Tag: Handstand Push-up

Pull-up PR

Didn’t sleep well at all and got out of bed around 6am. My back is really tight from 20.2. Went to the gym during the morning 8 and 9am classes to do my own thing, so I could use the 60 pound dumbbells.

Warm-up

  • 5:00 Assault Bike (45 cals)
  • 3 Sets
    • 5 Scap Pull-ups
    • 10 DB Bench Presses (30-40-50#)

Strength / Accessory

5 Sets

  • MAX Strict Pull-ups
  • 10 DB Bench Presses (60#)
  • 3:00 Rest

I got 15-12-10-10-10 on the pull-ups, which sets a new PR set! I haven’t maxed out strict pull-ups since 2014 when I did 13. I weighed about 200 pounds back then and I’ve been around 202 lately. The bench started to feel pretty heavy in the last two sets.

E20S – Until Failure

  • 3 Strict HSPU

I wrote numbers up to 20 on the board kind of joking and ended up maing it through 17 rounds. My first idea was to do a 5:00 AMRAP, so this was just an extra 40 seconds and made sure I didn’t blow up too early. In round 12 I made the mistake of stopping in the bottom on my second rep. I eventually was able to press out of it, but it ruined me for the rest of the way. I had to do three singles in my last two rounds and barely made it so didn’t attempt the 18th round.

5 Sets

  • 10/10 Single Leg Lateral Step-ups (30″)
  • 30s/30s Single Leg Standing Balance (70#)

Then I was out in the garage around 11.

Year of the Engine – Polarized

36:00 Airdyne
**Endurance pace with 7s sprint @ 8, 16, 24, 32

976 calories and 20.88 km.

Time for some food and a nap.

Technology Troubles

I’m a little sore from 20.1. Suprisingly, the worst of it is in my glutes. I woke up with the decision not to redo it. At the end of the day my score doesn’t matter for anything. One. And. Done. I’m already feeling good about it. 🙂 I was out in the garage around 10:30am for rowing intervals, but the computer wasn’t working so I had to pull a switcheroo.

Year of the Engine – Polarized

34:00 Airdyne
** Endurance pace with 7s sprint @ 6, 12, 18, 24, 30

After the third sprint I pulled a wheelie to scootch the front of the bike over and the computer fucking reset! During some of the sprints the front of the bike tends to drift over towards my treadmill and I didn’t want to end up with the handles getting too close. I took the numbers from 16 minutes to estimate totals of 1,015 calories and 20.5 km.

As I was sitting down and updating notes, I accidentally deleted my entire Workouts note, where I plan about a week ahead and have a lot of workout ideas saved. Undo on iOS didn’t work and there is no revision history in Bear. Fuck! I checked both laptops and they’d already synced across the updated empty note. The best I could do was restore an old copy, which had the majority of what I need. I should stay away from computers the rest of the weekend.

During the day I cut up a dead tree that fell two weeks ago and hauled the wood over to a friend’s house. There were some pretty good weighted carries hauling logs to the truck! I got to the gym just before 6pm to use the rower.

Row Tests

  • 100m
  • 2:00 Rest
  • 100m
  • 2:00 Rest
  • 250m

I got 15.8, 15.6, and 39.7. Only 0.1 seconds shy of matching my PR for 100 meters. I had set the drag factor to 130 to start and then for the second 100 I moved the damper from around 5.5 up to 7. I moved it back down for the 250, which was 1.4 seconds slower than my PR. Not too bad with these weak ass legs.

2019-10-12-row-tests

BTWB’s stupid 6 month history always screws my Fitness Level score, so I’ve been wanting to hit a few of these tests to get it back up to realistic levels. I really hate that they count interval work as a PR attempt, which is using 1:47.3 as my recent best 500m time, only good for a level 18! Come on bro, that’s about the pace I hold when doing 500m repeats in a metcon. The 1k row wasn’t a test effort either.

