Playing Catch Up: 03/23/13

Week 3 in the crossfit games and they unveiled a workout from last year that I was real excited about.

12 min AMRAP: 150 20lb wall balls, 90 double unders, 30 muscle ups, repeat

I crushed the wall balls.  20 at a time with a 10 second rest between. Took me 6 minutes.  I slopped my way through the double unders. 30, 20, 15, 15... Then the muscle ups.  I went to the crossfit gym the day before to try to perfect my muscle up technique.  Not only did I fail to perfect it, I only got one. 30 minutes, 15-20 attempts, completely fresh, not a one. So what the F am I looking at after 150 wall balls and 90 double unders?  I had plenty of time when I finished the double unders. Nearly 4 minutes to do muscle ups.  A couple times when I've tried to do muscle ups, my elbow has gotten loose and darted out in a crazy angle leading me to think it was dislocated.  Now I am attempting them after a pretty brutal workout.  But, whatever, crossfit power! I grapped those stupid rings and pulled myself upward and, voilah, a muscle up.  I got 4 more before I started failing.  If only my form was better.  I could have been something.  I thought it was a pretty easy workout till my quads started seizing from all the wall balls a couple of hours later.

Crossfit: 03/19/13

I'm trying to settle into a routine, but I'm just so GD sore after playing ultimate that it makes it hard to get in another cardio workout.  I can get in the gym soon enough, I just feel to tight and sore to run.  My logic is probably flawed, but whatever.  I also am trying to keep myself limber and rested for the games on Saturday mornings. 

These are the crossfit workouts that I look forward to.  Nice solid warmup with some dynamic activities.  Some heavy lifting. And then a bad ass conditioning workout that doesn't involve 100 of something.

Warmups:
1 min light jump rope; 1 min double unders (50 something?)
rest
1 min 24" in box jumps (31); 1 min off; 1 min 24" box jumps (32)

Lift: Back Squat
Work up to 3 rep max: 295; I felt real good about this.  I might have been able to bump it up a bit, but my form drifted a bit on the last rep and 295 is a solid 3 rep max for me right now.

Conditioning: 10m 30s
30 K2E's
400 m walk with 45 lb kettlebells
30 KB front squats @ (2) 45lbs
200 m walk with 45 lb kettlebells
20 KB front squats @ (2) 45lbs
30 K2E

Very fun and a great grip workout.

Crossfit Games: 03/16/13

My second run at the crossfit games. As I said before, I've been recently rethinking my crossfit exuberance. Well I would hesitate to even call it exuberance, maybe just interest. I've been looking forward to the games for two years.  I've been doing crossfit when convenient and when I like the workout.  I can't really pick and choose the games workouts. This one was:

10 min AMRAP
5 shoulder to overhead @ 115lb
10 deadlifts @ 115lb
15 box jumps

15 box jumps times even 5 rounds is 75 box jumps in addition to the deadlifts and the push press means tons of strain on my back and achilles, which have always been trouble for me.  Luckily they modified the box jumps and let competitors do step ups. So I just decided to do step ups.  I mixed in some jumps, but saw no reason to risk injury for the games.  I did 7 rounds.  I bet I could have done 8 if I did more box jumps, even 8 step ups, 7 box jumps. The other stuff wasn't terrible.  I was way worse off after the first games workout.  Looking forward to Wednesday's announcement.  It's a great atmosphere and I really enjoy the competition. 

Tryouts and the Gym: Sunday and Tuesday

I am combining and I don't care!

Tryouts on Sunday were great.  Tons of effort and talent and lots of reckless bids onto carpeted concrete and into hockey like boards. We did the dreaded beep test.  I think I finished 11.  It's crazy how easy the first 3-4 rounds are and then all of a sudden I was on the verge of throwing up and couldn't remember why I was running.  I was about middle of the pack, but it was far from impressive. We also did a couple vert tests and a cutting test.  I think I ended up a little ahead of the pack in both.  The turf messed up my ankle a bit and the crossfit workout strained my wrist a little bit. 

