Tuesday June 28

SWOD- Deadlift 3,3,2,2,1
Felt great today deadlifting.. I am down about 7-9 lbs (depends on the day) from the last time I deadlifted really heavy so I was curious how this would go for me..
Started off with a couple of quick warmups with kettlebells and rowing power generation.. Then got right to the good stuff..
My lifts were 315x3, 345x3, 365x2, 385x2 (PR! on a double), 405x1... I tied my previous 1 rep max down 7 lbs minimum.. If that doesn't prove to folks that CrossFit works, I don't know what will.. I think I should have added 2.5's and just tried for 410 for kicks.. next time..

WOD-

Run 800m

30 Ring Dips

30 Burpee Pull ups

Run 800m

Time- 12:33

Ring Dips felt good.. Probably something like 8,7,5,3,3,2,2.. As fast as I could..

Burpee Pull ups are weird.. The bar is too low so when I jump even a little bit I am halfway up the pull up.. Probably cheated these unintentionally.. But whatever.. not a huge deal..

Run felt better today than yesterday.. Still not great at pacing it out.. 800 is a weird distance for me.. I feel like I need to just jog it out until the last 200 and then turn it on at the very end. Unlike a 400 where I can basically go with an all out max effort the entire run.. Really strange..

Monday June 27

SWOD - Handstand Pushups 3x10

Hit 10 in a row.. New PR for me.. the next two sets were something like 7,2,1.. and then 4,2,2,1,1 with 1 abmat.. I tire out with this really really fast.. I hate that..

WOD- 

Run 800m

30 C&J @ 115

Run 800m

Time = 11:35

I had this one pegged as a 10 minute WOD but I did not account for how tired I would be on the second run.. good god.. I figured 3.5 minutes for each half mile.. and a 3 minute mini grace.. seems simple right?

WRONG...

My calf was cramping up a little from having run the WD in Five Fingers this weekend and I don't think I was fully hydrated.. stupid mistake on my part..

I think the breakdown was something like 3:50 first 800.. (I jogged, not ran).. 3+minutes on the C&J.. then like 4:20 on the way in with the 800 run.. felt like my feet were in mud for the last 200 meters.. yikes.. good workout though..

So excited for this week of WODs and vacation this weekend..

Sunday June 26

Rest Day..

Playing some much needed golf at TPC Boston with the crew.. Hoping I break 100.. First swings of the year..

Saturday June 25

Great week of training capped off by Warrior Dash.. Terrific.
Props to the folks riding in the 150 mile MS Bike Ride to the Cape.. I will be doing that next year..

I hit a quick WOD this morning to get warmed up for the day.. ended up being a really good sprint workout..

Team WOD

Move from station to station as the teammate in front of you finishes his reps

200 m Row

10 KB Snatches (change arms as needed)

5 Clapping Pushups

Sprint 50 feet

5 HSPU

10 Box Jumps

Fun one, saw 1:24-1:26 almost the entire time during my first row. I wonder if I can break 1:30 on the 500 m sprint now.. that would be cool.. haven't done that in a while..

As for Warrior Dash, great event, really fun little race.. about 3 miles of pure mud... My time wasn't outstanding because I felt like I spent half of the time trying to ensure my footing to not roll an ankle or there was a fat person in front of me. Regardless it was fun to do.. I really enjoyed the high wall climb and the fire jump, thought those were cool obstacles.. Will post pictures as they become available..

Friday June 24

SWOD- Power Cleans 5x3
165, 185, 185, 195, 195
Felt pretty good today on these.. tried to focus on keeping my grip the whole way through.. I have a tendency to get my pinky and ring finger loose at the rack position and just drop it.. need to keep it together the whole way through to string reps better.. I had missed on 205 in weeks past so I tried to go slightly below to make sure I could do 195 first before jumping up too fast again..

WOD- Lynne

5 RFT (not really time though)

Max Floor Press @ BW

Max Pullups

Welcome to the gun show.. This one was straight up all arms and upper body.. felt good though.. I managed 102 reps total. I believe the breakdown was 32 and 70..

For Bench 15, 5, 4, 4, 4

For Pullups 26, 12, 12, 11, 9

Triceps burned out really quick, but that first set of 15 presses felt awesome.. haven't cranked that out in a long time.. This was a good "Jake" workout.. Thought of him after it was over.. 

Warrior Dash tomorrow.. w00t!

Thursday June 23

SWOD- Pistols 3x10

Used a small box on these.. felt pretty good actually, starting to get the hang of the balance a little more and stringing them together while staying on heels.. it'll come.. but these are definitely one that fires up my hamstrings on every rep..

