Tag: burpee

Killer Medicine Ball Warm-up

Still pretty sore from Sunday’s WOD and some new soreness from doing “Cindy” yesterday. I can really feel all of those push-ups. I don’t remember the last time I was this sore to be honest.

Warm-up

30 yards down and back

  • Zombie Kicks
  • High Knees
  • Butt Kicks
  • Power Skips

5 rounds with 20# MB

  • 1m OH Lunges
  • 1m Sit-ups
  • 1m Front Squats
  • 1m Diamond Push-ups (on ball)
  • 1m OH Squats
  • 1m Rest

The MB work was a real arm and shoulder killer. It got the legs nice and loose for the WOD too.

WOD

20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2

  • Burpees
  • Goblet Squats (50# KB)

The burpees were much harder than usual due to doing 186 chest-to-ground push-ups yesterday and about 60 MB diamond push-ups in the warm-up. All sets of burpees were done unbroken, but I had to break each round of goblet squats into 2 sets until I got to the round of 10 when I went unbroken the rest of the way. I finished in 15:08.

Strength

5×5 Weighted Pull-ups
Take 2 minutes of rest after each set and try to increase the weight each set.

For my sets I used 8#, 10#, 12#, 15#, and 15#. I might have even come up just short on the 5th rep in the last set, so I’m glad I didn’t try to increase to 20# which would have been the next jump. I actually stayed after class to finish this off because there was a 15 minute gap before the next class started. I know I need the work to increase my strength. This is a huge improvement over the last time I did weighted pull-ups and used 12# for the last 3 sets.

Hang Power Clean Work

My body is pretty sore from Friday even though I took yesterday off from the gym. I did walk 18 holes of golf in the tournament, which was exhausting enough out in the hot sun for close to 6 hours.

Warm-up


2 rounds

  • 10 PVC Shoulder Shrug & Roll
  • 10 PVC Shoulder Pass-thrus
  • 10 PVC OHS
  • 10 Plank Push-ups

Skill Warm-up

Hang Power Cleans

  • 5x 45#
  • 5x 65#
  • 5x 85#
  • 5x 105#
  • 5x 115#

WOD

Score is total reps performed during 3 AMRAPs.

7:00 AMRAP

  • 10 Hang Power Cleans (115#)
  • 10 Burpees

2:00 Rest

5:00 AMRAP

  • 7 Deadlifts (135#)
  • 7 Ring Dips

1:00 Rest

1:00 AMRAP

  • Air Squats

I really liked this WOD because we got in some barbell work and switched things up with smaller time domains where you could go all out. We paired up and one person completed the entire WOD while the other person counted. Then we switched roles.

For the first AMRAP, I did 4 rounds plus 10 hang power cleans and 8 burpees. 135# is Rx for guys, but when I saw the WOD, I figured 115# would be a good weight for me. I was right. I had to break each round of cleans up into 2 or 3 sets after that first set. Burpees were all done unbroken. If it was full power cleans I think I would have tried 135# even though I would have been much slower.

In the second AMRAP, I did 5 rounds plus 4 deadlifts. The ring dips took the most time for me because I had to break them up into small sets pretty early on. I think I did the first round unbroken, but not after that. Deadlifts at 135# is pretty easy, but we stuck to a standard of everyone adding 20# to whatever weight they used for the cleans.

To finish things off I did 45 air squats. My endurance with the air squats is starting to get better, but is still nowhere near the top dogs in the gym. So my reps were 98, 74, and 45 for a 217 total.

I think I’ll probably go for a run later to finally test out the Nike Frees.

Update: It wasn’t too much later. I figured there was no point in showering more than I had to for the day so I rested a bit and then went out for the run. Went 3.6 miles in 28:55 and was able to keep an unbelievably steady pace, which never happens for me. According to RunKeeper, my mile splits were 8:05, 8:06, and 8:06. I picked up the pace at the end and averaged a 7:47 pace for the last 3/5 of a mile. The shoes felt really good for a first run and not being used to them.

Double Me

Last night I went for a 3.65 mile brisk walk to break in the Nike Free shoes and just relax. This morning I had the first round of the Saginaw District Golf Association Invitational Tournament, so walked 18 holes on the course. I shot terrible!

