12-06-06: Short chipper disasterpiece

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, June 6th, 2012

The chipper. Perfectly good wood goes in. Shattered pulp emerges. PERFECT analogy for this workout. (zombiehunters.org - Making Dead Things Deader Since 2003)

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WoD: For Time:

• 3 Rounds
  
  • 20 Pullups
  • 5 Box Jumps [24"/20"]
• 2 Rounds
  
  • 20 Toes to Bar
  • 5 Pushups
• 1 Round
  
  • 8 Clean [full squat] and Jerks @ 75% Bodyweight

There is no rest as you move between rounds and movements.

Right from the get-go, this was a disaster. 60 pullups, followed by more grip-centric work, culminating in clean and jerks, which require tons of wrist mobility and grip strength, both of which were already gone? Yikes. Used a heavy blue-band for the pull-ups, and maybe should have gone even stronger for this number of reps. For the third round, I tried to add a second blue band (ie, the only nearby one to grab), and realized it was MUCH stronger than the one I already had, and using both would have spiked me like a dart into the ceiling. I went back to my original blue band and kept cranking out singles and doubles, alternating between chin-up and pull-up grips. The box jumps were easy and quick compared to that...

The toes to bar (scaled to knees to elbow) were kind of terrible, as my grip and lats were so smoked already that I could barely hang from the bar, much less add a full core contraction to the mix, at least not very easily. Slowly but surely I chipped away at them. The push-ups were easy and quick compared to that...

My first attempt at a clean and jerk nearly ended in disaster. When the bar made it to my shoulders (in a full power clean position, requiring an "elevator ride" down the bottom squat position), both pinkies slipped over the bar. I can recover ok when one slips out of the grip... but both? I tried to over-jerk the bar so that I could "catch" it overhead. Failing this, I instead guided the accelerating bar back to the ground with a minimum of injury. That one could have been bad.  After that, I took a minute or two to roll out my forearms and triceps, knowing that the accumulating tension in both areas would make my grip in the rack position less sure. I had no more huge issues, and was able to get the grip situated while still in the rack position before split jerking the weight overhead.

Total time: 17:00

12-02-06: Body-weight Beatdown

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

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

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

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

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

American-style kettlebell swings: Up overhead, w00t!

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WoD:

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

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

Total reps: 

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

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)

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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.

12-01-06: Wallballs and Toes-to-Bar

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday, January 6th, 2012

Wall-balls. *I* wanna use the kids target! (Forged Fitness)

Toes to bar (and knees to elbow, third one back). (The Farm Project)

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WoD: 6x

• 90sec Wallball
• 30sec Toes-to-Bar (substitution: Knees-to-elbow)
• 60sec Recovery

Third workout of the week... third with squatting. To say my legs were getting a bit stiff and achy would be an historic understatement. I tried to focus on mobilizing and flexibility on the warm-up. After that, it was time to find a wallball, a target, a suitable pull-up bar for toes-2-bars, and prepare for the coming onslaught.

6 rounds, 90 seconds of wall balls, 30 seconds of knees to elbows, then a minute rest. Here's a clue that a work/rest workout is going to be tough: The FIRST rest period feels like its too short. By comparison, in the Tabata protocol (20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest), the first few rounds don't feel that bad. At least for me, its always the 4-5th round where the rest period feels like an instant, and the next work set feels like an eternity. I had that feeling during and after the very first round.

Though we were only counting our 3rd and 6th rounds, and trying to maintain consistency across all 6, I recorded outcomes for every round, but can't find the sheet right now. I definitely came out of the gate too fast, racking up 39 wallballs in the first round, a feat I would NOT be able to replicate for the rest of the workout. The one thing I love about work/rest workouts is the built-in time to consider how much each part of the workout sucked... and how terrifying the coming 5-4-3-2-1 rounds are going to be. On the upshot, each time, there are fewer coming rounds to crap yourself over.

