git on up

Man, been scramblin’ since rolling out of bed this morning. Short and sweet post tonight.

The workout courtesy of Coach Stew was:

Strength
Turkish Get Ups
Work up to 70lbs with each arm

This was a new one for me. I’ve tinkered with this exercise once or twice. Which means that I’ve had one or two of the coaches show me the motions, just to try and work through it. But I’ve never concentrated on it for a session before, so I had no idea what I could do.  The get up is this exercise where you lie on the floor on your back. Press the kettle bell up over your body. Keeping your arm extended/locked out over your head at all times, you work your way up to standing, then back down to prone again for a single rep.

I’m pleased to say that over the course of the morning, I worked up to 44 lbs. I might have gotten through a rep at 52lbs right handed. I’m not confident about the left. Maybe if I’d worked up the weights more aggressively and gotten to the 52lb weight sooner, but I’m sure we’ll see these again, so no point in rushing it.. Remember how yesterday I was griping about my lack of coordination? This exercise really puts that to the test. I’m pleased to report that I was at least coordinated enough today to get through the WOD without dropping a kettle bell on myself, so I consider the morning a success.

METCON
As many reps as possible:
2 minutes – Pullups
Rest 30 seconds
2 minutes – Handstand Pushups
Rest 30 seconds
2 minutes – KB Snatch (52/35)
Rest 30 seconds
2 minutes – Box Jumps (30/24)
Rest 30 seconds
2 minutes – Ring Dips

Crossfit living by the tenet of being constantly varied, we ended up doing 2 minutes of work followed by 20 seconds of rest. The order these are listed in is the order they’re posted on the website. But I don’t have my notes with me. I’m not convinced it’s the order we performed them in, but I could be mistaken. No big deal to me today. I used all sorts of toys/training aids to get through this METCON.

A blue and red band for assisted pullups. I can’t do unassisted handstand pushups, so I did mine inverted off a 20″ box. I used 44# for the KB Snatch, which I’m pleased to say went much better than I anticipated. After the first two reps, I was seriously concerned that I was going to need a lighter weight. But I found my focus and concentrated on my form more and things fell into place. I was quite satisfied with my reps there. Box jumps were done using a 20 inch box. Ring Dips I used a red band for assistance. That whole set was all kinds of ugly. In the end I did 161 total reps. That number is pretty inflated because I got a whole lot more reps doing the pushups on the box than I otherwise would have. But in the end I’m pretty satisfied.

I did pace myself to ensure that I didn’t completely burn out in any set. I worked to the end of each one, which was my goal, and I never stood around for more than 3 or 4 deep breaths.

I really enjoyed this WOD. Having said that, tomorrow will be fun. The way my shoulders feel right now, I’m reasonably sure Saturday will be a day of role reversal where my kids may have to dress me!

 

comparing oranges to tangerines

One of those tough days where it’s tough to reconcile the results of the WOD and figure out how I feel about it.

We worked kettle bell swings and high pulls for awhile. That was fine. We didn’t spend too much time on it though because we knew there was a 20 minute METCON planned that involved lots of toys. So there was lots of set up before hand.

METCON
Tabata Fight Gone Bad
Complete 40 intervals of 20 seconds of work followed by ten seconds of rest. Perform 8 consecutive intervals of each of the following exercises:
Wall Ball (20/12)
KB High Pull (70/52)
Box Jump (20?)
Push Press (75/45)
Row (Calories)

I was really psyched when I saw this last night. Fight Gone Bad is still one of my most favorite workouts. It’s grueling, but I really enjoy it. It’s another one of the few WODs that I can do RX, so there’s that boost.

This version is different though because of the formatting. 8 rounds alternating between 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest. So that’s 160 seconds, or 2.6 total minutes of work, per exercise.  Multiply that by 5 exercises and you’re talking about 13.3 minutes where you’re in motion right? No, really, check my math. That bit me in the backside this morning too. More on that further on.

If you remember FGB, the format is one minute of exercise at each station, for 5 minutes of work. Athletes then rest one minute and then go through all the exercises using that format two more times. So it’s a 17 minute workout, with 15 minutes of motion.

I deliberately ignored checking my old FGB6 score from back in September. I didn’t want any preconceived goals or numbers in my head. I just wanted to attack this WOD and see how I could do. My hope was that this score would simply be higher than last time.

