11-04-04: Front squats, thruster/box jump couplet

CrossFit Garden City WoD for March 25, 2011
Warmup:

• Jump rope
• Active Stretching, shoulder focus

Strength:
Front Squat (20X1 tempo)
5-4-3-2-1-1-1
Increase weight each set. Set of 5, 4 & 3 should be easy & fast. Set of 2 a bit tougher. Try to set a new 1 rep max over the last 3 sets.
Conditioning:
5 sets:

• 15 Dumbbell Thrusters (45# 35#)
• 15 Box Jumps

---

The front squat. (CrossFit Sweatshop)

Field thrusters. MUCH harder than dumbbell thrusters. Trust me. (CrossFit Westchester)

The fourth photo shows the most important part of the box jump (other than making it up onto the box): Full hip extension. *This* is where everyone will cheat the move, making so that they don't actually really move their body weight the full height. That's cheatin'. (thefitblog.net)

---

I wasn't ecstatic about working out today. It was just a weird, off kinda Monday, and I was worried that might carry over to the workout. I really hate being right.

However, I do have to gloat a bit about being able to link together double-unders sort of without even trying. Not that I was able to do more than 10-15 at a time, but that about 10x to 15x more than usual. So that kind of ruled. Stretching was fairly uneventful in contrast.

The trouble started with the front squats. My previous PR was 185# for two reps. So, with a great deal of chutzpah, I figured I could easily hit it again for a single, then PR at 190# or 195#. I tried to plan ahead what my weights and jumps were going to be. I realized a few weights in that I'm an idiot. I started out, greasing the tracks, with a set of 10 front squats with the empty bar (35#). Easy enough. Slapping on 25# plates brought me to 85# for a set of 5. Easy. The next few sets were easy as well. It wasn't until it occurred to me that in my stupidity, I had programmed in 20# jumps for the final three sets of single reps. Stupid.

I easily hit 165#, but had an ugly dismount of the bar. As usual, for every set, I had to clean the bar up to the front rack, spend some time adjusting grip and whatnot (occasionally failing over to the less secure, but more easily attained "california" grip), then hit the squat. The dismount of the bar at 165# was really kind of ugly, and near as I can tell, really screwed me up for my attempt at 185#, a weight I HAVE cleaned before, and even squatted for a double. Not today. Today, I couldn't even clean the weight. I don't know how much was mental, but I tried 3 more times just to clean it, and damn if I couldn't get it up to the rack. They were all power clean and hang power clean attempts. Its possible that with a full squat clean, I might have gotten under it. I honestly didn't even try that.

So, final tally on the front squats ended with me missing the final two weight attempts, and failing to set a new PR.

Front squat: 85# x 5 / x 4 / x 3 / x 2 / 165# x 1 / 185# x 1(x) / (x)

The metcon was less exciting, but arguably even more grueling. Knowing my own limitations, I scaled the dumbbells back to 35# apiece, and 10 reps into the first round, really wished I went further down! Though I tried to shoot for unbroken sets of thrusters for each round, I was feeling pretty down from the front squat fiasco, and didn't once succeed. I did better with the box jumps (stepping down, rather than hopping). I believe I kept all of those sets unbroken, if somewhat slow and deliberate. Hell, with a stack of 6 crappy steparoebics steps all rickety and crap to jump onto, anything other than deliberate is suicide!

Thruster/Box Jump couplet: 22:15

A nice tag to the day came when several of the students asked about different exercises and diet approaches, which set a new high watermark for them showing interest in actual strength and conditioning, rather than "silly" body building. I call it "silly," since these kids aren't following the pros over at tnation.com or doing Wendler 5-3-1 routines or Rippetoe's Starting Strength. Their routines seem to embody the worst of wandering around the gym, finding something that looks amusing, doing it until its no longer amusing, then wandering around again. Its difficult to try to turn them onto something that, while randomized, is also completely planned out before you go into the gym. And I barely do any crunches or bicep curls! Madness!

