12-04-11: Chipper!

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, April 11th, 2012

Heather Bergeron with a bit of a chicken-neck going on. K-Starr and Carl Paoli would call her out on throwing her chin up and out to get clearance, but as a total CrossFit bad-ass, I'm sure she could fix it in an instant. I'll let it go... this time.

This guy has never done a kipping pull-up in his life. I think he's ok for all that.  You want strength? Go deadhang pull-ups, all the time. You want power output, turning pull-ups into another form of cardio? Kip to your heart's delight. Two different exercises, two different purposes, two VASTLY different outcomes.

That's a LOT of weight over his head. A LOT. 

Here's how to get that much weight overhead: with the bar resting on your shoulders (a), dip down VERTICALLY just enough to give you the ability to re-extend violently, driving the bar upwards. As soon as the bar breaks from your body, you drop under it (b), catching it with extended arms just as the bar is about to come crashing back down. Arms and shoulder girdle locked in, you stand all the way with the weight, demonstrating that you've completely controlled it. (c). And, since this IS CrossFit, repeat that for reps.

Push-ups. So simple, so horrible if you're not already really good at them. This was the first movment today that really taxed my non-existent strength endurance. After a few reps, I was gassed and ready to tap out, and had to keep chopping away at the total 1-2 reps at a time. Ugh.

 Internet fail. There should be a single picture of a full ROM sit-up on the internet, but if there is, I couldn't find it. And don't think I didn't just waste valuable time looking for it. Apparently 20 minutes have gone past. Lame!

Overhead walking lunges. FML. For real. These suck so bad, its nigh unspeakable.

WoD: For Time

• 10 Deadhang Pull-Ups
• 20 Jerks @ 75% 115#
• 30 Push-ups
• 40 Sit-ups
• 50 ea. Overhead Walking Lunges 45#

I went into this workout feeling a bit old and creaky, and came out of it feeling a LOT old and creaky!  I opted to do the pull-ups without any band assist, knowing I could get sub-sets of 3-4 reps, which I did. I actually wasn't too thrilled with my final rep, not being sure if my chin really cleared the bar, but I was pretty smoked pull-up-wise by that point, and more than happy to get on the bar for the 20 jerks.

Here, I benefited from the fact that my PR on the jerk is actually a clean and jerk PR, meaning its limited by my still crappy ability to transition from one to the other without having any fingers slip out from the shoulder rack position, making the jerk nearly impossible. So, with that limiting my attempts at heavy jerks, the percentage for today's WoD wasn't too bad. I managed to do 10 reps unbroken, then completed the rest in two sets of 5. As expected, push-ups were miserable. With my arms already tired from the pull-ups and jerks, I only managed about 5-6 reps at first, and then slowed down considerably. While I had made up a lot of time on the jerks, I noticed as one by one, the other ECC athletes transitioned from their push-ups to sit-ups, while I kept chopping that big tree down, 1-2 reps at a time.

Sit-ups were relatively easy, broken into subsets of 20. (In hindsight, I may have been throwing my head to create momentum, as later that day, and lasting for at least two days, I've had an awful pain in my neck and upper-right shoulder that's been limiting my mobility and testing my patience... doh!). Then, it was on to the worst test of the WoD. 100 walking lunges, carrying a 45# plate overhead...

Taking up the weight, I again just started chopping away at the total, 10 lunges at a time (5 per leg). I hit the turn-around point out in the parking lot right on schedule, 50 lunges in. I turned, and went into the next sub-set. (Insert lots of rest and panting between each sub-set, by the way.) I had noticed that a funny twinge/knot in my left quad was starting to make itself known, and on this set, it suddenly started to really hurt. I held up for a second, and realized that when I was just standing still, without any pressure on it, the quad felt like it was licking a nine volt, with a kind of constant buzzing feel. I tried another rep or two, and the pain intensified, instantly abating to the weird buzzing/tingle when I just stood up.