I was pretty beat/sore after engaging in way too many sports this weekend so I took Monday off.  Back to the gym on Tuesday.  I had an interesting conversation with Chris Wicus, a former Mamabird player who has his undergrad in Kinesiology/exercise science and might be working with the Rumble this year.  After condemning my affection for crossfit we talked about cardio and periodization.  He had some ideas about cardio workouts that acutally used science over common sense to get the most out of workout.  More to come on that.  The other facts in lifting that I run counter to is lifting heavy for months and months on end.  It should really be a couple months with a couple heavy, low rep lifts a week and then a couple months of only high rep, low weight lifts. I hope to get some more info as the year goes on.

Warmup:
500m row; 1:38
50 double unders
500m row; 1:41
50 double unders
1000m row; 3:35

Backsquat:
5 @ 225
5 @ 225
5 @ 245
5 @ 275

A: Pullups
(3) 6@30
B: One legged squats
(3) 6@0
C: Dips
(3) 8@0

Crossfit Games: 03/09/13

I am competing in the crossfit games this year.  I've always either been too poor or too broken to compete.  The games consists of 5 workouts issued every Wednesday for 5 weeks.  This was the first WOD:

17 min AMRAP:
40 Burpees
75 pound Snatch, 30 reps
30 Burpees
135 pound Snatch, 30 reps
20 Burpees
165 pound Snatch, 30 reps
10 Burpees
210 pound Snatch, as many reps as possible

I am not good at snatches and pretty marginal at olympic lifting in general.  I've only snatched a handful of times because it makes me nervous to throw a lot of weight over my dome and try to catch it.  I practiced on Thursday at Bally's. 75lb were easy.  135 weren't bad either.  I tried to do a 155. If I tried to drop under it I would have been close, but I didn't want to fail in Bally's with metal plates. I was feeling pretty confident, but I was nervous.  I like to be good at things and I knew that I was probably headed for an average performance. 

The atmosphere at my crossfit gym, Crossfit 718, was festive.  Lots of people hanging out before and after their workout to cheer on competitors.  There were judges for each competitor. I got there about an hour early so got to watch the first 1/2 hour of competitors.  It got ugly really quickly. 

I warmed up with a group of 2 or 3, much smaller than the previous groups.  This was really a race against myself.  The snatch is such a technical lift that you can't just will yourself through it.  You need to keep your technique perfect. Our coach, I guess I don't go there enough for him to actually be my coach, but he served that purpose, made a great point that this was a snatch workout and the burpees were just there to intimidate and tire you out.  He set up a slow metronome that we could use to pace our burpees.

Go! 

40 burpees: unbroken, nice, slow pace.

30 75 lb snatches: broken up into 12, 10, 8

30 burpees: unbroken, but starting to feel it

30 135 lb snatches:  I took a good minute to set myself knowing that I didn't want to miss any of my first couple of snatches due to burpee fatigue.  Holy. Crap.  This was terrible.  Right from the first one.  They went by achingly slow.  I did it in groups of 5, but even those five were broken up cause I kept dropping the bar instead of guiding it down and snatching it back up. If I had to do it again, I would have tried to get some unbroken ones in towards the middle. Ugh. My brain stopped working around 20.  I saw the target as finishing the 30 snatches, but it should have been the 20 burpees to follow.  I finished the 30 at 16:28, only 30 seconds left to do 20 burpees.  I did 8 and almost threw up.  Shit.

Then off to enjoy some goaltimate in the beautiful spring day!  I started off terrible, but rallied as I got my legs underneath me and ended it feeling strong and playing well.  Combine like activities tomorrow for the Rumble. 

Crossfit: 03/05/13

I was stuck in Manhattan for an event so I signed up for a crossfit class. 

Warmup: 2 rounds NFT
3 wall walks
5 leg swings
20 hollow rocks
20 duck walks
20 arm mobility

Build up to 15 rep max overhead squat:
Kind of a dumb workout.  I did 115, but it destroyed my hands.  Maybe if I go right to 125 I get that too. Not enough weight to get your legs involved. 

3 rounds NFT: Unbroken wall balls
35,41,33

I tried to intersperse bar stuff between sets.  Did a great unbroken set of 20 kipping pullups, even got into the butterfly motion.  Did 10 unbroken knees to elbows.  I finally got that motion down.  

