C&J ladder, C&J PR, metcon

While I was determined not to feel bad or embarrassed about scaling my first WOD at the new gym yesterday, I can't say that I was sad when the first part of Saturday's WOD gave me the perfect chance to demonstrate my strengths. :)

Men and women went through a clean & jerk ladder. Bars were setup at 10 pound increments, starting at 65# for women, and 95# for men. Though if I remember correctly, there wasn't an 85# bar?

Results:

• \65#-115# -- went up easily with good technique
• 125# -- somewhat crappy wide-stance catch power clean; should've squat cleaned, I was being lazy, plus I'm out of practice
• 135# -- another iffy landing on the clean; on this jerk my right elbow broke and I had to press it back to lockout; for this WOD it counted, wouldn't have in a competition
• 145# -- made two attempts at the clean, but just didn't have it; I think I may have been able to do 140#

New clean & jerk PR baby! The most I've C&J in tandem was definitely way less than 135#. And my power clean 1RM was previously 125#. Having spent the last 6 months working on fixing my back alignment, posture and control of my pelvic alignment, I'd say I was right in thinking those areas of weakness were holding me back in the past. Since I've done so little strength training or lifting in the last few months, I wonder if yoga has helped me a lot too. I'm thinking yes since my workouts have mainly been running and yoga as of late.

Metcon:
4 rounds:
100m shuttle sprint (25m segments)
10 renegade rows (1 pushup, 1 row L, 1 row R)
20 situps

Results: 13:20 w/ 25# DB round 1, 15# DB rounds 2-4

Weightlifting practice

Attended my weekly weightlifting practice today. And saw the effects of not attending practice regularly for a few months...

1 snatch + 3 OHS
4 sets @ 60% (65#)

All solid here.

Clean & Jerk
4x3 @ 70% (95#, 1 set at 85#)

Form was awful on the cleans. My power position has completely disappeared, and my knees never popped back under the bar. I think I am afraid to get into certain positions, for fear my back will just tweak out again. Dropped weight to see if that helped, and I still did the same thing. Hoping this was just a bad day, and I'm not regressing back to old habits...

Snatch balance
3x3 with empty bar

Cake.

Knees to elbows
4x5

These need a lot of work, especially doing more reps before dropping off the bar.

12 Days of Christmas

Hit this one up with my CF KoP peeps while visiting husband's family. (Check the link for a hilarious picture of me doing DB snatches)

12 Days of Christmas at CrossFit KoP
1 Deadlift (185/275)
2 Wall Ascents (6ft/8ft)
3 Ring Dips
4 Box Jumps (21"/25")
5 Med Ball Clean (14/20)
6 Clean and Jerk (75/115)
7 Toes to Bar
8 Burpees
9 Sumo Deadlift High Pull (55/75)
10 Wall Balls (14/20) to (9ft/10ft)
11 Thrusters (75/115)
12 DB Snatch 12L/12R 25/40

Results: 70:28

Deadlifts, clean and jerk, burpees and thrusters were all scaled due to my continuing (nagging) back injury. Everything else was Rx'd.

Weird about the burpees, right? Something about the part where you jump your feet back aggravates my QL muscle, so for many of them I stepped my feet back. Once I was nice and warm, in the middle and later days, I did jump my feet back on some of them.

I felt like I got hit by a truck after this. My core was wrecked, I think from the wall climbs and toes to bar -- don't do either of those with any regularity.

Best part of the WOD - watching a CF KoP superstar female athlete scaling the 8 foot wall. BAD. ASS. And her nickname is "Grans" -- love it.

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. :)

Some thoughts, and Grace

To my peeps -- thank you for your encouraging and ass-kicking comments.

The reason I keep bringing up gaining weight is because those 5-7 pounds are the difference between easy pullups and hard pullups. Obviously, easy is the preferred variety. :)

What you all reminded me is that I have the strength, I'm just not using it properly. What I need to focus on is improving my kipping skills so that I'm more effectively moving whatever my body weight is up and over the bar. That skill improvement will serve  me for a lot longer than just telling myself that pullups will get better once I get my food choices dialed in and I lose that 5-7 pounds of body fat.

THANK YOU.

(Side note: I just cannot go back to the using the band. Not happening. I know this problem is skill-based / MENTAL, so I will not coddle my bad attitude with a crutch like that. Not happening. And it's not ego, either -- if I truly thought I gained that much weight, or lost that much strength, I would go back to the band. But I haven't. I have just lost my confidence in myself, and the only way back to a good place with confidence is for me to do what scares me.)

