Working out at home

So I had missed a couple of days and knew I had some making up to do - but I didn't have a gym available. I had spent the last couple of days working on my hand stand push-up, including moving from head to floor to a raised 5" or so platform.

Today, I decided I needed a metcon workout - so I put together what bodyweight exercises I could and came up with the following:

50 HSPU (head to floor)
100 push-ups
150 air squats

I then cleared out a spot on the wall and started my HSPUs. These are tough - especially after 25 or so. Toward the end, I was doing these in increments of 3, 2 or even 1 - but my ability to get on the wall as well as push them out has greatly improved.

I finished the set of 50 in 11:09 and then moved into the push-ups. As I had hoped, the HSPUs were harmful enough to those general muscles that it made the push-ups more difficult than normal - knocking out only 40 in the first set and 20 in subsequent sets. I finished these at 15:40 - 4:31 total for the push-ups. I then moved into the air squats, which were harder than I expected, since I hadn't done much leg or abs, etc. to have an adverse affect - but I was very fatigued and winded from the HSPUs and PUs - so I finished these in 5:10 at 20:50.

This was more work than I had originally expected, which I am glad about!

Max Dead Lift

I decided to go with 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 Dead Lifts today after having taken the weekend off. Go big or go home.

I warmed up as follows:

800m Run - 4:29
10 pull-ups
20 sit-ups
20 push-ups
20 squats
10 dips
15 30# KB
5 x 135# Dead Lift

Today, the goal was to get a PR and also to increase my PR for the pronated grip as well as mixed grip - using my lifting hooks only when I didn't think I could lift any more otherwise.

So, using pronated grip on both hands (working on the hook grip) I did the following:

225-275-305-330

My previous record before going to mixed grip was 305 - so this was a new record there by 25#. The success didn't stop there, as the new PR here was already a tied PR for my mixed grip.

I only did 1 lift mixed, using my left arm for the supine grip - 365#. When I finished my left and paused at the full up position, I felt that the bar was starting to slip out of my hands - but still a PR by 35#. I then switched to my lifting hooks and continued on.

I went to top my previous PR next, which was 390# and loaded 395# on. This went up quite a bit easier than I expected, considering how slowly 390 had gone up when I set that PR. Since it was so much easier than last time around, I decided to go for a big jump and loaded all weights 25+ that were available -

45# bar + 6 45# plates + 2 35# plates + 2 25# plates.
So (7*45)+(2*35)+2*25)=435#

This was an extremely tough lift. I only got the bar 4 or so inches off the floor before it tried to stop going up. The rest of the trip up was more of a series of stop and start again than a good lift - kind of like a slow chatter to the top. However, letting out a groan, I managed to lock out at the top of the lift.

So my new PR, up 45# from 390 on October 26 is 435#.

I finished off the workout with 225x10 so I could stress my grip a little more and as more or less of a cool down. Then I did a little light KB work - overhead presses, a few swings - 2 & 1 handed, and then just some back and forth swings to stretch the muscles in my back.

I can tell my back will be sore and tired tomorrow. I'm thinking I may go for a max bench, so as to do something that won't cause me to over strain my back and lead to an injury.

Found this site:
http://www.brianmac.co.uk/weight.htm

He has a 1RM calculator at the bottom of the page which I used to look at the standards for my weight (now down to about 180) I used it to calculate the following standards:

Exercise: Novice: Experienced: Advanced:
Military Press: 110 137 163
Bench Press: 163 200 274
Squat: 219 268 366
Dead Lift: 273 314 436
Clean: 157 193 263

I can easily do the Experienced weight on any of these exercises. I can almost get the advanced on all of them as well - Dead Lift, I'm 1# short. Clean I have a little ways to go - 60# or so. Bench press I have 15-20# to make up.