Warm-up


8:00 AMRAP

  • 10 PVC Shoulder Pass-thrus
  • 40 Lateral Hops (20 each leg)
  • 30s Plank

I have no idea how many rounds I did. Didn’t count since it was the warm-up and the pass-thrus are not something to rush through.

WOD

4 rounds

  • 20 Pull-ups
  • 30 KBS (53#)
  • 40 Box Jumps (24″)

I finished in 21:50. I’ve really been struggling with my pull-ups lately, but they came back around today. I concentrated on really snapping my hips and pushing away from the bar at the top, which I’ve been forgetting to do. For the box jumps I rebounded off the floor on well over half of the reps.

Finisher

Death by Burpees

I finished off the round of 12 with over 30 seconds left in that minute and then Cari turned off the clock for the end of class. Not exactly sure why since it was open gym right after. Would have been nice to see how far I could get, but I guess I won’t complain about doing less burpees since I did 115 of them yesterday and that’s another 78 today.

Open Gym

First thing on my agenda was to set a deadlift PR. I did the following:

  • 10x 135#
  • 5x 225#
  • 5x 265#
  • 3x 305#
  • 1x 335# (matching PR)
  • 1x 355# (new PR)
  • FAIL at 365#
  • 1x 365# (new PR)

BAM! That’s more that twice my body weight and a 30# PR. Hell yeah!

After that I worked on snatches for a while, doing some small sets with 85#, some small sets with 105#, and a few singles at 125#. Then I moved back down to 85# and worked on the squat snatch for a while. I have no idea how many sets or reps I did of any of this. I was more concerned with working on some technique.

I was going to start some work on butterfly pull-ups, but my hands were already pretty sore from the 80 pull-ups and deadlifting. With the 2nd round of the tournament tomorrow, I need to be able to swing a golf club. So I got out the prowler instead. Loaded it up with four 45# plates and did a 30 yard (?) high push followed by a low push back. Did that 5 times, with plenty of rest in between each down and back, before my legs just couldn’t do the low push anymore.

I was ready to head home, but Casey was doing some strict shoulder presses, so I jumped in with him.

  • 3x 85#
  • 3x 105#
  • 3x 105#
  • 3x 125#
  • 3x 125#
  • 1x 135#

I didn’t realize it at the time, but this was a 10# PR! Looking back at my posts, I had done 125# for 5 reps, but never more than that. I mistakenly thought I had done 145#, but it was the push press. (I had to update this section of the post 4 times because I kept getting the weights wrong)

I’m spent! I got to the box just after 4 for the 4:15 class and left open gym just before 7pm. Three hours of solid work. Tomorrow is going to be a rest day for sure.

Resting Burpees

Not much rest after hitting the 8pm class last night, but I wanted to attend the 9am this morning and give my body all day to rest up for tomorrow. It’s the first round of the Saginaw District Association Invitational Tournament, which I qualified for a couple of weeks ago. My tee time is at 9:20am and then 10:30 on Saturday.

Warm-up

5 rounds

  • 1m Plank
  • 1m V-ups
  • 1m Mountain Climbers
  • 1m K2E
  • 1m Russian Twists (35# KB)
  • 1m Rest

I pushed hard in everything except for the K2E because I didn’t want to mess up my hands for the golf tournament.

WOD

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

In the past, we’ve been allowed to take a minute off, but after Matt talked to some people at the CrossFit Level 1 course, that’s not what they usually do. You can skip the clean thrusters for a minute, but you have to do the burpees if you want to perform the worked Rx. I figured I’d give it a try.

In the first minute I was able to get 12 reps for a decent start. During each minute I tried to stop doing the clean thrusters with 10-15 seconds left as a little rest period before starting my burpees. It didn’t take long to realize that 5 reps per minute was going to be a good number for me. I went straight through to 50 reps, did the burpees and took the rest of the minute off. Then I did sets of 6-5-4 to get me to 65, where I did my burpees and rested the rest of the minute. I did that again to get to 80 reps, and did my last burpees with rest minute. Then I think I did 6-6-4-4 to finish off with a time of 23:42.

The 100 squat clean thrusters is no joke, but the sneaky hard part of this WOD was the burpees. If you don’t take any minutes off they really add up. I did 23 rounds of 5 burpees for a total of 115. Hell, 100 burpees for time is a WOD on its own! This was one of the tougher WODs, but I really liked it because thrusters are one of my weaknesses.

