Let me start by saying that I can't stand St. Patrick's Day. It's straight up amateur night. This year was compounded by the fact that I was working, it was my turn on the ambulance (we tend to rotate between truck, engine and ambulance and this was my ambulance day), it was a Saturday and it was about 80 degrees out. I expected to be in for a long shift and I wasn't disappointed. From the "Irishman" who managed to inexplicably remove a part of his chin (he says he didn't fall or get into a fight and has no idea what happened. I suggested that perhaps he was punched by a leprechaun. He didn't laugh.), to the Princess passed out drunk and covered in vomit at the bar who decided to take a swing at me in the back of the ambulance, to the drug seekers and the psychotic who was just 20 minutes ago released from the ER but decided he wanted to go back for no particular reason, I managed a grand total of about 3 non-consecutive hours of sleep. I came home and fell asleep for another hour bringing my grand total up to 4 hours before having to go to the gym and tackle WOD 12.4.
(Incidentally when I was getting my final hour of sleep I had a fantastic dream. I don't remember much of the specifics but I remember that I was happy and having fun. Then, in my dream, I thought "Fuck! I have to get to the gym to do this workout!" and I was filled with enough panic and dread that it woke me up. This was not a good omen. The first of a couple of bad signs to come...)
"I'm a goin' ta ruin ya night!"
12.4 looked like this:
Complete as many rounds/reps as possible in 12 minutes of:
150 wall balls, 20lb.
90 double-unders
30 muscle-ups
Yet another endurance workout and another benchmark workout (this time "Karen" paired with 30 muscle-up for time with some double-unders thrown in for good measure.) Wall balls have never been my strong suit; I've described them before as having 20 pound rocks thrown at your head. What I thought I had going for me was that, coincidentally, I've had some wall balls in my training recently and this workout was at 10 feet rather than the 12 that we usually target at Windy City. I'm good at double-unders and I'm good at muscle-ups so I figured that if I could get through the wall balls I was relatively home free. Not 1 round home free, but I figured I could get in some muscle-ups at least. Mike Tyson had a quote, something to the effect of "Everybody has a plan 'till they get punched in the mouth." (In fact that's exactly what he said.)
I showed up at the gym completely exhausted and too tired to even warm up. This was the second warning sign. I did some super half assed stretching, counted for a few people as they went through and decided to go for it. I set up my rings, found a wall ball station and layed my rope out. 3,2,1 Go! I grabbed the ball and looked and it was the wrong size ball. This round ended before it even started. Bad omen number 3. I waited until the workout was over and decided to go with the next group. I re-set up, made sure everything was right this time, and dove in. From the start it was a mess. I started with sets of 15 and 10 but quickly was at 6s and 7s. My left knee, which has been inflamed and sore for about 2 weeks now, was killing me with each squat and my right leg was picking up all of the slack. It got to the point where my knee was hurting so badly that I couldn't take it and I threw in the towel after 109 wall balls.
So that's it. I've decided to move my week off from next week to this week and take some time to heal. I didn't submit this score and I'm not intending on doing WOD 12.5. I'm not 100% sure how I feel about this. Sure, I've said all along that I was fairly detached from this year's Open and it's not what I've been training for specifically. But that doesn't mean that I'm not disappointed and I certainly didn't want it to end this way. The toughest thing is that my mind is what gave up first. Yeah, my knee was destroyed, but mentally I checked out of this workout before it even started and my body just followed along. I've talked before about visualization and the mental aspects of training and it's a topic that I'm still fascinated by and a skill I definitely have yet to master. This time my mind completely let me down and that's why this is hard to take. Everybody's bodies break down physically- I checked out mentally on this.
I'll get over it and learn from it, same as all of my other failures. In the meantime I'll be resting up and laying low. My plan is to stay off the grid as much as possible to give my mind a break as well. I'll do some reading, maybe a teeny bit of writing, but no Facebook and as little Internet as possible. See you in a week!
(I got caught watching The Sound of Music at work once on Christmas and I had to pretend that the remote got stuck as I was flipping channels. I truly am a terrible liar...)
I'm keeping this one short and sweet since the last one was insane and I have a couple of ideas for longer posts coming up soon.
Yesterday I did the Open WOD 12.3. It looked like this:
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 18 minutes of: 15 Box jumps, 24" box 115 pound Push press, 12 reps 9 Toes-to-bar
Eighteen minutes is almost a CrossFit marathon. This was a much more "traditional" CrossFit style workout and it was nice to see more than one movement for the first time during this games cycle. I feel like my body is in the process of falling apart, however. In addition to my shoulder soreness, my knee tendinitis has decided to flare up as well. So I have that going for me. Which is nice.