Running: 03/04/13

I thought I would practice the beep test from the MLU combine so I took off with a vague idea of what the beep test was and headed to the fields near my house.  A good mile warm up to get there. A good active.  And it was on.  Except I messed up a very critical part of the workout.  The beep test tests VO2 max.  You run an increasing amount of 20 yard intervals for 60 seconds without a break.  Start with 7 and add one every minute until you can't finish.  I thought about that first one, 7 20 yard lengths and immediately convinced myself that it would have to be one length had to actually be two lengths.  So instead of jumping in at the 7 level, I jumped in at the 14 level.  After I failed the first time and then almost died sprinting and accomplishing it a couple minutes later, I realized that either I was gonna crash and burn on this test at the combine or I was doing it wrong.  Anyways 14 makes for a great workout so I did it about 5-6 more times and headed back for a mile run of slow, medium, fast 30 second intervals.

Rumble Tryouts: 03/01/13

We ran a very successful tryout this Saturday.  I think we had around 40 guys from the best of best to fresh college kids out to their first high level event.  Over the next couple days we will put together a great team of eager ultimate players ready to compete in the MLU. 

I put them through one fun workout that caused a lot of discomfort. 

Grab a partner, starting line is one sideline.  On go player A assumes plank position and player B takes off for the far sideline.  When player B gets to the far sideline he does 20 pushups and then sprints back.  When player B gets back, player A takes off for the far sideline and player B assumes plank position.  Exercises are:
20 pushups
20 situps
20 squats
20 burpees

Woof.  I couldn't maintain the plank during the burpees, but I think I held it during the first couple. 

Great tryout and excited for the combine on Sunday. 

Ben

Gym: 02/28/13

Warm-up: 3 rounds NFT
50 double unders
20 step ups @ about 24 inches
10 HSPU

Deadlifts:
5 @ 225
5 @ 245
5 @ 265
5 @ 275

3 rounds NFT:
6 thrusters @ 135
6 pull ups @ 35

3 rounds NFT:
10 ball slams
20 trunk rotation slams

Crossfit: 02/25/13

I went for a run, did some plyos and ran some sprints in anticipation of the second Rumble tryout.  Maybe I'll write a post about my decision to play with the MLU.  It wasn't just to get a sweet one pager on the website. Well it wasn't 100% about getting a sweet one pager.

I saw a sweet crossfit workout and I jumped on it. Nice little 6 mile bike ride warm-up right into the real warm-up.  Then into a fun crossfit workout:

6 min AMRAP:
250m row
25 air squats

Then 25 pushups

We got rushed through this a little unceremoniously.  Actually it ended up sicking a little bit.  They cut us off after 3 reps rx'd.

Front squats: build up to 5 rep max
5 @ 205
5 @ 215  
5 @ 225: This was pretty clean, but I really had to dig deep for the last rep and I wasn't about to test my back

Front squat AMRAP: 2 X 2 minutes
2:00 22
2:00 16

10 RFT or 10 minutes: 10 knees to elbows; 6, 30 in box jumps
only got 7 reps done.  I wish I had partitioned the time better.  Get the knees to ee's in in 30 seconds and then bang out the box jumps.  I actually had trouble jumping down from the 30 in box and tended to step down instead.  Anyways, fun.

Gym: 02/20/13

I made the wonderful mistake of only packing my shoes for the gym.  Getting ready to ride a bike in the winter is extremely time consuming and anyone who knows me understands that any additional thing I need to remember in the morning has an exponentially negative effect on remembering everything else.  And it just takes a shit load of time to get ready.  I was at the gym and had already put my helmet, my neck warmer, my hat, my gloves, my reflector vest, my two jackets, my wallet, keys and phone in the locker when i realized i only had gym shoes, no gym clothes.  Everything back on, back to my bike, unlock both locks, head home to change and drive to the gym.  It was a long process, but lex was flying into JFK at 10:30 pm so I still had a good amount of time.

500 m row: Listen, I'd like to do something else as well, but there is no where to do anything worthwhile warmup wise in this place.  Give me some ideas.
1:43
1:38; I love these row machines cause you know where you are target time/RPMs at all times. 

