Long-ass WOD

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1:
pull ups
push ups
sit ups
squats
400m run

Results: 50:38

Can you say "c wiss needs to work on her running"? :)

However, c wiss rocked her pullups in comparison to where they were at 2-3 months ago, so she was happy. :)

There were only a few instances where I was doing one at a time, I tried to string at least 2 together most of the time. And I think I got them unbroken starting from 4 or 5 and down to 1. Woot!

The rest of the movements were simple, didn't rest of break sets or anything. Just struggled through the pullups and runs.

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This WOD is modified from one called "Dyer", which includes burpees, but only prescribes a 200m run... That sounds a tiny bit easier, but I don't know. I would have to try it out to compare. :)

RJ

I had been seeing that several affiliate blogs were no longer posting their WODs (in particular CrossFit Unlimited), so on this particular day I decided to show up without looking at the blog.

Aaaaand, of course on this day we were climbing the rope and I had totally inappropriate clothing and shoes on. And I had to work that night, so no do-over. Grrrrr.

So I ended up doing this WOD with substitutions for the rope climbs. And honestly, it would've been *a lot* easier to just climb the rope 5 times instead of doing 15 pullups and 10 rope planks.

I think read a blog once about making the substitution so much worse than the actual movement that it motivates your athletes to learn to do the movement. At the time, I kind of raised my eyebrows and wondered if that was a good idea. After doing this WOD, I'm thinking it's a brilliant concept, but only if the person is strong enough to do the movement. If they're just afraid to try, or frustrated, the penalty of great pain could be a very useful (and sneaky) motivator. :-D

"RJ"
5 rounds for time:
800m run
5 rope climbs
50 push ups

Results: 48:04 -- 3 rounds, subbed 15 pullups & 10 rope planks for rope climbs

There was a 45 minute cutoff for this WOD, hence the 3 rounds.

All pushups were fully Rx, which I am very proud of. I have come really far on my pushups.

15 pullups and 10 rope planks were just brutalizing. Time to add a pair of long socks to my workout bag for those occasions where I want to climb the rope. And honestly they come in handy for on-the-fly deadlift work as well.

I need a follow up with this hero WOD, for sure.

Chipper WOD on a Wednesday

For time:

• Front plank hold - 2 min 
• 500m row
• 50 lunge steps
• 10 hang power cleans (155/95) 
• 8 L-pullups
• 21 deadlifts (155/95)

Results: 13:18, scaled up weight to 105#

This WOD was my first attempt at L-pullups, and I was pretty happy that I was able to crank them out. Did a little kip as I swung my legs up into place to get started, not sure if that's "Rx" or not? Hit chin above bar, then controlled the legs while I lowered back down -- I know that part was right, at least on the last 5-6. Was working on figuring it out the first 2-3 reps. Have been practicing those since this WOD.

Scaled up hang power cleans and deadlifts -- for me, if the male load is 155, the female load should be 75% of that, or 115. The power clean was the limiting factor for me, so I had to stick with about 70% of the male load at 105. Just a difference in opinion between me and the owner of my box. I was glad that I chose a more challenging weight for my cleans and deads.

Really worked my good form on these cleans. Doing Grace twice in the last couple months, I noticed myself getting really sloppy on landing power cleans. Instead of dropping under the bar more as it lessened in upward momentum, I was landing my feed waaaaaaay wide and letting my knees cave in. No good. So for these 10 reps I popped the bar as high as possible, but still dropped under with good solid form to land it solid on the shoulder.

I think I made it through 15-16 of the deadlifts before my grip gave out. Using mixed grip I may have made it all the way to 21 without stopping. I'm still happy with that split though -- only 1 re-grip in a set of 21 is a great improvement for me on deadlifts.

Quick WOD at the base gym

I'm guessing on the date for this one. I have it written in my notebook, and I remember doing it at the base gym, but I'm not sure what evening I did it... Maybe it was a weekend? I dunno. This is good enough. :)

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Modified from a workout I did at CF KoP over the winter, and really liked. I pulled down the # of reps on kb swings to make sure I was done quickly because my husband was waiting for me to finish up so we could go home.

