Tag: deadlift

Battle of the Boxes

Went down to Sterling Height for the Battle of the Boxes, put on by CrossFit Transformation. There were 32 teams and I haven’t seen the official results yet, but I heard we took 18th place. We were 25th going into the last event, which we rocked!

WOD 1

20:00 AMRAP

  • 15 Thrusters (95/65#)
  • 20 KB Swings (53/35#)
  • 50 Double Unders

# of Athletes – 4 (2 men / 2 women)

All 4 athletes will cycle thru this AMRAP for 20 minutes. 3 athletes max will be working at a time, with the 4th resting/waiting to start their next round. Team members cannot move to the next station until the team member in front of them has left that station.
Each team will be given a female bar loaded to 65# and mens bar loaded to 95#, a 53# KB and a 35# KB. BRING YOUR OWN ROPE!!

*Dropping the KB constitutes a 10 burpee penalty to be done immediately before continuing KB swings.

*The 2 athletes that do not compete in this WOD, must compete in WOD 4.

WOD 2

Tug-o-War

# of Athletes – 6 (3 men / 3 women)

This WOD will be scored bracket style, like playoffs or March Madness. It will start with all teams and it will be one game knock out until we crown a champion. Cleats nor gloves are allowed.

The teams that get knocked out round one, will then enter a ball toss event. Each athlete will get 3 attempts to throw as far as possible and the team score will be measured by total distance of each of the athletes furthest throw.

WOD 3

OLY Event

# of Athletes – 6 (3 men / 3 women)

The women will start this event off. They will have 8 minutes to do the following:
Find a 1RM Snatch. *The load on the bar can not decrease.
Find a 1RM Clean & Jerk. *The load on the bar can not decrease.
*The only time the load can decrease is when all athletes complete the snatch and show they are moving to clean & jerk.

Once the girls 8 minutes are up, the guys 8 minutes begin. They will perform the same WOD.

*You don’t have to spend 4 minutes on each, you can spend 7 on one movement and 1 on the other. It’s up to you.

*Highest successful lift from each athlete for each lift will be added together for scoring. It will be scored in 3 ways. Team with the highest snatch, highest clean & jerk, and highest total.

WOD 4

For time and reps:
1) Sand Bag Shuttle Relay (75#, 50#, 25#), MR Front Squats (135/95#), MR Deadlifts (185/115#)

# of Athletes – 4
*The 2 athletes that did not compete in WOD 1, must compete in this event.

The 2 women will start this event off.

Athlete 1 must shuttle sprint each sand bag one length of the field and place the sandbag down. Athletes must show control when putting the sandbag down. No body slamming or throwing it past the line. If your judge feels you weren’t in control, you will perform 10 burpees before you sprint back to start line empty-handed. While Athlete 1 is doing the sandbag shuttle, Athlete 2 is performing max rep front squats (95#). Once Athlete 1 completes the 3 sandbag shuttles they will then start their max rep front squats while Athlete 2 sprints down the field to retrieve all the sandbags. When Athlete 2 returns from the sandbag shuttle the two girls will add 20# to the barbell (making it 115#) and Athlete 2 will then begin max reps deadlifts while Athlete 1 completes the sandbag shuttle for a second time. When Athlete 1 returns she will complete max reps deadlifts while Athlete 2 completes the shuttle run. When Athlete 2 returns from the shuttle run the women are done and then men jump in strip the bar and load it up to 135# then complete the same WOD as the women. Men will increase the bar as a team to 185# to complete the deadlift portion.

WOD will be scored in 3 ways. Shuttle sprint total time, MR deadlifts, and MR front squats.

How did we do?

Event 1 was tough for us because we got caught up on the DUs. I felt good during this WOD and did American KBS with the more of a straight up and down swing for the first time. Made things easier to knock out 20 in a row. My DUs were pretty good but I only got through 2 rounds and the thrusters in my 3rd round. I was actually surprised that we beat 5 other teams is this workout, so their DUs must have been terrible because ours were pretty bad.