Good mornings: Haven't done these in a while and my goal is to build up my spinal erectors over the next couple weeks
6 @ 115
6 @  125
6 @ 135

Front squat: Impromptu front squat cause it felt good to have the bar across my shoulders.
6 @ 135
6 @ 185
6 @ 225

Pendlay Row: Looked great for lower back and upper back strength

I need to record better. Not sure what I was doing.  Maybe (3) 8 @ 115

Medley: Not for time, three times through:
Bulgarian Split Squats; 8 @ 45 lb DBs
pull ups; 3 @ 45, 5 @ 0
DB shoulder press; 8 @ 45lb

Concluded with the hammer strength apparatus that mimics a muscle up and some knees to elbows and toes to bar.

Vacation

I hate how the title looks with multiple dates hence the lack of them.  Big things go on here and I report on them all.

I was in Key West last week and I am not sure there is a single gym on the key.  They are weeks away from getting a crossfit gym which would have been a delight, but with nothing in place I made due...do? Dew.

Alexis' sister's boyfriend crafted a ring game with a carabiner, some sort of hook he found nailed up elsewhere on the deck and fishing wire. For many reasons I am including this pony-tail ridden video for reference:

Anyways ours was about double/triple that distance and the carabiner made it even more difficult.  Eventually we got tired of single shots so we made it continuous, like tether ball, where you get one touch to redirect the pendulating carabiner so that it ends up on the hook.  It was nearly impossible and we were betting reps of a certain exercise for every rep missed before hooking it.  After 103 he won the push up round and after 94 he won the squat round.  After 200 reps no one made the HSPU round so we split them (1 for every 5 = 20 each). Maybe it was the 100 pushups but I barely managed 12 HSPU.  Yuck.

The next day we went for a 5 mile run.  I haven't run that far since college. Halfway through we saw a guy reel in a baby hammerhead shark.  I wanted to take a bite to see if I could channel its shark power towards a successful 2.5 more miles of running, but he threw it back quickly and we were off. There was something about hitting the 2.5 mile mark that inspired me and I cruised back. 

Gym: 02/14/13

I am leaving for Key West on Friday morning, I haven't packed anything, I have a Valentines Day date with my sister at 8:15 pm (Lexi is in LA for work), but I really wanted to go to the gym after work.

Warm-up:
500 m row? Why not?
1:40
1:38

I really wanted to recreate the crossfit workout from earlier this week but I was running out of time:
100 side to side jumps over a step up
30 DB cleans @ 45 lbs
30 burpees

Very difficult, but very awesome.  I finished two rounds, 100 side to sides, 10 cleans and 10 burpees.

1 min planks on small exercise ball. Much harder than doing it on the ground.

5 strict HSPU

1 min plank

5 HSPU with kip

Im out!

A Yog: 02/13/13

The Tuesday workout really blocked my chi. Or whatever I did on Tuesday that made my legs feel like poo. I live a clean mile from a large swathe of turf fields, which is delightful for Brooklyn.  I jogged there, did an active, and messed around with some 20 yard back and forths, some accelerators, and some bounding. Then I ran the mile back home.  That's it!

Gym: 02/11/13

I had a rough PT visit early in the day.  I've been going to a wonderful physical therapist, but she is out of network and therefore pretty costly.  What percentage of physical therapists aren't worthy of treating athletes? And I am using athlete loosely because I am including myself in that category.  They talk to you for three minutes, take you through a routine they've done 100 times. Tuesday's PT person was above average. She tried to do massage, but she wasn't quite strong enough and she did local massage for maybe 10 minutes. She tried to stretch me out. Went ok, but I think she over stretched my back which left me pretty gimpy for the rest of the day. Anyways, I am going to go back to the original place despite the price because she is one of two people who have treated me right in the PT world. 

The NYC one:
http://www.bodyspacefitness.com/whatweoffer.php#base

The "Boston" one:
http://www.marchesesportstherapy.com/about.html

Despite feeling a little gimpy I worked out, but tried to take it easy:

warm up:
500 m of rowing

Back Squat:
5 @ 225
5 @ 225
5 @ 245
5 @ 245
3 @ 275

Weighted pull ups:
5 @ 25
5 @ 35
5 @ 35

One legged squats:
8 @ 0
6 @ 25
6 @ 35

db clean and jerk:
I read a crossfit workout and saw a doozy that I wanted to recreate at the gym:
run 800m, 30 DB cleans @ 45 lbs, 30 burpees
Shit.  That would have been brutal.  Burpees sometimes put my back in a compromising position so I just did the DB cleans, but I added a jerk.  Yikes.  That is a lot of weight.  The clean was pretty easy.  The jerk was brutal.  10, 10, 10. I really liked the doing this with the DBs.  I thought they allowed for more freedom in the clean where the bar limits your range of motion.  I will be doing it more often in the future.