Another brutal workout

So today I did a workout from 11/21 on the main site:

For time:
21 Hand Stand Push-ups (HSPU)
400m run
21 weighted pull-ups - 20# (WPU)
15 HSPU
400m run
15 WPU
9 HSPU
400m run
9 WPU

I warmed up with a nice easy 800m run - 4:52 and did some other easy exercises:
5 pull-ups
15 sit-ups
15 push-ups
15 squats
10 dips

I then moved into the workout. I've only just started doing HSPU - having cleared out a wall in my bedroom to kick my feet onto - I did about 200 over the course of the weekend, so I felt pretty prepped for this, despite that my lats and triceps were still a little bit sore.

So I found a spot in the gym to kick up on the wall (note to self - next time I can do it on the nautilus machine in the middle of the room - less chance of kicking my feet through the wall, and there is nothing above it to obstruct me).

So I started off with 10 HSPUs, rested and then kicked up and did 6 more, another rest and 5 to finish out. I'm inconsistent still getting up on the wall, which I need to workout - at least twice in the first round I had trouble getting all the way vertical kicking up and had to try again - wasting precious energy.

I then jumped on the treadmill and cranked it up to 12MPH for the run - finishing the 400m in 1:22.
I then grabbed my 20# weight with my feet and proceeded into the weighted pull-ups, knocking out 10-6-5-5. I managed to figure out how to kip with the weight, which made things easier. I finished the first round at 6:37. This looked pretty promising, since the remaining rounds should be shorter. I was aiming for 15-20 minutes total.

However, then I got into the second set of HSPUs. These were brutal. I knocked out 8 - then had a bit of trouble getting up onto the wall, I eventually got 1 more out free standing, without ever hitting the wall, but hitting vertical before falling back over, I managed to squeeze one in. I then tried, fruitlessly to kick up at least 6-7 times before finally catching a break. This was brutal, as it killed my arms, legs, and abs - and kept me in a position (arms shoulder width apart in front of me, one knee to my chest and one leg out behind me) that kept me from adequately catching my breath - while simultaneously straining a large collection of muscles.

Once I did get up, I only got 3 more in - but had less trouble getting up the next 2 times to knock out 2 and then 1 last HSPU.

I moved to the treadmill and knew I had to go slower as I was breathing a lot harder than the first round. I ran at 10 MPH and finished in 1:35 - barely finishing that.

I moved back into the pull-ups knocking out 5 at a time for the first 2 rounds, then 4 and 1 - finishing at 17:50. Wow.

I dreaded getting back into the HSPU position and knew I had to do something smart to make it through. It took me again, 2-3 attempts to get on the wall. I tested my stamina at 5 reps, and kept going - knowing my best chance was to knock out all 9 - which I somehow managed to do.

I jumped on the treadmill at 11MPH - but kicked it up to 11.5 and half way through. I finished this in 1:31. It took me 3 more rounds of pull-ups to finish out at 22:41.

This workout was killer. Loved every second of it - and I am sore all over from it. The sprints certainly didn't help the leg pain from the burpees/squats the day before. I guess I'll need to work on getting into position on the HSPU!

Go hard or go home!

Improvised PT

I was at my unit all by myself - and extremely busy with no help. I was completing an inventory turn-in, which included putting the gear into a portable pod. This pod was located at the end of a parking lot in a fenced-in area - about 100-150 yards away from my supply room. I was packing all my stuff into boxes or ruck sacks for the most part - which I ended up loading into my vehicle to transport. But there were a few items that I did not pack into boxes and only stacked in the transport module.

These items would have been wasted stacking in my vehicle, because I would have had to loaded them onto a cart to get them out of my supply cages - load them into the car, and then again unload them and load them into the pod. Instead I decided to handle them less times and pull/push my cart all the way to the cage with these items.

I did this at a high rate of speed - pulling the cart while running backwards - which resulted in a great thigh workout. On the way back, with the cart empty I either pushed the cart in front of me (glutes and hamstrings) or held it beside me in one hand as I ran. The alter resulted in a great abdominal workout as I had to work with them at full contraction while running.

That was basically my workout for the day - but I thought it was pretty good and inspired me with some ideas for relay races and etc. that I can incorporate into my unit PT.

Meeting with Fran

Fran had come up in the WOD on the main site - and I was looking to improve my time. So I decided to take a whack.

