12-05-xx:The Big Catch-Up Post!

Over a month's worth of WoDs from Elm City CrossFit

Ok, holy crap, its been over a month since I updated this thing. In rapid order, and with no record of times or accomplishments, are the WoDs I've been a part of since April 27th, my last post.


12-05-01: Running, Chelsea/Cindy, MORE Running!
WoD: For Time

• 800m Run
• *50 Pull-ups
• *100 Push-ups
• *150 Squats
• 800m Run

*done as 10 sets of 5-10-15

If you're CF savvy, you'll spot that this is a variation on either Chelsea or Cindy (both of which involve sets of 5-10-15 pull-ups, push-ups and squats. Only kicker? The bookmarking 800m runs. Needless to say, the pull-ups kicked my ass, the push-ups caught up with me, the squats were easy, and the first run was waaay easier than the second. Second one was actually harder because my arms were too shattered to help me with momentum... ugh. Slowest time of the day... whatever it was.


12-05-02: Kettlebells, Stiff-Legged Deadlifts, and sprints
WoD: 3 x 3 for time:

• 5ea SA KBS
• 10 SLDL @ ½ BW
• Crack Dash

1 minute rest between each round (so after every 3rd crack dash (means sprint to you and me...)

This started easy and got AWFUL really fast. Definitely a pain in the butt a day after a full body burner. Ugh.

12-05-04: Pull-Ups and Bear Crawls
WoD: For Time 75 Pull-ups *unbroken
*every break equal one bear crawl loop


Sheer awfulness. Used a nice heavy band, and still ultimately lost count of how many bear crawls I did. Enough that I could barely bear crawl OR do pull-ups by the end. The only band stiff enough to get me up and over the bar with ANY sort of form is the black band, which is so taut I can't actually hit full extension while standing in it: Not an option. I'm more likely to spike myself into the ceiling like a rivet with that thing!

12-05-08: Cleans and sprints
WoD: 7x 90sec to complete:

• 3 Cleans
• Crack Dash

Not a bad workout. I don't remember my clean weight, but it was heavy, but not undoable. The problem with waiting a month to actually write it up (yes, it IS in a notebook... at the gym!)

12-05-09: Rope Climbs and Double-Unders 
WoD: 15min AMRAP

• 1 Rope Climb
• 20 Double Unders

Thank god for the knotted rope. Made a bunch of ascents (maybe 8?) before having a panicky moment near the top when it felt like my grip was really giving out. Transferred over to doing 10 ring rows for the final two rounds, which was where it  became obvious that my grip WAS completely gone, as I could barely do a rep or two before sliding off the rings, just no grip left. Most of the jumping was single-unders, but I mixed in as many double-unders as I could. Might have gotten more rounds with just single-unders, but that would have reduced my rest time between climbs, so that just would have been me hitting the grip wall even faster. Likely amounts to about the same.

10 rounds, x extra ring rows


12-05-14: Front Squats, Overhead Squats and Snatches
WoD: 3x7
Front Squat @ 75%
Followed by: Heavy Singles of overhead squat or snatch

Completed every round of front squats unbroken, only had grip issues on the first set (finishing it with the silly California front squat grip I so hate and rely on sometimes). After banging those out, I opted to work on my overhead squats. After getting in several heavy singles on them, I also started to mix in the occasional snatch, but was having trouble getting fully under the bar in a full squat, so went back to the overhead squats to help myself get more comfortable in all ranges of the motion with the bar overhead.

12-05-16: Skill/Max day!
5 attempts each:

• Max Weight Dead-hang Pull-Up (no-kip)
• Max Height Box Jump
• Row 500m

This was a fun day (other than Coach Kimmie racking herself on a box jump and ending up with awful lumps on her shins. Fortunately they were merely superficial!)  Managed a deadhang pull-up with a 35# kettlebell attached. Made a few attempts to best that with the 44# 'bell and just couldn't manage it. Next time. Box jumps were another story. 24"? Easy. 30"? Easy. 36"? Easy. 40"? NOT easy... but I made it. Tried to make it to 44" but just couldn't get over the fear factor. Every attempt at that height was pathetic, with my feet not even making it over the seam of the bottom box (two boxes on their sides, one 45# plate on top), so its not like I was just missing. I was completely psyching myself out.

Rowed an ok first attempt on the 500m, and was more or less happy to leave it there. However, after the crappy attempts at the box jump, I decided to crank out another 500m, and shaved a good 10s off my time.


12-05-18: Jerks and skills
WoD: 20 Singles:
 - Jerk (front and/or back) @ 80%
Sellout: Skill work

Jerks out of a weight rack are so much more fun than off the floor... though, to mix things up, I did do a few reps as clean and jerks, just to mix it up. Jerking from behind the neck is so much infinitely easier (you don't need to move the head out of the way of the bar path, so its a simpler movement overall). Weight?

12-05-21: Wallballs, mountain climbers and crab walks
WoD: 2x 6min on: 3min off

• 3 Wallballs(20#, 10' target)
• 10 Mountain Climbers (1to1)
• 1 loop Crab Walk 

I don't remember how many rounds I completed... all I remember is that the wallballs were easy, the mountain climbers were fast, and the crab walks devastated me.


12-05-23: Bench presses and max-rep push-ups
WoD: Rounds of 5-4-3 reps, then 3s till failure (If you miss a 3, you're done!)

• Bench @ 85%
• max rep push-up

Round of 5 was easy, 4 was ok, first round of 3 totally sucked, but at that point, the push-ups really tapered off, and stopped being such a drain on the bench press. Managed 4 rounds of 3, failing on the final rep of that fourth round. I almost made it too... right up until the bar changed directions and had to be caught by the spotter (Thanks Vin!)


