Tag: Muscle-up

Mighty Muscle-ups

Didn’t get much sleep trying to watch CJ’s session in the American Open last night, though the feed cut out for me so I completely missed all of the clean & jerks. Got some upper body feels from all of the snatching yesterday and legs feel a little tired. In at 9am for the first muscle-up day of the gymnastics program.

Skill WOD (Hustle & Flow) Week 1 Day 3

Warm-up

3 sets

  • 5 Bar Work
    (Hold and pause 2 sec at each position with no form breaks and no momentum)

    • Dead Hang
    • Lat Active Hollow
    • Tight Arch
  • 1 Skin the Cat
  • 7 Straddle V-ups
  • 10s GHD Hanging Bridge Stretch

Thought it would be harder than it was to do all of that holding on the bar in one set. Wasn’t bad. Straddle v-ups are very awkward.

Skill A – 4 Supersets

  • 1 Ring Swing + Pull-up w/ swing + MU
  • 2 Box Hip Kip Drill
  • 3 Banded Hip Drill

First set of the complex was odd, but got the hang of it and smoothed out the transition from pull-up into muscle for the rest of the sets. Wasted a bunch of time setting up for this part and figuring out what to do. The banded drill programmed didn’t work worth a shit for us so we did the Gymnastics WOD version. with a band through the rings.

Skill Test – 3 sets

1 rep of complex is:

  • MU + 2 Strict Ring Dips (after the MU dip lockout)

First two sets are 3 reps of the complex and then the 3rd set is for max reps. I got 5 on my max set. Those dips add up!

Strength Accessory – 3 sets

  • Lower to Hold (3s) Front Lever on Box

Completely missed that we were supposed to do 3 of these each set. I thought it was “too easy” in the sense that it wasn’t a lot of work. Pretty sure I’ll never be able to hold an actual front lever in my life, but the strength transfer should help other stuff and I’m guessing that’s the idea.

Bonus Complex

  • Set 1: 3 Ring Pull-up + 3 Toes to Rings + 4 MU
  • Set 2: 3+3+5
  • Sets 3+: Keep adding 1 MU until failure

I wasn’t real confident going into this after only getting 5 in the skill test and already feeling pretty smoked in my shoulders and arms. But I got sets 1 and 2 done and got 5 muscle-ups again is the 3rd set.

Structured Gymnastics Work

Feeling pretty good after Kalsu. Legs are fine, but my shoulders are fatigued. In at 10am to start a gymnastics program. Jumped on the rowed for an easy 1,000 meters before getting started. I saw the next cycle of the Rowing WOD combines rowing with thrusters. Good time to switch out. 🙂

Going to be following the Skill WOD from Dusty Hyland, starting with a 4-week cycle he calls Hustle & Flow. With the Open about 3 months away it’s a good time to focus on increasing gymnastics strength, technique, and endurance.

Warm-up

3 sets

  • 5 Bar taps – tight
  • 5 Bar taps – dynamic
  • 7 V-ups
  • 10 Pass-thrus
  • 7 GHD Heel Drives
  • 10 Bridge Rocks

I really like the structure of the warm-up and how it gets everything ready, while reinforcing position work.

Shoulder Activation

  • 3 sets: 3 Scap Elevators + 3 Strict Pull-ups
  • 1 set: 1+1

Superset

5 Sets

  • 5 Butterfly Box Drill Circular Rotations
  • 1 Stop Strict Pull-up + 3 Pull-ups (butterfly drill)
  • 5 C2B Pull-ups

Skill Test

  • 3 Pull-ups + 3 C2B + 3 Pull-ups + 3 C2B
  • 2:00 Rest
  • 2 sets
    • 70% MAX C2B
    • 90s Rest

I figured there was no way I was getting 2 sets of 14 chest-to-bar pull-ups here after all of the other pull-ups already. Got both though!

Strength Accessory

3 Supersets

  • 15s Underhand grip chin hang
  • 8 Supinated Bar Rows

My least favorite part. Did not feel very good on my elbows in either part.