The circumstances were not ideal, the gym that I was in (military gym) only had a nautilus assistance pull-up station for pull-ups. This didn't work out well - I held the assistance seat down with a dumbbell - but the positioning of all the bars and etc. only left room for a dead-hang pull - which meant no kipping.

I warmed up with:
1 mile run (9:44)
5 pull-ups
30 sit-ups
10 135# bench press
30 2x3# DB squats
10 dips

I then waited for my heart rate to come back down a bit and started in on Fran:
Three rounds, 21-15- and 9 reps, for time of:
95 pound Thruster
Pull-ups

I ended up finishing in 7:48 - slower than last time.

I'm upset - hate to make excuses, but I think it was caused by the inadequate pull-up station.

Afterwards I decided to work on my sit-ups:
10 20# decline sit-ups @ 45 degrees
10 decline sit-ups @ 45 degrees
AMRAP sit-ups in 2 minutes - 71

The 71 is good - my feet were anchored, so there was a better hold than if a person was holding my feet as in the APFT - but I still didn't make 100% reps - granted I was 1 Fran and a bunch of decline sit-ups in.

All-in-all, good workout.

Revenge on Angie

So I got another go at Angie - a few days behind the main site WOD, due to the crick in my neck - but I wanted to take another whack at Angie, so I made the workout up.

I last attempted Angie on September 26th. On that day it took me 27:36 to complete:
100 pull-ups
100 push-ups
100 sit-ups
100 squats
In that order, completing each set of 100 before moving to the next exercise - taking as many sets as needed to complete the 100.

Today I used a little strategy and didn't go near failure before finishing the set. This way, I didn't go from 25 reps on the first set of pull-ups to 15 sets of 5 to finish.

So I warmed up as follows, mostly avoiding the exercises I would be performing:
1/2 mile Run: 4:28
5 pull-ups
15 30# KB Swings
10 Dips
5/side 30# KB WindMill

Here are the results, with the total count of completed reps at the end of each set:

Pull-ups - 10,20,30,40,50,60,70,79,80,87,90,95,100 - 07:10
Push-ups - 25, 50, 65, 80, 90, 100 - 11:40
Sit-Ups - 15,25,35,45,55,65,75,85,90,95,100 - 19:50
Squats - 40,60,80,100 - 22:50

I improved my time by 4:46 in a little over a month and a half - but produced a very large and ripped blister on my left hand during the pull-ups.

Clean and Push Press

I actually did this one a week ago now, but hadn't posted it. In fact, I have a few make-up days to get on here.

This was done on 11/12 - the main site WOD was 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 clean and jerk. I haven't done the jerk before, and didn't feel comfortable with steel plates/no bumper plate and unsupervised - so I swapped for Clean and Push Press. I stopped doing push press after failure, but continued doing cleans up to 7 sets of 1 rep.

I warmed up with:
1000m row - 3:39
10 overhead squats - 45#
10 pull-ups
115# clean and press x 5

I then moved into the exercise. My previous PR on clean was 175 and 165 on the push press.

I started out nice and light - 135.

I took, including swapping the weights around 2 minutes rest between attempts. I did 155 next pretty easily and moved to 185. This went up, but it was a good struggle - PR by 10# and 20# for clean and push press respectively.

I then moved to 195 - clean was no problem - but when I got to the push press, I didn't quite make a full lockout before I felt a severe discomfort, somewhere between a pop and a pinch in my left shoulder. A week later, this is still causing my neck to be stiff - not exactly sure what happened, but it didn't feel good.

So after that, I opted to just do cleans (yeah, yeah - I maybe should have stopped). I pulled off 205 fairly easily, so I thought - getting nice and low with the full squat. Afterwards, I got a little over-zealous and attempted 220. This didn't make it to the rack position after 2 attempts. The first attempt barely got beyond a dead lift position before I brought it back down - it didn't feel like it was going up, so I stopped and went back down.

I probably should have given my self some rest, but instead, just adjusted my footing and grip and went back in for another go. This time I almost got it all the way through, but just couldn't get under it.

I dropped the weight to 210 and tried again - again maybe a little too quick - and I failed again.

