4/11/2012

4-11-12 WOD

Strength
Back squat 3 @ 70% – 3 @ 80% – AMRAP @ 90%

Front squat 5-5-5
*attempt 5-10% heavier than last weeks front squat if possible

MetCon
20 min. AMRAP
500 meter Row
Front squat 135/95 pounds, 10 reps(no racks if rx)

Back squat - 3@300, 3@340, 7@385#
Looks like my squat is going down (though, maybe my legs are just still tired!), as last time I did 405, I hit 7 reps. Perhaps it was the depth of my squats though, which I made sure was very deep.

Front Squat: 5@135, 5@185, 5@245

I moved into the MetCon pretty confident. I was really hoping for 8 rounds - but looking at the board, the highest score was 6 rounds + finished the row.

I kept my first row at about a 1:55 - I figured 7 rounds @ 2:00 is 14 minutes, so that gives me 6 minutes for 70 front squats. I moved into the squats, and finished all 10 unbroken. Got back to my rower, and kept up the pace pretty well - basically a repeat of round 1. Round 3, when I got off the rower, I had about 11:50 left on the clock - so I was basically just ahead of pace for 6 rounds (definitely not hitting 8!), but the squats were still unbroken. Round 4 I started slowing down, I think my row slowed to about a 2:00-2:05, but squats were still unbroken (insofar as I didn't put the bar down - I had some brief pauses in the rack position). Round 5, was about 2:05 on the row - but still unbroken on the front squats with some struggle. I started round 6 with 4 minutes on the clock, finishing in 2:10 and having only 1:50 on the clock. This time I did not go unbroken on my squats - I finished the first 5 before there was only 1 minute left, and managed to muscle 2 more out, but then I had to put the bar down and rest. I managed to finish off the last 3 with 20 seconds left, and managed to pull out about 40 meters before my time was up - I didn't bother strapping my feet in, I just rowed.

This was the second best (Rx'd) performance of the day, so I was pretty psyched :)

March 7, 2012 - "Half Small"

Went to CrossFit 321 this morning:

3-7-12 WOD

Strength
Back Squat 5 @ 65% – 5 @ 75% – AMRAP @ 85%

MetCon
3 rounds for time of
500 meter Row
25 Burpees
25 Box Jumps 24/20
400 meter run

For squats, worked my way up: 305x5, 355x5, 405x7

Then I got into the MetCon, which is a Half Small (1000m Row, 50 burpees, 50 box jump, 800m run).

This was even harder than it sounded - especially after heavy squats!

First row was right around 1:55, easy pace. Burpees were not unbroken, and box-jumps were even more broken still. The run seemed like a recovery. First round was just around 9 minutes, and I finished the whole ordeal in about 29:50.

Smoked!

AMRAP 20 min - 25 Burpees, 15 BW Back Squats

Decided to do the WOD from 11/22 that I hadn't done:
As Many Rounds as Possible (AMRAP) in 20 minutes of:
25 Burpees
15 Back Squats with Bodyweight racked

A burpee, for anyone that doesn't know is basically a modified squat/push-up/jump. The progression goes as follows:

1. Start in the standing position
2. Squat down and place your hands on the ground in front of you, just in front of your feet, shoulder width apart
3. Kick your legs out behind you, dropping into the down position of the push-up
4. Simultaneously push to the up position and bring your feet to the original position explosively
5. From the squat position, launch into a jump as high as you can go (each repetition, this seems to get lower)

That's one repetition. It is an extremely brutal - and effective exercise.

So 25 before going into back squats with your bodyweight is pretty intense - more so than I anticipated.

I made room on my paper pad to record my finish times for up to 6 rounds. I was dreaming.

I warmed up with:
100m Row (3:54.7)
5 pull-ups
20 sit-ups
15 push-ups
20 squats
10 dips
15 sumo deadlift high pulls with a 30# KB

I then stretched for about the next 4 minutes while waiting for an even number to swing by on the clock - and then started my burpees.

I had to break the first set of 25 into 2 sets - 15 and 10. And then I needed to rest a few seconds before un-racking the bar for the body weight squats. This also took 2 sets to complete - 10 and then 5 more. I finished my first set3:55 - wow, if I keep this up, I could complete 4 rounds - I guess 6 is out the window right away!

I then got back into the burpees. I no longer remember how many sets this took - but I'm thinking it was 8, 7, 5, 5. I got back to the bar - this time a little less winded than after the first set of burpees, having broken them up more - but still took 2 sets to finish the squats. 9:40 on the clock. Slowing down - I'll be lucky to hit 4.

The third set was even more brutal. Now that I think about it, the number I mentioned above were for this set - no idea what I did on set 2. Anyway, this time I moved into the back squats and needed 3 sets of 5 to finish them off, glancing at the clock at 14:20.

And then I don't know what hit me. To be honest, I originally recorded 12:20 at the end of round 3 - but after careful review, I realised I must have read the clock wrong, because I know this round was slower than round 2 and 12:20 would be under 3 minutes. So I upped the estimate to 13:20, assuming I read the clock wrong - this would put round 3 at 3:40 - which again didn't sound reasonable - so I modified yet again to 14:20 - 4:40. This still put me ahead of schedule (and pace) to break 4 rounds in 20 minutes - but somehow I was only just finishing the burpees when the time ran out.

Like I said, I have no idea what happened, or where the time went. I do know that my reps on the burpees were 7-6-5-4-3 and that the rest time in between all but the last couple rounds were longer than in previous rounds - but I'm still unsure how it took me nearly 6 minutes to complete 25 burpees. I'm also a little cautious because it looks like I originally recorded 8:40 at the end of round 2 - which would have made 13:20 reasonable for round 3 - which I think would have put me just a little behind 15 minutes finishing round 4 of burpees.

Anyway - as you can see, I was too exhausted to tell if 20 minutes had passed on a clock with hands at a strange angle on the clock. I'm calling the official score 3 rounds + 25 burpees - but I'm not entirely sure I believe it. I'll try again another time to see if I have a drastic improvement - hopefully in the near future.

Day 92 - Last Chance Workout

Today is my last workout before the 300 challenge attempt 2. I'll do this on Friday, 10/30.

So what did I pick to get the most possible conditioning out of it? Tabata back squats!

This was a tough workout - and I will certainly do front squats in the future, which will allow me to unload the bar in between sets. Instead I kept the bar on my shoulders for the entire duration - which was killer. Actually, not the entire time - and it wasn't a true tabata. This is because after set 4, I didn't think I'd be able to stand up many more times with the weight I was working with - so I had to drop the weight down.

Foolishly, without doing much research on this first, I loaded 185 on the bar at the start and tried this in a back squat position, which as I said, meant that I didn't have enough time to dump the bar to the rack during my rest interval - so that made the workout all the more gruelling.

I completed the reps with 185# as follows:

12-10-7-6

I then dumped the bar - it took me about 1:10 to get the weight switched and the bar back to my shoulders - just had to dump the 25# weights - then I was back in it on 135#:

12-9-8-6

I think 135# would have been a good weight to do all the way through without the 1 minute pause - though if I was doing front squats, I may want to drop that as low as 115 or 95 - probably 115, since I would be able to dump the bar. Anyway - GREAT burn.

I ended up finishing off with AMRAP pull-ups in 1 minute - got 25 out kipping, which I'm starting to get okay at. This will help on Friday.