Bonus Complex

  • Set 1: 2 Strict Pull-ups + 2 Strict C2B + 3 K2E + 3 T2B + 3 Bar MU
  • Sets 2-3: 2+2+3+3

Damn those are some hard strict pull-ups! It’s programmed as 4 bar muscle-ups in the first set, but I could only get 3. Then you are supposed to keep adding 1 MU every set until failure, trying to get in at least 3 sets of work. Didn’t realize it until a minute or so later, but I ripped my thumb in that first set, so that was the end of the bar muscle-ups for the day. Finished out 3 sets of work.

I was being a good boy and protecting my hands during the big set stuff with my gymnastics grips, but they don’t do anything for your thumbs. :-/ I must really grip hard on that bar transitioning from rep to rep of my bar MU. Will have to tape up my thumbs from now on.

thumb-rip.jpg

With a focused attack it took us an hour to finish. Better than I expected, especially for the first week.

Hold On

My knees are feeling a little rough after yesterday. I need to work on my knee-caving issue with the lifts. I don’t have a problem in squats, but in the rebend of the snatch/clean and the dip of the jerk they do dive in.

Warm-up

  • 2×8 Reverse Hyper (210#)
  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Hang Stretch
  • Box Jumps at 24-30-34-38″

Skill / Accessory

12:00 EMOM (alt)

  • 5 Box Jumps (41″)
  • 2/2 Turkish Get-ups (44#)

Felt good to get in some high box jumps.

Conditioning

 

All 3 parts done with a partner, alternating rounds. Weight on the bar stays the same.

 

  • 5:00 AMRAP
    • 3 Snatches (135#, squat)
    • 3 Muscle-ups
  • 2:30 Rest
  • 5:00 AMRAP
    • 5 Clusters (135#)
    • 5 C2B Pull-ups
  • 2:30 Rest
  • 5:00 AMRAP
    • 7 Deadlifts (135#)
    • 7 Push-ups

Done with Bryan. I started the first AMRAP I didn’t get my 3rd snatch back into place on the 2nd set and lost it forward. Then same thing on another attempt. That got me fired up. Bryan missed one is his 2nd round too. Had to go 2-1 on my final set of MU. We finished 7 rounds plus a snatch.

Bryan started the 2nd AMRAP and we got 6+3, then exactly 16 total rounds in the last one. Pretty rough and a mental battle to hold on to the bar. My goal was to go unbroken with the snatches and clusters. Without that miss I would have. Had been thinking about 115# since I came up with this one but figured it would be too easy. Was right.

Midline

8 Rounds

  • 20s L-hang
  • 20s Rest

I alternated my grip between regular and underhand each round. Kind of held my feet up in the first round but then just knees up. My hands were on fire by the end of this after all the grip work done in the AMRAPs.

Wall Ballin’

We finally were able to get in our end of the year golf tournament yesterday. Long day on the course playing 27 holes. Was pretty exhausted last night and slept in this morning, so went to the 4:30 class.

Warm-up

  • 3×10 Reverse Hyper (210#)
  • Bottom Squat Hold

Strength: Front Squats (22X0 Tempo)

  • 6×45#
  • 4×135#
  • 2×185#
  • 2×205#
  • 2×225#
  • 2×235#
  • 2×245#
  • 2×255#

Gymnastics

4 Sets

  • 7 Ring Rows
  • 1 Muscle-up
  • 4 Ring Dips (strict, after MU)

Conditioning

  • 4:00 AMRAP
    • 5 Power Snatch (115#)
    • 5 Burpees Over the Bar
    • 10 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)
  • 2:00 Rest
  • 2:00 AMRAP
    • Wall Balls (20#, 10′)

Went unbroken on all movements in the 4 minutes with touch-n-go snatches. Finished 3 rounds plus 2 more snatches. Glad I decided to go with 115 because 95 would have been too easy. Good challenge. Went with sets of 32 and 17 for the wall balls, with rep #50 in the air as time ran out, so only 49!

Team Series Week 1

Got in the final two workouts in the evening.

