Tag: Zombie Kick

Sliced Open

This morning I went to the Doctor to get a couple of sebaceous cysts removed. My head is pretty sore and I’m on some Vicodin for the pain. I can’t use any water on the 2 stitched areas for 3 days and no soap/shampoo until I go back next week to get the stitches removed. Should be interesting with working out. I already sweated a ton today. I could get pretty rank in a few days.

After resting a bit at home I went to the first Olympic Lifting class at Survival Fitness held at 6pm and then stayed after for the 7pm class. In the OLY class we worked on drilling the snatch. I’ve really been looking forward to this because I know I can use a lot of work on my technique, which is holding me back from making big gains in my numbers.

Warm-up

4 Rounds

  • 15s Zombie Kicks
  • 15s Bottom Squat Hold
  • 15s Plank
  • 15s Jumping Jacks

Some of us were already pretty warm from the OLY class.

Strength

5×5 Clean High Pull

I assumed it was a 5×3 because we just did 5×5 last week. Didn’t actually read the board until before my last round. So my first 4 rounds were all 3 reps. I did 135#, 155#, 165#, 175#, and 185#.

WOD

  • 50 Russian KBS (53# KB)
  • 21-15-9
    • Dead Hang Pull-ups
    • Turkish Get-ups (30# DB)
  • 50 Wall Balls (20# MB, 10′ target)

I didn’t think this would work up so much of a sweat, but I was soaked at the end. I finished in 17:30, which was the best time of the day. I’m glad my head didn’t really hold me back. The pull-ups were the worst part of this. I was pretty much doing one at a time the entire way so that I didn’t have to tax my arms on the descending portion of the pull-up. As soon as I got my chin over the bar I let go and dropped to the ground.

Deck of Barbells

I was planning to take today off and stick to the 3 on 1 off schedule, but my body is feeling good. Went in for the 11am class.

Warm-up

  • 150m Run
  • 100m Zombie Kicks
  • 150m Run
  • 100m Power Skips
  • 150m Run
  • 100m Lateral Shuffles
  • 150m Run

WOD

Deck of Cards

Suits:

  • ♣ – Hang Cleans (95#)
  • ♠ – Front Squats (95#)
  • ♥ – Push Presses (95#)
  • ♦ – 150m Weighted Run (35# plate)

Ranks:

  • 10, Jack, Queen, King, Ace – 10 reps
  • 2 through 9 – Face value in reps
  • Joker – 1m Plank

The Rx for men was 115# but there is no way I’d be able to handle that. Loading the bar with 95 pounds was plenty heavy and this deck took me forever. I stayed into the start of the next class to finish in 52:54. It comes out to 94 reps of each on hang cleans, front squats, and push presses, 1950 meters of weighted runs, and 2 minutes of plank. That’s a lot of good work to help prepare for the competition.

I was planning to do some cleans in the garage later, but now I don’t have to. I guess I have more time to do real cleaning around the house and organize my garage gym.

Sort of Like “Cindy”

I haven’t been this sore since the competition a few months ago. Who would have thought doing gymnastics (specifically back tuck flip progressions) for an hour could beat up on your body this much. I’m sure Sunday’s WOD and the work I did yesterday have a little to do with it as well. I’ve been using the rumble roller a few times a day and it’s painful as hell! My IT bands have never felt like this before.

I’m getting a hot stone massage this afternoon and making tomorrow a rest day so I figured I better get in to the 9am today for a WOD.

Warm-up

  • 100 Butt Kicks
  • 100 High Knees
  • 50 Jumping Jacks
  • 50 Zombie Kicks
  • 25 Lateral Hops (left)
  • 25 Lateral Hops (right)

Strength

Weighted Pull-ups, 5×5

  • 5 @ 8#
  • 5 @ 10#
  • 5 @ 12#
  • 5 @ 15#
  • 5 @ 15#

I was able to complete each set today!

WOD

20:00 AMRAP

  • 5 Burpees
  • 10 Wall Balls (20# MB, 10′ target)
  • 15 AbMat Sit-ups

Remind you of the benchmark girl “Cindy” a bit? Same style but tougher in the long run. My strategy was to keep an even pace so I didn’t burn out early. Twenty minutes is a long time. I went unbroken right up until the end of the WOD and even had a little in the tank to speed through my burpees in the last couple of rounds. Finished 14 rounds plus 5 burpees and 5 wall balls. That comes to 75 burpees, 145 wall balls, and 210 sit-ups!

