12-07-28: ECC Throwdown Part 2

Elm City CrossFit Throwdown Part II WoDs

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

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

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

Buck furpees.

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

Box jumps. woot! (happilives.com)

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

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

---

WoD I

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

WoD II

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

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

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

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

12-07-09: Deadlifts, Wallballs and Push-Ups

Elm City CrossFit WoD for July 9th, 2012

The deadlift. See a heavy weight, squat down, and pick it up. Done.

Heather Bergeron right before or after locking out the deadlift at the CrossFit Games. 

Camille Leblanc-Bazinet prepares to deadlift. Or clean. Rotten freeze-frame photography!

---

• WoD: Strength
  • 5x5 Deadlift @ 85% = 340# 315#

  Rest as needed between work sets.
• 3 Minutes after your last work set:
  • 1 Minute of Max Rep Wallballs 20#
  • 1 Minute of Max Rep Pushups
  No Rest between Wallballs and Pushups.

Post number 300!  Ah, the joys of a big, round number! Ah, the joys of heavy deadlifts.  Having somewhat recently increased my 1RM to 400#, I was (rightly) concerned about my ability to do reps at a substantial percentage of that weight. During the warm-up, 315# felt damned heavy, and I wasn't too psyched about adding another 25# to it, feeling that the first point of failure would actually be my grip. Thankfully Coach Wheels was there to keep me completely distracted from my grip by working with me to increase (and maintain) my lumbar back arch, as I'm prone to letting it release, especially on the eccentric/negative part of the movement. Not such a problem on a 1RM attempt with no negative, but VERY bad when doing heavy reps.

After working my way through all five sets, resting between 3-4 minutes between each, it was time to rest before hitting the wall-balls and push-ups. I spent the 3 minutes rest unloading my bar and keeping moving, hoping the "active rest" would do me well. When it was time to hit the wall-balls, I managed to keep moving for the first 40 seconds unbroken, then finished up the final 15 seconds (a few to breathe, ya know), and managed 24 reps.

Then it was on to the push-ups. I was hoping for at least 10 in the first shot, more if I was lucky. However, I faceplanted after the fifth rep. Turns out deadlifts and wall-balls actually tax a lot of the same muscles, and the aerobic fatigue from the wall-balls certainly took their toll on the push-ups, too. Total reps = 16.

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.

12-03-17: Crossfit Open 12.4: Wallballs and other stuff

CrossFit Open WoD 12.4: Wallballs and other stuff

WoD: 12 minute AMRAP

• 150 wallballs
• 90 double unders
• 30 muscle-ups

To the experienced eye, the first bit of this workout, the 150 wallballs, is a CrossFit workout all its own, named Karen. And if a workout has a name, you KNOW it sucks. Well, Karen does suck. I knew going into this one that I had done Karen before... twice, I think, but I refused to look at my old time. I didn't want to know... I just wanted to plow through the wallballs and start trying to chain double-unders. My warm-up raised my hopes, as i was throwing down double-unders like i was good at them or something. I needn't have worried.

I cranked out 20 wallballs, then started taking breaks every 10 reps. This held me until about 77 reps, when I missed the catch and took a few seconds to recover. 87, 94, 100. At this point, things got ugly. Despite good coaching, I kept finding myself on all fours, hovering over the ball. Sure, maybe it was good for getting some oxygen into my completely scorched lungs, but dammit, getting up was slow and took way too much energy. Total bullshit move. I may have been destroyed, but I just made it worse on myself. Lame.

In the end, with some solid coaching and a final 15 reps that nearly killed me, I hit the 150th wallball with 2 seconds to spare before time ran out. No double-unders, and I hadn't even vaguely planned on attempting any muscle-ups! Annoyed that I didn't make it to the double-unders, which might have really shot me up a little in the rankings, I was kind of bugged by my performance. Until I saw my previous PR on Karen: 14:3x. 2 and a half minutes longer. I had carved 150 seconds off my time. So, there's *that* to feel kind of awesome about. Not where I wanted to be, sure, but also further than where I had been. 

12-03-05: Wallballs and ONE burpee!