The workout itself was every bit as awful as I thought it would be. Beforehand I got some advice to pick whichever of the three movements I felt best about and try and get those unbroken for as long as possible. For me that's probably the toes-to-bar. The box jumps standards required that the hips had to open up while the athlete is standing on the box. No more opening up your hips on your way down into the next jump. It slowed the jumps down a bit but I used the standard somewhat to my advantage and did a lot of my resting on top of the box. The push press I did in groups of 6 and I kept my strategy of unbroken toes-to-bar throughout most of it until the last round or two when my body refused to hang onto the bar any longer. It's amazing how long eighteen minutes can feel. I had a wonderful judge who was encouraging and strict (she correctly called one or two "no reps") and did a great job of keeping me on somewhat of a pace. When I finished she cheerfully told me that I got 6+66. When I mentioned that this wasn't possible she recounted and came up with 6+52. Strike two. Someone reminded her that there were only 36 possible reps in each round after which we settled on 6+27. The 27 I'm sure is correct but I lost track of the rounds somewhere in my eighteen minute delirium so there's an outside chance it was 7+27 (hell, it could have been 5+27). In the end I'm pretty positive that the score is correct and, either way, it doesn't really matter that much.
My thoughts on this are summarized by this lovely video below (some NSFW language....even if your boss is deaf):
Today's training:
A. underhand med ball throws to ceiling, 10lb: 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1; rest as needed
B. standing triple jump - tech/practice - 10-15 minutes
C. snatch complex x 3; rest 1 minute
D. clean & jerk - power of 10: 10 solid reps - can be doubles or singles; rest 3 minutes between
E. pull-up: 20 unbroken x 3; rest 2 minutes
A. This is starting to prep for the underhand shot toss in the OPTathalon which I was spectacularly bad at last fall (Seriously...it was bad enough that it could have been YouTube worthy). These throws, however, went fairly well. Hitting the ceiling was no problem and I concentrated on using my hips more than my arms.
B. My best jumps here were around 24', the longest I've done since San Diego. I'm getting some tips from a friend at the gym who, come to find out, was an All American triple jumper in high school. (this guy. For real.) Hopefully in the next week or so we'll be able to get together and work on some things but, in the meantime, just talking with him improved these jumps.
C. 40kg, 45kg, 50kg. I kept these pretty light today and focused on landing tight in the catch. I have a habit of kicking one of my legs out to the side on power snatches which Coach Cori said means that I'm using mostly one leg when I pull. She said to concentrate on driving up with both feet. I did and this seemed to help.
D. 60kg x 2, 70kg x 2, 75kg x 1, 79kg x 1 (power clean), 81kg x 1 (power clean), 83kg x 1 (power clean), F at the jerk at 83kg, 83kg x 1 (power clean). I said earlier that my knee is inflamed and it really bothered me catching these in a full squat so at the heavier weights I just did power cleans. And, to put it bluntly, my jerk sucks. Cori helped me again afterwards and gave me some really great advice. I need to do some tech work on this, probably every day, as part of my warm-up.
E. 20, 20, 20 (technically 15+2+2+1 but I never let go of the bar. I'm probably cheating a bit calling that "unbroken" but screw it.)
I realized that I haven't written anything here in almost a week which means that there are a bunch of training sessions to get to now. Oops. I'd like to say that I was super busy doing all sorts of exciting shit but, um, not so much. I did take a pretty important test at work earlier this week so I was studying for that a bit (I aced it by the way) and I coached (or co-coached with Justin) my first couple of classes at Windy City which I actually couldn't be more excited about. It might not be very many classes but that's just fine with me. At this point I'm pretty much at one of two places- the firehouse or Windy City CrossFit. Seriously...if someone wants to assassinate me those are the two places to look for me these days. I also did the CrossFit Games Sectionals WOD 12.2 which I'll get to later. But first...
