Wednesday May 30

Unscheduled but completely necessary rest day.

I felt like complete crap today physically. Literally everything hurts. I think it took 2 days for the full DOMS from Murph to set it.. and set in it did.. WOW.

I came into the gym with the intention of powering through and just said fuck it approximately 15 seconds into a warm up.. just not happening.

Tuesday May 29th

Feeling quite sore from Murph, but not as bad as last year where I legitimately could not move for 2 days.

Posted a video here..of WOD1

I did a douple dip today because I know the "death by" rep format usually is more of a practice session for me, not a ridiculously taxing one, since there is a lot of rest built in.

I did "Death by Atlas Stones" in the video above per StrongmanWOD.com from last week. I wanted to try that one out. I am definitely getting stronger. I could not do the 145# stone with a "one-timer" pull before today. Today I ripped it 27 times with no failed reps. Really happy.

For the second WOD, as promised last week, I am getting back to "goats"..
Today I chose two opposite body parts to fuck with. Pistols and kipping HSPU.

I suck at pistols and I literally have never tried kipping HSPU, so today was as good a day as any to try it.
I saw so many people successful with this at Regionals on Friday that it motivated me to just give it a shot and try to perfect it eventually..
My pistols I did with a 10lb plate beneath my heel, which is better than the 15 lb plate I usually use. So, progress?
Next time I will try a small 5lb change plate and see how that goes..

I got to minute 6 + 6 reps on the stones, and I got to minute 8 or so on the Pistols/HSPU, but then I started back over and practiced some more.

Wendy did not know I was taking some video to check my form so she appears toward the end right in front. whoops..

My back is getting too much curvature on the HSPU, need to get more hollow on those.. and get everything more organized.. Oh well, good for a first try at something new, especially since gymnastics are not my thing.


Goat WOD here

Memorial Day weekend update

Thursday
Rest - wanted to do Helen, but I am glad I didn't.. I needed a day to cool down..

Friday
Was super amazingly crazy excited to go to Reebok today for the Regionals so I got up at asscrack of dawn to workout, which I pretty much never do. (or at least when I do, I never do well)..

Low and behold, all these weeks/months of rowing strapless in all my warm ups amounted to something, as I PR'd my 500m row. 1:28.7.. I am extremely happy with this.
Unfortunately, I was so dead from this one sprint, I almost did not do the WOD at all.. You can ask anyone there that morning, I was legit pale in the face after the 500 and my hands were still shaking 10 minutes later..
I did the WOD anyway and just paced it, since I knew I was limited by the snatches regardless..
I was able to get up to 8 rounds + 6 reps in the 10 minute cap. I never even really thought about if that was good or not.. I just did all singles all the barbell and on the box jumps, and just tried to stay steady.

Saturday/Sunday - away in Albany for a couple days of family parties/BBQs, etc.. I managed to stay away from the booze all weekend, but was pretty defenseless against delicious cakes and brownies.. oh well.. Back to the nutrition bandwagon on Monday I guess..



Monday

"Murph"
Run 1 Mile
100 Pull Ups
200 Push Ups
300 Squats
Run 1 Mile

Time - 48:20 Rx'd plus 20 lb weight vest

Thus hurt a lot. But nothing compared to giving your life for your country on the battlefield. Every time I checked out mentally I tried to think about that. It definitely helped on all the push ups.
This was a little weird from a pure performance standpoint.. (like outside the obvious mental hurdle of this WOD)..
I paced the first run excessively (9 minutes), tried to space out the calisthenics with unbroken sets as best I could. Oddly, the pull ups felt great.. even with the vest. I did all 20 sets of 5 unbroken and never even really thought about breaking them up.. Push Ups mostly were unbroken, save a couple of sets. It was strange because with the vest on, the range of motion is smaller which helps, but its so much damn heavier, that it sort of evens out. The squats.. sucked.. I don't know if my legs were just fried from a weekend being crammed in the car or my balance point being all thrown off from the vest, but I could not for the life of my find a rhythm with the stupid squats. Usually when I do Cindy I knock those out and it all comes down to the push ups, but today the squats slaughtered me time-wise.. The second run I owe a lot to Nick, who I caught up with at about Jasset St.. We wanted to jog it in together.. One the way back with about 400 m to go I was humming the national anthem in my head because it gets me fired up and Nick was just like "I don't know about you, but I am just thinking about Lt. Murphy in some desert in the middle of fucking nowhere getting shot at by AK-47s, if that doesn't numb the pain, I don't know what will".. Obviously from there on in, I did not stop running. Great day, Great WOD, Great Memorial.  

