Kitchen WOD

Modified the good old standard at home WOD today.

50-40-30-20-10 lunges (total)
25-20-15-10-5 pushups
50-40-30-20-10 butterfly AbMat situps
25-20-15-10-5 PVC OHS

Took me roughly 30 minutes. Experimented with some "hollow" position stuff on all my movements. Had a bit of an interesting feeling in my triceps during round of 15 of pushups that I think was promising. Also trying something different with my squats, to hopefully feed into a stronger bottom position in my snatch and C&J. Due to my "special" alignment issues, I think I need to take the "butt thrust" completely out of my squat, and keep my pelvis pointed straight up during the entire movement. Obviously this won't be good with a low bar back squat, but I don't intent on doing any of those for quite some time. All high bar for me for the forseeable future, Greg Everett says so, and I believe him.

Filthy Fifty

Hit this WOD on a whim Sunday night. Husband has a weird issue going on with his shin, so I took him over to the "satellite" gym to use the rower for his running substitute. He's addicted to running, so complete rest is not an option for him.

Filthy Fifty was on the board for Friday, and some other peeps had come in and done it on Sunday. So we modified it for him, and I did it "regular".

Filthy Fifty
50 box jumps (20'')
50 jumping pullups
50 kettlebell swings (1/2 pood - 16kg)
50 walking lunge steps
50 knees to elbows
50 push press (35#)
50 back extensions (did supermans, no GHD for me yet)
50 wall ball shots (14#)
50 burpees
50 double unders

Results: 45:29 (includes a potty break during DUs :-p)

This WOD and I just do not get along. Especially the part where I'm supposed to do 50 K2Es. I think I spent about 15 minutes doing K2Es, and 30 minutes doing everything else. Seriously.

Low points:
 - K2Es were not only agonizingly slow with small sets of 2s, 3s and 4s, but there weren't even close to Rx with my knees touching triceps most of the time; I have a lot practice to get "Rx" on this WOD...
 - Back extensions -- still afraid of getting on the GHD for fear of triggering renewed back/hip pain...

High points:
 - 50 unbroken kb swings
 - 25-15-10 wall balls; this is an epic improvement for me on those
 - push press felt light, wish I had gone for unbroken
 - double unders -- every minute of practice I did to get these is worth it when I breeze through them in a wod

Leg killer

I wrote this WOD, but in the hands of the other coaches I work with, it became evil.

10-20-30-20-10
walking lunges w/ dumbbells (20/30)
AbMat situps

Results: 12:04

This was a WOD I originally came up with for a workout at the base gym with my friends. It was decent without weight, so I thought the addition of dumbbells would suffice.

Well, the rep scheme for the lunges became "2 for 1" -- as in 10 lunges means 10 lunges each leg. Ow.

But in hindsight, it was a good change. This was really challenging for both my legs, and my grip. I only dropped the dumbbells twice within sets, which I though was good.

Hope I still have enough energy to keep up with my 3 kids classes today!

Going to failure

Wanted to find a good upper body strength component for today's workout at the gym on base, so I Googled "press push press jerk".

This lovely popped up, and 4 of us tried it out this morning. 8 thumbs up!

3 rounds of shoulder press – push press – push jerk
With a weight you can shoulder press for 6-8 reps and without racking or dropping the bar do shoulder presses until failure,  then push presses to failure, and then push jerks to failure.
Rest 2-3 minutes between sets.

Results:
Used the 45# barbell.
Round 1: 14 - 12 - 3
Round 2: 7 - 10 - 4
Round 3: 9 - 7 - 6

Tried to push (power) jerk, but it just feels so awkward to me now. By round 3 I just did a regular (split) jerk, and felt a lot better.

To finish up, we did a quick untimed metcon.

10-20-30-20-10
walking lunges
situps

We were all grunting on the lunges by the end, so I think it was good. :-D

Main site chipper

We took on the crazy chipper from the main site at our box, and it was interesting to say the least!

25 Walking lunge steps
20 Pull-ups
50 Box jumps, 20 inch box
20 Double-unders
25 Ring dips
20 Knees to elbows
30 Kettlebell swings, 24k/16
30 Sit-ups
20 Hang squat cleans, 35/20 pound dumbells
25 Back extensions
30 Wall ball shots, 20/14 pound ball
3 Rope climb ascents

Results: 30:50

I completed the pullups without incident, definitely got 5 to kick things off. THANK GOD.

Banged out the box jumps at a good pace.

Thought my 20 DUs were in the bag, but missed #20 and had to do one single DU. Still pleased with that. :)

Skinny band for the ring dips -- need to rededicated myself to getting rid of that soon.

K2Es were fucking beautiful, not to brag. :-D

Swings, situps, hang cleans -- no problemo.