Finisher

7:00 AMRAP

  • 150m 1-arm Farmer’s Carry (53# KB)

I completed 6 laps (I think! Lost track on the 2nd or 3rd lap) and was about 30m away from finishing the 7th lap. Never had to stop and switched hands around the halfway point of each lap.

I can’t wait for my massage!

800 Meter Sandwich

Feeling pretty good this morning. My legs are fine and I wasn’t tired getting up at 5:20am. Went in to CrossFit Pacific Beach again for the 6am class.

Warm-up

  • 400m Run
  • 10 Samson Stretches
  • 10 Inchworms
  • 10 Zombie Kicks
  • 10 Air Squats
  • 10 Skater Plyos

We also did a little more stretching. I liked doing a bottom squat hold while putting all of the weight over one heel to stretch out that ankle and calf.

Agility

Ladder drills

These were quick but fun.

WOD #1

  • 800m Run
  • 40-30-20-10
    • KBS (53# KB)
    • Box Jumps (24″)
  • 800m Run

As you probably know, I love box jumps. I’m not used to doing that many American KBS, but I tried to keep to big sets and never did less than 10 in a row. Box jumps were nearly all unbroken. The last 800m sucked ass. I finished with a good time of 16:40.

Then it was back to the hotel to lead the last day of the Automattic Bootcamp at 7:30am.

Warm-up #2

50m

  • High Knees
  • Bear Crawls
  • Zombie Kicks

WOD #2

Partners

  • 50 Broad Jumps
  • 80 HR Push-ups
  • 100 Lunges
  • 80 Tuck Jumps
  • 50 V-ups

I was kind of a 3rd partner in this, so it wasn’t bad. Seemed like people really liked the Bootcamp throughout the week.

Sandbagging

I got home from San Francisco around 10:30pm last night after a my last flight was delayed about 40 minutes. Went in to the chiropractor this morning to see if he can’t get my back fixed up. I have to go back on Thursday to go over the x-rays he took. Went in to Survival Fitness tonight for the 7pm class. It’s good to be back after a few days of hotel WODs.

Warm-up

  • 150m Run
  • 150m Power Skip
  • 50m Zombie Kicks
  • 50m Butt Kicks
  • 150m Power Skip
  • 150m Run

I could tell I wasn’t feeling it during the warm-up. Pretty tired and slow.

WOD

  • 500m Sandbag Run
  • 50 Sandbag Cleans over the Shoulder
  • 500m Sandbag Run
  • 50 Sandbag Get-ups
  • 500m Sandbag Run

Just what I needed after seeing the chiropractor this morning. I flew threw the sandbag cleans unbroken. My runs were pretty slow, but the get-ups were the toughest. They really wear on your tailbone. I finished in 20:59.

Finisher

  • 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 V-ups
  • 20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2 DUs

I forgot to look at the clock when I started, but I know this definitely took me less than 6 minutes.

Killer Medicine Ball Warm-up

Still pretty sore from Sunday’s WOD and some new soreness from doing “Cindy” yesterday. I can really feel all of those push-ups. I don’t remember the last time I was this sore to be honest.

Warm-up

30 yards down and back

  • Zombie Kicks
  • High Knees
  • Butt Kicks
  • Power Skips

5 rounds with 20# MB

  • 1m OH Lunges
  • 1m Sit-ups
  • 1m Front Squats
  • 1m Diamond Push-ups (on ball)
  • 1m OH Squats
  • 1m Rest

The MB work was a real arm and shoulder killer. It got the legs nice and loose for the WOD too.

WOD

20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2

  • Burpees
  • Goblet Squats (50# KB)

The burpees were much harder than usual due to doing 186 chest-to-ground push-ups yesterday and about 60 MB diamond push-ups in the warm-up. All sets of burpees were done unbroken, but I had to break each round of goblet squats into 2 sets until I got to the round of 10 when I went unbroken the rest of the way. I finished in 15:08.

Strength

5×5 Weighted Pull-ups
Take 2 minutes of rest after each set and try to increase the weight each set.

For my sets I used 8#, 10#, 12#, 15#, and 15#. I might have even come up just short on the 5th rep in the last set, so I’m glad I didn’t try to increase to 20# which would have been the next jump. I actually stayed after class to finish this off because there was a 15 minute gap before the next class started. I know I need the work to increase my strength. This is a huge improvement over the last time I did weighted pull-ups and used 12# for the last 3 sets.

End of the Paleo Challenge

One month ago, we started a team Paleo Challenge at Survival Fitness. I promised myself that I would try to go 100% Paleo for the entire challenge, and with one small exception (shredded cheese and croutons on a salad), I did it. I’ve seen incredible results in my fitness, my body composition, and how I feel.