So my PR for clean stands at 205 and my push press at 185. Good improvement!

300 Results

Here is my result post for the 300 challenge:

After 3 months of training, at the beginning of which I failed to complete the 300 challenge - flunking out after 24 minutes or so, only half way through the floor wipers. Also, I'll mention that when I first attempted this routine, I used a standard bench for your bench press - thinking this was about 24". However, when I built my 24" jumping box, I realized it was no-where near 24" - perhaps 18-20" at best - so I was doing a lot less jumping than I ended up doing in the finale.

So anyway, here are my results - total reps; exercise; # completed for each set; finish time:

25 Pull-ups - 25 - 00:38
50 Deadlifts (135#) - 30, 20 - 03:20
50 push-ups - 50 - 04:18
50 Box Jumps (24") - 20, 15, 15 - 09:40
50 Floor Wipers (135#) - 20, 15, 15 - 18:00
50 KB Clean and Press (30#) - 50 - 21:35
25 Pull-Ups - 10, 5, 5, 5 - 23:55

So after finishing the floor wipers, which was my longest event (08:20), I took an additional 05:55 to finish the entire challenge. Last time around I quit out less than half-way through the floor wipers. This means that last time around I would have had at LEAST another 6 minutes to add on to my time - bringing my total over half an hour - and I would venture to say I would have added at least another 4-5 minutes on top of that, since that should be about how long the remaining floor wipers took me.

So we are looking at an estimated 10-11 minute improvement - or about a 33% improvement in stamina and strength endurance over a period of only 90 days.

You can also see results just by comparing the number of sets it took to complete each exercise - the original results:

Pull-Ups - 24,25
135# Deadlift - 17,30,40,50
Push-Ups - 50
Box-Jumps - 10,25,40,50
Floor Wipers - 15, 26
Stop.

My 1st pull-up and deadlift sets were cut in half. In fact, if you look at the deaflift, my first two sets got me to 30 reps in my original attempt - which is where I stopped on my first set for the second go.

The box jumps were only a 25% improvement in sets - but then again, the jump was 4-6 inches higher!
The floor wipers, I was only just over half done after 2 sets - dropping from 15 to 11 reps - this time around, I was done after 3 sets - completing no less than 15 reps per set.

I am extremely happy with my results. Granted, I think I will continue to work and perhaps try this again down the road - but getting down to it, this routine was no harder than some of the every day routines I complete with CrossFit.

I'm going to stay the routine. My last APFT was under what I had hoped and expected - especially on the run - so I will work on getting my run and sit-ups up to 100%. Once I have done that, I will do what I need to improve, or at the very least maintain - but I won't focus on them. That means more cardio (or really, anaerobic endurance and running) routines in the near future - probably whenever I don't have all required equipment available to perform the WOD.

My revenge for Cindy

Today I get to do a comparison post! My first Cindy can be found at Day 28 of the 300 Challenge, 8/25/2009.

Today I took my revenge on Cindy after 2 and a half months or so of CrossFit. As expected, I saw an improvement.

First time around, I completed 18 Full Rounds + 5 pull-ups + 8 push-ups in 20 minutes.

This time, I noticed a marked difference in my stamina - I was getting more out of the way more quickly and feeling less tired. I also was having no problem doing all reps for each exercise without any rest.

My results: 20 rounds + 5 pull-ups.

I posted last time that I did Cindy that 1 set per minute was a good goal - and CrossFit has helped me to achieve that goal - so I am happy with that. Next time I expect to do better - perhaps I can eventually reach 25 rounds? I'll probably try Chelsea before then - the same as Cindy, except you never pre-load your sets - do 1 set on the minute, every minute until you can no longer complete the set within the minute - up to 30 minutes. This would allow me to still hit the 20 in 20 that I got today, but keep going and try to keep the same pace for 10 more rounds - which would certainly help with stamina - then I can start working on speed.

Anyway, I found the results for 300 - I'll post those in a few under a new post.

Run Day

I have my results from the 300 challenge - I just have to find them so I can post them. In the mean-time, I'll go ahead and post today's workout.