WOD- Kelsu's Bitter Ex-GF

100 Thrusters for time @115#

Every minute on the minute, 5 burpees

This was absolutely horrible.. I had some food poisoning stomach thing going on.. literally I was on the toilet 40 seconds before the 3-2-1 GO on this one.. I just felt terrible.. Almost pukey, almost fluey, but just well enough that I knew I could finish.. I started out with like 13 thrusters right in a row in the first minute.. then immediately after just fell off a truck.. I basically did sets of 4 or 5 with a couple resting minutes until the end.. Managed to get in just under the cap with 24:39 as my time.. Definitely miscounted a couple burpees in my delirium, but whatever.. That sucked.. I don't know how I could ever do that with 135 on the bar.. I would take an hour.. it would legit turn into 1 at a time.. Gah-Ross..

Wednesday June 22

Rest day..

Practiced a couple double unders and some butterfly pull ups after coaching.. but nothing major.. just some skills..

Tuesday June 21

Worked some handstands today in the warmup.. I really need to practice these.. Need to have someone hold my legs so I can find that balance point.. I keep "not going far enough up" for a bunch in a row and then I overcompensate and flip right over with the ugliest round-off you have ever seen..

SWOD- Ring Dips 3x10.. Hit all 30 reps with no band.. all unbroken sets of 10.. very happy.. progress from previous weeks..

WOD-

8-6-4-2

SDLHP 135#

HSPU

Time 2:51

The first set of HSPUs felt the best they ever have.. but I burned out really quickly.. it became doubles and single really fast.. SDLHPs were challenging but doable.. last couple got right to nipple level and not much higher.. need to generate a little more power from the legs and use less arm when I am tired.. Need to keep this in mind for FGB..
Legs Legs Legs.. drill it into my skull..

Overall happy with this one.. but definitely two skills to keep working on when they come up.

Monday June 20

Back at it bright and early Monday morning... nothing like 6 am box squats to get back into it..

SWOD: Box Squats 3x5... I hit 225, 245 and 255.. Should have gone heavier for one more set of 5.. time was a factor because the WOD was to be a lengthy one.
These felt surprisingly good to be honest.. The weight felt good on my shoulders, not too heavy like it does sometimes..

WOD: Regional Team WOD
4 people complete, with one athlete going at a time.
250 Pull up
250 KB Swings 1.5/1
250 Double Unders
250 OH Squat 95/65

Our team (myself, Brie, Sam, and Mike M.) got capped at 25 minutes.. We probably would have finished in the 30 minute range, ballpark.

I probably did something around 70 of the pull ups (sets of 8-15, scattered), 70 of the KB swings (20, 25, 25), Double unders sucked today (couldn't get any sets above 20 or 25 going good), and 25 of the OHS before we got capped at 91 OHS total.. 159 short.. O well..

I think this would have been more fun but way more tiring if we did 2 people go at a time to lessen the rest.. It got a little easy in the middle waiting for double unders..

Weekend June 18-19

Good eating.. back to training Monday..
And for the love of God back to Paleo.. good lord to I feel awful after that binge..

Its out of my system now though, back to hard training before the throwdown and getting some GOATs kicked off my list this summer..

HSPUs and Pistols, I'm looking at you guys.

Friday June 17

On vacation in Charlotte for the weekend for some southern hospitality and sun.. Managed to get in a little WOD at the mini fitness center where I was staying.. The posted WOD was the Russian KB Snatch test, which called for 5 minutes running clock, and 100 KB snatches to be completed, no limit on amount of arm swtiching.

I was able to use a 50 lb dumbbell, close enough to the 54 lbs of 1.5 pood for me. I set me phone to 5 minutes and got after it.. Unfortunately my phone screen shuts off after like a minute so I really had no idea how much time was left from about the 30th rep onward and I think that ruined me.. I tried to switch arms every 5 reps to keep it quick and with low rest times.. I got to 90 in the minutes, but to be perfectly honest I almost wasn't even smoked at the end of it and easily had 10 reps left in me.. Dumb mistake, live and learn.. Next time I would also favor the right arm because I have a little more control on the way down going for multiple reps. Could probably save some time doing like 7 reps right arm, then 5 reps left arm, and alternated that way.. Food for thought...

Now onto a vacation of lousy eating.. End of Paleo challenge gorging begins now.

Thursday June 16 (2)

So. My arm felt better as today went along and I got some actual bloodflow going.. Sitting at my desk made me bored as well and I wanted to just throw some shit around before getting on a plane tonight for the dirty south. Ryan let me know he was going to be able to hit the posted WOD around 2 so I gladly obliged and bailed on work early to move some weights.

