do the math

Some days it’s all about how you frame what what happens.

I left the gym this morning mulling over how I scaled the METCON and still failed to complete it. I wasn’t overly concerned about it, but it was rattling around in my head.

The METCON was

21-15-9

Power Cleans
Front Rack Lunges
Push Jerks

The prescribed weight was 135 and we were given 15 minutes to complete it. I scaled the weight to 115#. When the clock expired I had completed 3 front rack lunges in the round of 9. So I came up 15 reps short.

It’s always so easy to get caught up in what we didn’t do. I know I’m not the only one. Then I got to thinking about what I did do today.

During our skill work today I pulled off an 8 or so second free standing handstand. I kicked up to the wall to set myself then leaned out away from the wall and stayed there! It was an awesome feeling. Even better than doing it was having a witness! As soon as my feet hit the floor I was looking around to see if anyone saw me. My buddy Mike called out immediately, “I saw that, Paul! Awesome!”

So that happened today and that’s pretty damn cool.

When I got home I pulled out a calculator. There were 135 possible reps in this METCON. I did 120.

120 reps x 115 pounds is 13,800 freaking pounds! I moved 6.9 tons of weight in 15 minutes this morning! Safely!

I think it’s fair to call that an accomplishment.

So remember folks, don’t get down about what you didn’t do. Catch your breath and take pride in what you did accomplish!

 

busy week so far

Sunday,
I went to the 11am session alone on Sunday. Erin stayed home with the kids as Lil Bit had been sick the night before. We were both up repeatedly through the night tending her, so I was feeling very sluggish.

for the strength session I did 3 sets of 6 push press at 155# just at 70% of 1RM. The last set was VERY heavy.

METCON
50-40-30-20-10
Power Cleans (115)
Box Jump Overs 24″
Push Jerks (115)
T2B
Teams of 2 – 25 minute cap

So here’s how this one worked. You and your partner do 50 reps total of each of the listed exercises. Split them up anyway you like but you must complete all 50 reps of one exercise before moving on to the next.

I got to the box early and watched the preceding session. Not one team finished this METCON and there were some very strong teams in that group. Three things became apparent at that moment: 1) This was not going to be a WOD that I would finish. It was simply one that I was going to endure. 2) I was going to need to scale back the weights. I took them to 95#. 3) This was gonna hurt.

My partner and I did ok. We spent the entire 25 minutes in motion working in alternating sets of 10. I had completed 2 push presses in the round of 30 when Coach Laurie called time.

I felt that workout ALL DAY long.

Tuesday
While the main group worked on cleans today, I elected to work on the rings and practice handstand holds. Just sort of felt like being upside down today, I guess.

For the ring work, I did an 8 minute EMOM – Hold 1 inversion for a slow 5 count, then 3 skin the cats. This was a lot of fun. Useful for anything other than shoulder mobility and body control? I’m not sure, but I enjoyed it and there’s value in that.

Handstand holds went really well. I’m getting kind of excited about these. This is a skill that is just recently emerging and that’s always cool. I can’t kick into a freestanding handstand yet. However, I can kick up to the wall, nudge myself off and hold an unsupported handstand for 3-5 seconds. That’s progress!

I joined the group for the prescribed METCON

21-15-9-15-21
Power cleans 135
Push Ups
Do 40 double unders after each round
15 minute time cap

I scaled the weights to 115#. For the rounds of 21 and 15, I broke the exercises into 3 descending sets. So 8 reps, 7 reps, 6 reps for the round of 21 and 6,5,4 for the round of 15.

Double unders were sloppy. That was annoying because I ran off a really crisp set of 10 just before we got under way. I was feeling very encouraged about them. Then they evaporated. They were by far the most time consuming element of this METCON.

When Coach Lindsay called time after the assigned 15 minutes elapsed, I had gotten through the round of 9 and completed two additional power cleans.

Looking forward to a rest day tomorrow.

 

experimenting in the gym

Today was another one of those days where any casual passerby who looked inside the CFD window would probably scratch their head and wonder, “what the heck is going on in there?”

Here’s the WOD for Tuesday 010312
Gymnastics
Pick 1 or 2 skills an practice for 20 minutes
–Rest–
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Reps For Time:
DB Thrusters
Knees To Elbows

Anyone who passed by the gym in the first 20-30 minutes would have witnessed a very diverse collection of exercises going on. A couple of examples, some folks working on handstands, a few swinging from rings, some (including me) squatting using only one leg onto stools and then standing back up again. It just struck me that it would have looked very chaotic from the outside looking in.