Self Rx'd today - I did 3 intervals on the treadmill at 12, 11 and 10 MPH respectively holding the pace for as long as possible (distance/time).

Results:
12MPH - .5 mile - 2:32
11MPH - .39 mile - 2:14
10MPH - .36 mile - 2:15

Times of course included acceleration. Total: 1.25 mi in 7:01.

Rest time was just until my heart rate dropped down to the same rate it was after my warm-up (approx. 140).

This was a good workout and IMHO seemed to be just about as daunting and effective as a tabata run.

Before this, I warmed-up with:
1/2 mile run - 4:54
10 pull-ups
30 sit-ups
25 push-ups
20 squats
10 dips

As I got my results from my recent PT test, I am going to be doing a lot of CFE style runs until I can get my 2 mile run time below 13 minutes - preferably 12:30 or so, so that I'm safe on a bad day. I'll also be ensuring that I continue to include high rep sit-ups in my warm-up. I may even start putting a set of sit ups at the beginning and end of my warm-up, e.g.:

25 SU, 10 Pull-Up, 20 squats, 20 push-ups, 25 SU, 10 Dips

This way I end up with more sit-ups total and don't do any sets that are particularly stressful. Other than that, I'm going to basically keep with the CrossFit WODs. In fact, I'll likely make up Friday's:
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
65 pound Power snatch, 12 reps
10 Push-ups

And today's Cindy

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.

300 - Day 91 - Dead Lift

I wanted to make up the 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 Dead Lift posted on the main site on Saturday, so I did that today as the main site had a rest day anyway.

So I warmed up as usual and then stacked the weights. I decided to start out with 225, because I don't have bumper plates available, so its hard to get extra 45s on without racking the bar, which interrupts the workout. With 225, I can stack well over my previous PR using just the 35s, 25s, 10s, 5s and 2.5s. I actually got some lifting hooks for after my grip gives out on the bar. I lift as much as I can with a raw grip and then rather than switching to an alternating/mixed grip, I switch to the hooks - though I may go higher with mixed grips as well in the future, though usually I will workout with less than what I can lift with a regular grip.

That said, here was my progression -

225
275
315 (previous PR with regular grip)
335 - had to use hooks, failed without
345 - previous PR
365
375
390!!

The previous PR was with alternating/mixed grip and this time around it was hook from 335 up. Next time I go for heavy dead-lifts, I'll use a mixed grip at least to 345 - and I'll do at least 2 reps with mixed grip, one with left supine and right prone and one vice versa.

The 390 was HEAVY. This came up SLOW. But I was really happy to hit it. Next time around I plan to hit 400 - but I'll need to do a lot of lower weight work first! I can't wait until my next Linda, when I can do it as Rx'd (290)!

300 - Day 90 - APFT Test

Unfortunately yesterday's PT test was moved to today - so taking both Thursday and Friday off was kind of unnecessary - despite that I'm sure it helped the tight neck muscle. I ended up doing a little bit of light skill work last night, having not done any exercising in 3 days, I really just couldn't help it with a gym readily available - I was sleeping at the reserve center with a gym all to myself. I practised the snatch and cleans.

Anyway, I had my PT test today - back in April before starting CrossFit, I did 90 push-ups, 67 sit-ups and ran my 2 mile run in 14:06. I managed this score by basically focusing on these three movements (push-up, sit-up, run) for about 2-3 months prior to the PT test - greatly improving over my last score, especially in the push-up. Before this PT test, I was running 6 miles at least once a week, and shorter runs 2-3 times a week. I was doing lots of sets of max push-ups and max sit-ups and supplementing this with an average gym workout.

Today, without having emphasised any of these (I don't think I usually run once a week these days...) in the same 1:10 as I did before (I have 2 minutes, but don't use it) I completed 95 push-ups, which certainly could have been more - but I felt my abs getting tired and had the sit-ups to go. I improved my sit-ups to 74 repetitions in 2 minutes - and this felt a lot easier than my previous 67 which I struggled for - and my run actually slowed a little bit to 14:28. I partly attribute the run to not having anyone push me for most of the time. My last run, I was chasing two guys starting at about the 1/4 mile mark - this time I was out in front for almost the entire run - one of the guys that was out ahead of me last time around slowed his time and didn't catch me until the 1 and 1/4 mile mark - he had a much better second half than I did, keeping his splits within seconds of each other.