This was training for Monday, February 27:
vertical take-offs (double-leg) w/jogging between: 5 take-offs x 6 sets; rest 2-3 minutes
+
A. snatch complex x 4 (1 power snatch + 1 overhead squat + 1 hang squat snatch + 1 snatch) ; rest 1 minute
B. hang squat clean cluster (hang above knee - use blocks if you want): 1.1.1 x 5; rest 2-3 minutes
C. press/push press/push jerk: 1.2.3 x 3; rest 2-3 minutes
+
muscle-up/ring dip @ 30X2: 1.5 x 5; rest 2 minutes
The jumps felt good. I worked on not landing hard with two feet before the jump and focused on stepping into each take-off. Another one that's hard to explain but it felt right. The gym was pretty packed when I was doing these so I did them in the hallway outside which maybe spooked a few people who were working late at some of the other businesses next door. On the extremely remote chance that one of those people is reading this (hey- you never know)...sorry.
A. I did the snatch complex at 45kg, 50kg, and 55kg x 2. The very last rep was very, very ugly but I didn't miss at anything. I worked on the explosiveness and being tight in the catch. As a side note I managed to get my foot caught in the space between the platform and the weights when putting my weights away. Don't ask me how I did it but I was legitimately stuck for a few seconds. I'd like to say I was super smooth and nobody saw but, of course, that's not the case. Fortunately I don't think people are surprised at all with me looking like a jackass around here anymore.
B. The hang squat cleans were at 75kg. These were a bit awkward at first because I don't use the jerk blocks very much. Coach Cori was there and she gave me a few pointers on form and that helped tremendously. I focused on exploding right away and being very fast under the bar.
C. 55kg, 60kg, 65kg. The 65kg was a 5kg shoulder press PR. It has been a long, long time since I've even attempted a press PR so it was nice to get it, even if it was a struggle. The push press and push jerk portion felt better than last week.
The muscle-up/ring dip portion went well although I ended up doing and extra rep of the dips on most sets. What happened was, as I was lowering myself down and counting the three seconds, I repeatedly got confused as to whether I was counting rep three or second three. So I did an extra one just to make sure. I know...I'm not expecting any invites from Mensa anytime soon.
Apparently this is what goes on in my head as I train...
7 pull-up
rest 30 seconds
+
10 sets:
run - there back there back; rest 30 seconds
This was another MAP session and, quite frankly, another one that I was dreading. Wall balls have always been a terrible movement for me and this was a lot of them without much rest. This is one of those movements where tall people have a huge advantage. For someone my size it's like someone's throwing 20lb rocks at your head. My goal was to get all of the sets unbroken and I was successful on all but two of the sets (all of the double-unders were unbroken). The first six sets started out strong but the last four were a bit of a struggle and my time fell off a bit. The set times were: :34, :33, :35, :39, :36, :37, 1:03 (5+3+2), :50 (8+2), :43, :48.
The burpee/pull-up times were: :34, :35, :37, :38, :39, :37, :37, :37, :38, :34. These were pretty consistent throughout. In each round I finished the burpees then took 4-5 breaths before hitting the pull-ups. During one of the later rounds, I think round 8, I felt a wee little bit of puke in my mouth as I went into the burpees. If you stop reading now I'll understand...
It turns out when Justin says "there back there back" he means from the garage door to the far wall. About 40 meters distance (four times for 160m total). It was a super nice day out so I did these outside which was nice considering it was technically still February. I did the runs at about 80% effort and focused on breathing. The times were: : 36, :39, :37, :37, :36, :36, :36, :36, :37, :36.
Wow. This is going to be a bit of a marathon. Tell you what...why don't you take a break, get some food, stretch out, go to the bathroom and then come back and we'll finish up. A bit of an intermission...
Everybody back? Good. Moving on...
This was Thursday February 1.
A. front squat w/chains: 4-4-4; rest 3 minutes (sets across - same weight)
B. incline bench press w/chains: 4-4-4; rest 3 minutes (sets across - same weight)
+
weighted pull-up (20lb vest) - max 1-3 ladders in 7 minutes
+
handstand wall run: 60 total steps - rest as needed (quality over speed)
A. 80kg + chains. These were pretty tough but I was able to stay tight and focus on driving up and keeping the elbows high.
B. 55kg + chains. My left shoulder was pretty sore on this one so the weight felt a little heavy but I got all of the reps relatively easily with no sticking point.
I did 8 rounds + 1 pull-up for the weighted pull-up part. This was mostly a question of muscle fatigue and a few of the third reps were a bit questionable. I think it works out to about 49 pull-ups.
I skipped the handstand wall runs because my shoulders were killing me at this point. I've never tried those so I'm hoping I get another chance at some point but I didn't think it was a good idea to do them today.