11-08-10: Running, Toes-to-Bars and Kettlebell Swings

Elm City CrossFit WoD for August 10th, 2011

Rule 1: Cardio. In a zombie apocalypse, I'm the first one dead. Well, maybe second or third. I do NOT live into the sequel, I tell you that much. (crossfit.com)

Knees to elbows. Showing the difference between "ok" form (top, knees coming to triceps instead of elbows, torso less horizontal) vs. "awesome" form (bottom, all issues resolved.) (crossfit.com)

Kettlebell swings. Though she's a bit *too* cut (eat a burger, dammit!), it does highlight all the core muscles needed to get the kettlebell overhead. Its NOT a shoulder raise, its a full body movement to put the momentum into the kettlebell to get it overhead, starting from the hip pop to get it moving in the first place. (Forever CrossFit)

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WoD: 3 Rounds for Time

• 10 Dumpster 2 Dumpster runs
• 20 T2B Knees to Elbows
• 10 Kettlebell Swings 55#

Sellout: 2x20
GHD hip & back extensions

Yup, totally thought I was going to die on this one.  While the running focused pretty heavily on my massive cardio weakness, the following movements didn't give me a chance to catch my breath at all. My guess is that the total distance per round was about 500m, but I'm not really sure. If it was in that range, I think I would have preferred to hit the road and just do it all in one longer run than broken into shorter distances. Not that I ever broke into a sprint, but it felt like I *should* have.

Though I was worried about doubling up on knees-to-elbows AND kettlebell swings, I just tried to keep my grip stable on both, and only had a few times where I felt the kettlebell moving in my hands. I also tried to keep my hands dry with chalk, without overdoing it and actually increasing the risk of tears. Longtime CrossFit contributor (as well as several other websites) Becca Borawski has a great article on hand care.

All in all, it was the running that killed me. I really tried to crank through the K2Es, and the kettlebells weren't *that* bad, but I was the last one back out the door going into the third round. I don't think I had a single complete run, either stopping early to walk, or walking after the turnaround to try to catch my breath. By the time I got back in to the bars to do the last round of K2Es, some people were already finishing up the kettlebell swings. I got through the last K2Es ok, but imploded on the final kettlebell swings. While I wanted to go unbroken for at least 15 reps, I crapped out at 11. 7 more got me to 18, but I had a pretty bad grip slip on that final one, so I ended up dropping and resetting. It took a few moments for me to finally stop greying out enough to grab the kettlebell and bang out the final 12 reps.

Total Time: 27:50

The back-hip extensions were just brutal, since I was already at the "lie down and let me die" stage. But I got it done in sets of 10. I'm waiting to feel those later today and tomorrow.

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

11-04-18: Split squats, DB Swings, box jumps and knees-to-elbows

CrossFit Garden City WoD for April 7, 2011

The split squat. Infinitely easy until you slow the descent to the point where it takes 5 seconds.  Then, they suddenly become infinitely HARD. (menshealth.com)

Dumbbell swings. I've started holding them as on the right (by the bell), but with a rubber-coated hex dumbbell, it takes a slightly larger grip. (crossfit.com)

The box jump. Ugh... (games2009.crossfit.com)

Knees-to-elbows (and varations: toes-to-bar (harder) and knee lift (easier). All of them suck a bit, since you're hanging by your hands while contorting your body around. (crossfit.com)

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Warmup:

• Jump rope - double under practice
• Dynamic Stretches
• Split Squat Review/Practice

Strength:

• A1. DB Split Squats @ 5010 tempo x 5-6 reps/leg x 4 sets
• A2. Pullups @ 50X0 x 5-6 reps x 4 sets

Rest 60 sec b/w exercises

Conditioning:
AMRAP in 15 minutes:

• 10 KB Swings (32kg/24kg)
  
• 10 Box Jumps (24"/18#)
  
• 10 Knee to Elbows
  

Scaling: Pullups - Perform 25-30 seconds of negatives per set

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Well, split squats were a new one for me, so after a bit of research on the interwebz, I settled on a technique to follow, and decided to start the weights fairly light, given the very slow speed dictated by the workout. After a good warm-up, with plenty of "on-purpose" runs of 10-12 double-unders, I got to work. As usual, the weight room was crawling with directionless kids showing off their extreme accomplishments of limited ROM and sketchy technique. Bah... metal was cranked and split squats were waiting.

