Tag: Pull-up

Float Like a Butterfly

I’m feeling pretty good today, considering how wrecked I was last night. I’m a little sore in a bunch of different areas, but nothing too bad. Went in for the 4:15.

Warm-up

  • 2m Jump Rope
  • 2 Rounds
    • 40 Mountain Climbers
    • 20 Russian Twists (35# KB)
    • 20 Air Squats

WOD

  • 800-600-400-200m Run
  • 15 Pull-ups
  • 15 HR Push-ups
  • 15 Wall Balls (20# MB, 10′ target

This was a lot tougher than I expected. I went out hard on the 800m run to work on my conditioning and then really tried to work on my butterfly for the pull-ups. First set was a little rough, but I went 9-6, 10-5, and 10-5 in the last three sets. Had never done more than 7 in a row before today and I only stopped each time because of fatigue, not because of rhythm. I focused on keeping my kick going, kept a tighter kick, and kept my feet together. Tried to just power through the push-ups, but they were the slowest part for me. Did each round of wall balls unbroken. Finished in 18:39.

That was a nice recovery WOD after a tough workout for 13.2 yesterday. Back to hitting it hard tomorrow for 2 hours of work.

Get It Overhead!

I’m feeling pretty sore in my shoulders from the HSPU yesterday and as the day goes on my ass is feeling those plyo lunges. Went in at 3:15 for some special OLY work and then stayed for the regular class.

OLY Warm-up

  • 500m Row
  • PVC Pass-thrus
  • 2 x 10 Pause Jerks with 45# bar

Jerks

  • 5x Jerk Short Step with 95#
  • Jerk from the Back – Doubles and Triples
  • Jerk from the Front – Doubles and Singles

I started off with 95# from the back, went 115#, 155#, and 185#. This was my first time doing any jerks from the back and they felt really weird. I only did a couple of singles at 185# because I don’t feel comfortable dropping that much weight back to my back and it felt uncomfortable to begin with. I need to do these once in a while to get the feel for them.

I dropped the weight back down to 155# and switched to jerks from the rack, doing a double there. Did a double at 185# and another at 205#. Then I was going to hit 225# for a single and Gayle asked if it was going to be a PR, so figured might as well throw another 5# on to make it 230# for a PR. Hit it easily without even punching under in fully. Upped it to 245# and pushed the weight forward instead of back, so failed. Fought it a bit and it didn’t feel too good on my low back.

Took a rest, made sure to punch under it, and got it up for a 20# PR. It was a little unstable over my head, but that’s fucking heavy. Gayle said I could have gotten my front foot out further too and got under it more. Did a good job of getting my head through though.

Class Warm-up

  • 3/3 World’s Greatest Stretch
  • 10/10 Scorpions
  • 10/10 Flamingos
  • 10/10 Legs Swings (F2B, S2S)

WOD

3 Rounds

  • 600m Run
  • 25 Pull-ups

I tried to push it harder on the run today and the temperatures are rising fast here in Phoenix, so that makes the running even tougher. Did all butterfly pull-ups again, but I’m having trouble stringing together more than 7 before I lose rhythm. Finished in 12:24.

Finisher

90s-60s-30s

  • DU
  • AbMat Sit-ups

This was actually part of the class warm-up, but I was finishing up my jerk PR when class started so didn’t do it at that time. Took some rest after the WOD and then knocked it out since there was plenty of time before the next class started.

A Fresh Look On Monday

Don’t compare yourself with anyone in this world…if you do so, you are insulting yourself.

Bill Gates

As time has gone by, I’m feeling better about my performance in 13.1. I looked back at my placing after 12.1 and 12.2, compared to 13.1. I’m ranked higher in the world and there are twice as many registrations. I’d say that’s a win. I’ll know more about exact placement and percentile Tuesday night after score validation closes.

My disappointment in not getting a score of at least 150 is nearly gone. I know there will be workouts that play more into my strengths and I can make up ground. I gave 13.1 my best shot and honestly don’t know where I could have gone any faster to pick up the 45 seconds I would have needed to get the final 8 burpees.