Warm-up

  • 3×10 Reverse Hyper (210#)
  • Bottom Squat Holds
  • Shoulder Stretching

Team Series Event 1

  • Females complete:
    • 100 double-unders, each
    • 75-calorie row, total
    • 50 dumbbell step-ups, total (30# DBs, 20″)
  • Then, males complete the same with (45# DBs, 24″)

I went unbroken on my dubs, pulled 40 cals at about 1,800 cal/hr, and we alternated in the step-ups with 8-10-7 each. Michelle and Jess finished at 11:11 and we were done at 18:34.

Team Series Event 3

42-30-18 (30:00 time cap)

  • Muscle-ups, with static deadlift hold
  • 350-lb. partner deadlifts

* The 45-lb. barbell must be loaded with 135 lb. on one side and 170 lb. on the other side.

* Each person must complete a rep during each round

Jess and I paired up on the bar. Brian and I did 10 rounds on the muscle-ups, each doing a double, then Michelle or Jess would make an attempt if they wanted to. They didn’t get any muscle-ups so we finished with 40 reps well before the time cap.

Week 1 in the books. Next one in about a month. It’s been something different and fun to do these workouts.

First Amanda

First time I’ve been able to make it for a Saturday class in nearly 2 months I think.

Warm-up

  • PVC Pass-thrus
  • PVC Good Mornings
  • Air Squats
  • Bottom Squat Hold

Strength: 2 Front Squats + 3 Back Squats

  • 45#
  • 135#
  • 205#
  • 235#
  • 3 sets @ 255#

Nothing crazy compared to what I’ve done in the past. Solid positioning though.

Conditioning

“Amanda”

9-7-5

  • Muscle-ups
  • Squat Snatches (135#)

Went 3-3-3, 3-2-2, 2-F-1-1-1 on the muscle-ups. That first round of snatches felt like it took forever; I kept wondering if I missed counting some reps. With the extra rest I had to take during the round of 5 muscle-ups I was able to speed through the final snatches. Snatches were singles the entire way though. Finished in 9:26. My first try at Amanda last December was with a 10 minute cap and I still had 4 snatches left so this was a nice PR even though I haven’t been doing many MU or snatches lately.

Out in the garage around 6pm.

OHS: 33X3 Tempo

  • 3×45#
  • 3×65#
  • 3×85#
  • 3×95#
  • 3×105#
  • 3×115#
  • 3×125#
  • 3×135#
  • 3×145#

Started with the jerk grip again and slowly moved hands wider through the sets until I was touching the ends on the final set. Pretty unstable in those first few sets due to the grip width. Shaky at the end due to the time under tension and the load, but 10# heavier than last week with more sets.

Accessory & Aerobic

5 Sets

  • 10 Decline DB Bench Press (50# DBs)
  • 4:00 Air Dyne (AD2) in Z1

Figured I might as well combine these two to save time instead of sitting around doing nothing between the press sets. Wore the HRM to keep track and make sure I stayed in zone 1. Can you tell where I was pressing? 😉

2015-08-29-hr

Finished up with Crossover Symmetry Iron Scap.

Slacker Week

Had planned to get in some exercise last night, but I was tired from getting up at 5:30 to head up for a golf fundraiser that I play in every year. So it was 2 rest days in a row and a pretty light week for me. Back feels good though.

Got to the gym early for the Sunday workout and warmed up with 3x12x210# Reverse Hypers and Crossover Symmetry Activation.

Midline

10 Rounds

  • 20s Hollow Rocks
  • 20s Rest

Got 16 for the first 7 rounds, then 14s for a 154 total. Everyone was complaining about starting with these, but you gotta switch things up and I know a few would have left if they were at the end.

Conditioning

3 Rounds

  • 21 Deadlifts (135#)
  • 12 Box Jumps (24″)
  • 3 Muscle-ups

This one was fun. Michelle and I shared a box so alternated the jumps and it worked out well. Couldn’t rebound, but that’s fine. Meant going into the MU a little less fatigued. Hips were pretty shot after the deadlifts and box jumps, so had to really go for it with the hips. Did everything unbroken in 5:03.

E90S 15:00 (10x)

  • 50y Sprint

Have done this a few times recently now. Now that hard, but good for ya.

Accessory

2 Rounds NFT

  • 150m Farmer’s Carry (25# bumper in each hand)
  • 150m OH Plate Walk (50# – 2×25#)

Brutal on the grip. Didn’t stop except between movements.