Man, these suck pretty quickly. Every set, I would quickly come close to losing count, as I was counting the 5 second descent in my head, and promptly forgetting what actual rep I was on. Not fun, especially as my legs started to get tired. I jumped up in 5# increments at a time, and (not surprisingly) the issue actually became my grip more than my legs. Sure, my legs were shaky, and I swear I could feel old scar tissue in my quads (probably just new ickyness from doing "Karen" last week) popping on the third through sixth reps each round, but it was my forearms and grip that started making the last two sets nearly unbearable.

Dumbbell split squats: 25# / 30# / 35# / 40# (each hand)

The slow pull-ups were also murder, probably mostly for being even more grip-centric than the split squats. I was actually impressed with my ability to do a strict or slightly-kipped pull-up after dropping so slowly into the hole on each rep. While I was only able to do three reps at a time, and usually finished the rounds with a lightly jumped pull-up followed by a long negative, it was actually a better performance than I assumed. Since I was scaling the last few reps to jumping pull-ups and negatives, I opted to do six reps every round.

By the conditioning, I was pretty much bonked. I had eaten fairly well during the day, but had forgotten to have any fat with my lunch (I'm literally realizing this NOW, a good 6 hours later), and it probably had a bit too high of a carb/protein ratio, as well. Plus an iffy night's sleep... really NOT a recipe for success. I planned on making it to 8 rounds of the triplet. Little did I know how much time I would spend fighting off a foot cramp in my left leg, worrying about that same lunch repeating on me, with only the occasional twinge of fear that I might actually suffocate to death from not being able to breathe fast enough. The same grip issues plagued the dumbbell swings and knees to elbows. While I was able to keep all the swings unbroken, the knees to elbows were usually done in a 4-4-2 breakdown, swapping the grip (supine vs. prone) to try to save my forearms.  I would have been ecstatic with 8 rounds, and satisfied with 6.  I had to make do with 4.

Triplet: 4 rounds

11-04-06: Dumbell squat cleans, knees-to-elbows, burpees

CrossFit Garden City WoD for March 26, 2011
Warmup:
Burgener Warm-Up x2
Dynamic Stretching
Training:
21-15-9 reps of:

• Dumbbell Squat Clean
• Knees to Elbows
• Row (calories) (no rowing machine available)
• Burpees

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Dumbbell squat cleans. I end up with the weight more in front, with the inner heads of the two dumbbells pressed together, allowing me a somewhat easier time managing the weight. I need to play with squatting with dumbbells some more to keep the dumbbells apart and resting individually on my shoulders. (CrossFit Redding)

Knees to elbows. Full-body, massive suckage. Everything hurts after a few of these. Trust me. (Trinity CrossFit)

I don't even want to run a mile...much less do burpees for a mile (broad jumps rather than vertical jumps). Not even a little. (CrossFit FX)

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The only thing worse than sharing a gym with a dozen students who have no idea what they're doing (and a select few who actually do) is sharing that gym with about 30 kids who have no idea why they're there. It might be time to have a chat with the athletic coaches in the school to let them know that "Go to the weightroom and workout" isn't quite enough info for these guys. The guys doing curls on the balance boards were my personal faves...

After warming up a bit and waiting for the crush to dissipate a bit, I finally got some space to myself. Our rowing machine currently has no ERG attached, so that was out, and I wasn't too excited about subbing in sumo deadlift high-pulls, seeing as how I had just annihilated my legs and upper arms yesterday with my marathon double-under practice. So, I cut it knowing that there were enough of my goats in this workout that it would NOT be like taking it easy.

The original workout called for kettlebell squat cleans, but since all of our 'powerbells' were in use, I went with dumbbells instead. Since I'm not super confident on squat cleans, except with a fairly light bar or med ball, I went medium light on the dumbbells, 35# each. It's a weight I can control, while being plenty heavy 10 reps in. Knee-to-elbows were off the back of the ever trusty Smith machine, and burpees were done in front of it.

This was a total grind. I wanted to seriously die midway through the first round, and things did NOT improve as it went on. I really think I need to do some remedial cardio/met-con work, as that seems to be my biggest weakness right now. One of my plans was to do either a Rippetoe 'Starting Strength' linear progression, or a Wendler 5-3-1 strength progression over the summer, with the kids gone. However, both of those assume you have a squat or power rack to actually allow you to do heavy squatting. We have neither. And while my strength is so-so, my met-con is abysmal. Perhaps time to rethink that plan. Maybe a CFGC or mainsite WoD in the morning, followed by the CrossFit Endurance WoD in the afternoon. Hmmm...