Elm City CrossFit Wod for Monday, March 5th, 2012

Wallballs. Or truck balls. Wait a minute...

Wall balls at the games! CrossFit Games

MOAR wallballs! 

---

For Time:

• 75 Wallballs
• No Drop
• Every drop = 1 burpee @ the time of drop

Not an awful workout, if only because I managed to avoid either dropping the ball (or putting it down to rest) until the 72nd rep, when it took an iffy bounce just beyond my fingertips. One burpee and three reps later, I was done.  I did rest a bit during the workout, having split it up into a set of 30 followed by 3 sets of  15. However, instead of putting the ball down, I've worked out a way to hold it while squatting, such that I'm not hugging the ball to my chest in a standing position, like being in a bear hug, or earning extra burpees by putting it down. 

Total time: 3:31

12-02-22: Air squats and wall ball shots

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Wall balls. Start in a full-depth squat (hip-crease below the top of the knee) and explode up to full extension, propelling the ball up to the target.

A better look at the starting position. Looks fun, right?

The air squat, as demonstrated by internet traffic generator Camille LeBlanc-Bazinet. These are super simple and easy, once you get the form right... but as with anything else, can start to suck massively at higher rep counts. Like, say, 50.

---

• WoD: 2 x 6min with 3min recovery
  • 50 Squats
  • 20 Wallball 20#
• Sellout:
• 2x Max Rep Weighted Pull-up 25/10

"Leg catastrophe." I believe that's how Coach Vin referred to this workout. Boy, was he ever right. You can tell when you're getting experienced at the sport of exercise: You distrust that feeling of "hm, this isn't so bad" in your first set, because you just KNOW how bad its going to get down the line. Case in point, boy, that first round of squats and wallballs really wasn't all *that* bad. But transferring back into air squats, it felt like my quads were made out of concrete, and they weren't really all that excited about repeatedly squatting. I felt like I did pretty good in the first 6 minute round, slowing a bit towards the end, but trying to work straight through.

3 minutes of rest was... heavenly. And far too short, but it was awesome.

The second 6 minutes was... ugly. Seriously, just ugly. About 15 seconds in, the concrete in my legs turned into thick molten lava. Then my lungs caught on fire. Work slowed a bit after that, but I tried to keep from just sucking air, taking a few breaths and moving on. That was always the intention. I get the feeling (in hindsight) that I may not have been that awesome at it. Boo.


Total rounds/reps = 3 rounds + 34 squats

In other news, I signed up for the CrossFit Open tonight. Dammit.

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)

---

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.

11-11-09: Birthday Bash!

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

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

---

WoD: 10min AMRAP

• 20 Wallballs 20/16
• 1 Rope Climb

Sell-out: 5 Rounds For Time

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

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

WoD: 4 rounds.

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

Total time: 13:41

11-10-14: Rope climbs and wall-balls

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday, October 14th, 2011

Annie Sakamoto and Amanda Allen rocking the rope climb at the 2011 CrossFit Games. (crossfit.com)

Wall-balls. Use a full body extension to power a med-ball up to the target. If we didn't have to squat to full depth, these would be easy for us tall guys (thanks for pointing that out, Drywall. I used to like these... As it is... stupid standards.) (crossfit.com)

---

WoD: 20min or 300 points

• 1 Rope climb
• Wall-balls till broken 20#/10ft

Score is total rope climbs + wall-balls = 154


This would be my first time climbing ropes since elementary school. It turns out, I'm still afraid of heights! (Well, I already knew that, and really, its not the height so much as the terror of falling....).  Instead of a full rope climb (15-20'), I completed 2 2/3rd attempts on the knotted rope (where the rope is tied into knots every 4-5'... much easier to climb!).  Definitely at the hairy end of my comfort zone, height wise, but I'm hoping that as I get used to the work and bored with only going up part way, I'll eventually push on to the next knot, then the next, then the ceiling. Baby steps out the door, baby steps down the stairs...


