Big loads going overhead, videos

Strength + metcon today, so you know I was happy. :)

Strength: Push press 1-1-1-1-1-1

Results: 85-90-95-105-115-125

Everything went up fairly easy except the 125. I did lose my balance a bit and move my feet, which I think technically fails the rep? But I'm counting it since I know I didn't rebend the knees at all to try to jerk it. I can remember having that problem last time I worked push press.

I AM SO STOKED ABOUT THIS NUMBER! How amazing that I am putting that much weight over my head! Last time I tested this lift, I maxed out at 95. 30 pound PR baby! Woot!

After strength it was time for a metcon.

3 rounds:
50 double unders
25 wall balls

Result: 13:16

I should've been so much faster on this. Definitely didn't achieve anything close to 23 DUs this time, but I was able to get a couple sets of 10+.

I did a lot of resting in this metcon. When I start to try to push push push, I lose focus and miss attempts at both DUs and wall balls. I have to take a deep breath, focus, and start again.

Considering how angry and frustrated DUs used to make me, I'm glad I can maintain my focus, but at some point I need to do that without taking so much rest. I'll figure it out.

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Cool video one of our coaches put together. Look for me in the colorful outfit with the blue socks. :)



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Messed around with this butterfly technique today, and got a few singles out of it. Very neat! Take a quick second to watch and try it out. You know it's gotta be good if it's coming from Chris Spealler. :)

Allie

I'm supposed to be doing the dishes while husband mows, but you know I had to get on here and post my WOD first, right? :)

This morning we did "Allie" -- yep, named after one of my friends from the gym. She won the honor of creating a workout to torture us all after her slam-dunk victory on the Paleo challenge during April and March. My goal was to be my time from my first attempt on this WOD.

"Allie"
Run 400m
20 pullups
Run 400m
15 wall ball shots (20#)
Run 400m
10 burpees
Run 400m
5 tire flips

Results: 14:10 -- took 37 seconds off my old time, woot!

This WOD is deceiving -- it looks simple, just run a mile with some other stuff thrown in. But if you go all out, it really gasses you! Plus the humidity was horrible this morning, though thankfully there was cloud cover to keep the sun from totally scorching us on the runs.

Pullups were accomplished as follows: 5-5-5-4-1. My goal was sets of 5, but in hindsight, that isn't enough of a challenge for me. I regularly do sets of 5 deadhangs at the pool -- with kipping in play, I should be able to bust out more like 7 or 8 in a row. But then again, at least I didn't forget how to kip like I did on Wednesday's deadlift-pullup WOD. I'll be happy with 5's for today, and go for more next time. :)

Wall balls were to the 10' mark with the 14# ball. Forgot that Allie was using the 20# ball, and that I meant to use that one too. I think I'd be OK with throwing that to the 8' line. :)

OMG, runs must've been sooooooo slow. Like I've been saying for a bazillion years, I need to hit the track and do several 400m sprints to assess where I'm at. Did you guys know that in high school I ran a sub-6-minute mile, and a 400m in the 1:40s? I was fast as shit. Right now my weight is about 15 pounds heavier, mostly due to musculature I've built in my core, back, chest, shoulders and arms, so it's gonna be a lot harder to move my mass that fast. I'd like to bring my 400's down to the 2 minute mark. Should be doable -- my most recent timed mile was around 8:30.

OK, now I will go work on the kitchen. We have been ignoring it all week and it's a total disaster. I'm going to put on my fav NPR show ever, Wait Wait Don't Tell Me, and hopefully that will help pass the time. :)

It feels good to "win"

My back was tight from deadlifts, but I knew the best remedy would be a workout. Today's WOD wasn't going to be hard on my back at all, so it was perfect for getting a good sweat and loosening everything up.

Strength: press
7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Results: 55-60-65-70-75-85-95

 I *really* wanted that 95 at the end, but it got stuck at my forehead. I was basically staring at it, willing it to go up, for about 3 or 4 seconds before I gave up. With 95 being my current 1RM, I'm not surprised at the result. Would've been nice to match that 1RM, but I'm still happy with the work I did today.

metcon:
50 abmat situps
40 double unders
30 box jumps (20'')
20 wall ball shots (20#/14)
10 knees to elbows

Results: 6:26

When I saw today's metcon on the website last night, I thought to myself, "I can smack that bitch down." And when I was starting out the class with some strict press sets, I starting thinking again: "I can WIN."

Every once in a while when I know I'm good at everything in the WOD, my competitive spirit breaks out and I become absolutely determined to finish first.

There were only 4 people in my class this morning, and I finished first by a minute, and I was damn proud!

