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)

12-03-08: Sit-Ups and Double-Unders

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Thursday, March 8th, 2012

Double-Unders... and recipe for disaster.

Left: Crap form. Right: Awesome form.

Nothing to add. Sit-ups. Do 'em!

Just keep jumpin'!

It's just jumping rope... how hard can it be, right? 

I will laugh every time I post this... then mention that her range of motion is lacking, and that her shoulders should be coming forward enough to be in front of her hip crease. Other than that... animated gifs! Like I'm back in college again!

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WoD: 3 Rounds for Time

• 10 Sit-ups
• 30 Double-Unders
• 30 Sit-ups
• 10 Double-Unders

Pretty quick, simple burner. In the interest of avoiding injury, we were encouraged to NOT kill ourselves going for double-unders if we're still struggling with them, and to count all the singles as well. Sit-ups were done with an ab-mat, and double-unders were nearly non-existent.

Total Time: 8:20 

12-02-27: Squats, Push-Ups, Pull-Ups and Sit-Ups (Oh My!)

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Monday, February 27th, 2012

Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet demonstrating excellent air squat form.

Pull ups from the bottom position (note the *fully* extended arms...

Just about the bottom of the push-up position (chest to the deck).

MOAR push-ups!!

Band-assist pull-ups. Chin well above the bar. Hm, if chest-to-bar pull-ups come up in these games, I'm screwed. File that away for later processing...

Top plank position of the push-up. Notice the utter lack of arch or cav-in in her core. Perfectly straight. (THough there is discussion (over at T-Nation) as to whether its appropriate, or better, to have a little arch to relieve pressure/stress from... something. The article didn't make much sense, and boiled down to their usual "It's easier (read: has less impact), so therefor its better" argument. Not sure if I agree or not. There may well be applications of their logic... I guess.

Huzzah for animated GIFS showing the correct way to use the ab-mat. However, for our purposes, she never comes all the way up to the top (shoulders in FRONT of the hip-crease), so these are all No-Reps... for all eternity. Shame, really...

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WOD: 2 x 2min each

• Squats¹ / Sit-Ups ²
• Push-ups
• Pull-ups
• Rest

After nearly 5 days of DOMS (delayed-onset muscle soreness) from last Wednesday's beatdown, which carried over the CrossFit Open burpee challenge on Saturday, it was nice to finally be getting some pain-free movement back into my quads this morning. The muscles are still sore, but actually going up and down stairs, or sitting down in a chair or getting up, are no longer actions that inspire existential dread. The body heals and adapts...

So, obviously, it was time for more squats, and other bodyweight fun times. Simple workout: got through the list of movements twice (first movement changes between sets, squats in the first set, sit-ups in the second), resting between those rounds. As many of us were in the same agony boat I had been in as recently as the day before, we were cautioned to take the squat round easy, and use it as more of a tune-up, getting the blood flowing, rather than going all out and doing more damage, and increasing the possibility of a nice case of rhabdo. This would NOT be a good outcome, so everyone seemed to take the warnings to heart.

After cruising through the squats, it was time to feel weak on the push-ups (again) before feeling WAY weak on the pull-ups (small blue band for the assist) before earning a much needed two minute break. Second time through, it was ab-mat sit-ups instead of squats, then push-ups and pull-ups again (this time with a much stouter green band).  My weakness on pull-ups is definitely from the very bottom of the hole, since once I get going (at least in a band) completing the pull-up isn't that hard... but getting going out of the bottom is just the worst! My best guess at how to target that is to add in pull-ups to every warm-up, dead hang, from the full-on bottom position, NO band assist. Just a few reps at a time, to work those specific muscles. Here's hoping.

Movement	Reps	Totals
Squats	52	52
Push-Ups	31	below
Pull-Ups	16	below
Rest	Ahhhhhh!
Sit-Ups	42	42
Push-Ups	21	52
Pull-Ups	14	30

12-02-13: Bodyweight devastation!

