Tag: row

So Much For Resting

I couldn’t help myself. Saw the WOD posted and figured it wouldn’t be too bad and decent for recovery, so I went in at 9am.

Warm-up

  • 3m Row at 20 spm
  • 4 World’s Greatest Stretch (each side)
  • Tabata Sit-ups

For the first 6 intervals I got 13 sit-ups and then 12 each in the last two for a total of 102.

WOD

3 Rounds

  • 250m Row
  • 20 Wall Balls (20# MB, 10′ target)
  • 15 T2B
  • 10 Front Squats (145#)

The Rx weight was 165#, which I probably should have done, but 145# sure wasn’t easy. I did sets of 6-4 every round on the front squats. For the wall balls I did 20, 12-8, and 10-10. Then for T2B I did 10-5, 8-7, and 10-5. Total time was 12:02. Glad I decided to workout today.

We Are Spartans!

Yesterday I did a 4.7 mile Spartan Race with a group from CrossFit Full Strength. It was a lot of fun and we all did really well. I was 13th in my age group and 70th overall for men on the day, both in the top 10%, with a time of 1:08:01. After going out for food and drinks I was exhausted and slept over 10 hours last night. Was feeling a little tired this morning, but not too bad other than my hips are really tight. Let myself recover some more and went in for the 5:15pm class.

2013-spartan-race-az

Warm-up

2 Rounds

  • 500m Row
  • 3 World’s Greatest Stretch (each leg)
  • 5 Inch Worms
  • 10 Leg Swings (F2B and S2S, each leg)

Strength

5 Sets

  • 2-4 Front Squats
  • 3-5 Back Squats
  • 2m Rest

Holy shit! Super setting front squats with back squats is the toughest squat strength day I’ve ever done. I nearly passed out during the last 3 sets and was sweating more than I did from WOD.

Weight Front Squats Back Squats
135# 4 5
165# 4 5
195# 4 5
225# 3 3
255# 2 5

I had a plan going in to get to 255# by going up 30# each set. It’s always nice when that works out! I hit 255# for a front squat 2RM last week and for a back squat 5RM the week before. Could I do them back-to-back though? Hell yeah! I don’t think I could have gotten another rep at each one. I did take it a little easy on my reps in the 4th set, but I’m ok with that since it allowed me to get heavy and I still hit the minimum reps. Thrilled with this after an exhausting day yesterday. Walking for the next few days might be tough.

WOD

2 Rounds

  • 50 Push-ups
  • 100 DU
  • 75 AbMat Sit-ups

I ordered the SR-1 Speed Rope from Rogue, which came in on Friday. Tried it out for the first time today in this WOD. Damn it’s a heavy rope! I could really feel the fatigue from it. The handles are awesome, but I might swap out the extra wire that came with the Again Faster Revolution rope. Push-ups were by far the most difficult part of this for me (which I expected), but the last 50 sit-ups were pretty brutal and got slow, but I managed to do all of the sit-ups unbroken in both rounds. My time was 12:17.

Double Trouble

I was itching for a WOD all day yesterday since I’d taken Wednesday off and won’t be doing a WOD tomorrow since we are doing a 4.7 mile Spartan Race. The hike helped, but it’s not the same as being in the box. In at 8am this morning for the competitors WOD and stayed for the regular class as well.

Warm-up

  • PVC Pass-thrus
  • 500m Row
  • Thrusters

Strength

Find 1 RM Thruster with 1 attempt EMOM. No rack, so must do a power clean and a thruster or a squat clean thruster. Keep increasing weight each minute until failure.

I started at 115# and added 10# every minute. Got 195# and then failed at 205# because I was too slow coming out of the squat clean and couldn’t get any momentum on the bar. That’s a 30# PR for my thruster when I last did it back in April. Having to go every minute is pretty tough once the weight gets heavy. I did power cleans up through 175# and then switched to squat cleans. So that ended up being 10 attempts in total.

Competitors WOD

This was WOD #6 of the 2011 Regionals.

