300 - Day 69 - Self Rx

Another home workout today - but that meant I couldn't do the main site WOD which was:
21-18-15-12-9-6 and 3 rep rounds of:
Power clean 95 pounds
Sit-ups
Back extensions

Of course, at my gym at work I don't have a back extension station, so being there wouldn't have helped much - but I could have subbed good mornings, or KB swings, etc.

So I decided to get in some much needed work toward getting a better score on my PT test.
I decided on 75-50-25 of push-ups, sit-ups, KB swings (30#) in that order.

I thought this sounded easy, but I was wrong. I found out on my last set of sit-ups that this was because my dumbbell anchors just weren't cutting it. The 20lb dumbbells weren't tall enough to allow me to place them on the ground and put my feet under them, so I had them propped up on 2x4s to give them a good height. This made them unsteady and I had to be careful not to pull them off their platforms. This ended up making workout harder, which I guess is a good thing.

So anyway, I warmed up again with an 800m or so run, 10 swiss ball sit-ups, 10 dips and 20 squats and then started the clock.

I finished my first 75 push-ups (good form, mind you) in 50 seconds. I was more tired than I usually am with 75 push-ups in - a testament of my letting them slide - the last few were even a little difficult. The first 75 sit-ups were another story, taking over 3 minutes - which I later attributed to my bad anchoring - but probably also from the day before and having already done push-ups and using my abs for stabilisation.

The KB swings got difficult to - something in the way of 40, followed by 20 more and then a final 15 push.

On the second set of push-ups, I actually had to rest around 30 reps before knocking the rest out. The sit-ups were again painful and I ended up knocking my platform over toward the end. As I was looking at that quickly, deciding if I wanted to fix it then, or wait until after my sit-ups were over, I noticed my freshly removed air conditioner sitting on the floor behind them, with a lip on it that was perfect height for anchoring my feet. I pushed the dumbbells and x4s out of the way and finished my sit-ups on that. Much better.

KB swings still took another 2-3 sets and I was off into my final set of everything. I was able to knock the push-ups out in one go. The sit-ups, not quite - my abs were burning at this point and I had to stop after 15 before finishing.

I pushed as hard as I could through the last 25 KB swings - amazed to find my time at 19:59.

I expected about a 15 minute workout - which may have happened if my feet were anchored properly at first, but its hard to tell. Either way, I am again going to need to work more sit-ups into my warm-up or workout. The GHDs have been good, but in all honesty, they don't prepare you for the quick and explosive action you need to do really well in the APFT.