C2B and American KBS Back in Action

Surprisingly I’m not all that sore from the leg killer workout yesterday. I can feel some in my upper glutes, but my scaps are more sore than anything.

Warm-up

  • CS Activation (at home)
  • Shoulder Stretching
  • Arm Circles

Strength

Bench Press

  • 10×45#
  • 3×95#
  • 3×95# wide grip
  • 3×95# close grip
  • Speed Bench w/30-35s rest
    • 3x3x135# wide grip
    • 2x3x135#
    • 3x3x135# close grip
  • 8×185# close grip

First time putting any significant weight on the bar for that set of 185# and it felt pretty good. No struggle with the weight.

Conditioning

  • 20 C2B Pull-ups
  • 30 American KBS (53# KB)
  • 40 SDHP (53# KB)
  • 50 DB Push Presses (35# DBs)
  • 20 C2D Push-ups
  • 30 American KBS
  • 500m Run
  • 20 Burpees
  • 30 V-ups
  • 15 Ring Dips
  • 50 DU
  • 20 C2B Pull-ups

First time doing C2B and American KBS. My kip kept turning into a swing after about 4 reps in that first set of 20 though. Scaled down the push presses from the Rx 45# since I’m still trying to take it a little easy, especially with adding back in 2 movements in one day. Got my 50 DU unbroken, which is sweet at that point in a workout. Finished in 21:34.

Went back at 8pm for barbell club. Did CS Activation again before leaving home.

45# Snatch Position Work

  • Snatch Deadlifts
  • Muscle Snatches
  • Snatch Presses

5:00 EMOM

  • 135# Snatch w/ 3s pause in the hole
  • 2 OHS

Was supposed to go 10:00 but my wrists couldn’t take it. Not used to holding weight overhead yet.

Power Snatches

  • 2×145#
  • F-1×155#
  • 1×165#
  • 1×175#
  • 3x1x155#
  • 1-F-1-1×165#

Feet were getting too wide, which really sucks for squatting with it. After 175# figured it was more worthwhile to drop down and work on some fixes. Also allowed me to work on keeping my arms relaxed and try not to bend my elbows early. When I don’t pull early with my arms, the bar just flies up. I nearly lost a few reps behind me.

Grabbed the empty bar and did 5 OHS with a jerk grip. Lost some mobility with the time away from OH.

Lower Body Beatdown

Legs, butt, and abs are a little sore from the squats. Chest still sore from a couple of days ago. Back to the 9am class this morning.

Warm-up

  • Crossover Symmetry Activation (at home)
  • Couch stretch
  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Band Pulls
  • Leg Swings

Strength

Box Squats with ~30s rest between the 10 sets @ 55%. Speed reps!

  • 5×45#
  • 5×135#
  • 10x2x175#

Right at 50% for me, but I was ok with that since it let me keep up the speed and I squatted enough yesterday.

2014-05-22-sumo-deadlift-395Sumo Deadlifts

  • 5×135#
  • 5×225#
  • 2×305#
  • 2×345#
  • 2×375#
  • 2x2x395#

Felt better than I was expecting. Didn’t have any desire to go up to 90% though, especially based off my old PR.

Conditioning

“Nancy” – 5 Rounds

  • 400m Run
  • 15 OHS @ 95#

I’d only done this one with 85# before and it took me exactly 15 minutes. Wasn’t sure how it would go today since I haven’t done any OHS in 3 months. My goal was to finish every round of OHS unbroken, but I couldn’t keep it stable in the last round and lost the bar during my 12th rep. Took me 16:58 to finish. My legs have really been taking a beating lately.

Did CS Recovery when I got home.

2014 CrossFit Games Open Workout 14.2

Was down to New Species CrossFit in Royal Oak again for day 2 of the BlessTheGym Tour/Camp with Kendrick Farris. Worked on the clean and the jerk today. Tons of carryover from the snatch positioning and drills yesterday. Really glad I went to this with Matt. Was a good experience and reinforced some of the things I need to work on in my lifts.