Crossfit: 02/08/13

I picked the wrong footwear for a snowstorm that was important enough to name. But I ditched my wet suede shoes for some sneakers at a Crossfit gym that is two blocks away from the manhattan location of my new job. Pretty awesome, but kind of small. Lithe cancelled my workout at 5:15 but I was early enough to hop in on the 4:45 workout. That place must do incredible business if they are packing that place on the :15. Great workout though, which is why I was pumped to head in:
(3) 7 min AMRAP: 5 burpees, 10 plate raises (ground to overhead), 15 double unders

6, 5, 5

Really fun. I'm very conscious about tired double unders as a skill. 1st set I did all 6 sets unbroken. The second and third sets weren't so hot, but I finished my 5th set of the 3rd interval with an unbroken set. The Crossfit games start in a month or so and I'm out of practice on these long ones.

Gym: 02/05/13

Back to Bally's for another workout.  It's quite a luxury to have a full gym at my disposal.  For the last six months I've been limited to whatever crossfit workout I sign up for and what I can do in the park with a pull up bar and some tree stumps. Now I am at a gym with all sorts of stuff.  None of it is that good, but it's there. I am going to compete in the crossfit games this year so I am trying to get better at my weaknesses. There might be too many to count. My overhead pressing isn't good. I can only get a couple muscle ups in. My olympic lift numbers are real low and my cardio isn't great.  One step at a time.

500m row  (1:39)
50 double unders (25 unbroken, then like 10's)
500m row (1:34)
50 double unders (30 unbroken, then maybe 15 and 5)
500m row (1:42)
50 double unders (35 unbroken, 15...nailed it)

Hand stand push up practice:
11 unbroken, then 6, then I did wall walks.
I did the first 5 kind of strict.  Next time, I'll try to do all of them kipping. I really want to be able to to do a set of 21,15,9 in a decent time

Hanging clean:
I was fired up to do this despite the lack of bumper plates.  Also apparently you have to bring your own clips to this gym, but I helped a dude who was butchering some clean and jerks and he let me use his.  I forgot how many terrible lifting techniques there are in a commercial gym.  Internet, my soapbox please.   This kid was standing way to far away from the bar.  His legs were pretty much straight when he lifted the bar which meant a very rounded back and then he was just kind of hauling it up to his shoulders. Oy.  There was also this old guy teaching these teenagers how to dead lift which involved way to much back bend at the end. Ouch.  I am sure what they were waiting for was the only white guy in the gym to help them with lifting techniques they have been refining and teaching for years.  Anyways I tried to stick to myelf.

2 @ 135
2 @ 155
2 @ 165
2 @ 175
2 @ 185
0 @ 190

Dammit!  Balls!

The idea was a 21,15,9 with 95 lb thrusters and pull ups, but the pull up bar was a mess so I had to do strict pull ups and that crushed me.  Then the guy who lent me the bar clips took off and I almost lost one of my 25 lb plates on the first clipless thruster i tried.  So it went like this:

11 thrusters, 6 thrusters, 3, thrusters
some amount of pull ups
6 thrusters, 3 thrusters, 4 thrusters, 2 thrusters (yuck)
less pullups
1 thruster, almost lost the weight, 9 front squats, 5 or 6 presses
even fewer pull ups

I might go to crossfit on Friday depending on the workout.  The good part about their workouts lately is that they give 10 mins at the end to work on stuff you suck at.

My first Day at Ballys: 01/03/13

I joined a gym.  The dirty Bally's.  Turned out it was $10/ month plus a yearly fee of $25, but no contract.  I read the whole thing over and over and couldn't figure out how they were going to fuck me so I am really excited to find out how they are gonna go about it.