I was sort of time crunched so I went through the motions on some overhead squats.. Didn't hit any really good or heavy sets, didn't have good focus for it today.

WOD: 

21 Deadlift @ 225#

30 air squats

21 Push Jerk @135#

15 DL

30 Squats

15 PJ

9 DL

30 Squats

9 PJ

Time: 8:39

I actually felt a lot better on this than I thought I was going to.. it looked really daunting on the whiteboard. I tried to do the Jerks in sets of about 5 or 6 the whole way through which went pretty well.. A couple of the reps were questionable (didn't quite stand up tall at the top) but I was trying to get a clean rhythm going through each small subset so I won't lose sleep over a couple reps that were not competition standard. 

I need to improve my wrist flexibility for long WODs with sets of jerks and cleans.. At the rack position my wrists get crampy (made that word up) after a bunch of reps in a row.. Need to work out the kinks there so that is not a limiting thing for me.

Side note: I wish I could watch the regionals this weekend at Reebok Crossfit ONE, but I am headed to Charlotte, NC for the first time.. Should be great. Southern BBQ is one of my favorite so I plan on consuming many many dead animals slathered in various sauces.. YUM..

Thursday June 16

Elbow is flaring up again.. Gonna let it rest today.. Doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason when the tendinitis comes back, but its really annoying.. Its just enough numbness to make me not want to work out and make it worse, but just tame enough that I feel like a big cop out skipping a WOD.. Oh well..

Hopefully can get back at it in Charlotte tomorrow at Ultimate Crossfit. It will be fun to try and see a new box and how they run things different from my own at FCF.

Wednesday June 15

Low key day, mostly tried to rest, but I messed around a little between coaching sessions..

Hit a new PR on double unders.. 69.. Cannot wait until the day I break 100.. that will be sweet..
At this point with double unders I can either not even make it to 15, or once I break 15 I can get above 50 no problem.. such a weird skill..

I did the optional endurance WOD.. One tabata segment on the spin bike at a moderate resistance.. full sprint max effort on the 20 second intervals.. My legs hurt quite a bit after that.. walked to the parking lot like a duck.. good time..

Go BRUINS!

Tuesday June 14

Paleo Benchmarks Day 2 of 2

I dreaded this 2k row all day.. it is such a mental thing for me.. I was determined to try to find a way to make that middle 1000 meters go by quickly without losing breath or completely gassing out.. but it didn't quite happen that way..

My goal was to not let the splits get below 1:47 come hell or high water.. but I definitely let it slip to the 1:50 area quite a bit in the middle.. Oh well..

I was hoping my first 500 of about 1:36 would carry me under 7 minutes, but again, didn't quite end that way.. I found myself at about the 1300m mark completely gasping for breath without a sprint left in me (so I thought), which pissed me off.. the 1300-1700m stretch felt like it abbbsoluuutelyyyyy crawled by at about a 1:50 clip.. but for the last 300m I was able to turn it on and save face for a new PR of 7:07.8.. better than my previous 7:09.3..

I'll take a second and a half PR any day on a max effort cardio benchmark, but that 7 minute mark is still staring me in the face as something I fucking HAVE to break one of these times when I am totally jacked up or something.. Like I said, happy with the PR, but there is definitely a barrier that I want to break on this particular event.. Its within reach.

Side Note: Today, one of my favorite things about CrossFit emerged.. I haven't practiced rowing barely AT ALL over this 60 day challenge.. I think maybe 2 WODs total in 2 months had a rowing component.. and I still was able to get a little better or at least stay consistent.. Pretty cool when you think about it..

Imagine not throwing a curveball for 2 months and then coming right back to the mound cold and having a nasty 12-6 deuce on your first warmup pitch in the bullpen.. Love it.

Monday June 13

Paleo Benchmarks, Day 1 of 2..

I can't believe how fast that 60 days went by.. In the past 2 months I have become level 1 certified, lost 7 lbs, added 20 lbs to my full range of motion 1 RM squat, and added 4 strict dead hang chinups to my repertoire. Pretty cool stuff..

I am amazed and surprised how easy Paleo was to stick to for 80% of the time just by looking at things and asking myself "is this pretty much just meat, fruit and veggies?".. If the answer was yes, I ate as much as I wanted of it.. If the answer was no, I would need a damn good reason for eating it.. (most times I cheated were parties or situations when I wouldn't have the opportunity to eat again for like 6 hours and I just needed something, no matter the quality of the food.)

SWOD/WOD:
1RM Back Squat ATG, full range of motion
Max Strict Pull Ups

Max Squat = 275.. missed on 285.. (up from 255 60 days ago)
Max Pull ups (chin up grip) - 20  (+4)

I think for the most part, the squat increase is due to an improved flexibility and the chin-ups are due to me losing some weight.. I would like to crack into the 300s with squatting, but its a slow race, not a sprint, I will get there.