After signalling to Coach Kimmy that I was in trouble, we decided that I should scale the workout to what I had already done (ie, DNF as Rx'ed, but counting 18:33 as the time with only 30 lunges per leg)

12-04-09: Stiff-legged deadlifts, presses, and more running

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Monday, April 9th, 2012

Midway through a stiff-legged deadlift (it starts at the top, with the hips fully open and extended). Note the very flat lower back (which looks like its probably about to start bending... hard to tell in a still pic whether there's already bend in the upper spine, or if that's just a heavy enough weight to pull her out of perfect alignment while not indicating full trunk failure...)

CrossFit Original Firebreather Gregg Amundson shows just how much core strength and overall flexibility go into a great overhead squat. Jerk. (CrossFit)

Nicole Carroll just makes overhead squats look easy. (CrossFit)

Shit. More running.

Shit shit. More backwards running, too!

WoD: 5 minute AMRAP

• 10 Stiff-legged Deadlift 135#/95#
• 7 Overhead Squat

Sellout: Forward and Backward

• 800m Run

This marked my first time back in the early bird class in quite some time... cripes was it ever early! 5:30 am early, to be exact. Yikes.  After a new warm-up routine (and introducing myself to the three people going through the on-ramp program), it was time to get to work. I opted for a lower weight for the WoD, since I would be limited by my ever craptastic overhead squat form. Its coming along on those workouts where I can focus on it, and take the time to really lock the upper body into place and support through my entire body. Coming off 10 stiff-legged deadlifts? Not so much...

The workout was easy enough. 10 stiff-legged deadlifts, 7 overhead squats, repeat as often as possible for 5 minutes. Given the short time domain, the workout was designed to be a quick burner, with no time spent staring at the bar, or praying to Fitness Jesus to save us. That said, we were encouraged to scale the weights to our abilities, since an overly difficult overhead squat would lead to exactly those outcomes. 

The first round was easy enough, and I managed to keep both exercises unbroken. However, in the second round of overhead squats, I ended up dropping the bar after the 4th rep, because it had floated forward and out of my control. After pausing a second to shake out my arms and shoulders, I got it overhead and finished the round. In both the third and fourth rounds, I got called out for rounding my lower back AND letting the bar go out in front of me, rather than keeping the bar close to my legs, and protecting my lower back at all costs. I was striving for speed, and had sacrificed form and safety. Ultimate mistake in anything in life. Fortunately, I avoided an acute injury on the spot, and a day later, I'm more sore in my hamstrings (the targetted area) than in my back, so that's a good sign that I dodged a very ugly bullet. 

The third round of overhead squats fell completely to shit, with either 3-4 drops, I can't remember which. No good, but I was pretty gassed at this point, and my already iffy form was being asked to do waaay too much! 10 craptastic SLDLs later, and we had finally made it to the sell-out: more running, half of it backwards again! This time, instead of short runs alternating forwards and backwards, it would be just two runs, each half a mile, one forwards, one backwards. We all opted to do the backwards run first to get it out of the way. It sucked just as much as you might imagine. coming on the heels of that, the forwards run was just as bad, if not worse, with lots of joints lighting up to tell me how pissed they were at me, primarily both ankles and knees. Ugh. Stupid running. (Apparently I need to read Born to Run again... perhaps this time in memory of Caballo Blanco, who apparently went missing and is feared dead. Lame. RIP, Micah!)

12-04-06: Clean and Jerks

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday, April 6th, 2012

Sage Burgener demos a perfect clean and jerk.

Natalie Burgener nails a perfect clean and jerk in competition.

More weight than I can deadlift gets thrown overhead. Unreal. But freaking inspirational!

WoD: 15 rounds

• 2x clean and jerk @ 60% 1RM (95#) 

The best kind of oly lift workout: one based on practicing skills, rather than practicing shit form racing a clock or working with overly heavy weights. And not that I wish unfilled classes on the fine folks at Elm City CrossFit, but it was even more awesome having only two of us there for the 6:30am class: the entire workout getting personalized coaching… well, 50% of it.

Final analysis after 30 reps of clean and jerk at 95#: Despite my always preaching and repeating it in this very blog, I apparently really need to focus on keeping the first part of the lift a deadlift. Go slow, yellow light, keep the bar ON the legs, and don’t worry about the hip extension until the bar hits mid-thigh. Coach Vin had me really work on just deadlifting the bar off the floor, and then, in a nearly separate movement, triple extend. The result was a much straighter bar path in the explosive part of the lift, allowing for an easier catch and transition to the jerk.