Update: Wow, this was my 200th post on this blog. What an incredible journey this has been. I can’t wait to see where the next few months go.

Karen Plus Helen

Today was another scorcher and I had gone out walking 18 holes of golf this morning, so I went to the 8pm class hoping it would cool off some. I just got home (9:15 pm as I write this) and it’s still 86 degrees out.

Warm-up

  • 50-40-30-20-10 DUs
  • 25-20-15-10-5 Burpees

I finished in 7:59 and had good rhythm with the DUs through each set.

WOD

Split up Karen 6 ways and mix the pieces with Helen. What do you get? Haren? Kelen? How about a suck fest?

  • 25 Wall Balls (20# MB)
  • 400m Run
  • 21 KBS (55#)
  • 25 Wall Balls
  • 12 Pull-ups
  • 400m Run
  • 25 Wall Balls
  • 21 KBS
  • 12 Pull-ups
  • 25 Wall Balls
  • 400m Run
  • 21 KBS
  • 25 Wall Balls
  • 12 Pull-ups
  • 25 Wall Balls

I knocked out the best time of the day at 20:59 with one of the owners, Cora, right behind me setting the 2nd best time of the day at 21:06. After we were both done we were talking about how we would not have pushed as hard if the other hadn’t been there, which is so true. Out of the corner of your eye you might see someone close to your level catching up to you or taking a break. That small glimpse makes you push to extend your lead or catch up. In the end, we all make each other better.

Five Station Warm-up

I’m pretty sore from the long run yesterday, most of which is in my calves. I attended the 7pm class today. It was a hot and humid night. I thought I might stick around and do some strength work after class, but decided against it after sweating so much.

Warm-up

3 rounds

  • 1m Box Jumps (Big Tire)
  • 1m Star Jumps
  • 1m Hang Cleans (85#)
  • 1m Russian KBS (62#)
  • 1m Mountain Climbers
  • 1m Rest

If you did the Hope workout or have done Fight Gone Bad, this format should be familiar. I really enjoyed the hang cleans, but it was tougher than I expected to keep going for the entire minute with what was a relatively light weight. I didn’t count reps since this was only a warm-up.

WOD

10 rounds

  • 15 HR Push-ups
  • 100m Run (sprint)
  • 90s Rest

For the 100m sprints we ran 50m down and then back. I finished in 19:12. I tried to jump out of the gates too quickly and as a result, tweaked my left calf. It was pretty tight for the 2nd and 3rd sprints, but then it loosened up. I was able to do all of the push-ups unbroken, but as the rounds went on the 10th through 15th reps got slower and slower.

Finisher

150 Air Squats with 5 burpees after every 25 squats (except the last 25). I didn’t check the clock when I started, so no idea how long this took.

End of the Paleo Challenge

One month ago, we started a team Paleo Challenge at Survival Fitness. I promised myself that I would try to go 100% Paleo for the entire challenge, and with one small exception (shredded cheese and croutons on a salad), I did it. I’ve seen incredible results in my fitness, my body composition, and how I feel.

I started the challenge at 12.3% body fat and 181 pounds. In less than 2 weeks, I had dropped to 172 pounds (home scale)! I was losing too much weight, so I increased my protein sources (eggs, meat, fish, etc.) by 50% at each meal. As an example, I went from eating 4 eggs at breakfast to 6. This brought my weight back up into the 175 pound range where I’ve been able to stabilize. This morning at my final weigh-in at the gym I was 178 pounds (not sure how I got back up that high) and 9.8% body fat. That’s a drop of more than 20% of my starting body fat %. I have a visible 6-pack, which has always been a goal of mine. I can’t believe the changes in my body is one short month. A key point is that I had already been eating 80-90% Paleo since I started doing CrossFit, but going 100% made a huge difference!

After taking the rest day yesterday I was feeling great this morning. I attended the 9am class so I could get the benchmark WOD done early. Can you say pizza and Mountain Dew for lunch and dinner? Seriously!

Warm-up

4 rounds

  • 15s Zombie Kicks
  • 15s Jumping Jacks
  • 15s Butt Kicks
  • 15s Mountain Climbers

12:00 AMRAP

  • 150m Run
  • Rest as long as the run took

I started out pretty fast, but realized 12:00 is a long time to do sprints, so I slowed down to a 30s pace in order to save myself for the WOD. It is a warm-up after all. I think I completed 13 runs.

