11-05-05: FranRAP

CrossFit Games Open WoD 11.6

Complete as many reps as possible in 7 minutes following the rep scheme below:

• 3 Barbell Thrusters (100# 75#)
• 3 Chest to bar Pull-ups
• 6 Barbell Thrusters
• 6 Chest to bar Pull-ups
• 9 Barbell Thrusters
• 9 Chest to bar Pull-ups
• 12 Barbell Thrusters
• 12 Chest to bar Pull-ups
• 15 Barbell Thrusters
• 15 Chest to bar Pull-ups
• 18 Barbell Thrusters
• 18 Chest to bar Pull-ups
• 21 Barbell Thrusters
• 21 Chest to bar Pull-ups...

This is a timed workout. If you complete the round of 21, go on to 24. If you complete 24, go on to 27, etc.

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Did this as my farewell workout at the House of Diesel. It was a miserable mess... it was also 3+ weeks ago at this point (and my last workout on record... no good... must remedy soon!) Worked out with the Dragonlady, Lee Chua, coaching her on her run-through of this beast, then getting coached on my own attempt.

I used 75# on the bar, and opted for jumping C2B pull-ups, knowing that even those scalings wouldn't 54 reps (Round of 15 complete). Soreness from front squats as a strength warm-up. Tried not to die. Friendly link to my crossfit inspiration's workout blog. NOT writing it all up again.

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

CrossFit Garden City WoD for March 24, 2011
Warmup:

• 10 light Turkish Get Ups per Arm 20#

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

• Jumping Pullups
• AbMat Situps
• Walking Lunges

Accessory:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Total Time: 10:18

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

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

03-29-11: Couplets and running

CrossFit Garden City WoD for March 18, 2011
Warmup:
3 sets of

• 10 Overhead Squats
• 2 min Double Under Practice

Practice:
Review and warmup Push Press and Sumo Deadlift High Pull
Determine appropriate weight for workout
Training:

• AMRAP in 5 minutes:
  
  • 5 Push Presses (95#)
  • 5 Pullups
• Rest 5 minutes
• AMRAP in 5 minutes:
  
  • 5 SDHP (95#)
  • 5 Pushups
• Rest 5 minutes
• Run 800 meters as fast as possible

Notes:
Scale weight for Push Press and SDHP to keep technique solid and output HIGH.
Stay active during 5 minute rest periods (walk around, stretch, practice something, etc.)

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The push press. Dip. Drive!

The Sumo Deadlift High Pull. Done correctly, the arms are barely used. Its all in the violent hip opening driving the bar up. The arms are basically CATCHING the bar before it hits you in the chin. Done correctly...

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I'm honestly glad that it sucks to work out after going on a three or four day cupcake bender. (In my defense, my little girl turned three, and there were several discreet occasions that, if they didn't *demand* cupcakes, certainly suggested VERY strongly that cupcakes should be ingested.)  No, they weren't Paleo cupcakes. No, they were NOT Zone approved.  They were the awesome kind, with frosting and everything. The kind that goes straight to my ass and gut. The kind that you can feel when you start jumping rope for the first time in about a week. The kind you can feel almost instantly when you hit the treadmill at a dead run. The good kind of cupcake, which also means the evil kind. The only kind.

For the warm-up, I did the first two rounds of overhead squats using the jump-rope (also working on shoulder dislocates with it), and the final round with the barbell. Double-unders are starting to come along. I was trying to work in different patterns of single-bounce/double-under combinations, just trying to master the ability to go back and forth, as well as really hammering down double-under technique. Going slow then fast and back hopefully keeps me from going too fast. Either way, I got a couple of good links (11 during the 2nd set), and several 5s and 6s. Progress!

I did the Burgener warm-up twice before practicing the push press and sumo deadlift high pull (SDLHP), and decided to stick with the prescribed weight of 95#. Heavy, but not unmanageable for either lift. Push presses felt good for the first few sets, while pull-ups fell apart pretty quickly. By the third round, I had scaled the movement to jumping chest-to-bar pull-ups. It's always interesting to watch time speed up as you fatigue, and what seemed like an infinitely long 5 minutes when your lungs start burning has suddenly started racing by as you struggle to complete just one more set.