The Tug-o-war was a lot of fun. We smoked our first match, but then got it handed right back to us in our second match.

The Olympic lifting event was intense! All 6 of our team members matched or hit now PRs in both the snatch and clean & jerk, which is pretty amazing for such a fast paced event.

For the snatch, I hit 135, missed 145, hit 145, and hit 155. That’s a 10 pound PR. I had every intention of doing squat snatches but when you’re ripping off reps so fast, you lose you heard. I power snatched that bitch. It was not pretty but I got it. In the clean and jerk, I hit 185# with a squat clean, then hit 205# with a power clean and kind of an ugly jerk. Made a quick attempt at 215 but didn’t give it the power I needed to. We were running low on time, so I gave the rest to Casey and he nailed 225. Best clean I’d ever done was 205, but best clean and jerk was 185, so that’s a 20# PR for the combination that is the OLY lift. I’d never attempted a jerk of more than 185, so was also a 20# PR on a jerk. It’s hard to explain how intense this WOD was because you had to make quick lifts and when you weren’t lifting you had to be ready to increase the weights on the bar or jump in for your next rep.

We did really well in the sandbag sprint and think we finished 2nd or 3rd. Should have done pretty well in the max reps lifts for that even too due to our women. I can’t wait to see the results for this event because we jumped up a lot from it.

It was a long day, but a lot of fun. I did mess up my back again, so not too happy about that.

New Barbells

Up for the 9am this morning on short rest from last night’s 2 hours at the box.

Warm-up

5 Rounds

  • 30s PVC Pass-thrus
  • 30s Zombie Kicks
  • 30s Lateral Hops (15s each leg)

Strength

5×1 Floor Press

Warmed up with a set of 5 @ 135# and then did working sets with 165#, 185#, 205#, 215#, and 225#. Up 20# from last week’s set of 3 and 10# higher than I’ve even bench pressed, although I’ve only done max bench once in the last 5 years and it was after a long workout.

WOD

“DT”

5 Rounds

  • 12 Deadlifts
  • 9 Hang Power Cleans
  • 6 Should to Overhead

Matt told us not to go over 10 minutes on this WOD because you want to keep up the intensity. Rx was 155# which is laughable. I used 115#. You quickly learn how to take breaks without making yourself do extra work. For instance, if you take a break after 11 deadlifts, you get your 12th one as you pick the bar back up for the power cleans. Then take a break after 8 power cleans. You end up doing an extra deadlift to get back into the hang position, but it’s not a big deal and you can then go right from the 9th power clean into your presses. Don’t put the bar down until all 6 are done. Rest in the rack position if you need to. If you aren’t smart about resting, you can do a ton of extra work in this WOD.

I strung together push presses as much as I could, but had to resort to push jerks in the last round with a short rest in the rack position between each one. My time was 7:31.

We got 8 new bars last night, so we’ll be doing a lot more WODs with a barbell. I’m excited!

Finisher

5 sets of 10 Ring Push-ups

Even after all that work, they felt good. Did each set unbroken.

Approaching Four Hundy

My lats and shoulders are pretty wore out from this week. Have been working every day since the competition on Sunday, but knew this weekend was going to be off, so wanted to push it. Went in for the 9am because I have the day off work and I’m heading up to my parents for the weekend.

Warm-up

5 Rounds

  • 30s Russian KBS (35#)
  • 30s Rest
  • 30s Plank
  • 30s Rest

Light on the KBS to just get the body moving and warmed up.

Strength

5×1 Deadlift

I wasn’t expecting us to do this today, but was happy to see it. It had been about 2 months since I did a 1RM. Warmed up with 5 reps at 135# and 3 reps at 225#. Then I went 295#, 345#, and 365# which tied my PR. For the 4th set I was able to grind out 385# for a 20# PR. Made a few attempts at 395# but couldn’t get the bar moving. I’m only 15 pounds away from the 400 club!