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Monday, February 13th, 2012

Double-unders. Rope goes under the feet twice per jump. Keeping the body rigid and not mule-kicking on every jump increases your efficiency drastically. 

Push-ups. Suck-tacular today.

An animated GIF! AWESOME!!! (ab mat sit-ups, btw...)

Mountain climbers. So awful, even the US military uses them. (ArmyPRT.com)

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WoD: 30-20-10

• Double-Unders
• Push-ups
• Sit-ups
• Mountain Climbers (2-count)

Brutality. Nothing else can explain how much this one sucked. While it was fairly fast, for some reason I had ZERO push-ups, and for the second and third rounds, resorted to doing scaled push-ups from my knees (though still with a fully rigid torso and abdomen, so not cheater push-ups!). I struggled a bit with the double-unders, but they were far from "the problem" on this workout. I just got *smoked* on the push-ups. I managed to keep all the sit-ups unbroken, got a little mulched on the mountain climbers... but man, did those push-ups eff me up. Argh.

Note: Writing this post two days later. What's sore? My upper thighs, most likely from the combination of mountain climbers and sit-ups. Argh argh argh indeed! :(

Total time: 12:00 

Place: Last.

12-01-13: Snatches, sit-ups and snatch-balances

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday the 13th, January 2012

Iranian Olympic lifter Rezazadeh throws several hundred kilograms of weight over his head the way I through my daughter over my head.. only he makes it look easy. (Sweatpit)

Sage Burgener shows awesome snatch form. So awesome that in the second frame, during the explosive pull, she's actually transmuting time and space. Awesomeness. (CrossFit)

Snatch balance. Start standing up, end in a nice deep full squat, bar overhead with arms locked out and fully extended. (crossfit)

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• Strength: 10min
  
  • Snatch 75% and under @ 95#
  • Work to get under the bar
• WoD: 3 Rounds For Time
  
  • 20 Sit-ups
  • 10 Snatch Balance 95# 75# (First time seeing this video, and its AWESOME! Great coaching and tips.)

Ah, more olympic lifts! Today's goal was to work our experience under the bar, specifically finishing the snatch with the arms fully extended (rather than pressing out), and achieving stability in that extended position at the bottom of the catch. Hence, the lower weights, and the time to focus on form for each attempt. Rather than training at the squirrely edge of technique with too-heavy weights, the goal was to use weights we felt at least mostly comfortable with that would still pose a challenge.

Warm-ups with the bar felt fine, as did 65# attempts. Working through 75#, 85# and finally 95#, I began struggling a little bit more. I was really working on form, trying my very best NOT to just muscle the bar overhead, which at those weights I would have been more than able to handle. However, since that wasn't the point of the workout, it was more instructive to land on my ass a few times after a failed attempt than work too hard to rescue it.

For the WoD, we worked on the snatch balance, where the bar is held in the high-bar back squat position across the shoulders to start, then dropping under it as fast as possible, catching it with arms extended. This is really very difficult, especially since its way easier to initiate the movement by heaving the bar up a little bit to give the bar a little upwards motion prior to dropping under it. Of course, that's the heaving snatch balance, and not the same movement at all. Admittedly, by the third round, the heaving version was the only possible version.

Compared to the O-lifts, the sit-ups were basically non-existent, just some filler in between rounds of much harder, more awful (I mean AWESOME!) olympic lifts. The snatch balances were definitely the surprise hero of this workout, because even though I knew they would suck, they ended up annihilating me, making me wonder if I would make it through the workout or not. I've only done them a few times in the past, not including warm-ups with PVC pipe. I can only recommend them as a great way to work on the critical catch component of the snatch.

Total time: 10:06

11-12-12: Ring rows, sit-ups and push-ups

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Monday, December 12, 2011

Ring rows: Though used as a scaling option for pull-ups, they are difficult in their own right, requiring and building lots of multi-planar support in the shoulders, torso, as well as the arm muscles, obviously.