Even though this 60 day challenge is over, I don't really plan on changing much in the way of my nutrition from here on out.. I like the way I feel and I like the way I look.. I do look forward to not writing down everything I eat, since I mostly keep it up my head anyway. But besides that I think Paleo is here to stay.. If just for an 80% basis. I will probably re-introduce whey protein, peanut butter, some cheese and maybe some greek yogurt a little bit here and there.. But I think bread and pasta are a no-go from now on.. I just end up feeling lousy and tired when I eat those 2 items now, its weird.. I didn't really believe the science of the insulin spike getting all out of whack, but its really really really true.. pretty crazy how scientists are right..

Sat-Sun June 11-12

I had a grad party out of state on Saturday and pigged out.. Cheese & Cracker plates and M&M's will forever be a weakness when it comes to cheat days.. Oh well..

Sunday I hit it hard on the foam roller, yoga and generally stretching.. I want to feel money for this coming week for benchmarks post-paleo challenge.. I will give a reflection on that later, but after feeling so sore in my wrist, calf, and shoulders last week I just need a weekend to completely stay away from anything heavy or taxing.. Sleeping 10 hours last night was also lovely..

I need to figure out a way to eat even remotely healthy at family party/celebration type events.. I find that I always completely break down 20 minutes into the party and eat 3 cupcakes and a huge plate of pasta when I could just as easily have gone for the chicken and salad and not deterred from my enjoyment of the party whatsoever.. Learning process I guess.

Foam rollers are awesome..

Friday June 10

Got up bright and early this morning to start planning some logistics for the FCF Throwdown July.. Got me all juiced up for it.. Cannot wait.

SWOD: Snatch 5x3
Tried to see how I felt on this today.. always a little tough to string snatches together since its such an all out effort lift.
Sets went 115, 125, 130,135, 140..

The 140 was sort of hideous to be honest, but all 3 reps did get overhead.. so it counted for something.. I want to work on dropping into more of a squat to prep for doing heavier weights.. Need the balance to land an OHS position better and then 160 is not out of the question for me right now..

WOD:

1000m Row

30 HSPUs

100 Double Unders

Row went in about 3:26, HSPUs I was able to knock out 17 Rx'd and the remaining 13 I was able to get with 1 abmat.. Not what I wanted but I am not bent out of shape about it. HSPUs have been a nemesis of mine since day one at CrossFit.. I will conquer them yet. Double unders were not spectacular.. Calf was cramping up a little again.. Hit about 50 in the middle but the remainder were all 10s or singles/fuck ups.. annoying.. I want to be able to get like 70 and then 30 soon.. its an easy enough skill to practice every day.. No excuses it shouldn't improve drastically this summer.

Time- 10:38

Thursday June 9

 

Felt pretty good about the WOD today.. Last time I did the dirty 30 I was pretty sick but pushed through it because I am a stubborn asshole sometimes. Today I felt money so I wanted to crush it.

Strength WOD was a cute little overhead complex..

3 sets of 1 Press, 3 Push Press, 5 Push Jerk  all with the same loaded bar in a row..

I am generally really limited by my strict press on these sorts of things and wasn't sure if I would be able to hit my previous PR of 140. But low and behold I warmed up, then hit 125, 135 and decided I would go for it on my last set. As I stepped away with the bar loaded I didn't quite take a deep enough breath and missed the rep 2 inches above my chin.. let it come back to rest.. took a huge breath, tightened up and repped it out slow as all hell.. but got it.. then finished the remaining push press and jerks.. Felt good.

The Dirty 30

SDLHP 75#

Pull ups

Thruster 75#

Push ups

Hang Power Clean 75#

K2E

Box Jumps 24"

Walking Lunges

Squats

Burpees

Time - 13:56

This was a total sweatfest but one of my favorite chippers minus the K2E.. Need to figure out a way to do those faster..

Wednesday June 8

Tried something new after coaching today. An optional CF Endurance WOD which called for 9 minutes all-out effort on any of the monostructural cardio devices of my choosing. From the options of bike, swim, row and run I went with trying out the new spin bikes because I haven't ridden in months and I had just run some hills on Tuesday.

I warmed up for a minute to get used to the bike and play with the resistance settings then got right into it.. Not a whole lot of detail worth getting into but that was certainly a sweaty way to end the day. Hopefully these optional endurance WODs become more regular so I can build up some better stamina for benchmarks I have been looking to improve like the 400m, 1 mile run and the 2K Row. Every little bit helps.