Best moment of the morning -- I did 23 double unders!!!! It was fucking amazing! I just keep doing them, and doing them, and doing them -- what a great feeling! And then I finished out the rest of the 40 unbroken, so that's 17 unbroken.

Those are basically my #1 and #2 longest sets of double unders I've ever done. Just goes to show what happens when I put on my game face. I need to go to that place more often!

Situps I did unbroken.

Box jumps I took a slow and steady approach. Started not paying close attention and missed one attempt, but focused back in after that and kept the knees high.

Wall balls were also amazing, considering my history with sucking at those- banged them out in 2 solid sets of 10. I used a 14# ball and threw it to the 10 foot line.

Side note on wall balls: I can't accept that women should scale both weight and height on wall balls. Height of the throw should be scaled based on the person's height, not their gender. Like, if you're 5'4'' or shorter, use the 8 foot line. Taller, use the 10 foot line. And those giant people over 6 feet should have an even higher line!

OK, end wall ball rant and ramblings about the metcon. Suffice it to say it was a fun day in the gym, and I enjoyed my little moment of victory. :) (Though I'm thinking somebody probably beat my time in the evening classes)

Later gators. :)

Scaling deadlifts

Sooooo, yesterday I broke the rules of scaling, and used a load because I wanted to be closer to Rx. Please note -- DO NOT DO THIS.

21-15-9
Deadlift (275/175)
Pullups

Results: 17:15 @155

Before I talk about deads, let me just say that I forgot how to kip AGAIN. Note to self -- you must never go more than 1 week without practicing high rep kipping pullups (minimum of 25 reps). I've been doing deadhangs at the pool for so many weeks that I lost my kipping mojo again -- and no I won't bother linking to my early summer posts where I rip on myself for "losing" my pullups. Ick. No one wants to revisit that.

I was doing my sets of 21 and 15 in onsie-twosie fashion, then on the set of 9, BAM, I was kipping and did 3 sets of 3. Good thing I was working out alone between coaching the 0630 and 0830 classes because I was certainly yelling the F word during those first two sets of pullups. :-p

So, deadlifts... I took forever to get setup for this WOD, and had two bars loaded with various weights to try, even though I knew what load I should use. 135 - 145 -- no brainer. 175 was out of the question, since my 1RM is still right around 200. But because I'm stubborn I still messed around with a bar at 165, and then decided to do 155. My 3RM is 170. So it didn't take long for me to be doing 2 reps at a time on my set of 21. Not exactly what you're going for on a couplet like this. It should be hard and fast like Fran. Things stayed onsie-twosie pretty much the whole WOD.

Anyway, by the last set, the pulls were getting ugly, but my time was so awful I just kept pounding through. And so my back is tight today. Not in an "I tweaked it" sort of way, but more than an "I challenged myself."

Though I don't know... Sometimes I wonder where the line is? I tend to shrink back from heavier deadlifts in WODs, but with other lifts (cleans, snatches, OHS) I am more willing to just go for it and see what happens. And maybe that is why my deadlift numbers are so low in comparison to my other lifts?

Ideally I would like to try to do PTP again... I really think the short time I did it helped tremendously, and at least from that I have my form locked in enough to help my athletes perform the movement correctly.

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Great list of frequently asked questions from CrossFit Park City.

Deserves it's own post

Fat Guys Don't Finish Last

Love that blog, great insights on coaching. Learning to scale appropriately, and communicating the need for that process to my athletes, is probably my number 1 goal right now, possibly number 2 only to getting better at leading great warmups.

Swimmy

I coached 0830 class this morning, then had to run off to the pool to help teach lessons at 1000, so no WOD for me. Since it's a gazillion degrees (heat index over 100) here in the Georgia swamp, I decided to do a workout entirely in the pool. Plus I needed to practice my strokes.

2 rounds:

• 100yd front crawl
• 100yd breaststroke
• 100yd back crawl
• 100yd sidestroke
• 100yd elementary backstroke

I rested as little as possible between strokes, and not at all within each 100.

To finish up I did 50 flutter kick, 50 breaststroke kick, 50 dolphin kick and 50 butterfly. My 'fly wasn't too bad today! I need to practice it more often.

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Question for you guys. If you're doing a workout with multiple runs of the same distance, do you care at all what your times on each run are?

I coached a very "grinder" WOD today, and instead of just standing there making inane comments while people were trying to grind out their burpees, I timed their 400m runs. I missed a couple people heading out and coming in, but got a lot of times for them to see.

Personally, I love any and all metrics, and would've appreciated this. Just curious what you all think -- a worthwhile endeavor, or just something that was distracting me from providing coaching to my athletes?


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10 ways to be a better CrossFitter -- Lisbeth Darsh

I recommit to practicing #3 approximately once a day, or more.