Coach Jack had us warm up with a minute of single unders. That went pretty smoothly. He followed that up with a minute of double unders. That did not start out smoothly for anyone. There were 7 or 8 of us this morning. The first shot at double unders was a synchronized failure. Almost to the person, we took a couple of warm up singles, then attempted a double under and as far as I could see we  all failed on that first attempt. We ended up standing there looking around the gym at one another in confusion. It was kind of amusing. Other folks found their rhythms very quickly. I did not. I did lots of single rep double unders this morning.

After we put the jump ropes away, Jack moved us over to the rings to continue the warm ups. We set the rings at ring dip height, elevated ourselves, locked our arms and held that elevated position for 10 seconds. I was surprised to discover I could do this. Bodyweight/stability exercises are a real challenge for me. It’s one of the areas I’ll be paying attention to in the coming year, but this I could do. Of course, Jack had more in store for us.

Next, we elevated and at his direction rotated our arms/wrists so that our clenched fists were no longer facing our sides, but turned out so that they were facing forward. OW! I could not maintain this for more than a second or two. I had to do multiple sets to get the required accumulated 10 seconds of hang time.

Jack then took this to another level. Elevate, turn hands out, and then do controlled descent executing a negative rep. Do 5 reps. Given I couldn’t really support my weight in this position, this was really just 5 more reps of what I’d done the previous set.

I’m really enjoying the free form pick your own gymnastics skill and practice format. I like being able to experiment on things that I’ve never tried before. However, I need to develop a bit more focus and set more precise goals for myself to make the most of the time.

For gymnastics, my primary focus was on pistols again. I used a 17″ box for support at the bottom of my range of motion. I did 4 sets. 5 reps on the right leg each set. I did a total of 22 reps on the left hand side. I wanted to add a few more on that side to work my weak side. I should have defined how many I was going to do (ie: 2 left leg reps for every 1 right leg rep, or something to that effect). I would have gotten more out of it, if I had clearer goals. Lesson learned. Next time. It’s a fine line for me though. I like having specific goals, but there’s a tipping point where it’s easy for me to get overly analytical and critical, if I’m too specific. Today was definitely a day though where I would have benefited from some more precise planning. On the up side, this is only the second time I’ve tried pistols and the reps already felt a bit better than last time. That’s likely because I’m more familiar with the motion.

I also did a few hand stands. I was simply trying to satisfy my own curiosity for this one. I wanted to know if I could hold an unsupported handstand. If I start out supported on the wall then shift my weight a bit, I can hold a hand stand for at most 5 sec. It’s a question of balance and familiarity/comfort with being inverted not strength. Just need to keep practicing.

For the METCON, I probably under acheived. I went with 25# dumb bells for the thrusters. I probably should have done at least 30#. I initially grabbed 40’s and experimented with a few reps. My left arm wasn’t having any of that. I think I overreacted and scaled too far back. The advantage of using the lighter dumb bells meant I was more strict/conscientious of form during the thrusters. I really paid attention to exploding my hips through the reps.

I substituted Toe Raises for Knees to Elbows as well. See this photo of Lil Bit?

Lil Bit's closer to a legit KTE than Daddy right now

Got through the METCON in 7:05. It was a very intense workout.

Not a bad day. In fact, I enjoyed the workout a lot. It just was not a ‘whoo-hoo I get to celebrate a PR’ sort of day. One of those days where I remember how far I have to go in all of this. I just keep reminding myself. Take it one day at a time. Try to go just a little bit further this time than you did the last time and then it still counts as progress.

 

catch up post

Catching up a bit. While I haven’t been posting, I have been exercising and that’s significant.

We traveled for the holidays to my in-laws and had a fantastic time. I’ll probably post more on that separately later, but for now let’s stick to the fitness of the matter.

Before traveling, I tried to locate a Crossfit gym in the area I could visit. Crossfit Ithaca, if you’re out there and stumble on this blog, your website is atrocious. There’s no indication that there’s any exercise going on in your box. It’s useless! I did locate Crossfit Binghamton and connected with them via e-mail about 3 weeks prior to traveling. I elected not to work out with them though. The gym was about 20 miles from my in-laws home and the only sessions they were offering while I was in town were going to be at 6pm.I certainly don’t begrudge anyone the opportunity to limit their hours of operation to spend time with their own families. However, for the same reason, that time simply wasn’t convenient for me. I would have been out of the house during family dinner times. I wasn’t willing to compromise that time away from my family during a holiday vacation. Fortunately, Crossfit Durham has a solution for that, Travel WODs. 75 workouts based on bodyweight exercises, running and a jump rope!

