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

12-02-22: Air squats and wall ball shots

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Wall balls. Start in a full-depth squat (hip-crease below the top of the knee) and explode up to full extension, propelling the ball up to the target.

A better look at the starting position. Looks fun, right?

The air squat, as demonstrated by internet traffic generator Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet. These are super simple and easy, once you get the form right... but as with anything else, can start to suck massively at higher rep counts. Like, say, 50.

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• WoD: 2 x 6min with 3min recovery
  • 50 Squats
  • 20 Wallball 20#
• Sellout:
• 2x Max Rep Weighted Pull-up 25/10

"Leg catastrophe." I believe that's how Coach Vin referred to this workout. Boy, was he ever right. You can tell when you're getting experienced at the sport of exercise: You distrust that feeling of "hm, this isn't so bad" in your first set, because you just KNOW how bad its going to get down the line. Case in point, boy, that first round of squats and wallballs really wasn't all *that* bad. But transferring back into air squats, it felt like my quads were made out of concrete, and they weren't really all that excited about repeatedly squatting. I felt like I did pretty good in the first 6 minute round, slowing a bit towards the end, but trying to work straight through.

3 minutes of rest was... heavenly. And far too short, but it was awesome.

The second 6 minutes was... ugly. Seriously, just ugly. About 15 seconds in, the concrete in my legs turned into thick molten lava. Then my lungs caught on fire. Work slowed a bit after that, but I tried to keep from just sucking air, taking a few breaths and moving on. That was always the intention. I get the feeling (in hindsight) that I may not have been that awesome at it. Boo.


Total rounds/reps = 3 rounds + 34 squats

In other news, I signed up for the CrossFit Open tonight. Dammit.

12-02-06: Body-weight Beatdown

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Monday, February 6th, 2012

Burpees. If you don't know them by now, you will never, ever know them...

Pull-ups. Doesn't count if you chin doesn't go over the bar.

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet demos a perfect air-squat. Hip crease below kneecaps, arms up to help keep the chest upright. Down up, down up, repeat.

Knees to elbows. Kind of like sit-ups with massive grip and lat requirements. So, a much better sit-up. Curse the inventor...

American-style kettlebell swings: Up overhead, w00t!

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WoD:

• 5min Burpees
• 4min Pull-ups (Band assist)
• 3min Squat
• 2min Knees to Elbows
• 1min Kettlebell Swings 55#, American style (overhead)

This was exactly as awful as I would have expected. Started sucking in the first 5 minutes, and did NOT let up at ANY point. I don't know how much detail I need to go into on this. 5 minutes of burpees is just awful. The only sort of high-light of the workout was the wardrobe malfunction I had in the middle of the pull-ups. To quote Coach Vin: "Funny, Dustin isn't usually the kind of guy to strip down in the middle of a workout!" Turns out that band-assist pull-ups are even worse when the band is catching on your copious chest hair. Maybe, one day, when I have a chiseled set of abs and pecs, THEN I'll be able to shave/wax/whatever my chest, strip down and not have the band catch on my all-natural sweater. Meh.

Total reps: 

• 55 burpees
• 26 pull-ups
• 69 squats
• 16 k2e
• 14 kettlebell swings

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