  • 20 cal Row
  • 30 Burpees
  • 40 Two-arm DB ground-to-overhead (45/35# DBs)
  • 50 T2B
  • 100′ Overhead walking lunge (45/25# plate)
  • 150′ Sprint

I used 40# DBs for the ground-to-overhead and I’m glad I did. I still had to split them up into sets of 5 (pretty much doing a clean and jerk) and it took the most time by far. I should have worn some wrist sweat bands because I could barely hold the bar for the T2B making those take a lot longer than they should have since I had to do 2 or 3 at a time most of the way. Everything else was kind of easy. Took me 15:52 to finish.

Stuck around and let my heart rate come down while the 9am class did a warm-up.

Regular WOD

25:00 AMRAP with a partner

  • Partner 1 – 400m Run
  • Partner 2 – AMRAP:
    • 5 HSPU
    • 10 KBS (53/35)
    • 15 Goblet Squats (53/35)

* Both partners work the entire time, but keep switching off and continuing where the last guy left off in the AMRAP so total rounds can be counted.

Brian was the only other person in at 8am and stuck around too, so we paired up for this WOD. We finished 14 rounds of the AMRAP doing everything Rx. I picked up a nice little tip from the CrossFit Journal to make the HSPU easier and didn’t really have any issues until my last 5 when they started to get a little tough. My arms were shaky after the first WOD today so I’m thrilled I was able to hold on that long. The goblet squats were by far the roughest part of the circuit, but I pushed myself to always do 15 unbroken because squat stamina is one of my weaknesses.

Great 2 hours of work! Think I’ll try to get out for some golf this afternoon.

135 Pound Thrusters Suck

My abs are pretty sore, either from the sit-ups, the snatch work, or more likely from both. Things like the OHS and snatch balance are very underrated in being a core exercise. My shoulders and lats are pretty sore from the snatch work too. Since I did double workouts on both Saturday and Sunday, I took some extra rest and went in for the 5:15pm today. I’ve also been told there is some good competition at this time.

Warm-up

5:00 Row at 20 spm keeping a pace +/- 3s

This was something new and interesting. I tried to count a 1-2-3 on the recovery to make sure I wasn’t pulling too often, but when I did pull I gave it power. I tried to keep my pace right around 2:00/500m.

Strength

5×3 Front Squats

Last time I did a 5×3 on front squats I hit my old PR of 235# for all 3 reps. It’s been a couple of months since hitting a 255# 1RM so I was shooting to hit it for 3 today. So close! I went 135#, 165#, 205#, and 235# for 3 reps. I got the first two reps at 255# and then lost the rack on the 3rd one as I started to come up. If I had gotten a little tighter and more organized before the rep I think I would have had it. Nice improvement though.

WOD

  • 15 Thrusters (135#)
  • 200m Run
  • 20 Thrusters (95#)
  • 400m Run
  • 30 Thrusters (65#)

Have I ever mentioned how much I hate thrusters? I was not looking forward to this WOD, especially Rx. But I went for it. For the 135# thrusters I had a set of 9 to start and then got 5 more before I had to bail. I was so pissed to leave one rep left. On the 95# thrusters I went 8-4-4-4. Rough! Then for the final 30 with 65# I went 12-10-8. My strength endurance still sucks. Lance and Adam smoked me. I finished in 15:17. Glad I went Rx after all is said and done, but it damn near killed me.

Double Duty Weekend

I walked 18 holes of golf last night and afterwards my legs and low back were shot. Exhausted! Went in for the 9am class. I felt like I made good progress with my snatch yesterday so might as well keep it going with the clean & jerk today.

Warm-up

  • 200m Run
  • 200m Run Backwards
  • 400m Run
  • 200m Run Backwards
  • 200m Run
  • 5 Deadlifts (135#)
  • 5 Deadlifts (185#)

The backwards runs are fun!

