Tag: Bicycle

First Time Floor Press

A little tired today. Went in for the 4:15pm class.

Warm-up

3 Rounds

  • 1m Bicycles
  • 1m Side Plank (30s each side)
  • 1m Flutter Kicks
  • 30s Rest

I don’t think I’ve even been able to hold on for a straight minute of flutter kicks, but I did it 3 times today. Core strength baby!

Strength

5×5 Floor Press

I’ve never done this before, so didn’t know what to expect. I really liked it. Warmed up with 75# and then did my working sets with 125#, 175#, 180#, 185#, 190#, and 195#. Had some left in the tank too. Happy with that though since last week I failed after 3 reps at 205# on the bench press. Today I lifted more weight overall because the jump was right up to 175# for the 2nd set.

WOD

5 Rounds

  • 1m SDLHP (53# KB)
  • 1m KBS (53# KB)
  • 1m OH Lunges (20# MB)
  • 1m Ring Dips
  • 1m Thrusters (75#)
  • 1m Rest

I scored 104, 101, and 102 for a 307 total.

Finisher

  • 120 DU

I started off with 39 in a row. Whenever I get close to my unbroken streak of 44, I think I get excited and fail. I finished in 2:08. My arms were so tired it was really hard to keep spinning the rope after that first set.

Get Work Done

My upper ass is a bit sore from the lunges and deficit deadlifts. But I’m positive I’d be a lot more sore if not for using the rumble roller. Without a doubt it’s the best $70 I’ve spent in a long time. I’ve been rolling 2-3 times a day, usually when watching a little TV. I went in for the 10am class.

Warm-up / WOD

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

  • Russian Twists (30# KB)
  • Leg Raises
  • Bicycles
  • 30s Side Plank

Take an optional 3 minutes of rest and head directly into the second half of the workout. I exchanged kettlebells and got right into it because it’s not like this was a cardio taxing workout. It’s mainly a day about doing work.

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

  • Russian KBS (53#)
  • HR Push-ups

Do work. Do Work. DO WORK!

Today was all about keepin’ on. Get those reps done. This ladder adds up to 275 reps of each movement plus those 5 minutes of side planks. I finished in 55:04. Easily the longest WOD I’ve done.

Strict Paleo Really Works

My legs are almost back to normal, but my upper abs are still sore today. Not sure that I’ve mentioned it in a post yet this week, but on Monday I went back to eating strict Paleo. I have a competition on October 7th so I want to go in as the best Nick I can. I’m competing in the beginner’s division, so hopefully I can be competitive. As a result of the diet changes, I’m feeling the results in only a few days.

Warm-up

Tabata Mash-up

  • Plank
  • Bicycles

I could really feel these in my sore upper abs. Definitely helped loosen them up though.

Strength

Take 90 second of rest between each set.

Side Bends, 3×12 (each side)

  • 62# KB
  • 71# KB
  • 80# KB

Russian KBS, 3×12

  • 71# KB
  • 80# KB
  • 88# KB

WOD

  • 21-18-15-12-9 Box Jumps (24″)
  • 21-18-15-12-9 Burpees
  • 5-4-3-2-1 Renegade Man Makers (40# DBs)

In case you’re confused on how that WOD works, there are 5 rounds. In round 1 you do 21 box jumps, 21 burpees, and 5 renegade man makers. Then in round 2 all the reps decrease to the next number.

I finished in 12:12. Box jumps and burpees were all done unbroken. Renegade man makers were a little slower with some very short breaks, because DAMN! if you’ve ever done them you know how much they crush your soul.

Finisher

  • 50 Suitcase Deadlifts (88# KB)

Done for quality and weight. I took the heaviest KB we have and knocked them out by doing 5 per side at a time.

DB “Fran”

The Paleo Challenge ends this week and I can’t wait to order a pizza on Thursday! I love eating Paleo, but I need some cheat meals. With that said, I’m glad I’ve stuck to the program for the entire month, with a very minor cheat. I’ve seen incredible results, but I’ll post more about that in a couple of days.

I joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) called Saginaw Meadows with a couple that I’m good friends with. Yesterday was our first pick-up. It’s going to be pretty neat to get fresh, local, organic stuff each week, some of which I’ve never eaten. The first week was pretty small because not much has grown in yet, but each week we’ll be getting more and more food. I used a green onion in a breakfast scramble this morning and made a sauté with some greens and tomatoes I had picked up on Friday from the local Farmer’s Market. Good food!

Warm-up

  • 100 Jumping Jacks
  • 100 Butt Kicks
  • 100 Lateral Hops
  • 100 Mountain Climbers
  • 10 Slow Air Squats
  • 10 Burpees

I think I did this in about 5:26, without pushing too hard. I wanted to save myself for the WOD because I knew I was going to need everything I had to survive.

3 rounds

  • 1m Plank
  • 1m Leg Raises
  • 1m Bicycles
  • 1m Side Plank (30s each side)
  • 1m Boats
  • 1m Rest

These long core circuits are great and they are always much tougher than they look. Does core work every get any easier?

WOD

DB “Fran”

21-15-9

  • Thrusters (45# DBs)
  • Pull-ups

Here’s one of those heavy upper body workouts where I struggle. We had a 10:00 time limit and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish. I’ve never attempted “Fran” before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I wish my intro was with the barbell instead of DBs, but you don’t always get what you want. 🙂 I really struggled to string together pull-ups, which took a lot of extra time. I knew I’d have to break the thrusters down quite a bit, especially in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. My time was 9:05. I’ll take it. It gives me something to shoot for next time.

Finisher

50 Burpees

This was great practice for Thursday when we have to perform the Paleo Challenge benchmark again, which starts out with 5 minutes of burpees. I pushed myself pretty good here and finished in 2:48. In the original benchmark a month ago I did 82 burpees in 5 minutes, so if I can keep up the pace I used today I can beat, especially since I won’t have such a long warm-up and “Fran” to do before.

I’ve only worked out 2 days in a row, but I’m going to take a rest day tomorrow to make sure I’m not too tired or sore for the benchmark test on Thursday. I’ll be walking 18 holes of golf tomorrow morning anyway, so that will get me some exercise.

 

Teams of 2

Yesterday morning I walked 18 holes of golf and qualified for the Saginaw District Golf Association Invitational Tournament. It got up into the mid or high 90 and was a long day. Perfect timing for a CrossFit rest day! Feeling good and back at it today. When I woke up I knocked out one set of max rep push-ups and decided the Armstrong Pull-up Program just isn’t worth the time. It’s so boring compared to WODs, so I’m done with it.

Matt, the owner of the gym, attended a CrossFit Level 1 Certification over the weekend and will next be working on getting Survival Fitness affiliated as an official CrossFit box next. Pretty exciting stuff. He learned a lot and you could already see it in the way he ran today’s class. I don’t mean anything bad about previous classes by saying that, I just felt like he had more confidence in his teaching of certain movements and pointing out some of our technique issues. It’ll make us all better.

Warm-up

  • 1m Bottom Squat Hold
  • 1m Mountain Climbers
  • 1m Bottom Squat Hold
  • 1m PVC Pass-thrus
  • 1m Bottom Squat Hold
  • 1m Lateral hops (30s each leg)
  • 1m Bottom Squat Hold
  • 1m Bicycles
  • 1m Bottom Squat Hold
  • 1m Jumping Jacks

We’ve been doing a lot of these bottom squat holds and I think it’s helping to open up my hips more. Matt pointed out that I had too much of a round in my back though, so I have to fight for a better position.