So here’s how it all added up:
Wall Balls – 9-9-8-8-7-8-8-8 – That’s 65 right? Somehow I came up with 68 at the gym.
High Pulls – 10-10-8-7-8-7-5-6 – That’s 61 right? Hope so. It’s what I keep coming up with.
Box Jumps – 7-7-5-6-7-6-6-7 – That’s 51, correct? Yeah, it came out to 47 at the gym.
Push Press – 6-7-7-5-6-6-5-4 – Please tell me that’s 46. It’s been 46 all morning.
Row – total calories 36

So now, if you add up my “gym scores” (the ones I tallied up immediately after the WOD) of 68+61+47+46+36=258 (right?) Yeah, well in my oxygen deprived state it added up and I recorded it as 267. I don’t know how I came up with that, but I came clean on the website announcing my error.

Now, if we add up my “true scores” of 65+61+51+46+36=259. Yes? Please say yes. So what have we proven with all of this? With regards to fitness? Nothing yet, but we have reinforced one more time why I’m in Marketing and not teaching arithmetic somewhere. Remember, I got into Journalisma and eventually advertising because there was no math!

So now, in terms of fitness, what have we learned? Have I improved? Tough for me to call. Now we’re talking about oranges and tangerines.

After the WOD, I went and checked my FGB6 score. I got a 247, back on Sept 17. Today, 259. That’s improvement but pretty meager in my opinion. I would have preferred to see a much larger differential there. I mean it’s only 4%. It’s right about here I’m really wishing that the 267 that I’d been preening over all morning were true. Then I think about the time factor. We had roughly 12% less time spent in motion in today’s WOD. So that means overall, I did more work in less time. That indicates improvement. It’s tough to quantify how much improvement, but it’s evident.

The format also makes a difference, too. Staying at one exercise for 8 rounds using the Tabata format was VERY different from one straight minute at each exercise and doing the exercises as a circuit. But I don’t know how to quantify that either. See what I mean? Same exercises, same loads, different time, different format. Oranges and tangerines.

In the end, it’s just not linear enough to draw conclusions so it’s tough to gauge. Overall, I guess it’s enough to say that I did better than last time and I’m proud of that. Yup. That’s my story and I’m sticking with it.

On a lighter note: it turns out you can capsize a rowing machine. Well, that’s overstating it a bit. In my first set on the rower, I tried very hard to explode backwards on my first pull. Unfortunately, I was lazy about transitioning onto the machine. I didn’t take the time to strap my feet into the foot plates. When I exploded backwards, I lifted my backside off the seat. The result being my body shot backward. The seat did not. I ended up momentarily sitting on the rail that the seat slides back and forth on. It’s a narrow rail though and my backside is NOT. I rolled off onto the floor. I did the only thing I could think to do. I called out to the rowers next to me, “Man overboard!” My form never really recovered on the subsequent sets. That’s apparent because after the WOD more than one of the 6:15’ers offered rowing tips and lessons the next time we’re in the gym together. Ah well.

No Crossfit Durham WOD for me on Friday. The family has to be at Whirlwind’s school early for an assembly. The 30 minute round trip time makes the logistics too complicated. However, I’m still planning on working out. I’m honoring my Halloween candy burpee penalty of 5 burpees for every piece of leftover Halloween candy that I eat. I owe myself 50 burpees so far. Also, we ran out of time post-WOD today for me to honor one of my November goals to run an extra 800M at each WOD. Since I would have run an 800M tomorrow if I were at the gym, I’m making my own post-Halloween WOD. 50 burpees and 1600M for time! Of course the burpee count could change depending on how the rest of my day goes. 😉

 

Just Do Every Damn Rep

Weird WOD for me today. On paper it looked real simple. In practice it was very challenging physically. It was also a real mental exercise to get myself to stay with it.

Here’s the WOD for Monday 103111
Double Unders
Take 20 minutes to practice your Double Unders

–Rest–
METCON

4 Rounds For Time:
40 Double Unders
30 Box Jumps (24/20)
20 KB Swings (52/35)

Not a big deal right? Well, ok. I know double unders are not my strong suit. So there was bound to be lots of stumbling today.

Jack was coaching this morning and he started us off with what else? Jumping rope! We grabbed ropes and did 20 single unders, then 10 single unders hopping on one foot. It was right there that I realized that the day might require a bigger mental effort than physical. Think about it. There’s 10 people in the gym, all working at their own pace to go through the required reps. No one’s counting for me, so no one’s going to know if I did 7, 8 or all 10 reps, right? And that thought went through my head and the very next thought, was “NO! Do EVERY DAMN REP!” There’s no way I’m going to let myself start cheating sets. I have to stay disciplined in all of this.