Total time: @19m. Total time catching breath, wishing for death: @10 minutes.
(That's an estimate, in that the total amount of work can't have been much more than 9-10 minutes...which implies an awful lot of time spent trying not to puke.)

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

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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)

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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

11-02-09: Sumo Deadlift High Pull - Hang Power Clean - Knee to Elbow MetCon

CrossFit Garden City WoD for January 27, 2011
Warmup:
Burgener WU

Skill:
20 mins of goal/skill practice

• Jump rope
• Ring work

Conditioning: 4 rounds for time:

• 250 meter row 20 Sumo Deadlift High-Pulls 75#
• 10 Hang Power Snatch Clean 75#
• 15 KTE's

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Sumo Deadlift High-Pull. These start to suck very quickly. Done correctly, its the opening of the knee and hips that fire the bar off the ground, and the arms mostly serve to keep the bar from smashing into your mouth. Several reps in, it becomes much harder to keep that happening when your lungs are full of razor-wire. (CrossFit Central Runtex)

Nicole Carroll demonstrating the three main positions in the hang power snatch: 1) the slight closing of the hip that drops the weight down a bit, but which allows 2) the aggressive opening of the hip, driving the bar up, as well as a huge shrug to keep it moving, allowing 3) the catch in the rack position. The partial squat on the catch is optional, but increasingly necessary as the weights get heavier. (Team CrossFit Academy)

Yeah, they look fun. Until you realize the grip requirements, and that you've already done a crap-ton of work before you get here. Yeah. Fun. (CrossFit Santa Cruz Central)

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Started out with the Burgener Warm-Up, followed by @20 minutes (untimed) of alternating bouts of jump-rope and ring work. Knocked out a set of 7 dips, a new PR by 2. Did some more work on my false grip, as well as pull-up progression work. Had some very good speed on my single bounces and running steps on the jump-rope, but couldn't seem to get much past 20 jumps before getting snarled up. I'm working on both shortening the rope AND keeping my hands more to the side (rather than out front), to address issues I've been seeing in the rope path, so its probably just those things coming into play. I also played with some lat pull-ups, where from a full dead-hang position you engage the lats, pulling the body up only by a few inches, but the arm/torso angle actually closes a bit. (This was _stupid_ to do before a workout involving 60 knee-to-elbows, btw. Very bad workout design on my part...)

Since our ONE rowing machine is currently out of commission, I had to substitute SDLHPs for the rowing, which is a fairly standard sub. However, since we only have one straight bar, whatever I was going to be using the for the snatches (reading really IS FUNdamental. I just screwed up and didn't read/comprehend what the workout actually called for. Sillyness abounded today, apparently.) cleans was also going to be on the SDLHPs. I decided 75# would make an ok compromise, which ended up being more or less true.

This workout was amazingly awful almost from the get-go. Put simply, I wanted to quit before the end of the first round, and with students waiting to do their "squats" on the Smith machine (which I was using for the K2Es), I had ample opportunity and excuse. I took neither and finished the workout for the full 4 rounds. I was fighting back that bastard Pukie for most of the final two rounds, but still...


Total Time: 20:10

11-01-06: AMRAP 20 Kettlebell swings, box jumps, and toes-to-bar

CrossFit Garden City WoD for Thursday, January 6th, 2010
Conditioning:
AMRAP in 20 minutes:

• 10 Kettlebell Swings (25#)
• 10 Box Jumps (18-20" box)
• 10 Toes to Bar (specifically shown @ 1 minute into the demo)

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Hell of a kettlebell swing. Note the fantastic back arch, even all the way down in the hole, and the massive amount of hip drive that fires the kettlebell up overhead. This is NOT a shoulder move, and if they get sore, you're not doing it right. (crossfit.com)

New favorite box jump pic of all time. You jump from the floor to a higher level. Then jump or step down and repeat. Look, its so easy, a toddler can do it! (crossfitsweatshop.com)