12-05-25: Interval kettlebell swings and box-jumps
WoD: 4x

• 1min Kettlebell Swings
• 1min Box Jumps (step down only)
• 1min Rest

My only goal was to try to maintain reps from one round to the next (count was total number of reps across both exercises each round), which I managed. I don't remember now which version of the swing I did... though it was probably the traditional/Russian swing out in front, rather than overhead. I believe about this time I read an article discussing the differences, and have started going overhead. This workout may makr the last time I did traditional swings. Ah well.


12-05-28: Memorial Day Team WoD!
WoD: For time (entire team)

• 400m weighted run 35#
• 50 squats
• 25 pull-ups
• 100m run
• 50 burpees
• 25 weighted sit-ups 35#
• 800m run 

Six 3-person teams squared off to tackle this beast of a workout, dreamed up on the spot by Coaches Vin, Bobby and Kimmie (mostly Vin and Bobby...bastards).  Every member had to to do every rep, and move from movement to movement together as a team. However, 1 person from each time could move ahead and complete the entire workout on their own, then swing back to help a struggling teammate with whatever they were chipping away at.  My team was Woody, Azaria, and myself: clearly Woody was going to be the sprinter on this one, and indeed he was. There were two things that made me excited about this one: it was my first team WoD, and it was also the first time Jen and Emma had come out to meet the crew and watch me compete. Nerves!!!

Long story short, we came in last, mostly because I got mud-stomped by the pull-ups, and Z got mud-stomped by the burpees. Woody came back around during the burpee phase, helping Z out with her final reps while I went on to sit-ups. As I struggled through them (its really hard to breath during sit-ups with a 35# plate on your chest... I felt bad for those who did it with the Rx'd 45#!), Bobby offered me the option of scaling the run to 400m, just 2x around the parking lot. I declined, and struggled through the full 800m, but was determined to complete the WoD as written (other than using a band on the pull-ups. I think I forgot to mention that... Meh.) Awesome day, and a great time was had by all!

12-05-30: Chipper Disasterpiece
WoD: For Time:

• 15 Pull-ups
• 30 Push-ups
• 45 Squats
• 2min Rest
• 9 Deadlifts @ 225#
• 9 Hand-stand Push-Ups
• 2min Rest
• 400m Run
• 15 Overhead squat 95# 
• 2min Rest
• 50 Double-Unders 150 single-unders
• 50 Sit-ups

Holy crap did this one suck. Especially two days after the Memorial Day chipper, to hit another epic full body disaster really kind of hurt! The only thing that kept it interesting was knowing that each couple/triplet was a round of one of the named workouts, so that was fun. The workout was HARD. One big upshot was doing all the weights as Rx'd easily, and even though I subbed out single for double-unders, I completed all 150 jumps unbroken. So, that was kind of awesome.

11-09-14: Overhead Squat Tabata

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, September 14, 2011

Original firebreather Greg Amundson shows perfect overhead squat form. Note the depth of the squat on the left, as well as how vertical his torso is. That is VERY hard to accomplish. This lift is as much about flexibility and mobility as it is about strength. Pretty much any nagging area in your body is capable of making you suck at OHS. (crossfit.com)

Nicole Carroll, original "Nasty Girl" cranks out over head squats, and makes them look EASY. Awesomeness abounds. (crossfit.com)

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WoD: Tabata

• Overhead Squats 65#

Score is reps completed
Sellout: 4x

• 100m Row
• 10 Box Jumps 24"

Score is fasted row time

Wow. That's just a whole lot of suckage in the first part of the workout. Not JUST overhead squats, a notorious goat of mine, but tabata-stylee no less. Ugh. 20 seconds of work, 10 seconds of rest, repeat 7 more times. Joy of joys.

Oddly enough, there were times when the OHS almost felt locked in, but then my right forearm would spike in agony, pretty much killing whatever rep I was in dead in the water. Very hard to focus on form and mid-line stability and getting the knees lower than the hip crease when your only *real* concern is whether or not you're going to drop a bar on your head.

Tabata OHS: 25 reps (7 in the first interval, then much less from there on out!)

I really like the sprint-type sell-outs. I'm a good enough rower, and consistent, that when it calls for 100m, I already know that's about 14 strokes, at least for me. I swung for the fences on every round, and managed 18s three times, and 19 on the second round. So, 18s was my fastest time. Box jumps were high, but that was only a problem because stepping down from a 24" box is kinda high, especially as the fatigue builds up. Still, no big worries.

11-08-23: Running, Rowing and Kettlebell swings

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Tuesday, August 23rd, 2011

Kristan Clever and Annie Thorisdottir in the 2010 CrossFit Games. (Crossfit.com)

Because pictures of kids doing CrossFit are just awesome. (crossfit.com)

One-arm kettlebell swings, as demonstrated by Jeff Martone (crossfit.com)

Tell me again what your excuse is? I think this guy might want to have a word with you about your "excuses." (crossfit.com)

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Warm-up (for the next two weeks):

• SMR (Self-Myofacial Release (Foam Rolling)):
• Gastroc/Soleus (Calves and surrounding areas)
• ITB/Quad (quads and surrounding areas)
• Thorasic/Lats (back)
• Active Stretching:
• Leg Swings
• Scorpion
• Balance and Stability:
• Lateral Step-up 2 Balance w/ Press and Hold
• SAQ Drill:
• Ladder: in-in-out-out (forward and side)

WOD: 20 min Cap: No Clock-Just Get Rounds

• 150m Row or 200m Run
• 5ea arm KBS 55/70

NOTE: Self-regulated rest intervals

I was pretty happy with this workout. My wrists and forearms were *still* tender from last Wednesday's farmer's carries, but due to the kettlebell motion being generated completely from the hips, I really don't think this did too much more damage to whatever's sore/impinged/healing/etc. I ran the first 6 rounds, knowing that's way more a weakness than rowing, but by the end of the 7th round, my lungs were finally on fire enough for me to be happy to see one of the rowers unoccupied after finishing up the that round's kettlebell swings. I ended up rowing the 8th and 9th rounds, running the tenth, and was 2/3s of the way through another row when the 20 minutes was up.

