12.3

     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.)