11-10-27: Back Squat 5RM and Tabata Air Squat

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Thursday, October 27th, 2011

Chyna Cho cranking out back squats. (crossfitfootball.com)

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet with a perfect air squat. (crossfit.com)

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Strength: Back Squat - 5 Rep Max: 3 attempts
WoD: Tabata Air Squat

A quick look at my Personal Records page revealed that I had no previously written down maxes, so I ended up having to skim this blog to find any info. My highest previous max (that I could find) was a 5RM of 245#. That was set in a 20 minute effort to establish a new 5RM, which I believe it was at the time. My goal for today was to break it, substantially.

We were told that we would be limited to 6 sets, 3 warm-up and 3 attempts to set a new 5 rep max. Not including an empty bar set just to grease the grooves, I kept to that plan. My goal was to make my previous PR the first work set, then use the final two attempts to set a new PR.

Round	1	2	3	4	5	6
Reps	135#	185#	225#	245#	255#*	265#*

That's exactly what I did. I set a new PR on the 5th round, then did it again on the 6th. Granted, I thought I was gonna die on the 5th round...and thought I HAD died on the final rep of the 6th round. It's a bad thing to just want to stand up so that you can dump the weight and pass out safely. Fortunately, I managed to stand up AND not pass out. w00t!

For all that, then we had the HARD part of the workout: Tabata air squats.8 rounds of 20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest. As always, the first round felt downright EASY. The second, a little bit less so. Third through seventh felt like travelling through circles of hell, while the eighth... ah, almost done by the eighth round. Overall, I was pretty happy with keeping my reps as regular as I did. Of course, even after heavy back squats, my ability to maintain reps in a squat tabata are far superior to push-up tabatas, when I usually end up with at least one round of one rep!

Round	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8
Reps	17	14	13	13	13	10	10	12