Getting comfy upside down & interval training

Tuesday was a fun day at the gym. I showed up at 0830 to workout, but ended up coaching, which was cool, because it meant our head coach was busy taking a new person through the on ramp. Yay! :-D

The skill for Tuesday was handstand progressions and handstand pushups progressions.

The reason I broke them down into two areas was in light of my own athletic development in that area. My subtitle for the handstand progressions was "get comfy upside down".

I don't remember if I posted about this, but the first time I tried to kick up into a handstand, I basically just collapsed into a heap on the mat. After the same thing happened on my second attempt, I was gently banned from handstands, and introduced to the headstand and frog stand. I practiced these religiously for weeks, then kind of sporadically for a few more weeks. I think I got more interested in pullup practice at that point.

I didn't really know much else to do to prep myself for kicking up, until one day at CF KoP I was introduced to the concept of facing away from the wall, and walking my feet up the wall to get myself upside down. So then I had a new trick that I practiced to try to convince myself I could support my own weight upside down.

Then I learned about the HSPU harness, and started messing around with that, using it to practice handstand holds and also HSPU.

Finally one day I had the confidence in myself to try to kick up again -- and I could do it! I was so freaking excited by this, you have no idea. It wasn't as much excitement as getting pullups, but it was in my top 5 CrossFit moments.

The moral of the story is to meet your athletes where they're at, and give them a clearly delineated path to success. Learning the progressions for doing handstand pushups isn't necessarily going to translate into being able to kick up into a handstand. Putting your body in pike position off a bench or box, or even hanging your feet over a bar in the rack -- they just don't instill the same skills as other types of handstand practice. So while you're working your progressions for HSPU, don't forget about getting comfy upside down. :)

Hopefully what we taught yesterday will get more of our athletes on the road to confident handstands and eventually handstand pushups. :)

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The WOD for Tuesday wasn't really a CrossFit WOD, because there wasn't any scoring. It was just a straight-up interval and conditioning session, and it was hard!

4 rounds
1 min at each station, 1 minute rest between rounds
Ring rows
Jumping lunges
Ab mat situps -- butterfly
Handstand hold -- if 5 full ROM HSPU, scale up to HSPU

Results: Really fucking tired! hehe

Seriously, I forgot how brutalizing jumping lunges are. If you want your legs to feel like they're going to fall off, or for them to just straight up go numb while you're trying to move them, try jumping lunges. It's a truly explosive movement, very good for developing strength, power, agility and balance.

And ring rows aren't just that exercise for people who can't do pullups yet. Try some, they are really challenging! If you have trouble finishing out your pullups at the top, add some ring rows to develop the shoulder -- make sure to bring the rings into the armpit. This is also a great movement to work the  stabilizing muscles of the core, since you hold a plank position the whole time.

OMG the handstand holds were brutal. I had done some Oly lift practice prior to doing this WOD, and I hope that's the reason why I could barely stay in a handstand hold for 45 seconds. I had to drop at least once every time. Geez. Time to work holds back into my cool downs again.

Threesome

Tom's roommate Chels joined us in the basement today for a CrossFit threesome (teehee!). We did a modified version of this vacation WOD (originally from CF KoP).

30-20-10-5
squats
situps
pushups
lunges

Results: 12:10

This was a good mix of a quickie workout, and one where you were *really* hurting in the middle of it. I forgot how brutal it is to do squats after all of those lunges. OW.

I did a few 30 second handstand holds to finish it off. :)

Also, I should add that Chelsea is pretty convinced that CrossFit rocks! :-D

Trying to get back in the saddle

Ah, an unplanned hiatus... Those are never good.

I've gained back about 5-7 pounds, and based on pullups yesterday, I am back to sucking at those (i.e. lots of singles with 3/4 kip and 1/4 dead hang to finish).

Gah.

This past week was just about getting my ass into the gym; not about performance or skills or anything. Just showing up. Back to the basics, because I am struggling with my headspace right now.

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Saturday, April 24

Went out of town with husband last weekend, and we hit up a little WOD I wrote up in the hotel gym. They had a cable crossover machine with pullup "handles" attached and a tile removed from the ceiling for head clearance -- that was a nice surprise. After a week off, and two weeks of eating total crap, I felt pukey the entire time. But it was very good for me to get my body moving, I'm glad that my husband has such wonderful abilities to motivate me to want to exercise. :)

5 rounds for time:
5 pullups
10 squats
10 situps
10 pushups
10 lunges (each leg)
handstand hold (20 seconds)

Results: ~22 minutes

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Tuesday, April 27

In a word, horrible. I had a bad attitude, and I was sluggish and sucked at ring dips. I hate having to use the freaking band, even the tiny one. Gotta get these ring dips conquered so I can move the fuck on.

21-15-9 for time of:
DB thrusters (35lbs/25)
ring dips
double unders

Results: ~20 minutes

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Wednesday, April 28

I used two abmats for my handstand pushups. After the total debacle the day before, where I finished about 5-10 minutes after everyone else, I decided to scale the HSPU to 10ish per round during the first round. When I got to 11, I just kept failing attempts. So I freaking moved on, and got the freaking WOD done. Not my usual style, but this week was seriously ONLY about showing up and moving.