Other observation from this workout: I can pretty much throw the bar up in the air over my head in the jerk at 95#, a good thing when your pinkies have slipped out after the catch in the clean, but still kind of scary when the bar goes airborne over your head, and you feel yourself literally searching for it. Happily, both times I did it in a major manner, I managed to find and catch the bar safely (by touch… proper form has you looking forward, not craning your neck to look straight up). You know its even worse when other people can actually watch it happen. It’s a dumb habit to allow, since missing a 95# bar directly over your head will result in trying to catch it WITH your head. No bueno.

12-04-05: Running and box jumps

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Thursday, April 5th, 2012

I didn't look like either of these guys today. I could only wish.

Am I the only person who sees this and hears the "Weird Al" Yankovic version of "George of the Jungle" going through his head? 'Watch out for that treeeeeeeee!'

Box jumps, including the all important opening of the hips on top of the box. In a non-Games environment, this can also be accomplished while jumping down from the box. I prefer the opening ON the box, because it slows me down and keeps me from hitting the wall 5 jumps in. 

WoD: 10 RFT

• 200m run (alt. forwards and backwards) 
• 2 box jumps 20” 

Man, running backwards sucks. SUCKS. Especially when you haven’t ever done it… and it seems its just not really as worth it if you’re not trying to throw a spear or fire an arrow at an animal trying to eat you. I guess it makes sense in that case… in this case, it just sucks. In other words, they’re a perfectly awesome workout addition. Grrrr….

The first run (200m forwards) was easy enough, as were the first two box-jumps. The first round running backwards almost ended in tragedy: it can be hard to avoid parked cars in the parking lot when you can’t see them. Either way, I avoided it, and almost had a bigger tragedy: its damn near impossible to do a box jump after running 200m backwards; the legs don’t know how to listen, or the brain can’t easily work out the change in direction. I ended up jumping almost too high, and nearly crashed on the landing. At the same time, I watched another athlete not quite jump high enough onto his 30” high box, and barely catch himself in time. Fortunately, neither of us died, which is always a good thing. After that, each backwards round required a bit of a mental muscle check. “These are my quads, these are my hamstrings, these are my calves…ready to jump!”

Total time: 13:17

12-04-04: Presses and HOORAY burpees!

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, April 4th

The press, performed with a minimum of  backwards movement.

Burpees. Let the suckage begin.

WoD: 7 Rounds For Time 

• 5 press @ ½ BW (95#, reduced to 85# in round 6) 
• 10 burpees 

Coming off a period of several missed or infrequent workouts, a full-body destrominator like this one was sure to hurt. Yup. Not having weighed myself since starting at ECC back in June, I again opted to go for “ideal” bodyweight, about 185-190 pounds for my height, meaning ½ BW would be about 95#. Coach Vin had excellent advice: whatever weight we were going to use, make it out of 10s and 5s, rather than using full 25#, 35# or 45# plates. That way, if and when the weight became too heavy, it would be easy to strip off a single small plate, rather than having to take one big one off and put another big one on. Brilliant!

The first round of presses went well enough, and the first set of 10 burpees (oddly enough, in the middle of it, I pictured my early attempts at them, where stringing together 4 was an achievement!). The second round went… tolerably well. The third round of presses was hard, and may have been broken into two sets… who can remember when the suck sets in? The burpees became my mortal enemies, with me barely able to complete one, much less string them together.

Midway through the sixth round’s presses, I finally had a failed rep, and I quickly stripped off two of the 5# plates, with help from Big John, who had finished his workout several minutes earlier… the big jerk. When I cleaned the weight back up to my shoulders, it didn’t feel any lighter, but the next three presses were definitely a little easier. Not much, but enough to make it through. Sadly, that didn’t do a thing to make the burpees easier.

There was a moment, at the end of the sixth round, when everyone thought I was done with the workout… everyone else was, why not me. I had the option to instantly scale the workout and just be done with it. It sounded good… but not great. Coach Vin asked was I was done when I got up from the last burpee, to figure out my time. Staggering back to the bar, I waved him off, croaked out “one more round” and got back to work. Clean, 3 reps, drop, clean, 2 more reps… then f’ing burpees again. 10 awful burpees later (in form and feeling), I was finally done.

