11-15-10: Dumbbell swings, wall balls, and pull-ups

CrossFit WoD for Monday November 8th, 2010
Three rounds for time of:

• 30 (25-20) Kettlebell swings, 1.5 pood
• 25 (20-15) Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball
• 20 (15-10) Pull-ups

(After nearly failing during the 1st round, I opted to drop 5 reps per movement per round.  As Rx'ed, the workout was just the first number of reps per each movement. The parenthesized numbers show my reps in round 2 and 3.)

Rich Froning Jr. 7:40, Pat Sherwood 9:49, Lisa Ray 10:16 (1 pood KB, 14lb ball),  E.C. Synkowski 10:32 (1 pood KB, 14lb ball), Miranda Oldroyd 10:53 (1 pood KB, 14lb ball), Joe Alexander 11:09, Bobbi Milsaps 13:18 (1 pood KB, 14lb ball).

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Annie showing great kettlebell swing form. (crossfit.com)

Deep squat, then explode to get the heavy ball up the wall. Ugh. (crossfit.com)

Pull-up form. Note the straightened arms on the left. Yes, its harder. Its because you're doing more work. Most people never get their elbow past 90 degrees in the bottom, limiting the necessary work dramatically. (crossfit.com)

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First things first, I bonked HARD in this workout.  As a matter of fact, 15 dumbbell swings in, I was completely ready to quit.  I just had no energy.  I managed to get through the first round as Rx'ed, and decided that if I wasn't going to quit right there, I needed to start scaling dramatically.  First off, this was my first workout in 10 days, and my first since a harrowing time in the hospital with my daughter.  During those 3 days, my diet was WAY out of whack, with a vast preponderance of carbs going in, and very little sleep, and what sleep I did get was interrupted by the (thankfully) regular visits of nurses and doctors checking in regularly.  For the record, acute bronchial events SUCK the sweat off a dead camel's nuts.

This was all followed up by a few nights of setting the alarm at home for such fun times as 1am and 3am to continue the post-hospital respiratory therapy, and still not great nutrition. After that all calmed down, I added in a few more doses of bad juju: a flu shot, a platelet donation, and finally forgetting to have ANY fat with my last pre-workout meal, and basically I couldn't have tried any harder to sabotage this workout if I tried.

I ended up with an "untimed" workout.  I know how long it actually took, but with everything that played into it, I'm not too concerned with the time.  I was just glad to have the brain-space to force myself through the rest of the workout.

My warm-up included jump rope and active stretching.  My cool down included a bit of work on arm and wrist flexibility, trying to improve my rack position for the clean and its related exercises, like the front squat. Irritatingly, while it feels like I can easily get my wrists into position one at a time using dumbbells, clearly the physics aren't really lining up, since as soon as I use the barbell, form goes out the window. I can barely get the bar to touch my chest, much less get my shoulders up front enough to rack the weight on my delts like I should.  Ugh.  So, that's an on-going project.  Wheeeee!