We did Tabata style double under work to give the skill session some structure. I was pretty flummoxed throughout the set. I watched the instructional video posted on the Crossfit Durham site last night. The demonstrator made a point about (and Jack brought it up this morning) that your hands should be slightly out in front of you as you jump rope. I know I don’t do that, so I tried to focus on that this morning and it screwed up my entire rhythm. I don’t know why. It was just unfamiliar. As a result, I never strung together more than 2 double unders together at a time. That’s annoying considering earlier this month I’d strung 4 together a couple times. It also means I’m coming up short on my goal of 5 unbroken double unders for a second month. Just gotta keep at it, but it wasn’t great for my mindset.

Moving into the METCON concentration was really important today.I don’t know if it was by design or even if other people experienced what I did but these exercises in this particular sequence seemed designed to screw each other up.  What I mean by that was after doing double unders, it seemed impossible to find a smooth rhythm for box jumps.

I kept wanting to jump fast but short and I wasn’t getting high enough up onto the 20″ box. I had to really slow things down to make connsecutive clean jumps. Then, after doing 20 American style swings with a 40 lb kettle bell, my hands kept trying to float up my sides shortening my rope and making it more likely that I would trip on it. I had to really focus on “hands down. Just use the wrists, not your arms!”

This WOD went much longer than I was anticipating too. We started the METCON very early compared to other days, and I was thinking to myself, “great, we’ll bang this out and I’ll be out of the gym early. Cool.” But that was not the case. Later on when we were under way, Jack called out the elapsed time of 6:30 and I was still early on in my second set, and I thought, “Wow. I’m going to be here all morning.” And all of a sudden there’s that voice in the back of my head saying, “no one’s counting your reps…”

As I was doing double unders, I’m trying to focus on a single spot on the floor, but in my peripheral vision I can see other people just blasting through their double under sets and outpacing me and that thought of “no one else is counting your reps” crept back into my head again. I know that I’m only competing against myself, but seeing people run away from you wears thin. I really got frustrated with the fact that I couldn’t just stuff the thought down and keep it down. It got to the point where rather than counting reps out loud, I just kept chanting, “EVERY. DAMN. REP. EVERY. DAMN. REP.” When it was over 15:42 later, I had done every damn rep. For today, that was enough.

 

fun with kettlebells

Bear with me, this one may get complicated. Yesterday’s workout was about sticking to the plan. Today’s WOD was all about making adjustments on the fly. Tuesday was also a great example of why Crossfit, with coaches always on site to lead WODs, is such a great program. Coach Jack was really watching out for me this day and helped me in a variety of ways. I really appreciate that.

Tuesday’s strength session was:

Kettle Bell Snatches: 3 sets – Do as many reps as possible with each arm.

Jack advised us to choose a medium weight to allow us to do a fair number of reps. The kettle bell snatch is a bit weird to me. I had to figure out during the warm ups how to do a rep properly. I’ve only worked this exercise once before and the motion is still kind of foreign. I find that if I don’t concentrate, when I let the kettle bell down from the top of the rep I want to add a little half swing/hip bump to build up momentum for the next repetition over my head.

I knew it was wrong. I had reviewed the instructional video Monday night, so I knew what a rep should look like, but still I was twisted up. Jack helped me re-learn the move and in the end the three sets were clean. I opted for 30 lbs for round one. I was able to do 30 reps with each arm before I burned out. Jack and I talked it over and he encouraged  me to move up to 35 lbs for the next sets. In the second set, I got 26 reps with each arm. Third set I got 24 reps with the right arm and 18 with the left.

That last set was a bit disappointing. I know my left arm is weaker than my right and I’d set a goal for myself to do at least as many left handed reps as right (ideally, I would have done more left handed), but it wasn’t meant to be. When I snatched the kettle bell up on the 18th rep my arm was so tired it was quivering. I was concerned I might drop the kettle bell on my head, so I ended the set.

METCON
6 RDs for Time
20 KB Swings (Rx 52, American)
Rest 30 sec
15 Box Jump (Rx 24″)
Rest 60 sec

I talked about this with Jack before we even started warming up. With the exception of Fight Gone Bad, I’ve never seen a WOD that had rest periods built into it between exercises. I was curious why it was constructed that way. 6 RDs of Kettle Bell swings and box jumps didn’t sound too bad to me. Jack pointed out that with the rest periods built in it should be our goal to do all sets unbroken and really do them as quickly as possible. There was no excuse to stop during the exercise set.