I checked out the Bally's on my way home from work last week.  I ride my bike 5 miles to and from work.  I tuck my sock into my pant leg.  I wear a yellow reflector vest.  I look good.  So there I was helmet in hand, hair ruffled, neck warmer peeking out from my collar, waiting for a tour.  The trainers were chomping at the bit to show me around because you get a free personal training session and I am pretty sure they thought they just found their perfect candidate.  The guy who "got me" literally said "I got this."

It's a pretty nice place for $10 a month, well, $12/month with the fee.  Here is what my perfect gym will have in order of importance.  1. Space 2. Bumper plates  3. Decent pull up bar 4. More than one squat rack 5. punching bag.  This place is big, but the only open space is carpeted. There is a studio but it's used for classes, one of which, the one underway when I was there, was lessons in body building poses.  Surprisingly they did not recruit me to take part.  No bumper plates so I can't miss reps. Not a big deal.  The pull up bar is duct taped on to a sumo rack.  There is also a typical gym pull up grips thingy so whatever. 4. More than one squat rack, two to be exact. 5. No punching bags. I'll make do.  They have a decent amount of stuff and a nice rowing machine that I want to get better at. 

So I met with my trainer on Sunday after I made him promise to work out with me.  He told me later that he doesn't like to judge people, but he judged me in my bike gear.  I was really worried that he would get me into some stuff that I wasn't into, but it was a good workout.  We did some circuits of 1. lunge variations, 2. push up variations, 3. battle rope variations 4. ab variations

Then we got into deadlift which I havent done in a while.  I was worried about my back but proceeded very recklessly regardless. I finished at 270 lbs.  It felt ok, but Im glad I didnt go any higher.

We finished with (3) 20 25 lb plate burpees and 20 side to sides over a step.  Good workout.

Hanging Out: 01/29/13

It's real cold.  Actually today was pretty reasonable, but this winter has been brutal so I am going to join a gym. There are a variety of gyms near my apartment.  One is a Bally's where yelpers comment on how dirty the place is, how the water fountains don't work, and how they consistently scam people out of money.  Another is called Spartan Gym.  Ironically? reviews say there is nothing there and management sucks.  Today I went to a little neighborhood joint.  The whole place was about the same size as my apartment, but it was 40 degrees and rainy so I paid 10 bucks to the delightful owner and saddled up.  I can pretty much describe everything in the free weights "section"/basement.  smith machine, pretty nice DBs, a curl rack, two benches and, thankfully, a rowing machine.  I did 1000m on the rowing machine to warm up.  I was further limited because standing flat footed I could place my palms on the ceiling.  So I carefully did three sets of 20 plate burpees and ten prone rows on the smith machine bar. Next I did 3 sets of 10 kipping handstand push ups, 10 side ball slams, and 10 pistol squats on each leg.  Finished up with ab rollouts. And I left that place never to return and with no firm plans for a new gym.  Blargh.   

Crossfit: 01/22/13

I feel bad for those who still have this linked to some sort of alert system. I need to start keeping track of my work again. I finally have a 9-5 and I am thinking of joining a gym. I haven't had a 9-5 nor a gym membership since summer 2009, which is completely bonkers. My fitness goal right now is to get my lower back under control. I've blown it out three times in two years and need to figure out what's wrong with it (Dr. appt on Feb 5ht) and get it fixed (PT ASAP). In the meantime I am doing things I probably shouldn't be doing, including this crossfit workout today. I am gonna to compete in the crossfit games this year as long as my back holds out and I want to start tracking my progress. A: 2 mins of double unders (lost count, maybe 60-70?) + 6 min tabata; alternate 45lb DB renegade rows and 20 lb med ball slams B: hanging clean singles: maxed out at 180. When I could get my form right I felt real strong. C: AMRAP 2 min on 1 min off hanging cleans @ 75% of 1RM. Blarg. I think most people wisely went more like 65% or lower. I got 10ish every time, including some bloody hands and beat up collar bones. D: 10 mins of do something you aren't good at. I suck at muscle ups. I've done two? Maybe one in my life. I figured it's more of a technique issue than a strength issue. I tried twice and failed, but then got a good tip and got up three times our of four. I was happy. Ill forgo a post from last week and report having snatched 155. Maybe I can keep up with this. Probably not.