Heather from CrossFit Long Island City rocking great T2B form. Oddly, while searching for a pic, I found waaaay more supposed T2B pics of people with crappy form (like me) where it was hard to tell if it was really a T2B or a knees-to-elbow sort of deal. Either way, it'll hammer your abs, lats, and hands. (crossfitlic.com)

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I've decided to go with my gut (literally) and try experimenting with a 5 on, 2 off work/rest schedule. I'm terrible about getting in workouts on the weekend, so I'm usually lucky to get 3-4 workouts in during the week. Working out at during my "lunch hour" gives me ample reasons/excuses to NOT workout, so actually trying to commit the time is a big difference. Though I was feeling a bit sore and tight from the previous three days, I wasn't feeling so beat up that a bit of active warm-up wouldn't cure it all...at leas temporarily.

So, some active warm-up it was, with all sorts of joint mobility and dynamic stretching. Most of the recent research (for all the issues with exercise science, which can usually be summed up as 'uneducated guessing') shows that static stretching PRIOR to exertion actually increases the chances of injury, though to my knowledge no solid, or at least provable, theories have yet been proposed.  Either way, running every major joint through its range of motion at a medium tempo, and making sure to focus on trouble spots, has made me feel better going into workouts, and recover better after.

Got myself set up for the triplet, with one of our "kettlebells" ("Power Systems Grip-Ball" - what happens when the baseball coach, who knows NOTHING about the weight room, orders equipment from the high school sports equipment catalog. We also have TWO of these atrocities: Balance boards! Perfect for the "athlete" who wants to pretend to workout while not actually doing ANYTHING useful with their time.), the box for the jumps, and the ever trusty if evil Smith machine rack for the toes-to-bar. Set the iPod to rock some Porcupine Tree, set the timer, and got ready to boogie.

First round took a little over a minute.  Kettlebell swings were fast and easy (one handed, switching hands every rep), box jumps were a little slow as I'm still stepping down rather than jumping down. Kills my time, but saves my knees, which is perfectly fine by me!  The slowest bit was the toes-to-bar/knees-to-elbows.  Admittedly, since the Smith machine frame is kinda short, I end up touching my feet down after EVERY rep, which compared to the video up above, is total crap. To make sure I wasn't kicking up into the position (which I've caught myself doing on occasion), I made sure I was starting out with my feet a little behind me on the floor when I started to squeeze up, to minimize the amount and effectiveness of any kicking I might have been doing...

Having seen the first round at 1:xx, I immediately started framing out my goals as I moved into the next round. Without a doubt, my rounds would get a bit slower (or a lot slower, at least by the end), so 12 rounds sounded like a good "aim high" kind of goal.  Reality predicted more like 10 rounds, and I knew I wanted more than 8.  8 rounds would be a sort-of 'trapped in second gear' kind of failure. So, I got to work.

20 minutes later, I had just finished my 11th set of kettlebell swings, meaning I scored 10 rounds plus 10 kb swings.  Not bad! A 1/3 of a round better than my realistic goal, and on the high side of that realistic goal compared to my 8-round=failure cut-off point.  All good!

As I noted by the picture, in addition to having my feet touch down on every rep of the T2B, I also had a lot of keeping my legs even vaguely straight, with most reps actually looking more like Knees-to-Elbows.  Certainly not the worst failure, but in a competition, it's likely that not ONE of my reps would have counted, and I would have finished up with 2/3rds of a set at the end, without even one completion.  More stuff to work on!

Total score: 10 rounds + 10 kb swings

I was optimistic about working on my rings again, but a few seconds in control was enough time for my elbows to SCREAM at me.  Working on them now with my trusty lacrosse ball (actually its some weird rubber baseball practice ball... same coach as above), and it appears/feels like sore ligaments/tendons, which is totally not a surprise, given two days of ring work before-hand, as well as work with the hang power clean only a day or two earlier.  Since that destroys my arms due to flexibility issues, etc. The lower insertions of the triceps (above the shoulder) are especially tender. Hopefully getting a few hours sleep (5.5 at this point... um, that's not enough!!) will help them chill out!

