12-07-28: ECC Throwdown Part 2

Elm City CrossFit Throwdown Part II WoDs

Shoulder to overhead, in this case using a shallow split jerk to drop a little under the bar.

Another shallow split jerk. Hard to tell from the picture, but his back leg doesn't seem "soft" enough, but the picture may not be from the actual catch, but when he was starting to transition to the full standing position in the third frame. If he can lift those weights... I assume he's got good form.

Ground to overhead with Sage Burgener. The final final frame would be with the weight held overhead, legs and hips fully extended. For the purposes of the throw-down, there was no requirement to ever get into a full squat position. For that matter, it didn't have to be a snatch, as pictured, but could have started with a clean to the shoulders, and then any form of shoulder-to-overhead. Anything goes...

Buck furpees.

Kettlebells with CrossFit Games former Champion Kris Clever and two time Champion Annie Thorisdottir. (CrossFit Games)

Box jumps. woot! (happilives.com)

How to do a wall ball. My only tweak would be in the final frame: It would be way more efficient to catch the ball with the forearms closer to vertical and the elbows bent a little more (more like the position in the first frame.) Cushion the catch by bending the knees, cycling straight into the next rep. The more you can maintain that form, the faster you can go. (CrossFit 714)

A scaled version of handstand push-ups. I opted for this scaling, knowing I wouldn't have 45 reps of band-assist in me, even with the stiffest bands. If these look easy, you've apparently never tried them. (Unless you do have unassisted handstand push-ups, in which case these probably are pretty easy. Shut up.) Note the nearly vertical torso. A common error is to have the hands out too far, turning it into an elevated regular push-up. Still a nice exercise, but not targeting the shoulder girdle or core in quite the same way. (Snoridge CrossFit)

---

WoD I

• 21-15-9
  
  • Deadlift @ 185#
  • Handstand Push-Ups (scaled to knees on the box)
• 10-8-6
  
  • Shoulders-to-Overhead @ 95#
  • Burpees

WoD II

• Wallballs til broken
• 3 minutes after last finisher
  5 rounds for time
  
  • 7 box jumps 30"
  • 5 Ground-to-overhead @ 95#

If I had written this two weeks ago... I might remember details other than ARGH! Owwie! It hurts!! I do remember my decisions on the scalings. Knowing that we were starting out with a workout named Diane (21-15-9 of 225# deadlifts and handstand push-ups), followed by another couplet involving the same bar (with a weight change), I decided to scale both weights by 40#, which would allow me to just slide the 45# plates off both sides of the bar between couplets. I also scaled the handstand push-ups to box handstand push-ups, knees on the box. For 45 reps, there was no chance of being in the bands and EVER finishing this workout! Our score on the WoD would be affected by the number of scalings, in my case, three.

For the second WoD, I went completely RXed, with my only nod to not killing myself being the decision to only complete 10 wallballs, rather than trying to do a ton of them, then finding my legs too crushed to actually complete the couplet. So, whatever time I got had ten seconds taken off (the number of wallballs completed counted as seconds to be subtracted from your total time... so if you did 90 wallballs and did the workout in 2 minutes, your total time would be only 30 seconds. Pretty sweet, if you have the motor to crank through a ton of wallballs, then recover enough to perform the workout well!

Comparatively, I don't remember details like my times and whatnot. All in all, it was an awesome showing from the ECC community, and great fun.  Even better was the barbeque afterwards, and showing off the newest member of our family, little baby Abby. It was also a nice opportunity to try some great paleo fair. Turns out that a burger without a bun, but cradled in a romaine leaf is *really freaking good.* A burger without a bun sticking to the back of your teeth is kind of a revelation! (Yup, I remember the food better than the workout. Go figure...)

12-01-23: Front squats, pull-ups, handstand push-ups and knees-to-elbows

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Monday, January 23rd, 2012

Elbows in the front squat. If you look like the picture on the left, you'll end up  looking like the dude below, with your hands slipped out and in danger of losing control of the bar. If, on the other hand, your triceps aren't insanely tight and sore (see below), the bar will be well controlled on the delts. (CrossFit)

Very popular on Muscle Beach. That doesn't make it right, or cool. Note also the cheater board under his heels, making the movement a little easier. Its a similar assistance as given by the slight heel lift in oly shoes, but much more so, and far less stable. So, more cheat, and more unsafe. Awesome.

Band-assist pull-ups. As always, note the leg without the band crossed over the one with, to minimize the likelihood of the band slipping loose and zapping you in either the face or the junk. Never a good thing. (CrossFit Threshold)

Band-assist pull-ups. One of the hardest things to achieve, at least early on, is the fully extended body in the harness. Its difficult to not end up with the legs bent, bowing the entire body out of position, and resulting in the movement resembling a completely screwed up elevated push-up, rather than an awesome handstand push-up. I've been having a bit more success with that... a bit. (CrossFit King of Prussia)

Variations. L-R: Knees to elbows, toes to bar (rings), and knee to elbow attempts (ie, knee raises).  (CrossFit)

---

WoD: (vertical)

• 15-9-6
  
  • Front Squat @ 55% of 1RM (135#)
  • Pull-ups (band-assist)
• 4 minutes recovery
• 9-6-3
  
  • Handstand Push-Ups (band-assist)
  • Knees-to-Elbows

Monday morning beat down time. After a nice warm-up and review of techniques and movements standards, it was time to start kicking ass and taking names. 55% of my one rep max for the front squat (285#) comes out to 135#. A fairly heavy weight for 15 reps, but not impossible. Good thing. There would be more after that... The one issue I had going into the workout was that my triceps were insanely sore and tight from the previous weeks' workouts, which translated into some stiffness in the front squat rack position. Further translation: stiffness in the front rack position meant I was back to being unable to keep my hands on the bar, requiring me to quickly switch to the annoying "California" front-squat position. Not as secure, and sort of lame. However, I did still bang out all of the squats, unbroken each time... so there was that.

