Chipper WoD

Today went better than I thought it was going to. It was, for time:

-50 wall balls
-50 burpees
-50 DL (115#/75#)
-50 wall balls

Sometimes I still don’t know what to expect in terms of time on these things, so I was thinking in the 16-20 minute range, but I got it at 10:28, which was actually pretty fast. Other than the burpees, this is a pretty good WoD for big people, so it went better than I thought.

What went well: Did the first set of wall balls unbroken, as well as the dead lifts.

What needs improvement: Burpees? I guess? They still didn’t really go badly. That last set of wall balls was, in some ways, worse.

I have done 2 days of the push-up progression, now with a 20# vest, but it’s been slow because we’ve either been doing push-ups as a WoD, or burpees, so on those days, I usually skip it.

Muscle and press

Today everything sort of fell apart on the Olympic lifting front (although I did PR). We started with EMOM 8 minutes of:

-Squat clean
-Front squat

I got 145, which is definitely a PR, but it was a power clean followed by 2 front squats. Then there were two minutes rest, and then EMOM 8 minutes:

-Clean
-Split jerk x2

I got 130, which was off my PR by 5# (I can push jerk 140 and split jerk 135), but I was muscle cleaning and sort of push pressing with a jump. My form was terrible today and I couldn’t really do the movements with very much efficiency or virtuosity. The worst was the last, 5 minute AMRAP of squat clean and jerk 135#/110#, which I did Rx’d and got 14, which is pretty low. I also muscle cleaned, front squat, and then push pressed every single rep. There was not one time that I actually did the prescribed movement, even though I was doing the prescribed weight. I still am not a fan of Oly lifting. My wrist still hurts, so that may be why I muscle cleaned so much. Violently hyperextending my right wrist is extremely painful, and that is what a heavy squat clean calls for. I also trashed it Monday on the OHS and push press. I keep hoping it will get better, but it hasn’t yet…

What went well: PR’ing the clean.

What needs improvement: Every Olympic lifting movement ever in history.

Twofer

Today was 9-minute AMRAP:

-10 box jumps (24″/20″)
-10 push-ups
-10 sit-ups

I got 6 rounds, 2, which was actually better than I thought I would do. I was shooting for five. I got the push-ups in the first three rounds more or less unbroken, which I would not have been able to do six months ago, or even 3 months ago, really.

-5-minute rest-

10-minute AMRAP:

-30 double unders
-15 power snatch (75#/55#)

I just sort of hit a wall on this one and got 3 rounds, 19. I just couldn’t seem to move after the first round, although I had some decent runs of dubs, for once.

What went well: The push-ups went better than they might normally. My extracurricular activity is paying off, for sure. The sit-ups went well, but don’t they always? The dubs went better than usual.

What needs improvement: I suppose I should be linking the box jumps, but I’m not convinced it would have been any faster today. The power snatch could have gone better today. I definitely muscle snatched a few of them.

15-minute AMRAP

Monday was what I would call a 15 minute AMRAP (actually 5 RFT with a 15-minute time cap):

-5/3 burpee muscle ups (9 burpee pull-ups)
-10 push press (135#/95#)
-5 OHS

I got 3 rounds, 19, in the time cap, at 85#.

What went well: I got the OHS unbroken, but I’m still glad I didn’t go for 95#.

What needs improvement: The burpee pull-ups. They were glacial. It was one burpee. Get up. Step up to the bar. Do a kipping pull-up. Repeat. I did keep my feet fairly well glued together though for the majority of them, front and back, so that was good.

What the hell are you doing?

Today was a riff on 13.1:

-40 burpees
-20 cleans (95#/65#)
-30 burpees
-20 cleans (155#/105#)
-20 burpees
-20 cleans (205#/135#)
-10 burpees
-AMRAP cleans (225#/155#)

I got 134, but, BUT. I did 125# for those 4 instead of 135#, so technically it doesn’t count, ALTHOUGH after the WoD, I cleaned 135# for 4, so I’m calling it good, although I would have preferred to do the math correctly. Boy, this WoD was hard. The smaller women were kicking my ass at the burpees, but I made up the time handily at 105# when I was grateful for 191# of contractile protein (just kidding; some of that is ice cream). No other female in my class cleaned 135#, even once, so this is a WoD for strength, as well as an engine check. IF only I had done the burpees just a little bit faster! That would really have been great, because I think I could have made it pretty well into the 135#.

What went well: The heavy cleans. I power cleaned 135# for four, when my PR before on the power clean was 125#. I feel like I could have done a few more…

What needs improvement:…had I been faster on the burpees. Just not a good day for burpees for me. Most of the time I’m a little faster than I was today, so I don’t know what that’s about.

Awesome or too easy?

Yesterday started with 3×6 strict pull-ups and 3×6 strict ring dips. I did the first set of pull-ups with no band, and then opted for the purple band on the second half of the second set, which is somewhere between the red and the blue. I did the dips with the red band. We are supposed to go to 3×8 next week, and then 3×10, with probably the same scaling, which mostly is going to take longer.

Finished with:

25-20-15-10-5
-Pause wall-balls (20#,10’/14#,9′)
-Sit-ups

I did it as prescribed, or really with a 14# ball and a 10′ target and got 6:11, which is really, really fast. And I say that not to brag, but more as a head scratcher. I paused at the bottom, one-one-thousand, came back up and shot the ball, did the entire WoD smoothly, quickly, and unbroken, but I probably should have scaled up to the men’s Rx’d because it was super fast. My quads were tired afterwards though.