I really tried to minimize rest time, extracting as much "rest" as I could from the transition to and from the kettlebell, especially while chalking up. I just wanted to avoid standing over the kettlebell, willing myself to pick it up, which I think I was very successful at. I also wanted to avoid walking during any of the runs. The only "cheap" rest I got was on one of the rounds where I rowed, where I got to wait for 5-10 seconds while someone got themselves off the rower. Ah, sweet blissful oxygen.


Total rounds: 10 plus a little rowing

11-07-12: Running and rowing

Elm City Crossfit Endurance WoD for Tuesday July 12th, 2011

pics

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Endurance WoD: 2x through

• RUN 1mile
• ROW 1000m

This sucked. I was really hoping it was only one time through, having misread the website. I wasn't sure I could actually run two miles in the same workout. Given the choice to do either the row or run first, I opted to run first, to get at least the first one out of the way. The first surprise was that I finished the first mile unbroken. Slowly, I'm sure, but I didn't stop, and that felt kind of good. Both rows were unbroken, as well, though I find that much easier to just keep pulling and going. The second mile was a whole lot worse than the first, with me stopping to walk at least three times. I refused to actually stop moving though, so there was that. Yeah.

Oddly, I only got blisters on my left foot, rather than matching ones on both feet. We're planning on recording me running to figure out what the heck I'm doing now! :S

11-06-23: Benchpress rowing and running

Elm City Crossfit WoD for June 23rd, 2011

Bench press. Note the plates under his feet to keep him in proper alignment (either its a tall bench or he's a short dude. Not sure.).  There is NO excessive arch in the back, just enough to support his upper body as he preps for another rep. Also notice the spotter NOT touching the bar, but close enough to grab it if the lifter gets into trouble. (crossfitfootball.com)

Brian MacKenzie, one muscular distance guy. The guy who started Crossfit Endurance, actually. If he says Crossfit can help you run, I'd listen. As a matter of fact, I do! (Pic lifted from Crossfit All In)

Rowing. Fun for all ages. Effective for all ages. (games2010.crossfit.com)

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Strength: Benchpress 4 x 5

• 1 set @ 85%
• 2 sets @ 87%
• 1 set @ 90%

WoD: 4x Alternating

• 200m Run
• 200m Row

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I wasn't looking forward to much in this workout: I was still walking funny from Tuesday's running, and due to the limitations in the Dieselhaus, I wasn't even sure of my 1 rep max for bench pressing. Hard to work to a heavy weight when you need to clean the bar from the floor, lie back on the bench, THEN press it up. All usually without a spotter.  My "PR" was 125#, but I have no idea how many reps that was, or anything about the workout. So, at Coach Vin's suggestion, I used my warm-up sets to try to ease into 5RM territory, so I could at least come up with an estimated 1RM. 

My first work set was 155#, which felt nice and heavy, but I was able to get the 5 reps pretty easily. Using the weight percentage chart, I calculated that my 1RM *might* be about 190# (155# showing up as 85% of 190#), so for 87%, I went up to 165# as shown on the chart. I blew threw 165# like it didn't exist, so at Vin's suggestion, I went up again to 175# for my second 87% set. This time I nailed 4 clean reps and failed on the 5th (thanks for the spot, Vin or Larry, I forget who was there for that one!).  After a bit of discussion, we opted to keep me there for the final set, to see what happens.

Turns out, my lack of volume caught up with me really quickly. While I wasn't exactly rushing the sets, I also wasn't taking 5 minutes to recover from a set to failure.  The final set lasted exactly 2.5 reps long, and ended with Vin grabbing the bar just as I was about to lose my battle with gravity about halfway up. Basically, the overall muscle fatigue was too great, and I wasn't able to stay near my 3-5RM max (the percentages Rx'ed are actually high for a 5RM, making this an exercise in overloading anyways) to complete the workout. Vin assured me that would be one of the first things I would see blow up and get awesomer. I can hardly wait.

Benchpress: 5 x 155# / 5 x 165# / 4 x 175# / 2 x 175#

Alternating runs and rows. At first, I read the workout as being 2 runs and 2 rows, for a total of 800m. I was way too optimistic. 4 of each. A full mile. Argh.  I started stretching out my cementish legs some more. Upshot was this: Vin watched me start off around the parking lot, and immediately had some fixes to my stride that made running both more comfortable AND would keep me from being as sore as the longer distances on Tuesday made me. All about letting the heel touch down *a bit* AFTER the toes hit (or have the foot land flat) but NOT as a heel strike movement. Basically, it allows the calf muscles to deload for a second, rather than maintaining full tension on them for the duration of the run. Brilliant!

11-06-15: Oly lifting

Elm City Crossfit WoD for June 15th, 2011

Click to embiggenate. Natalie Burgener is just _awesome_. That third pic? The full squat while receiving the bar on the shoulders? I couldn't even BEGIN to get there today.

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Power:
Clean & Jerk 1RM – 15 min cap

WOD: 3 Rounds

• 15 Power Clean @ ¾ BW
• 200m Row/Run

Each round timed separately

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(Warning: Here's where I start whinging about how much I lost when I ended up taking a month off. Feel free to surf on if this bores you. It bores me, but it bears dealing with. As much as I try to put as good a spin as possible on my accomplishments, I think its even more important to try to analyze those things that don't feel like they came together, to hit it harder (and smarter) next time.)

After a nice warm-up, we walked through the finer points of the clean, and then of the jerk. It felt freaking ALIEN to me. I could search through this blog and find the last time I C&J'ed, but it doesn't really matter. It was too damn long ago, and I've forgotten most of what I ever learned/taught myself about it. I could NOT make the full extension make the weighted pvc feel weightless, and forget completely about hitting the receiving squat position. If I ever had it, its gone now. Admittedly, in trying to follow ECC's programming, and going at 5:30 in the morning, I'm not taking the opportunity to review and relearn tips and techniques via the ever-increasingly awesome Crossfit Exercises and Demos page. The only part that felt comfortable today was the jerk, using a split jerk technique. This isn't that shocking, since one of the most recent videos in the Crossfit Journal was Coach B (Natalie's dad, from above) coaching Dave Lipson on the jerk. While I still had coachable points in need of improvement (wider split, allowing me to get further under the bar, so I wouldn't have to jerk it as high), I had a starting idea of what I was doing, and a good concept of how those improvements could be implemented. The clean felt like I was trying to learn how to fly while stapled to the ground.