3 rounds for time of:
15 med ball cleans (20lbs/14)
15 handstand push ups
400m run

Results: ~20 minutes

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Thursday, April 29

I coached this one in the morning, and then came back to WOD with the group that night. I'm glad I did, because the press turned out better than I expected. Plus I shared a bar with 2 dudes, and went heavier than one of them -- it's the little things that make my inner feminist happy. :-D

Press
1-1-1-1-1-1-1
75-85-90-95-95m-85-75

My first 95 went up s-l-o-w-l-y and it was ugly, but I got that bitch locked the fuck out. Booyeah! PR by 10 pounds, hollah! My second attempt at 95 unfortunately did not go anywhere -- guess I only had one in me. But I'm happy because my old PR of 85, and also 90, both went up nicely, very solid. I am convinced doing unscaled pullups is what is making all the difference in my overhead strength. There's some kind of synergy there, where gains in each area helps move the other along.

Then it was metcon time.

Complete the following for time:
1000m row
40 kettlebell swings (24k/16)
25 pull ups
20 kettlebell swings
15 pull ups

Results: 19:45 total time; 4:14 row

That is a sad 1k row time, geesh. But oh well, at least I have a bench mark now -- I didn't have a 1k time written down anywhere.

My pullups in this WOD were so damn ugly, like I said at the beginning of this post. I tore the shit out of my hands with going on and off the bar so damn much doing singles. ARGH! I wanted to punch a hole in the wall I was so angry and frustrated. This was supposed to be a metcon, not some kind of grind-it-out-WOD. Good lord... I just have to keep telling myself that this is what happens when you eat shit, gain weight and take a week off and do nothing.

Not to mention that what I ate on Thursday before the WOD was ridiculous and totally uncalled for... But bad food choices are a topic for another post another day...

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Friday, April 30

Coached at 0630, then a fellow trainer who was hanging around offered for me to do the WOD at 0830 while he coached. No problemo, I needed a kick in the ass to get my workout in today.

5 rounds for time of:
7 front squats* (155lbs/95)
150m run
*wt will come from the ground

Results:  10:04

I could've done this one faster, but overall I was OK with how I did. Did all sets of squats unbroken, though I did take time to rest between the runs and squats to make sure I had enough juice to pump out all the sqauts.

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And that brings us to today, how nice. Time to go through and put a shit ton of labels on this post and publish it...

Saturday at the track

Friday was just a blah day, no WOD. Consider that my rest day after all the swimming stuff I've been doing.

Saturday our freaking cable was broken, so instead of watching awesome college basketball games (Go Butler!), we hit the track and gym on base for a workout.

Originally we were going to repeat Dyer, but decided to do a vacation WOD we originally did at my old house in Pennsylvania. 

"Hannah"
4 rounds for time:
400m run
20 burpees

Results:  15:23

My last 2 runs were getting slow, but I felt good because I hardly rested at all before or during burpees, and my lungs were burning.

After that we headed into the base gym and husband talked me into doing 10-9-8... of pullups and situps. So did that, but not for time.

Then he did some squats and pushups while I did about 2:30 total time in handstand hold. I need to keep kicking up against the wall every day now that I can do it, so I can get really comfortable. I did a negative handstand pushup at the end of each 30-45 second hold. I spotted husband on doing some HSPUs after that, he's gonna start working on them as well.

Friday & Saturday

Short and sweet WOD on Friday morning, between coaching 0630 and 0830.

6 rounds for time:
5 handstand pushups
10 burpees
15 abmat situps
150m sprint

Results:  17:39

Biggest news here -- I finally kicked up into a handstand against the wall! I started out with my head on top of 3 abmats, and did a frogstand to a headstand, and then pressed up. A little bit of messing around with that, and I decided it was time to kick up. I took some video with the iPod, but that corner of the gym has a lightbulb out, so it turned out really dark. In any case, I did the WOD by kicking up into a handstand and lowering to 2 abmats. Not the most stellar attempt at HSPU, but still an improvement for me, so I'm happy.

Next I need to find out what's better -- continuing to practice full ROM with the harness, or doing negatives while in the wall-supported handstand.

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Saturday I coached the 0930 WOD -- we did the same group WOD I went through on the 2nd day of my certification seminar.

Here's the writeup we put on the website:

In 12 minutes your team of 5 will perform as many reps as possible of SDHPs, pushups and box jumps. The time it takes to complete one 50m waiter's walk will determine the rotation intervals for your team. There's a rest station, so go hard!

5 stations

1. Rest
2. Kettlebell Sumo deadlift high pull (24kg/16)
3. Pushups
4. Box jumps (20'')
5. 50m waiter's walk (45#/25 plate)

Final team score is total # of reps completed.

Basically the team members rotate from station to station. During the hand off, the person who was just performing the movement tells the person who is arriving to "relieve" them what the current rep count is for that movement. At the end you add them up for the total. The faster you do the waiter's walk (it was a sandbag carry at my cert) the faster your team members rotate through.

We only had 3 ladies come in this morning, so I did the WOD with them. We took out the SDHPs since we still didn't have 5. I had fun, and I think they did too. :)

Afterwards I took them through the core stabilization work that I did with Jenn at CrossFit Pittsburgh. With the 3 following exercises: round 1, 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off; round 2, 45 seconds on, 45 seconds off; round 3, 30 secs on and off.

• handstand holds
• plank
• wall sit

I was glad the group was small at this point, because none of my 3 chicas had ever done handstand holds before. I showed them how to "walk up the wall" while facing away from it to get into handstand position. They all did great! I just watched the handstands, but joined them on the other 2 movements.

All in all, a fun morning. :)

My sister just left yesterday, and my parents are arriving this afternoon for a visit, so I'm off to clean and put lots of bedding and towels through the wash. :)