95# Push-Press/Pull-Up Couplet: 60 reps

Knowing that push-ups are a bit more in my wheelhouse than pull-ups, I had grand plans for the second couplet. While the 5 minute rest was just long enough to get a bit boring (I want to go NOW!), it was also just short enough to NOT let me completely recover. Yeah, I know, recovery should be measured in seconds, NOT minutes. Hopefully soon. Not yet, however. About halfway through the 3rd round of the second couplet, I knew I was in trouble. I was shooting for 90 reps (optimistically) and 80 more realistically.  As it turned out, I felt proud to grind out 72 reps. By about rep 50, I just wanted to lie on my back and look up at the narrow strip of sky visible through the glass roof. I fought that urge and continued slogging through... and now had only the same too long/too short 5 minutes to prep for the 800m run.

95# SDLHP/Push-Up Couplet: 72 reps

I started the treadmill at 10mph, hoping to be able to run the entire distance. However, my lungs fairly well exploded about halfway through. I found this interesting, since most of the distances I've run lately have been 400m. It turns out the body really IS very good at adapting at what you throw at it, and moving to an 800m distance clearly knocked the bloody hell out of me. After taking a few seconds to recover, I dropped the speed to 7.6 mph, a loping jog I can easily maintain. Easily. OK, I have an ok chance of NOT bonking "running" at that speed. It ain't fast, but it gets me where I'm going.

800m run: 3:05

11-02-28: Turkish Get-Ups, Met-Con Triplet

CrossFit Garden City WoD for Thursday, February 11, 2011
Warmup:
Jump Rope

Dynamic Stretches
Burgener Warm-up x2 35#

Strength:
Turkish Get Up
 - In 15 minutes build up to your heaviest triple

Conditioning:
3 rounds for time:

• 50 lateral barbell hops
• 21 Ball Slams
• 6 Band Chest to Bar Pull-ups or 12 Jumping CTB Pullups

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Sig Klein does a picture perfect Turkish Get-Up, provided we ignore the weird picture in the middle. I seriously can't make that one work at all in this series. (oldtimestrongman.com)

Med-ball slams. Full extension overhead, down to a squat on the release. It's the proper range of motion that makes these a total beast. (CrossFit Sacramento)

Band assist Chest-to-Bar Pull-ups. This is what I did for the first round. (CrossFit Threshold)

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As always on days with a ton of students in the gym, I found myself cutting corners trying to just the get workout in, much less done perfectly. Warm-ups were greatly curtailed in the interest of holding onto the gear I had "reserved" (read: piled around me), rather than repeatedly having to tell students to wait. I don't want to keep them from working out, even if they are doing useless activities that barely count as "exercise."  Making sure that at least my shoulders were pretty well stretched and good to go, I quickly moved through jump-rope (trying not to whip anyone with it), active stretching, and twice through the Burgener warm-up. After that, I cleared a little bit of room, and hoped I wouldn't be tripped over while prepping for the TGUs.

Started at 35#, knowing that I should be able to do that fairly easily, and was happy to be proven correct. I handled 40# and 45# pretty well, too, though I had some issues starting the sit-up portion of the movement at 45#. Moving to 50#, this became even worse. I need to head back into the CrossFit archives of movement how-tos and see if there's any tips on initializing the movement under weight.(Yup, I've been doing it wrong. Thanks for the corrections, Jeff!) Though they were slow and painful, I did manage to squeeze out a triple of TGUs at 50#, which is a new PR for me, single AND triple, I think. So that was pretty awesome.

After putting away the dumbbells and trying to catch my breath for a bit, I set myself up with a barbell, loaded with 45# for the lateral jumps. I would have loved to do the double-unders as Rx'ed, but the reality of that would just have ended up with me in an ice cast again, or at the very least, taking 2 hours to complete what's clearly supposed to be a fast met-con. I also opted to scale the reps for the lateral jumps. 100 would have been grueling, and not being 100% sure of my knees, even now, I didn't want to find out mid-way through that I had made a massive miscalculation. So, I figured, do the 50, but hit them HARD. Which I did. As much as my lungs of fire would let me. :D

First round, I managed to keep the first 42 lateral jumps unbroken, and just *thought* about breaking up the set, and suddenly realized I HAD. Rotten brain. Quickly banged out the remaining 8 jumps, grabbed the med-ball, and banged out the first 21 slams. I had set up our gravitron-like pull-up machine with a very light-weight rubber strap, hoping to do 6 slightly assisted C2B pull-ups, with the strap only really helping at the bottom of the hole. So, 6 super strict but NOT C2B pull-ups later, I decided to switch (if I could) to jumping C2Bs on the Smith Machine frame.