The rows generally felt very good. The rower has a "pace boat" that you can use to keep you on track as you go. I set up the boat for a 1:40/500m pace and I was just hoping not to get lapped by it. Instead I kept up really well and even beat it for all of these sets. In your face pace boat!!! The times were: 50.1 sec (1:36 pace), 49.7 sec (1:37 pace), 50.2 sec (1:38 pace), 50.5 sec (1:38 pace). I set the damper at 4 which, after some experimenting, seems like a good place for me. My wind felt fully recovered between rows but my arms were still slightly fatigued going into each set.
The airdyne bike might be the most evil invention since the rack. Especially if you are sprinting on it for longer than 20 seconds. In my case I had to endure for :45 seconds which feels horrible. I swear time stops on this thing. The first set I kept between 85-90 rpm for the whole time. That was as good as it got. The last three sets started between 85-90 and ended somewhere around 75-78 rpm (this still represented 95% effort though- it was legitimately all I could do). The lactic acid in my legs was almost unbearable and I could hardly walk for a bit afterwards. Fortunately for me I wasn't done yet...
The power cleans and burpees felt surprisingly ok after the airdyne torture. Each set was exactly :43 seconds long. The cleans felt very good and light and I pushed through the burpees as fast as possible.
CrossFit, in all of their infinite wisdom, came up with this for WOD 12.2 of the CrossFit Games Sectionals:
Proceed through the sequence below completing as many reps as possible in 10 minutes of:
75 pound Snatch, 30 reps
135 pound Snatch, 30 reps
165 pound Snatch, 30 reps
210 pound Snatch, as many reps as possible
Ugh. I'm not even sure where to begin with my thoughts on this one. What's the main issue here: is it the fact that the snatch is an incredibly technical lift that, at heavy weights, is designed to measure strength and power, not endurance? Or is it the fact that of the 60,000+ people competing in the Open this year a large percentage of them will not have mastered the snatch at these weights and will now be completely discouraged (a fact they will discover only after giving CF their $20 entry fee)? Or is it the fact that this is a great case for weight classes in CrossFit competitions (it's a hell of a lot easier for a big guy to endure 7 minutes of burpees than it is for a smaller person to snatch his body weight or more for 30+ times). Or is it the shoulder injuries that this puts many people at risk for?
For me, the biggest issue was the potential for shoulder injury. I've been nursing inflamed bicep tendons in both shoulders for a few weeks now and I was really nervous about making things worse with this. I was back and forth all week about whether or not I would even do this workout. In the end I decided that, if I didn't, I would feel like a huge quitter and I might regret taking myself out of the game this early. I know that I wouldn't be able, mentally, to just do the sets of 75lb and then stop, that I would have to move forward. My most recent 1RM snatch is 70kg (154lbs) and that was in August so, while the 165 seemed a bit out of reach, the 135 was definitely in my range and something I hit regularly. Just maybe not 30 of them. (For the record 30 snatches at 135lb is "Isabel". I definitely wouldn't warm up for "Isabel" with 30 reps at 75 lbs beforehand. But I guess that's the point here...)
So I decided to go for it but to listen to my body. At the first sign of shoulder discomfort I was going to pull the plug. Luckily my body held up pretty well throughout this and I was able to work the whole time. I knocked out the 75lb snatches in 3 sets of 10 and then did singles for the 135s. I focused on set up and form each time and tried to stay tight and do legit snatches for each rep, both for efficiency (I didn't want to have a bunch of failures and waste energy) as well as for safety. In the end I managed 51 total reps (30 at 75lb and 21 at 135). I'm generally pretty happy with that.
Here's a video of Behdad Salimi setting the world record in the snatch at 214kg:
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.
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...)
So it's been almost a week since I've posted anything so you'd think that I'd have a lot to say today. Well...you would be wrong.
I did, however, start Coach Jen's mobility class last week. I'm generally pretty good about mobilizing and stretching after workouts but it will be great to focus on it and learn a bunch of new things over the next 6 weeks or so. Let's face it- I'm not getting any younger and if I intend on beating the crap out of my body for the foreseeable future (and I do) then I'm going to need to keep up with the stretching. After all, I'm planning on being old and awesome, likethis guyor these people. Here's an actual photo from class:
I'm on the right.