Push-ups. Note the abmat next to her, conveniently for my needs. There is a dearth of cool pictures of people doing sit-ups on the interwebz.

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• WoD: 10!
  
  • Ring Row
  • Sit-up
  • Push-ups
• Sellout: 2x Failure
  
  • Dumbbell Hammer Curls

The factorial in the WoD description just means rounds of 10, 9, 8, etc... 

This is the workout I'm glad I *didn't* have on Friday: It actually felt pretty good.The ring rows and push-ups caught up with me pretty quickly, but not in a way that was too distressing. I pretty much wanted to die during the 2nd and 3rd rounds (9 and 8 reps, respectively), but as the rounds got shorter, the work got noticeably easier.

The upshot with ring rows is how infinitely scalable they really are. With your shoulders directly under the rings (and where the rings are anchored), the work is very difficult. But if you just walk a bit backward, putting a lateral component into the angle of the rings from the ceiling, the work load decreases dramatically. They can be performed from a nearly vertical position for extreme scaling, or flat parallel to the floor for a tougher workout. I was somewhere in the middle, flatter in the beginning... a bit more vertical by the end.

Push-ups were all completely legit, full ROM. Sit-ups were performed with an abmat, knees apart to minimize the contribution from the hip flexors. The ROM is defined by the back touching the floor, and the shoulders moving in front of the hip crease  at the top. While the push-ups were all broken into subsets after the first few rounds, I managed to keep the sit-ups unbroken. So at least there was that.

The sell-out was good old-fashioned body building, dumbbell curls. The prescripted weight was "heavy enough to limit the set to 8-12 reps." I got it fairly close, failing out at 13 reps on the first round, 14 on the second. This was using the 20# dumbbells. 25# probably would have been perfect, but I'm not too concerned about a couple of extra reps. At least I didn't bang out 20-25 and completely miss the point. So, again, at least there was that.

11-07-20: Push presses and sit-ups, and burpees, and running

Elm City CrossFit WoD for July 20th, 2011

The push press. It seems so simple, right? Use a slight knee and hip bend to drive a weight from your shoulders to the overhead position.  It seems almost... natural. That does NOT make it "simple!" (CrossFit Infinite)

Sit-up form to try to keep the hip-flexors out a bit more. Note the towel under his back, filling the same function that an abmat would, namely, allowing full extension of the abs and preventing the small of the back from driving into the floor at the start of the movement. Both very good things. I presume he was protecting his junk from monkeys or something in the pic on the right. Safety first. (Simply Natural Supplements)

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WOD: 21-21-15-15-9-9

• Push Press 95/65
• Reverse Crunch

Sellout: 5x On the minute

• 2 Burpees
• 1 Crack Dash

Walking in, my hope was that the rep scheme was an odd way of saying 21 push presses, 21 sit-ups. Nope, rather than the CrossFit regular of 45 reps, we were shooting for 90 today. Great googly-moogly!

Here we see Nicole Carroll showing perfect alignment on the dip phase of the push-press or push-jerk. Hips have closed a bit, knees have closed a bit, and the line between her center of balance, her hips and the bar make a straight line. In other words, she has dipped straight down.

As it turns out, I've been doing it wrong for quite some time.

Here we see Rob showing off several possible positions for the bottom of the dip. The first one is obviously the correct one, the same as Nicole's above. In the middle picture, in leaning forward a little, he's brought the bar in front of his center of balance. When he tries to straighten out of this dip, rather than driving the weight straight up, it will tend to shoot even further out in front, making him do even more work if he's going to rescue the lift.

In the last picture, we see the problem *I've* apparently saddled myself with.  In an attempt to keep from leaning forward, I've failed to actually close the hip, leaving me leaning back. This "felt" like I wasn't leaning forward, which is technically true, but my mental image of what I was doing looked more like the first picture. A LOT more pressure and strain is put on the lower back in this configuration, and the action of the hips reopening is completely omitted, making the lift even harder.