Second and third rounds, the lateral jumps were broken up, but with minimal rest times included. Usually it was more to reset a bit to make sure I didn't just trip over the bar on the next jump! Med-ball slams were unbroken for all sets, which I felt rather good about. However, watching concrete dust come out of the seams in the rubber matting was a bit disturbing, since I was doing them somewhat near the already existing sink-holes in the concrete (apparently, "ash concrete" should NOT be used in a gym, and repeatedly dropped weights (NOT all me, as the hole was there when I got to the school) have punched holes in the concrete around the room. Safe!

Second round of pull-ups, I was able to move over to jumping pull-ups, but in my fatigue, didn't realize I was facing the wrong way on the Smith machine, and on the final rep, cracked my skull on the frame. That sucked a bit, but it was at least a glancing blow, so it could have been MUCH worse. Final round, facing the right way, was MUCH safer! Both of those rounds were broken up, usually into sets of 3 or 4 as needed. Usually it was to reset the legs and make sure I wasn't just bombing into the bottom of the negative and screwing up my shoulders, which were already feeling a bit "tweaky" after the TGUs.


Total time: 8:45


Post-workout, did some playing around on the rings, slung off the back of the Smith machine. Several dips, static holds, knee lifts and L-sits later, my shoulders and pecs were fully smoked, making today a total success! ;)

11-02-11: Power Cleans, Dumbbell Swings and Jumping Chest-to-bar Pull-ups

CrossFit Garden City WoD for February 1, 2011
Warmup:

• Jump-rope
• Active Stretching
• Burgener Warmup x2

Strength:
Power Cleans
 - Build to a heavy triple in 15 minutes

Conditioning:3 rounds for time:

• 25 HEAVY Kettlebell Dumbbell Swings (50#)
• 25 Chest to Bar (CTB) Pullups (Jumping)

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The power clean. Floor to shoulders. Fun in small doses. Not that much fun 40 some-odd reps in. (http://hollyinbalad.blogspot.com)

Dumbbell swings. Like kettlebell swings, but without the handy handle. (crossfit.com)

Now THAT'S a chest-to-bar pull-up. Awesome. (diablocrossfit.com)

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Went into this one with a very thorough warm-up, as my legs were completely shot from yesterday's air squat assault. Jump-rope focused mainly on simple techniques, with only a few double-unders worked in to finish out the set. Full active-stretching, making damn sure my quads got some good loving. After that, two run-throughs of the Burgener warm-up made sure that most of me felt good to go.

For the power cleans, the idea was to shoot for a heavy set of 3 power cleans. I forgot to look at my previous records for cleans, so I didn't actually have a good idea of what I was shooting for. I did know off-hand that my heaviest *squat* to date, which required a clean & jerk to actually get the weight onto my shoulders in the first place, was 185#. Therefore, that became my goal. However, I also failed to plan out HOW to get there, and ended up taking too many small steps on my way to my goal, and ended up running out of time. After warming up with the empty bar and 55#, I successfully completed triplets with all of the following weights:


Power Clean Triple: 75# / 85# / 105# / 125# / 135# / 145# / 155# / 165# / 175#

In the attempt to get to my goal of 185#, the final three rounds ended up being nearly a met-con, since I wasn't resting nearly enough between sets. Truly stupid. The only upshot is that if I was able to complete triplets of 155#, 165# and 175# in about 2 minutes total, I could theoretically have easily hit 185# with a more well-planned out workout. Next time, Gadget, next time.

After a whole lot of rest, I tackled the conditioning element. Not having kettlebells that rank as heavy, I opted for a dumbbell. I at first figured I would go kinda/sorta light, but everything under 50# felt way too light. Fearing for what was left of my quads, I set the timer running.  About 10 minutes later, I was so happy to be done it HURT. Seriously...


