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.

11-11-09: Birthday Bash!

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, November 9th, 2011

Chuck Norris doesn't blow out birthday candles. They surrender their flames willingly.

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WoD: 10min AMRAP

• 20 Wallballs 20/16
• 1 Rope Climb

Sell-out: 5 Rounds For Time

• 5 Deadhang Pull-Ups (DHPU) (Blue Band)
• 10 Barbell Curls 65#
• 15 Stiff-Legged Dead Lifts (SLDL)

Did more on my 35th birthday than I've done on the 34 before all combined... but probably not as much as my mother did on my actual day of birth!  Not a bad workout, and I even made it *almost* all the way to the top of the rope. Definitely up an extra knot or two. To the top next time, I swear!

WoD: 4 rounds.

The "sell-out" ended up actually being the harder part of the workout. I used 65# on the bar for both movements, though it was an option to add and remove weight between them. Meh. I figured that for 75 SLDLs, a lighter weight would be just fine. To judge by the fact that I was sore for about 4 days after, I think I made the right choice. Turns out, the main issue was with my grip. After hammering it with the wall-balls (especially the catches) and rope climbs, adding in pull-ups and curls, I started getting shooting pains in my forearms. Not very fun! So, every time I broke in the later sets, it was to keep from dropping the bar completely out of control.

Total time: 13:41

11-07-27: Barbell and dumbbell complexes

Elm City Crossfit WoD for July 27th, 2011
WoD: 4 Rounds for Time: Barbell Complex

• 1 Power Clean
  
• 5 Jerk @ 80% (95# for entire complex)
  
• 7 Front Squats
  

Sellout: 4 x 10 Dumbbell Complex

• Stiff-Legged Deadlift
  
• Curl
  
• Push Press
• 45 seconds rest between rounds
  

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Though I've been struggling with my olympic lifts a bit lately, I felt pretty good about this workout. If nothing else, I only had to power clean the weight 4 times (provided I didn't dump the bar in the middle of the complex, requiring it to be re-cleaned to the shoulders), so it wouldn't be the limiting factor in any case. Managed the first two rounds unbroken, then had to rest a bit before the third and fourth, respectively. Still, final time was 4:22, which, while not smoking fast by any measure, was a LOT better than I was expecting. I definitely didn't feel the need to suck as much wind between rounds, or dump the bar in the middle, meaning I was doing more work faster...always a good thing!

Oddly, the dumbbell complex was almost harder.  I don't know if my hands were just sore from the barbell, or if the grips on the dumbbell are especially rough, but they were killing my hands. And they were only 20# each! While 45 seconds seemed like forever between the 1st and 2nd rounds, it quickly collapsed into barely enough to catch my breath before stepping up to the weights again. Happily, I wasn't the only one feeling this way, as other people started getting harassed for taking longer than 45 seconds between rounds. In their defense, it actually becomes VERY difficult to quickly run the mental math for when 45 seconds will be over in a fatigued state. Thinking back, that sounds ridiculous, but I've been there often enough to know that when you're fatigued, figuring out adding :45 to x:38 is damn near impossible.