Total Time: uknown (it was nearly a week ago at this point. I'll try to keep up with this better in the future.)

11-04-26: Unending Devastation

CrossFit Garden City Wod for April 13, 2011

Wall-climbs. Hang on to your lunches! (CrossFit Beaufort)

Dumbbell swings, gripping one of the weight blobs. (CrossFit UNC)

Air squat. It's safe to say you're not going low enough in your squats. Hip crease MUST drop below the top of the knees. Otherwise, you're just doing knee-cricks, which don't count for reps. (CrossFit)

If the rope is invisible in the picture, it's probably a double-under. (CrossFit LAX)

---

Warmup:

• 3 sets of
  • 10 Overhead Squats,
  • 2 min Double Under Practice
• HSPU/Wall Climb Practice

(Determine appropriate scale for workout)
Training:

• 10 Wall Climbs
• 40 KB Swings (24/16kg)
• 60 Anchored AbMat Situps
• 80 Squats
• 100 Double Unders
• 80 Squats
• 60 Anchored AbMat Situps
• 40 KB Swings
• 20 HSPU (shortened ROM)

Scaling: HSPU: Full ROM - Shortened ROM - Kick To Handstand - Wall Climbs (Chest to Wall)

---

This was just an ugly, ugly slog to the finish line. The whole way through the workout, I kept thinking I was going to end up capping it after the double-unders, just in terms of time. However, I've been *terrible* about my diet lately, and felt I owed it to myself to beat the everliving piss out of me in retaliation for mistaking my fuel-intake for a garbage disposal. Warm-up was fairly uneventful. Struggled mightily with the double-unders, which after a week of not practicing, didn't exactly come as a surprise. It did make me start considering the requirement of doing 100 of them mid-workout, though. Decided to scale the initial 20 handstand push-ups to 10 wall climbs, which took me a few mini-sets to complete.

The first set of kettle bell swings I completed in two sets (I was having grip issues because of sweaty palms and using a dumbbell rather than a real kettlebell with a *real* handle to hang onto...). The sit-ups were where everything started to fall apart atrociously. It took a good 4-5 mini-sets to get through them, and my abs were on FIRE from about rep 30 on. Especially upper abs, where they attach to the ribs. That's one upshot of the abmat, where you have to unclench the abs on every rep, so you're doing a bit more work on every rep. Argh. The squats were hard, but not terrible. I ended up breaking them up a bit, just to get some blood back into, or maybe out of, my quads. Depth was good on every rep, but I was having trouble finding a good foot placement. Could have just been that as random smaller muscles fatigued (IT band, ab/ad-ductors), I was adjusting in a bid to ease up on them without really realizing it.

 Double-unders. 100 of them. I've never done that many in a single workout. I decided to see how I did, and scale on the fly if needed. After "accidentally" cranking out 30 at once, I was determined to complete the prescribed 100. Several mini-sets later, I had done just that. Words cannot describe how awesome that felt. Not that I'm great at them yet, but this was a huge mental hurdle that I barely knew existed going into it. "How can I ever do 100 double-unders?" In small chunks, that's how.

 With that out of the way, I opted to NOT scale or cut the rest of the workout. The second set of squats felt a little easier than the first, though it still took me two mini-sets to complete. The next 60 sit-ups nearly killed me. Seriously. The final 40 dumbbell swings were just a pain because of my grip slipping on the end of the dumbbell. I could have switched to holding the handle, but it changes the ballistics so much that I'm really not a fan of doing that with so heavy a weight. Some chalk and curses later, I was down to just the final handstand push-ups. I opted to do wall-walks, with 20 reduced-ROM handstand push-ups. I would be rewarded for doing more push-ups at once with fewer wall-walks. That carrot worked PERFECTLY, as I cranked out 5, then 7, then a final 8 handstand push-ups with only three wall-walks added in. That might be my constant scaling now, scaling that actually adds in a bit of work at the beginning and end of the mini-set (the wall-walk up and down), with some actual movement (the reduced-ROM HSPU), with a goal of minimizing the wall-walks and increasing the ROM.