Back extensions -- this is where I wussed out big time. I've learned recently that my back is a very weak area in my body, comparatively. So I have a stronger back than some people, but overall I'm front-dominant to compensate for a weaker back. I knew these back extensions would lock me up, but did them anyway. And then got locked up. Probably wasted 2 minutes afterwards trying to un-fuck myself enough to do the wall balls. I had a Filthy Fifty flashback for sure.

Wall balls were badass, got 15 the first set, not sure if I broke the 2nd half or not. Soooooo glad these don't trip me up so much anymore.

ROPE CLIMBS. Went up with the rope wrapped around, came down with feet in the J-hook. Probably rested a little too long between attempts, but I'm still too freaked out to do these while I'm super-winded or feeling weak in the arms. Since we don't have a crash mat, I'm OK with this.

--
The only thing I'm pissed about is the WOD was posted with 24kg/16kg for the kettlebell swings, and Rx on the main site was 2 pood (32kg) -- which means ladies Rx was 24kg. Boooooo. I would've used my 45# kettlebell or maybe even the big one if I had known that.

Plus ladies Rx should really have been 25# dumbbells... Bummah.

But based on what was written on the whiteboard the day I did this, I am happy that I only scaled ring dips. Woot! I will take "nearly Rx" whenever I can get it. :-D

Filthy Fifty - the rematch

So, back in October, during a trip up north to visit family, I DNF'd on Filthy Fifty at CrossFit KoP.

The posted WOD for 3/14 is again Filthy Fifty, with a reminder link to compare back to October.

In a wonderful turn of events, the WOD my box schedule for today was Filthy Fifty, so I was able to finally make an attempt to finish this WOD and get a baseline time.

It turned out pretty ugly. But I got it done.

I probably wouldn't have felt so beat down if I hadn't attended a 1 hour swimming class just prior to doing this WOD. And also if it wasn't my first time back in the pool in about 6-7 months.

Oh well, that's definitely a "varied stimulus" that should produce some bad ass adaptations! :-D (Yes, I have been studying my CrossFit manual for the cert this weekend.)

"Filthy Fifty"

50 reps of each movement, for time:
Box jump, 24 inch box
Jumping pull-ups
Kettlebell swings (24kg/16)
Walking Lunges (50 total steps)
Knees to elbows
Push press, (45lbs/25)
GHD Back extensions
Wall ball shots (20/14)
Burpees
Double unders

Results:  41:25, Rx'd

I definitely dawdled a good bit during this WOD. Probably enough to take off 5 minutes. I was feeling decidedly beat down and wussy.

In bullets:

• Box jumps: It felt good to jump the 24'' box -- seems like all I've been doing lately is the 20''. I like the big one better. 
• Jumping pullups: felt weird! I haven't done one of those in a very long time. 
• KB swings: 2 sets of 25. Cake.
• Lunges: Could've been a lot faster, and in larger sets. 
• Knees to elbows: Done in sets of 5. I'm still using a good bit of kipping at the bottom to get my knees up. But I do try to engage the shoulders and get my back parallel to the ground when I get to the top. These really hurt my hands!
• Push press: Sets of 25, 15, 10. 25# felt super light after the 55# for Fight Gone Bad.
• Back ext: Started with 25 straight, not sure of the rest of the breakdown. Felt fine doing them, but OWWWWWW, my back was one big ass spasm when I was finished. I could barely climb off the GHD.
• Burpees: When I got in my groove, I was pumping these out. Tried to do sets of 10. The last 10 were really brutal... I actually took some pointers from that video of the Guvernator at the CF Games Ohio Sectionals, where he's watching a deadlift-burpee WOD. The girl doing burpees in that video had a great technique.
• Double unders: THANK GOD I can do these now. Got the first 40 in sets of 10-ish. Last 10 were ridiculous. My shoe came untied and that laces were getting caught in my jump rope, so I just ripped it off so I could do the last one. That got a laugh out of my spectators. My anger amuses them. :-p

Final thought of the recap -- tired. I am beat. Gotta hit the rack early tonight, because tomorrow at 8:30am we're doing the main site WOD from a few days ago. Gotta love 10 rounds of anything. :-p

Lots of links, Friday's WOD, Saturday preview

I'll start with the links today. :)

This "burpee tag" warmup looks so fun! If we didn't have so much equipment blocking the edges of our area of mats, I would totally do this for a warmup. Maybe if we go to the track one of these day for sprints, this would be a good warmup to do on the football field.




20 tips for improving your squat, shared by CrossFit East Sacramento, originally from the "Squat Clinic" article of the CrossFit Journal.