Anyway, it was an improvement overall, so I can't complain about the run. I will continue to work the CFE WOD into my routine to improve this - and in fact, I'll try to take another PT test in two weeks when I have drill again to see if supplementing the WOD with focus runs and sit-ups will help to get that 300 that I am now so close to obtaining.

300 - Day 86 - Tabata Treadmill pt II.

I didn't do yesterday's workout - which was Tabata Something Else - 8x20:10 for max reps of pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups and squats. I didn't do this for two reasons - one being that if I can gather the needed time, I will be putting my Army Reserve unit through this very workout this weekend. It'll be easier to do this if I don't have to try to keep my own time - and I get to torture my troops with a good workout, which is an added bonus.

The second reason being that my neck was still rather tight. I even ended up taking asprin - which is not normal for me - to loosen the muscles up to help heal faster.

So I skipped yesterday and made up for it today with my return to the Tabata Treadmill workout. I had already been planning to do this today - and then as luck had it, the CFE site had the same workout I had been planning. The minor variation was that instead of 20:10 intervals, it specified 30:20 intervals at a 12% incline. This sounded good to me - so that's what I did.

I learned my lesson last time, stating at a 6:30 pace - so this time I put the speed at 8mph, or a 7:30 pace. This ended up being almost tolerable for the entire distance. I ended up needing to drop the incline to 10% for the last two rounds - but otherwise, it was a much better experience than last time. I grabbed the handles at the end of the last interval and it measured my heart rate at 189 - wow.

I'll use this same pace next time around until I can complete all rounds as Rx'd - and then I'll think about increasing the speed.

300 - Day 84 - Weighted pull-ups

Finally felt good enough to get back to the action today. A good day for it too - WOD is weighted pull-ups - 1-1-1-1-1-1-1

So I weighed myself in at 183.6# with my shoes and clothes - making note of this so that I can reference it for the same workout in the future. I then warmed up as follows:

1/2 mi run on 2% incline: 4:41
20 push-ups
40 sit-ups
15 dips
20 squats
2x5 pull-ups with body weight (strict dead-hang w/ full ROM)

I then strapped 2 10# ankle weights to my ankles - which I was really hoping I would need - and then grabbed my 30# kettlebell for rep 1.

Rep 1 was 50#.
This was fairly easy, so I got a 45# dumbbell, keeping the ankle-weights on and knocked that out. Again, fairly easy. My 7 reps ended up going like this:

50#
65#
75# (PR)
80#
90#
100# (f) - missed by 3-4 inches
100# - went neutral grip.

All strict, no kip, w/ full ROM:

I hung on for a good 5 seconds trying to muscle the failed rep out - but you know once you stop moving half-way up, you have no chance. Unfortunately, I strained a muscle in my neck trying to get that - as I spent those 5 seconds or so giving it everything I had from the muscle region - and my shoulders were still sore from the Hang Squat Cleans. Hopefully this feels better for tomorrows workout - but if not, then I'll have to rest again - I have a PT test coming up this coming weekend and only a few more days after that before I have my 300 test - so I don't want to exacerbate anything before either of those.

Anyway, hanging on to dumbbells with your feet is easier than expected - I only had up to 80# which ended up being my limit combined with the ankle weights - good thing I had those available - not sure what I'll do when I start being able to do more than 100... I actually think the ankle weights made it more awkward - though, they provided padding.

Cooled down with
5x20# weighted pull-ups
5 BW pull-ups
62 sit-ups - 1x max reps without rest - that 100% on sit-ups is in my reach.
500m row @ 2:03

300 - Day 80

So I ended up taking some more days off - still more sick than I thought and Fran didn't help the situation at all. Either way, the way I see it, its better to take a few days off to recuperate so that you can work at full intensity than it is to work a few days at less-than-your-best.