For the pull-ups, I opted to go band assist, since for 15 reps, there was just NO way that going without assistance was going to happen. Sad but true. I'm working on it, and seeing some progress, but not enough to get through 30 reps in a timed workout. Bah. So, the blue band was my way of getting through the pull-up portion of the workout. The bad news is that I still have a LOT of work to do in terms of power output: even with the band assist, I still ended up having to break up the sets. Sad, but at least it points out one of my big goats, and what I need to keep working on.

I was one of the last ones off the pull-up bar going into the break, but I was determined to make it up one the second leg of the workout. After a VERY fast four minute recovery, I was back into it. All I wanted was to keep the sets unbroken. After powering through 9 band-assist push-ups (and having kicked up cleanly, I might add), I had a pretty good feeling about that goal. The knees-to-elbows proved to be a bit more difficult, more just because of my now completely smoked arms and failing grip. I just tried to protect my grip, only dropping off the bar to rub some life back into my hands and try to keep from getting a torn callous (I do try to keep them filed down, but still...).

By the end of the workout, I had caught up with several other athletes, though in all fairness, one had done the entire workout completely unassisted. So, even if I beat him by a minute or two, he did infinitely more work than me. Showoff bastard.

11-11-21: Handstand Push-Ups and Burpees

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Monday, November 21st, 2011

Handstand Push-Ups. Or maybe just handstands. The more I try to find pictures for this blog, the more I start to hate the limitations of still photography. (That's not a very useful caption. Sorry!)

Yay burpees! I mean "Ah crap, burpees!" If only there was a way to scale-em... at least for those days where that might really help!

---

WoD: 21-18-15-12-9-6-3

• HandStand Push-Ups (Band Assist)
• Burpees

Some days you just shouldn't even get out of bed. That was this workout. Even after the warm-up, I still felt tired and sore. I ended up choosing a fairly stout combination of bands for the HSPU, knowing there was just no way I had 84 reps stored away doing even half-way decent scaling. Turns out, it didn't matter that much: The burpees annihilated me. Dead. I bonked halfway through the first round of 21. Then things got ugly.

I came down out of the handstand on rep 15 of the second round, and knowing that I was already way far behind the rest of the class, decided to go with a "Fran-esque" round structure (21-15-9) but play with the end, depending on time/fatigue. As it was, there was a 20 minute cap on the workout, which I ended up being the only person to hit. My final output was as follows:


21 - 15 - 9 - 3 - 3 - 3 - 3

Translated into the original workout, that more or less becomes 21 - 18 -  15. (54 reps of each, total). Yup, I made it through a little more than the first half of the workout. With a heavy assist on the HSPUs and sheer death on the burpees. Solid.

11-11-16: Muscle-Up progression and Handstand Push-Ups

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, November 16th, 2011

Band-assist handstand push-ups. I think form-wise, I might be better served by doing them against a wall instead of in the band, but with the band helping scale the weight... that might NOT work so well! (CrossFit Geneseo)

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet mid muscle-up. Strong kip and insane upper body strength = better at them than me. For NOW. (crossfit.com)

I *so* want to make fun of this dude for his 5-10# weights... but they're probably the weight I should have been using, and if he's demonstrating the movement for physical rehab of an injury, that would make me even more of a jerk. Keeping the elbow still, extend the arms, opening the elbow joint, until arms are perfectly straight. Repeat until the triceps catch on fire...

---

WoD: 2 x 7min - Up by 1

• Muscle-up (scaled as band-assist muscle-ups)
• Handstand Push-Ups (HSPU) band-assist

Sellout: 4x 2x

• 15 DB Skull Crushers 30#
• Max Rep Weighted Dips

After the suck-fest that was Tuesday's workout, it felt pretty good to get in and do some skill work. Sure, it meant working on things I'm not great at, but without the pressure of a timer or even the competition with the other gym-members (and there was a great turnout this morning, too!)  My scaling for the muscle-ups was band-assist. I've looked for some videos of this on-line, and have found many variations, but nothing quite like how we do it at ECC.  Basically, the band is locked onto itself on one ring, then held with sheer grip strength in the other ring. Your butt goes in the resulting cradle. Ta-da, instant weight modification for the muscle-up! It took me a few tries to get the right band tension. The first band I tried (green) was so taut I couldn't get far enough below the rings! The second (thin red) made it nearly impossible to transition up into the dip. Finally I found one of the thinner blue bands, and that one was just right. Apparently, I'm Goldilocks. Oh well.

While the workout as prescribed was to do 1 of each movement the first minute, 2 of each the second, etc., I chose the recommended tactic of really trying to focus on clean technique on the movements. Oh, and spending 30 seconds almost every round just trying to kick up into the HSPU. Dammit. Ultimately, I ended up doing 3 sets per round, maxing out at 3 reps in those final sets. While I ended up feeling ok on the muscle-ups, the feedback on my HSPU's is that my core control is at best completely lacking. Rather than having a firm, stacked, slightly arched spine, I apparently was doing my best imitation of a bow, completely broken in the abs and mid-section. So, that's something to work on next time...