Thought this workout was never going to end. Kept track of score just in the off hope that I would finish early. Hah. 20 minutes later, I had amassed 154 points, and learned a new way to rest with the wall-ball in the bottom of the squat, where I didn't have to actually hold the ball off the floor, but had it cradled in my legs and arms. Much easier than standing there holding it against your diaphragm wondering why its so hard to breathe...

11-10-05: Bench press and triplet

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Wednesday, October 5th

Coach Rip works bench press form with Eva Twardokens. If Rip tells you something, chances are he's right. Period. (crossfit.com)

Wallballs. Hip crease goes below top of the kneecap in the bottom position, and all the joints explode open at the top to drive the ball up to the 10' target. This is NOT an upper body exercise! (CrossFit 2L2Q)

Push-ups. Good enough for the military, good enough for you and me. Body is kept rigid the entire time, chest to ground all the way up to fully extended arms. (TideTheory.blogspot.com)

Eva T. again, this time demonstrating chin-ups. Of course, olympic show-off that she is, she's doing them with a 70# weight between her ankles. Some people... are just awesome! (crossfit.com)

---

Strength: 3 x 8

• Bench @ 65%

Sellout: On the minute: 5x 10x

• 4 Wallball 20#
• 3 Push-ups (strict)
• 2 Deadhang Chin-ups (supine grip only)

According to my PRs, my bench is at 175#, so 65% of that is 115#. After warming up with the empty bar and 95#, I was ready to rock. 8 reps at 115# was EASY. Understanding that the workout was not designed to be uber-tough, I only went up 10#, but I wanted to do a little more work. I feel I could have safely gone up to 135# and been ok, but I didn't want to push it so that I was really outside the design of the workout. All sets were completed, fairly easily.

Since the class got done benching with time to spare, Coach Vin was able to make good on his threat to increase the number of minutes for the sellout. Instead of the 5 originally on the board, we upped it to 10 minutes of work, on the minute. I felt pretty good for this triplet. The wallballs were no problem, I can do three push-ups at a time no sweat, and I can do two unbanded chins at a time pretty easily, too. It felt good to do a pull-up/chin-up workout as Rx'ed, rather than having to scale with a band or something. If nothing else, it sped up how fast I could transition onto the bar, maximizing rest time for the rest of the minute.

I was lucky to be working alongside Greg, with whom I had just shared the bench. Greg is about my size, but MUCH stronger. Basically, I was benching 125#, and he was putting two 45# plates on the end of MY weights for his reps. My only goal for the triplet was to keep up with him. He's (obviously) got some upper body strength on me, so while we stayed pretty close for every round of wallballs, EVERY round of push-ups he smoked me and was onto the bar as I was still finishing the 2nd or 3rd push-up. Usually, I would be jumping onto the bar as he was finishing up. Still, for 10 minutes, I maintained about that same split, and I felt pretty good about that. 8-9 minutes in, a little kip started showing up in my chin-ups, but other than that, I know I held the form tight for the entire time, and the difference between my best round (@19 seconds) and my worst (@22 seconds, when I missed my grip the first time I got on the bar), is a testament to the fact that I wasn't having as much of a problem recovering as I used to. By Jove, I do believe this CrossFit stuff might actually be working!

11-09-23: Squats and a wallball boxjump couplet

Elm City CrossFit WoD for Friday September 23rd, 2011

Karianne Dickson learning squat variations from one of the squat masters, Louie Simmons. (crossfit.com)

Wall-balls. The med-balls help those athletes squat down to full depth. Which makes wall-balls more difficult. I agree with some of the criticism: If I'm 200# and 6" tall, and can hit the target with upper body strength alone, why do I have to squat all the way down?! (Tip of the hat to Drywall Crossfit)(Crossfit.com)

Box jumps.

---

Strength: Squat

• 1 x 10 @ 75% (210#)
• 1 x 8 @ 80% (225#)
• 1 x 6 @ 85% (240#)
• 1 x 4 @ 90% (250#)

WoD: 2 Rounds for Time

• 15 Wallball 20#
• 10 Box Jumps 24"

The squats were heavy, but doable.  I'm still working off a calculated 1RM of approximately 278#, but having not failed on any reps, its possible it should be even a bit heavier. Still, better to get in the workload and build up to a heavier max. It having been a sparse crowd, we all had our own squat racks, so it was nice being able to work at my own speed. Though, it didn't work out when I was the last one done and had to transfer somewhat quickly to the couplet.