It’s a new week and back to training until the next workout is announced. My body feels good, just a little sore in the upper back. I went in for 9am and there sit Gayle and Adam, just having got done with Saturday’s WOD. They’re starting some 2-a-days, so I did that same workout on my own.

Warm-up

  • 750m Row at 20s/m

I kept right around a 2:15/500m pace.

WOD #1

2 Rounds

  • 400m Run
  • 25 HSPU
  • 400m Run
  • 30 Pistols (alternating)

I finished in 17:10. HSPU were broken down into 10-5-4-3-3 and 5-5-5-4-3-3 I think. I’ve improved my strength for them so much in the last 2 months. My second round of pistols was a lot faster than my first round and felt good. Out of there in well under an hour and home to rest for later.

This wasn’t really too bad because I had quite a bit of rest during HSPU while breaking them up. Solid strength work though with cardio in the mix.

I jumped on the scale after the WOD and was 189 with shoes and clothes on. I ate really bad yesterday as my cheat day after the workout. Usually those kind of days put me up 2-3 pounds on the scale, so I’d say I hit my first goal of leaning out and getting down to around 185 for the Open.

Back at 4:15 for round 2!

Warm-up

  • 600m Run
  • 3 Rounds:
    • 5 Pull-ups
    • 10 Push-ups
    • 15 Air Squats

I did strict pull-ups to work on strength and chest-to-deck push-ups.

WOD #2

5 Rounds (Similar to the “Chief” WOD)

  • 3:00 AMRAP
    • 3 Ring Dips
    • 6 Plyo Lunges
    • 9 American KBS (53#)
  • 1m Rest

* Start each 3:00 round where you left off.

Instead of only doing straight up ring dips, I put the rings up at about eye level, got down with my legs bent under me and on my toes, looking up at the rings. Took a false grip and worked on the MU transition by doing a jumping/strict MU type move from there. Once I got up above the rings I did my 3 dips each time. Now that I’m thinking about it I should have put the rings higher and just done jumping MU or even tried doing a kipping MU each time.

This was a solid WOD and those KBS really started to hurt in the last two 3 minute rounds. I finished with a score of 18+3. To make this a little better, I think I would swap the rep counts for the lunges and the KBS.

Those were two solid WODs today, but not the kind that knock you out for 2 days.

Squat Volume

My shoulders, arms, and upper back are feeling spicy today. Went in for the 9am so that I’m free to watch the live stream of Open WOD 13.1 tonight.

Warm-up

  • 4/4 World’s Greatest Stretch
  • 3m Row at 20s/m
  • 2 Rounds
    • 16 GHD Sit-ups
    • 15 Hip Extensions

I really tried to be explosive with the GHD sit-ups today and lock out the legs. First time doing hip extensions in a long time.

Strength

5 Sets

  • 7-10 Back Squats at 20X1 Tempo
  • 90s Rest

Damn that’s a lot of volume! The tempo is pretty much just normal though, since it takes me about 2 seconds to lower anyway. I did 10 reps each at 135#, 155#, 195#, and 215#. Then jumped up to 235# to really push it on the last set and managed to get 7 before I dumped the bar. At the end I was sweating like I just got done with a 10 minute WOD.

WOD

10:00 AMRAP

  • 7 Wall Balls (20# MB, 10′ target)
  • 7 Push-ups
  • 7 Pull-ups

I did all butterfly pull-ups and am really starting to get the rhythm down. Completed 10 rounds plus 5 more wall balls, pretty much going non-stop. Had to transition from a wall ball and push-up spot over to the pull-up bar each round, otherwise I bet I could have gotten at least another full round in. 70 butterfly pull-ups is a lot higher than any previous day I’ve done. I’m sure glad I remembered to shave my calluses this morning though!

Oh…almost forgot. Zach Lind, the drummer from Jimmy Eat World, was in to WOD today.

44 Minute Competition WOD

Yesterday I rested, but went for a 2 mile recovery walk.

Was up bright and early for event #3 of the Industrial Athlete Championship Series. A bunch of us from CrossFit Full Strength met at the gym at 6:15am and headed out to Mesa.

iacs-event3-full-strength-before

There were 4 events, but it was really just one big workout with short rest/transition periods. It was scored as one total event with total reps for everything combined as your score.