After that, we moved onto the sell-out, also known as triceps devastation. Knowing more or less what I used to be able to do with a single dumbbell held by the blob (70#), I opted for two 30# dumbbells. This seems to have been a bit much, especially after the WoD. I made it through the first 10 reps more or less unbroken, but my left arm started wavering like crazy, so I started resting a bit to keep the skull-crushers from being too aptly named. By the time I finished the set, it was with ugly looking singles. Then, just out of curiosity, I tried a weighted dip. Failing that, I ditched the weight and was still only able to bust out three reps on the rings.

The second set of skull-crushers took... somewhat longer. By which I mean a LOT longer. Enough that it wasn't that big a deal that I failed even a single rep in 3 attempts on the dips afterwards, because the next class was already in and at the white board being briefed on the day's workout, and I had to get to work! 

11-11-02: Presses, push jerks and a triplet

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday November 2nd, 2011

Presses. Weight starts on the shoulders, gets locked out overhead. Repeat.

When the weights get heavy, start using a dip-drive to launch the weight up. Repeat.

Yay Burpees! Repeat!

Band-assisted handstand push-ups. REPEAT!

Single-armed kettlebell swings. REPEAT! REPEAT!!

---

Strength: 3x within 15:00

• Press then Jerk till failure @ 87% of Max Press 100#

Score: 2 points for Press reps and 1 point for Jerk Reps

WoD: 3x

• 5 Burpees
• Max Handstand Push-Ups
• 5ea Single Arm KBS 35#
• Rest 1 Minute

Score: add HSPU to Strength score

Hooray for bruised clavicles (see yesterday's workout for my whining about that), then hitting them again today! Simple enough workout for the day. Grab the weight off the rack, start squeezing out presses, then when the weight gets too heavy, switch over to push jerks. Each press is worth 2 points, each jerk is worth 1. The goal is to get as many points as possible.

Unfortunately, I ran up against the 15 minute time limit for warm-ups and work sets, so I didn't get in my third work set. I'd complain, but after catching the bar on my collar bones about half the time again, I wasn't really too upset about that. I would have liked to have gotten the extra work in, but damn do lightly bruised bones hurt.

Round	1	2	3
Reps	7/5	5/5	DNF
Points	19	15	0
34 points

After all that, we moved onto the WoD, doing 5 burpees, handstand push-ups to failure, then single-armed kettlebell swings, 5 per side. The number of reps on the HSPU's got added to the points from the strength portion to give our total for the workout. After each round, 60 seconds rest. I felt pretty good on the first round, up until I failed sort of catastrophically. "Like a lawn dart!" was how Coach Vin described it. Escept for the fact that I *did* barely get my feet down, he was totally right. Still, no harm, no foul.The WoD goes on. I tallied 14 band-assisted handstand push-ups (6/6/2), bringing my total to 48 points.
19 - 15 - 14 = 48

11-10-28: Handstand Push-Ups and Power Snatches

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday, October 28th, 2011

Where was THIS a year or so ago? Big thanks to the fine men and women at CrossFit Camp Dubs: Forging Elite Warriors in the Mountains of Afghanistan.

---

WoD: 10 Rounds or 25m AMRAP

• 10 Handstand Push-Ups- Band-assist
• 3 Power Snatches 155# 115#

Well, it was bound to happen. After feeling pretty good setting new strength PRs over the last few weeks, I needed the amazing ability of CrossFit to suddenly and abruptly keep my ego in check. Yup, a lengthy couplet chock-full of two movements I sort of suck at...I used to think I was ok at power snatches, at least prior to starting at Elm City. Now I've had the chance to be coached and had my technique looked at by someone else, and have a much better grasp on all the things I need to work on. They are legion.

Handstand push-ups have recently become near impossible again, since I graduated to doing them with assistance bands from the pull-up bar. Hell, its not even the HSPU's themselves... its getting myself kicked up into the correct position in the first freaking place. Well, I got a bit of practice today, that's for damn sure.

Today was a lovely workout, where there were only two of us (my assumption is that everyone else was saving themselves for tomorrow's Barbells for Boobs sponsored "Grace" (30 Clean & Jerks for time) being hosted locally at CrossFit New Haven.) which led to LOTS of personalized training and feedback. We blew through the first round in 90 seconds, and set that as the pace we should maintain. Sounded good on paper. Round two took quite a bit longer, and after that all bets were pretty much off. The second or third round, I could barely kick up into the bands. My power snatch form was unsteady throughout, which was VERY frustrating.

When we started the workout, there was no 25 minute cap, and no AMRAP element, just the goal of ten rounds, to ensure a proper focus on form, especially on the snatches, where a workout like "Grace" will tend to devastate form, leading those in the real Olympic community to hate CrossFit. Rightfully so. In musical terms (you did see the banner at the top of the blog, right?), its the equivalent of someone trying to play a Charlie Parker solo by wiggling their fingers as fast as they can go. Sure, they played a lot of notes, but chances are NONE of them were right, and it didn't sound *anything* like Bird. So, the goal was to avoid that, and where necessary, time was taken to stop and coach the power snatch.