The soundtrack for the entire workout was the new Amon Amarth album, 'Surtur Rising.' HIGHLY recommended. \m/

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

---

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)

---

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

11-03-30: Deadlifts and Burpees

CrossFit Garden City WoD for March 23, 2011

Warmup:
Dynamic Stretches
Strength:
Deadlift
In 15 minutes build up to a heavy single
Loss of back position is considered a failed rep
Conditioning:
For 20 minutes on the minute complete:

• 3 Deadlifts (60% of 1RM)
• 6 Burpees (FAST!)

If you miss completing the reps in any given minute, take the next minute off and then continue.

---

Deadlifts. Good enough for Franco Columbu, good enough for you and me. 'Nuff said.

Burpees. Self-contained hell on earth. (CrossFit Endurance)

---

After a good thorough warm-up (trying to shake out some soreness from yesterday), I jumped straight into setting a new 1 rep max on deadlifts. I knew I had lifted 285#, but I think that was for multiple reps. So, the goal was to blow 285# out of the water. By the time 15 minutes was up, I had made it up to 335#. A 50# PR. Not too shabby!  I didn't even hit a fail point, so its possible I might have gone up even more, but probably not a whole lot more.  We'll find out next time!

The 20 minute MetCon managed to catch up with me nearly instantly.  60% of 335# came out to about 200#, so that was the deadlift weight. The deadlifts were never a problem, but boy those burpees definitely caught up with me. After the 4th round, I was completely unprepared for the fifth minute, so I started to go every second minute. Not my finest hour, but it allowed me to try not to grey out between rounds. After the sixth or seventh round, I wasn't even done with those 9 reps before the next minute was starting anyway, necessitating the extra minute rest anyways. Either way, at the end of 20 minutes, I had completed 12 or 13 rounds. With a pencil (loaned to a fellow CrossFitter and instantly lost...), I could have tracked those rounds. As it was, good enough for me.

Big kudos to Amon Amarth for getting me through the last few minutes of the metcon with this little gem:
Amon Amarth - Fate of Norns

11-03-21: Ring dips, renegade rows and db hang squat cleans

CrossFit Garden City WoD for March 11th, 2011
Warmup:

• Jump Rope
• Active Stretching

Strength:

• Ring Dips, 5 sets of max reps (rest 2 min b/w sets)

Conditioning:
Take the following acsending ladder as high as possible in 20 minutes:

• 1 DB Renegade Row
• 1 DB Hang Squat Clean
• 2 DB Renegade Row (1 each arm)
• 2 DB Hang Squat Cleans
• 3...
• 3...

As high as possible...

---

(CrossFit Rockwall)

(Crossfit Jersey Shore)

Diablo CrossFit

---

Having had to take off several days for various schedule and life conflicts, I came into this workout physically fully rested, if a bit sleep-deprived from some of those life conflicts. Unfortunately (in a good way) the gym was crawling with students today. Good to see them working out...though usually they just hang out and compare abs and biceps. Blargh.

Took some time to work on jump rope skills, first just going for single-bounces as long as possible (about 70 with a slowly accelerating rope speed), then trying to link together some double-unders. After several false starts, I suddenly got 20 linked double-unders! So, its in there somewhere. I have NO idea what I did differently to make them start going, but with both a strength workout and a met-con component, I didn't want to spend too long gassing myself before the main workout!

After killing a little time (the Smith machine I hang the rings on was in use for 1/4 squats...), I got the rings hung up, and proceeded to set a personal record for ring dips (8 in a row!) in the first round. Each successive round was spent trying to match the previous round. I didn't manage that even once...

Ring Dips: 8 / 7 / 6 / 4 / 4 = 29 reps

The room was still a bit crowded to continue directly to the conditioning part of the workout, so I ended up working with some of the track and field guys with some med ball drills, working on their form. I took the opportunity to work in some med ball cleans, by way of warming up the squats for the dumbbell cleans to come. They actually felt really good, which was nice. I haven't done them much since first encountering them at the Level 1 certification in December, and it felt good to feel all of the performance points coming back to me. And, it totally did warm up my squats, which was key for my confidence going into the hang power cleans.