WOD:
10 pullups, 10 kb swings, 20 squats
9 pullups, 9 kb swings, 18 squats
8 pullups, 8 kb swings, 16 squats
...
1 pullup, 1 kb swing, 2 squats

Results: 20:04

There's one place in the base gym where I can do kipping pullups, and it's a squat rack -- I use these weird sloped handle-things that are attached to the rear cross bar. They hurt my hands, and I hate them, and because they're sloped I can't mix my grip from overhand to underhand and that all just pisses me the F off. Everytime my husband came within earshot during this WOD, I was f-boming all over the place bitching to him about the pullup bar.

I mention this just because it cracks me up how pissy I get while WOD-ing. I'm really such a wuss about some stuff! And to think I had you all fooled about how hardcore I am. hehe

All in all, good practice on pullups, and fun doing my kb swings, which I love. :)

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In hind sight I should've just left in the longer sets of kb swings - doing 1 swing is just weird. It probably wouldn't have taken that much longer to finish the WOD, though it would have been harder on my hands. Or maybe if I repeat this, I'll leave the kb swings at 10 the whole time, and decrease only pullups and squats. Something to consider.

DJ

Showed up for this WOD at 6:30am in an attempt to get myself on a new schedule. It ended up being a bit of a clusterfuck.

"DJ"
5 rounds:
5 muscle ups
25 wall ball shots (20lb/14)

Results: I think I vaguely remember that this one was just shy of 30 minutes?

When I compare the past write up for this WOD (from February 2, 2010) to my hugely frustrating experience on this day, it really highlights how my mental focus is not there right now...

I don't have a muscle up, so I attempted to sub ring pullups and ring dips at first. I can't remember the number of reps I was subbing... 10 and 10 maybe? I had so much trouble with that substitution -- in other words, ring pullups in false grip were *not* happening -- that I ended up switching to subbing assisted muscle ups transitions and ring dips with the skinny band.

I tried to send all my signals of "I need to be left alone please" while doing this WOD, but I could not get a respite from that day's coach giving me lots and lots of feedback. No, I do not want to discuss MU progressions that will work best for me mid-WOD. No, I do not need you in my face the entire time I'm struggling with wall balls... Ugh. :( So I ended up just quasi melting down the entire WOD because I could not get my focus back. *sigh*

Needless to say I was practically spitting with anger and frustration by the time the last set of wall balls were being thrown. And just like in February, I was still thinking to myself, "why haven't I practiced and perfected these???". Gotta work these in as goat work after WODs, for sure...

Ugh, just a bad day overall...

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I have since decided I would like to do progressions for a strict muscle up, rather than continuing trying to get a kipping muscle up. I think this will prevent injury, improve strength, promote my continued work on strict pullups and dips, and will also be less frustrating in the end because I'll expect the process to take a while. This is another reason I got my own set of rings for at home, since I'll start these progressions from the knees -- plenty of room for that under an 8 foot bar.

H/T to CrossFit Proper for the inspiration to go this route. I'd also like to invest in the book Building the Gymnastic Body (recommended by Robb Wolf) to further my knowledge of gymnastics progressions.


Strict Muscle up Progressions from charisse skye on Vimeo.

5000 pounds, WOD backlog

For those subscribed to my feed, I apologize in advance for all the new posts that will be popping up in the next few days. Instead of catching up on the last 4-5 weeks of WODs in one giant post, I'm going to publish separate posts for each WOD. This works best for me because of how I use labels to categorize WODs by the exercises they contain, but will probably cause some annoyance in your feed reader, Sorry in advance!

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I am always happy to work on cleans, they are my Oly lifting "happy place". :)

WOD: Clean 7500lbs / 5000lbs for time.

Results: 8:18 -- 50 reps @ 100#

I chose that load because it made the rep count a nice, even 50. It's too far back for me to remember how many reps I was stringing together, but judging from my time, I think I kept up a decent pace overall.