My eye opener came when Coach Vin shot a video of one of my reps. Mid workout, he had me stop to watch. I'll be damned. The amount of crap I do wrong is frackin' JAW-DROPPING. Most heinous, I do the stripper move. Despite focusing on the start of the lift being a deadlift, apparently the sheer terror of what follows after the deadlift portion makes me completely crap the bed. The first thing to move up is my ass, like I'm sliding it up a stripper pole. (I wonder how many hits that phrase is gonna give me from Google searches...)

At some point, we were asked where we were in the workout. Kara had stormed into her 8th round, moving like a champ. I gasped out that I had just finished my fifth round. Next thing I knew, Vin had written the slight variation of "25m AMRAP" on the whiteboard. Again, form shouldn't suffer, but he apparently didn't want my corpse screwing everything up for the next class coming in at 6:30am. I continued trying to to work on my power snatch form as well as I could, and was finding somewhat more luck with the band-assist HSPUs. By the time the timer was up, I had amassed 7 full rounds and 4 HSPUs. Not bad, since I seriously thought I was going to pass out just about every time I came down from the HSPUs and in between power snatches after about the third round. That can be the one HUGE problem with working out first thing in the morning on an empty stomach. No gas in the tank can mean just exactly that.

11-09-21: Snatches and skill work

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, September 21st, 2011

Definitely click through to the original webpage to Enolympiate this picture. The weight starts on the floor, gets deadlifted to just above the knee, then the hips, knees and ankles all open up as forcefully as possible, launching the bar, rendering it weightless for the split second it takes to get under it, catch it, and stand up with it. Sounds really easy, right? (Wayne Joseph's Blog)

---

Max: Snatch - 20min total time
 -squat or power
Sellout: Skill Work

-band-assist hand-stand push-ups

Ah, the Olympic Lifts. They look so graceful when done well, and so amazingly awful when not. I tend to fall into the second category, because I'm usually way too inside my own head, thinking way too much at each step of the movement. And if you're thinking early (bar against the body, slow, yellow light, against the body, cleared the knee, green light, speed up, go go go, whip it up, shrug to redirect, elbows high and outside, snap the feet out to the receiving position, bar close to the body, pull your head out of the way, drop drop drop you ass, get under the bar, about to catch the weight, how does my wrist feel, going to take the weight, am I balanced, are my feet in the right position, am I deep enough, is the bar over the center of balance, can I help it if its not, omigod omigod omigod omigod.... etc etc etc.)  I have to imagine that, with much more practice and comfort, at least 2/3rds of that running monologue can be eliminated, or at least silenced! Some of it is good, especially the pointers and cues that lead to perfect lifts. However, the questions and fears are no good, and need to be silenced.

After a good technique demo with weighted pvc pipes, we moved onto our bars. After a few power snatches with the empty bar (minimal squat depth on the catch), I started working up in weight. 65#, no real issues, though still not feeling overly comfortable. 95#, no real issues. 115#, same. 135#, and I was struggling to continue just power snatching the bar, but I just could NOT get my ass moving back down under the bar. I spent some time watching other Elm City athletes hitting it, trying to figure out if my road block was mental or physical or what. I actually didn't ever solve the question during this workout. I did manage to successfully snatch the 135#, but I need to check to see if that's a PR or not. It might not be, though its probably the best lift with the best form I've had, even if there is room for tons of improvement.

After the fact, I ended up watching the olympic lifting video Elm City posted on the workout page (first link at the top of this posting), and I remembered that I used to watch a TON of videos BEFORE attempting workouts, with more of the techniques and approaches visually imprinted on my brain. That always seems to help... I may not be able to put into words exactly what I'm seeing, but I can tell if I'm replicating it or not. I may also not be able to explain HOW I'm not doing it the same, but the overall knowledge and awareness is there. Lesson learned: I need to do my homework BEFORE working out from now on.

Heaviest power snatch: 135#

Skill work: More band-assist hand-stand push-ups. One of my goals is to get more comfortable inverted. Kicking up into the handstand is still vaguely terrifying to me, so I'm hoping that through sheer repetition, it becomes both mundane and boring. I may suck at running, but it doesn't actually scare me. I want being in a handstand, whether band-assisted, wall-assisted, or free-standing, to feel equally "boring." 

11-09-19: Deadlifts and shrugs, body weight couplets

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Monday, September 19th, 2011

The deadlift. (kanesivesind.com)

Shrugs. (bodybuilding.com)

---

Strength: 4 rounds:

• 2 Deadlift @90%
• 10 Shrugs

WOD: 2x

• Max Rep Pull-up
• Max Rep HSPU
• 1min Rec

Score is total PU + HSPU
Sellout: 90 sec each

• Max Rep Push-up
• Rest
• Max Rep Sit-up

Full body burner. The deadlifts train total strength, especially posterior chain. The shrugs were less for trapezius work, and focused more on the grip, and it was actually expected that we might not make it to 10 reps. Which made me feel a bit better about only making it to 5 on my best set! So, apparently I need to do grip work in the 300# range. Fair enough.

Pull-ups and hand-stand push-ups were both band assist, and I failed to get final counts. (I knew them when they happened, but didn't write down what made it up onto the white board. Doh!!) This was my first time doing band-assist push-ups in a WoD, and it felt kind of good to not have time to overthink it... just kick up and find the band with my feet, and get going.  Not bad.

Final couplet of push-ups and sit-ups was kind of brutal after the rest of the work we had already done. I ended up switching to fist push-ups for the final 45 seconds, just to take some strain off my wrists and forearms. 28 push-ups in 90 seconds. Sit-ups were done on an ab-mat, with knees wide (to take hip flexors out of the motion). Felt pretty good up until the last 20-30 seconds... then speed fell off dramatically. 34 reps.