After getting some room on the floor for doing the renegade rows and hang power cleans, I picked a bit of music to go all out to. While I had a nice metal mix going (Anthrax, Slayer, Metallica, Amon Amarth, Clutch, DragonForce, etc.), I wanted to be sure the intensity stayed high. I know there are people who can go hard to the Living Strings, but I'm not that guy. I need pounding metal and thunderous guitars. Thankfully, Amon Amarth can deliver that, without ANY fear of a slow ballad or something to kill the mood. Hell, I actually had to skip a track that was *too* heavy. Plus, a song called "Where is Your God?" probably wouldn't play well in a Catholic school, if they could even make out any of the lyrics. (Though probably not as bad as most Slayer, come to think of it...)

With "Twilight of the Thunder God" pounding away, I started the timer and got to work. This was my first time doing renegade rows, and I wasn't entirely sure what weight to use. I did a hang power cleans with a pair of 35# dumbbells, and they felt ok. I can do FAR more weight with a barbell, but then the arms and everything are working together on a single weight, rather than independent weights like dumbbells. I assumed (quite rightly) that as the fatigue kicked in, rowing the 35# dumbbells was going to move quickly from "not bad" to "oh my god, I'm dying." It wasn't even my back or upper arms (the "working" muscles in a renegade row) that starting to give out; my forearms, and therefore my grip, were the first casualties. By the time I was done, I could barely stop the stopwatch or manage my water bottle.

My initial goal going in was 12 rounds, with no idea how optimistic or pessimistic that was. By round 8 or 9, I kind of thought I had bitten off more than I could chew, but I soon realized that I had just finished the 11th round with about 2 minutes left. I threw myself into the final 12 rows, and popped to my feet, ready to head into the hang power cleans. Then I spent a few seconds clenching my leg muscles, trying to keep from greying or blacking out. After the stars stopped dancing quite so far into my vision, I started banging out the cleans. And I'll be damned if I didn't get the 12th one done just as my 20 minutes were up.

Total Rounds: 12 (78 reps of each exercise)

Amon Amarth \m/
Twilight of the Thunder God


Free Will Sacrifice (video from 300)


Guardians of Asgaard


Varyags of Miklagaard


Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags

11-02-10: Push Jerks and a Crap-Ton of Air Squats

CrossFit Garden City WoD for January 31, 2011
Warm-up:
Jump-rope

Active Stretching

Strength: Push Jerk 3-3-3-3-3

Conditioning: For time:

• 100 squats - 21 press (45#)
•  75 squats -  21 push press (45#)
•  50 squats -  21 push jerk (45#)

---

Though this picture is apparently of the end of a push press, the point still stands: If you don't stand up all the way with the weight overhead, you haven't completed your rep. I've seen several people do a push jerk where they use a good dip to get the bar overhead, catch it in a second dip, but lower the weight before they stand up. Failed rep. Every time. (crossfit.com)

Three good squats! Depth, vertical back... brilliance! (crossfit.com)

---

I ended up skipping ahead a few scheduled workouts, as the very next one that I should have done (as programmed by the fine folks over at CrossFit Garden City) would have included a whole lot more Sumo Deadlift High-Pulls, which I just did yesterday. I understand that you can, and often will, double-up on exercises in randomish programming, but frankly, I'm 2 weeks behind in their programming, and even more frankly, I didn't want to do any more SDLHPs yet.  So, I scanned ahead a few days and found this beauty.

After working on fast singles and running step, I went for 10 double-unders to finish up. I managed to string the last 5 together, which is more than I've done together in months. So, that was pretty cool. Active stretching, focusing mainly on my tight, sore shoulders and upper back, both of which were crushed after yesterdays dips and knees-to-elbows. Then I did a few warm-ups, running through presses, push presses and push jerks, 5 of each, first with the empty bar (35#), then with 45#. Finally, I moved onto work sets. As always, each was preceded by a clean from the floor to get it going. I've been trying to pay lots of attention to my clean form, making sure I don't embed any nasty habits while focusing on the "real" exercise to be worked out.

Push Jerks: 85# / 105# / 115# / 125# / 135#

For the conditioning bit, I chose to use the nearly empty bar (45#) since that would mimic an empty Olympic bar. I wasn't sure about my ability to crank out 21 presses in a row with heavier weights, much less the push presses after a total of 175 air squats, or the push jerks after a total of 225 squats. In hindsight, I should have shot for at least 55#, as 45# really felt like the "easy" part of the workout.