Total Time: 47:30

11-03-31: Pull-ups, sit-ups and walking lunges

CrossFit Garden City WoD for March 24, 2011
Warmup:

• 10 light Turkish Get Ups per Arm 20#

Training:
21-18-15-12-9-6-3 reps of:

• Jumping Pullups
• AbMat Situps
• Walking Lunges

Accessory:

• L-Sit L-Tuck on Rings - Accumulate 2 minutes in as few sets as possible

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The Turkish GetUp. Learn it, live it.(physicalsubculture.com)

Chest to bar pull-ups. Like regular ones, but a bit more awful. (Sin City CrossFit)

AbMat Sit-Ups. Maybe more fun together than alone? (CrossFit Weekend Warriors)

Ideally, you actually should NOT teleport from one leg to the other. Stand up between EVERY rep, not just the first three and last two. (leg-exercises.com)

Heather Keenan Bergeron does that which I cannot. (crossfit.com)

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Though feeling a bit tight from the previous day's massive PR on deadlifts (335#...which isn't very heavy at all, actually...), I was pretty psyched up for today's workout. I scaled the warm-up a bit, doing only 10 Turkish Get-Ups per arm, rather than the Rx'ed 30/arm.  This was mostly a time consideration, as 60 TGUs is a bit time consuming. However, after doing those 20 reps, I did a little active stretching and prepping for the training phase.

Although I set-up a stretch band on the weight-assist pull-up machine, I opted to do jumping chest-to-bar pull-ups off the back of the Smith machine, figuring that over the sheer number of reps (84) for this workout, we didn't have enough bands for when I finally couldn't do any sort of normal pull-ups anymore, while my staying power on the jumping variety is quite a bit better.  After cranking up the new Amon Amarth album "Surter Rising" I started the clock and got going.

My only goal for each set was "unbroken." Just finish the reps for that round, that's all. It worked for the first and longest round, and I eventually recovered it for the final three rounds (9-6-3), but had no ability to maintain it on the rounds of 18-15-12, except for the walking lunges. Soccer legs saved me on those, making those my rest period compared to the rest.

Total Time: 10:18

For the L-Sit hold, I immediately scaled it back to an L-tuck, since I barely have a clean L-Sit, much less for an extended period of time. Though I've done some work maintaining the control position, and a little less time trying to hold L-sits and tucks, I had no idea what 2 minutes would feel like. Turns out, it feels like an eternity, even in four smaller bite-sized chunks!

L-Tuck 2:00m: 30s / 35s / 30s / 25s

11-02-16: Overhead Squats, "Annie!" (Double-Unders and AbMat Sit-Ups)

CrossFit Garden City WoD for February 4, 2011

Warmup:
3 sets of 10 OH Squats/1 min DU practice
Strength:
Overhead Squat (3211 tempo)
5-5-5-5-5
Beginners or those with limited mobility/poor OH Squat mechanics - stay LIGHT and focus on good position, depth and tempo. Use PVC, training bar or light barbell and complete 50 repetitions.
Benchmark!: "Annie"
50-40-30-20-10  25-20-15-10-5 reps of:

• Double Unders
• Situps (Anchored, AbMat)

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Note the full grip on the bar. For my lighter sets, the grip was open, with the bar really sitting on my fingers. I have pretty good grip strength, but at higher weights, that would just be silly. And so amazingly stupid that I would totally deserve whatever fate befell me. (board.crossfit.com)

