Death by C&J, Amanda, new gear

Thursday July 29
I've been reading about the "death by" WODs for a while, but haven't tried one, so I was curious to see how the experience would turn out.

It was interesting.

"Death by Clean & Jerk"
Perform 1 C&J the 1st minute.
Perform 2 C&J the 2nd minute.
Continue until you can no longer complete the require reps within 1 minute.
Load: 135/95

Results:  7 full rounds, plus 4 C&J's in minute 8 -- @ 95#.

This WOD turned out exactly as I was expecting, honestly. My goal was to make it to 7, which I did. And if you do the math, that is 28 reps. Just 2 less than "Grace". In total I did 32 reps before I was too wrecked to do more.

I think this proves the concept that our body gets conditioned to the stimuli that we expose it to.  I've exposed my body to 30 reps of 95# clean & jerks, and that's what I was able to do. I think it would be a struggle to get 8 rounds in this WOD -- it would probably take one of two things. Training C&J with a heavier load, or training C&J at a lighter load with a crap-ton of intensity. I think I shall do both as much as I can. :)

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Saturday, July 31
It was an open gym Saturday, so I decided I needed to make up for skipping "Amanda" on Monday morning.

"Amanda"
9-7-5
muscle ups
squat snatch (135/95)

Result: around 15 minutes

I wasn't really ready for the 3-2-1-go on this, so some of my time was spent screwing around with barbells and plates. But I didn't want to be difficult and have a separate timer from the rest of the group. Plus this WOD was more experimental for me. I wasn't doing it for time, I was just doing it to experience it and try to learn something about how to approach it in the future.

Muscle ups were performed by sitting in the green band. This provides a heck of a lot of assistance, and it also impedes the movement of the shoulders to a position over the rings for the dip. Also, I learned that if you do muscle up this way while wearing a tank top, you will get weird skin abrasions on the front of your shoulders where they contact the band during the dip. In a word, EWWW.

I really wanted to do my muscle ups by sitting in a band that was pulled across a squat rack, but I couldn't figure out a setup that gave me enough assistance to get through transition. Boo. I need to work on this while I'm in the gym coaching this week, because I do *not* want to re-open these weird shoulder gouges that I got yesterday. Ew. Maybe if I look at the differences between my home setup (which works) and the gym setup (which I can't get to work) I can figure out what's going wrong.

Yes, video and/or pics of this stuff to come so you guys actually know what the hell I'm describing when I talk about these progressions. :)

I did some warmup squat snatches at 35#, then 45#. I had planned on doing the WOD at 45#, but started rethinking that during my fist set of muscle ups. So I grabbed a regular bar and loaded it with 2 5# training plates to make 55# and got started on my first 9 reps. After completing about 6 reps, I started thinking to myself, "Why am I scaling this to 55# when I can do 15 continuous 65# OHS?". So I stopped and reloaded with 2 10# plates and used 65# for the rest of the workout. I did have a few ugly reps, and one attempt where I went over onto my ass, but I think that's a good thing.

I would like to take the load up to 70# or 75# next time I attempt this WOD, since it is meant to be heavy, and I'll only succeed on reps with near perfect form at that load. Snatch is something I should work on more often -- when I do it, I realize I love it almost as much as cleans, though cleans are my first Oly love. :)

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My birthday present from my husband arrived on Friday -- it's a 24-inch plyo box! Woohoo! It's painted an awesome shade of blue, and has a great "grippy" surface on top so I'll still be able to use it if it's wet outside. Squeee!

I'm a bit afraid for myself because it's square on the sides, and not tapered, but oh well! A little shin gash never hurt anybody -- hopefully I'll just re-injure myself on the same spot where I have a scar on my left shin. :-p

I have so many plans for vacation WODs now, OMG. And they definitely involve tabata box jumps and kettle bell swings.

Yep, he's a keeper. :)

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I leave you with a fun picture from the end of the summer party we had at the pool on Friday. That's me with my pullup buddy M. He has tolerated some constructive input from me on his pullup form, and he's rocking like 10-15 in a row these days, and looking hot. I've also got him doing L-pullups, which I think accounts for the 6 pack he's now sporting. He wants to be a Navy Seal, and I hope to see him achieve that goal one day. Maybe I'll even talk him into coming and training with me at our gym. :)