Total Time: 10:10 (Split times: 3:15 / 5:55 / 10:10)

11-02-03: Push presses, very short skill met-con practice

CrossFit Garden City Wod for January 24, 2011

Warmup:

• Jump rope
• Active Stretching
• Shoulder Dislocates

Strength:
Push Press
3-3-3-3-3-3-3
Increase weight every set - build up to heavy 3 rep max

Conditioning: Pullups and double-unders

• 5-4-3-2-1 Chest to bar pull-ups (jumping C2B)
• 10-8-6-4-2 Double-Unders

Alternate exercises (5 C2B, 10 DU, 4 C2B, 8 DU, etc.)

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Eva T. rocks shoulder dislocates in the bottom of a squat. Which means she has fantastic balance and insanely flexible shoulders. Rotten Olympic skiers. The goal is to be able to bring the bar front to back and back to the front with perfectly straight arms. The shoulders are activated (shrugged) to allow this to happen while going overhead, and this has insane amounts of application to overhead squats and the olympic lifts. (crossfit.com)

Note the torso stays vertical during the dip phase. The reason is simple... that way, when you extend your knees, snapping the bar up, it travels UP! Had you leaned back, it would tend to be pushed back. Ditto for leaning forward. Its a simple concept, but can be tricky to unlearn if bad habits have crept into your form. (crossfit.com)

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I went into this workout with VERY sore shoulders, the cause of which isn't immediately clear. There's a chance its from Monday's workout (dumbbell push press/kettlebell swing/squat tabata triplet.), since the pain is on top of my shoulders, feeling like its actually the bones. My guess is that on the push press, I was catching the rear head of the dumbbell on my shoulders on its way down... repeatedly.  Either way, I was excited to get warmed and loosened up, and worried about doing any more damage.  Why not go straight back to push presses, but this time using a barbell, so that there would be little or no impact, while reinforcing the workout that was gained a few days ago? Perfect.

Started out with some jump and active stretching, taking some extra time for shoulder dislocates with the jump rope, spending a bunch of time slowly working my way in. I didn't make it very far, which is unsurprising, given my utter lack of shoulder flexibility.

I warmed up push presses with the empty bar, just to make sure the movement didn't hurt all on its own, and thankfully it didn't. I added a pair of 5# plates, to simulate an empty olympic bar, and still had no problems. I continued warming up with shorter sets of 55#, 65# and 75#.  The final warm-up felt a bit heavy, like I had to actually work to do a proper push-press, so I decided to try to do two things: Start my work sets at 85#, and go up by 10# jumps with every set. I hoped that wouldn't be too over-eager in the later rounds, but also didn't want to sell myself short and stop increasing just to avoid the *worry* of a failure, rather than just failing.

The first 3-4 rounds were actually pretty easy, though I struggled the whole time with both properly cleaning the weight up to the shoulder rack, as well as grip once it was up on my shoulders. I was able to STOP cleaning it and having my thumb end up on the wrong side of the bar... not a good habit with heavier weights! I did manage to keep my knees tracking over my feet and toes for all of the dips, which was a very big improvement over the last time I did heavy push-presses.

Long story short, I managed to complete the workout as planned, though was truly getting towards the end of my strength on the final set at 145#.  Of course, working out during my lunch hour, and hoping to get in the met-con as well, I probably was NOT recovering long enough between sets. So, that might have allowed me to continue increasing the weights even longer. Ah well.


Strength sets: 85# / 95# / 105# / 115# / 125# / 135# / 145# x3 (all successful)


I substantially shortened the met-con, both for a lack of time in which to complete it, as well as because I have nowhere NEAR the strength or skill to complete it as noted. I opted for a much reduced version that would give me the chance to work both skills while getting me back to my desk in a timely manner! Hardly the stuff of elite athleticism, but someone has to bring home the Paleo bacon, so... :D

I didn't bother timing the met-con, which was good for two reasons: 1) All of the chest-2-bar pull-ups were jumping, which meant my turn-over on them was very fast, compared to truly strict pull-ups. 2) My ability to chain double-unders is still atrocious, so a total time would be far too LONG.  Between the two, it might have evened out to a reasonable amount of time, but I figured off the clock I could stop, reset, and improve the movements if need be, rather than just being a slave to the timer. It wasn't great, but it could have been worse!

11-01-21: Angie!