No, its not a blurry photo... the rope is just moving THAT DAMN FAST. My legs are still shot from this about 36 hours later as I'm finally finishing this post. Knees? Crackly and sore. Right calf? Feels like I have a baseball rammed in it. (crossfit.com)

AbMat sit-ups. Notice the awesome low back arch.  These things are golden. (CrossFit Milford)

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Did this one while overseeing a track/baseball workout that included some CrossFit style elements. Warmed-up using the jump-rope for the overhead squat form, then practicing double-unders. Sadly, I had almost NO double-unders...not good for the benchmark! Was it doing it in the much larger Lower Gym, with its oddly hard floor? Or just doing them in front of a slightly different group of students than usually gets to see me struggle with them? No idea. It definitely sucked though.

Since I've struggled with form, but have had some modest success, I decided to walk the line between the Rx'ed workout and the scaling. I would do the 5x5 work sets, but using light and increasing weights, rather than just empty bar or jump-rope unweighted for 50 reps. I started light, first with the empty bar (35#), then with two 2.5# plates on it (I wasn't paying attention, and assumed they were 5#), totaling 40#. These two sets weren't done exactly to the the 3211 tempo (down for 3 seconds, hold at the bottom for 2, then back up in 1 second (not max speed), hold at the top for 1 second, repeat), so I opted to start my work sets at 40#, paying super close attention to the tempo. I definitely need a slightly longer bar (ours is a 5' long beginner's/women's/practice bar, with a notably shorter grip-width as well. for the empty bar warm-ups, I actually had the best success with my pinky and ring fingers up and over the weight collar! Can't really do THAT with weights on the bar!

With the lighter weights, I was able to carry the bar back on my fingers, arm bent back at the wrist. This served to place the weight a few crucial inches further back, keeping the weight over my center of balance. Obviously, this is a *terrible* way to do it while working with heavier weights! However, at these weights, it really wasn't too much of an issue... other than training improper technique and neural patterns and muscle recruitments! With that in mind, I definitely fought to maintain a proper grip, especially as the weights crept up.
I did well through every set, until the final one, when a combination of arm/shoulder fatigue and my struggle to keep the weight well gripped caused me to fail forwards at the bottom of the 4th rep. I repeated the rep and tried to finish strong, but on coming out of the squat, found myself coming up and forwards, up on my toes, revealing my balance was completely shot in the bottom.

Overhead Squats x 5: 40# / 45# / 50# / 55# / 60# with one fail


Annie was just a total disaster. I forgot to start the clock running for the first set of double-unders, which took frickin' forever anyways. I barely managed to string any together, so it took forever to get the count up, and all the extra frantic single-bouncing between double-unders didn't help. Nor did repeatedly whipping myself with the jump-rope by accident, leaving welts and bloody knuckles on my right hand. Fun. However, the worst bit was the growing ache in my knees... which is still raging today. Joy of joys.

Ab-mat sit-ups are downright fun and easy comparatively.

1/2 Annie: 12:30 not including first round of double-unders, so closer to 20. Seriously.

11-01-21: Angie!

CrossFit benchmark WoD: Angie
"Angie"

• 100 80 Pull-ups
• 100 80 Push-ups
• 100 80 Sit-ups
• 100 80 Squats

As Rxed, For Time :Complete all reps of each exercise before moving to the next.

Scaling: Sub-sets of 10 each to make it even remotely possible.
Jumping-Chest-to-Bar Pull-ups instead of real ones, because that's nearly an infinite number of pull-ups, at least for me...

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If someone tells you pull-ups are good for isolating muscles in the back, try not to laugh at their utter incomprehension of what a full-body monster pull-ups CAN be. (crossfit.com)

All the way down, all the way up. Repeat as needed. (crossfit.com)

Abmat allowing proper lumbar curvature throughout the entire ROM of a sit-up, making it both more effective AND (at least in my mind) easier, because the initial ab contraction doesn't just fire your lower back into the floor. Because your back is supported, that initial contraction actually works towards elevating your torso! Just like what a sit-up is supposed to do! Yay Abmat! (abmat.com) (Note, I am NOT a paid sponsor, but if the abmat folks want to sponsor me, I'll do it!)