So I took my time off and waited for a good day to return. I thought today's workout sounded good - I even almost recommended it as a nice easy workout for someone at the office who is wanting to get into Crossfit - but keeps hesitating, being a little intimidated.

It's probably a good thing it slipped my mind. The WOD:
Five rounds for time of:
135 pound Hang squat clean, 15 reps
30 Push-ups

It didn't sound bad - but I should realise by now that those are the worst ones.

This was a brutal, brutal workout. I tried to do it as Rx'd - but after round 3, I knew I wouldn't be able to grip the bar long enough to complete another HSC - my forearms were that destroyed. So I lowered the weight to 115 and continued. To give you an idea, here are my times for each round:

Round 1 - 4:56
Round 2 - 12:18
Round 3 - 23:00
Round 4 - 31:00 (didn't stop the clock while I changed weights)
Round 5 - 37:50

With push-ups being a strong suit for me - I finished all my sets unbroken - you can tell how much work I need at the hang squat clean. I just didn't expect this to be as demanding as it was.

As I post this now (2 days later) my shoulders are BURNING still. I needed to ask my wife for a massage earlier - and even that was excruciating. My forearms are still sore and even my legs, which are my most powerful muscles are quite sore.

When I finished this workout, my pulse rate was about 160 - borderline on the cardio zone for my age - which just goes to show how demanding Crossfit is - nearing 40 minutes of cardio work with full-body heavy weight exercises.

If this workout comes up again any time soon, I'll definitely consider modifying the weight at the beginning of the workout until I can do this exercise less broken. I took both yesterday and today off because of the soreness - no symptoms of rhabdo yet though! Today though, I did do some running and monkeying around at the playground with the kids. Something to get the heart rate going anyway.

300 - Day 77

I took a few days off because of a cold. It was a real shame too - I would have liked to have run the 5K - I'm going to try and work it in on a day when I don't have the proper equipment available.

Today I decided to make up yesterday's WOD - after missing the 5K, the next day was a rest day and yesterday was Fran. I've seen people post times for Fran recently and wanted to give it a shot. I've done Fran before with a time of 7:37. I've seen times posted as low as 4 minutes or so - so I wanted to make a fairly drastic improvement.

Fran sounds quick and easy:
Three rounds, 21-15- and 9 reps, for time of:
95 pound Thruster
Pull-ups

The trick though is doing the Thrusters in a full squat. Thinking back, I'm sure my first Fran was probably closer to a push-press, where instead of going into a full squat, you simply do a power position. This severely decreases the power output.

So with that in mind, this time around, I was doing full ass-to-grass squats - still hoping for a time improvement. But today wasn't the day. I was apparently still more sick than I thought as my respiratory system just wasn't cooperating and I finished with a time of 8:34. Almost a full minute slower.

Oh well - I'll get it next time around.

300 - Day 73 - Sumo!

The WOD for 10/8/09:
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
Row 250 meters
Sumo deadlift highpull 95 pounds, 21 reps
Pull-ups 15 reps

I have gotten in the habit of reviewing the older posts - the "compare to" date to see what I'm up against and to find an approximate average that I can strive to beat. In doing so, many of the workouts that I have compared, it looks like the average Crossfit athlete has improved. So for today's WOD, after reviewing the results from 05/25/2004, where the average rounds of completion was 4, I expected to see today's Crossfitters achieving 5-6 rounds on average.

After round 1, I realised I was sorely mistaken. I finished my second 250m row at the 5 minute mark. It's amazing just how quickly the Sumo deadlift high pull can crush your pull-up performance. Usually I can start my pull-ups off with sets of 15. Not today. After punishing my muscles with the SDLHP, I was only able to knock out 5 at a time. And that was kipping. I quickly realised it would be a feat to even finish 4 rounds - as while I was still fresh, I was barely ahead of schedule to do that.

However, I muscled through and finished round 4 with 19:43 on the clock - not even enough time to get my feet clipped in to start a new round of rowing. 20 minutes of punishment.
It's still amazing that nearly 3 months of this - and still, each workout is as demanding as was the first.