WOD

3 Rounds

  • 250m Run
  • 12 Pull-ups
  • 21 KBS (53#)

This was supposed to be “Helen” which calls for a 400m run, but we did a shorter route, so I’m not counting it as the official benchmark. I felt really good today and finished in 7:19. This has been my best week ever on pull-ups. I did the first round unbroken, then 7+5 in round 2 and 8+4 in the last round. All of the KBS were unbroken. My best “Helen” time is
9:30, so I would have beaten that easily, probably in the high 8 minute range if we had done the extra 150m run each round.

We had about 10 minutes to work on a weakness, but it’s been a long week, so I worked on some hip mobility.

Other than Monday I felt really good all week in both my strength numbers and the WODs. In fact, I’m happy to say I crushed the WODs all week. That doesn’t usually happen, especially when pull-ups are involved. Now I’m resting for the weekend. Well, at least until Sunday at 2pm when we’re going back to Gym Jesters for some gymnastics. That’s going to be fun. Hopefully I can land a back flip this time.

Every Second Counts

Today was the Every Second Counts competition down at Oakland County CrossFit. We had 9 people compete and 6 of us were in the men’s beginner division, which turned out to be one hell of a battle.

WOD #

800m Run with a 25# Bumper Plate

Going in, I thought this would be my best event. Times were lower than I thought they would be, which scared me a little going in to my heat. I ended up winning the workout with a time of 3:07.

WOD #2

21-15-9

  • Thrusters (65#)
  • HR Push-ups

Originally it was supposed to be Jumping C2B Pull-ups in the beginners division but they ended up changing it. No idea why, but in the end it really ended up screwing me. This was my worst event and I took 7th out of the 10 guys with a time of 4:21. I got 3 or 4 no-reps on my thrusters and had no idea why until after the WOD was over when I asked. I guess I wasn’t getting my head through the window at the top of the movement. Shit! Two pushing movements really fried out arms and shoulders here.

WOD #3

5 rounds

  • 5 Deadlifts (185#)
  • 10 HR Plate Jump Burpees

This was the other workout I felt really confident going in. 185# isn’t heavy for deadlifts and I can knock out burpees pretty fast when the rep count is low like 10s. Originally this was supposed to be HR burpees, but at the competition they switched it up to where instead of jumping up and clapping overhead, we had to jump up on to a 15# bumper plate and stand up straight to extend our hips. I think this actually worked to my advantage because the repeated jumping is no big deal for me.

I got into a nice rhythm on the burpees and my deadlifts actually got faster as the rounds went on. I crushed it, winning the WOD with a time of 4:08. This put me back into 1st place overall with a 12 second lead on Casey A. from our gym. I knew I needed a lead on him going into the last WOD to have any shot at winning. I tested this WOD out 2 weeks ago in my garage and did 4:28 without having to do the plate jumps, so today was a sweet improvement over that.

WOD #4

“Grace”

  • 30 Clean and Jerks (95#)

I tested this 2 months ago and got a time of 2:42. Casey A. turned in a monster time of 1:16 before my heat was up, so I knew exactly what I had to do. I had to get 1:27 to win. It was going to take an out of this world performance. My first 20 reps went well and there was a chance, but then I did 21 and 22 and those last 10 reps were brutal. I finished in 1:46, putting me 18 seconds behind the 1st place. I improved by nearly a minute in 2 months though, which is pretty incredible.

I took 2nd place and couldn’t be happier. I gave it everything I had in all of the WODs. Our Survival Fitness crew ended up sweeping the podium and took 4th place as well. It was so much fun battling it out with friends, especially when we were separated by seconds all day long.

The “trophy” they gave out was a custom lacrosse ball with the logo of the competition and your place, as pictured above. Pretty cool. I also got a roll of tape and a speed rope.

Results

More Photos

Cora’s 28th

I was going to go in this morning, but my internal alarm clock was late today. I think I rolled over around 8:15am. So I went at 5:15pm instead.