It's ok if your hip crease doesn't drop below the top of your knees. You just can't count the rep, and have to keep trying until you DO break parallel. For as long as it takes.  Come on, the toddler can do it! Why can't you? (For what its worth, watch almost ANY toddler, and you will see nearly perfect squat mechanics, perfect running form, everything. It's AWESOME!) (crossfit.com)

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I ended up doing this workout at the end of the workday on Friday, having missed my window to get it in during my lunch hour. The number of complications this created was large, but the biggest were these: I had eaten lunch recently, and I usually workout on a nearly empty (read: pre-lunch) stomach, and I had pretty much written off working out, so I had very little time to try to psych myself back up when the opportunity presented itself. But, I grabbed my crap, headed down to the gym, cranked up the Amon Amarth, and went to work!

Some quick intense jump-rope and active stretching, then onto the workout. I grabbed a dumbbell to anchor my feet on the sit-ups, my AbMat for its first WoD use, and set myself up under the ever multi-tasking Smith machine (for the jumping chest-to-bar pullups, a scaling borrowed from the fine folks over at CrossFit Garden City). Then, viking metal cranking, I started knocking out sets of 10 of each exercise.  One other change (not reflected above) was that I did each exercise in the wrong order, having written down the workout from memory.  Rather than pull-ups, followed by push-ups, sit-ups and finally squats, I did them as followed: 10 squats, 10 push-ups, 10 jumping c2b pull-ups, 10 sit-ups, with the driving factor being not doing the squats the jumping c2bs back to back.

Two rounds in, I just wanted to die. Two rounds later, I knew I was going to die. In the fifth round, I started having to stop occasionally to let my stomach settle, since lunch was still floating around and starting to make itself known.  I didn't want to meet Pukie the Clown until it was because of my awesome intensity, not just my bad scheduling.

So, with some pasta and sausage and chicken with red sauce making its way around my guts, I continued working through sets.  By the time I hit the 7th set, I had to break up the sit-ups and push-ups.  Jumping pull-ups had already started being broken up in the 4th or 5th rounds, but really only because my form was starting to fall apart, especially on the negatives and landings. Better to take a breath and keep from re-tweaking my knees doing pull-ups (just TRY explaining that one to someone).

By the end of the 8th set, I was pretty much done. Had I pushed through the final 20 reps of each exercise, I certainly would have ended up booting, and probably still not completed the full workout. However, I also misread/misremembered the recommended scaling from CF GC, and thought that they wanted you to shoot for between 15-20 minutes for the workout, scaled as necessary. I finished round 8 at 19 minutes even, and figured that was perfect.  Having just reread their workout, it actually reads that we should have been shooting for 20-25 minutes... ie, I was right on track, or at least could have fit in one more round, if not both.

This highlights an unfortunate reality I failed to take into account when tackling this workout: if you don't plan ahead for what you want to accomplish specifically, you will end up doing less every time. At least, I will. Granted, CF GC's scaling recommended doing maybe 50-75 reps of each exercise to stay within the timeframe, so I did MORE than that... but in terms of the overall time period, I actually ended up cutting it short. Lesson learned, the hard way.

Music for the workout:
Amon Amarth - With Oden on Our Side - 2006
Valhalla Awaits Me - Live at Summerbreeze 2007

Runes to My Memory - official video

Asator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=03mNIlsSbW0 (Embedding disabled by request, so I'm sure you won't follow the link. Heh.  Lord the Rings footage set to Amon Amarth. Love it!!
Hermod's Ride to Hel - Loke's Treachery Part 1

Gods of War Arise (Call of Duty games used as footage = awesome!)

With Oden on Our Side

Cry of the Black Birds