Killinit.com

This has been an awesome week..

Like one of my favorite in recent memory. I am super excited for the Regionals this weekend, the WODs I have been doing are sort of "wheelhouse WODs", and the FCF community is just extra awesome. I love it here so much.

I feel like once in a while, you need to ignore the "drill your weaknesses" theories of CrossFit and just fucking do what you are good at.. Its a nice confidence boost.. I will get back to Overhead squats, squat snatches and pistols at some point, but for this past week I am just doing what feels right. I don't have any really specific competitions that I am training for right now, so I am more than happy to lift heavy barbells and do burpees..

Tuesday

"Superfly"

4 Muscle Ups

8 HSPU

20 Burpees

100 Double Unders

20 Burpees

8 HSPU

4 Muscle Ups

Time - 7:28 Rx'd

This was a "drop off a cliff" WOD for me, got through the vast majority unbroken and feeling confident, and then hit the second set of HSPUs and just fell from the stratosphere. The last 4 reps of HSPU were a grind and the last 4 Muscle Ups were a struggle. I think I was done with the first set of burpees at 1:38 which was way faster than I thought I could do, but then I got hung up a little on the DUs (no huge sets, all just 15s and 20s up to the 100).. the second set of burpees I paced a little bit in preparation for the last 12 reps. 

I really need to learn to kip HSPUs one of these days.. Going strict is so hard when you get fatigued.

Happy to do muscle ups today, have not done them in a while and they are one of my favorite skill movements when my shoulders are feeling good.

Wednesday

Snatch Grip DLs

8x2 @235 for speed

Nothing special here, just worked on getting really low on my stance and keeping form throughout. 235 is typically quite manageable, but holy fuck does it smoke your hook grip.. damn.

"The Chief"

5 rounds of:

3 Min AMRAP

3 PC 135#

6 Push Ups

9 Air squats

Rest 1 min between rounds

Scores: 5+1, 4+15, 5, 5, 5

Wow. Awesome WOD. This burned like crazy.. The rest hardly helped at all. It only made the first reps of each round feel easy, and then I fell right back into the same muscle fatigue and heavy breathing I was at beforehand.

I found a level of consistency after the 2nd round that I pushed myself to stick to. The key was just doing the power cleans unbroken, the push ups unbroken, and pacing the air squats just enough to catch your breath before the next round of barbell action. Really, really liked this one. Fun to work out with the 6AMers as well, I have been lone wolfing too much, enjoying getting back to the class setting again.

Monday May 21st

 

"Heavy Grace"

30 Clean & Jerks for time

185#

Time - 8:58

So, I watched the video of Rob Orlando today doing Grace at 300# and was inspired. I also wanted to do something heavy yet awful. My whole upper traps and neck were feeling tight/weird, so I opted out of back squats and replaced it with this little beauty.

This was actually better than I expected this to go, I don't know if I underestimated myself, or if I just paced it correctly, but I had 15 minutes more in mind as what I was gonna finish at (something like 2 reps spaced out per minute).. But I was able to do more like 3 or 4 reps per minute all the way through, nice and steady.

I power cleaned and push jerked every rep, never had to go to the split, which saved some time.. I wish I had taped this to see if my form degraded at all, but honestly rep #28 felt just like rep #8.. It was just a matter of executing while I was breathing heavy and sweating grossly everywhere..

Good mental wall to break down.. I may try this at 200 at some point down the line just to say I did it. 

Back to regularly scheduled programming for the week. Muscle ups tomorrow and "The Chief" on Wednesday.. WOOT.

Weekend Update

Saturday

"McGhee"
AMRAP 30
5 DL @275
13 Push Ups
9 Box Jumps

We ended up doing this in partners, trading rounds, which I don't really think effected my score all that much to be honest.. I needed plenty of rest on that heavy DL each time, and the rest also made it so I could do the push ups either straight through or in a 10/3 split the entire time..
I said beforehand that even a day where I would do like 5x5 275 DLs would be a hefty day, let alone way more than that...