Photo Oct 12, 2019 at 61127 PM

Anyway, that served as a good warm-up for the short intervals.

Year of the Engine – Rocket Race

15 Rounds

  • 20s Row
  • 40s Rest

I got 114-116 meters every round. Still had pretty good power left in my legs after the test rows.

 

Since it was a quick workout and I made the drive out, I figured I might as well do some other stuff.

Strength / Gymnastics / Conditioning

  • E2M – 5 Rounds
    • 2 Weighted Pull-ups (30#)
    • 5 Strict Handstand Push-ups
    • 50 Double Unders
  • E2M – 3 Rounds
    • 3 Weighted Pull-ups (30#)
    • 7 Strict Handstand Push-ups
    • 50 Double Unders
  • E2M – 2 Rounds
    • 4 Weighted Pull-ups (30#)
    • 10 Strict Handstand Push-ups
    • 50 Double Unders

The plan was do do 10 rounds of 2-5-50, but it was too easy and I was getting 1:10 of rest each round. Then it was still too easy. Finally it was almost too hard. I missed a double under in round 1, 6, and 7. Then in round 9 after 30+ dubs it was like I’d never done a double under before or the rope was possessed. I missed 4 or 5 times and my rest was down to about 25 seconds! Doing those two sets of 10 strict handstand push-ups was a good challenge. 66 total strict HSPU and I made sure to get an exaggerated lockout on every rep as prep if they come up during the Open again.

Tomorrow I’ll have to see what’s up with my rower’s monitor. I remembered that I can swap with the Ski Erg to see if the problem is with the monitor or somewhere else.

Trade-Off

Definitely getting sore from squatting. Out in the garage during lunch.

Year of the Engine – Polarized

32:00 Airdyne
** Endurance pace with 7s sprint @ 6, 12, 18, 24, 30

I did 883 calories and 18.7 km.

Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

4 Rounds

  • 10 PVC Passes
  • 5 HR Push-ups
  • 5 Ring Rows
  • 10 Jumping Jacks

Strength

5 Sets

  • 10 Strict HSPU
  • 10/10 Kroc Rows (53# KB)

I’m benching tomorrow, so I did these strict handstand push-ups instead of 5×10 bench press. Had a good 2-3 minutes of rest between each set, but it was still surprising to get all five sets of HSPU unbroken. I went wider with my hands on my last set, which was a lot easier.

Conditioning

15:00 AMRAP

  • Buy-in:
    • 10-20-30-40 H2H KB Swings (53#)
    • 3-4-5-6 Muscle-ups
  • AMRAP
    • 6 Burpees
    • 30 Double Unders

It was programmed as American swings and 10-20-30-40 pull-ups. The Rx+ version was muscle-ups and I really wanted to do some. I knew I’d get done with the muscle-ups much faster than doing 100 total pull-ups, so I was going to have the joy of a lot more time doing the AMRAP. Win-lose? I finished the buy-in at 6:11. Felt good on the rings and was able to do each set unbroken, even with all the hip fatigue from the swings. Started out a little slow on the burpees, but then, I think, in the third round, Michelle (who was coaching) joined in to push me. I figured she’d drop out soon enough, so didn’t pick up my pace much. When it was clear she wasn’t going away and I saw there were only a few minutes left I was able to speed up my burpees. I ended up doing nine rounds plus the six burpees.

I don’t think 18 muscle-ups is a good sub for 100 pull-ups. There is no way I would have done the 30 and 40 pull-ups unbroken, so I should have been forced to break up larger numbers of MU. Around 30 total MU would have been pretty solid. Doing 3-6-9-12 would have stuck to the 1x-2x-3x-4x pattern and forced me to break 9 and 12 in to 2-4 sets.

Max Followed by Max

Out in the garage during lunch.