Got home, took a nap and a shower, then headed over to Survival Fitness to knock out 14.2. After week 1, I was in 28,476th place out of 109,998 men worldwide for top 25.9%. Considering my shoulder isn’t 100% and I was sick for the first workout, I’ll take it. My goal for the year is to finish in a higher percentile than last year, which was top 20%. I just wish I hadn’t taken 2 months to focus on weightlifting, because my engine still isn’t up to where it was.

I warmed up with a lot of shoulder mobility work, about 5 minutes on the Air Dyne, some squat stuff, and who knows what else.

2014 CrossFit Games Open Workout 14.2

Every 3 minutes for as long as possible complete:

  • From 0:00-3:00, 2 rounds of:
    • 10 OHS (95#)
    • 10 C2B pull-ups
  • From 3:00-6:00, 2 rounds of:
    • 12 OHS (95#)
    • 12 C2B pull-ups
  • From 6:00-9:00, 2 rounds of:
    • 14 OHS (95#)
    • 14 C2B pull-ups
  • Etc., following same pattern until you fail to complete both rounds

My goal was to get to the round of 14s and get whatever I could. Took it pretty easy in the first 3 minutes, going unbroken with OHS and 3-3-2-2 on the C2B. Didn’t rush the sets of C2B at all. Tried to take it easy on the 12s too, getting the first round done in about 1:15-1:20. Turned into a lot of doubles and singles in these rounds. Didn’t have much rest time before the next 3 minutes. Went 8-6 on the OHS, struggled through the C2B and held on to what I could with OHS to finish with a score of 124. Mission accomplished.

My engine just isn’t what I’d like it to be yet and not doing pull-ups for 2 weeks kind of sucked, especially since my pull-ups aren’t very good to begin with. Shoulder was fine during the workout though. Glad that workout is done and I can get back to training tomorrow. On to week 3.

Hours later I went out to the garage and did CrossOver Symmetry Recovery.

Fuck, My Back

Moving a little slow this morning, but in for the 9am class.

Warm-up

  • 20 Zombie Kicks
  • 20 Air Squats
  • 15/15 Standing Hurdles (forward and backward)
  • 10 Burpees

Strength

5×5 Deadlifts @ 70-80%

  • 10×135#
  • 5×225#
  • 5×315#
  • 5×335#
  • 5×355#
  • 5×375#
  • 4×385#

What a fucking idiot. Tried to push it and now that low back area on the right side is worse than it was 2 weeks ago. It was starting to feel pretty good too. I want to slap myself. Pisses me off even more that it was already the most volume I’d done for a 5×5 before trying that last set.

2014-02-19-5x5-deadlifts

Accessory

Kroc Rows

  • 10/10 x 60#
  • 10/10 x 71#
  • 10/10 x 71#

Conditioning

  • 20 Thrusters (95#)
  • 20 Power Cleans (95#)
  • 20 Shoulder to OH (95#)
  • 20 OHS (95#)
  • 20 Front Squats (95#)

* Do 5 burpees EMOM starting at 1:00

I felt pretty terrible in the workout and didn’t push it on my burpees because I could feel my back there. Not to mention I couldn’t breathe and felt like shit. Took me 4 minutes to do the OHS, only able to get 5 reps each time! Not good. Total time of 10:57. I think I was the last one done.

Rested a bit when I got home, finished shoveling the end of the driveway, and then made a pit stop in the garage on the way in.

Accessory

  • 5×10 Reverse Hyper using GHD with green band

Quad City

I guess I’m just getting old or getting used to the early bed times. 9am for the 5th day this week. Feeling good though.

Warm-up

“Whip It!”
Play the song by Devo. Do jumping jacks throughout and then a burpee each time they say “whip it” during the song. Be careful not to mistake “whip”, which they say on its own several times. We were definitely warmed up after this.