11-09-16: Kettlebell swings and skill work

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday, September 16th, 2011

Jeff Martone demonstrates the one-armed kettlebell swing. As taught at ECC, his right arm should be along-side the kettlebell, acting as both guide and balance. Having taught myself the swing from Martone's videos, I lean more towards the counter-balance idea shown here. But you perform for the coach in the room, NOT for your comfort zone. (crossfit.com)

Band-assist handstand push-ups. One band wraps around a pull-up bar (or whatever), second band feeds through the hanging one and acts as a harness. For me, the skill work lies in getting comfortable with being inverted. Once I get up into the band, I'm ok for the push-ups... its just a matter of kicking my lead leg up straight, catching the band high enough for it to do any work for me at all. (CrossFit King of Prussia)

---

Buy-in: 5min

• Alternating Single Arm KBS 55/35 traditional swing

WoD: Work Underdeveloped Skills

Stupid stupid stupid. When picking a weight for something like the buy-in, work WITHIN your wheelhouse. Having warmed up the swing with a 35# kettlebell, I assumed I could easily handle the 55# for single-armed swings. About 45 seconds into the buy-in, I realized what an idiot I can be early in the morning. I can handle the 55# for double-arm work, but can NOT sustain single-arm work for any great amount of time. As I rapidly realized my mistake, I also started to feel other issues creep in, most notably a fiery tightness spread across my lower back. By the three minute mark, I was dropping the kettlebell (safely) after just 5-6 reps, and each of those felt like my spine would explode. Though I got 35 reps in the first minute, I barely made it to 92 by the end of the buy-in. Now THAT'S a drop-off in output! :-/ Not good. It would have been both a better--and frankly a more productive--workout, had I picked an appropriate weight for 5 minutes of work. Stupid stupid stupid.

After taking some time to re-roll out my back and make sure nothing was actually injured or anything, and some targeted stretching, I prepped working on band-assist handstand push-ups (HSPU). In WoDs, I've usually scaled to knees on a box or pike push-ups off a box, but the last workout where those came up, it became quite clear that I'm strong enough to move to the next scaling. Now I just need to lock in the skills that will make it happen.

While there are many skills involved in the band-assisted HSPU, the biggest hurdle I have to face right now is my fear of failure and the resulting faceplant that would occur soon after. It occurs to me writing this after the fact that since *that's* my biggest fear, using two super stout bands for the harness might have helped, since it would be nearly impossible to even reach the floor with anything other than my feet, no matter how bad I failed. In the moment, I don't know if that "knowledge" would have overcome the "I'm gonna die!" fears echoing in my head. While I did manage a few more-or-less successful attempts, there were many more half attempts and balks. Clearly, this will take another day or two of dedicated practice until I'm capable of performing band-assist HSPUs, much less doing them comfortably!

11-08-31: Handstand Push-Ups and Double-Unders

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, August 31st, 2011

Wall-assist handstand push-ups. I'm not there yet. Soon enough. (crossfit.com)

Um, this is just silly. Impressive, but silly. (crossfit.com)

---

WoD: 10! UP

• Handstand Push-Ups (knees on high box)
• Double-Unders 

 After a day of running and pull-ups, it would be interesting to hit some more lower-body metabolic conditioning (though in sprint mode, for the double-unders) and add in an upper body pushing movement. After going over the standards and scalings for the hand-stand push-ups, I opted to go with the knees on the box variation. I don't have a kick-up to the wall yet, much less into a band harness hungfrom the pull-up bar, but that's definitely my next stop. My next skill-work day will be more hand-stand push-up work, but this time focusing on the kick-up to either the wall or band.


Total time: 7:12

11-08-26: Skill work and why running sucks.

Elm City Crossfit WoD for Friday, August 26th, 2011

Coach Jorgy demos ring handstand push-ups. A bit out of my league. A bit. (diablocrossfit.com)

How I ALWAYS feel when I run. (thesimpsons.com)

How I'd LIKE to feel. Herschel Walker setting the Falcons straight. (nfl.com)

---

Buy-in: Skill Development

• Handstand Push-Ups

WoD: Time Trial

• 1.5m Run

 After the warm-up, but prior to working on the HSPU progressions, I check with Coach Vin about the on-going soreness and weakness in my forearms and wrists. He had me try to roll out my forearms on a bar placed on a squat rack, and what do you know?! Huge, monstrous knots in my upper forearms! Because knots don't always hurt where they are, but often make things at a distance sore (think of pulling on a rope. The first place to feel the tug is at the OTHER end, where the rope is anchored.) That constant tightness makes everything ELSE hurt... especially if the other end is all the little niggly, fragile bits that make up the human wrist. So, yet another thing to keep working on. Rolling out the knots helped tremendously, but they tightened right back up pretty quickly.

On to the gymnastic movements. At some point a few years ago, I suddenly realized that gymnasts were basically the most usefully strong people, pound for pound, on the planet. I think it was watching John Roethlisburger move from a push-up planche type position to a hand stand by just raising his legs. To me, that's STILL magical. That amount of core stability and overall strength is just... beyond. I don't know if I'll ever get there, since it seems more like the kind of skill you start working on when you're 4-5, and manage to keep for only a few years past your ultra-prime stage.  Either way, I have nothing but respect for gymnastic type movements, especially for being so bad at most of them!