I did Crossover Symmetry Iron Scap. Shoulders haven’t been bothering me, but these back tweaks have taught me that I need to be better about this stuff so I don’t get hurt instead of only bothering to make time after I get hurt.

Felt pretty good and got a little inspired by Bryan lunging 400 meters while we did the accessory work, so I stopped at the track on the way home.

400m Walking Lunges

Actually counted out my steps today. It took me 334 steps and I was done in 12:01, which is a 42 second PR.

2015-08-09-after-400m-lunge

Now I will attempt to build a revers hyper attachment for my rig so I can get traction for my back more often than at the gym.

1 More Sleep

Stayed up late and up early this morning. Too excited watching the stuff roll in from California on social media. I fly out tomorrow! Out in the garage around noon to do work.

Shoulder Press

  • 10×45#
  • 5×95#
  • 3×115#
  • 2×135#
  • 1×145#

Warmed up.

Pressing Complex

E2M 12:00

  • 1 Shoulder Press (155#)
  • 2 Push Press (155#)
  • 4 Push Jerks (155#)

Was feeling rough in the first round! I wore the belt so I wouldn’t overextend. Really tried to tighten up my lower body before each set. Last couple of singles felt heavy! Here’s my last set…

Death by Clean

* Every 30 seconds instead of every minute!

  • 1st 30 seconds – 1 Power Clean (115#)
  • 2nd 30 seconds – 2 Power Clean (115#)
  • … increase by 1 rep every 30 seconds

Testing this one out before it’s used later this week at CrossFit Intuition. I set the over/under at 9, figuring that it all came down to how long you can go unbroken.

I probably should have done a few warm-ups because the first few rounds felt ugly as hell. Went unbroken through 8+7 and then singles. Barely had any rest before the 10th round started so just kept with the singles. Didn’t make it through. Final score of 9+7. It got nasty real fast. Wore the belt here too just to be safe.

Gymnastics

12:00 EMOM

  • 2 Strict Pull-ups (40# vest)
  • + 2 Strict Ring Dips (40# vest)

Was taking about 15 seconds to get the work in each round.

Conditioning

2 Rounds

  • 75 Air Squats
  • 25 Ball Slams (30#)

My air squats are slow, but I never stopped during either movement. Finished in 7:13.

Took a break from watching the Masters and Teens on the live stream because I had to go pick up a case of Kill Cliff so figured I’d stop at the gym for some more work around 6pm.

I did some bottom squat holds and stretching, then 3 sets of 10 Reverse Hypers (210#).

Out of the blue I went for a big set of muscle-ups even though I’d already done those weighted pull-ups and dips earlier today. Got 9 and dropped without attempting a 10th. Was at that point where you just know it’s not going to be close if you try another. That’s a PR by 1 from a year ago. Curious to see what I can do fresh now.

Was going to do some light and long prowler pushing. But a young kid who was a good football player wanted to join in, so did some sprints instead.

5 Rounds

  • 25m Prowler Sprint (High, 180#)
  • 25m Prowler Sprint (Low, 180#)

They always seem to be worse than you remember.

Rowing 4th

Yesterday was my first complete rest day after going 81 days in a row! It was 49 days of squats, 30 days of running, and a couple of days on top of that. Some days were just an easy 1 mile run, but still. It felt good to not do anything. I went to the driving range in the afternoon to work on my golf swing. This morning my HRV was up to 114, the highest reading I’ve ever had! A little surprising because I haven’t slept worth a shit most of the week.

Went to the gym at 10am.

Warm-up

  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • 50 Walking Lunges

Strength

Back Squat

  • 10×45#
  • 5×135#
  • 5×205#
  • 5×245#
  • 5x5x275#

First day of week 3. Tried to focus on locking in all of my back and driving up out of the hole. Rested about 3 minutes between working sets. Tried to do one rep right after the other with just a slight pause at the top.

Conditioning

12:00 EMOM alternating

  • 2 C&J (185#)
  • 4 Muscle-ups

I did a full squat and split the jerks. Tried not to pull with my arms on the cleans and drive under the bar on the jerks.