Feeling like total ass is also teaching me a lesson about food choices.

I think this is probably the way I felt when I first started CrossFit -- no wonder I wanted to just quit and felt so defeated! This crap food is dragging me down, it's making my body store fat, it's making me depressed and tired, and it's absolutely killing my performance in the gym.

So, really, does the "enjoyment" of eating something like ice cream really balance out all those negatives?

We all know the answer to that question. It's NO.

Yet again Paleo wins because of how it makes us feel and perform -- those two benefits go so much deeper than a number on the scale or how our bodies look. It's not me depriving myself or playing head games with myself -- it's just a conscious decision to fuel my body in a way that improves how I feel doing the things I love.

But it's a familiar cycle... I feel bad emotionally, so I eat crap (or in the past smoked cigarettes or drank alcohol) so I will feel bad physically. The food binges that have taken place during April have been off the fucking charts people. Just incredibly bad.

But starting today I can look ahead and begin anew with treating my body the way it deserves to be treated. Treating myself the way I deserve to be treated.

--
Today's benchmark WOD was "Grace". It's been bugging me that I only had a time for this WOD at 85#, so I was very happy to try it again at 95#. Most published times for female athletes are at 95, so now I'll know for sure how I stack up. (I know, I should compete against myself, etc etc etc, but I can't help it :-p)

"Grace"
30 clean & jerk (135/95) for time.

Results: 4:51

I am annoyed to report that I was not totally ecstatic after finishing this WOD. I felt like I could've gone faster. And I didn't beat my old time, even though I did do 10 pounds more today -- 85# took 4:45.

I used my iPod to video myself, and I am bummed to report that upon review I jacked up the count, and only did 29 reps. ARGH! I can't fucking count when I'm doing these WODs... I knew I was starting to screw up the count, so I handed off to a spectator, but it was already too late. I told her I was just finished with 12, when I had really only done 11. Ack.

The video also showed me that my knees were caving in on some of my cleans (ew!) and that I had totally crappy push jerks near the end. I was basically busting out a push press instead of locking out while dropping under so I could just stand the weight up.

But honestly, today was a good day in the gym. After Grace was over, I worked on my kipping swing and I was able to kip up to the bar. Whatever was going on yesterday, the best way to get over it is to just get back to practicing my pullups daily, like I used to.

Time to shower up and get out of the house. I'm going to wear my black or brown dress to run errands cause it's too damn hot for clothes (high 90's) and my sweat won't show as much. :-D

Grace

Knocked out another girl this morning!

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Grace: 30 clean and jerks for time. 135lb/85lb

Results: 4:45

--

Spoke to the coach beforehand about seeing the scaled weight as 95 on a few other places online, but she insisted 85 was the "correct" weight, so I just did 85. After more research online, I'm convinced it really is 95, so that's what I'll be doing next time I attempt this WOD.

I taped up my hands, and threw gloves on top of that. It felt weird and tight beforehand, but once I got into it, I felt fine.

I think my time rocked because I had such a great setup. My sister came to the gym to count reps for me, so I didn't have to be thinking about that at all. And also we had our "extra" trainer there this AM, and he stood right by me keeping me moving quick the whole time. He also fixed my clips for me several times, since they were sliding around.

Our female coach only beat me by 20 seconds. :)

AWESOME WORKOUT.

CrossFit KoP visit

I checked out CrossFit KoP tonight, and it rocked. Why the heck couldn't they open before I moved away? It would have been a 5 minute drive from my house. Or it would've been a perfect stop on the way home from work. Gah!

Oh well, at least if I ever move back, I'll know there's a terrific gym to workout at. Plus I can hit them up when visiting Husbeetle's family, though it's kind of a pain in the ass to drive there from his mom's house.

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WOD:

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Clean and Jerks (75#/115#)

KB Swings (scale according to level)

Pull-ups

Results: 24:14; 65# C&Js, 16kg (35#) KB, medium band pullups

--

Really felt my cardio deficiencies on this workout. I need to just push myself more, but then my form suffers alot when I try to push through and not rest. I am at a loss... My strength is increasing much faster than my cardio-vascular fitness. Bah.

The main coach at KoP, Aimee, rocked this. We did about 10 minutes of coaching on the C&J movement between the warm-up and the WOD. Awesome. Got some truly welcome feedback on my C&J form.