Wallballs and box jumps. Ugh and more ugh. 2:20 later it was done.

11-06-29: Max Reps Dead-Hang Pull-ups, Reverse Lunge-Wall Ball Couplet

Elm City Crossfit WoD for June 29th, 2011

Pull-ups. And judging by the clarity of the picture, grindingly slow dead-hang pull-ups.  All upper body and massive core support. Fun fun fun. (crossfit.com)

Barbell lunges. For added pain, do them by stepping back. I didn't realize how much more that would make this movement suck. It really, REALLY did. (magazine.stack.com)

Wall-balls. Usually, I've pretty good at these. Doing them after smoking my legs on the reverse lunges? Not so much. I was in the position on the right far more than I was the one on the left. When I wasn't on all fours on the ground, that is. (games2010.crossfit.com)

---

Strength: Max Reps Weighted band-assisted dead-hang Pull-ups / 5 minutes

WoD: 10-15-20 for time
OH Reverse Lunge 95/65
Wallball 20#

Oh, this was miserable. Though I had been pretty good about practicing dead hang pull-ups a few months ago, when I was still walking across Central Park 2x a day, and stopping by the pull-up bars northwest of the great oval on most of those trips, that WAS a few months ago. After practicing a few reps, I decided to go with the band assist variety. If it were a one minute AMRAP, I'd have gone without, but as it was, I apparently should have picked a stronger band! Dead hang means at the bottom, arms are *completely* extended, arm pits completely opened. None of this quarter depth horsecrap so many guys and gals pull out when challenged to do pull-ups. No kipping (not that I even can), just pure grinding upper body strength. I kept working the entire time, and didn't count any reps where my chin didn't clearly make it over the bar (4-5 of those wastes of energy, I think).

Total reps dead-hang band-assist pull-ups: 24

After smoking our arms and traps a bit, we prepped for the reverse lunges. Though Rx'ed as overhead reverse lunges (weight held overhead, obviously), we had it demoed with the bar across the shoulders, instead. Still nervous about lingering numbness in my left thumb and forearm from the previous Friday's workout, I wasn't about to complain about not having to support the weight overhead again. After warming up with the empty bar (45#) and 65#, I opted to go all the way up to the Rx'ed weight. It wasn't necessarily the smartest decision, but the weight itself didn't feel like it would be my main problem. I opted to stick with the 20# medicine ball as well.

The reverse lunge numbers were per leg, so when it says 10, it means 20 total, 10 left, 10 right, in whatever order makes you happy. I opted to just keep it alternating. The first set was awful, but also easy enough. I went unbroken for those 20 lunges, then hit the wall-balls. I screamed through those 10, and thought my lungs would explode. Tried to hop right back under the bar, knocked out 5 reps each leg, and had to drop the bar. I felt like I was seriously suffocating with the weight on my back and my arms up to keep it there.  Things went downhill from there.

Much sweating, gasping for breath, clenching of legs to keep the blood near my brain, and a little bit of nearly hugging the medicine ball on the floor trying to extract the strength to stand up again from it, I finished dead last, with a time of 15:xx. I didn't hear the seconds, and was busy making a pretty awesome sweat angel on the floor. 

All in all, it was a pretty good workout. I'm not entirely sure how to address my metabolic conditioning, other than to just keep running at it as hard as possible, hoping my body adapts to the increased workload as soon as possible. I could have done a lighter weight to finish faster, but I don't need to finish first... I need to get stronger and increase my conditioning, and heavier weights will hopefully do both... used correctly.