That said, I did realize (well after the fact) that I come equipped with my own re-training regimen. Tomorrow (and probably every day I workout for the foreseeable future), I'm going to work on my med ball cleans. These are what got me cleaning with a bar correctly the first time, back in the day. Actually, it couldn't have been that long ago, since I only just learned the med ball variety this past December. So, hopefully that means my bar clean and jerk can't be too forgotten, since I only started getting THAT dialed in some time after December, right? One can hope.

We were tasked with finding our 1RM for the day in 15 minutes. Spending more time working on form rather than pushing the envelope, I hit a max of #125. If I could have put the form together, I could have been lifting a lot more than that. For the metcon, it was 3 rounds of 15 power cleans at 3/4ths body weight, followed by 200m of rowing or running. Given my form struggles, I opted to drop a little weight, down to #115, and keep it there. As Rx'ed, I should have been at 155# or so. I wish. The wod was, unsurprisingly, murder, though a somewhat easy variety. I tried to focus on hitting better technique on the cleans, since now the squat was removed from the equation, and had some success. I ended up rowing on the 1st and 3rd rounds, and running for the 2nd. As always, the cardio aspect just devastated me. While I had some muscle-fatigue from about rep 10 of the first round, I never really recovered from the first row, and nearly crapped out on the run. The final row was just an attempt to finally finish the workout... hopefully within 30 seconds or so of the second to last person.

While there wasn't a huge emphasis on time (so we could focus on form on the power cleans), it's still never fun coming in last. But, there's a line from Christopher McDougall's Born to Run that I've always loved: "It's easy to finish first. It's hard to finish last." But you still have to finish it. It's not about the race anyways, at least not with anyone ELSE. In the race against myself, I came in first. And last. And sideways. I gotta work on my form.

EDIT: I just updated my Personal Records page. Turns out I set a 10# PR on the C&J today, and did the WoD at my former PR. I guess that actually makes me feel a bit better. It doesn't change the fact that I was struggling with form at every weight from an empty bar on up... but hey, I put 10# on that Personal Record! ;)

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

11-03-01: Ring work, tabata rowing, push-ups and squats

CrossFit GardenCity WoD for February 24, 2011
Warmup: 
3 sets of 10 Overhead Squats, 2 minutes of DU practice
Skill:
Ring work - ring dips, pull-ups, etc.
Conditioning:

• Tabata Row
• Rest 1 min
• Tabata Pushup
• Rest 1 min
• Tabata Squat

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Overhead squats. Those will wake up your shoulders in the morning.

Double-unders. Note the higher than normal jump and the invisible rope. Tell-tale signs. (CrossFit Jax)

Ring dips. Full depth ring dips. Man these suck. (CrossFit Rockwall)

Hey, that's Chuck Liddell and John Hackleman! Even the Iceman appears to suffer on the rower! (CrossFit Rockford)

Tabata push-ups. I really REALLY hate them. (CrossFit Works)

Air squats. At last, something I'm good at! (CrossFit Santa Cruz)

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I love and hate the overhead squat/double under warm-up. If only it weren't so damn effective. The even further upshot was that I was finally linking a crap-ton of double-unders together. It was freaking awesome. Following an exciting warm-up (never thought I'd type that), I focused on some ring work. Plenty of dips, knee lifts, L-sits, pull-up progressions, and toes-to-bar, which were freaking HARD hanging from rings!

After recovering for a bit, I cranked up the tabata mix (20 seconds of metal, 10 seconds of calm), and prepped for some bad-assed interval training. The row was more or less uneventful, though I was really hoping the 7th round was the last, so the 8th was just awful when the metal kicked back in.

Tabata push-ups are my kryptonite. I had a fairly successful first round, but I tapped out pretty quickly after that. I wish the floor in the gym was a bit cleaner, because I ended up face down on it repeatedly in the last 3-4 rounds. However, tabata squats, while not being a favorite, are certainly one of the things I'm better at.

Rounds	1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	Totals
Rowing	60 calories								60
Push-Ups	12	8	5	5	5	4	4	2	45
Air Squats	14	13	12	13	13	12	13	14	104

11-02-24: Push Jerks, Rowing, More Push Jerks

CrossFit Garden City WoD for February 10, 2011
Warmup:
Jump rope
Active Stretching
Burgener Warm-Up x2
Strength:
Push Jerk or Push Press
 - Quickly build up to a heavy triple in 10 min
Conditioning:
5 sets:

• AMRAP Calories on Rower in 1 minute
• Rest -10 sec
• Push Jerk or Push Press x 1
• Rest 3 minutes

Notes:

• Push Jerk or Push Press depending on competency in Push Jerk. Use whichever allows for heaviest weight used with sound mechanics.
• Complete an all out 1 minute effort on the rower. Immediately head over to your barbell and get it overhead.
• Use your heaviest triple from Part A for your first set. Try to increase every set thereafter.

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The sequence of the push jerk, with some added spiciness courtesy the addition of the split in the second part of the lift.(http://physicalsubculture.com)

I count at least 12 C2 rowers in this picture. That's at least 12 times as many C2s as we have. Jealousy!!!(http://concept2.co.uk)

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Very sore and tight in the chest and shoulders from yesterday's wall climbs, but willing to throw down again. Especially with a friend whom I'm trying to woo over to CrossFit. Today might have done it. Repeated cleans leading to push presses and push jerks, as well as rowing like crazy followed by more cleans and push jerks! Who wouldn't want to do that rather than some treadmill work followed by crunches and push-ups?!