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Pistols -- Beastskills

Don't we all want to be better at these (or learn to do them, in my case) after watching the CrossFit Games?

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Via my friend Stephanie Vincent:

This explains the “factual reasons” I choose not to eat grains: Whole grains, Wholesome Goodness?

This explains the "emotional reasons" why: Radical Hate Loss via Paleo

Steph is also a Bas Ass Bitch. :)

Why can I not be just satisfied with doing CrossFit 3 times week- scaling everything forever? I could still have fun. I would still maintain health. I could resign myself to the idea that my body was neglected for way to long to be able to improve much more than it has. I’m healthy, I am strong….isn’t that good enough?

Sometimes I wish it could be that way. I see other people happy that
way, but I am a different animal. I am passionate, intense and courageous. Sure new experiences and lofty goals rise fear inside me, but I find I am the kind of person that is willing to stare fear right in the face, grounded in its polar opposite...LOVE.

Clap, my ass!

Today's WOD involved the following.

4 rounds for time:
25 lunge steps
15 clapping push ups
150m run

Results: 15:01

Other times were more in the 11-13 minute range, so I wasn't that far off. But still significant enough for my 0830 ladies to comment on it. I think my time was affected by me doing the WOD alone between coaching the 0630 and 0830 classes. But it was mostly affected by how annoying I found the clapping pushups.

I put an "Rx" by my name on the board, but I'm not so sure I fully deserved it... My claps were more like "fling your hands towards each other and if they touch at all, it counts". There was definitely a lack of actual sound being produced by round 4.

This was my first attempt at clapping pushups, and I'm not sure I'll be too motivated to try them again anytime soon. Just very annoying. Reminded me of my days at CrossFit Philly doing pledge pushups and being super-annoyed by them. :)

We did some plank holds after class, which I enjoyed. I'd like to do those more. Some of the athletes aren't quite getting the GHD situp technique, so I'm hesitant to have them do that after class too often, but everybody (me included) always needs core work. Tomorrow I might hit them with handstand holds and wall sits, depending on what the WOD ends up being -- I'm coaching, but I still have to wait for the owner to post it later tonight.

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My friend Sara recently began training a fellow military wife just with the equipment she had available, and now Jenn has gone out and joined a local affiliate and is loving it! I had to share her latest "progress" post with you all, because I love her reflections on how CrossFit has had a positive impact on her day-to-day life.

That's one of the cornerstones of CrossFit that I think tends to be overlooked -- it's a general physical preparedness program that gets you ready for the known and unknowable challenges that life throws at you. It's not just firefighters carrying people out of burning buildings -- it's also yard work, putting a suitcase into an overhead bin, squatting to get laundry out of the dryer or carrying that huge sack of dog food on your shoulder.

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As promised a few days ago, in honor of kelsalynn signing up to attend a CF Level I cert, here's a collection of links about Level I cert experiences.

• CrossFit Journal: Level 1 Cert Experience
• kd
• Erin
• Sara
• Cindy

Also, I'll throw in a link to the Level I Training Guide, which is basically a bad-ass compendium of the best CF Journal articles on the basics of CrossFit. Love it. 

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When kd went to her cert, I finally took out my notes and wrote down my "I wish I knew this ahead of time" thoughts from my cert. No, I still haven't written down an account of my whole weekend, I'm sad to say. I think at this point it's been so long ago that I wouldn't have much insight, other than the following:

• Brainstorm questions and write them down ahead of time; it's hard to think of them on the fly during the Q&A sessions. When you're reading the material, write questions on a separate page that you can reference during the Q&A sessions. On the drive home after my cert I remembered I wanted to ask about the importance of shoe choice. (All the Level 2 trainers wore "regular" athletic shoes, btw)
• There is a short break after each of the small group sessions where you learn/practice the 9 foundational movements. Use that time to take notes on how your Level II instructor worked with your group, what cues they used, their progressions, and whatever struck you as awesome/helpful/whatever. I especially wished I had done this after doing the press series -- strict press, push press, push jerk. Chuck Carswell did an awesome job teaching the push jerk, and by the next day I couldn't remember the specifics. Same thing with Justin Berg teaching snatch.
• Saturday PM or Sunday AM re-read your notes from the prior day to see if you have any questions for the wrap-up Q&A session on Sunday. When I re-read my notes on Monday I found some questions, but that wasn't as helpful as it would have been to find them before the cert ended. 

My final piece of advice is to practice your tabata squats prior to attending, just so you're legs are ready for the break out sessions. Even though I was CrossFitting 5-6 times a week leading up to my cert, I was still really sore after day 1's practice sessions, and even more so after day 2. I believe working on my tabatas helped me to be sore, but not immobilized. :)