11-07-07: Pull-Ups, Floor Presses and Burpees

Elm City Crossfit Wod for July 7th, 2011

Pull-ups. If I could kip, this might not have sucked as much. I can't. It did. (crossfit.com)

Floor presses. Bench presses, but without the bench. Pretty straight-forward. Watch you don't destroy your forearm by pinning your elbow into the floor on the way down... just sayin'. (worldsstrongestlibrarian.com)

Burpees. Cardio-strength devastating perfection. Stand, squat, plank with chest to floor (ie, do a push-up), hop back to the squat, jump with hands overhead. The MOST range of motion you can get while staying in place. Awful. Awesome. Terrifying. Terrific. (leanprimalfit.com)

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10 down: 10 up

• Pull-ups
• Floor Press 95#

after each pair down/up complete:

• 2 Burpees

This results in the following:

• 10 pull-ups
• 1 floor presses
• 2 burpees
• 9 pull-ups
• 2 floor presses
• 2 burpees
• 8 pull-ups
• 3 floor presses
• 2 burpees
• . . .
• 2 pull-ups
• 9 floor presses
• 2 burpees
• 1 pull-up
• 10 floor presses
• 2 burpees

If you think that looks like fun, I just have NOTHING to say to you.  Honestly, I wasn't too worried about the burpees or the floor presses. 55 pull-ups in a single workout seemed a bit optimistic, though. Remembering how poorly I did on the AMRAP 5 minute pull-ups from last week (which really screwed up my elbows, due to poor form on my part), I made sure to use a much stronger band for my assistance. While I didn't need it as much early on, its the only thing that let me finish this beast.

Though I started out hoping for a few unbroken sets of pull-ups, 6 reps in it was revealed to me just how very overly optimistic I truly was. After that, I was lucky as hell to string 3 pull-ups together, much less finish a set unbroken (the 9th and 10 sets I managed it... when I had to do 2 and 1 rep, respectively. Ooohhh...). On the other hand, I was able to crank through the floor presses until about the 8th round, when massively depleted arm-strength started making that bar feel really freaking heavy.  While I didn't put the bar down, I did allow it to rest with my elbows on the floor towards the end of the final few sets.

The burpees were easy, though I was freaking done with them by the 9th and 10th sets of them. One thing that made today's workout extra difficult/awesome was that I was the only person there for the 5:30 am WoD.  There's an overlapping Crossfit Endurance class that most of them went to instead, leaving me one on one with Vin, who watched me like a hawk, both coaching and cheerleading whenever I needed one or the other.

Though I felt pretty good the whole way through, my inability to do pull-ups in volume really destroyed my time. Especially on those high middle sets (7-5) when I could barely do 2 in a row, and often ended up expending extra energy on attempts that just barely failed to get my chin above the bar. Those really cut into my time, so though I felt like I moved pretty quickly the first 2 rounds, and really tried to cook through the final three rounds or so, I still ended up with a pretty slow time. Still, its actually doing it that will make me faster and stronger, so I'm thankful for the slow times that will eventually be the fuel for my faster times to come. I hope. :S