Warmed up fairly thoroughly, and got to work. Having run the Burgener Warm-Up a couple of times, I was already feeling pretty comfortable with the bar, so jumped straight to 85# for a quick triple. I moved through 105#, 115#, 125#, 130#, and finally topped out at 135#. The weight was feeling heavy, the need to do a full push jerk was becoming more evident, and most of all, my wrists were really starting to hurt! Must look into lifting wraps.

I set-up the rowing machine to do a 1:00 interval, and made sure I had the 2.5# and 5# plates at both ends of the barbell. I know Graham Holmberg (CrossFit 2010 Games champion) has discussed the benefits of lifting while tired, but this would be my first time handling actually heavy weights in a state of fatigue. Each round of rowing was completed against the pace of the one preceding it, other than the first one, obviously. I kept the barbell at 135# to start, planning on moving up 5# each round. Results were as follows:

Round	1	2	3	4	5
calories rowed	24	23	25	26	27
push-jerk weight	135#	140#	145#	150#	155#

11-02-15: Turkish Get-Ups, Rowing, and Lots of Hot Dumbbell Action

CrossFit Garden City WoD for February 2nd, 2011
Warmup:3 sets of:

• 10 OH Squats
• 1 min Double Under Practice

Strength:Turkish Get Up
 - 10 heavy reps per arm in 10 minutes.
25# x 2 / 30# x 2 / 35# x 2 / 40# x 2 / 45# x 2
Training:

• 15 Dumbbell Push Press
• Row 500 meters
• 15 Dumbbell Front Squat
• Row 500 meters
• 15 Dumbbell Thruster
• Row 500 meters
• 15 Dumbbell Front Squat
• Row 500 meters
• 15 Dumbbell Push Press

RX'd weight for KB/DB is 53#/35#. Choose a weight that allows for all sets to be unbroken but VERY challenging. 25# dumbbells

---

Ah, PVC pipe makes the learning (and warming up) so much easier! Note the weight is directly over the middle of the foot, even in the full squat position, and the shoulders are shrugged up and active, carrying the weight on the lats, rather than letting the shoulder grind together. (crossfit.com)

Double-unders. Since this was taken at the CrossFit Games, I presume she's better at them than I am. Darnit. (crossfit.com)

Turkish Get-ups. This position is important. Someday I'll know if I'm hitting it or not. (crossfit.com)

Note the very unhappy faces on the guys doing dumbbell thrusters. Even doing it with half-the weight didn't make it any better, trust me. OK, I could have gone heavier... (crossfit.com)

Rowing... metabolic conditioning fun for all ages! (Seriously.) (crossfit.com)

---

After a surprisingly long and bad-food filled weekend, I wasn't feeling super great today... sounds like the *perfect* time to do a nice long workout! However, I did throw in a few extra dips and lat pulls to start out, just to loosen up... um... prior to loosening up with the warm-up. Sigh.

I definitely found myself wishing we had stuff like broomsticks or PVC pipe for the overhead squat bit of the warm-up. Going in kind of cold (and having sucky shoulder mobility), 10 squats with the 35# bar overhead got pretty heavy pretty quickly! After the minute's worth of double-unders (at which I sucked, by the way), I took some time using the jump-rope to perform shoulder dislocates, trying to loosen up said sucky shoulders. However, by the time I was done with the warm-up, I was definitely warmed up, so that was pretty awesome.

I know I've done a lot of Turkish get-ups, and a lot of those were with the 35# barbell... so theoretically that should have been a good starting point, but I decided to be safe and start a bit lower, and work up through and past it. 5 rounds of two reps per arm each sounded about right, increasing the weight for each round. 25#? Easy. 30#? Easy! 35# Easy! 40# Really kind of hard. 45#? Failed my first few attempts to sit-up in the first place, but after taking a few seconds to regroup, managed to fight through it! I know I need some coaching on the TGU, as the placement of the hand while getting up completely defines the rest of the movement... and I have NO idea where I'm putting it while actually under a weight. That is NOT good. :S

After recovering for a bit, and feeling a new kind of shoulder weakness/soreness/fatigue, opted to go a bit lighter on the weights for the final conditioning workout. 25# dumbbells would be more than enough to suck, especially on the thrusters. Daring? No. Sure to keep me from killing myself? Probably. All in all, the weights were probably a bit light, as the harder part of the workout seemed to be keeping the time decreasing on the rower (hooray for the ability to compete against your previous row), though I did get my ass handed to me on the final row. The thrusters, my main fear going into this, were indeed awful, but the rest of the sets were only marginally bad... ;)

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

---

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)

---

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

11-01-24: Sumo Deadlifts and a 2K row

CrossFit Garden City WoD for Wednesday January 19th, 2011

Warm-Up:

• Jump rope
• Ring dips

Strength:

Sumo Deadlift
5-4-3-2-1-1-1
Find a new 1 rep max

Conditioning (Benchmark):2000 meter row

---

Sumo deadlift in action. Wide stance, arms/hands inside of legs, lower back arched. Then, stand up. Kudos to a body building site, which are usually notorious for their over-reliance on machine assisted exercises, for both demonstrating and espousing such a fantastic functional movement! (leehayward.com)

Prepping for a Concept2 Rower race. Because of the quality of the ergometer built into the rower, scores and times from  various places can be compared and compiled into a national ranking. Can your elliptical do that? (baycityrowing.org)

---

After a fairly unrestful weekend (stuff going on, post-snow travel, later nights, iffy diet choices) I found myself not exactly rarin' to go for this workout.  However, I strapped on my big girl tap shoes and hit it as hard as I could. After a fairly intense bout of jump-rope, I did some my usual active warm-up/stretching routine, then jumped straight onto the rings to work on some dips... and to my surprise (well, glee. I've been working on them, so I wasn't exactly "surprised") I managed to bang out doubles. They weren't pretty by any stretch, but I dipped low into my armpits, and came back up to full extension, so that's a dip by ANY standard! I lost count of how many doubles and singles I did, so it was somewhere between 8-10 reps. That being more than the 5 I was initially shooting for, I was pretty damn happy.  However, knowing I would need my shoulders for the coming workouts, I decided not to try to push it too far.