In other news my training has changed a bit and we've started the 8 week ramp up to the OPTathalon 2.0. My training on Monday looked like this:
single leg take-offs w/jogging between: 5/leg x 3; rest 2-3 minutes
+ A. snatch complex (light weight) x 4; rest 1 minute (1 power snatch + 1 overhead squat + 1 hang squat snatch + 1 snatch)
B. hang squat clean cluster (power position): 1.1.1 x 5; rest 2-3 minutes C. press/push press/push jerk: 1.2.3 x 3; rest 2-3 minutes + on the minute - 8 minutes 2 muscle-up
The single leg take offs felt pretty good. I focused on exploding off of each leg and timing the jumps so that I alternated legs. Of course I looked like I was leaping around the gym like a dork, but I think people are pretty used to that by now.
A. 40kg, 45kg, 50kg x 2. I kept the weight relatively light for the snatch complex. I haven't done any snatching in awhile so these were a bit rusty but, overall, they were no problem. On the last two sets I dropped the bar in between the hang squat snatch and the snatch to reestablish the hook grip.
B. 60kg x 1.1.1 x 5. These cleans were just from the power position so I kept the weight very manageable and concentrated on exploding out of the power position (the third pull of the clean) and dropping under the bar as fast as I could. This is a bit of a different mental game than lowering the bar to the hang or the floor and then bringing it up until the explosive third pull. On the very last rep of the last set I could feel that I pulled too early with my arms so I made that rep up because I'm a head case and I didn't want to end on a bad rep.
C. 50kg, 55kg, 60kg. The overhead work was obviously limited by my shoulder press. I think that 60kg is my last known shoulder press PR and that felt really light today. So I have that going for me. Unfortunately the push presses and jerks didn't feel as powerful as I would have liked. My right shoulder has been a bit funny lately and I don't think that helped.
The muscle-ups went well. Again my right shoulder was sore but I was able to complete these with no problem.
This is the first true bit of MAP work that I've done in a long, long time and I'm pleased to say that I felt pretty good. Considering. I kept the airdyne RPMs at 72-76 for all 10 sets and focused on breathing through the pain. The lactic acid build up in my legs built up quickly and made these super challenging. I heard someone say once that if they had 24 hours to live they would spend it all on the airdyne because it would feel like an eternity. I couldn't agree more.
The 4 pillar suicides were the hardest part of this workout though. Each run was 38 seconds long and miserable. Justin told me I might get a "runner's high" during these. He lied.
The rows actually felt fantastic. I decided beforehand that a 1:50 500m/split was about 80% for me so I tried to keep all of the sets there. I was pretty much able to do it and a few times even had to slow myself down a bit to keep it at that pace. I would say that it was definitely close to an 80% effort. I focused on pulling hard and breathing and even did one extra interval because I didn't set the rower up correctly when I started and the clock stopped running after my first row.
Overall I managed to be very consistent throughout tonight and I recovered quickly when I was done. I'm pretty excited to learn more about my engine and learn to fine tune my work efforts.
I think it's time to class this place up a bit so here's one of my favorite Beethoven works (I guess you don't walk out of a college and grad school music education without a favorite Beethoven piece or two...) This is the 2nd movement of Sonata No. 8 "Pathetique" performed by ex-CSO conductor Daniel Barenboim (I wanted to put the one up of Glenn Gould playing but there were always ads beforehand and that annoys the crap out of me).
The title of this post, a quote from the movie Glengarry Glen Ross, is pretty fitting for my training the last few days. Especially Tuesday's which looked like this:
SERIES 1
back squat: 90-95% x 2 x 2; rest 3-4 minutes
+
airdyne - 4-6 minutes easy
+
depth jump over hurdle: 8-8; rest 4 minutes (drop from 16" box)
+
airdyne - 8-10 minutes easy
+
SERIES 2
back squat: 90-95% x 2 x 2; rest 3-4 minutes
+
airdyne - 4-6 minutes easy
+
depth jump over hurdle: 8-8; rest 4 minutes (drop from 16" box)
+
3 sets:
12 glute ham raise
15 ghd sit-up
rest 2 minutes
If this looks familiar it's because it is. I did this two weeks ago (and wrote about it here) with great success. This time...not so much. Everything felt incredibly heavy today. The back squats were still 112 kg and set 1 was tough but complete. On the second set I got the first rep and then failed at the second. I think it's the first time I've failed at a back squat in probably 6 months and, let me tell you, that shit instantly gets in your head. And the best part was I had 6 minutes of airdyne, an entire jump series and then another 8 minutes of mindless airdyne pedaling to think about it! It was during this second airdyne space-out that the quote that serves as the title of this post came into my head.