So that was the plan. I think I’ve talked about it before, but the last time we used kettle bells Jack suggested I move up to at least 40lbs and challenged me to consider using 44 lbs. As any good coach will, and the coaches at CFD are the best, Jack has been observing my workouts and he’s seen how I’ve progressed. I really appreciate that he’s challenging me to move forward. Some days it’s easy to justify working a lighter weight under the umbrella of “well, it allows me to concentrate on better form or go faster.” It’s comfortable and it fits my confidence level.

Having him observe how I use kettle bells and push me to the next level is awesome. It’s exactly what I need. I’m not always the best judge of my own ability, so having the coaches on hand to advise is fantastic. As a former soldier, I’m pretty trainable. I take direction from authority pretty quickly. If a coach says, “you’re ready to make the next step up,” I’m inclined to believe them and will give it my best effort to make it happen.

I grabbed a 20″ box and set a 45lb plate on top to create a 24″ platform for the box jumps. That was overly ambitious. I got through two full rounds and during the 60 sec rest, kicked the plate off the box to go back to 20″. The 24″ box jumps were just too slow. It felt like 15 individual sets of 1 rep each. I wasn’t able to string any jumps together and it felt counterproductive.

Somewhere around the 3rd or 4th set Jack came by and asked me what I thought about the built in rest periods. I was too oxygen deprived to actually answer, so I think he understood how I felt. I did notice that he walked away with a particularly satisfied grin. He also mentioned that the 44 lb kettle bell looked like the right weight. He said it looked challenging but he pointed out that all sets so far had been unbroken and my form looked solid.

After the WOD Jack came around one more time and we discussed the kettle bells again. We both agreed that for now 44 lbs looks like the correct weight. I did all 6 sets unbroken and Jack pointed out all reps were fully extended and over my head as they should be. So the weight wasn’t compromising my form. Jack warned me that I’ll probably only be using this weight for a couple of weeks and to expect to move up to 52 lbs in the not too distant future. I have seriously conflicted emotions about that. But if the coach says it’s time, then I’ll make it happen. 😉 Oh yeah — total time to complete the METCON: 16:12. It was INTENSE!

 

saturday-1025-team-WOD

Early last week, I had designs on sneaking off to the gym Friday night and using the open gym time to take another shot at the benchmark WOD “Fran.” Well 7 hours of walking and alternating carrying my 35 and 60 lb kids at the NC State Fair eliminated any desire for that, so I made the time on Saturday to get in and exercise.

I went to the 9am session, while Erin and her father took the kids to Lil Bit’s Toddler/Parent dance class. It worked out well. Grampa got to watch Lil Bit dance. Apparently,the teacher even invited Whirlwind to participate by letting him sub in as Lil Bit’s partner, so he didn’t have to sit around and watch a group of 3 year old girls dance. He got to actually take part.

In the meantime, I dashed out to the Saturday 9am session. Dave was leading the workout. He guided us through progressions with both PVC pipes and bare bars practicing various stages and elements of the snatch balance. I found it really helpful to go through this warm up just to refamilarize myself with the lift. Dave pointed out that I have a tendency to actually hold the bar too far behind my head on this lift. So it was very useful to be reminded of that before hauling any weights around.

The Strength Session was:
Snatch Balance:
6 lifts 1 rep each
I think my notes/spreadsheet have gotten out of whack somewhere because I could only find a single reference to the snatch from previous WODs and the listed weight of 140lbs sounded VERY high to me. so I didn’t go into this WOD with a clear goal in mind. It was going to be a “by feel” sort of day. When I got to the gym, I started off with 95 lbs and decided after the first lift that it was doable but ugly. I resolved immediately to maintain that weight until I got it right. I’ll be working that weight for a while. I did four lifts. My notes that correspond to each of the lifts are: “tentative,” “better/cautious,” “shallow” and “ok” respectively. For the 5th lift, I attempted 105 lbs. It was really ugly, but I did lift it. I went back to 95 lbs for the final lift. Needed to end with a hit. Not thrilled with the way it went, but I’ll continue to work on it.

METCON
In teams of 2
21-15-9

Row (calories)
Jerk (155-Rx/75-Rx)
Box Jumps (Rx 24/20)

I partnered with a young woman named Kris. She did her portion of the WOD Rx. I did not. I worked the jerk at 75lbs and shared the 20″ box for jumps. I experimented with a 95 lb bar before the METCON and realized that was too aggressive. I might have been overly cautious scaling back to 75, as I believe I did all sets of the jerk unbroken.