To work the progressions for the handstand push-up, I did several wall-climbs, where you start in a push-up position with your feet to the wall, put your feet on the wall, and slowly walk your hands backwards while moving your feet up the wall. Ideally, you should go from belly on the floor to belly on the wall. After doing a few of those, I started experimenting with trying to pull one hand off the floor, and readjusting my body over the one remaining arm. This was NOT very successful, so I changed tactics, and began doing lateral wall walks, along the wall. This still works the single arms, but doesn't focus on how long each hand is off the ground. Similar work, different trigger, different measurement.

After rolling out my wrists again, it was time for the time trial. 1.5 miles. The longest single run I've attempted since starting at ECC. Actually, probably the longest single run I've ever attempted. (Not true, just realized I've attempted 5K runs around the reservoir in Central Park on at least two occasions, which would be double today's run.) The "course" involved running to the right out of the parking lot, going down to the traffic light at the end of the road, and coming back. The worst part of the run is in the approach and return from the light itself, where the road drops down on the way out, requiring a bit of a climb on the way back. If I wasn't already gassed, the hill wouldn't be too bad. However, it was on the hill where I managed to go from third to second place, which I managed to keep to the end.

I walked twice during the run, neither time for very long, maybe 10-12 paces while I tried to reset my breathing and my thinking. What I hate most about running, and the reason why this entry has "why running sucks" in the title, is that there's almost no distraction from the sound of your own labored breathing. All I can ever think about is how much it hurts to breath, and am I breathing too loud, do I sound like I'm panting, do I sound like an idiot, should I be breathing faster and shallower, how do runners do it, how do marathoners keep this up for hours at a time, how do ultra-marathoners do this for days at a time, this can't be normal, oh god, there's a stitch in my side.... and on and on.

What I have discovered over the years is how to avoid developing a stitch. When I start breathing heavy (you know, 3 steps in), I try to remember to inhale for an odd number of strides, then exhale for an even number of strides. The upshot is that it takes an odd number of strides overall for the full cycle, which means if one inhale starts on the left foot, then the next inhale will start on the right. I find that having the breathing alternating with the footwork means I'm not always inhaling when my left foot strikes, and always exhaling on the right foot (or maybe all the breathing is tied to a single foot, it doesn't really matter for this discussion).  With an odd number of footfalls, the inhale/exhale cycle alternates feet, keeping any given muscle/impact stress from building up. Maybe its all in my head, but when I can focus on that for a bit, I get WAY fewer stitches.

Running still sucks. Unless you're a running back, in which case its the greatest thing ever. I wonder if there's a way to integrate running back-style workouts into crossfit. I wonder how much the cage with the heavy pads in it that you have to run through costs... that would be AWESOME!!!

Total time: 12:38

11-07-22: Knees-to-Elbows and Handstand Push-ups

Elm City Crossfit WoD for July 22, 2011

WOD: 15 min AMRAP

• 20 knees-to-elbows/Sit-ups
• HSPU* – till failure

Rounds plus HSPU = Score

Scalings: K2E/Sit-ups: Started with knees-to-elbows, but after the second round, switched to ab mat sit-ups to avoid tearing my hands.
Handstand Push-ups: Knees on high box, vertical push-ups with hands on weight plates to increase weight of motion.

Total score: 6 rounds plus 61 "handstand" push-ups = 67

11-06-06: First class at Elm City Crossfit

Elm City CrossFit WoD for June 6, 2011

Press position: feet under the hips, shoulders shrugged up, so the muscles are supporting the weight, not bone grinding on bone in your shoulder and back.

---

Strength:
 - Press @ 82% 3x7

Sellout:
3 Rounds for time:

• 10 Hand-Stand Push-ups (Scaling: Pike push-up off 18" box) 
• 10 Kettlebell Swings 70# 55#

---

First time working out in a month, and its in an actual gym, with an actual crew of like minded people... heaven!!  After a thorough warm-up (foam rolling, muscle activations, stretches, etc, some of which were very new to me), we walked through the technique of the press (aka overhead press). A few warm-ups sets with a slightly weighted pvc pipe were all I needed to remember where I was and what I was supposed to be doing.

We split up into groups by height/strength lines, and I ended up with the slightly taller, but not quite as strong guys: perfect.  While we all did similar weights on our warm-up sets, I was happy to see my group was all in the same ballpark (115# for me and another guy, Larry, 135# for our third, John), while the next group over was banging out 145+#.  Not me... not YET. ;)

My first two sets of 7 were intense, but not too bad. I did have one bobble, on the final rep, where every instinct in my body was telling me to either push press or push jerk the bar, and telling my body not to do it almost resulted in a total train-wreck. In the final set, I failed twice on the 5th rep before dropping the bar. It was *magical* to workout in a place that actually has squat racks, bumper plates, AND a nicely padded, solid floor. All of that adds up to an ability to workout at the ragged edges, rather than safely (and ineffectively) well within your boundaries. Sweet.

Presses @ 115#: 7 / 7 / 4x

The met-con was a beast, hitting the same shoulder muscles we had just abused with the presses. I should have opted for the scaling of having my knees on a taller box, as it would have put me both more vertical AND supported more of the weight. I need to learn how to kick up into a supported headstand, as the banded version off the pull-up bar looked pretty sweet, too. Hm...  

Handstand Push-Up/Kettlebell Swing Couplet: 4:17 (no where near the fastest, but not the slowest either. I LIKE this group!)