WOD

We partnered up again 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 improved in each of the tests:

  • Burpees went from 82 to 91, an increase of 10.9%.
  • Wall balls went from 77 to 95, an increase of 23.4%.
  • Air squats went from 101 to 112, an increase of 10.9%
  • KBS went from 76 to 82, an increase of 7.9%.
  • AbMat (“cheater”) sit-ups went from 67 to 81, an increase of 20.9%
  • Total reps went from 403 to 461, an overall increase of 14.4%.

I had one of the top 5 scores for the first assessment, so I figured improving wasn’t going to be easy. I’m thrilled with a 14.4% improvement. Hard work pays off! I’m really happy with my burpee and wall ball improvements because burpees are such a great overall cardio and full body exercise and I knew wall balls were one of my weaknesses. My air squats are still pretty weak compared to the best in the gym, but getting better. It’s hard to improve on the Russian KBS, except by increasing weight, because you can only do them so fast. In the first test I took one short break, but went unbroken for the entire 2 minutes today. I’m not concerned about the sit-up number because it was doing the cheater standard, which I’m no longer doing.

With all of the rest time, I don’t feel like I had to work very hard overall, even though I pushed as hard as I could go. I may try attend 8pm open gym and do a strength WOD since I’ll be out of town for the weekend.

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!

 

CrossFit for Hope

I was feeling pretty rough as I got out of bed this morning, due to last night’s epic workout. I loosed up after I started moving around the house though. I didn’t do the push-ups for the Armstrong Pull-up Program first thing in the morning because I wanted to save everything I had for the WOD. Went in to the 10am class instead of 11 because it’s supposed to get really hot and humid today.

If you want to donate (everything goes to St. Jude Children’s Hospital), head over to my sponsorship page. Every extra $ helps out the kids and furthers cancer research.

Warm-up

  • 1m Deep Squat Hold
  • 1m PVC Deadlift
  • 1m Deep Squat Hold
  • 1m PVC Clean
  • 1m Deep Squat Hold
  • 1m PVC Shoulder Pass-thrus
  • 1m Deep Squat Hold
  • 1m PVC Snatch

This was a nice warm-up to loosen up for the movements and I’m glad it wasn’t a high cardio one, which saved energy for the actual WOD.

WOD

“Hope”
3 rounds

  • Burpees
  • Power snatch (75#)
  • Box jump (24″) *Rebounding off the top is allowed
  • Thruster (75#)
  • Chest to bar Pull-ups

“Hope” has the same format as Fight Gone Bad. In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of “rotate,” the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep.

WOW! This is the toughest WOD I’ve ever done and I didn’t hold anything back. My goal was to get 150 reps, which I had before the 2nd round was over! I managed a total of 235 reps with rounds of 82, 74, and 78, doing everything Rx. Pace and consistency were a key in this WOD. If you started out too fast, you’d wipe yourself out for the movements late in your round or even worse for the 2nd and 3rd rounds. I couldn’t be happier with my performance. During the next class Casey, the stud of Survival Fitness, got 255 reps, so I’m even happier with my rep total. Another Casey, who I paired up with, started out way too fast, but held in there for 211 reps. As far as I know, no other guys did it Rx. I don’t know if any of the women did it Rx, but I would assume Michelle did for 176 reps.

Here I am at the end of the snatch station in round 3.

Since we paired up and did 2 heats, after I was done I counted for my partner, Casey (CA). During the 3rd round my hands started to tingle and it progressively spread up my arms and eventually through most of my body down into my feet. As soon as their heat was over, I refilled my water bottle and started slamming water. I didn’t think I could be too dehydrated at this point, but after watching someone go into shock on Deadliest Catch from dehydration I didn’t want to take any chances. I was getting a little dizzy, so I sat down for a while. I’m glad there was another class right after, because it would not have been smart for me to go home, where I’d be alone if something happened to me. I think I was feeling the effects of pushing my body beyond its limits, which hasn’t happened in a long time. As I rested, I recovered and was able to help clean up the equipment when the 2nd class finished. I was fine to go home on my own at that point. A little scary though, to be honest.

I think I’m going to skip the push-ups for the Armstrong program today, but will try to get the pull-ups done tonight.