Sunday Morning Sprints

I set my alarm and got up early for some sprints. 7am over at Heritage High School.

sunday-sprints

There was a nice little chill in the air. Perfect for running. I warmed up with 800m of jogging.

E2M 20:00

  • 100m Sprint

Eased into the first few sprints so I didn’t pull a hammy or anything. Legs were really feeling it in the last 3 sprints. Walked 800m after I was done.

Spent most of the day helping out at the pro-am at Survival Fitness today and then went over to Kevin’s garage around 7:30.

Warm-up

3:00 Air Dyne

Olympic Lifting

I was using the blocks at mid-thigh again. I’d do 3 snatch deadlifts and 3 snatches. Used 65#, 95#, 115#, 135#, 145# (missed the first snatch), and then 155#, where I failed at 2 snatch attempts not fully committing to them.  Called it quits there because it just wasn’t in me for the day. The two hits at 145# were 10# higher than last week so I’ll take that as a success. Pretty tired from a long day and the sprints in the morning.

Strength

5/3/1 Bench Press – Cycle 2 Week 2

  • 5 @ 85# (40% of Training Max – warm)
  • 5 @ 110# (50% – warm)
  • 3 @ 135# (60% – warm)
  • 3 @ 150# (70%)
  • 3 @ 175# (80%)
  • 3+ @ 195# (90%)

I’m sore and tired from the throwdown on Friday, but managed to pull out 6 reps at 195# for an estimated max of 233.5#, which is just below the most I’d done from back in November. Maybe I’ll PR on bench press once this year yet. 🙂

Front Squats & Sprints

I was up early to play in a golf outing up in Gladwin today. Rode carts, but still a long day out in the sun. Beautiful weather! Was thinking about taking a nap when I got home, but figured I’d get in some training.

Warm-up

Did a 0.45 mile run around the block.

Strength

Front Squats – 5/3/1 Cycle 2 Week 1 (I really only did one session of front squats during the first cycle)
20130817-200710.jpg

  • 5 @ 110# (40% of training max – warm)
  • 5 @ 135# (50% – warm)
  • 3 @ 165# (60% – warm)
  • 5 @ 180# (65#)
  • 5 @ 205# (75%)
  • 5+ @ 235# (85%)

Made use of the garage which I don’t do often enough. Felt pretty good considering my state. I managed to get 7 reps for an estimated max of 289.5#. The other time I did front squats of 5/3/1 I got 6 @ 240#.

Then I headed over to the track at Heritage High School for some sprints. Warmed up with a lap (400m).

20130817-200718.jpg20:00 EMOM

  • 50m Sprint

Doesn’t wipe you out on the cardio side of things because it’s less than 10 seconds of work and 50+ seconds of rest. It’s a great explosive workout for the legs though and by the end I really feel it. I jogged a slow 800m to cool down.

Air Dyne for Breakfast and Sled for Dinner

Sleeping better each night because the night sweats are slowly disappearing.

Started the morning with “Air Dyne Hell” at about 8:20.

  • 5:00 warmup
  • 10 Rounds
    • 15s @ 100%
    • 1:45 Rest
  • 5:00 cool down

Did 419 cal and went 4.45 miles. The AD2 seems much easier or has a different way of counting calories because I did about 230cal by myself in the interval portion and Kevin and I combined only got in the 280s on the AD6.

Worked on some snatching before lunch.
30:00 E3M

  • High hang snatch
  • Hang snatch
  • High hang snatch
  • Hang snatch

Had 95# loaded on the bar and used lifting straps to stay connected. I’ve always had a lot of trouble meeting my hips from the hang, but I hit every single rep today! Here’s a video of the last set.

Before dinner it was time for more sweating.

10 Rounds NFT

  • 10 Deadlifts (185#)
  • 50m Sprint
  • 50m Walk back

After every two rounds I took an extra little break to drink some water. Solid little WOD.

A few minutes after I went out for a sled drag. Loaded it up with standard 135#, going 0.68 miles in 19:03. I paused RunKeeper at the turnaround point but didn’t pause during the two breaks on the way back. Not going to lie…that was rough! Didn’t help that I was actually going a little uphill on the way back.

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.

Hawaiian Hill Sprints

The time zone shift hasn’t bothered me too much. We’ve been getting to bed early due to exhaustion, so getting up early has been easy.

Warm-up

Ran a little loop that was probably about 400m.

WOD

20130124-083206.jpg10 Rounds

  • 20 Air Squats
  • Hill Sprint (maybe 70 yards?)
  • Walk down the hill

There’s a picture of the hill. I sprinted from the end of the driveway up to the top of the hill and then walked back down for recovery each round. All of the air squats were done unbroken and I tried to go top speed on them. Counting all of the walking, my total time was 18:49.

Strength

12:00 EMOM

  • Odds: 12 Weighted Lunges (40# DBs, 6 each leg)
  • Evens: 20 Kroc Rows (40# DB, switch arms each time)

I was going to try for 20 and 25, but that was a bit ambitious and didn’t leave enough rest time, so I actually did 20 lunges in the first round.

Recovering

I wasn’t going to go in today, but Matt posted the workout on Facebook and it wasn’t a super intense WOD, so I went in at noon. Really helped to loosen me up a bit after yesterday’s competition. Helps to recover from the hangover of last night’s Halloween party as well.