I warmed up the sumo deadlifts with the empty bar (35#) for ten reps, then slowly started packing plates on. The continued warming up through the following sets: 45# x 5, 85# x 5, 105# x 5, and 125# x 5. At this point, I was beginning to feel some heat in my lower back, so I should get over to counting them as work sets very soon!  I knew that my only PR (Personal Record) was 205# for a 5RM (5 Rep Max), so I was shooting for substantially more than that, but since this was going to be only my second time doing this lift at anything approaching heavy weights, I didn't know how much higher a 1RM would be over that 5RM.  Looking at the rep scheme above, I decided to do the 205# for the set with 2 reps, then feel my way up from there. To that end, I split up the remaining work sets (the sets with 5, 4, and 3 reps, respectively) with weights roughly equidistant between the 125# I had last warmed up with, and the 205# I was shooting for. I did those sets at 145#, 165#, and 185# respectively, followed by the set of 2 reps at 205#.

This brings me to the 1RM attempts. I tried to not out-think myself, and following the brilliant advice of Mark Rippetoe, I had been using the double-overhand grip (ie, the normal grip with both palms facing back towards me) for every set prior to this, so I could always use the alternate grip if I needed to. The alternate grip, for a variety of reasons, some physical, some mental, allows you to lift heavier weights, which is awesome, but it puts an asymmetrical load across the upper body and on the elbow and shoulder joints of the hand turned away from the body.  Therefore, Coach Rip recommends that all work sets be done with the double-overhand to keep all the loading even for as long as possible, and only resort to the alternate grip (or, worst case scenario, lifting straps) as a last resort.

For my final three reps, each its own set, I did the following weights: 225#, 245#, and 255#. For the first, it was fairly easy. After it, I moved some weights around, checked out the rowing machine for the next part of the workout, and kept trying to stretch out my lower back. At 245#, the bar truly felt heavy, almost too heavy to lift... until I had it locked out at the top of the lift.  At 255#, I felt truly lucky (and accomplished) to have finished the lift at all. At first, it truly didn't feel like I would be able to break the bar off the floor with that much weight (which is still 30# under my 1RM for a standard deadlift). However, it came up, I straightened up and locked it out, and that was the end of the strength part of the workout. I finished with a new 1RM for the sumo deadlift of 255#.  Not too shabby!

Work sets: 145# x 5, 165# x 4, 185# x 3, 205# x 2, 225# x 1, 245# x 1, 255# x 1 (PR)

After giving my back (and right knee, which had started complaining about halfway through the deadlifts) some time to quiet down, I strapped onto the rower, and got ready to row like crazy. It's been awhile since I've done mid-distance row. I can easily remember my last sprint intervals, and my last 5K row, but I couldn't come up with a 2K time. Well, its not a benchmark for nothing!

Total Time: 7:40

11-01-19: Back Squats and a met-con

CrossFit Garden City WoD for Friday January 14th, 2011
Strength:
Back Squat (30X0 tempo)
 - In 20 minutes build to a heavy 3 rep max
Conditioning:

• 4 minutes max Calories on Rower
• 3 minutes max Pullups/Chinups
• 2 minutes max Back Squats, Bodyweight Front squats, 35# dumbbells
• 1 minute max Ring Dips

---

Coach Rip demonstrating proper bar placement and the cue for high elbows. The arms pin the bar to the back... they do NOT support the weight. Low elbows let the weight continue to ride on the forearms rather than the back. Unfortunately, at any weight above an empty bar, it is nearly impossible to get into this correct position without a squat rack. Which we don't have. So, I did more of a *high* bar back squat. (crossfit.com)

Ah, gasping for breath on the old Concept2. Man I want one of these in my house. (crossfit.com)

Pull-ups. 'Nuff said. (crossfit.com)

Exactly what I ended up doing, since by the time I got to this part of the workout, all of the bars (well, the one trainer straight bar, and both silly curl bars) were in use. Necessity is the mother of scaling on the fly, apparently. (crossfit.com)

Ring dips. These are HARD, and I'm only just getting them, so I did the much easier "regular" dips for the workout. (crossfit.com)

---

Warmed up with jump-rope and active stretching. Did a much more complete job than I did yesterday, since my failure to do a full warm-up before that workout caught up with me later that night (hello, cramping quads!).  Unfortunately, (but I guess in a kind of good way) the gym was chock full of students all doing bodybuilding techniques with an utter disregard for doing even *them* with proper technique. So, I grabbed the rarely used straight bar, some weights, and went out in the hall. Not having a proper squat/power rack in the first place, its not like this put me at much of a disadvantage.

As always with squat workouts, the weight is limited by what I can clean and jerk, catch on my back, and then shimmy into position.  What this means is that I have a snowball's chance in hell of actually attaining the proper low-back (which is still fairly high, just below the spine of the shoulder-blades) position.  I tried to keep the bar off the traps, just to minimize the wrongness, but also to keep the bar off my spine.  Easy enough for the first few sets, but harder and harder to control as the weight went up along with my fatigue.

Back squats: 65# x 8, 85# x 5, 105# x 3, 125# x 3, 135# x 3, 145# x 3
Note, I do think that 145# is probably a personal record for any sort of ground-to-overhead lift... have to check on that... I definitely felt that was the end of my abilities to get the bar back OFF my back, up overhead, and dropped down safely to the floor. Did I mention the lack of bumper plates and the shoddy floor? :D


Rowed as well as I could. I tried to focus on steady, strong pulls, not so much the speed.  I had unsteady results with this approach, but every now and then it felt like I was doing half the work while adding up twice the calories. So, there's something there, I just need to figure out how to dial it in. From the initial 30 seconds, my calories/30s only dropped off slightly over the rest of the time, though I wasn't exactly going all out and swinging for the fences. I knew pull-ups were still in my future.