WOD #1

8:00 broken into 4 rounds of 2:00 Fire Hose Drag/Pull and Calorie Row

You will start next to your rower with the fire hose piled next to you. On GO you will grab the hose and run it approx 100 feet. Once you cross the marked line you will turn and pull the remainder of the hose fully across the line. Once the entire hose is across the line you will run back to the start area to your rower machine and row for calories for the remainder of the 2 min. This cycle will repeat 4 times without rest for a total of 8 minutes.

They kind of screwed things up here and allowed you to carry the entire hose if you wanted. That was obviously much easier and after a few Rx heats everyone was doing it. I paced myself and didn’t go all out on the rower with 3 more events to go. Got 105 calories. Looking back and because of how the overall scoring worked, I wish I would have pushed harder.

iacs-event3-rowing

* 4:00 rest

WOD #2

8:00 to complete 100 Wall Balls and max Pull-ups.

There will be medicine balls at the bottom of your squat that you must touch and a target set at 10 feet which you must hit with the ball. All athletes over 6′ tall may use a 25# plate under their touch ball to make a more consistent depth for all athletes.

I was worried about this one the most, but I actually did the best here. I went 40-20-10-10-10-10 on my wall balls and was done in around 4 minutes. Then I got 57 pull-ups, but they were pretty slow going. I never did more than 6 in-a-row and was down to doing 2 or 3 at a time at the end. Adam from our gym knocked out 20+ in his first jump up on the bar. If I could do that I would have smoked this WOD.

* 4:00 rest

WOD #3

8:00 broken into three 2:00 max rep cycles with 1 min rest/recovery.

HR Burpee with lateral jump over parallette bars. You may space your 2 parallette bars according to your desired distance preference. You will begin to the right side of the first bar. On GO you will drop to a HR burpee, recover, and laterally jump with both feet (no stepping) over a single parallette bar. Then you will repeat the process, jump over the second bar, and then hand release burpee again for a total of 3 burpees per pass over the 2 bars. So it’s basically burpee, jump, burpee, jump, burpee – that would be one pass earning 2 points then repeat coming back the other direction as many times as possible. You earn a point each time you jump the parallette bar.

* 1:00 rest

Sit-ups from the ground. There will be no supports, ab mats, or feet holding. The movement standard is touch the ground behind your head while laying on the ground then sit up and touch the ground directly in front of your feet. pressed together if desired.

* 1:00 rest

Parallette bars pass throughs. In this exercise you will earn one point each time your feet extend and heel strike the ground in front of your body. The movement standard is to touch the ground in front with knees in full extension and heels on ground then behind with knees fully extended while striking the toes to the ground. You will be holding your own weight up on the parallette bars and are NOT permitted to touch the ground underneath your body or walk through in any form.

I got 26 burpees, 64 sit-ups, and 25 pass throughs. When the guy announced we were only 30 secounds through burpees I couldn’t believe it because I was already dead. I tried to keep a steady pace and just keep moving on them. They were by far the worst. I smoked through the sit-ups and struggled my way through the pass throughs.

* 4:00 rest

WOD #4

8:00 Keg carry with short Wall Clears

In this event you will carry a keg filled at 100# (Men’s RX), 75# (Women’s RX, Men’s Scaled, and Men’s Masters) and 50# (Women’s Scaled and Women’s Masters) to a wall approx 25m away. You will then leave the keg and run back to the start line, touch line, and run back to the keg. You will then lift the keg over the wall, jump the wall, and continue to carry the keg to the next wall where you will again set down the keg, run back to the first wall, jump wall, run back to start line, touch line, run forward to wall, jump wall, return to keg, clear keg over 2nd wall, jump wall, and carry keg to turn around line approx 25m. Keep repeating the process for total distance covered.

This final WOD was kind of a joke because of the scoring. You got a rep/point for each time you threw the keg over a wall. At the end, the spread in the men’s Rx divisions was 8 to 14 reps. That was a shit ton of work for so few reps, compared to all of the other WODs where I got over 100 reps in each. I ended up with 12 points here.