CrossFit benchmark WoD: Angie
"Angie"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Runes to My Memory - official video

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

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

With Oden on Our Side

Cry of the Black Birds

11-01-10: FRAN!!!

CrossFit Garden City WoD for Monday, January 10th, 2011

"Fran"

21-15-9 reps of:

• Thrusters
• Pullups

Scaling:

• Thrusters: Choose weight that allows for completion of workout in under 10 minutes
• Pullups: If 45 regular pullups is outside your abilities or will cause the workout to last longer than 10 minutes, scale to jumping chest to bar pull-ups

Chosen weight 65# (same as the last time I did this workout, December 17th at my Level 1 certification, giving me a time benchmark to beat (7:26)).

Jumping Chest-to-Bar pull-ups. New to me, but a cool skill to learn (rather than just clearing the chin, which is MUCH easier.) Did them, as ever, on the frame of the Smith machine.  Not just a door-stop anymore! ;)

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The overhead portion of the thruster should be generated with the initial hip explosion. If you are pressing the weight overhead, you're either not un-squatting hard enough, or mis-timing the transition into the press. (crossfit.com)

Chest-to-Bar pull-ups. Note that the head and neck are WELL above the bar, meaning most people's reps on pull-ups wouldn't even count. Even doing the jump version of these was tough, with a couple of missed reps that needed to be redone to finish each round. (crossfiteastbay.com)

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After warming up with some jump rope (lots of single bounce, running steps, LR and FB hops) and active stretching, I experiemented some with the jumping C2B pull-ups.  New, different, and kind of hard. AWESOME.  It's true... as you start to conquer certain skills, the fear associated with trying new things starts to evaporate.  The number of things that are now in my rearview window and shrinking in the distance that USED to be insurmountable obstacles is constantly growing.  With that number, so increases my confidence. Sweetness.

As noted above, I scaled the thruster weight to 65#, just to compare/contrast with the last time I did this workout, a little less than a month ago at my Level 1 certification.  There, I had a good friend, several new friends, as well as the always impressive and commanding training staff, screaming support, praise, and threats of physical violence if I didn't "pick up that f--king bar and get going!!!!!"  Truly, inspirational. (It really was. It made me miss CrossFitting in an actual CrossFit gym with other crossfitters, rather than doing it on my own.) However, that time, I did the first round of pull-ups as real, albeit pathetic, pull-ups, with the 2nd and 3rd rounds done jump-style.  This time, it would be jumping pull-ups, but with the added variable of 'chest to bar.'  So, a fair comparison, but not a great one.  Plus, other than eating too much over the holidays, and not working out as much as I might have liked, its not like I would have progressed all that far in less than a month... still... ;)

Chalked up a bit (love it!  more good stuff from the cert.  I had never worked with chalk until then. It's nice not having *every* barbell/pull-up workout completely devastate my hands...), set the timer, and got going. 21 unbroken thrusters. 15 jump pull-ups c2b, followed by another 6.  Straight into round 2 of the thrusters. 11 reps, followed by 4 (bar resting on the floor between... i was so pissed at myself...).  10 jumping pull-ups, followed by 3, then 2. A quick water break (the sound of my gasping for air had turned dry, and it was starting to really hurt to breathe... as usual), then into the final 9 thrusters. Unbroken. Somehow. I really wanted to die.  Unfortunately, that came at a cost.  It took me probably about a minute to get my gasping ass back on the pull-ups.  I spent about 30 minutes just gasping, then another with my hands on the bar, ready to go, and unable to will my legs to actually jump. Total brain fail. Body was good to go. I BANGED through the final 9 reps of pull-ups, so I couldn't have been *that* wiped prior to hitting them. No good.

Total time: 7:00


That minute or so gasping for breath really cost me a way better time.  True, if I was an efficient pull-up kind of guy, that would have shaved off even more time, but spending THAT much time gasping just sucks. But, it'll come, if slowly.  Sigh.

After recovering for a few minutes, I set-up the rings on the back of the Smith door-stop, and did some control hangs, a few dip negatives, as well as other movements to just get used to them.  Spent some time with my legs up on the smith 'barbell,' hanging upside down from the rings. Clearly, if I'm to get better at handstands and ring work, I need to get more comfy inverted. The Smith machine has found another good use, so I'm starting to like it a little more... just not as a weigh-lifting device!