11-06-27: Back squats and dumbbell step-ups

Elm City Crossfit WoD for June 27th, 2011

Dave Lipson and Rob Orlando power through 20 reps with a weight that I could maybe do once. Maybe. (games2010.crossfit.com)

We used plyo boxes. And heavier weights. And chest hair. And shirts to cover that chest hair. (gymworkout.us)

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Strength: 4 rounds

• Back squat 8 reps @ 80%
• 10 Single-leg Step-ups (each leg) 90#

I was happy to make this workout (alarm clock issues nearly precluded an early morning workout, and my work schedule would certainly block an evening one, since I'm writing this at 6:35pm, at work, while exports are running in the background. Yeah not-really-free time!), since it would mark my first time back squatting with squat racks (often featured in the Amazon ads, mostly because I wish I had some!) Formerly, all my squatting involved some manner of getting the weighted bar off the floor, either up to the front rack or overhead, up overhead if it went to the front rack first, THEN down and onto the shoulders. Fun fun fun. Already 1/2 a "man-maker" and I just wanted to squat!  For all that, I was limited in the weight selection by all that precursor work, so I knew coming into squatting from racks that I would be flying somewhat blind on weight selection.

After a bit of discussion with Coach Vin about where he thought I should be (205-225# most likely), I warmed up with the empty bar (45#) , 135#, and 185#. Sadly, that third warm-up set of 5 reps was a 40# PR over my previous attempts. And I opted to go up to 205# for the work sets. Sets of 8 are LONG sets under heavy weights, and since two of my big goats right now are muscular endurance and plain old endurance, I knew I would be sucking wind by the end of each set pretty badly. I didn't need a super heavy weight across my shoulders while struggling just to breathe. Not yet at least. That's some more advanced-type crossfitting!

What I didn't count on was how fast step-ups holding two 45# dumbbells would start sucking. Very fast, it turns out. While I struggled to complete all the sets of squats, I did manage to do them all unbroken, even though the final two reps of each set seemed like I was nearly going to fail. However, every set of step-ups was broken, usually about halfway through, to avoid collapsing across the box in a broken heap. I did try to keep the rest period snappy, so that I could try to spot my squat rack partner on his 255# squats. Show