Total time: 13:06

12-03-26: Sprints

Elm City Crossfit WoD for Monday, March 26th, 2012

I will never tire of linking pictures like this. I definitely want to look like a sprinter. That said, thanks to CrossFit, I know ultra-marathoners who look more like Maurice than Robert, so its all about your approach, NOT your body-type.

Like a freaking superhero. Run, dammit!

WoD: 20x

• Dumpster 2 Dumpster

Sprints. Lots of them. The distance between the dumpsters (or more or less one end of the parking lot to the other) is about 90 yards. Fortunately, we had a good mixed group for the runs, one speedster, one quick distance runner, a few moderate distance runners, and me. I felt good in the first run, easily coming in first, my origins as a sprinter (before growing to over 200#) serving me well. Of course, there were 19 more runs to go. After that first one, I was just happy for those rounds where I came in second.

As the rounds progressed, I started struggling to stay in second place, as often as not trailing behind the quick distance runner. The upshot is that meant I was pushing myself more than I might have otherwise. We tried to keep our pace to running on the minute, which meant that the faster we went, the more rest time we would have. Our runs took between 15-20 seconds (obviously the longer runs came later!), so the rest periods shortened to about 40 seconds. By the 4th round, my lungs wouldn’t stop burning. By the 12th, I just wanted the workout over. By the 19th, I was beyond the ability to figure out how awful I felt.

For the 20th and final run, I wanted first place again. There was no need to conserve any energy, no further rounds to prepare for. Oddly enough, writing this more than a week later… I honestly can’t remember if I came in first or not. I was so fried by that point, I don’t think I was forming memories very well.

12-03-23: CrossFit Open 12.5

CrossFit Games Open WoD 12.5

Annie Sakamoto shows perfect thruster form. Deep into the squat at the bottom, bar supported by the shoulders, NOT the arms, into full extension, having used the power generated by opening the hips, knees, and ankles to drive the bar overhead. (CrossFit)

No doubt about whether or not this one's a legit chest to bar pull-up.  I actually only just noticed that it's a c2b chin-up, the version I attempted. Sweet! (Diablo CrossFit)

AMRAP 7 minutes:

• 3 thrusters
• 3 Chest-to-Bar Pullups
• 6 thrusters
• 6 Chest-to-Bar Pullups
• 9 thrusters
• continue pattern for as long as possible 

The final workout of the CrossFit Open, and it’s a variation on Fran. How could it not be? It *is* the prototypical CrossFit workout: Looks easy on the whiteboard, and will mess you up but good! The clincher? The pull-ups had to be chest-to-bar. You might ask me, “Dustin, do you even HAVE chest-to-bar pull-ups?” I would answer you “No, I do not.” My assumption, going into this, was that my score would be three reps. Three thrusters, then spending the rest of the time struggling to get even a single c2b pull-up. Turns out I surprised even me!

After confidently banging out three thrusters, I approached the bar. Fortunately, we could use whatever grip we wanted: overhand (pull-up), underhand (chin-up), or mixed grip. While I definitely do not have a c2b, pull-up grip, it turns out I can manage the occasional c2b with the chin-up grip. It requires a bit of kipping… which I’m also not too good at, but hey, having to kip 2 or 3 times in a single rep is a good thing, right? (No, its not, actually…)

So, I ended up being pretty surprised having to address the bar for the round of 6s. 6 thrusters later, it was time again to face the pull-up bar. Several multi-kipped, single-rep pull-ups later, with plenty of missed reps, I was even more surprised to find myself facing 9 more thrusters. At this point, my only goal was to keep the thrusters unbroken, since they were the only thing I could do well. 9 reps later, I achieved that goal, which was pretty cool. Time once more for pull-ups. I managed a single rep… but then spent the final minute of the WoD struggling to make any more reps. However, that one would be my last.

Round	3	6	9	Total
Thrusters	3	6	9	18
C2B Pull-ups	3	6	1	10
Total				28