Crossfit is a way of life.

300 - Day 72

I did two workouts today - the CF main site WOD and the CFE WOD.

I came in early after seeing the two short workouts posted last night so I could do the CF workout this morning and to the CFE during lunch.

I warmed up with:
500m Row (2:28)
30 anchored sit-ups (explosive and fast!)
30 push-ups
15 squats
5 pull-ups
5 dips

I then moved into the WOD - Thrusters 1-1-1-1-1-1-1

I started out nice and easy at 95# and moved up liberally:
95-125-145-155-160(f)-160-170-185-195(f)

I did an extra rep at the end because the 160 was an accident. I had 45# and 10# plates loaded for the 155 and went to switch into 170 by adding a 5# and a 2.5# to each side.

Well, on the left side I accidentally unloaded the 10# plate first - so the weight was a little unven, causing me to fail the first time. I noticed that it felt off - but didn't heed my judgement. I just tried again with success. Once I put the bar back on the rack, I realized what was wrong!

The 170 felt good, but I didn't want to jump directly to 200, which is what I was aiming for today - so I decided to add the extra rep and knock out a 185 interim rep - which is probably a good thing, as I ended up decided between trying 190 or 195 (went for the 195 and failed) - but that gives me a lower failure to try to acheive for next time.

The CFE workout was a tabata treadmill run. This was my first tabata, which consists of 8 rounds of 20:10 (20 seconds work, 10 seconds rest). To do this run, you take your best 5K pace and add 30 seconds to the pace, run at that speed with the treadmill set at a 12% incline.

Being a fool and underestimating the workout, I used my best high school 5K time of 18:00 and set the treadmill for a 6:30 pace. I knew after 2 reps it was a mistake. After the 3rd rep, I had to slow it down. Again after the 4th, and 5th (resting 20 seconds after #5!) and finally stopping after the 6th rep when my pace was down to about 7:20. This was a seriously intense workout. I'll try this again in the future with a more conservative pace - probably more along the line of my current 5K pace, which is probably around 7-7:30/mile. I think I'll try a 7:30 pace.

Before this workout I warmed up with:
1/2 mile run (5:04)
5 pull-ups
30 sit-ups (again explosive)
20 push-ups
20 squats
5 dips
20 KB swings (30#)

300 - Day 70 - Muscle Ups?

Today's workout was 30 muscle-ups for time - or 120 pull-ups and 120 dips in any order.

I haven't done a muscle up before, but I figured I would try and if I could do any, I would just subtract 4 of each of the other exercises for each muscle up, and then finish the rest of the reps on pull-ups and dips.

But this didn't happen. It turns out that the bar at work (yeah - a bar, no rings!) was too close to the ceiling, so even if I could have done a muscle up, it wouldn't have been there. Next, the way the bars are set up was also not conducive to muscle ups - one set of 4-5" neutral grip bars, inconveniently spaced and a set of wide-grip, angled bar that only sticks out about 2-3 inches off the supporting bar.

So I had to opt for the pull-ups and dips.

I warmed up with a 1/2 mile run on the treadmill (5 mins even) followed by 15 GHD sit-ups, 20 push-ups and 20 squats.

I used more strategy in this than I usually have been. I started out doing sets of 10 for the first 4 sets of each. Then, I felt like I needed to drop down to 5, so I did. I did sets of 5 for quite a while. I ended up breaking this workout up a little bit - I had brought my KB in to work, because a co-worker had asked about them - and he happened to show up to the gym when I was about 80 reps of each in. So I showed him some basic KB moves while "resting" and then got back into my routine while he tried them out. I don't know how much time this took up, but it was probably a few minutes. Enough that my muscles were rested enough (when I hit 95 reps) that I was able to knock out a set of 15 and a set of 10 to finish up.

Even with the distraction, I finished at about 23 minutes - I didn't have my stop watch with me, so I was watching the wall clock. In the gym at work, the dip bars are also quite a way away from the pull-up bar, so I spent a lot of time walking too.

I'd like to do this again, re-positioning things and without distractions. I think I can do much better.