Monday July 21, 2008

Happy 31st birthday Matt. In light of the year, we used the number 31 for our rep scheme.

3 Rounds of

• 31 Push-Press (75#)
• Max Pullups w/o coming off the bar

Run 1 Mile

3 Rounds of

• 31 Push-Press (75#)
• Max Pullups w/o coming off the bar

Count total Pull-ups and time.

62 PU, 20:28

For being a guy who groans any time running is involved, I really liked the placement of the mile right in the middle of the workout. It definitely changed how the 2nd half of the workout felt. Cycling the push presses was a little more difficult when breathing hard.

Fran

I was in Modesto this weekend and decided to visit their affiliate run by Mike and Denise Choate. I had emailed ahead of time to make sure it was ok to drop in, and when I arrived they said we were doing Fran since they had a visitor (me). Joy.

I don't know if it's because I subliminally thought I had to represent the SFCF crew well, a good night's rest, alignment of something in the galaxy, riding my bike across town that warmed me up or all of the above, but I managed to cut a significant amount of time off my last attempt. I came in at 4:50. I thought I heard Mike wrong when he called out the time.

The people I met there were great, and their gym seems to have really taken off. Their set up is well done and I'd recommend it to anyone living there or travelling through. The welcoming attitude by the instructors and athletes alike make it a place I'd want to return to.

http://crossfitmodesto.com/

Wednesday July 16, 2008

Back-squat 5x5. Add weight each set.

155, 185, 195, 205, 225

After it was all said and done, I wish I had started at 195 or so and went up from there. Finishing at 225 left me with gas in the tank. Learning how to gauge cumulative work and anticipate how much work I can do is something to try and improve on. Today's entry over at the main SFCF blog was timely for today's workout.

We finished the evening with 8 tabata rounds of sprints/line touches. The distance was short, maybe 4 or 5 quick steps, which created that stop and restart dynamic. I liked it. I maintained a count of 10 for the first 7 rounds, 9 on round 8 and 9, and finished with 10 again.

Tuesday July 15, 2008

In teams of three, we rotated through 3 stations in sets of 21-15-9 of:

• Front squat (135#)
• One handed kettlebell swings (53#, 21 swings each hand)
• Hand Stand Pushups

16:24

Monday July 14, 2008

On the minute, do an increasing number of dumbell squat cleans and pushups.

Round 1: 1 SC, 1 PU
Round 2: 2 SC, 2 PU
...
Round X: Failure to complete round in the alotted minute.

I used 45# dumbells and failed in round 8. The remaining time I did the corresponding number of pullups for the round, up to 11.

Since that was over relatively quickly, we followed that up with 3 rounds of

2 min double unders
1 min hollow rock
1 min reverse hollow rock (this turned out to be a huge cluster)
1 min rest

I can link DU together pretty well now and usually get between 25 and 30 before tripping over my own two feet and having to reset the rope.

I'm feeling some unusual tightness on the inside of my right hamstring. Mild stretching is pretty uncomfortable, but kinda feels nice in the "hurts so good" kind of way a deep massage does.

Saturday July 12, 2008

Saturday morning was styled as an 'at your own pace' type of day. The idea was to load up the legs with a heavy double front squat, then do a sprint dragging a sled 30 yards or so. Dragging the sled back to the starting line backwards was where the power drop-off really happened. We got in 8-10 rounds a piece w/ a moderate recovery of a couple min between rounds to accumulate work, and not be limited by our aerobic capacity. I worked at 185#; great workout.

I was in the area later in the afternoon and stopped in for open gym to see who was around. I got in a few snatches, timed Angel and Lucas on their workout of

400m Row
10 Squat Snatches - 95#
400m Run
10 Power Cleans - 95#

3 rounds.

Angel finished in approx 16 1/2 min, and Lucas was up in the 24 or so minute range. This looked like a beast.

Also miscounted with Michael for Corrine's Grace. She ended up doing 32 reps (we saw when we reviewed the video later).

Wednesday July 09, 2008

Partner workout. As a team, we had to cumutively finish

50 Clean and Jerks
50 Weighted Lunges
50 Partner pullups

The recommended weight was 135, but I worked with a guy who was trying out crossfit for the first time and wasn't very familiar with the movements so we scaled it down to 95. He did surprisingly well for the first time, and it was kind of fun to coach/teach someone along the way. It's a good testament to how well I know what I'm talking about if I can break it down to someone who it's foreign to. Looking at the times from the morning class, I didn't see any who did it up @ 135 ( I think the most I saw was 115), they seemed to range from 13 to 15 minutes. At 95 pounds we finished in 9:09. I was satisfied, especially after having my back feel like jelly after the deadlift workout from Tuesday.

Tuesday July 8, 2008

I have a new respect for the athletes at the CF games who did 3 workouts on Saturday and another grueling one on the following day. We did the deadlifting/burpee workout and it was definitely a gut check.

Deadlift 275# x 5
10 burpees

5 rounds

I barely finished 1 1/2 rounds and couldn't pick the bar up past my knees any longer, and had to pull a little of the weight off. Adam said he thinks I still had it and defeated myself in my own head, which might've been true, but it was still freaking heavy. My max single DL is only 325, so 25 lifts at 85% would add up quick. I never thought I'd think 50 burpees is something I'd consider a 'rest' piece, but in this case I was welcoming them.

8:39

Helen

Three rounds of:

• 400m run
• 21 Kettlebell swings
• 12 Pullups

10:01

As I was running during round two, I realized I could be running faster. I'm not sure how to describe the difference, but it felt like the difference between having my muscles engaged or not. I lost probably close to twenty seconds, cumulatively, from finding/sharing space on the pull-up bar, but that is just how it goes sometimes. In hindsight, yes I was sweating and breathing hard at the end, but I didn't have the "I know I pushed myself hard" feeling that comes from a 100% effort.

One standard that I did my best to hold myself to was the 'middle of sternum' to the bar on the pullups. It was the requrement at the CF Games this last weekend, and is a good next step to take to add difficulty. Pulling that extra 6-7 inches changes the dynamic of how I can kip up and load my arms for the next repetition.

Thursday July 3, 2008

We worked the same amount as a Fran sandwiched between 45 double unders.

45 DU
45 Dumbell Thrusters (45#)
45 Pullups
45 DU

10:19