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

11-03-14: "Diane" and ring work

CrossFit Garden City WoD for March 7th, 2011

Warmup:
Dynamic Warmup

Benchmark! - "Diane"
21-15-9 reps of:

• Deadlift (225/155)
  
• Handstand Pushups
  

Scaling:
Deadlift - Men: 185, 155 or 135, Women: 125, 110 or 95
HSPU: Scale reps, Shortened ROM (1,2,3 AbMats) or Regular Pushups

---

 

Jolie Gentry lifting my 1RM deadlift. Strong really IS the new skinny. (games.crossfit.com)

I betcha this pic is from an affiliate doing "Diane!" People inverted on a wall, heavy bars waiting for them... "Diane!" (crossfitlorton.com)

pics

---

Named workouts scare the heck out of me. Especially those with women's names. Maybe its the fact that, usually (or at least *sometimes*), they kind of look easy on paper.  Sure, there are the hour long hero workouts that, no matter what, are going to grind you down through sheer volume ("Murph" springs to mind). A lot of the CrossFit Girls seem to be more 'kick the tires, light the fires' sorts of workouts: fast and brutal. Well, ok, if you're me, then kinda fast, at least at first, then brutal for a very long time. Today was no exception.

I was pleased with my mature decision to scale the weight. My first thought was to go full bore, since 225# is well-below my current (and likely inaccurate) 1RM of 285#. However, I realized that 225# was prescribed for those who have way heavier 1RMs, and that it really represents more like a 50-60% weight for them. Accordingly, I dropped to the highest scaled weight, and hoped that would be enough.

I kicked around the option of doing some form of pike push-ups, or elevated feet, or something kinda basic, but ultimately chose to go with handstand push-ups, but knew going in that my ROM start out close to ideal, but quickly fade to mere inches. All in all, I figured that the time in the handstand (wall assist!) would be even more awful that full(er) ROM push-ups of another variety. I believe I was proven correct.

I failed to keep all three rounds of deadlifts unbroken, having to rest my exploding lungs in both of the first two rounds. I hated doing it during the first, but would have died in the second, so that one didn't sting as badly. The handstand push-ups were pure murder, so the first round was divided into 3 sub-sets of 7, while the second round was 3 subsets of 5. The final round of deadlifts I kept unbroken, while the final handstand push-ups included a seventh rep that was total garbage. After resetting, I repeated that rep and finished out as strong as possible. Read: not very. ;)

Total time: 12:45ish

After resting for a good 15-20 minutes, and doing a little more jump-rope, which led directly to cramping in my left foot, I pulled out the gymnastic rings, and started to play around with those. Yesterdays Gymnastics WoD featured false grip progressions, so I worked on those. I also did some knee raises-to-L-sit holds, as well as dips and a few pull-ups. I still have almost NOTHING in the way of a false grip, but I'm determined to get it. Highlight of ring-work was having a know-it-all freshman, who was earlier trying to show off his "mad push-up skills" (I didn't have the heart to direct him to the awesome CrossFit push-up video), attempt to get on the rings. he looked as bad as I did MY first time! :S Hell, I was at least able to kind of hold the control position...even if my hands were shaking badly!

11-03-08: Met-Con: Rowing, HSPUs, K2Es, Box Jumps, K2Es, HSPUs and Rowing

CrossFit Garden City WoD for March 3rd, 2011
Warmup:
Dynamic Stretches

Training:
For time:

• Row 1000 500 meters
• 20 Handstand Pushups
• 35 Knees to Elbows
• 50 Box Jumps (24")
• 35 Knees to Elbows
• 20 Handstand Pushups
• Row 1000 250 meters

---

It would be awesome to have more than one rowing machine...especially when that ONE starts spazzing out. (crossfit.com)

Scaled handstand push-ups. I was actually facing the other way, with the tops of my shoes on the bar (ie, much MORE scaled), but the idea's the same. (crossfit.com)

From L to R: Knees-2-Elbows, Toes-2-Bar (on rings!), and hanging knee raises. All of these inherently suck, by which I mean they are AWESOME for working your entire abdominal, back, arm and everything else possible. (crossfit.com)

Box jumps. (I can't think of anything informative OR snarky. Caption Fail.) (CrossFit Tribe)

---

So, apparently Concept2 rowers can eventually start to bite the dust. Code 50 - failure to compute the drag factor. Happily, it just makes the erg reset itself... handy in the middle of the workout. Heavens forbid it should just muddle through and give you an (*) next to your workout totals, letting you know that the total numbers might be a bit wonky.  I was seriously so pissed off when it failed out at the 500m+ mark on the first row, I didn't even want to sub in something else. When it failed out in the final row around the 250m mark, I was just f'ing done.  Here's hoping a room with no budget for repairs or replacements can handle this...

Ok, so shortened rowing distances totally killed this workout (I can't really claim it was scaled, and spending a minute or two when it first died trying to figure it out didn't help), but the only other scaling I used was doing the handstand push-ups with my feet on the bar of the Smith Machine (I find more uses for that stinking doorstop), rather than up against the wall. I just wanted to experiment with it, and I can say that I'm not a huge fan, but there are more things to try (bar at a higher setting, which should scale towards full bodyweight handstand push-ups, etc.)