Warm-up

  • 100 Butt Kicks
  • 100 High Knees
  • 100 Jumping Jacks
  • 100 Arm Circles (50 forward, 50 backward)
  • 30s Bottom Squat Hold
  • 30s Side Plank (each side)
  • 30s Zombie Kicks
  • 30s Lateral Hops (15s each side)

Strength WOD

3 Rounds

  • 1-2-3-4-5
    • Strict Pull-ups
    • Broad Jumps for max distance
  • 100m Farmer’s Carry

We didn’t time this because the goal was for good quality reps. I concentrated on the hollow body position and active shoulders on all of my pull-ups. Did them all strict too, which is 45 in total. The broad jumps were slow and one at a time, but a sneaky form of cardio because it’s such an explosive movement. I wont over 8 feet on every one of the jumps. For the farmer’s carry I used a 39# and 40# KB is round 1, then a 62# and 71# KB in the 2nd and 3rd rounds, switching hands at 50m each time.

WOD

  • 6 x 150m Sprint

You may rest between each sprint, but only in the plank position. As soon as you can no longer hold a plank, start running…

I liked the plank as rest here. Really tried to max out my plank each round and give my lungs as much rest as possible so that I could run hard on each sprint. It was tough getting the legs going at the start of each sprint due to all of the broad jumps taking a toll on the hips.

Finisher

Mobility WOD

I did some couch stretches on the wall and then tried a shoulder capsule movement to help with my overhead position. You lay on the ground with a band attached to something out from the top of your heard. The band then goes under your arm pit and you hold a KB straight up while fighting for a good position. It doesn’t look or sound that tough, but it really works your shoulder.

Flippin’ Tires

Up for the 9am today. I was thinking about just doing some rowing, but I have 48 hours to recover before the competition on Saturday, so I’ll be fine. Not feeling too bad after doing “DT” yesterday.

Warm-up

  • 1m DUs
  • 20 Air Squats
  • 20 Reach to the sky and then down to the toes
  • 20 PVC Pass-thrus
  • 1m DUs

In the second minute of DUs I knocked off 78 unbroken, a new PR. That’s 3 PRs this week on my DUs, up from 44!

Strength

5×20 Weighted Sit-ups

I used 20# KBs, a 45# KB, a 60# DB, 30# DBs, and a 62# KB. Crazy how tough these get and how much you can sweat from doing sit-ups

WOD

42-30-18

  • Thrusters (45# empty bar)
  • HR Push-ups

Holy shoulder burner! I knocked out the first 42 thrusters unbroken, but that may have been a bad idea for the rest of the workout. I did 10 push-ups to start, but then it was pretty much 5 at a time for the rest of the workout with a few streaks of 4s or 6s in there. In the second round of thrusters I broke it down into 10-12-8 and then 10-8 in the final round. Finished in 11:13.

Finisher

10 Rounds

  • Tire Flip
  • 100y Sprint (50y down and back)

After doing CrossFit for nearly a year, these were the first tire flips I’ve ever done. Really liked this finisher.

Extra Strength

After I got home I went out to the garage for some dynamic low box squats. In order to keep my body guessing, I went with lower weights than I’ve been using for these, which also let me have faster reps. My legs were pretty tired from all of the thrusters anyway.

  • 2×2 @ 45#
  • 1×2 @ 75#
  • 1×2 @ 95#
  • 1×2 @ 115#
  • 8×2 @ 135#

Now I rest until Saturday.

Jingle My Jangle

I went out and walked 18 holes of golf this afternoon and am feeling good after not doing a WOD yesterday. Went in for the 7pm class.

Warm-up

5 rounds

  • 10 PVC Pass-thrus
  • 30s Bottom Squat Hold

I mixed in some PVC Around-the-Worlds for some of the pass-thrus to help get my shoulders warmed up.

Strength

5×3 Shoulder Press

I was really disappointed in my performance with the 5×5 last week, so I was in it to win it tonight. I did a set of 10 at 45# and a set of 5 at 95# to get warmed up. For my working sets I used 105#, 115#, 125#, 135#, and 145# with no missed reps. BOOM! My previous PR was 140# and I got 3 reps at 145# today, so I have no idea why last week sucked.

WOD

5 rounds

  • 3:00 AMRAP
    • 3 Burpees
    • 6 MB Cleans (20#)
    • 9 Wall Balls (20#, 10′)
  • 1m Rest

Start each round where you ended the last round, which will most likely be in the middle of the cycle. This makes counting easier, as long as you can remember where you leave off. I did exactly 17 rounds with 1 second to spare. One minute is not a lot of rest time between these rounds and all that squatting really adds up.

Finisher

Death by Jingle Jangles (by 3s)

What’s a Jingle Jangle you ask? They are basically short sprints from side to side in the gym, which is about 16 feet wide. So for this “Death by” style, in the first minute you have to get side to side 3 times, then 6 times the next minute, and increase by 3 each minute. For the first 5 minutes it’s all walking to save energy, but then I had to start picking up the pace. I got through the round of 30, which is the 10th minute, and then got 21 of the 33 in the 11th minute, which in a new gym record.

Feels Good to be Back in the Box

I was still kind of sore this morning, but I was able to go in for the 9am class and I felt great after warming up.

Warm-up

5 rounds

  • 1m Bottom Squat Hold
  • 1m Jumping Jacks

WOD

“Helen”
3 rounds

  • 400m Run
  • 21 KBS (53#)
  • 12 Pull-ups

I felt really good in this one. All of the KBS were done unbroken and I broke each round of pull-ups into 2 sets. Finished in 9:30.

Finisher

EMOM 10:00

  • 100m Sprint (50m down and back)
  • 3 Burpees

This may have been tougher than the WOD. Felt good after, but the sprints started feeling slower and slower until the last one where I dug deep.

It sure feels good to be back in the box, especially after only doing one WOD last week leading up to the competition. Maybe all of the rest was really needed though since I had been pushing my body so hard the couple of weeks before.