Tag: overhead squat

Felt it Coming

Made it in for the 10am.

Warm-up

  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Shoulder Stretching
  • 1-2-3-4-5
    • Burpee
    • Squat Jump
    • American KBS (35#)

Lifting

Power Snatch + OHS

  • 3×45#
  • 3×75
  • 3×95
  • 3×115
  • E90S – 5 Sets
    • 3×135

It’s been at least 2.5 weeks since I picked up a barbell for any olympic lifts. Felt pretty good. I taped some gauze on my hand and wore one of my Bear Complex grips to help protect it.

It was going to be the same E90S but with a squat clean + thruster next. I was warming up with 3 reps using 135# and my back was feeling like it might go, so I stripped the bar and bowed out before it turned into a full-on tweak. The overhead squats seem to aggravate it. 😦

Gymnastics

E90S – 5 Sets

  • 30s Handstand Hold

I did these while everyone was doing the cleans. Should have done at least 45 second holds.

Conditioning

Team with Jason and Gavin:

  • 9 Prowler Sprints (1 set 135# & 2 sets 180#)
  • 72 Burpee KB Thrusters (2×26#)
  • 800m Run

We didn’t time it. Rotated through the prowlers and then did sets of 8 burpee thrusters for 3 sets each. Felt pretty good on the run, but couldn’t stick with Gavin.

Out in the garage in the evening after mowing the lawn and watching some of the other Regionals.

Bench Press

donut-recovery

  • 10×45#
  • 10×95
  • 6×135
  • 3×165
  • 3×195
  • 3×215
  • 3x3x230
  • 3×20 alt Incline DB Bench Press (50#)

My bench press has been feeling really really good!

Shoulder Press

  • 8×95#
  • 4×115
  • 4×130
  • 3x4x140

Meh. Did the work, but was careful to squeeze with the minor back tweak this morning.

Tomorrow we are doing “J.T.” so I decided to skip the half kneeling kettlebell presses and tricep kickbacks. I also skipped one arm farmers carries due to my back.

 

Oh My Quads

Went to the 4:30 class.

Warm-up

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

Strength – Deadlifts

  • 7×45#
  • 7×155
  • 7×225
  • 7×275
  • 7×305
  • 2x7x325

Heavy enough after all of the shoveling. No need to push it and get hurt during the Open.

Accessory

4 Sets

  • 5 Evil wheels
  • 5 Ring Swings

It’s been awhile since I’ve done the evils so expect to be sore the next couple of days.

Conditioning

9:00 AMRAP

  • 3 Power Snatches (95#)
  • 6 Overhead Squats (95#)
  • 9 Step-ups (24″)

Loved it! Did all step-ups instead of box jumps and holy hell did that turn into a quad burn after the OHS. First round was done in about 45 seconds and settled in to a steady 1:00 pace after about 3 rounds I think. Finished exactly 9 rounds but only had about 2 seconds so didn’t try to pick up the bar. Was a good one not having to rest at any point and able to keep moving.

Now that scoring is closed on 16.1, I can see my score is not as bad worldwide as my performance on 15.2 was last year, which I still overcame it to have my best overall percentile placing ever. Kind of a relief that I should be able to make a comeback on the leaderboard, but frustrating that having to do single pull-ups held back my score so much. I don’t usually like to say this, but I’m confident I would have been close to 8 rounds instead of only 7+1. Especially since I’ve put in a lot of work over the last 4-5 months on improving my capacity. In day-to-day WODs at the gym Bryan and I have been neck and neck, trading wins, for the last month or two, where he was handily beating me before. Castro, please bring us pistols this year!

Grip Width

In for the 9am this morning. Was looking forward to getting in a “normal” workout after the first 3 days of this week.

Warm-up

  • Bottom Squat Hold
  • Shoulder Hang Stretching
  • Banded Shoulder OH Stretch
  • Overhead Squat
    • 4×45#
    • 4×75#
    • 4×95#
    • 4×115#

Did the OHS with my progressing grip width. Getting better and better.

