyone has their body fat taken at the beginning and does a benchmark WOD. We’re going to randomly be put on teams. Scoring is 50% body fat change, 25% WOD improvement, and 25% food journal points.

It was only $25 to join and I need something to get me on track to those abs I want, so I figured being part of a team will hold me more accountable. So I get to class, weigh myself, and have my body fat measured with the handheld device. It read 12.3%! Yeah right! If I was that low you’d already be seeing my abs. The Withings scale puts me consistently at 16-17% which is more realistic. With such a low starting number, I won’t be winning the body fat portion of the competition so I’ll have to make up for it in the other parts I guess.

Warm-up

  • 30 Air Squats holding PVC vertical in front
  • 20 PVC Pass-thrus
  • 30 PVC OHS
  • 4 partner rounds (alternate each round)
    • 50 Jumping Jacks
    • 50 Butt Kicks
    • 50 High Knees
    • 50 Lateral Hops
    • 50 Mountain Climbers

WOD

For the Paleo Challenge benchmark, we did 5 different AMRAPs and totaled up our reps. We partnered up so that we could count each other and get a bit of rest.

5:00 AMRAP

  • Burpees

4:00 AMRAP

  • Wall Balls

3:00 AMRAP

  • Air Squats

2:00 AMRAP

  • KBS (Russian)

1:00 AMRAP

  • AbMat Sit-ups

I did 82 burpees, 77 wall balls (20# MB), 101 air squats, 76 KBS (53# KB), and 67 sit-ups for a total of 403 reps. Doing the air squats right after wall balls was the worst and my score showed compared to others in the class. I pushed pretty hard, so it’s going to be interesting to see how my numbers come out a month from now.

Update: After all classes finished for the day, I had the 4th best score.

Hero: Erin

Even though I worked out or ran Monday through Friday, I still put on 5 pounds during the week due to all of the food and deserts I ate at the work meetup in Florida. I’m home now so will get back to Paleo and should be able to drop the weight by the end of the week.

Today was my first workout at the new Survival Fitness location. The pull-up rig is much nicer than the moving bars at the old location, because this thing doesn’t budge.

Warm-up

  • 4 rounds
    • 15s Jumping Jacks
    • 15s Air Squats
    • 15s Mountain Climbers
    • 15s Squat Jumps
  • 30 Squats (holding PVC as if it were a pole)
  • 20 PVC Pass-thrus
  • 30 PVC OHS

WOD

“Erin”
Five rounds

  • 15 DB Split Clean
  • 21 Pull-ups

The workout calls for 40# DBs, so that’s what I used. The split cleans ended up being much harder than expected. I split them up into 3 sets of 5 during every round. In the first round I knocked out 15 kipping pull-ups in a row for a new unbroken PR (beating 12 as my previous best). I finished in 21:13.

For the rest of the class we did some mobility work.

Overlooking the Beach

Yesterday I took a well-deserved rest day after the race. Flew out to Seaside, FL and will be here all week for a meetup with some people from work. This morning I headed out for a run and a WOD on the beach. I ended up doing my WOD on the flat part of this stairway with a view.

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Not a bad way to start the day!

I ran a 1.1 mile warm-up.

WOD

8 Tabata Rounds:

  • Plank (on hands)
  • Push-ups
  • Sit-ups
  • Air Squats

Then I ran back the 1.1 miles again at a faster pace.

2 WODs for the Time of 1

Surprisingly I’m not sore at all from the heavy deadlifting yesterday.

Warm-up

  • Tabata Air Squats
  • 1 Mile Run

I thought I was running a nice average pace, but ended up running a 7:00 mile without pushing myself very hard. That’s good news for Saturday’s duathlon.

This was actually two WODs combined for one total time.

WOD #1

  • 100 Pull-ups
  • Each time you come off the bar, do 10 Russion KBS.