I ended up doing 12 rounds + change.. I did all of the DLs in unbroken sets but it got really challenging by the end when my lower back and legs were fatigued.. I did all of the box jumps with a rebound to save time and those felt great..

The way we paced the beginning was manageable for me.. about a round a minute.. But it was not sustainable by the end..

I think on my own I may have gotten a few more rounds, but not much more.. The rest times were crucial to let my posterior chain recover so I was ready to rock each time I got to the barbell..



Sunday
Rest like whoa. Needed a day off.. Lots of coach, sun, and bbq skewers..

(possibly the easiest paleo thing ever, right? Chicken and veggies, stab with a stick, grill, enjoy.. so good..)

Thursday & Friday May 17th-18th

Thursday night 6PM

 

Skill work - Turkish Get Ups

Messed around with these for 10-12 minutes, left shoulder felt loosey goosey the whole time.. I was able to get the 70# KB up with both arms and then tried a loaded 75# barbell with my right hand with success.. I think I could do a little more but probably anything over 100 with my shoulder stability.. I get wobbly once my grip loosens even a tiny bit.. 

"Ocean State WOD #1"

10 min AMRAP

12 DL 

9 HPC

6 S2O

Run 200m

Rest 1 Minute

AMRAP 2

KB Swings 70#

4 Rounds + 17 reps

33 Swings

Ouch. This hurt unexpectedly much.. Like wow.

I did it with 135# instead of the prescribed 95# and it got heavy quickly. The DLs were no problem, the HPC I was able to plow through mostly (in like a 6/3 or 7/2 split, and the overhead got very heavy quickly.. My form felt weird on these.. I almost half push pressed/half jerked them because I couldn't decide which I wanted to do once the clock was rolling. Not my best moment.. I pushed the pace on the first couple of runs and then ran out of gas around minute 8.. Breathing very hard.

The one minute rest effectively did diddly squat for me cuz the swings were amazingly hard.. I got 10, then 5, then 5, then 5, then 8 in the closing seconds.. Total gut check, my grip and hip drive were completely smoked from the WOD.. crazy.. But a fun one..

Friday Morning early 6:30 AM WOD


Squat Snatch 3x3

I was feeling incredibly immobile from last night, just everything was tight so this was not the best thing to start my morning with, so I decided to work very light and try to work on getting under the bar, which I admittedly suck at.

Looking at videos I can see both of my major glaring faults.. I bring my hips forward on the explosive part and let the bar get too far from my body (away from my center of gravity) which makes it really hard to recover it "far enough back" overhead to complete the squat with good form, if at all.. In one of these I flat out just miss it at the bottom because I never brought the bar back over my heels.. Lack of mobility and focus this morning..Argh.. I only worked up to:
85x3, 95x3, 105x3, 115x1 and that was it.. Nothing heavy, just practice.

Then we did the final WOD for Sandy which was a sneaky little bugger..

"Sandy" 

4 Rounds for time:

10 Wall Balls 20#

Bear Crawl 20yd

10 Burpee Box Jumps 24"

Walking lunge 20yd (back to the other side)

Time: 8:01 Rx'd

Good burner, felt good on almost all of it except the last round of burpee box jumps, those hurt.. The rest was just a "keep on moving" workout, which I generally like when they are inside of 8 minutes..

Mid-week, I LOVE CROSSFIT

I am in a great mood this week with CrossFit.

Tuesday I came in early but knew I had to bail out at 6 for my brother's last dinner at home. But I was eager to try to rack Jerks and see how I progressed since last time I had maxed this out.

I went with 135 for some warm ups. The for my singles I did:
165, 195, 215, 235 (tie), 240 PR...

The 235 and the 240 were really really ugly.. sloppy to stand them up.. But they both "counted".. PRs are rarely pretty as I always say.. But this was fun.. Quick day.. This almost felt like a skill/rest day because I was legit done in 20 minutes and didn't even feel too taxed, all things considered. Posted one video from the 215 rep which was clean up top, and then the 235, the camera ran out of battery for my 240, oh well..