Strength

5×3 Deficit Deadlifts (3″)

Warmed up with a set of 10 at 135# and then did my working sets at 205#, 245#, 295#, 315#, and 335#. Felt really good on the pulls. Last week I only did 305# for 5 reps, but knew there was more left in the tank. I’m excited to see what my 1RM is for regular deadlifts next time it comes around because it was 365# a couple of months ago. I might be close to the 400# barrier.

WOD

Today is Cora’s birthday (her and Matt own the gym) so we did a WOD in her honor. Reps are based on her birth year, age, and birth month.

84-28-9

  • Burpees
  • Wall Ball Sit-ups (20# MB)
  • 100m Weighted Lunges (20# MB)

I finished in 21:35. My height (leg length) was a pretty good advantage in the lunges, but I’m pretty sure I’ll be feeling those for the next few days. I could really feel the wall ball sit-ups in my upper abs even before getting through 40 reps.

Finisher

28 Dead Hang Pull-ups

Didn’t time them, but tried to take as little rest as possible between knocking out reps.

Competition WOD Test

I’d already worked out 4 days in a row, but screw it, let’s make it 5. I didn’t want to miss strength squat day at the gym since I don’t have a rack to do squats at home yet.

Before lunch I went out to the garage to test one of the competition workouts.

WOD #1

5 rounds

  • 5 Deadlifts (185#)
  • 10 Hand Release Burpees

The pull to get the first rep on each round of deadlifts was tougher than I expected and I could gain some time by repping them out faster. I did a time of 4:28 without any warm-up at all. Warmed up and pushing it, I think I can break under 4 minutes in the competition. It was good to try this out and see how it feels.

I went in to the 5:30pm class so I had a little more time to rest from yesterday’s WOD and I’m glad I did, because it was a lot of the same movements.

Warm-up

4 rounds

  • 15s Jumping Jacks
  • 15s Air Squats
  • 15s Mountain Climbers
  • 15s Jump Squats

Strength

5×3 Front Squats

Coming out of last week only getting 2 out of 5 reps at 215#, my goal was to get all 3 reps at that weight this today. Counting the warm-up sets, here is what I did:

  • 8 @ 45#
  • 6 @ 115#
  • 3 @ 135#
  • 3 @ 155#
  • 3 @ 175#
  • 3 @ 195#
  • 3 @ 215#

After doing 95 front squats with 95# in the Deck of Cards WOD yesterday, I’ll take today’s effort. I don’t think I could have gotten 220# up for all 3 reps, but maybe. 215# is still my PR for the front squat, so 3 reps is more than I’ve done. I should be able to set a solid PR on my 1RM next week.

WOD

30 rounds

  • Power Clean
  • Front Squat
  • Push Press
  • Back Squat
  • Push Press

There’s something consisting of these movements called the Bear Complex, which is 7 rounds through without stopping. We did 30 rounds of the cycle instead and we were allowed to combine elements. For instance, we could do a squat clean thruster to take care of the first 3 movements and then a back squat thruster for the last two. This made it a lot easier.

Since I did most of these movements on their own yesterday, I wanted to go light today and try to fly through it. I loaded the bar with 85#. It turned out to be too easy and I finished in 6:43. So then I went up to 95# and knocked out another 10 reps. With the weight I used, I really liked these, but I probably wouldn’t say the same thing if I had gone a lot heavier.

Finisher

  • 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 T2B
  • 30s Side Plank (one side each round, switch sides for the next round)

I did all of the T2B unbroken, but ripped my right pinky on the middle portion of my finger. First time I’ve ever ripped anything there.

The weather is supposed to be great tomorrow so I plan to go golfing and will definitely be taking a rest day from CrossFit.

Adult Gymnastics at Gym Jesters

Traveling home from San Diego made for a long day yesterday. I got up at 7am to have some breakfast, was picked up from the hotel at 8:30am (Pacific) and the plane landed in Saginaw just before 10pm. I was in bed by 11pm. Today I went to the 11am class and then at 2pm we had an adult class at Gym Jesters Gymnastics Center

Warm-up

4 rounds

  • 15s Jumping Jacks
  • 15s Air Squats
  • 15s Mountain Climbers
  • 15s Jump Squats

WOD

Today was a long partner WOD. I was teamed up with Cora and Michelle, the two best women we have at Survival Fitness. We all pushed each other really hard in this one.