Year of the Engine – Rocket Race

15 Rounds

  • 1:00 Row
  • 1:00 Rest

On April 11th I did 15 rounds getting 303-304 meters and on June 4th I averaged 1:37.8 for 12 rounds. Today my goal was to go sub 1:38 and I averaged 1:37.5, getting 307-308 every round. Today was 67 total meters more than the 15 rounds in April.

Here’s a comparison of my heart rate with April 11th on the left and today on the right. Slightly better today at a faster pace, even with a bogus reading during the middle of the April attempt that would have made the average HR higher.

 

Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

  • 1:30 Row (400m)
  • 3 Rounds
    • 5 Double DB Shoulder Press (25#)
    • 5 Ring Rows
    • 10 Air Squats
    • 10 PVC Passes

Strength

  • 5 Push Presses (45#)
  • 5 Push Presses (95#)
  • 5 Push Presses (135#)
  • 5 Push Presses (155#)
  • 8/8 Kroc Rows (40# DB)
  • 50 Double Unders
  • 5 Push Presses (185#)
  • 8/8 Kroc Rows (53# KB)
  • 50 Double Unders
  • MAX Push Presses (205# – 5)
  • MAX Push Presses (155# – 7)
  • 8/8 Kroc Rows (53# KB)
  • 50 Double Unders

Belted up for the last 4 sets of push presses and every set was touch-n-go reps until the two max rep sets where I reset on each rep. The other movements were supersetted with the push presses and the two max rep sets were back-to-back, which was hard! Could have gotten more on the max sets, but would have risked over-extending my back.

Conditioning

10:00 AMRAP

  • 60 Air Squats
  • 50 Push-ups
  • 60 H2H Russian KBS (53#)
  • 30 Box Jumps (24″)
  • 20 HSPU
  • 10 Push Jerks (135#)

I swapped out 40 dumbbell snatches for the swings with my back as tight as it is. I sped up on the last 20 air squats, knowing that my legs would get a rest. Went 4×10 and 2×5 on the push-ups, 40-20 on the swings, 4×5 handstand push-ups, and 3-4 on the jerks. So three reps shy of finishing a full round. I was planning to bust out all 10 jerks, but that plan quickly went out the window when I picked up the bar!

Four Sections

I got just over 9 hours of sleep last night! I think my legs are going to get pretty sore from all of the squats yesterday. No time again for a Year of the Engine workout today. Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

4 Rounds

  • 10 Jumping Jacks
  • 10 Pass Throughs
  • 8 Air Squats

Power Clean & Push Jerk

  • 3×45#
  • 3×95
  • 3×135

Conditioning

  • 0:00-5:00
    • 1k Row (3:27.8)
  • 5:00-17:00 – Power Clean & Push Jerk
    • 135
    • 165
    • 185
    • 205
    • 225
    • 235
    • 245
  • 17:00-22:00
    • 1 mile Echo Bike (2:21)
  • 22:00-35:00
    • 21-15-9
      • Deadlifts (225#)
      • Handstand Push-Ups
    • AMRAP
      • Strict Handstand Push-ups

I thought about holding a 1:40/500m pace on the row, but didn’t want to completely destroy myself for the next 30 minutes of the workout. Only 16 seconds slower than my PR. I’ll take the push jerk considering my PR is 255! That bike started to burn before the half mile and then it was just holding on. My back was a little lit up from the last two C&J, so I took it nice and slow on the deadlifts. I went 6-5-5-5, 5-5-5, and 5-4. On the HSPU I went 6-5-5-5, 5-5-5, and 9. It took me 9:12 to complete, which would be a really slow Diane time. I rested until there were three minutes left when I decided to start doing strict HSPU. I started with a set of 5, then maybe a triple, some doubles, singles, and a double to finish, getting 21 reps.

Light Barbell Work

Feeling good. Went to open gym at 10.