I think one of the hardest things to do is visualize success immediately after a failure. I actually thought of closers in baseball and how mentally grueling that job must be. If you fail one day and blow a lead or a game, you have no choice but to put it behind you and move on. Don't get me wrong- sometimes they do this- but then they all get ready to pitch again the next day. Some blow it more than others (LaTroy Hawkins blew so many saves for the Cubs from 2004-2005 that he has his own Urban Dictionary entry) but they all lose some. Here's Mitch Williams blowing a save in the 2003 World Series. One of the most famous home runs in baseball history was given up by future Hall of Famer Dennis Eckersley. The best World Series that I've ever seen, the 2001 Series between the Yankees and the Diamondbacks, was practically a clinic in blowing saves with the game 7 losing pitcher being none other than Mariano Rivera.
The point is that I had just completely eaten it on a lift that I've done several times before and I had to go out and hit it again- 4 more times. Sure, I could have just gone down in weight, but that would have felt like turning a small failure into a big one and then the terrorists win (there's a lot at stake with my back squats). Since I've drawn this out long enough I'll just tell you...I succeeded in the final 2 sets of squats. The depth wasn't as far as my usual squat but, fortunately, I squat deep enough that there's about a 3" margin of error and they were still legit.
The celebration looked like this:
Series 1 of the jumps were 34" x 8 and 36" x 8 with Series 2 at 36" x 8 x 2. I missed a few of these, mostly because by big ass hit the bar on the way down but I made up all of the reps. I've come to the conclusion that these have to be done without thinking about them. I remembered again to do the assistance work as well (I think that's two in a row!).
This was today's training:
A. bench press @ 60%: max x 3; rest 90 seconds
B1. ctb pull-up: 12-15 x 4; rest 20 seconds
B2. ring row off box: 8-8-8 x 3; rest 2 minutes
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for time: 15-12-9
kb snatch (each arm), 24kg
ring dip
This is a 5% increase in the bench press from what I did last week with the anticipated drop in max reps coming along with it.
A. 57kg: 22, 10, 6. I felt fine with all of these efforts but especially the last set which, as you can imagine, is the worst. I managed to squeeze out an extra rep (and even tried for one more) after I had hit the wall. I think I definitely left it all out there on these sets.
These were tough, as I expected. To save my shoulder a bit I only went for 12 pull-ups each set. The second set looks deceiving...I did all 12 butterfly, but I did them in two groups. I hung there for a second but managed to re-start my butterfly motion as opposed to just switching to a straight kip like I have done previously (and did in the final two sets).
The couplet at the end was miserable. It took me 10:11. It probably should have taken me half that time but I missed several kb snatches in the left arm and that slowed me down a lot. I was also way more out of breath than I should be for this as well. If this is any indication then I'm way more screwed than I thought for the Open, which starts next week. Seriously...my participation in The CrossFit Games this year should be sponsored by FEMA because it's going to be a complete disaster. (get it?)
So it's been a few days since I've updated this. I think that's going to be the deal around here though. If writing starts to become an obligation or a chore I'll just stop doing it and I'd like to keep this going. So it might round out to about 2 posts a week. I know you're disappointed, but I'll make it up to you. I promise.
Well, I did it. I went ahead and signed up for the CrossFit Games Open. I haven't been specifically training for this competition at all but I still would like to do it, mostly for the same reason people climb mountains- because it's there. I don't think I've run farther than 40 meters in about 4 months and when I did I felt like I had just done "Fran" so I might be a bit screwed. I'm actually interested to see what the little bit of extra strength I've picked up over the last few months does for me over the course of these 5 competition weeks.
I think that, as an exercise regimen, CrossFit is fantastic. It's a great way to get people moving in ways and at intensities that they never thought possible. It's wonderful for confidence and can definitely make a difference in people's lives. I'm certainly thankful that I was introduced to it and I'm extremely grateful that I found Windy City CrossFit. As a sport, CrossFit- and the sport of fitness in general- has a few bugs to work out. James Fitzgerald (OPT) is making huge strides in terms of fitness competitions with his OPTathalon, an event that I competed in in San Diego in October and am looking forward to again in Chicago this spring. Standardized judging and weight classes are two issues that seem to come up quite often. I understand that every sport has a certain amount of human element in the officiating (this was not a touchdown and Don Denkinger definitely blew this call in the 1985 World Series. In fact, here's a list of some terrible baseball calls) and that's part of what makes sports fun. But the opportunity for shady judging and lousy range of motion in the CrossFit Open is off the charts. Here's a video of some dude from CrossFit talking about cheating during the Open. I hope that they take this seriously because this issue undermines the legitimacy of what CrossFit is trying to build by having such a large scale fitness competition.