11-06-21: Running and wallballs

Elm City Crossfit Endurance WoD for June 21, 2011

Why Crossfit doesn't focus too much on bodybuilding OR superlong distances. Because at the extremes, there be dragons. (landsercrossfit.com)

Wall balls. Full squat depth, then use the momentum of coming up out of the squat to drive the ball to the target above your head. Catch as few descending balls on your head as possible. (crossfitmorristown.com)

---

For Time:

• Run 1 mile
• 50 Wallballs 16#
• Run 800m
• 30 Wallballs
• Run 200m
• 10 Wallballs

My first running workout since joining an affiliate. Not gonna lie: I was kind of terrified. At my best, I could barely run a mile.  Hell, I could barely go a 1/2 mile without bombing out. I'm well aware that, even as I work on my running form as best I can, I am untrained. I don't know how to move my legs efficiently, I don't know how to breath effectively once the "sucking wind" phase kicks in (15 feet from the starting line), and I don't know how to motor along in first gear and conserve energy. When I run, the fuse is burning, and its only a matter of time before *something* implodes...

I was hoping there might be some scaling options for those of us in my boat. Turns out I was in a dinghy all my own. While I was panicking about the running, everyone else was worried about the wallballs. I guess it pays to be 6 feet tall. Yeah, it would be a lot, but not that many, right?

Managed to run the initial mile unbroken (which, for most of the people I was with, was barely a warm-up). I thought I was gonna die. Pounded into the wall-balls, broke the set at 20, then fought my way through the rest in spurts of 5s and 10s. The second run was abysmal. Not 75m into it, I found myself walking, fighting for breath. I tried to keep those lapses as short as possible, and ended up walking only once more that round, on the way back. The set of 30 wallballs was ALL done in short sub-sets.

The final run (shuffle, stumble, whatever) around the parking lot was pure murder, and the worst part was that even on the short distance, I was so annihilated by what came before that I even had to walk a bit of that one, too! Of course, I did it only when I was behind vans. I may be in need of remedial endurance work, but that doesn't mean I want people knowing it (other than from my time!).  Made it back in the door, and banged out the final 10 wall-balls. Total count for number of times I got hit in the head with a wall-ball = 1. Not too shabby!


Final time: 21:35

11-04-13: "Karen"

CrossFit Garden City WoD for April 4th, 2011

Wall balls. Full squat (not well shown in this pic), then use the squat to propel the ball up to your target. It is NOT just an upper body exercise, its a full body ass-kicking. (CrossFit 908)

---

Warmup:

• 3 sets of 10 OH Squats, 2 min double-under Practice

Benchmark! "Karen"

• 150 Wall Ball

Accessory:
3 sets:

• A1. GH Raises (40X0) x 6-8 reps
• A2. DB External Rotations (4010) x 6-8 reps

---

I forgot how much "Karen" can hurt. I've done it at least twice in my short time CrossFitting, and I always forget how most of these workouts are self-scaling: The harder you can throw yourself at it, the harder it will be. So whether you struggle through for 20 minutes or hit 14:30 (or even a competitive time, like 5 minutes!), you're still gonna get your ass kicked.

Total Time: 14:30

Honestly, I was just happy to beat 15 minutes, so it was all good.

The accessory exercises were actually more interesting. This workout marked the first time I successfully performed an actual glute-ham raise (from all the way down to ALL the way up, not just up to parallel.) The secret seemed to be making the foot-pads even closer to the main pad. I didn't try it again where I usually have the GHD set-up, but it was good to know. The external rotations really quickly became evil little things, especially at the tempo indicated. I felt all new parts of my back lighting up in agony...nice!

11-03-15: Front squats, pull-ups, running, wallballs

CrossFit Garden City Wod for March 8, 2011
Warmup:

• Jump rope
• Active Stretching
• Burgener Warm-Up x2

Strength:

• A1. Front Squat (30X1) x 4-5 reps x 5 sets
  
• A2. Pullups (30X1) x 4-5 reps x 5 sets
  
• Rest 90 seconds b/w exercises
  

Conditioning:
3 sets: On a 3 minute interval:

• Run 400 meters
  
• AMRAP Wall Balls
  
• Rest 3 minutes
  

---

(crossfitoakland.com)

(crossfit.com)

(papastarhealth.com)

(hardassfitness.com)

---

Ah, the joy of a weight room all to myself. Crank up some metal, get all the equipment completely set up and ready to go. Lovely...I started out with sucking COMPLETELY at the jump-rope, failing to link ANY double-unders together. It was great fun, but it did warm me up!

