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.
Monday, April 1, 2013
Tuesday, March 19, 2013
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.
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 12, 2013
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
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
Saturday, March 9, 2013
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.
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.
Tuesday, March 5, 2013
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.
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.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)