Man, 100 squats is a lot. Taking only the shortest of breaks, I broke it up into sub-sets of 35, 30, 15 and 10 reps. The presses felt very easy, but I could feel my legs starting to tighten up from the comparatively long time spent just in stabilizing contraction.  The next set of squats was agony, broken up into something like 25, 20, 15, 10 and 5, or whatever the break down really was. I did the full 75, I just wasn't overly conscious of when I was stopping. Again, though, I tried to keep each break as short as possible. The last few breaks weren't all that short. Push presses were ok. I could definitely feel the soreness in my quads with every dip motion, but it didn't slow me down too much. Not when there were even MORE squats to do.

Final set of squats got a bit hairy. A goal of 25 was reduced to 20 when I couldn't convince my quads to unlock any more. After a few seconds of recovery, I started pounding out the final 30 reps 2 and 3 at a time. But I made it, dammit. Finally, the push jerks. A motion with TWO dips built in, on completely shot legs. Sweet. I ended up missing a few reps that were just push presses, so I made all of those up with proper form. I think this got broken up into 10 reps, then 7, then a final 4. This was awful...I was so happy when it was over, and fairly proud of myself for making it!

Total Time: 12:25 (Split times: 3:30, 7:55, 12:25)

Music for the met-con (very important!)
Amon Amarth - Runes to My Memory

Metallica - The Struggle Within

Metallica - The Thing That Should Not Be

Not a bad three songs in a row for a metcon that makes you seriously want to kill yourself, or at least cut off your traitorous legs...

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...

---

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)

---

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

10-11-23: Handstand PushUps, Deadlifts, Pull-Ups, Double-Unders

CrossFit WoD for Saturday, November 20th, 2010

Seven five rounds for time of:

• 5 Handstand push-ups
• 185# 135# Deadlift, 10 reps
• 10 Chest to bar pull-ups
• 20 Double-unders

Austin Malleolo 7:51, Kevin Montoya 8:58, Rich Fronning Jr. 9:14, Travis Holley 9:42, Rob Orlando 10:19, Laurie Galassi 10:36 (125lbs), Kristan Clever 10:40 (135lbs), Chris Gosler 12:15, Danielle Edmundson 13:08 (125lbs), Rebecca Voigt 13:29 (135lbs), Elyse Umeda 14:08 (125lbs), Heather Bergeron 14:09 (135lbs).

---

WOD Demo with the women of CrossFit Santa Cruz - video [wmv] [mov]
Kristan Clever and Rebecca Voigt by Again Faster Equipment  on today's WOD- video [wmv] [mov]
Miranda Oldroyd on today's WOD- video [wmv] [mov]
Kevin Montoya on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]
Austin Malleolo on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]
Rob Orlando on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]
Heather Bergeron on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]

---

Yes, that does suck as badly as it looks. I can't even kick up correctly, so I end up doing mine facing the wall after scrabbling up backwards like some sort of sweaty, pale crab. Exercise makes you dead sexy. (crossfit.com)

Eva T. in perfect starting position for a deadlift. Note the *utter* lack of back rounding and the completely extended arms. Rounded back and bent arms are both signs of very bad deadlift technique. I fight both every single rep. (crossfit.com)

My kingdom for a pull-up bar with the clearance to allow either a kipping pull-up or a chest-to-bar pull-up. (crossfit.com)

Buddy Lee Coaching the double-under. This form is fantastic, as she doesn't appear to be jumping much higher than she would for a single bounce. I'm still working on this, along with most of the rest of the CrossFit Universe. (crossfit.com)

Decided to try to tackle this little beastie, but hit CrossFit Brand X for a suitable scaling.Went with "the pack" scaling, as above. After warming up and active stretching, I spent a good amount of time (10-15 minutes) trying to figure out how to kick up onto the wall into a good handstand push-up (HSPU) position.  In all that time, I think I managed to actually try to kick up fewer than 10 times, and most of the rest of the time was spent in me hissing 'F'ing Pansy!' at myself. Utter failure. So, I stretched a bit more, and resigned myself to doing my usual embarrassing scramble up the wall so that I face it (I'll need to get it recorded, since it is my goal to NEVER have to do it again sooner rather than later...).

