4/6/12 - "Jackie"

4-6-12

Strength
Front Squat 5-5-5 (go heavy, but not to failure. Place focus on coming up from the bottom quickly)
Bench Press 5 @ 65% – 5 @ 75% – AMRAP @ 85%

MetCon
“Jackie”
1000 meter Row
50 Thrusters 45/33
30 Pull-ups

For my Front Squats, I hit 135, 185 and 225# for 5 each.
Bench press was done 5@175, 5@205, and 6@235#. This was based on a 300# 1RM, but this set predicts only a 275# 1RM.

It's been a long time since I did Jackie September 1, 2009 and my time was 9:54.

Today I improved to 8:00. I started my row off not too aggressively, but definitely faster than the 5K pace that was suggested. I did the first 500m in 1:45, but then I slowed my pace and rested for the last 500m at a 1:55 pace, finishing at 3:50. For the thrusters, I ended up doing 3 sets - 25, 15, 10 - not much different from last time I did it, but probably with less rest, as this was done in about 2-2.5 minutes. The pull-ups were an improvement though - 15 butterfly to start, then about 6 more, followed by 2 regular kipping; and then I finished off the last 7 all kipping.

That's improvement! Even though my row was actually slower than the last time I did this, I finished the thrusters last time around with 7:09 on the clock, which is only 51 seconds than my total time this time around - so clearly a slower row is a better strategy, or my conditioning is better (or both!).

Fran + Official Warmup

I'm a little behind on posting my workouts - but I have still been doing them.
On 12/11 I got my revenge on my last failed attempt at improving my Fran time - and this time I did much better - though I'm thinking that until my metcon is improved more, it may be a good idea to bring some strategy to the table, even in such a short WOD.

I started out with my usual warm-up:
1/2 mile - 4:21
5 pull-ups
20 sit-ups
20 push-ups
20 squats
10 dips

Depending on the day, this is basically my "official warm-up", which is how I will refer to this warm-up routine from now on - with varying 800m times, or even with a 1000m row instead.

I then moved on to Fran which was last completed on November 21 with a time of 7:48, with a previous PR of 7:37. My goal was to beat that. Again, Fran is a progression of 21-15-9 of alternating 95# thrusters and pull-ups.

So I got my stop-watch started with 20 seconds to go before the hand on the wall clock reached the minute mark - this way I could get the bar racked and ready to start and subtract a known time from my time.

I started fast - real fast, finishing the first round in 1:28 with no rests. I paid for this a little bit in the second round, which I finished at the 4:38 mark - with 3:10 for the 2nd round - I needed to beat that time for the 3rd round - I needed a 2:59 to match my PR. Luckily this was a short round which helped mentally as well as physically. I pushed through the thrusters and then the pull-ups and finished in 6:17 - the last 9 reps were completed in 1:39 - slower than my first round, but much better than the second. I still have some work to do, but that was an improvement.

I cooled down with a 500m row.

Bench Press Day

Decided to give my back a rest today and lay on the flat bench with a series of heavy benches, in hopes of reaching a 1RM PR.

I started off with the warm-up as usual - skipping the pull-ups because someone was using the pulley devices at the pull-up station. So my warm-up went as follows:

1/2 mile run: 4:31
20 sit-ups
20 push-ups
20 squats
10 dips
10x135# bench press

I then moved into the main event - starting at 205#. I decided to start here and do an amount of reps that didn't bring me to failure, but gave me a good workout on each weight that I completed.

At 205# I did 5 repetitions.
I followed this by hanging off the chin-up bar to stretch my back muscles and decided to do a pull-up. I decided after each set on the bench I would do pull-ups - more than the previous set, but certainly not to failure.

I moved the bar to 225# and completed 3 repetitions, followed by 2 pull-ups.

I moved up to 245# - unsure whether I would be able to do 2 repetitions, as I had never done 2 reps at this weight before. But I pushed it out, feeling pretty confident after the first rep. I followed this with 3 pull-ups.

I decided to make a daring jump to above my 1RM PR of 260 and jumped to 265#. Of course, I didn't have a spotter, as usual and I was using a free weight bar, so I knew I had to be careful.

I pushed the bar off the rack and extended my arms all the way. I could tell pushing it off the rack that this would be a challenge. I brought the weight down and must admit that I changed my mind before getting all the way down - I probably had between 1-2 inches of clearance on my chest before I started pushing the bar up. Other than the less than full range of motion, I did get this repetition out. Next time around I'll working on getting my chest before pushing off. Until then, I think I will start doing some supplemental bench work after the WOD - perhaps in the 185-225 range, depending on how drained the WOD has made me.

After my 265, I did 5 pull-ups and then un-racked all but 135# and did 10 thrusters to finish off the workout.

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!

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.

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.

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 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