Chains, Thrusters and, um, 7 Minutes of Burpees...

     So the site that I use for this blog has a feature where you can see how many people look at your posts and where in the world they are located.  I check this out every once in awhile and when I looked today I found that there are 23 Canadians, 19 Russians, 3 Germans as well as randoms from the UK, Germany, Switzerland, United Arab Emirates, Thailand and South Africa who have read this blog!  Seriously...Thailand!!  I don't know why this surprises me considering the reach of the internet but I didn't think that there wouldn't be much worldwide appeal in how much I squat or how high I jump.  I mean, it's not like I'm Mikko Salo or Nate Schrader.  Back when I was playing music I once had a guy in Poland write to me to get one of my records.  I felt like Bruce Springsteen.  But thanks to everyone who's stopped by to check this out!  It's not always fascinating shit but that's what the music and videos are for...

Apparently the world is watching...

   (As a side note to this photo I found an article today about Bret McKenzie (half of the occasionally funny Flight of the Concords) writing songs for The Muppets.  The best part was when he talks about "the rules".  Rules such as- "Frogs and bears and pigs can talk, but penguins and chickens can’t. They can cluck or squawk musically, but they can’t say words."  Somewhere in there is a life lesson...)

    On Thursday February 23 this was my training...

A. front squat w/chains: 5-5-5; rest 3 minutes (sets across - same weight)

B. incline bench press w/chains: 5-5-5; rest 3 minutes (sets across - same weight)
+
12 minutes - steady pace:
10 walking lunge with 12kg/hand
3 L pull-up

     The chains have finally returned!  Here's a little bit of information from the incredible Louie Simmons from Westside Barbell talking about using chains for increasing strength and explosiveness.  It's great for training but it also sounds bad ass in the gym when the chains hit the ground!  For me it's been awhile since I've used the chains for lifting so I was guessing a bit as to my starting weights. 

  

     A. 75kg + chains.  This was actually a bit heavier than I thought I might be able to go but I felt really good during warm ups so put on more weight for the work sets.  The last two reps of the last two sets were tough but still very manageable.  

     B. 50kg + chains.  I kept it a bit conservative for the incline bench mostly because I had a few rough sessions with this lift previously and I wanted to build a bit of confidence.  These sets felt really easy and presented no problems. 

     For the lunge/L pull-up portion I substituted L chin-ups for the pull-ups mostly to save my shoulder.  Oftentimes L pull-ups pull my shoulder anteriorly which hurts and I'm having enough trouble with that as it is.  I kept working steadily throughout the 12 minutes and tried to keep moving the whole time.  I finished the lunges, took 3-5 breaths, did the chin-ups and then hit the lunges again immediately.  I finished with 16 rounds + 3 lunges. 

     This was training on Friday, February 24: 

5 sets:
max burpee - 20 seconds
rest 3 minutes
+
5 sets:
10 thruster, 95lb
5 ctb pull-up
rest 4 minutes

     The burpees were "lazy" style that I learned from Carl Paoli when I did his gymnastics workshop last November.  Basically it's a burpee that saves you from doing as much push-up work and saves your upper body (and some of your lower body) from a bit of fatigue.  These 20 second sets were intended to be sprints so it was a bit tricky to maintain that form while still moving as fast as I could.  Each set was 10 burpees except for the last one where I farted out 11.

     The thrusters and ctb pull-ups went better than I imagined.  This is a brutal combination of movements (ahem) and I anticipated being pretty beat up by this session.  It actually wasn't that bad!  Everything was unbroken and there was no rest at all between the thrusters and the pull-ups.  The set times were- :35, :32, :30, :31, :30.  Pretty consistent.  I felt completely recovered between sets which I'm pretty sure was the goal here.

     So, yeah, 7 minutes of burpees....

     This was WOD 12.1 of The CrossFit Games Sectionals.  I have decided to put as little thought into performing these workouts as CrossFit seems to have done designing them.  Which is to say that I'm going to do my best each week, push myself appropriately and, mostly, try to keep this fun (at least as fun as 7 minutes of f?!king burpees can be).  For those of you in, I don't know, UAE, who might not know exactly what a burpee is, this is a burpee.  For 7 minutes.  (For the record I'm sure they do burpees in United Arab Emirates).  

     I started out way to fast, which I told myself not to do (but since when do I listen to myself?) and did 23 the first minute.  Then I had to figure out a way to slow down without a.) resting too much and leaving reps on the table or b.) slowing the movement down so much that it's excruciating to perform.  I guess I found a happy medium and managed to keep working steadily until the last minute where I turned it on a bit (at least as much as I could).  I ended up with 94 total.  Good for a tie for 17,561st fittest person in the world.  

     I asked Justin before I started if he needed to notify the Reebok people that the CrossFit Games Champion 2016 was about to begin his journey to the top.  He said they were on standby waiting for word.  Hey Reebok- I wear a size 9 shoe.

     For all 23 Canadians reading this, here's fellow countrymen Neil Young and Crazy Horse doing a live performance of "Winterlong" (definitely one of his best...)