Hit the HSPUs as hard as possible, still nowhere near a full range of motion, but definitely MORE range of motion than I've ever done before, which is a very good thing.  Could I have saved some time just going with a HSPU progression (check the video above in the workout description, they show several variations, included foot-elevated pike push-ups) as a scaling?  Probably. But I know HSPUs ought to be in my reach, so I'd rather loose the time and deal with a more limited range of motion for now, knowing that it should pay off overall. I hope.

Deadlifts were ok. 135# is light for me, even for a set of 10. However, having just done twenty of them at 245# yesterday definitely left me with a few sore spots that revealed themselves a few reps in. I'm still working on my set-up position.  Again, check the video above (or here, you lazy shit), and note that I think, in hindsight, that my back may have been too vertical. I think I definitely need outside coaching on this, as it seems like I have to go vertical to get my back into correct extension. While that may be true for my physiology, I'd like to have someone else ascertain that, or bark out a 'bend the knees more' or 'raise your butt, dummy!' where needed.

Pull-ups.  I just didn't have these today. I did one set on our pull-up monstrosity, and realized that if I kept up with that, I would end up failing in the second round.  I ended up doing the rest of them as jumping pull-ups on the frame of the Smith machine. Admittedly, at first I focused on drawing out the negatives (the downward motion out of the pull-up), but for the final few rounds, I was just trying to get my chin over the bar as fast as possible.

Double-unders. I am your medieval biotch. There, I said it, ok?  Can I *please* string just two together now, please and thank you?  Terrible day with double-unders. I had more luck nailing one from a literally dead stop (I had enough to practice today...), but couldn't manage to get even two to string.  Well, that's not entirely true. At one of the later rounds, I did get 5-6, but I was already so gassed that I could barely keep count.  Coulda been just four reps for all I know.

Total time: @28:30

There was a lot of sucking wind time between rounds, and I lost just a ton of time sucking at double-unders. i seriously feel that, had i been more concerned with a good time and gone with tuck jumps, I could have shaved at least 5, if not 10 minutes off my total time.

10-11-22: 400m runs and deadlifts

CrossFit WoD for Sunday, November 14, 2010
Complete as many rounds as possible in 12 minutes of:

• 400 meter run
• 5 Deadlifts

Rob Orlando 405lbs, 5 rounds + 3 deads.
Tim Burke 405lbs, 5 rounds + 300m.
Pat Sherwood 405lbs, 5 rounds + 100m.
Kevin Montoya 345-415lbs, 5 rounds.
Rebecca Voigt 285lbs, nearly 5 rounds.
E.C. Synkowski 195lbs, 4 rounds + 300m.
Dave Lipson 500lbs, 4 rounds.

---

WOD Demo with E.C. Synkowski - video [wmv] [mov]
WOD Demo with Dave Lipson and Rebecca Voigt by Again Faster Equipment - video [wmv] [mov]
Rob Orlando and Tim Burke on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]
Kevin Montoya on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]

Pat Sherwood, pickin' them up and puttin' them down. Left foot, then right foot. Repeat for a while. (crossfit.com)

Rob Orlando lifts more weight than I can even count. Deadlift = most functional lift in the world. (roguefitness.com)

 I felt pretty good going into this one.  Due to an over-abundance of kids in the weight room, I short-changed my warm-up so I could grab not just the one straight bar in the room, but also the 45#, 35# and two of the 25# plates for the bar.  I opted for 245# total, which is about 30# below my 5-rep max, but I haven't done deadlifts alternating with running yet, so I figured I'd play it a little safe.  Good thing, too, since my form on the last few reps included some seriously rounded back action, so heavier weight would only have exacerbated that.

Set the treadmill to 8mph, up a bit from my last interval running.  I was happy that I managed to complete every 400 at that speed, even with some seriously heavy breathing and panting.  (Note to self, finally start doing the recommended intervals from CrossFit Endurance and stop being such a cardio pansy already!)  Probably could have pushed it a bit faster, but not a ton, and any extra speed probably would have resulted in more standing over the bar trying not to vurp up coffee from several hours earlier, so that may not have mattered. I'd like to get the treadmill up around the 9.6 - 10mph mark, as that seems to be a fairly moderate run pace, which would have left me more time for either more rounds, or just more time to lock in my deadlift technique.  Either way...