Pull-ups and chin-ups I ended up alternating grips.  I would do one way to failure, rest a few breaths, then do the other to failure.  Thanks mostly to yesterday's hammering, I didn't have a whole lot of strength with either grip, so no huge news there.

Went to find the bar I so diligently (read: stupidly) put back where it belonged, only to discover that all of our bars (1 35# short training bar, 2 10# "curl bars") were in use, so I opted to sub dumbbell front squats. It worked well enough, though I would have like the intended skill practice on the back squat. Especially since doing it at a much lighter weight (it would have been 85#) would have made the rest of the process that much easier.

Dips.  Boy, these are much easier when you're NOT on the rings! So much so that I banged out 4-5 more than I was afraid I would do.  Tallies to follow soon.

Rower Calories	75
Pull-ups	18
Dumbbell Front Squats	31
Dips	13
Total Reps	138

After all that, I finished up with some more work on the rings. Got in 3 ring dips during the course of the cool-down, so that's pretty good.  If I keep this up, I might have a set of 5 soon enough! :D

11-01-05: Rowing, dumbbell thrusters, hip extensions and ring-work

CrossFit Garden City for Wednesday, January 5th, 2010
Conditioning:
5 sets:

• Row 250 meters
• 15 Dumbbell Thrusters 25#
• Rest 3 minutes

Goal is each round as fast as possible and maintaining consistent times across all 5 sets. Weight on thrusters should be scaled to allow for unbroken, but VERY challenging, sets of 15.
Accessory:

• GH Hip extensions x 30 reps in as few sets as possible

Skill:

• Work with gymnastic rings.

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Pat Sherwood showing awesome extension at the end of the pull. Straight legs, VERY opened hips, full arm flex. I bet he can get 3-4 more yards per pull than me. Jerk. (love you, Pat!)(crossfit.com)

Dumbbell thrusters just suck. (crossfit.com)

"Glute Ham Developer Hip Extension: Set up so that the pelvis is clear of the pads, and without any movement in the torso, extend and flex at the hip only." <-- pulled straight from crossfit.com (more so than usual). (crossfit.com)

---

Active warm-up and stretching, especially focusing on calves and hamstrings, both of which were tight and crampy after the last two days' workouts. I tried out a few dumbbell weights for the thrusters, and settled on 25#. 45# is still beyond my ability to control the separate weights well enough, 35# seemed too heavy to plan on doing 75 reps. 25# it is!

Spent a few minutes setting up the C2 to track 250m rows, which meant I could easily re-row the same distance.  Yay technology.  Rowed the first round, felt pretty good. Did the first 15 thrusters... man they suck. I need to find some sort of video or pictures about where you rack the dumbbells during the squat bit of the thruster. My technique was to spin the dumbbells so that my palms were facing me, putting one head of the dumbbell on my shoulder, and "squeezing" the other heads together, stabilizing the whole thing. Which probably means it was some sort of cheat... but doing this with even lighter weights would make doing the thrusters more or less unweighted. So, 25#, dumbbells pressed together on the squats. 15 was difficult, but doable. 30# would have been too much in a round or two... 27.5# would have been perfect. Ah well...

Second round felt much the same as the first. Both came out to the exact same duration (2:15).  During the three minute rest before the third round, I figured out how to make the rower let me race against my previous times... which meant I immediately carved 10 seconds off my previous time. Which implies that I should have been rowing at that faster pace the whole time. Dammit.  Thrusters were a bit harder after the faster pace, but my time on the round was 10 seconds faster. Which, as with the rowing, is a good and bad thing. I failed to keep my time the same round to round. Doh.

Fourth and fifth rounds, I managed to beat the pace, then tie it in the final round. Thrusters continued sucking, but I managed to keep them more or less unbroken.  Well, not in the fifth round. That one ended up being 10 reps, weights dropped to thighs (but not to the floor!), then a final 5 reps. That rest botched my time on the round, which kind of sucks.


Round times: 2:15 / 2:15 / 2:05 / 2:10 / 2:20

After a few minutes to let the need to puke subside, on to the GHD hip extensions. Shockingly (at least to me), I managed to get it done in two sets of 15.  The original Rx was for 50 reps. Long after the fact, I probably should have shot for the full 50. Dammit! (again...)  However, for all the various failings in this workout, what follows makes me VERY happy...

Ring work: strapped the rings to the Smith machine frame (it feels good making that hunk of crap into something useful) and got to work trying to get the control position. Though still a bit shaky, I could already feel muscles firing in new and interesting ways. The most obvious feeling was the pinch in the center of the chest of my pecs working overtime to keep me up. Who would have guessed?

Progression work for the muscle-up. Reduced weight, grip work, body control. Groundwork. (crossfit.com)

After a few minute working on the progression for the muscle-up, I hopped back up into the rings in the control position. Quite a bit more stable...so I tried for a ring dip, full-depth. Surprisingly enough, I nailed it. Was it pretty? Not particularly. But was it a full-depth ring-dip? It sure was. Was I able to do another? No. But still, on the path to a ring muscle-up, which I am VERY keen on getting, this was a pretty awesome accomplishment. :D

10-12-16: Weighted Pull-Ups, Rowing and Burpees

CrossFit Garden City WoD for Thursday December 16th, 2010

Notes:
Strength:
5+ Strict Pullups - Add weight that allows for 5 hard sets of 3 reps. (30# weight vest)
90-120 seconds rest b/w sets.
Conditioning:
5 all out efforts. Try to maintain same number of burpees of every set.

---

Kristan Clever, 2010 CrossFit Games women's division champ, rockin' the weight vest pull-ups. (mirweightedvest.com)

Rowing. More fun in groups. Too bad we only have the one rower. And that I usually workout alone anyways. (crossfitendurance.com)

Burpees. Probably not, but its still an awesome picture of guys apparently trying to learn how to fly... (iamcrossfit.com)

---

Did my usual warmup (rather than the Rx'd CrossFit Warm Up), and went and found our one remaining weight vest.  It's actual weight is unknown. I've heard it referred to as 20# and as 35#.  Frankly, I have no idea... comparing the "dead weight" of the vest to a dumbbell just never seems to work. So, let's call it 25-30#.