Accessory

3 Sets

  • 15 Reverse Hypers (90#)

No B.S. Bench Press

  • 10×45#
  • 8×95
  • 4×135
  • 4×175
  • 4×205
  • 4×225
  • 4x4x240

Still on the low end of the recommended 240-245 for the working sets. Not sure I could have added the extra five pounds to either of the last two sets even. I have to remind myself 245 is my all-time 5RM (which I matched back in May) and I did 16 reps with 240 in this workout. Things are moving in the right direction.

Conditioning

  • E2M – 5 Rounds
    • 10 Power Snatches (75#)
    • 5 Muscle-ups
  • 4:00 Rest
  • E2M – 5 Rounds
    • 10 C&J (75#)
    • 5 Handstand Push-ups

My original version of this was using 95 and 115, but I switched to 75 and 95 yesterday. I did the first 4 sets of muscle-ups unbroken with a near failure on the last rep of those. Then I finished with 3-1-1. After struggling towards the end of the first couplet, I decided to stay at 75 for the clean and jerks. I also added an extra two minutes of rest because I was not recovering fast enough. As soon as I went for my first strict HSPU I knew it was going to have to change. I did 3-2 and 5×1 strict before switching to unbroken sets of 5 kipping for the other 3 rounds. I probably could have continued with 5×1 strict, but I wanted some rest time!

Damn, that light barbell can really give you a great workout. Too many people think you need to go heavy all the time and keep adding more weight.

Midline

6-4-2 with 10 second holds

  • Curl-up
  • Side Plank
  • Bird Dog

Increased from the 5-3-1 since it had been easy. This was definitely more of a challenge, but the workout may have contributed to that.

Did a bunch of yard work, ran some errands, and then was out in the garage by 8pm

Year of the Engine – Polarized

26:00 Airdyne

** Endurance pace with 7s sprint @ 6, 12, 18, 24

Went 692 calories and 14.93 km.

Where Did That Come From?

I walked 18 holes yesterday. My biceps and lats are still sore from Tuesday. The muscle-ups on Wednesday may have contributed to that too. Out in the garage before lunch. Warmed up with a two minute row for 520 meters.

Year of the Engine – Rocket Race

18 Rounds

  • 15s Row
  • 45s Rest

This is the start of phase 3, differentiation, where we work on speed and power, now that we’ve built up a solid capacity. Looking forward to an even better engine!

There were some 20 second intervals in phase one with 1:40 rests, so I wasn’t sure what kind of pace to go for these. I thought 1:26-1:28/500m might be good, but was worried about the short rest. Since there is a minimum interval time of 20 seconds on my rower I set it for 20/40, didn’t use the first interval, and waited until there was 16 seconds left before I grabbed for the handle each time. This makes the average pace and stroke rate useless though. My meters were:

82-84-85-83-86-88-86-86-87-
88-86-87-87-87-87-87-88-88

As you can see it took several intervals to get a feel for the short time duration. After finding myself, I was hitting 1:21-1:23 by the fourth pull and holding it. Using the pace calculator, 86-88 meters would be an average pace of 1:25.2-1:27.2, so I was pretty close with my guess. On BTWB I saw a guy, who I consistently beat on every other type of interval, post an average of 107 meters for this. Come on buddy, that would be an average pace of 1:10/500m!!! Not a chance. If I started at the beginning of the 20 second intervals, stopped at 15, and included the rollover meters I would have done that, so that’s probably what he did.

Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

  • 16 cal Assault Bike
  • 2 Rounds
    • 20 PVC Passes
    • 8 DB Shoulder Presses (25#)
    • 10 Ring Rows

Strength

Shoulder Press

  • 5×45#
  • 5×95
  • 5×115
  • 3×135
  • 1×150
  • 1×160
  • 1×170
  • 1×180

Going in I was hoping to hit 165 pounds because I haven’t done much shoulder pressing in the last two years. Basically since I hit my all-time best of 185 I haven’t had an estimated max come close to that, as you can see below.

last-2-years-shoulder-presses.png

I have no idea where this 180 lift came from, but it sure was a nice surprise. Must be a lot of carry-over from the bench program. That last rep may have gotten my back though, with over-extension, even though it went up pretty smooth. Should have wore my belt! Hopefully I’m ok when I wake up tomorrow.