Other than the blinding rage, felt ok getting off the rower. Pushed through the first set of push-ups unbroken, mostly because I wasn't sure how to dismount from the bar, and didn't really feel like getting back up in a fatigued state! Knees to elbows were the usual torture, done hanging from the back of the Smith Machine. It's not a pull-up bar grip, but a metal bar about the size of a 2" x 4", so it tends to be a bit grip intensive. For the first time, I tried really hard to not touch down on the ground, or kick off the floor to assist the movement, which made it WAAAY harder. As usual, the first things to start failing were actually my wrists. Guess I need to do more behind-the-back wrist curls (snicker, snicker).

To my own great surprise, I slowly but surely plowed through the box-jumps in one huge unbroken set. Bear in mind each rep involved a jump, then a kind of slow, controlled step down (alternating landing legs), followed by a quick reset before the next jump. Basically, each one took me probably 3-4 times as long as someone just ripping through them. However, I went into them a bit gassed from the previous movements, and had as my mental yardstick that I was going to get at least 25 reps in a row... then just kept going. It was pretty awesome.

Then back to the knees-to-elbows. These were broken up into ever smaller chunks, eventually just two at a time as my wrists and forearms were screaming obscenities at me in languages I haven't heard from them yet. It was a bit scary.  Back into the assisted handstand push-ups, until my feet fell off the bar after 7 reps. I considered moving over to regular push-ups, or perhaps pike push-ups off the box, but in the end decided either of those options would obviously entail doing even MORE reps, and I didn't like that option. I got myself back onto the Smith machine and banged out 13 more reps, as fast as I could just to avoid falling off again!

After that, I got back on the rower, hoping the glitch from earlier would prove to have been a one time event. A little over 250m later, it happened again. I briefly toyed with doing double-unders (or at least working on them) to make up the time, but realized I had NO idea how many or how long to go, so I opted to consider the workout force-ably scaled by the equipment. Not the best of outcomes, but it could have been worse, I suppose. I wish I had known going into it though, I would have figured out a way to translate the distance onto the treadmill or something.

Total Time: @ 24:00

10-11-30: "Diane"

CrossFit WoD for Friday, November 26th, 2010
"Diane"
21-15-9 reps of:

• 225# 195# Deadlift
• Handstand Elevated foot pike push-ups 

Michael Giardina 2:15, Dadi Reynir Kristleifsson 2:34, Chris Gosler3:18, Heather Bergeron 4:54 (185lbs), Kristan Clever 5:13 (225lbs), Michelle Kinney 7:15 (185lbs), Rebecca Voigt 9:03 (225lbs), Kevin Montoya 9:12 (freestanding).

---

Michael Giardina on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]
Dadi Reynir Kristleifsson on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]
Heather Bergeron on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]
Michelle Kinney on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]
Kevin Montoya on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]

---

Deadlift - Left, weak set up. Right, strong set up. (Better back arch, bar directly under scapulas, etc.) (crossfit.com)

Elevated foot pike push-up. Easier than handstand push-ups? Yeah. Easy? NO! (http://www.westlakecrossfit.com)

---

  Total Time: 10:10

Started out with jump rope again.  Focused on stringing together a ton of fast single bounces. Easily made 50-60 at a time, at a very fast turn rate.  I think I need to shorten the rope again, since it looks like I have several feet of clearance over my head, which is not ideal. According to some of the CrossFit Journal literature, (especially articles by Buddy Lee), that clearance should be in mere inches! So, maybe that'll end up helping my double-unders? Updates as they occur.

My active stretching was cut short when I realized I had started working out too late, and would soon have one of the freshman phys ed classes joining me. Fortunately (and for the first time ever), I had finally remembered to wear long pants for a deadlift workout. So, I grabbed my bar, made sure I had room for the pike push-ups, and tore into it.

I've been working on my starting position on deadlifts, and managed to keep a flatter back than I have in the past. I do tend to float a little more towards vertical as the workout progresses, just as Coach Rip warns, but I think I managed to keep a handle on it today. I was doubly impressed that for the first round, I actually managed to keep it unbroken! Sure, I thought my lungs were on fire, but still...

Oddly, I ended up trying to keep up my end of a conversation with the phys ed teacher during the third round of push-ups. Thankfully I was able to power through all 9 in between my responses, though I thought I was going to introduce him to Pukie the hard way... During my post-workout recovery, I also spent some time undoing some of his more atrocious teaching mistakes. Apparently, he was informed by Marines that when they do pull-ups, they only drop down until their elbows are at a 90 degree angle. I can't even begin to wrap my head around that... full pull-up flexion can't be too far past 60-70 degrees, which means their range of motion is only 20-30 degrees?!  You might as well not even do the dang things at that point, at least not as a functional exercise.

Other tidbits of mid-80s bodybuilding that he was passing off as strength & conditioning included having the kids try to do every rep of every exercise as "two seconds up, four seconds down."  They should also not workout again for at least 48 hours. The only two mandatory stations the kids had to hit were the squat sled and bench presses on the Smith machine.  I did what I could to correct his misconceptions on all these points, and at this point am daydreaming about taking over the weight-room classes for next year's phys ed classes. It would be easier to teach the kids correctly from scratch, rather than try to undo all of this ancient misinformation. This teacher can hardly be blamed: His sport is marathons, and though I've done everything in my power to interest him in CrossFit Endurance, as has a fellow coach of the track team, he clearly has zero personal experience in the weight room. (Which makes as much sense as me teaching thermodynamics to anyone...except me doing that wouldn't actually increase someone's chances of hurting themselves.) Sigh.