It would also be nice to see weight classes in this as well but that won't happen. They're looking for all around fitness and are trying to test their 10 elements of fitness (strength, stamina, endurance, flexibility, power, speed, coordination, agility, balance and accuracy if I remember my Level 1 class correctly) and believe that, regardless of size, you can achieve a balance of all of these elements and prove your all around "fitness". Historically though strength is King and that's the main reason I've been trying so hard to build mine up recently. The decathlon doesn't use weight classes either, so I guess that makes me feel a bit better.
That was way more than I intended on writing about that subject. But, yeah, I'm all signed up...
On Thursday February 9 I did this:
A. hurdle-hop: 3 consecutive x 8; rest 2-3 minutes (allow 3 steps)
B. hang squat clean cluster: 66% x 1.1.1 x 5; rest 2 minutes
C. kb squat jump: 32kg x 6 x 3; rest 3-4 minutes (again, only 1/4 squat)
D. farmer carry: 45 seconds tough x 3; rest 2 minutes (keep pushing weight here)
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3 sets:
12 glute ham raise
15 ghd sit-up
rest 2 minutes
Overall this felt really good and I was focused on my training and objectives.
A. 36.5" x 3 x 8. I missed a few reps here and there again, mostly due to starting position but I made up all of the reps. These feel much better when I don't think about them as much and just think "step, step, explode" or something simple like that. It's dumb to write but makes sense when I do it.
B. 66kg x 1.1.1 x 5. Generally these felt really solid.
C. kb jumps felt really easy and explosive on this day.
D. 122lb/hand x :45 x 3. I finally managed this weight for the complete time for all three sets which is a step in the right direction (no pun intended. Although I do kinda like puns). And I did the assistance stuff too.
This was today's training:
A. incline bench press: 2-2-2-2-2; rest 3 minutes
B. depth jump push-up, 12": 8-8; rest 3 minutes
C1. bat wing @ 20X3: 8-10 x 3; rest 10 seconds
C2. kb clean: 8-10 x 3; rest 2 minutes
D. waiter walk: 40m/side x 3; rest 1 minute
Today wasn't as good. I walked in feeling fine after a decent night's sleep but once I started lifting I just didn't have it. My focus wasn't solid and I couldn't successfully visualize myself hitting everything. It went downhill a bit...
A. 70kg, 75kg, 77kg, 79kg (1 with help), 79kg x 1. This was frustrating because just last week I managed 77kg x 3 and today couldn't successfully do 79 x 2. Ugh. I was really, really disappointed.
B. depth jump push ups: 8 x 2. These were generally fine except that in the first set, on the last rep, the box slid away from me and I missed. I made the rep up but, after just being disappointed on the incline bench, it wasn't good timing for me to fall on my face. Literally. By the way...the jerk boxes that I use for these are actually 14". I measured them once.
C1. 30lb x 10 x 3. I finally moved this weight up a bit. As I've said before: these suck at tempo.
C2. 32kg x 8 x 3. I moved this weight up a bit as well. Mostly because I wanted to improve at something today.
D. 32kg x 40m/side x 3. No trouble here.
Since I was pretty disappointed with my performance today I've decided to post a few videos of things to make me feel better.
Here's a really funny bit that Eddie Izzard does about a cafeteria on the Death Star, acted out with legos:
Here's my boyhood hero, Ryne Sandberg, hitting two game tying home runs and a walk off single against the St. Louis Cardinals on June 23, 1984 (The Sandberg Game):
Here's some highlights from the 1985 Super Bowl (I still remember almost everything about that day, including what I had for dinner. Beef stew):
Here's my teenage idol Ian MacKaye and Fugazi performing "Waiting Room" (I think I'll save my thoughts on why I looked up to Ian MacKaye for another post):
One more...here's a collection of chicken dances on one of the best shows ever on TV, Arrested Development:
That's right...I'm on vacation for the next 11 days! Vacations for me a much less about travelling right now than they are about living like a human being for an extended period. You know, little things like sleeping through the night, cooking all of my own food, hanging with my dog and ramping down the general stress of waiting for "emergencies".