Strength & Gymnastics

12:00 EMOM (alt)

  • 4 OHS (135#)
  • 6 Strict Ring Dips

The last knurl ring was in between my middle and ring fingers, which is probably about halfway between my jerk and snatch grips. I know I wouldn’t have been able to do 6 sets like that a month or two ago.

Conditioning

5 Rounds

  • 3 Curtis P (75#)
  • 6 Push Press (75#)
  • 10 Lateral Bar Hops

Kept it light so I could try to go unbroken. Made it, but another 10 or 20# would have definitely meant breaking at some point with the barbell. Lateral hops were a quick rest from holding the weight. Finished in 3:56.

3 Rounds NFT

  • 30/30m Prowler Sprint (High, 135#)
  • 200m Run

Went lighter than usual and tried to keep it explosive.

Squats & Presses

My body is feeling a little beat up today, but planned to rest tomorrow anyway, so might as well hit it hard. Matt, Cora, Kevin, and I trained at 10:30am.

Warm-up

  • 500m Row
  • PVC Pass-thrus
  • Back squat and shoulder press warm-up with light weights

Strength

Second week of the squat program, so while everyone did the 5 sets of 3 back squats around 90%, I did 4 sets of 8 with increasing weight.

10:00 EMOM MOFO

  • Evens: 3 Back Squats (90% of 1RM)
  • Odds: 3 Shoulder Presses (90% of 1RM)

I did my first 3 sets of back squats on time, took off the 4th round of back squats to rest for my heaviest set, and finished it on the 5th round. I had to do 8 reps each set, using 185, 205, 220, and 235. Pretty rough. On shoulder presses, 90% calls for 145#, but I don’t think that would be possible for me, so I used 135# for the first 4 sets and 140# for my final set.

Strength WOD

This one comes from some of the CrossFit Level 1 Seminar Staff. They absolutely crushed it. I think Khalipa did it in 4:17.

For time:

  • 10 Shoulder Presses
  • 15 OHS
  • 20 Push Presses
  • 25 Front Squats
  • 30 Push Jerks
  • 35 Back Squats

Rx is 115/75 for this one. My time was 14:03. Great barbell work there.

Conditioning WOD

Just keep moving in this one.

12:00 AMRAP

  • 10 Jingle Jangles
  • 10 V-ups
  • 10 HR Push-ups
  • 10 OH Walking Lunges (45/25)

I completed 7 full rounds, 10 jingle jangles, 10 v-ups, and 1 push-up for 7+21.

Finisher

Tabata Mash-up

  • Ring L-sit
  • Ball Slams (15#)

I did knee tuck sits each round.

Took us about an hour and 40 minutes to complete everything today. I have a feeling the legs are going to be wrecked for a couple of days.

Training for the 2013 CrossFit Games Open

Worked out at 10:30 this morning with Cora, Matt, and Kevin. First day of training for the 2014 CrossFit Games Open. 🙂 I’ll have a post up in the next couple of days detailing how I did in the 2013 Open and what I learned about myself.

I warmed up with 20 cal on the Air Dyne and then worked up with some lighter weights on the back squat and shoulder press.

I’m starting a 6 week squat program where I’ll be doing back squats once a week and front squats once a week. It’s a volume program I got off of Burgener’s site. They all did 5×5 Back Squats at 80%, but I had 3 sets of 10, so my timing wasn’t exactly every minute on the minute since I had the 2nd and 4th round of back squats off, but my rounds were longer too because of higher reps.

Strength

10:00 EMOTM

  • Back Squats: 10 @ 60% (185#), 10 @ 65% (205#), 10 @ 70% (220#)
  • 5×5 Shoulder Press @ 80% of 1RM (125#)

Really tough work with those reps at the percentages. I was out of breath after 10 reps of 220# and 125# was perfect for the shoulder presses.

WOD #1

5:00 Partner AMRAP

  • 21 cal Air Dyne
  • Wall Balls (20# MB, 10′ target) until partner is done

I worked with Matt. We got 95 calories and 114 wall balls.

WOD #2

5:00 AMRAP

  • Box Jumps (24″) with 5 unbroken C2B EMOTM starting at 1:00 (so 4 sets of them)

I didn’t rebound my box jumps until the last 20 seconds or so because I figured I’d be smoked after the previous work and with a long 5 minutes. I think I went 20-13-14-14-19 during each minute for a total of 80. I should have rebounded from the beginning.