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These are the types of workouts where I feel like, yes I know what I'm doing, yes I have some skill, and yes maybe I have something to share with others to help them on their journeys...

Quick metcon before work

I made the mistake of trying to do this metcon at the gym on base around 11:00 before I had to work at the pool at 11:30. It's a hassle to try to use a barbell in this gym *at all*, so overlapping with the lunch rush was just a total clusterfuck. Won't make the mistake again.

My time on this one was definitely impacted by having my bar location messed with while I was doing knees to elbows on the pullup bar around the corner. Who knew somebody was going to use that weird looking machine to do some kind of shoulder exercise. Or that there would be a mad rush for all the incline bench stations.

Not to mention I couldn't even do full ROM on the knees to elbows because the pullup bars are all mounted too close to the wall. Grabbing the bar facing away from the wall, when you flex your shoulders as you get your knees high, your upper back / shoulders scrape against the wall. BRILLIANT. This is what happens when you do real workouts at a gym on a Navy base where everybody is, A) on shore duty or B) works on a submarine. The Marines here have their own gym and pullup bars near their offices and barracks. Very smart of them. :)

Also, I had to squeeze myself between two machine-thingys to swing my kettlebell. Though at least they actually *have* those -- that is a plus.

Anyway, enough bitching. Here's the WOD.

3 rounds:
12 thrusters (75lbs/55)
12 kettle swings (24k/16)
12 knees to elbows

Results: 11:23, Rx

Yeah, pitiful. But hey, got my WOD in that day, so I was happy. :)

Nancy

Drafted this the day I did the WOD, just now publishing...

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I have been obsessed with overhead squats lately. So I'm not surprised that I woke up this morning with the idea of throwing down on "Nancy". I hit the gym early, before it got too hot (it was in the high 90's today), and also waaaaaaay before my husband was even thinking about getting out of bed. :)

This benchmark was on my goals list, so good on me for finally getting it checked off. :-D

"Nancy"
5 rounds for time
400m run
15 overhead squats (95/65)

Results: 26:28, Rx

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The thing that made this WOD so full of win was doing every set of OHS *unbroken*. Hell yes!

In hindsight, it took a minute or two of rest after each run to get my breath under control, but I admit that "feats of strength" impress me more than metcon performance (fast times). So I tend to do what I need to do to be super-strong -- which usually means I sacrifice the cardio aspect of WODs so I can do heavier loads. Yes, a bias of mine, but I just get so pumped up when I am lifting heavy shit off the ground and over my head. Forgive me for indulging a bit of work on my strengths. :-D

Also of note, I snatched the bar from the ground on each round. On round 5, I snatched the bar and immediately dropped it. Then snatched it again, and got the set of 15 unbroken.

Something I learned doing this WOD -- breathing in and out while performing OHS is an art form. It reminded me of learning to breath while doing pushups.

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I need to test 1RM on OHS -- with 15 reps at 65, I can probably beat my old 1RM at 85.

AMRAP goodness

AMRAP in 15 min
5 front squats (185lbs/115)
10 chest to bar pull ups
20 double unders

Results: 3 rounds + 5 squats & 5 CTB pullups

Didn't even hit 60% of the male load on this WOD, bummer. But I knew from a workout at CF KoP that my 3RM on front squat was 135, so 5 @ 115 during a metcon sounded not good. Plus (as always) I was taking the bar from the ground, and my 1RM on the clean is still 125.

So anyway, 105 sounded challenging strength-wise, but still do-able to clean from the ground and then squat 5 times in an unbroken set. :)

I honestly can't remember if I did all 4 sets of front squats unbroken, but I think yes? I hope yes. :)

The most time in this WOD was cranking out the pullups. At this point, my kip was still all jacked, so I wasn't kipping my chest up, I was kipping mostly up, and then slowly finishing out the rep. And I'm not sure they were absolutely "true" CTB -- but I know the front of my shoulder touched even if I didn't get the elbows/shoulders back far enough to finish it off.

Happy to report I can still do double unders. :)