I’ve been worried about my cardio the last couple of weeks and this was a good test. I’m really happy with the outcome. I got 389 points and finished in 8th place out of 43 men in the Rx division. There were some beasts here and I held my own.

iacs-event3-full-strength-after

Killed by Tempo Deadlifts

It was nice to skip a day from WODs yesterday and taking a longer rest today as well. Went in for the 5:15pm.

Warm-up

  • 3 min Jump Rope
  • 2 Rounds
    • 3/3 World’s Greatest Stretch
    • 5 Pull-ups
    • 10 Am. KBS (35# KB)

Went 3 minutes straight on the jump rope without a single miss.

Strength

5×5 Deadlifts at 2-1-2-1 Tempo

Pushed it to the limit and it was absolutely brutal. Went 225#, 275#, 305#, 335#, and 365#. It was heavy and I started to round the lower back just a little at the end. Fought to get all 5 reps in and that was definitely the max weight for the tempo. Then not much of a rest before starting the WOD. Forgot to take off the shoes for the deadlifts too.

WOD

  • 50 Am. KBS (53# KB)
  • 25 Pull-ups
  • 150 DU
  • 25 Pull-ups
  • 50 Am. KBS (53# KB)

Went 35 reps and then 15 KBS to finish off at the beginning and worked on butterfly pull-ups. DU were a struggle today, but got through them. The last 50 American KBS were really tough. Finished in 12:05 overall. Was done with the warm-up, strength, and the WOD is less than 45 minutes.

Got home and started to go into a tunnel vision and a headache. I think it was from the tempo deadlifts, which really killed the WOD as well. This is only the 3rd time a CrossFit class has hit me like this. Should have probably gone lighter on the deadlifts, but really pushed them to the limit.

165 All Day

Didn’t sleep very well at all last night, which isn’t the greatest for going in to do a competitor’s WOD at 8am. Back is pretty sore from yesterday and my delts are still beat up from the tempo OHS.

Warm-up

  • Row 500m
  • PVC Pass-thrus

WOD

3 rounds

  • 8 Shoulder to OH
  • 14 Pistols (alternate legs for 7 each)

Then 3 Rounds:

  • 8 Front Squats
  • 15 GHD Sit-ups

Then 3 Rounds

  • 4 Ground to OH
  • 15 Pull-ups

The Rx weights for this are 190/125. Ha! It would have taken me forever to finish, so I picked 165# which would still be challenging. Having just done “DT” with 155# last week helped me pick the correct weight for this.

We staggered our starts because there are only 3 GHDs, so I actually started with the 2nd couplet, moved to the third, and finished with the first. Kind of brutal that way because as designed, your upper body gets some rest in the 2nd couplet. The WOD called for 2 rope climbs in the 3rd couplet, but I substituted so I could work on my butterfly pull-ups. They’re getting better!

I finished in 22:38. Even going up to 175# would have been a big jump for all of those overhead movements. Cleaning the bar so many times really wears you out too. Definitely taking a rest day tomorrow!

The Real Bear Complex

Yesterday I rested. Walked 9 holes of golf early in the morning, which was good active recovery. I was pretty wrecked from Saturday through Tuesday so my body needed it. I’m still sore today, but don’t feel destroyed like I did. Went in for the 9am.

Warm-up

2 Rounds

  • 5 Pull-ups
  • 10 Push-ups
  • 15 Air Squats
  • 20 Sit-ups

2x Bergener Warm-up with empty bar

Strength

10:00 EMOM

  • Power Snatch
  • Hang Full Snatch

I’m excited about all of the snatch work we’ve been doing. Today I really focused on full hip extension and I think I made some great progress. I went 75#, 85#, 95#, 105# for 3 minutes, 115# for 2 minutes, and 125# for the last 2 minutes. In the 9th minute I lost focus a bit and had to bail on the full snatch in the bottom of the squat, but I picked it back up and got the rep in. I felt like my hip extension was pretty good in the power snatches and still short from the hang position. It’s definitely improving though.