Bryan was working out with me and had to take off. I rested 20 minutes and then jumped on the rower.

Row 5k

I’ve been meaning to give this a shot for the last few months, but it didn’t seem like a great idea during all of the squats and then I was getting plenty of aerobic work with all of the running.

I wanted to stay under a 1:55/500m average and possibly go sub-19 for my time. I’ve tried this only once I think, going 19:34 on October 25, 2013. I held the average pace without much trouble, with about a 0.3-0.4s cushion. Stroke rate was too high for the first 2,000 meters, but then I settled in to a rhythm. Started to pick it up in the last 2 minutes. Got a nice 36 second PR at 18:58.5. Whenever I do this again, I think it’ll pay off to lower that stroke rate from the start.

2015-jul-4-5k-row

2015 June GLBRT

I’ve been sleeping so good lately. Headed out at 7am simple for the sake of keeping the #RunEveryDayJune streak going. Went 1.1 miles in 11:37.

First Great Lakes Bay Regional Throwdown of the year started at 9am. Held at Next Level Fitness this time.

Event 1

8:00 (Simultaneously)

  • Row for distance
  • AMRAP DU

* One person at each thing at a time. Switch out any way you want.

I was on row duty first to get us off to a good start. Went for about 2:30 with 800 meters, got some rest and then jumped in on the dubs. We totaled 721 DU for 4th and 2,267 meters for 8th.

Event 2

10:00

  • Max snatch and C&J for men and women

* One person from each gender does one of the two lifts. Each team has 2 bars.

All 4 of us hit PRs! After 205# being a little shaky to stand up with due to whatever is causing my OHS issue, I fucked the shit out of the bar with 215# and actually power snatched it! That’s 20# more than I’ve ever even attempted to power snatch and a 5# snatch PR. We totaled 740# for 6th place.

Event 3

  • 1:00 AMRAP Muscle-ups (x3 points) – Member A
  • 1:00 AMRAP Wall Balls (20/14#, 10/9′) – Member B
  • 8:00 AMRAP
    • 15 Pull-ups
    • 15 Power cleans (115/80#)
    • 15 HSPU
    • 15 Front Squats (115/80#)
  • 1:00 AMRAP Pistols – Member C
  • 1:00 AMRAP Hand Release Burpee Box Overs (24/20″) – Member D

* Each team member does a 1:00 AMRAP of something and everyone shares the work of the 8:00 AMRAP.

Muscle-ups for me. Nice to get my part out of the way first thing. I went 4-3-3-2 for 12. Same as I got in practice. Their rings were like fucking sand paper! We had 381 “points” with the MU being tripled, which was 8th in the event. I didn’t do any pull-ups and HSPU were much harder than in practice.

When I watched this video I cringed at my lockouts as the minute progressed. Then I went frame-by-frame in Quicktime and I actually hit lockout in every rep, even the final one. Just hard to catch at speed and with my weird double-jointed elbows. I need to work on making the lockouts better though and keep my damn feet and legs together for more power.

Not too long after the event I was blacking out and my hands were all tingly for quite some time. Lucky I had some medical professionals on our teams to help me out and carb me up. Recovered for the final though.

Event 4

  • 25-15-10
    • Deadlifts – Men (205#)
    • Thrusters – Women (55#)
  • 10-15-25
    • Thrusters – Men (75#)
    • Deadlifts – Women (145#)

* EMOM 4 synchronized burpees. One person working at a time. The men do 25 deadlifts (split up any way), then the women do 25 thrusters, then 15s and 10s, before changing weights and swapping movements.

I did the 25 and 10 deadlifts, then the 15 thrusters and the final 4 thrusters after Bryan got interrupted by burpees. The burpees were just an annoying forced break. They were easy. We finished in 6:53, which was 6th place.

The points were so close that we actually dropped from 5th to 7th out of 22 teams after that! Only 7 points out of 4th place though. It was by far the most fun GLBRT I’ve participated in.

Here are the final results with a link to the spreadsheet I whipped up since they didn’t do any sorting of the data. If nothing else, we were consistent. Just needed a higher finisher in one of the full point workouts.

results-GLBRT-june-2015