    • 30 Sandbag Over the Shoulder (40#)
    • 900m Weighted Run (35# Place)
    • 150m Burpee Broad Jump
    • 50 DB Snatches (40#)
    • 50 KBS (53#)
    • 100m Prowler Push (90# of the heavy sled, 50m high push, 50m low push)
    • 30 Deadlifts (225#)
    • 50 HR Push-ups
    • 100 Air Squats
    • 30 Pull-ups
    • 50 AbMat Sit-ups
    • 2m Plank

We had 40 minutes to do this. I was 8 squats short of getting through the 5th block (did all of the pull-ups). Everyone on the team had to complete both parts of a section before the team could move on to the next area. The team could break things up however they wanted, so in #5 I did rounds of 5 pull-ups followed by 10 air squats until I was all done with the pull-ups. Then I tried to finish off the rest of the squats and couldn’t make it even though I went all out for the last 30 seconds.

Gymnastics

Had a bit of time to rest at home and get some food before heading over to Gym Jesters. Scott and Brent from Gym Jesters started out by talking about the different positions of the back tuck flip and then started putting us through some progressions. First we started out by jumping into the air as well as sitting on the ground and rolling backwards. Next it was up to jumping up, tucking, and landing on our upper back on a high mat.

Some of us broke off to the trampoline, did some progressions, and worked up to doing a back flip while strapped in. After that I jumped into a foam pit from a hit bouncy thing, then into the foam pit just from the wall of the pit. Brent spotted me and I tried a few on just mats. At that point I was pretty good to work on my own. I came close a few times, but I have to work on jumping straight up, making sure to get a fast tuck, and then holding my tuck longer. My biggest problem was coming out of the tuck way too soon.

It was so much fun! I’ve wanted to do a back flip ever since I was a little kid. They just look so badass! Sounds like we might go back twice a month to try different things.

Waiter’s Walk

Feeling good this morning even though I only got about 6-6.5 hours of sleep last night. Went to the 9am class.

Strength

5 Sets

  • 3 Deadlifts
  • 2m Rest

Warmed up with 10 at 135# and 5 at 185#. For my working sets I used 225#, 255#, 285#, 310#, and 330#. The last set actually went up really easy. Matt was yelling at me to be explosive, which really helped, because I often get too slow in my deadlift. The lifts really felt great and my back didn’t act up at all.

Accessory

3 Sets

  • Kroc Rows
  • 2m Rest

For the first two sets we did 12 reps on each arm and then went to failure on the last set. I used 62#, 71#, and 80# KBs for the sets. On the failure set I got 14 with my right arm and 15 with the left.

WOD

450m Sandbag Waiter’s Walk

Instructions: Get the sandbag overhead so it’s only supported by the arms. Do not rest it on your head or shoulders. We used two hands because the sandbags are pretty heavy and awkward. Every 10 steps, drop the bag down from overhead and perform a sandbag burpee.

I loved this one because I need to build up my shoulder stability strength for things like the OHS and having long strides is a big advantage. I crushed it, finishing in 6:44.

Midline

25 Turkish Get-ups (for quality)

I grabbed the 44# KB, but after one rep I could tell my shoulders weren’t going to be able to handle it. They were absolutely wrecked from doing OHS last night and the waiter’s walk in the WOD. I dropped down to a 40# KB, which was still challenging.

Finisher

I stayed after class since Matt was doing a 1-on-1 with a client. Loaded up the prowler and did some pulling. First I did about 50m with 135# and then I did a 150m loop in the parking lot with 180# loaded on. I had to take 3 breaks while doing that loop. You wouldn’t think it would do much for conditioning, but I was breathing pretty heavy when I got done.