I used a 53# KB for the swings. I set a new PR by getting 12 kipping pull-ups right off the bat before coming down for a break. The number of reps went slowly down after each set. I have a new tear on my right pinky finger and a nice blood blister under my last tear on the left ring finger. Seems like I tear my hands in a new spot every time.

WOD #2

  • 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Wall Balls
  • After each set of wall balls, do a dumpster run, which is about 200-300m.

The wall balls were no problem because the most we had to do in a row was 10, but there wasn’t much of a break from running, especially at the end.

I finished both WODs in a total time of 32:55. This was a good lead up to the race for me. Some speed work and good conditioning.

Bring Some More

After not getting a ton of sleep for a few nights in a row, I finally got to bed early enough for a solid rest. My legs are sore from the 4 mile run and walking 18 holes of golf yesterday, so I went to a night class at 4:15p today.

Warm-up

5 rounds

  • 20s Mountain Climbers
  • 20s Air Squats (low and slow)
  • 20s Inch Worm

A nice little warm-up to get the blood flowing.

WOD #1

5 rounds

  • 21 KBS
  • 15 HR Push-ups
  • 9 T2B

I used a 55# KB for the swings. I’m starting to get a better kip with the T2B, but have a hard time getting it started without a big swing after the first rep. I think the max I could get in a row was 5 before my grip started to fail. I finished in 12:21.

WOD #2

50-40-30-20-10

  • Star Jumps
  • Sit-ups

Compared to jumping jacks, star jumps are on a completely different level. I was able to do all rounds of sit-ups unbroken. Finished in 8:16.

Strength

5×5 Deadlift

There was still time left in class, so some of us started on some deadlifts. We actually ended up doing 6 sets. The weights were 135#, 225#, 265#, 285#, 290#, and 300#. Felt pretty good, especially considering I set my 1 rep max at 315# a few weeks ago.

That may be the most work I’ve done in one workout, but I felt great today and absolutely killed it.

Back at Survival Fitness

I was absolutely exhausted last night when I got home. Went to bed at 10pm for a solid 10.5 hours of sleep! First day back at Survival Fitness this morning and it felt great. It was a pretty big class from what I remember the size being a few months ago. I’m excited that SF will be moving to a much bigger space soon.

Warm-up

  • 300m Power skipping while with OH PVC
  • 30 Air Squats
  • 20 PVC Pass thrus
  • 30 OH Squats

The power skipping was pretty taxing, especially having to hold the PVC overhead. I hadn’t done anything like that before.

Skill

5 rounds

  • 30s Handstand
  • 30s Deep squat hold

This was really easy considering I’ve been doing scaled handstand push-ups. I could feel it in my wrists a bit though.

WOD

  • 1 Mile run
  • 100 box jumps
  • MAX HR push-ups
  • 100 sit-ups
  • MAX pull-ups
  • 100 KBS
  • 1 Mile run

There are over 20 people from SF doing the Tough Mudder next weekend, so this WOD was designed to prepare them. It was a good test for me as well since I have the duathlon coming up in two weeks. I ran the first mile in about 6:40. The last time I did a mile test was November 20, 2011 in 7:47, so I was thrilled with my progress. I used a 24 inch box for the jumps without a problem. It’s just that 100 is a lot to knock out in a row. For maximum HR push-ups I was able to get 26 unbroken. I split sit-ups into sets of 50-25-25. I went with strict dead hang pull-ups, since the bars aren’t high enough for me to do kipping, and set a new PR with 7. The worst part of this workout was doing 100 KBS. I used a 53# KB and broke them into sets of 10 for most of the way. The last mile took me about 8:20 for a total time of 39:19. Along with another guy, we were the only people to finish under the 40:00 goal. He smoked me pretty good on both runs, but since I did fewer push-ups and pull-ups I was able to get a head start on the last run.

Sunday Funday

Yesterday after walking 18 holes of golf I had to rush home, shower, and get out to a restaurant for happy hour and dinner with a bunch of my CrossFit friends. Great fun! Such a good group of people. It’s going to be hard to leave this year, but I’m heading home to my close friends and another great group of folks at the gym there.