Wednesday was weird.. I came in early with the intention of doing "Jackie" before class.. I tried to get loose for a while and it was not happening.. I kept mobilizing but the class at 6 started to funnel in and I was chatting with Adam about how I like to pace the WOD when I had done it before. We checked Eddie and Jake's times and decided those were to be the ones to beat. My previous PR was 7:12 back in November and I knew I did the thrusters in a set of 40/10 that day and was shitty on the pull ups..

My plan was to pace the row the same (aim for the 3:30s somewhere) and hit the thrusters in a little smaller sets and save some juice to knock out a lot of pull ups quickly.
I ended up rowing a 3:33, hopped right off, did the thrusters in a set of 25, 10, then 15 to finish. Then I butterflied the first 20 pull ups quickly. Got right back on and kipped 4, 2, 2, 2 to finish when I was totally zonked.

Low and behold, new PR. 6:56 Rx'd.. This hurt a LOT.. my hands were shaking for like 30 minutes afterward.

If I could somehow do this unbroken I bet I could do it in like 6:20.. That would be bananas.. Something to strive for next time.

Looking forward to the rest of the week.

Super fast update

Busy weekend, super fast update..

Thursday I came in early to attempt to do a WOD and decided I wanted to do back squats because I haven't in a while.

I did sets of 3 for whatever reason. I did 135 for warm ups, 165, 195, 205, 215, 225 with success.. Felt pretty strong throughout.. but definitely need to get these weights up there.. I feel like I keep taking time off and keep coming back to something around "225 for 3 reps feels heavy, lets stop there".. I need to get more consistent with these..
I ran out of time to do "Tsunami" because I was going to the Celtics game.. Awesome win to close out the Hawks.

Friday I did the FCF WOD, back on schedule. I enjoy working out with classes so much more, my schedule has just been tough recently so I need to make better time for it when I can.
I did weighted pull ups for 5x5..
I went with 35, 37.5, 40, 44, 53.. I failed on the 4th rep of the 53# set because I started to kip, lost the ability to do it strict.. So I stopped.. Great pump out of these, love it..

For the WOD "Brass Monkey", I did it in 8 minutes flat.. Felt pretty good throughout, My DUs were solid, almost unbroken and in a weird sadistic/masochistic way I actually enjoy plate burpees.. They are annoying enough to suck, but the weight slows it down enough that you feel bad stopping for a break, better just to power through.. Especially for only 10 reps.
Ring Dips still need work.. Those go quickly when I fatigue.


Saturday I played golf for the first time this summer, over at Butternut, which was awesome. Perfect day.. Started out terrible but got better by the back nine.. I miss golf..
Sunday I rested, slept lousy on Sat night and needed to relax most of the day.

Yesterday I came in to assemble the Yoke and such, after sitting at my brothers Graduation for 4 hours. My legs and hips were all sorts of glued together, my mobility felt terrible. So I scaled the crap out of this and did a weight I was 100% positive I could handle, and it proved to even be too light for that.. I did 165 for my 20, and was just like "ya, that was fine, no problem" afterwards.. I will warm up much better and go for more like 200 next week and challenge myself.
For tabata push ups I gamed the hell out of it and did 10 every set, because my best score ever on Tabata Push Ups was previously 8 since I always game it wrong. I did 10 for the first 7 sets and then only got 9 on the last one, which were 9 of the ugliest push ups ever.. CURSE YOU TABATA PUSH UPS.. If I could ever get 12 on this one day, I would die happy.

Excited for this week!!!

Wednesday May 9th

Rested today.. ankle felt a little funky.. I don't think it 100% healed from the Mudder... Just felt weak, not like shooting pain sore.. Did not want to push it..

I tested it a little with some double unders after classes and did 2 sets of 70 unbroken without much discomfort, so I think it will be fine tomorrow.

I don't know if I want to do the Pollo Loco WOD or Tsunami tomorrow before I leave for the Celts game.. I will make a gametime decision.. I think I might do back or box squats first since I have neglected them a bit this month and then do Tsunami with the heavy bell..

Tuesday May 8th

Strength work today.. so awesome..