WOD

4 Rounds

  • 200m Run
  • 24 Lunges (12 each side)
  • 12 Deadlifts (185#)
  • 6 Lateral Burpees Over Bar
  • 1m Rest

One of the easier ones to be honest. I’m sure my legs will feel it later, but the entire thing only took 12:01, with 3 minutes of that being rest time. My rounds were 2:13, 2:12, 2:14, and 2:18. I screwed up counting the over the bar burpees a couple of times so the overall time is messed up a little. Not sure what happened in that last round because I thought it was my fastest run of the bunch. I guess the deadlifts and burpees must have been a lot slower. Other than that, very consistent though.

Finisher

  • 150 AbMat Sit-ups

I decided to do the first 100 as fast as possible to try to break my PR and I smashed it, with a time of 3:02, beating my previous best of 3:34. Took a minute rest and then busted out the last 50 unbroken in 1:41, which was a lot more of a struggle.

Headed home for some food and then back to Full Strength for OLY at noon. Warmed up with a 500m row, PVC pass-thrus and around-the-worlds. Then we also did some progressions with the PVC pipe to loosen up and get some feel.

Snatch Work

We did the following, working up in weight by doing doubles or singles.

  • Snatch Deadlift to the knee
  • Snatch Deadlift to the knee, pause, Snatch

Did some doubles at 45#, 75#, and 95#. Went up to 115# and 125# for singles. Since I had just worked up to heavy singles yesterday morning, I didn’t want to do that again, especially working from the knee. I tried to concentrate on technique, which is slowly getting better.

Snatch Balance

These felt solid today. Started off with doubles at 125# and then 145#. Didn’t feel comfortable dropping the weight back on my back after that so I switched to singles and dropped the weight to the floor after my rep. I went 155#, 165#, and 175#. That’s 20# heavier than I’ve done before and even 10# heavier than I’ve ever done for an OHS. Makes me feel good that if I can get the bar up there on a snatch, I can finish it off. I had the first attempt at 175#, but lost a little stability in the bottom and the weight came forward so I bailed. Nailed it without much trouble for a couple of singles after that and called it a day.

2 Hour Saturday

I had a great rest day yesterday and went in for the 8am Competitors WOD and stayed to do the regular WOD as well.

Warm-up

  • 500m Row
  • PVC Pass-thrus
  • PVC OHS

Strength

Work up to a heavy snatch single.

I started out with a few at 75# and a few at 95#, then started going up by 10# after one or two reps at each weight. Focus was on keeping the bar close and getting hip extension instead of looping the bar out, which I have a problem with. I got up to 155# and got under it for the first time, but it was a little too far forward and I couldn’t steady it before standing up. Took another shot and wasn’t committed to it. Nailed it on the 3rd try, which is a 10# squat snatch PR. I’ve hit 155# with an ugly power snatch in competition before, so this felt good to finally get out-of-the-way. Took the personal win and stopped there for the day.

WOD #1

This one comes from event #5 of the 2010 CrossFit Games.

7 Rounds

  • 3 Cleans (185#)
  • 4 Deficit HSPU (10# bumpers)

I scaled of course because it calls for 205# cleans and ring HSPU. I did power cleans the whole way through and reset for each rep. It was heavy, so I picked a good weight. My neck and collarbone are already showing some bruising. I can’t believe how much my HSPU have improved in the last few weeks. We’ve been doing them once or twice a week, so I’ve had plenty of work on them and it’s really paying off. I did each set unbroken. Final time was 8:36.

Since I was already warmed up, I skipped out on the warm-up the regular class was doing so I could cool down a bit.

WOD #2

3 Rounds

  • 5 Wall Walks
  • 20 cal Row
  • 15 K2E
  • 25 Wall Balls (20#, 10′ target)
  • 15 Ring Dips
  • 50 DUs

This was a non-stop suck fest! It was the first time I’ve ever done wall walks and after the 28 deficit HSPU they were not easy. Finished in 22:57.

I’m actually not feeling too bad after all that, but I suspect tonight I’ll be exhausted, especially if I head out for a round of golf this afternoon. Felt good to get really heavy in a WOD with the 185# cleans.