WOD

bear-complex5 Rounds

  • 7 TnG Bear Complex (Power Clean, Front Squat, SH to OH, Back Squat, SH to OH)

* Combining is allowed, such as doing a thruster for front squat + shoulder to overhead.
* Increase weight each round.
* Partner up so you rest while the other person is working.

I’ve done bear complexes, but never as it’s designed to be done, with 7 TnG reps of the complex per “round”. It was definitely a challenge! Started off light with 75# to get the feel for it and warm up some more. Then went 85#, 95#, 115#, and 125#. Pretty much thrusters and back thrusters the entire way for me. I did quite a bit of resting with the bar on my back in the last round and some in the 4th round. Going any heavier would have been very difficult to finish.

Hike

After 4pm I headed out and did a hike. 2.39 miles in 1:03:59, while wearing the 20 pound weight vest. Strapping that thing around my chest really adds a whole other level to the hike.

I Should Be Taking A Rest Day

After doubles on Saturday and Sunday and a tough WOD yesterday, I should have taken today off. I saw the WOD though and know I can use extra pull-up work, love box jumps, and rarely get to do GHD sit-ups. So there I was at 9am ready to get my sweat on. Gayle said she was kind of taking it easy on us with the WOD today and it was like an active recovery day. HA HA! I don’t remember working so hard on an active recovery day.

Warm-up

3 Rounds

  • 1m DU
  • 3 Turkish Get-ups (25# KB, each side)

I went light for all 3 rounds because I’m having some issues in my right hand. I can really feel it after doing shoulder to overhead movements like all of the thrusters yesterday. I need to give it a few days rest.

WOD

3 Rounds

  • 30 Pull-ups
  • 30 GHD Sit-ups
  • 30 Box Jumps (24′)

We had the option of doing 50 Sit-ups or 30 on the GHD, so I went with the GHD. Gayle mentioned Rx for the box jumps was 30′, but I went with 24′ so I could rebound them and keep a higher intensity. Finished in 15:59. I really tried to push myself more in the pull-ups with shorter rest periods and some bigger sets as I got tired, but still ended up down to 3 at a time. That’s a lot of GHD sit-ups in a WOD especially when the sets are that big.

Finisher

  • 600m Weighted Run (20# MB)

Didn’t do it fast, but got it done. I’m definitely taking tomorrow off and will maybe get out for a round of golf.

The Seven

Feeling better today. Went in for the 9am class instead of the 8am Competitors WOD because the Hero WOD sounded like fun and I could get another hour of sleep.

Warm-up

  • 600m Run
  • 2 Rounds
    • 5 Push-ups
    • 10 Air Squats
    • 10 Leg Swings (Front to back, Side-to-Side, each leg)
    • 10 PVC Pass-thrus

WOD

“The Seven”
7 Rounds

  • 7 K2E
  • 7 Deadlifts (245#)
  • 7 Burpees
  • 7 KBS (70#)
  • 7 Pull-ups
  • 7 HSPU
  • 7 Thrusters (115#)

When it’s a Hero WOD you know you’re in for a suck fest. The first round wasn’t bad, but after that it was brutal. This WOD actually starts off with the HSPU and then thrusters but because of a big class size we paired up to share bars, so I started with the K2E. Rx for thrusters was 135#, so I scaled it down to 115#. I did all of my K2E, deadlifts, burpees, and KBS unbroken. Pull-ups were usually 4-3, but I think I got all 7 in round 1. HSPU were unbroken except for my 6th round where I went 5-2. Thrusters unbroken until round 6 where I wont 4-3. We had to stop at 33:53 because the next class was starting. At that point I had completed 6 full rounds and 3 of the pull-ups, so I only had 18 more reps to finish. Great WOD, but brutal. I think I did the first round in 3:11, but slowed down a ton after that.

Hike

Went out to Piestewa Peak and did the Summit Trail wearing the 20# weight vest. Going up while wearing that thing is horrible. The last 10-15 minutes with the vest is absolutely brutal, but I kept chugging along without stopping. Overall went 2.05 miles in 58:59 with 1,024 feet of climb.