WOD

Teams of 2 (45:00 limit)

  • 200 Air Squats
  • 100 T2B
  • 150 Burpees
  • 500m Run holding a 20# MB (both people run at the same time and at the pace of the slowest)
  • 150 Box Jumps (24″)
  • 100 Pull-ups
  • 200 Walking Lunge Steps
  • 200 SDLHP (barbell loaded to 95#)

Only 1 person is working at a time except during the run. The goal is to keep a high intensity and hand off to your partner when you start to slow down. The hand off is hard to do, even when you know you are starting to slow, because you want to keep knocking out reps. I attended the 8pm class, which is the last class of the day and no team had completed the WOD all day. The closest anyone got was 49 reps left by a team of 2 of the fittest women at Survival Fitness. I was paired up with Brent, which was a good pairing because we are both near the top of the men at SF. We flew along pretty good, but the pull-ups slowed us down and then the SDLHP were absolutely brutal. I’m sure I’ll be feeling those tomorrow. We pushed it hard through the entire 45 minutes and fell 33 reps shy of completing the WOD, but set the record for the day. With a little better strategy I think we could have finished. Next time!

 

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.

Walk it Out

Feeling nearly back to 100% today after getting in the workout yesterday and a good night’s sleep last night.

Warm-up

3 rounds:

  • 1m Plank
  • 1m Bicycles
  • 1m Leg Hold
  • 1m Side Plank (30s each side)
  • 1m Mountain Climbers
  • 1m Rest

WOD

7 rounds, decrease pull-ups and push-ups by 3 each round, so 21, 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, 3

  • 100 ft Walking Lunges with DBs
  • 21 Pull-ups
  • 21 HR Push-ups

Total work:

  • About 210 lunges
  • 84 Pull-ups
  • 84 HR Push-ups

I used 35# DBs for the lunges. Whipped through them in round 1, but that caught up to me real quick and I had to take a rest during the rest of the rounds. I started off touching my knees to the ground on each lunge, which turned out to be a mistake because it ends up being a lot of pounding on the knee. I could really feel it as I got into rounds 5 and 6 so I only tried to get down as far as I could without hitting the ground. My total time was 23:42.

I’m getting better and better at pull-ups and (knock on wood) I haven’t ripped a hand wide open in quite some time with kipping pull-ups. A big part of that is learning when not to push too far and get off the bar to take a short rest. I need to learn how to do butterfly pull-ups now.

Strength

Walking sled pulls with three 45# plates on the sled.

Did a down and back holding a chain between our legs. The length was about 30-35 feet in each direction. I think I did 5 or 6 rounds, but didn’t keep track. This was my first time doing anything with a sled. It didn’t feel too bad for a while, but as the rounds went on I could really feel it. Then I got home and could feel it even more!

Angie Rx

Since I worked out later yesterday it would have been a short rest to hit a morning class, so I went to the 5:30pm again.

Warm-up

3 rounds

  • 1m Flutter Kicks
  • 1m Side Plank (30s each side)
  • 1m V-ups
  • 1m Mountain Climbers
  • 1m Bicycles
  • 1m Rest

Great ab crushing warm-up.

WOD

“Angie”

  • 100 Pull-ups
  • 100 Push-ups
  • 100 Squats
  • 100 Sit-ups

I had only done “Angie” once before, nearly 4 months ago. At the time I did all jumping pull-ups and some kneeling push-ups to finish in 35:10.

Today I performed everything as prescribed, doing kipping pull-ups the whole way and all normal push-ups. I didn’t even rip my hands on pull-ups, so I’m getting better at recognizing when I’m close and readjusting my position or taking a break. I broke the pull-ups down into pretty small sets. It took me just under 12:00 to complete the pull-ups, which is by far the longest part of this WOD. I started out strong on push-ups, but was breaking them into sets of 2-4 at the end to get through. For squats I started out with 2 sets of 20 and then pretty much did 10s the rest of the way. Sit-ups were pretty easy and I knocked those out in 50-30-20.

My total time was 24:42, which is over 10 minutes faster and that’s even doing everything as it should be done!