Core

10:00 EMOTM

  • 20s MAX OHS (95#)
  • 20s Ring L-sit

I got 8-9-8-9-9 on my OHS. Lost balance with 4 or 5 seconds left in that third round and had to bump the bar, so missed out on another rep or two there. The OHS felt really good today though.

The Grizzly Bear Complex

Earlier this week I came up with a great idea to combine the Bear Complex with a Curtis P and add an OHS. I decided to call it the Grizzly Bear Complex. It goes like this…

Perform 10 touch-n-go doubles of the following complex.

  • Clean
  • Front Squat
  • Lunge
  • Lunge
  • Shoulder to Overhead
  • Back Squat
  • Shoulder to Overhead
  • Overhead Squat

Notes:

  • Rest 90 seconds to 2 minutes between each set.
  • Start with a light load. Increase the weight each set. The last 3 sets should be hard!
  • Combining movements is allowed. For example you can do a squat clean and a back squat thruster.
  • It works well to switch to a wide snatch grip before the back squat so that you can do a thruster and go right into the OHS.
  • After the OHS on the first rep you may want to drop to the back so you can switch to a clean width grip. Then do a short press just to get the bar over your head and back to the front rack, ready to go into the TnG for rep 2

I was able to round-up Kevin and Jason to give it a go at 8pm. I warmed up with a 500m row and some DU.

My goal was to be able to hit for some heavy OHS, 175# or more. Boy was I underestimating how tough this would get. I started at 75# and went up 10# each set. When I got to 135# in the 7th set, it took everything I had to keep control of the OHS, especially on the 2nd rep. I stuck with 135# for the 8th and 9th and then managed to get 140# on my last set.

I wasn’t sure how the lunges would feel, but they weren’t really too bad. I felt like I got stuck on a couple towards the end, but I think it was more from not concentrating on them than it was from the weight. The OHS was definitely the limiting factor, especially after holding on to that bar for so long. Great complex though and I’ll definitely be willing to try it again some time.

Brent got held up with kids, but showed up as were just finishing our last few sets. Then we did some work with Kevin’s new wheelbarrow drive sled from Again Faster. First we did 5 sets of a 50′ rope pull followed by a 50′ high prowler push. I think we had it loaded with 135# for the first 3 or 4 sets and then added another 45#. After that we converted it into the “wheelbarrow” did 5 down and backs of close to 100m total. At the end of 5 trips I think we had about 400# stacked on it. To finish things off we loaded it with 180# of plates and did a 50′ high prowler push with a low push back. On the 5th set we added another 45#.

Then we ended with a beer. All in all, a fun Friday night.

Open Gym Friday

It’s been awhile since I did an open gym session at Survival Fitness. First I started with a WOD they did on Wednesday, which I had missed out on.

21-15-9

  • Box Jumps (24″)
  • HR Push-ups
  • T2B

The box jumps were easy and all done unbroken with rebounding off the ground. Hand release push-ups went better than expected, but I had to take some breaks in the rounds of 15 and 9. I set a new PR with 21 unbroken toes to bar, but that ended up hurting me. I couldn’t string them together very well for the next 2 rounds because my hips wouldn’t snap shut. They were one at a time in the round of 9. Finished in a time of 5:07, but was hoping to go sub 5. Great little WOD though.

8:00 AMRAP

  • 20 Push Presses (75#)
  • 20 OHS (75#)

I got 2 full rounds plus 20 push presses and 11 overhead squats, which is 3 reps shy of when I did it a couple of months ago in San Diego. I screwed up in round 2 though and for some reason started doing back squats, so lost valuable time and reps there. This is a great shoulder burner.

8 Rounds

  • 10 GHD Sit-ups
  • 10 Pullovers (45# DB)
  • 20 DUs

Didn’t do this for time, more to get in some midline work and some random DU practice.

What Do You Get When You Cross a Burpee With a Pull-up?

My lats are a bit sore from the C2B pull-ups earlier in the week and all of the upper body work we did yesterday. Went in for the 9am class this morning.