Power clean for 5x3 and Floor press for another 5x3, alternating back and forth..

I had ideas in mind of where I wanted to end up so I sort of gamed my first 4 sets of each around where I wanted to end up..

Side note: Before this I warmed up and was sweating everywhere because I was wearing a thermal and sweatpants so I felt really loose today, which was great.. But we were fuckin around doing our typical dick-swinging contest trying to get the Keg overhead (I think its about 110-120 lbs).. most I have ever done is 100.. and it was so god damn frustrating when I could not get it there.. UGH..


Anyhow, so I was really fired up after the keg incident and wanted to get after heavy weights..

Power cleans - 165, 175, 190, 205, 215 PR for a 3RM..

This felt great to do.. Nice PR on these.. I did 2 of them touch and go and the 3rd with a little regrippage.. No real break though.. I land a little bit too wide for my liking when it gets heavy.. But this is not the worst mistake in the world, my form on the hip extension and the recovery with the elbows is really solid, so my landing is just something to work on with perfecting the lift..

Floor press - 155, 175, 195, 215, 225(fail)

I got one clean rep on the 225 and ran out of steam.. triceps were too tired..

Really fun day though..

Monday May 7th

"Kelly"

5 Rounds for time:

Run 400m

30 Box Jumps 24"

30 Wall Balls 20#

Time: 24:49 Rx'd

Ouch.. So I woke up today and felt great, post Mudder, drinking, long car ride, etc.

As the day went on some DOMS (delayed onset muscle soreness) set in, and I was like "I should still do something today".. By the time 5:30 rolled around I was just like "oh god, nothing feels right"..

But I was already at the gym and dying to do something, so I thought "how bad can Kelly be, I have done her before, it was a grinder but fine"..

I think last time it took me about 23 minutes and change, and today I absolutely did not have it in me to touch that time.. Legit the first round almost burned me out.. not good.. I tried to stay the course and power through rounds 2 and 3, which were ok.. But rounds 4 and 5 my legs reminded me "oh hey, remember that time you ran 10 miles up a mountain this weekend and then drank your face off, good work dumbass"..

So ya.. No PR.. Lots of sweat.. happy to have that over with.. 

Power Cleans tomorrow!! WOOOOO

Tough Mudder Weekend!!

Heading into last week, I really didn't even want to do this.. I thought it would just leave me sore again and pissy and potentially get hurt, blah blah blah.. I was just being a pisspot..

Once we actually got up to Vermont into our condos, there were 24 of us total in my group of friends and friends' friends.. It was an amazing crew.. By the time we got all ready to rock Saturday morning, I was completely fired up for it.. Rocky music, the national anthem, 500 people screaming and shirtless ready to get caked in mud and sweat.. It is IMPOSSIBLE not to be riled up..

I approached the whole challenge a lot differently this year, however.. Last year, we sought out to run the whole damn thing and be the biggest badasses on the planet.. This year (knowing the way the course is set up).. we just sort of set out to have a good time, make some jokes, get covered in mud, get really cold, and all finish together.

The basic approach was: Hike the uphills (don't bother trying to run them its not even worth the trouble), run the downhills, and tread carefully through the super muddy sections.. (they are an ACL injury waiting to happen).. All of the obstacles were hilariously fun, I got through most of them without much trouble. The cold water ones were REALLY cold though.. you literally had to check your pants to make sure everything still existed down there.. Ridiculous..

I enjoyed everything that involved climbing the walls, the monkey bars, swimming/water, or the mud crawls, those were all excellent..

Overall our group covered the 10+ miles without any major injury and a lot of fun had throughout.

I am glad I went, as it was just as fun as last year, but I feel a lot less sore today as I write this. I think my legs were more used to running and I think we planned out the whole thing a lot different this year.. We just sort of kept a pace, didn't try to push the envelope because ultimately it did not matter if it took 3 hours or 4 hours.. You were mostly handstrapped by the bottlenecks at certain places anyway..

Now, I return the my regularly scheduled CrossFit..

Mid week struggles..

Up and down, down and up the last couple days.. I need someone to kick me in the ass.. Right now..