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Porcupine Tree!
There used to be several Porcupine Tree videos here... all have been removed from Youtube. So, you know, go google them yourself or something. ;)

(I wish they had more real videos, but check out the live shows... their bootlegs are amazing, so the live videos are probably really good too, unless they were recorded on some dipsh!t's phone, as so many seem to be...)

10-12-09: Power Snatches, Wall-balls, K2Es

CrossFit WoD for Monday December 6, 2010

21-18-15-12-9 rep rounds of:

• 115# (105# for the final 10 reps) Power snatch
• Wallball shots, 20# ball
• Knees to elbows (new favorite CrossFit vid... not sure how I never saw that one before!)

Crystal McReynolds 14:01 (75lbs, 14lb ball), Austin Malleolo 14:05, Carey Kepler 14:08 (75lbs, 14lb ball), JC Nessa 15:24, Kevin Montoya15:34, Mat Frankel 16:24, Lance Cantu 17:11, Heather Bergeron18:55 (85lbs, 16lb ball), Stacey Kroon 19:23 (85lbs, 16lb ball),Kristan Clever 19:47 (85lbs, 16lb ball), Laurie Galassi 19:48 (78lbs, 14lb ball), Mel Ockerby 19:49 (85lbs, 14lb ball).

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WOD Demo at CrossFit Santa Cruz - video [wmv] [mov]
Austin Malleolo on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]
CrossFit New England on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]

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Natalie Burgener Woolfolk preps for a snatch attempt. And since her dad is Coach B, she'll probably hit it, too. (crossfitfootball.com)

Wall-balls. Depth of squat is important, hence the med ball as a guide. The target is another 3-4' above his hands, so that ball better be booking.  Best way to do that? Drive with the hips, baby. (crossfit.com)

Variations on the theme. Left is as prescribed, center is harder, right is easier. The amount of muscles this hits is hard to overstate.  Probably your toes don't get a good workout... probably. (crossfit.com)

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This was my last workout prior to (hopefully) getting my CrossFit Level 1 certification this weekend, and being all allowed to train others and stuff.  As such, I wanted it to be an ass-kicking that I would totally own. Instead, I got totally pwned by it.  Ah well, it happens.

First mistake: No scaling on the weight on the power snatch.  Now, I can power snatch 115# pretty easily, even with my probably craptastic form. However, that doesn't take into account the necessity of doing so 75 times during the course of the workout. Crap, it barely took into account doing it 21 times in a row to start this thing out!  Basically, this should have been 95# or even 85# for me to stand a chance... Did the first set, broken into about 4 sets. I think there were 10 unbroken, but I could have just been delirious and dreaming. After that, headed over to the wallball station.

UNBROKEN. I love wallballs. Probably means my med-ball is too light (the heaviest one lost its cover or something, so you can't tell how heavy it is), or I'm not throwing them high enough.  That said, its pretty heavy, and I throw it between 10-12' feet up on the wall. So, maybe the weight is low, but the height is enough, and I LOVE WALL-BALLS.  Especially now that I got rid of the chairs I was using to gauge the low end of the squat, and just started squatting as low as I can go.  Definitely lower than with the chair.

Knee-to-elbows.  In the picture caption, I mentioned that every muscle in the body gets worked, right?  Well, it turns out that 21 power snatches and 21 wall-balls have pretty much already annihilated lots of muscles, so the fact that this targets those and more makes them an evil addition to this triplet from hell. I think I got 12 unbroken, and from then on, I think 5 was my max at a time.  Given where I do them (frame of a 7' tall Smith machine) theres not really room to fully extend at the bottom. I did what I could for most of the first round, but found myself touching down with my feet after awhile, but I made damn sure I wasn't jumping up into the top position the whole way through, so while not ideal, it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

Round two was just a grueling slog through a ton of short mini-sets on each exercise... except for wall-ball! Stormed through 18 of those like I was just starting out.  My lungs nearly exploded when I was done, but hey, whatever.