Conditioning

E3M – 6 Rounds

  • 10 Push Jerks (115#)
  • 10 Pull-Ups
  • 10 Handstand Push-Ups
  • 10 Power Cleans (115#)

We did something very similar almost 4 months ago and it wrecked me because I increased the reps by one each round! It was jerks, t2b, hand power cleans, and HSPU. Today actually had SDLHP, so I subbed in power cleans since I’m not risking a shoulder impingement on that stupid movement. This time instead of cutting back to 95# and increasing the reps by 1 each round I stuck to the Rx weight.

My goal was to do everything unbroken. I didn’t even come close! After 3 rounds I took the tens off and was down to 95#, just in time to start round 4. Then I was off pace the rest of the way. I was able to do every set of pull-ups unbroken, but the quick turn-around from jerks to HSPU is what really got me. They were so slow and then I had to start breaking them up in the 3rd or 4th round. I did a whole bunch of singles on the cleans because I was so blown. I kept going to finish my full 6 rounds after the clock, so it was probably 19:00-19:30. I should have gone 95# the whole way like last time.

10×10 Unbroken

Walked 18 holes on the golf course yesterday and my calf wasn’t an issue. Today it feels even better. Out in the garage at noon.

Year of the Engine – Polarized

24:00 Airdyne

**Endurance pace with sprints for 7 seconds @ 5:00, 10, 15, 20 and recover to endurance

Went 700 calories and 14.37 km. I finally switched the units on my Airdyne over to kilometers, which should give me more distance precision. Less than 6 months through 2019 and I’ve already put more distance on my bike than any other year.

Went to the 4pm class.

Warm-up

  • 3 Sets
    • 10 Reverse Hypers (140#)
  • 500m Row
  • Tabata
    • Good mornings (PVC)
    • PVC Passes
    • 15 Hand Release Push-ups
    • Jumping Jacks

I started to head out for a 400m run but only made it a few steps. My calf was having none of that. The jumping jacks weren’t great either.

Conditioning

2 Cycles

  • 5:00 EMOM
    • 15 cal Row
  • 5:00 EMOM
    • 10 Sumo KB Deadlifts (88#)
  • 5:00 EMOM
    • 10 HSPU

My average pace on the rower was around 1,700 cal/hr and it was taking me 28-32 seconds to finish. Regular 225# deadlifts were programmed, but I’m not going crazy with my back. I figured I’d see how long I could stay unbroken on the handstand push-ups and I made every set! They slowed down over time, but it wasn’t really a struggle. I didn’t expect that for 100 reps.

Too Many Singles

I hoped to get out for an early run, but it was raining. At around 11:15 it brightened up, birds started to chirp, and radar showed a window in the weather, so I hit the pavement.

Year of the Engine – Endurance

24:00 Run

I mapped out a loop that ended up being 2.55 miles and took me 24:30. My focus for the run was on my stride rate, which was a lot more consistent than usual (often drops to 155-160 with an average in the low 160s) and must have helped with my pace. I’ll have to concentrate on my stride more often and would like to get it up to 180.

I rested and took my time setting everything up, so it was just over 30 minutes after the run when I got started on the workout.

Conditioning

  • 30 Strict HSPU
  • 40 Box Jumps (24″)
  • 30 Bench Press (135#)
  • 40 Goblet Lunges (53#)
  • 20 Strict HSPU
  • 30 Box Jumps (24″)
  • 20 Bench Press (135#)
  • 30 Goblet Lunges (53#)

I went in to this workout planning to do 40-30 on every movement with the option for a third round of 20. That quickly changed when I went 5-5-3-singles and took five minutes to do 30 strict handstand push-ups! The next time around I did 2-2-2-singles, taking four minutes to knock out 20 reps. I recently felt good doing two rounds of 5×5 strict in a partner workout, so I never expected to drag behind the struggle bus like this. Either my shoulders are wiped out from yesterday or using plates and an AbMat is a lot harder than the big gymnastics mat at the gym. Box jumps were fine and mostly a rest before pressing again. I felt weak on the bench as well and did all sets of fives. I split the 40 lunges in half because I felt like I was fatiguing my triceps by holding the kettlebell and did the 30 unbroken. Finished in 21:42 with 9:00 spent on HSPU.