Warm-up

3 Rounds

  • 30s PVC Pass-thrus
  • 30s PVC OHS

Strength

5×3 OHS

I missed out of the 5×5 last week because I was resting for the competition. It’s been awhile since I’ve done any overhead squatting, so I was excited for this. I warmed up with a set of 5 using just the 45# bar and then my working sets were at 85#, 95#, 105#, 125#, and 135#. That last set was pretty shaky, but I managed. I set my 1RM at 145# about a month ago, so it felt good to get in 3 reps at 135#.

WOD

100 Burpee Pull-ups (aka GI Jane)

This is harder than it looks. Not quite as cardio taxing as doing 100 straight burpees, but the jumping adds another dimension. The bar was at a height where I could grab on to it flat-footed. I’ve seen videos where they recommend using a bar that is 1 foot above your reach. We don’t have anything like that and that doesn’t sound like fun either. I finished in 9:50.

Finisher

5 Sets

  • 10 Quarter Get-ups (each side)
  • 90s Rest

I started off with the 44# KB in the first set, but barely got in all 10 reps on my left arm, so I dropped down to a 39# KB for the last 4 sets. I also knocked out 5 close grip dead hang chin-ups to work on some strength.

Iliya’s First CrossFit Box

Last year at our company meetup, I was talking to Iliya about how he got so fit. He told me about this thing called “CrossFit” and the next week I started working out at Survival Fitness. Iliya has changed my life through a simple conversation after dinner. Although he’s been doing CrossFit workouts for a couple of years, he has never stepped foot inside a CrossFit box. Iliya lives is Sofia, Bulgaria where there aren’t any CrossFit boxes, so he does his WODs in a globo gym.

I’ve been trying to get him to join me at CrossFit Pacific Beach all week, but the 6am class time wasn’t exactly appealing. Since I wasn’t running the Bootcamp for Automatticians today, I was able to get up a bit later and attend the 7am class. Iliya finally joined me. When we got to the box, you couldn’t get the smile off his face. It was so cool to give something back to him for all that he’s done by getting me interested in CrossFit.

Warm-up

  • 400m Run
  • 6 Skin the Cats
  • 12 Strict T2B
  • 9 Wall Squats

Strength

Push Press: 3, 3, then max reps (85%)

I did some warm-up sets in addition to the working sets. Here are my sets:

  • 6 @ 45#
  • 5 @ 75#
  • 3 @ 105#
  • 3 @ 125#
  • 3 @ 145#
  • 6 @ 165#

The we did a few sets of OHS to get ready for the workout. I used the bar, 65#, and 75#.

WOD

8:00 AMRAP

  • 20 Push Press (75#)
  • 20 OHS (75#)

Started out strong by doing the push presses unbroken. I knew it wouldn’t last. Had to break the OHS down into 10 and 10 in the first round. In round 2, I did the press presses in sets of 12 and 8. I think the OHS were 10, 5, and 5. In round 3 I did 10 and 10 push presses. Then I didn’t get a stable active shoulder before beginning my OHS and had to bail on the first rep. I think I did 8 and 6 before time was up. Finished with 2 full rounds plus 20 push presses and 14 OHS.

My shoulders are fried! Tomorrow I’ll be flying home so it’ll be a rest day

Garage OHS

I figured it was time I use the weights I bought at Rouge Fitness last weekend. I haven’t done any OHS in a long time so they sounded like a good idea. Especially as they are listed as the WOD on the main site for Friday. I decided to go for a 1RM. Warmed up with the bar and then a few at 75#. Knocked one out at 95# and then one at 115#. My previous PR was 130# so I went up to 135# and it felt good. I don’t have any small plates so the next weight I could put on was 145#. It wasn’t pretty on the way up, but I got it done for a 15# PR. Then I got greedy and decided to go for 155#. Wasn’t stable and lost it at the bottom of the squat. Here’s a video of the 145# lift.

I need to get a rack because it was way too much work getting the bar into position. Not to mention I won’t be able to do any heavy front or back squats until I have a rack.

Even more exciting than this PR… I just got the email that I passed the test, so now I’m officially a CrossFit Level 1 Trainer! I scored a 40 out of 45 on the test.