What went well: The metcon? I guess?

What needs improvement: The strict gymnastic movements. I’m going back to push-ups sometime in the next few days, so that’s good. I’m glad we’re focusing on this stuff.

Open-style

I was feeling sluggish this morning, and it was bitter cold outside, which didn’t help anything. And I was late to the gym, as I have been the past few mornings. I was on time, and just as we were putting on Katrina’s hat, she said, “Mommy, I have poopy.” Four little words. So I was late.

The WoD was AMRAP 15 minutes:

-10 power cleans 115#/75#
-10 burpee box jumps
-10 DL 115#/75#

It was meant as an “engine check.” I hate it when they say that. “Engine check.” For heaven’s sake. I got 5 rounds, 5, which was OK. Unsurprisingly, the burpee box jumps were the difficult/slow part.

What went well: The barbell stuff went well. I was losing tension on the cleans, apparently, and I tried to fix that, and the rest went OK.

What needs improvement: The burpee box jump.

Beastmode! Oh wait…

Today was so very Eamon-ish (also known as the Body Weight Ninja, the Circus Freak, or the Angry Elf/Leprechaun on account of his stature, personality and amazing gymnastics ability) that I had a hard time believing that T-Rex (The Brick Shithouse) had actually designed it. We started with EMOM 8 minutes of:

-2 push press
-2 front rack lunges, each leg

It turned metcon-y very quickly as one minute is not a lot of time to do the movements (of which there are six, a lot for an EMOM complex) and then remove and put on weight. I did 75-85-90-95-100-105-110-120. I threw all my chips in at the end because why not? I was able to do it, but the lunges were actually the hard part. In any case, I’m not sure any other female had gotten a higher weight on the complex, so yay!

Then came the actual metcon: 30 bar muscle ups for time, which was scaled to 30 pull-ups and 30 ring dips (red band) for me. We were allowed to break it up however we wanted to, and it ended up being sets of 3 each, followed by sets of 2 each, for a total of 6:30, which was OK, really, although I don’t know when (if ever) I’ll be able to do unassisted ring dips. Probably after I’m done with every possible iteration of the push-up progression (20# vest coming soon! I put the sand bags back in. Then on the rings, with the vest. Then on the rings, with the vest, feet elevated. I’ve got it all figured out.).

What went well today: The barbell stuff!!

What needs improvement: The gymnastics stuff!!

Moment of truth

So, I think my double unders have left me forever. Or so it seemed yesterday. We did Indoor Nancy, 5 RFT:

-50 DU
-15 OHS (95#/65#)

15 minute time cap.

I got 3 rounds, 11. Pretty abysmal. I couldn’t get even one double under sometimes. I used to be good at these, so I don’t know what’s going on.

What went well: Well, I did get every OHS unbroken, mostly because I was getting, like, four minutes of rest between sets.

What needs improvement: Double unders, apparently. I can do them in practice, but not in a WoD, for some reason.

Finished with the push-up test at the end of the progression and got 24, which is a 41% increase since starting the progression, so I have to consider that a win.

Letting Go

Risked life and limb to go to CFP today on account of the foot of snow on the ground. My front wheel drive car with the brand new snow tires was blocked in my my husband’s rear wheel drive truck with 2-year-old snow tires that he forgot to change last spring, so they’ve been on since fall of 2012. In any case, I didn’t have time to switch out the vehicles and still make it to the gym on time (I was still 4 minutes late). So, getting to the bottom of Coy Glen road was an adventure because the truck just kept going while I frantically pumped the brakes. Luckily, this happened at least 100m before the stop sign, so I did stop in time, but it was dicey. After the WoD was over, I climbed into the back of the truck and moved all the weights and tube sand directly over the rear axle, between the wheel wells, and that helped.

I did make it in one piece, in the end. We did an EMOM snatch ladder 2 squat snatch, which I topped out at 70# because I was not on my game at all. I’m supposed to bend the bar more, which is great advice, actually, but it’s yet another thing to think about. I tend to get disorganized and overwhelmed on the squat snatch. Even my fancy shoes couldn’t save me today and I was able to hit 80 last week. Eventually I did a snatch grip dead lift, then a full snatch, like I was doing then, and that helped on the first rep, but then I couldn’t seem to get under a second. I am snatch disabled.

The WoD was AMRAP 12 minutes of:

-5 power snatch at 50% of 2RM for the EMOM (I did 65# because there was no way I was going to do it at 35#).
-10 pull-ups
-15 burpees

I got 3 rounds, 6. I wanted 3 rounds because I knew the pull-ups were going to be hard and/or slow. I was also told to keep my feet together and my knees straight and my toes pointed for the kipping pull-up. Pointy feet, pointy feet, point your feet and win the meet! #gymastics. #stickit. It was difficult. It doesn’t help that I haven’t done pull-ups in about 2 weeks.

What went well: Aaaaahhh…I don’t know. It was a pretty miserable day as far as Crossfit is concerned. I showed up? Without wrecking Jeff’s truck (again)? I got my three rounds, which is what I wanted.

What needs improvement, being specific: Shoulders up at the same time, or slightly before the hips on the snatch. Weight in the mid foot. Bend the bar. Pull into the hip crease. Punch out. Land hips back. No muscle snatching. The timing on the kipping pull-ups. Staying tight through both the movements. Keeping a neutral neck on the burpees. Blah. Blah Blah bblahblahblahhhhblabbalhga…