Third round was even uglier. I mean ugly.  Basically, it nearly didn't happen, but I decided I had to at least begin to finish what I had started. Snatches were by now just ugly variations on a theme, though dropping 10# helped substantially, the wall-balls were awesome, and I could barely grip the bar to do the K2Es. By the time I finished the 3rd round, I was already at the 30 minute mark. I had to cut it there, since I workout at work, and taking another 30 minutes to finish the last two rounds probably wouldn't go over well with the people in charge. ;)

So, 30 minutes in, I gave myself a DNF. Final workout before certification. The ego has officially taken a beating.  Which is probably good, since I can't imagine walking into a CrossFit certification thinking I'm a big bad-ass would work out so well. Now I can just be polite, and learn a crap-ton of information! Woo

10-10-27: Squat snatches, dips and knees-to-elbows

CrossFit WoD for Wednesday October 27th, 2010
Complete as many rounds as possible 20 minutes of:

• 95# 75# Squat snatch, 10 reps (great video for technique and pointers)
• 10 Ring dips (shoulders dip below elbows at bottom, full extension at the top)
• 10 Knees to elbows (full hang at bottom, knees up to elbows at top...a sit-up on steroids laced with angel dust...)

Austin Malleolo 10 rounds + 2 snatch, Dave Lipson 9 rounds, Karianne Dickson 8 rounds + 4 dips (65lbs).
Austin Malleolo on today's WOD - video [wmv] [mov]

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Eva T. demonstrating the difference in height for receiving the bar in the squat and split snatches. (crossfit.com)

Greg A. showing what the dips *should* have looked like (ie. with rings...) (crossfit.com)

Eva T. demonstrating knees-to-elbows. Full body pain right there. (crossfit.com)

Another shared session with the students.  Unfortunately for me, the best place for doing the knees-2-elbows is on the frame of the evil Smith machine, but it was in constant use for not-squats and not-bench-presses.  I've tried discussing ideas like range of motion with them, apparently to no avail yet.  I'll keep trying. If we had more freeweights, I might even try harder to make them give up their precious Smith machine altogether, but since we have only the one bar, and I like to use it... I don't try too hard. :S

Since one of the fine lads (actually one of the better weight-lifters) was using almost all the weights for squats of nearly full depth, I was left to scrounge up a few 10# plates to throw on my 35# bar. 4 of them later, I had my 75# snatch bar.  I actually wanted more, but it turned out that 75# was more than enough.  Though my legs, back and arms all took a beating on this workout, it turns out it really targeted the crap out of my grip, and a heavier weight would have been nearly impossible after about the 3rd round.

I ended up experimenting with different bar reception positions, and learned that my favorite is actually the split snatch...probably from watching Josh Everett do a crap-ton of them in the CrossFit Games 2008 movie.  I didn't realize at the time what Eva T.'s picture above reveals: a split snatch has a higher receiving position, which means that with heavier weights, you actually need to do a LOT more work to get the bar up the extra few inches into a solid catch.  At 75#, I could pretty much power snatch it, so the few inches weren't an issue. It'll be something to look out for on a heavier squat workout, though.  I have still have a lot of work to do on my squat snatch positioning and comfort in and out of the bottom position, but the middle of a MetCon is no place to worry too much about that!

The dips were done on our hideous excuse for a gravitron (aka The Nut-Buster), which actually weren't too bad. I can never seem to get the width of the bars where I want them. Somewhere, a tiny violin is playing the world's saddest song for me. I then did the K2Es on the same torture device, facing out.  This presents several difficulties:

• If you lean back at all when your legs come up, you crack your head on the bottom of the monstrous pull-up arm assembly.
• When you drop your legs, your momentum will carry SOME part of your body into the nut-busters, so you have to choose carefully between the buttocks, your kidneys, or your floating ribs. I opted for buttocks.
• There's not really any clearance in front of you, so if anyone is walking by, you need to wait, dangling...feeling your grip start to slip... fun times.
• Having chosen a buttocks strike, you also end up with a "false" proprioceptive feedback source helping you to stop the descent of your legs, and giving what definitely felt like a stretch reflex into the next K2E, which has got to be some sort of cheating.

So, pounded through two rounds nearly non-stop, but then had to keep resetting on every exercise due to a completely shot grip.  Especially bad were the K2Es. I could have kept going ab/core-wise, but I just couldn't hang from the bar anymore!


Total rounds: 4 + 8 squat snatches.

Finished with several minutes of exercise bike to cool down, then several minutes of playing around with a fairly light med-ball to work some blood back into my forearms.