First, I was not fully extending my hips before catching the bar. Need to work on the deadlift-shrug portion, and make sure I have the whole range of motion in my hips before I bring the elbows around to rack the bar. Also, my head is not neutral. I tend to tilt my head really far back. Odd, huh? Guess that explains why I have a sore neck pretty often. Definitely two things I can work on and improve. That's why I did 65# and not 75# as Rx'd. Stayed lighter to really focus on form. And according to Aimee and her assistants, I did improve as the workout progressed, so I'm really happy with that.

Overall it felt great, and I'm so relieved to have gotten a great workout in while on vacation. We'll see if I can squeeze in another 6:30pm class the day after tomorrow. It all depends on when I travel, and what time I get back to the area. I'm making an extra-special side trip tomorrow. :)

Some oly lifts, yay!

"Oly" is slang for "Olympic" -- I picked that up somewhere in my perusal of Crossfit blogs the past week. I like. :)

WOD:

AMRAP 8min of:

• 5 Clean and Jerk (135 lbs/95)
• 7 ring dips

3 min rest

AMRAP 4min of:

• 5 hang power cleans (135lbs/95)
• 7 handstand push ups

Results: 3 rounds (85lbs; bench and box for dips) and 1 3/4 (85lbs, ankles over bar for HSPU)

**AMRAP stands for "as many rounds as possible".

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Wow, this workout was deceptive... I thought I would be throwing the bar up a lot faster than I did, after my first 5 C&Js I was sooooo out of breath, damn! And I was just barely able to get up the HPCs, after the jump my feet were sooo wide. It almost would've been easier to catch in a squat.

But it felt good, I'd like to do this one again sometime. And I'm happy that I learned another way to modify HSPUs. Put a bar on a squat rack, hook your feet over and hang upside down, and try to get as vertical as you can. I was really just bending my elbows a bit and then locking back out, but it's a start. I think at this point I'm going to be as excited about getting a true HSPU as I am about getting a true dead hang pullup.

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This is my last workout in the gym for a while, I'm leaving today on my trip up north. I'm going to do my best to keep working out while I'm on the road, but I do find it challenging to "program" for myself. I think if I was ever a coach or affiliate owner, I would offer "vacation programming" packages to my clients as part of their regular monthly fee. This month I paid for the whole thing, not knowing how long I'd be gone. It would just be nice to still feel like I was getting my $$$$'s worth. And given a set of equipment available, it seems to me they could come up with 5-7 workouts for me to do easily. They are the experts!

I'm taking along my 12lb dumbbells for DB hang squat cleans, thrusters, push presses, front squats, DB swings. I can borrow a broom here or there to keep working on my form for OHS and snatch. And then I've got my in-the-doorway pullup bar that I can use for jumping pullups and maybe some work on negatives. My big focus will be pushups, I'm so damn weak on those. I had worked on them a while back, and got better, but now I'm sucking again. Gotta put some time and effort into that, 2 weeks is enough time to make some decent improvements.

Performance anxiety?

So, right after announcing I will be tracking my workouts here, I took an entire week off. Whaaaaa?

It was pretty much caused by the husbeetle going to another base to shoot for the week, and my schedule/attitude being shot to hell due to being home alone. But still, kind of interesting timing in terms of starting up the new blog.

In any case, I did a quick run on Saturday night (3.3 miles, 32 minutes) to get my body moving, and then was back in the gym at 8:30 this morning.

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WOD:

Complete the following for time:

4 clean & jerks (155lbs/95)

4 power snatch (135lbs/85)

20 GHD sit ups

3 clean & jerks

3 power snatch

15 GHD sit ups

2 clean & jerks

2 power snatch

10 GHD sit ups

1 clean & jerk

1 power snatch

5 GHD sit ups

Results: 13:36 (95 C&J, 65 power snatch)

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My biggest weakness right now is how out of breath I get. I have to rest and slow my breathing to be able to get the weight up. If I try a lift while I'm still huffing and puffing, I end up doing half the motion and then dumping the bar.

The power snatches were annoying. But that is the nature of the snatch. I much prefer one armed dumbbell snatches, I kick ass at those. The wide grip on the bar from the ground is just so damned awkward.

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For cool down, we were supposed to work on something we suck at. I stuck with my usual routine of doing pull-ups. I'm kipping with the beige band right now. I've attempted to do an unassisted kipping pull-up, but no success yet. Maybe another month more.

Something I'd like to work on next, once I get pullups down, is band-assisted hand-stand pushups. This video takes a while to get to the band-assisted demo, but overall it has a ton of great info. I'm really weak on exercises that utilize the shoulder (overhead press, heavy push presses, overhead squats) and I think I would really benefit from working on the hand-stand pushups since they use those same muscles.