Strength

Bench Press 5×1 @ 90%+

  • 10×45#
  • 5×135#
  • 3×185#
  • 1×205#
  • 1×215#
  • 1×225#
  • 1×235#

Davy, Shaun, Matt, and I rotated through on the same bench. Ran out of time, but I think we were all pretty much done at the end there. Just 5# shy of my PR, so I’m happy with that. Didn’t have my right arm lagging behind like I used to, but my right elbow issue went away in the last couple of months too, so maybe it was related. My left arm actually was a bit behind on that last lift today.

Accessory

12:00 EMOM

  • Odds: MAX unbroken strict ring dips
  • Evens: MAX unbroken strict pull-ups

Went 15-10-6-7-5-5 on dips and 9-5-5-5-5-4 on pull-ups. Pathetic numbers for pull-ups.

Conditioning

21-15-9

  • OHS (95#)
  • OH Lunges (95#, total reps – not each leg)

Fuck! Fuck! Looking at this I figured wrists would be a limiting factor, but that was the least of my worries during the workout. I did the first 21 OHS unbroken with my shoulders shaking all over the place for the last 5 reps, and holy shit was that a mistake. I’ve never felt a burning in my quads during a metcon like this one. I’d get down into a toes squat to rest when taking breaks and that even felt horrible. Brutal brutal workout. I managed to power through the sets of 9 unbroken with a short break between movements and finished in 9:25.

Midline

7:00 EMOM

  • 12 V-Ups

Good core burn in the last 2-3 rounds.

Great Lakes Bay Region Throwdown (GLBRT) 5

Today was the 5th area throwdown. I’ve been on the winning team for the 3rd and 4th running, but this one was a little different. It was gym based where each would count their top two teams (each team was made up of 2 men and 2 women) in each event towards their score. Teams could be changed for each event.

We still ended up coming out on top to bring the belt back to Survival Fitness. I was able to compete in each event.

Event 1

6 Rounds

  • 10m Human Wheelbarrows for both pairs on the team
  • 20 Reps (95#, OHS for men, Front squats for women)

Casey and I each did 20 unbroken reps each and then 10/10 in the last round. The gals did 10/10 in the opposite rounds.

Event 2

21-15-9

  • Snatches (115/75)
  • Thrusters (115/75)
  • Cleans (115/75)
  • Deadlifts (115/75)
  • HSPU
  • T2B
  • Burpees
  • Air Squats

I did the deadlifts and HSPU each round.

Bonus:
1:00 for each movement, which subtracts from the workout time.

  • Unbroken set of DU
  • Pistols
  • Wall Ball 2-for-1s
  • MU

I was on MU duty and only managed 3. It’s been months since I last did a MU and my shoulders were shot from the HSPU.

Event 3

It was 4 different maxes for the team. I was put on deadlift. Warmed up with 5×135#, 3×225, 2×315, and 1×405. Knocked out a safe 475# right away and waited until the end of my 3 minutes to go for a PR of 525#. I had it moving no problem, but lost my grip on the left hand and had to let go. Oh well. I realized I forgot to chalk up for those deadlifts, which is the only time I ever use chalk. Probably would have been able to hold on!

My back was pretty lit up after that last deadlift attempt. For some reason after getting out of the shower, my legs are on fire.

Steaming

Went out to the garage around noon to blow off some steam. The windows actually got steamy in there too after having the gas heater on for about a half hour. I had to turn it off it was getting so warm. Not bad considering it’s 36 degrees (feels like 27) outside.

Warm-up

Did about 200 DU in various sets.

OLY

3 Position Halting Snatch Deadlifts

  • 2 @ 115#
  • 2 @ 135#
  • 2 @ 155#
  • 2 @ 175#

Snatches

  • 3 @ 95#
  • 3 @ 115#
  • 3 @ 135#
  • 2 @ 155#
  • 1 @ 165#
  • 1 @ 175#
  • F @ 185#
  • 1 @ 185#
  • F @ 195#
  • F @ 195#
  • F @ 195#
  • F @ 195#
  • F @ 195#
  • F @ 195#

I’ll get it eventually!