Since we started dinner before 5pm yesterday, I was in bed around midnight with enough time to recover enough to hit the 9am this morning. Getting out of bed was rough though. I couldn’t believe how sore I was from the interval workout at the track. After moving around a bit and eating a banana I felt better and decided it would do me good to get in for a tough workout.

Warm-up

  • 400m Run
  • 3 World’s Greatest Stretch (each leg)
  • 10-15 of each
    • V Sit-ups
    • PVC Pass thrus
    • Air squats

WODs

Teams of Three. For both portions, team members will cycle through full rounds one at a time, with only one member working at any one time. The goal is to move as quickly as possible, thus minimizing your partners’ rest periods and racking up as many rounds as possible.

Since class was small (imagine that after a night of drinking!) most of us paired up for teams of two instead of three.

15m AMRAP

  • 3 Deadlifts
  • 6 HSPU
  • 9 Box Jumps

Deadlifts were done with 225#, I used 2 AbMats for the HSPUs, and jumped on to some stacked up tires that were taller than 24 inches. I was able to complete all rounds unbroken, which is why I went with 2 AbMats instead of 1. At a team, my partner Adam and I completed 15 rounds plus 3 deadlifts. I went first in this AMRAP. Teams of 2 was actually perfect here and we kept a steady pace of 1 minute rounds. With 3 people I think our rest period would have been too long.

After finishing the first WOD, I was feeling so much better than when I woke up. I’m glad I decided to make it in to class instead of going back to bed or going for a hike.

We rested for 5 minutes before hitting the second WOD.

15m AMRAP

  • 5 Pull-ups
  • 10 Burpees

I went second in this AMRAP because Adam is better at pull-ups than I am. In the end it didn’t matter because we each completed 9 rounds for a total of 18. That’s 45 pull-ups and 90 burpees each. This WOD would have been much better with a team of 3. My kipping pull-ups are getting much better because I’m able to feel when I get out of control and dial in the swing. I’m also getting better at adjusting my grip on the bar.

After the workout I headed to Total Wine & More to pick up some beer. CrossFit Full Strength has started to call today Sunday Funday because everyone is encouraged to bring a 6-pack of beer for after the noon OLY class. Last week was the first one and it was fun.

Olympic Lifting Class

After a snatch warm-up progression with the PVC pipe we worked on our snatch technique by doing a power snatch followed by a full snatch. I worked up to 105# I think.

Next we got out the racks and worked on the drop snatch with overhead squat. I got up to 125# there. Tried 135# once, but I had the weight too far forward and my feet were too wide.

I wasn’t quite all there and felt weak during the OLY work today, but it was good to get a final session in with Johnny.

My hands are healing a little Only soreness…

My hands are healing a little. Only soreness I can remember this morning is that twitch in my right ass cheek again. Today was a double WOD day.

Warm-up

  • 400m Run
  • 2 rounds
    • 15 Air Squats
    • 10 Push-ups
    • 5 Pull-ups (strict)
  • PVC Bergener Warm-up
  • PVC Jerk Transfer Skills

I wish we did more push-ups to build up that strength.

Strength
12:00, every minute on the minute

  • 1 Clean
  • 2 Split Jerks

I started out with 95# and ended up with 125# for the last 3 sets.

WOD #1
3m AMRAP

  • 5 Push Press
  • 10 KBS

I used 105# for the push press and 62# for the KBS and both were all I could handle at the end. I was able to do 3 rounds plus 1 more push press.

We took a 4 minute rest before going to the second WOD.

WOD #2
3m AMRAP

  • 5 Burpees
  • 10 Pull-ups

Because of my hands I had to do ring rows, which were challenging enough as it is. I finished 3 rounds plus 5 burpees and 3 more ring rows. You wouldn’t think a couple of 3 minute workouts would be that bad, but just like any other WOD, they really surprise you. My shoulders are already sore from all that work, so it’s a good thing tomorrow is a rest day.