I started the challenge at 12.3% body fat and 181 pounds. In less than 2 weeks, I had dropped to 172 pounds (home scale)! I was losing too much weight, so I increased my protein sources (eggs, meat, fish, etc.) by 50% at each meal. As an example, I went from eating 4 eggs at breakfast to 6. This brought my weight back up into the 175 pound range where I’ve been able to stabilize. This morning at my final weigh-in at the gym I was 178 pounds (not sure how I got back up that high) and 9.8% body fat. That’s a drop of more than 20% of my starting body fat %. I have a visible 6-pack, which has always been a goal of mine. I can’t believe the changes in my body is one short month. A key point is that I had already been eating 80-90% Paleo since I started doing CrossFit, but going 100% made a huge difference!

After taking the rest day yesterday I was feeling great this morning. I attended the 9am class so I could get the benchmark WOD done early. Can you say pizza and Mountain Dew for lunch and dinner? Seriously!

Warm-up

4 rounds

  • 15s Zombie Kicks
  • 15s Jumping Jacks
  • 15s Butt Kicks
  • 15s Mountain Climbers

12:00 AMRAP

  • 150m Run
  • Rest as long as the run took

I started out pretty fast, but realized 12:00 is a long time to do sprints, so I slowed down to a 30s pace in order to save myself for the WOD. It is a warm-up after all. I think I completed 13 runs.

WOD

We partnered up again so that we could count each other and get a bit of rest.

5:00 AMRAP

  • Burpees

4:00 AMRAP

  • Wall Balls

3:00 AMRAP

  • Air Squats

2:00 AMRAP

  • KBS (Russian)

1:00 AMRAP

  • AbMat Sit-ups

I improved in each of the tests:

  • Burpees went from 82 to 91, an increase of 10.9%.
  • Wall balls went from 77 to 95, an increase of 23.4%.
  • Air squats went from 101 to 112, an increase of 10.9%
  • KBS went from 76 to 82, an increase of 7.9%.
  • AbMat (“cheater”) sit-ups went from 67 to 81, an increase of 20.9%
  • Total reps went from 403 to 461, an overall increase of 14.4%.

I had one of the top 5 scores for the first assessment, so I figured improving wasn’t going to be easy. I’m thrilled with a 14.4% improvement. Hard work pays off! I’m really happy with my burpee and wall ball improvements because burpees are such a great overall cardio and full body exercise and I knew wall balls were one of my weaknesses. My air squats are still pretty weak compared to the best in the gym, but getting better. It’s hard to improve on the Russian KBS, except by increasing weight, because you can only do them so fast. In the first test I took one short break, but went unbroken for the entire 2 minutes today. I’m not concerned about the sit-up number because it was doing the cheater standard, which I’m no longer doing.

With all of the rest time, I don’t feel like I had to work very hard overall, even though I pushed as hard as I could go. I may try attend 8pm open gym and do a strength WOD since I’ll be out of town for the weekend.

At Survival Fitness Warm up 30 reps each…

At Survival Fitness.

Warm-up

30 reps each:

  • High knees
  • Zombie kicks
  • Squats
  • Push-ups
  • Jumping jacks
  • Butt kicks
  • Mountain climbers
  • Standing bicycles

If you finish before everyone else, do 30 jumping jacks on the minute every minute until everyone is done.

WOD

Using a deck of cards, one card will be flipped over at a time for 40:00.

Suits:

  • ♣ – Now and Laters (4 count plyo lunges – 2 each leg)
  • ♠ – Plank (1 minute)
  • ♦ – Pull-ups (ring rows)
  • ♥ – Burpees

Ranks:

  • Ace – 14
  • King – 13
  • Queen – 12
  • Jack – Pick another card and double it, also using the suit of the new card
  • 10 through 2 – face value

So…for example when a King of diamonds came up we did 13 ring rows. If a jack (any suit) comes up, another card is flipped. If the next card was the 9 of clubs that would be 9 x 2 = 18 Now and Laters, which themselves consist of 4 lunges, so we would have 72 lunges! As you can see, things add up fast. Oh, and plank is always one minute unless a jack is involved and it would become 2 minutes. If you picked the ace of spades you wouldn’t have to do 14 minutes of plank!

In the 40:00 time limit I finished 30 of the 52 cards. High counts (not total for the workout) were 68 lunges (42 another time), 42 burpees (I think it was 3 hearts in a row), and 28 ring rows. Somewhere is the middle of the WOD I switched from plyo lunges to regular lunges.