Pause Front Squats

* 2 second pause in the hole

  • 3 @ 135#
  • 3 @ 165#
  • 2 @ 185#
  • 2 @ 205#
  • 2 @ 215# (might have done this set twice)
  • 2 @ 225#
  • 1 @ 235#
  • 1 @ 245#
  • 1 @ 255#
  • 1 @ 265#
  • 1 @ 275#
  • F @ 285#

Haven’t done a squat pause since this past winter in Phoenix. Felt pretty good, even after front squatting yesterday.

OH Mobility

I’ve wanted to start playing with some things to improve my OH position. As evidenced by my snatch attempts I’m having a hard time receiving the bar in a stable position.

  • 5 @ 45# Bar w/ hand completely on knurling of the Operator bar
  • 2 x 5 @ 45# Bar w/ 2 fingers on smooth part of the Operator bar
  • 5 @ 45# Bar w/ 3 fingers on smooth part of the Operator bar
  • 5 @ 45# Bar w/ hand completely on smooth part of the Operator bar

Haha, I fell over at my first attempt with 2 fingers on the smooth part of the bar.

Could feel the bar coming forward in pretty much every rep when I descended into the squats, but fought to keep it back. These are going to be a big help I think.

Decided to go in to open gym at 5:15pm since I told a few people I’d be there.

Did a few clean position drills with Alex as a warm-up since I didn’t really know what I wanted to do. I’ve been talking about doing deadlifts for the last couple of weeks since I haven’t done any heavy ones since my 515# pull.

Deadlifts

  • 5 @ 135#
  • 5 @ 225#
  • 5 @ 315#
  • 5 @ 385#
  • 5 @ 435#
  • EMOM 5:00 – 3 @ 365#

Back was already a little fried from the garage session, but felt pretty good about the work.

Conditioning

  • 2,000m Row

I did a 7:23 in May, so was aiming to keep a sub 1:50/500m pace. Set a new PR by 10 seconds with a 7:13! I was doing a shit ton more conditioning back in the summer too. I think the extra leg strength and power was a big help because I highly doubt my lungs are better now.

20131122-192150.jpg

The date on the rower is obviously wrong. 🙂 Felt good coming out of the gate, but started falling off the pace. I actually think I was having more of a power problem them I was breathing in that 3rd 500m. Should have tried to push harder in the last 200m instead of just the last 100m.

I grabbed a couple of KB just to try double-arm OHS. Did 10#, 15#, and 20#. Wasn’t too bad, but could still feel the arms floating forward. I wouldn’t be able to hold a heavier weight in place at the bottom of the squat. Work in progress…

Sluggish Sunday

I hit up Survival Fitness at 5pm for 2 hours of open gym. Needed to get back at it.

Warm-up

3:00 Air Dyne

OLY

Snatch Work

  • 45# Position Drills
  • 2 x 3 @ 95# Power Snatch
  • 3 @ 115# Power Snatch
  • 3 x 3 @ 115# 3-Position Halting Snatch Deadlift
  • 2 x 3 @ 135# 3-Position Halting Snatch Deadlift
  • 3 x 3 @ 75# High Hang Power Snatch w/ no dip
  • 2 x 3 @ 85# High Hang Power Snatch w/ no dip

I was getting light-headed from the 95# power snatch triples, so decided right there not to push things and try to go heavy. Probably a good idea anyway after being away from the lifts for a week. Felt pretty good hitting the power position on the halting deadlifts.