I certainly could have done the box jumps on the 24″ box, but I wanted to really concentrate on form and intensity this day. The 24″ box requires too much time resetting at the bottom of each jump right now. Using a 20″ allowed me to work speed while also allowing me to focus on getting off the floor fast and completely standing up the jumps on top of the box.  While I got through all of my sets unbroken, I added a couple of reps during the sets of 15 and 9 because there were just a couple of jumps where I only landed on the front half of my foot and fell off the box before completely standing upright. In the end Kris and I finished the WOD in 14:58. I always enjoy the partner WODs. Having a team mate definitely adds a bit of an extra element to the intensity factor of a workout. I certainly don’t want to let someone else down.

 

max height not yet

So today was one of those crossfit fun days. One of those days where we were working exercises that I haven’t tried before so I had no idea what to expect. Got to say, I was pleasantly surprised.

Skills Session
Max Height Box Jump
4-6 attempts at a flat footed max height box jump

Now if you read the blog regularly, I know where you’re going and you’re right. I’ve done plenty of box jumps before. But those were always lots of reps as part of a METCON. I’ve never just tried to figure out how high I can jump. And I’ve been wondering for quite some time. Since early in my second boot camp, so some time back in July, I’ve been wondering what I could do. I’ve never had or taken the opportunity to test myself on this one. So when I saw this WOD posted last night, I got excited.

Started with a 24″ platform. I knew I could do this. I’ve used this before in WODs. I’m not fast when I use a box this size, but I knew I could do it.

Moved up to 27″ from there and made that jump confidently. The jump at 30″ felt surprisingly good too. Now my head is starting to wonder how far I can go. My partner Jonathan and I added more plates and I was able to make that leap. We measured after the fact and established it was 35.” Now in my mind, I need another jump because I need to clear 3ft.

I was a bit (superstitious is not the right word) quirky in that I didn’t want to know the height until after I made the jumps. I didn’t want the number getting in my head before hand. Knowing what I accomplished after the fact was motivating and built confidence for the next jump. Having the number in my head before hand seemed intimidating. As you’ll see later.

We added another plate (a 25 lb  I think), and I made that jump! We measured after the fact and it was 37 1/2! Sweet. We took the 25 lb plate off and added another 45 lb plate. I steeled myself for that one and went for it. I got most of my feet on the plates. I had more than half of each foot on the plates, but my backside was too far back. When I tried to stand it up my weight shifted back and I had to hop down. But I had the confidence of simply knowing that I could get my feet up that high! So I took a second shot at it. And I stuck it the second time! I allowed my self a celebratory, “Yes!”  and a quick clap, fist pump. Jack saw my celebration from the top of the platform and concluded it was a PR and gave me an encouraging applause. It was greatly appreciated.

When I got down and measured, I was initially a bit disappointed. I was completely expecting to find the height was 39 or 40,” but in measuring we established it was 38. It was then we realized that the various plates, because they’re from different manufacters and/or are different styles, the have varying thicknesses. We couldn’t simply add 45lb plates and assume that each one was 3″ thick. It’s close, but not uniform.

Still a 38 vertical leap from a flat foot stand still was very satisfying to this draft horse. There are a lot of things that I can do in this world. I have never considered jumping to be one of them. I got cocky after that and added one more thinner plate (a 15 I believe) to ensure I had a 40″ jump ahead of me. I asked Coach Paul to video me doing the jump. I really wanted to post it either to this blog and/or to Facebook as visual evidence/confirmation. Unfortunately, the new height, having an extra observer, and just flat being tired from previous jumps got inside my head. For the first time of the morning the thought “damn that’s high” actually passed through my head and then I was done. No matter what I tried to think of all that kept running through my mind was, “damn that’s high.” The new set up intimidated me and I was unsuccessful at two attempts at the new height. I wanted to end with a hit, but I was also unsuccessful at a final attempt at 38″ but that’s ok by me. I know I got it.

METCON
AMRAP
10 Burpee
15 Deadlift (Rx 185)
20 Double Unders

This was a grueling and satisfying METCON. Because I was having so much fun and spent so much time on the box jumps by the time I was preparing for the METCON all the 45 lb bars were claimed. I wound up using a 37 lb bar and I added 120 lbs for a total weight of 157 for the dead lifts. No big deal. I never intended to work RX and wasn’t overly concerned about the weight. It turned out to be a solid weight. The first set went unbroken. I think the second set was split at 12 and 3. Third set went something like 7 and 8. Fourth set went something like 8, 4, 3. Final set was something like 8 reps, 4 reps, 2 reps, 1 rep.

I completed 4 full rounds, a 5th set of burpees, a 5th set of dead lifts and the equivalent of 10 double unders. I did singles today mixing in some double unders.

Definitely a very satisfying day. I’m looking forward to a day off tomorrow and working some double unders on my own.