Testing My Back

I’m feeling good after the rest day yesterday. Matt is out-of-town for the weekend so I offered to help out with the weekend classes. Today was sort of on open gym and I was looking forward to testing out my back as well as trying a few things that are part of a competition I’m doing in October.

Warm-up

  • 400m Run
  • Various stretching, including PVC pass-thrus and around the world’s, PVC OHS, world’s greatest stretch

WOD #1

“Grace”

  • 30 Clean and Jerks (95#)

This one comes straight out of the competition. I’ve been staying away from cleans for the last couple of weeks because of my low back. It felt pretty good doing this today. I finished in 2:42 without too much of a push since I was doing it by myself. A month or so ago I used 125# and did it in 5:10-ish, so I’m confident I can get down around the 2 minute mark.

WOD #2

10:00 EOMOTM

  • 5 Deadlifts (225#)
  • 5 HSPU

I’ve also been staying away from deadlifts because of my low back. These felt really good and easy. All of the HSPUs were strict and unbroken.

WOD #3

10:00 EOMOTM

  • 10 Thrusters (65#)
  • 10 Pull-ups

The competition has “Fran” but the beginner division, which I’m competing in, only uses 65# and does jumping chest-to-bar pull-ups. I figured this was a good way to build up for it. I should have gone heavier with the thrusters and maybe did fewer reps there. Everything here was unbroken as well. I’ve never been able to do that many rounds of pull-ups unbroken like that.

WOD #4

20:00 EMOTM

  • 30s Row

This a great one for conditioning. Go all-out for those 30s and then catch your breath for the next 30s.

I’m really happy with how my back handled the workload today. I wouldn’t have been able to do this 2 weeks ago. I’m in charge of making up the WOD for tomorrow’s classes, so that should be fun. It’s going to be some kind of partner WOD.

Long and Heavy

This morning when I woke up everything was sore. Everything. Maybe it was the way I slept or maybe I’m recovering faster and faster, because a few hours later I was feeling just fine. I skipped doing a workout out at the lake, which let me pack up and drive home so I could hit open gym at Survival Fitness. I was really looking forward to some heavy barbell work after being away on vacation with only dumbbells to work with.

Warm-up

  • 400m Run
  • 2 rounds
    • 10 PVC Pass-thrus
    • 10 PVC OHS

Strength

Deadlifts

  • 10x 135#
  • 5x 225#
  • 5x 255#
  • 5x 285#
  • 5x 305#
  • 3x 325#

Deadlifting felt good. My grip gave out on the last set so I was only able to get 3 reps. I think that’s more than I’ve ever done for 3 reps, so no complaints.

Power Cleans
* Every minute on the minute for 5 minutes I did the associated number of reps with a weight. After 5 minutes I took about 2 minutes while I changed weights and recovered a bit before starting on the heavier weight for the next 5 minutes.

  • 7x 115#
  • 4x 135#
  • 2x 155#
  • 2x 165#

I’ve never done anything quite like this so it was an experiment. After completing my reps, I had about 30 seconds left in most of the minutes, with slightly more when I got to the last two weight with only 2 reps each. A few months ago 165# was my clean PR and here I am doing it for reps!

WOD

4 rounds

  • 25 HR Push-ups
  • 25 Wall Balls (10′ with 20# MB)
  • 25 Sit-ups
  • 25 Box Jumps (24″)

My plan for this morning was to do “Angie” and I was still thinking about doing it at open gym, maybe with a modification like you see here to turn it into 4 rounds of 25 reps each instead of 100 straight of each movement. After doing the deadlifts and the cleans, my hands were is rough shape and I was close to having some blisters and rips, so it was an easy decision to skip pull-ups.

I decided to substitute wall balls for air squats since I hadn’t done any while away on vacation. Instead of pull-ups I threw in box jumps thinking it would be my rest station. After killing my legs with deadlifts and cleans it was rough to jump. I couldn’t rebound at all.

I completed the WOD in 23:01. Nearly 2 solid hours of work and a great way to come back to town.