Wednesday I had every intention of doing FGB.. then during the middle of the day my achilles started hurting me.. I was legit sitting down and it just started throbbing.. So strange.
So in my head I decided I would opt out of FGB just because of the high rep box jumps and doing something else.. I picked out a WOD I liked (which I wanted to test out before programming it for the gym) and was fired up to try it.. Got into the gym late, attempted to warm up and get going and just did not have time before coaching the 6PM as it was like a 20 minute WOD. Poopsicle.

Amazing classes at 6 and 7 tonight hitting FGB, many for their first time.. it was so awesome to see some of the efforts, especially in the 3rd round, that people were putting up.. Not an easy workout by any means, it floors me every time.

At 815 when everyone settled down I attempted to get loose again, and just had nothing.. Like I tried and I just knew I would get 3 minutes into the workout and not want to be there.. So I bailed.. Total mental cop out. (cough huge wimp cough)



Thursday woke up bright and early for the AM classes, which got me all razzed up because I was excited to teach the atlas stone lifts, which I find to be really really fun.

I really had no intention of working out and then after the 6:30AM I was just like fuck it, I am here, this WOD is 6 minutes, shit's on like donkey kong.

"Magic Hat"

6 Minute clock

Row 500m

100 lateral cone hops

Max C&J @ 155#

Score = 16 reps

Woooooo.... that one got spicy fast..

I paced the row so I wasn't totally useless afterward and finished in 1:40.. and got right after the jumps.. In my head I just tried to get a rhythm and do as many as I could because big numbers would equal a lot more time on the barbell.. I did 66 in a row, the finished up the last 34 in 2 sets.. The first rep felt.. let's just say heavier than normal.. and I tried to drop each rep from overhead and get right into the next.. Each rep with set up and drop took about 10-12 seconds or so. So I had about 3 minutes left to get as many as I could.. I wanted more like 18-20 reps, but I am OK with this score.. I fought hard at the end for every rep, even if some of the cleans were a little uggo..

Happy to mentally break down the "morning WOD barrier" today.. I typically puss out on these because I always prefer the evening workouts with a full days worth of food and calories in me..

Tuesday May 1st

WOD

Push Jerks - 5x3

I warmed up a bit and got everything overhead in working order.. Shoulders have felt pretty solid recently..
I know these multi-rep heavy jerks usually smoke my wrists (just from the return-down impact) so I wore some wrist wraps throughout.

I warmed up a little with 95 just to get going and then got into my working sets.
135x5, 165x3, 185x3, 195x3, 205x3.. Then I sort of ran out of time.. I was sort of in the way of the 6PM class on my last set and had to meet someone for dinner pre-Celtics game so I hightailed out..

I am fairly happy with this. for 2 reasons..
I have not done a lot of heavy overhead work of late (some strict presses, but not a lot of heavy jerks).. and this was the same weight I was able to do about 3 months ago when I was doing a lot more of this lifting.. So.. win..

My core seemed to be the limiting reagent on these lifts though to be honest.. My 3rd rep on both the 195 set and the 205 set were really wobbly at the top and I struggled to get the weight stabilized overhead (picture like a drunk guy trying to sling an empty keg over head and stumbling around.. that was me)....

I got them both eventually, but I would not have called them pretty by any stretch..

Monday April 30th

Happy Monday!

FINALLY, at long last, I feel good enough to start doing some actual strength work.

I did not have time for the met-con WOD but I spent a long while deadlifting before the evening classes.

I had not maxed out a set of 5 in FOREVER so this was sort of a guess and check day weightwise to see where I was at..

My previous PR at this was either 345 or 365 but that was eons ago, so today I was just setting a new benchmark for myself to work with this summer..

I went with some warm ups at 135 and 225 and then got into my 5 sets..

275, 295, 315, 335 and 350.. The 350 video is posted above. I videoed all of the sets and my form started out excellent and deteriorated bit by bit as I went up in weight, but never surrendering my core or losing tightness.

My butt should be getting a little lower on the reps 2-5, but my Tough&Go reps make it a little harder to reset as well.. I should probably slow down and do more of a pause between each to ensure I get locked and loaded better on max effort sets.

Overall I am pumped about this because I thought my strength numbers would be depressing after letting go for so long, but today I felt strong... Next up.. squats and overhead shit.. WOO.