I jumped on the scale after everything and was at 191.5 with my shoes and clothes on, so I’d say the diet changes are working. I certainly am feeling good with the healthy food changes and getting a lot of sleep.

Cardio Times Three

I used the rumble roller a few times yesterday and I think it really helped with my recovery. My ass and low back are still spicy from Monday, but not as bad as they were last night. Shoulders, triceps, and lats are kind of sore from yesterday. Went in for the 9am and was the only one to show up.

A day of 3 WODs, with each WOD having a 10:00 time cap. If you finish early, you get to rest for the remainder of the 10 minutes. No breaks or extra time between each WOD, so it’s a 30 minute running clock overall.

A couple of weeks ago we did a similar format, which was a lot of fun. When I saw this posted I was definitely looking forward to it after hitting the lower body hard on Monday and the upper body hard on Tuesday. In need of a light day!

Warm-up

  • Multiplanar (ankle/knee/hip mobility) – 10 each leg
    • Back to front leg swings with a knee dip on the forward swing
    • Leg swing out to the side with a knee dip
    • Skaters with a knee dip
  • 10-15 Each Side
    • Glute Bridge Marching
    • Human Snowflake
    • T-Stabilization
  • 600m Run
  • 50 feet World’s Greatest Stretch

Good to get in some solid mobility work after the last couple of days.

WOD #1

4 Rounds

  • 15 Wall Balls (20# MB, 10′ target)
  • 250m Row

All unbroken, not too difficult. Finished in 6:44.

WOD #2

4 Rounds

  • 200m Run
  • 20 KBS (53# KB)

Not very fun. Runs got progressively slower and the KBS sucked, but I did them all unbroken. Emily says my technique could use a lot of improvement to help me expend less energy. I was just trying to survive during the last 2 rounds. Finished around 6:40.

WOD #3

4 Rounds

  • 25 Sit-ups
  • 25 Push-ups (chest to deck)

I knew this would be the worst one due to the push-ups. All of the sit-ups were unbroken and I tried not to get to the point of failure on my push-ups, but 100 is a lot no matter what you do. I had to split them up a lot after the first 25. Finished in 8:13.

Burning the Shoulders

Glutes and low back are a bit sore from yesterday’s thrashing of them. Went in at 9am today.

Warm-up

  • 500m Row
  • 30 Sit-ups
  • 30 Supermans
  • 5×2 Turkish Get-ups (1 each side)

I went up in weight for each set of Turkish Get-ups, using 25#, 35#, 40#, 44#, and 50#. The first 4 were using a KB and the last using a DB.

Strength

5×5 Shoulder Press, 2m Rest between sets

  • 10 @ 45#
  • 5 @ 95#
  • 5 @ 115#
  • 5 @ 125#
  • 5 @ 135#
  • 4 @ 140#
  • 3 @ 140#

I was able to do 140# for 5 reps back at Survival Fitness when we last did a 5×5, so I bumped up my 2nd and 3rd sets to 115# and 125# today. I had the 5th rep on my first attempt at 140#, but lost concentration and stopped at the bottom, so I lost all momentum. Took a short rest and came back at it again for 3 reps.

WOD

  • 21-15-9 C2B Pull-ups
  • 21-15-9 HSPU
  • 100 DUs

The WOD actually called for deficit HSPUs on 35# plates, but there’s no way I could handle that for 45 reps, so I went with standard ones and those were hard enough. My time was 16:58. Not great, but I kept plugging away at all the reps. I need to improve my DUs when I’m tired. Shoulders are fried after this one.

More Shoulders

When I saw the WOD for today I planned to skip out. More shoulder work and I’ve already had a lot the last few days. But, my upper body strength is my weakest so I could use the work. Went in for 9am.