Split Jerks

  • 2 @ 160#
  • 2 @ 185#
  • 2 x 1 @ 200#
  • 1 @ 210#
  • 1 @ 225#
  • 1 @ 255# (PR)
  • F @ 260#

I didn’t have plans to jerk, but Alex was doing them, so I jumped in with him. I haven’t tried to go heavy in a really long time. After 225# felt good I decided to go for a PR. Had a little press out on the left arm. Didn’t drop under 260# enough and my arms were bent so didn’t have it locked out.

Misc

3 Sets NFT

  • 5/5 KB OHS (53# KB)

Really need to hammer the mobility to make these easier and I think it’ll help my snatches a lot.

3 Rounds NFT (Back to back, but rest some between rounds)

  • 15 Pull-ups
  • 15 Wall Balls (10′, 20# MB)

Lost my rhythm on the pull-ups in the 2nd round but didn’t come off the bar, so was able to get all 3 rounds done without breaking up the pull-ups.

Even though I didn’t feel that great, turned out to be a pretty good training session. Solid position work on the snatches and a split jerk PR.

CrossFit Swell in Dorado, Puerto Rico

Had a couple of rest days since I came down to Puerto Rico for a work trip. Hit up CrossFit Swell in Dorado this morning for the 7:30am class. It’s just a place in someone’s back yard that has slowly grown into a cool little box. They started as two guys in this little space.

20131112-090129.jpg

Warm-up

  • 3:00 Jump Rope (5 burpees each time you miss)
  • 20 PVC Pass-thrus
  • 10/10 PVC Around the Worlds
  • 20 PVC OHS
  • 10 PVC Good Mornings w/ side to side twist

Luckily I’m pretty damn good at jump rope singles when I concentrate. Went the entire 3 minutes without a miss.

Back Squats

  • 5 @ 45#
  • 3 @ 135#
  • 3 @ 205#
  • 3 @ 235#
  • 3 @ 275#
  • 3 @ 305#

We were supposed to go 60%-70%-80%-90% and I came pretty damn close by winging it. Squats felt really good!

WOD

15:00 AMRAP

  • 20 Goblet Squats
  • 15 KBS
  • 10/10 One-arm KB OHS
  • 5/5 Turkish Get-ups

I went with a 53# KB for everything since they didn’t have a ton and didn’t want to hog two of them. The OHS and Turkish Get-ups with 53# were rough! I went 3/3/2 in the second round of Turkish Get-up, so was 2 reps shy of completing a 2nd round. Did the 2 extra after the clock was done to even out the sides. 🙂 The humidity adds another element to the workout. I’m just soaked to the bone with sweat. Very friendly and welcoming community of people.

20131112-090250.jpg

Michigan Rivalry Saturday

Feeling ok after training 5 days in a row, so made it a 6th out in the garage.

Warm-up

  • 5:00 Air Dyne
  • 15# Snatch Warm-up

OLY

  • 2 @ 95# Power Snatches
  • 2 @ 125# Power Snatches
  • 2 @ 145# Power Snatches
  • EMOM 10:00
    • 155# Power Snatch
    • 155# OHS w/ 5s bottom hold

Didn’t have the explosion today, probably from late squats yesterday. Had to keep dropping lower and lower in the EMOM to receive the bar and all of that time OH was killer on the wrists.

Strength

Front Squats

  • 3 @ 135#
  • 3 @ 185#
  • 3 @ 225#
  • 3 @ 255#
  • 3 @ 275#
  • 3×3 @ 245#

Was feeling great in the early rounds, but barely pulled out the 3rd rep at 275#. The last 3 sets weren’t that bad though.

5 Sets

  • 3 Weighted Ring Dips (53#)
  • 10 GHD Sit-ups

WOD

10:00 Air Dyne for calories

Started out way too fast, doing about 95 rpm. Quickly brought that down after the first 30 seconds and kept it just under 80 most of the way. Picked up the pace for the final minute. Ended with 342 calories and 6.47km. Smokes my previous best of 319 calories.

Not the greatest training day, but some good work and I’m feeling good after it. Now off to watch the Michigan vs Michigan State game. GO BLUE!