On Friday I tackled one of the travel WODs that I’ve been wanting to try for some time, 200 air squats for time. I don’t know why this one appealed to me, but I had to try it. The answer is 7:34. I might be capable of doing better. I’ll try it again someday, but not any time soon. I’m not exaggerating when I say that from Friday through Sunday, I was two-footing every step when descending the stairs in my in-laws home. The muscles in my thighs and around my knees were all so tight and sore that I truly didn’t trust them to support my full weight coming down stairs in the standard one foot per step fashion. Man! That was rough!

Just like any normal week I took  the weekend off. Monday I let the boy pick my workout. I figured, if I was home, I’d face the same situation. I’d go to the gym and do whatever Dave had programmed. I wouldn’t cherry pick a WOD. So I told Whirlwind, “pick a number between 1 and 75.” He went with 35. The WOD was run 1 mile for time. Stop every minute and do 10 push ups. I finished this one in 11:53. In the strictest sense, some folks may say I cheated. I’m confident the spirit of the WOD is begin running and at the top of every minute do 10 push ups. So if at the end of the first minute the push ups took 20 secs, then you would only run 40 seconds and do 10 more push ups when the stop watch turned to the second minute. I elected to run for 60 seconds from the end of the push ups. Did I cheat? You be the judge. In truth, I’m not particularly concerned with anyone’s opinion. Working out while on vacation was not really about the results of the WODs.

It was less about the physical exercise and more about exercising the mental discipline to maintain my current work habits. I didn’t have to have stellar workouts, but I did HAVE to work out. So in that sense, I feel I was successful. I did allow myself an extra rest day. I did not workout on Tuesday as I normally would. My legs felt so heavy from Friday’s work out that running that mile was just a complete plodding clop.

Getting into the gym today was fantastic! Since I’m on vacation, I used the opportunity to sleep in and attend a later class session. I went to the 8:30 session and worked out with 4 other folks.

Coach Ryan lead us through a warm up of kettle bell complexes. 8 one arm swings, one arm rows, and presses. I believe we did the entire complex 3 times on each arm. Then it was on to the WOD.

WOD for Thursday 122911
20 minutes of gymnastics practice (choose your own skill)

I elected to work on pistols (simply because I’ve never worked on them before) and handstands. Ryan showed me how to scale back the pistols using a 17″ box. I’ve got SO much work to do there. I also learned that my left side is FAR more unstable compared to my right. Definitely need to pay attention to that.

were fun. Katie P and I were both working hand stands and after observing each of us hold a hand stand for an extended period, he showed us some variations we could attempt to test our strength and balance. Specifically, he challenged us to try while inverted to lift one hand off the floor quickly and touch the shoulder on that side then return the hand to the floor. Katie and I joked for a bit to the effect of what the hell? It’s been a long time since either of us had a decent nosebleed, so why not?

I tried one time to touch my shoulder and collapsed to my feet immediately. While I still need to develop a lot of strength, I think the problem is largely mental. Ryan then pointed out that if the touch to the shoulder was too much, just try taking turns lifting each hand off the floor very slightly and returning it. I did this a few times and can do it anywhere from 4-8 times. The unintended consequence of this action is that I ended up not just doing a handstand, but walking on my hands for a few steps. That was pretty damn cool!

METCON
13-12-11-10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Reps For Time:
KB Swings (52/35)
Burpees
There is a 10 minute time cap

In true Crossfit fashion, it’s the simple ones that’ll kill ya! This METCON was tough. It doesn’t help your mindset when one of the coaches participating in your session points out that he’s watched two other classes already go through this WOD and has only seen 2 people complete it. Real confidence booster.

In spite of that, I elected to honor my kettle bell resolution and work this one Rx with a 52lb kettle bell. I was willing to accept that it was going to compromise how far I got down the ladder. Honestly, I don’t feel like the kettle bell held me back. Slogging through the burpees was the tough part. All my kettle bell swings, done Russian style, were unbroken. But I really felt like I was just trudging through the burpees. In the end, I got through the round of 6. I was pretty pleased with that.