Warm-up

  • 50′ Burpee Broad Jump
  • 50′ World’s Greatest Stretch
  • 2 Rounds
    • 10 PVC Pass-thrus
    • 10 Leg Swings (side-to-side, front-to-back, each leg)
    • 10 KBS (35# KB)

WOD

  • 500m Row
  • 40 Pull-ups
  • 30 Shoulder to OH (115#)
  • 500m Row
  • 40 Pull-ups
  • 30 Shoulder to OH (85#)
  • 500m Row
  • 40 Pull-ups
  • 30 Shoulder to OH (65#)

On the first set of shoulder to OH the RX weight was 135#, which is heavy! Using 115# was heavy enough as it was for me. I went Rx the rest of the way though. Started off with 10 pull-ups, and then went 5s the rest of the way in round 1. Rounds 2 and 3 were pretty much 3 at-a-time the whole way, which short breaks to shake out the arms. For the presses I pretty much went push presses the entire way and I think I broke it down to 10-8-7-5, 15-10-5, and 18-12. Finished in 25:43.

Sunday’s Triple WODs and OLY

Up and at ’em early for the 9am. Lower back is a little tight from the deadlifts yesterday, but feeling good otherwise.

Warm-up

  • 500m Row
  • 2 Rounds
    • 10 Push-ups
    • 10 Pull-ups
    • 10 AbMat Sit-ups

Each of the following 3 WODs have a 10 minute time cap with a continuous running clock. So if you get done with a WOD early, you rest until the next 10 minute chunk comes up.

WOD #1

3 Rounds

  • 10 Ring Dips
  • 50 DUs

Busted through this one in 3:37, hitting the last 50 DUs unbroken. Broke up the ring dips a bit in the 2nd and 3rd rounds

WOD #2

3 Rounds

  • 14 HSPU
  • 40 AbMat Sit-ups

I knew this one would be the toughest because that’s 42 HSPU and the sit-ups are never fast. I did the first round of HSPU unbroken, which is my best streak to date. Was really forced to get the kip down earlier in the week, which helped a lot here. I think I went 8-6 and then 6-4-4 in the last two rounds. Finished in 7:42.

WOD #3

3 Rounds

  • 10 Hang Power Cleans (135#)
  • 15 Burpees

Good way to finish it out. For the cleans I went 10 unbroken in round 1, 5-5, and then 6-4. Just tried to keep a nice steady pace with the burpees so I could keep going. Total time of 5:29.

That was a fun workout and a nice one for a Sunday.

Olympic Lifting

I headed back to eat something and then was back to CrossFit Full Strength at noon for the OLY class.

We started out doing a type of bear complex.

  • Deadlift and power up to shrug.
  • Hang Power Clean
  • Front Squat
  • Push Press
  • Back Squat
  • Push Jerk (from the back)

I did a few of those with 95# and then we did one EMOM for 10:00. I stuck with 95# for the first 5 and then jumped up to 115#. After a bit of rest we started doing:

  • Power Clean
  • Squat Clean
  • Push Jerk

I did one at 115#, one at 145#, and then three at 165# I think. From there we went to push presses, working from some warm-up sets of 5, to triples, doubles, and singles. I’m not exactly sure what weights I used, but I think it was something like:

  • 5 @ 95#
  • 5 @ 105#
  • 3 @ 115#
  • 3 @ 145#
  • 2 @ 155#
  • 1 @ 165#

I wasn’t keeping track and really don’t remember. Next up we did sets of 5 strict shoulder presses.

  • 5 @ 95#
  • 5 @ 95#
  • 5 @ 105#
  • 5 @ 115#
  • 4 @ 125#

There was a lot of good work in that hour+ of work. It’s good to be back for the Olympic lifting work for sure. Johnny knows his stuff and was picking out a few little things in both my clean and my jerk. I tend to sit forward a bit when receiving the cleans and not enough back on my heels. My stance was starting with my feet too far apart in the clean, not allowing enough room for my knees to push out and get out-of-the-way of the bar. I need to get my front foot out forward more in the jerk. Good stuff!

After the HSPU and all of that pressing, my shoulders are feeling it.