I finally gave in and signed up for Twitter -- I'm ceewiss, since cwiss was already taken. I only did it because one of my friends won't sign up for Facebook and we are having a heck of a time staying in touch. Guess she won that standoff. :-p

Yesterday I cooked up some yummy veggies and beef in my CrockPot -- I posted about it on the CrossFit Camden Paleo Challenge blog. :)

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Today's scheduled WOD was "JT" -- handstand pushups, ring dips, pushups. With my (still) tweaky shoulder, I knew that was not a good idea. So I made up the workout from the 17th, with some modifications.

WOD:
20 cal row
20 wall ball shots (20lbs/14)
20 clapping push ups hip extensions
20 knees to elbows GHD situps
20 double unders
20 star jumps
20 pull ups
20 lunge steps (each leg)
20 slam balls

Results:  13:27

The only shoulder exercises I left in were wall balls, pullups and slam balls. I did a test K2E during my warmup, and it did not feel good, so those were out. The pushups I took out just to be on the safe side. I want to rest this as much as possible so I can get back to improving my skills for the cert in March.

I was feeling a little bit scared and wussy on the pullups -- those took me probably close to 1/2 my time. The double unders I did in 2 sets -- 9 and 11. That felt awesome. :)

--
Tomorrow is gonna be interesting -- I'm running a 5K that is completely on a bridge. With a 6% grade. ZOMG. It's the Sidney Lanier Bridge, which goes over the Brunswick River and essentially connects Jekyll Island to the rest of the Golden Isles / Brunswick, GA. This bridge is super-pretty, and I love driving across it. It should be painful fun to run across -- and then back again.

 

 

Ultimate CrossFit

Today I took my second CrossFit "field trip" with a drop-in visit to Ultimate CrossFit, located in Charlotte, NC.

The facility was awesome, tons of pullup stations, barbells and plates. And they had a mural of Kool-Aid Man busting through the wall holding a kettlebell overhead with one arm. Awesome!

All the CrossFitters in attendance were totally welcoming and friendly, as were the coaches. I love a gym with a good positive attitude. I was also digging the hip-hop vibe of the music. It was the first time I got to hear one of the songs on my own CrossFit playlist in the gym -- "Tambourine", Eve.

--
Strength:

Back squat 3-3-1-1

85-95-115-135-145 (did 1 extra 1rep)

WOD:

AMRAP in 15 minutes:

• 10 box jumps (24/20)
• 10 DB walking lunges (35/25 db in each hand)
• 10 knees to elbows

Results: 5 rounds

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Is it OK that I am still squee-ing a little from getting compliments on my squats? I love hearing that I am a "strong squatter". :-p

That was  PR on back squats, again. I seem to PR each time I try them. I think it's just a matter of the fact that this is only the 4th time I've done back squats. Now that I see my potential, next time I'm supposed to go heavy I will really go for it. Kind wish I would've gone for 1 rep at my body weight (155), but it's all good. My legs were plenty tired after the metcon!

Ah, the metcon. As requested, I tried to do the "quicker" version of the box jump where you jump down rather than step down. And as I kind of expected, I got a bit uncoordinated in my quest for speed, and totally smashed my shin. Doh. Oh well, it isn't really that bad, and I think it made me look like a badass. heh

Filthy Fifty - DNF

*wham*

That was the sound of me hitting the floor during my workout yesterday, in the midst of a set of 50 walking lunges.

The coach took one look at me, and made me lay down on the ground with a cold bottle of water behind my neck. It seems my crappy diet (and resulting digestive mayhem) had come back to bite me in the butt -- I was definitely dehydrated. Instead of being bright pink, my face was pale. And I could feel my heart beating way too hard. Yuck.

I started back up at a slower pace after my rest, but unfortunately I had quite a bit of the WOD left to complete, and I ended up not finishing. But it's all good. I'm still glad that I made the effort to go to the gym on my way out of town. It's going to be a challenge to get any workouts in while I'm visiting my parents this weekend.

--

WOD: Filthy Fifty

• 50 Box jump, 25/21 inch box
• 50 Jumping pull-ups
• 50 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood/1/2pood
• Walking Lunge, 50 steps
• 50 Knees to elbows
• 50 Push press, 45/35 pounds
• 50 Back extensions
• 50 Wall ball shots, 20/14 pound ball
• 50 Burpees
• 50 Double unders

Results: DNF

In other words -- Did Not Finish. Specifically, I stopped at about 35 wall balls, and the clock was pretty close to 40 minutes. Still a good workout, my legs (and especially calves) are sore today.

My setup: 21 inch box, 35lb KB, 35lb for push press, 14lb med ball

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They posted a pic of me on the CFKoP site, and it's totally unflattering. But I have so few CF pics of myself that I'm posting it any way. :)