Test

100 Hand Release Push-ups

For some reason at 6:30pm I got the bright idea to test some push-ups after all of the pressing I’ve done in the last two days. I haven’t been able to beat my 5:04 PR on this from 2013, though I did 5:18 and 5:08 in 2017.

Some quick math told me five reps every 15 seconds would get sub five minutes, so that was my plan of attack. I did 5 reps and rested until the my 15 seconds was up. Rinse and repeat. It felt great through 50 reps. I could feel the fatigue kicking in as I got through 60 and by 70 I was barely making it in time. After that I knew I couldn’t keep up the fives any longer, so I resorted to whatever I could manage until it was singles. Finished in 5:14, so with all of the reps done yesterday and today I’m confident I can break that barrier soon.

Moving the Bar Again

I was still very sore yesterday, but managed to walk 14 holes of golf before it started raining. I think that helped me loosen up actually. Got a solid 9.5 hours of sleep last night. Was out in the garage before lunch.

Engine Builder – Max Aerobic Power

24 Rounds

  • 30s Row
  • 30s Rest

The goal was to get near a 1:36/500m pace, which I did a few times. My average distance was 155.17 with a range of 157-153, slightly down from 1.5 months ago when I did 20 rounds with a 155.25 average and a range of 156-154. That difference in average only amounts to two total meters though. My distances were:

157-157-156-156-156-154-156-156-
155-155-155-155-153-155-155-155-
154-155-154-155-154-155-155-156m

Went to the 4pm class. It’s been 3.5 weeks since I picked up a barbell and today seemed like a good day to try a few things. Scaled back the weight to keep it light.

Warm-up

  • 3:00 Machine
  • 3 Rounds
    • 10 Russian Kettlebell Swings (44#)
    • 5 MB Cleans (20#)
  • Power Snatch
    • 6×45#
    • 6×75
    • 3×95

Weightlifting

10:00 EMOM

  • 3 Power Snatches (115#)

Felt good to move some weight.

Conditioning

E3M – 6 Rounds

  • 10-15 Push Jerks (95#)
  • 10-15 Toes to Bars
  • 10-15 Hang Power Cleans (95#)
  • 10-15 Handstand Push-ups

The Rx weight was 115 pounds and the notes said Rx+ should add 1 rep to the movements each round. My plan was to stick to 10s, keep the barbell movements unbroken and split up the gymnastics to 2×5 for each movement. I cruised through the first round in under 90 second and then Kinde says, “You guys should do Rx+.” I figured since that round went so well and I had scaled the weight I would give it a try. The first three rounds weren’t too bad, but after 13 got nasty!

After my first clean I went for the quick bounce method and my back did not agree, so I had to take the bar down to the knees on every rep and do a proper hang clean, which is much slower. I split all of the T2B up in 2 sets, 5-5, 6-5, 6-6, 7-6, 7-7, and 8-7. Was a bit surprised those felt so good and I wasn’t wearing my grips. Cleans were all unbroken. For HSPU I think I did 10, 11, 6-6, 5-4-4, 5-5-4, and 5-5-5. I missed the 3 minute clock in the 5th round, after finishing the HSPU I had to go straight to the jerks and split that 8-7, otherwise every other round of jerks was unbroken. I got through the cleans a few seconds before the 18 minutes was up and then finished off my HSPU, which was probably in the 19:00-19:30 range.

75 HSPU is a lot, especially combined with 75 push jerks!