11-11-23: Bench press and double-unders

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, November 23rd, 2011

Bench press. 15-20 reps in, the smile has usually disappeared. Usually.

Floor presses. See notes below...

Double-Unders. Nothing I haven't already said about them before....

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• Buy-in: 5 x 4
  
  • Bench @ 87% 185#
• WoD: 6min AMRAP
  
  • 5 Floor Presses 155# 135#
  • 7 Double Unders

This was my first time NOT working out with the 5:30 a.m. crew. Turns out, I suck at setting my alarm clock at 11 p.m. at night. Rather than setting the MWF early morning alarm, I set the slightly later Tuesday alarm. That'll be handy next week when it finally goes off! Happily, there were plenty of friendly faces. (Yes, I was worried about not knowing anyone... pretty lame, but seriously.)

First up was bench presses, 5 sets of 4 reps, at about 5 rep max weights. Basically, the first several sets of 4 should be easy enough, but in terms of total volume, the chances are that the final set would be hard. In a good sign, the first 4 sets were increasingly difficult, but I finished all of them, only to fail on the final rep of the final set. Essentially, perfect weigh selection! After that, it was fun with a couplet involving floor presses and double-unders.

 Happily, the weight for this was lighter than for the bench presses, and floor presses automatically have a reduced range of motion. Easy, right? Heh. Tonight, I experimented with using a much lighter jump-rope on the double-unders. It was arguably easier to turn fast enough, but I had a lot of trouble stringing them together. Probably just a practice thing, because the actual individual double-unders themselves seemed a bit easier.

I ended up informally competing against Tom, one of our better endurance *and* strength athletes, who had also been my spotter (and I spotted him) on the bench presses. As it turns out, he was keeping tabs on me, too. Having already hit my limit on bench presses earlier, it was only a matter of time before the floor presses caught up with me. However, I was having better luck with the double-unders than Tom. At the end of 6 minutes, we were completely tied: 5 rounds + 5 floor presses.