Knowing that I would be doing sets of slow, heavy front squats, I opted to start fairly light (85#) and work up from there. I'm still working on my front-rack position, as well as wanting to be sure about my squat depth and hand position, and everything else. Lots to work on. No need to put a crap-ton of weight on the bar and learn bad habits instead of good ones! 

Front squat: 85# / 95# / 105# / 115# / 125#

I did still have some issues with my grip, resorting to the crossed-arm grip once or twice at the end of a set. Copious amounts of chalk, and a noticeably wider grip helped a lot... wider than was strictly comfortable, but it kept the bar in place, so who gives a crap if it was "comfy" or not?

Pull-ups were "as strict as possible," which means that usually the first 3-4 reps of 5 were strict, with the last 1-2 going into kipping territory. For the last two sets, I used a band for assistance, with the upshot being that I probably could have used a lighter band... not great scaling, but nice to know that my pull-ups are coming along.

For the conditioning part of the workout, my goal was two-fold: keep the treadmill at 10mph (running, NOT jogging), and try to do more wall-balls each round. I managed the first one, but failed the second one by one rep.  Still, better than having the reps decrease each time. I definitely felt like my heart was going to explode each and every round, especially at the end of each run, and midway through the wall-balls. I honestly thought I would never stop sweating...

Wall-balls: 30 / 31 / 31

11-01-18: Met-Con Adventure: Wallballs, Dumbbell Swings, Box Jumps and Push presses

CrossFit Garden City WoD for Thursday, January 13th, 2011
Warm-up:
Jump rope
Active stretching
Rings - control position, dips, motion control

Conditioning:

• 30 Wall Balls 
• 30 KB Swings  - 55# dumbbell
• 30 Box Jumps
• 30 DB Push Presses - 40#
• 30 Box Jumps
• 30 KB Swings  - 55# dumbbell
• 30 Wall Balls

---

Wall balls. Deep squats, explosive opening of the hips, ball thrown 10-12 feet up the wall. Catch while going back down into the squat. Repeat. (crossfit.com)

Dumbbell swings. There isn't really room for both hands, so this exercise hurts in more than one way. (crossfit.com)

Box jumps. Both feet flat on the floor, jump up to full extension on the box. Step/hop down. Repeat. (elitefts.com)

Dumbbell push presses. These start to suck quickly at the best of times... so much worse after 90 reps of motions designed to tax your legs! (crossfit.com)

---

Total Time: 17:30

After a somewhat abbreviated warm-up (skimping on the legs... not good!) to avoid having to take up half the weight room when a student class came in, I got myself ready to go.  Wallballs, as always, went very well. Working without a depth guide allows me to get much deeper than I ever did with the chair I used to use. Clearly it was not an ideal tool for the job. Ah well.

Dumbbell swings went well enough, though I was already getting pretty gassed from the wallballs. Two mini-sets of 15, pausing to switch hands, since the grip hand gets crushed by the non-grip hand using a dumbbell for these.

Slowed down markedly on the box jumps, first by doing most of them as "jump up, step downs," to avoid irritating my knees. However, I did some with a hop up, hop down technique.  I was apparently rusty at this, since I think it slowed me down even more!

By the time I hoisted the 40# dumbbells to shoulder height, I was smoked breath-wise. I had to break them up into at least 3, if not 4 mini-sets. Each time, it got harder and harder to get the weights back to my shoulders.  Up shot was that I remembered to keep my knees tracking out over my toes on the dips, so I didn't do any major knee damage this time. Hopefully.

Final sets of the other three exercises were slow and painful, but I worked through them. Finished strong on the wallballs, only having to pause for a second or two after rep 25 just to get the ball re-situated after a truly bad catch (no squat action, so it was just a hard catch.). 

After finishing, spent a bit of time just resting and drinking water.  Followed everything up with some ring work, including another ring dip... no matter how ugly it was! ;)

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).

---

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]

---

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)

---

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