Total Rounds: 4

After cooling down a bit, I proceeded to jump rope to warm back up, and couldn't string even a pair of double-unders together, and then finally did my active stretching routine.  I focused a lot on my shoulders, as my right trap was already getting tight and sore from the WoD, and I need to increase my shoulder flexibility in general, in terms of the Olympic lifts and overhead squatting, etc.  After warming up, I decided to play with GHD wall-balls, as shown in a recent CrossFit Journal video. I can't find a preview for that one, unfortunately.  Basically, you get in the GHD as though to just do sit-ups (just... right...), but when you reach back, you grab a medicine ball, and as you come up in your sit-up, throw the ball at the wall in front of you, catch it, then reach back down behind you with the ball to tap the floor. These SUCK. But they are also oddly fun.  I ripped out 20 of them in short order (ok fine, 15, then 5 more to round up) and have decided these need to go into heavy rotation.

I went to work on planche push-ups, where you do a few regular push-ups, then turn your hands out, do a few more, turn them so that your pinky is facing backwards (ie, towards your feet), do a few more push-ups that way, then start working your hands closer to your waist, doing a few push-ups in whatever resultant hand position you end up in.  These are WEIRD for those of us with no gymnastics experience.  The very awesome thing is feeling your toes floating a bit on the ground as your hands near what is effectively a balance point beneath your center of balance...if only you're strong enough to hold it. I'm not. YET.

I finished with some work trying to attain a good rack position with the barbell, with the bar resting on my delts. I'm not there yet...i can't maintain any sort of grip on the bar yet, which speaks of inflexibility throughout my arms and wrists, so I worked on stretching all of that out. Not fun, and very NOT glamorous, which is a pretty good sign that its probably VERY important! ;)

All in all, a pretty good workout, with some good tunes courtesy Metallica, DragonForce, and Amon Amarth. \m/ xux \m/

10-08-31: Barbell Turkish Get-Ups and Sotts Presses

CrossFit WoD for Monday, August 31, 2010
With a 45 35# barbell, 21-15- and 9 reps for time of:

• Turkish Get-ups, alternating arms
• Sots press

Rory McKernan 6:42, Kristan Clever 16:03, Katie Hogan 23:02, Rebecca Voigt 25:26

---

Turkish Get-up Part 1, Jeff Martone [wmv][mov]

Turkish Get-up Part 2, Jeff Martone [wmv][mov]
Turkish Get-up Part 3, Jeff Martone [wmv][mov]

Turkish Get-up Part 4, Variations, Jeff Martone [wmv][mov]

Sots Press - video [wmv] [mov]

Jeff Martone demonstrates a somewhat advanced Turkish Get-Up technique (c. crossfit.com)

The Sotts Press: I did it from in front of the neck. This looks way easier. (c. crossfit.com)

Total Time: ?? (Stopped the clock to put shoes on after the first set, forgot to restart it for the second set. First set took 9 minutes, 3rd took 7, so assume 8 for the mystery 2nd set?  If so, 24 minutes...ish.)


Wrote a bunch of stuff, which blogger went and lost. In a very weird way. And then it auto-saved the change. That kind of sucked.  Long story short: TGUs were difficult, and required broken up sets to shake out arm joints.  Sotts presses were done wrong, which made them both more difficult and worse on the knees. BEHIND the neck is the way to go.


Musical Accompaniment: Amon Amarth medley
An Ancient Sign of Coming Storm - Fate of Norns (2004)

Arrival of the Fimbul Winter - Versus the World (2002)
Down the Slopes of Death - Versus the World (2002)

Free Will Sacrifice - Twilight of the Thunder God (2008) (New favorite video ever...)
Once Sealed in Blood - Fate of Norns (2004)

No Fear For the Setting Sun - Twilight of the Thunder God (2008)

Asator - With Oden on Our Side (2006)

Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags - Twilight of the Thunder God (2008)

Thor Arise - Versus the World (2002)

Varyags of Miklagaard - Twilight of the Thundergod (2008)

With Oden on Our Side - With Oden on Our Side (2006)

(That metal enough for ya?!)