I took the opportunity today to get my body fat percentage tested by the amazing Sheena Lawrick because I've been up around 8-10 lbs lately and I want to make sure that it's a quality 8-10 lbs. There's good news and bad news I guess. The bad news is that I went from 5.9% bf to 7.2%, but the good news is that I added about 6 lbs of muscle with that as well. Sheena said that it's next to impossible to add weight and muscle without adding at least some fat as well and I'll take her word for it. (Although she doesn't have to look at me when I go to the beach.) Honestly, as long as I keep seeing the strength gains that go with it I don't care what my weight is. Even Patron-Saint-of-Small-Crossfitters Chris Spealler is trying to gain weight this year. You know...like this guy...
Beefcake!!!
I haven't updated this for a few days so there's two days of training to get to. The next two weeks looks somewhat similar to the last two weeks, with a few differences here and there.
On Monday, February 6 I did this bad boy:
SERIES 1
back squat: 80-85% x 2-3 x 2; rest 3-4 minutes
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5 minutes - easy airdyne
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kb squat jump: 32kg x 6 x 2; rest 3-4 minutes (only bending 1/4 here - no full depth squat)
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6-8 minutes - easy airdyne
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SERIES 2
back squat: 80-85% x 2-3 x 2; rest 3-4 minutes
+
5 minutes - easy airdyne
+
kb squat jump: 32kg x 6 x 2; rest 3-4 minutes (only bending 1/4 here - no full depth squat)
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box jump, 20": 25 unbroken x 3; rest 2 minutes
*20" box - focusing on reactive ability, minimal ground contact
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3 sets:
12 glute ham raise
15 ghd sit-up
rest 2 minutes
Both Series 1 & 2 of the back squats were at 100kg x 3 x 2. These felt really solid and I had no doubt about any of the reps. Even if I feel myself coming up on my toes out of the squat I'm getting pretty good at pushing myself back on my heels and driving up. For an exercise that I used to dread, back squats have quickly become one of my favorites.
The 1/4 squat kb jumps felt a bit awkward at first but quickly improved as I got more used to the lesser range of motion. By the end I was feeling very explosive again. The increase in the box jump height from 16" last time to 20" this time was an adjustment as well. All of the reps were unbroken but they occasionally felt clunky and like I was landing really heavily on the box. I was able to focus on having minimal ground contact, like instructed, and these are definitely improving. I also managed to remember to do the assistance work today as well.
Today's training was this:
A. bench press @ 55%: max x 3; rest 90 seconds
B1. ctb pull-up: 12-12-12-12; rest 10 seconds (keep working butterfly here)
B2. bat wing @ 20X3: 8-10 x 3; rest 2 minutes
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3 rounds for time:
10 hspu
10 ring dip
A. 52 kg x 26, 52 kg x 13, 52 kg x 7. I was somewhat happy with the 26 reps for the first set. If the NFL combine used 55% bench press as a test rather than 225 lb bench I maybe would be a 6th round pick. Maybe. (And that's if they don't look at any of the speed drills or jumping tests. If they do then I'm definitely having one of those awkward Brady Quinn days). The last two sets completely fell off a cliff.
B1. 12 (butterfly), 12 (9 butterfly + 3 kip), 12 (7 butterfly + 5 kip), 12 (6 butterfly + 6 kip). The first set of butterfly ctb always feels fantastic and then they start to die a slow, painful death.
B2. 25 lbs x 10 x 2, 25 lbs x 8.
I ended up with a big fat DNF on the last part because my shoulder was killing me on the handstand push-ups. My plan was to do sets of 3 (with one set of 4 obviously) for the HSPU and knock out the ring dips unbroken. I only made it to two sets of three before dropping down to singles in the first round because of my right shoulder. Every time I pushed myself up I had a terrible pain on the top of the shoulder. I finally called it quits after one round + 5 HSPUs (at about 7:30). I definitely should have thrown in the towel before I did but, like I've said a million times here, I'm not that bright. Quitting a workout in the middle is really hard for me, even if it hurts. Having said that, I think that something is up with my HSPUs. I've had to stop probably 3 or 4 workouts due to injury in my somewhat brief CrossFit career and all of them have involved handstand push-ups. It's not all the time and, when they're working, I can actually do them pretty well. I asked Coach Jen for some advice and I've pretty much been doing most of what she suggested, such as mobilization and scapular retraction exercises (i.e. bat wings- which I've been doing so much of lately they make me want to puke). It might come down to form which I should have her, or someone, check out when I can try them again. In the meantime I'm popping Ibuprofen and icing my shoulder like crazy. You know...like this guy...
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