Set the timer running, climbed up on the pull-up machine, and cranked out 3 weighted pull-ups. While not really kipping (there isn't room to do so without endangering your ability to procreate), they were NOT strict pull-ups in any sense of the word. After 90 seconds, I did another set of 3, this time as chin-ups (palms facing me).  I continued alternating between pull-ups and chin-ups for the duration of the 5 sets.  In terms of my inability to do strict pull-ups with the vest, I'm left wondering if I should have gone bodyweight and worked on my strict pull-up form. Even spread over 7.5 minutes, 15 strict pull-ups would have been quite a workout by themselves.

After that, I prepped for the conditioning part of the workout.  Set the rower to a 500m course, cleared some space for burpees, and got ready.  Each row took about 1:50, which is a fairly slow pace. Every time I would cruise into 250m with a split time of about 1:39... but right about then my strokes would either fade in power, or I would lose so much wind that I would end up doing faster, but far shallower strokes to just try to keep moving.  Either way, my time stayed fairly stable across all five rounds.

First round of burpees, I managed 9 before time ran out on the round.  In all honesty, I probably could have squeezed in 2 more, had I been feeling daring.  As it was, I barely managed to maintain reps across the other four rounds, but in the end, I was successful.  Oddly, while getting to 9 reps in the 3rd round was nearly impossible, with my final jump-clap coming a few seconds after the round was over, the 5th round was actually pretty easy.  I don't know what changed there... did I finally make friends with exhaustion and come out the other side? Personally I doubt it, but I also can't explain it.

All in all, another awesome workout.  I'm really loving the strength work followed by the conditioning work. I might be following CF Garden City fairly closely from here on out.

10-12-13: Post certification Keeping Loose and Coaching

I wasn't going to workout. I was tired, I was sore, it was officially a CrossFit rest day. So why would I workout?  I had brought in my gym clothes, but I went down to the gym expecting to read, to merely moderate, and let it go at that.

CrossFit Level 1 certification, December 11th and 12th, CrossFit Virtuosity

Turns out watching a bunch of guys using absolutely terrible technique is kind of inspiring.  Inspiring to go do something else (I realize I just did training for being a coach, but as the moderator, I'm just a warm body in case of emergency. Most of those kids are uninterested in anything that wasn't just featured in Muscle & Fiction, and I've stopped banging my head against that particular wall...mostly.).  So, I got changed, put on my kick ass CrossFit t-shirt, grabbed my jump-rope, and put in some fairly serious skill work, at least compared to what I've been doing lately.

Ever since working jump-rope back into my routine (after the Patellar Tendonopathy Affair), I've gone fairly light with it.  Enough to work up a quick sweat, but not a ton of skill work, and certainly not for any extended periods of time.  I opted to go for a good 8-10 minutes, first trying to get a really fast turn-over on the single bounce, jumping as little off the floor as I could, before moving on to as fast a run step as I could manage. I did a little work with cross-overs, but found that skill both rusty and a bit painful from the soreness in my pecs and shoulders from the weekend.  I did some left-right and forward-back single bouncing, and then finished up with 20 double-unders.  Most all of which were either singles or chained together with 2-3 single bounces in between.  Which is to say they definitely still need a bit of work... sigh.

After that, I decided to try out the rowing machine.  Watching two of the trainers, Keith Wittenstein (CrossFit Viruosity) and Karianne Dickson (CrossFit Morristown), go head-to-head on a pair of rowers in a 5K race, I was struck by how slow their cycle time was, and by how *strong* their pulls were.  Even if they were averaging 7-8 fewer strokes per minute than I usually do, they were both going MUCH faster than I usually do, so I have to imagine it was in the efficiency of their strokes.  I set up the rower to just go, and practiced slow, powerful strokes, and for awhile definitely had an improved 500m split time.  However, I wasn't able to maintain that kind of output for more than about 260-275m, so my overall time was a bit slower than usual.  Still, I think *this* is the key to going fast... and strong, controlled burn.  Must to increase my cardio...

After that, I decided not to push my luck with anything else. I was nice and warm, my shoulders and chest had unlocked a bit, I could leave some in the gas tank for tomorrow.  At that point, I was presented with the opportunity to coach a few kids in the squat and deadlift. It turns out that trying to coach kids with absolutely ZERO proprioceptive feedback (ie, they don't know where their bodies are, or what their bodies are doing) is a lot more difficult than working with a whole bunch of people who've been CrossFitting for any length of time. 

Many of the guys, we were able to get going with basic air squats fairly rapidly.  There are a fair number of points to watch out for, especially for the uninitiated (weight in the heels, arched back, big chest, knees track over toes, hip crease below top of knee), as well as a fair number of cues and coaching points, and most of the guys picked it up pretty quick. Sure, they need more work with their depth, or pressing their knees out, but they understood what they were supposed to be doing.  However, the problem was trying to work with one guy who either didn't get it, didn't care, or frankly has NO body control whatsoever.

I don't mind if someone doesn't understand a cue.  If I say "arch your back hard" and you press your back out like a cat doing the Halloween stretch, that's fine, that's just a miscommunication.  If I say it again, pressing my chest out and really arching my back into a nice S curve, and point out the chest and showing how it should go, and the guy hunches over even harder.... what do you even say?  We tried several cues, with a hand on his lower back trying to help him see which muscles to clench to attain the arch, to trying to get him to squeeze his shoulder blades together, to trying to get him to just do a muscle-man "chesticles" pose.  Nothing. Nada.  Zilch.  Niente.

I've been racking my brains since then trying to figure out what else can work to get the idea across.  So far, I don't have much.  We'll try it again tomorrow, I guess.