Wednesday, March 7, 2012

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!

Monday, March 5, 2012

March 5, 2012

Crossfit321 for breakfast :)

3-5-12 WOD

A.
Shoulder Press 5 @ 65% – 5 @ 75% – AMRAP 85%

B.
Push Press 3-3-3

C.
5 min AMRAP:
10 pull-ups
10 ring dips

Rest exactly 3 minutes, and then . . .

D.
7 min AMRAP:
300 meter Row
30 Double-unders
10 Toes to bar

For my shoulder press I went: 115x5, 145x5, 175x1
Not sure if I didn't rest enough between sets, or if my shoulders were still shot from Friday - either way, this is far less than my usual 1RM (185#). Maybe I just need some more pressing work! Also just realizing my math was wrong - whoops.. I thought it had been 115x5, 135x5, 155x1 - but just realized I used 15# plates after the 35# plates... and re-did my math and found I was using 10# for my math.

Push press was done at 145, 145, 155.

For Met-Con 1 (C), I had the (so far) best performance of the day, getting through 4 rounds and 16 reps (10 pull-ups + 6 dips. For the pull-ups I used the fat bar, which I don't think is intended for pull-ups typically, but I want to work on my grip for DeadLifts, to eliminate that as my failure point for my 1RM. I was a little weary at first, as this was my first pull-up workout since I strained my bicep a week and a half ago (did I mention that?). But there were no worries needed, it held up just fine, and no pain several hours later.

For Met Con 2 (D) I didn't have quite the same success; being the only one doing double-unders (30) instead of 90 single unders. I was a little slow, as my double-unders were neither pretty nor efficient. I ended up only completing 1 round, and getting through about 24 double unders in the second round, where everyone else was just moving into the 3rd round. Granted, we also had lots of people scaling the TTB as well as the double unders. Either way, my performance was among the worst of the day so far.

Good news is, I just recently purchased my own speed rope, so hopefully I will be getting better there - maybe I should bring my own next time, as the one I was using was rather badly kinked up, and may have contributed somewhat.

Saturday, March 3, 2012

March 2, 2012 - CrossFit 321

Went into CrossFit 321 (www.crossfit321.com) and signed up for a monthly membership.
WOD:

Warm-Up (I did 500m row, some ring dips, pull-ups, shoulder dislocates, Samson Stretch, then some foam rolls)

Strength:
Squats 5@65%, 5@75%, AMRAP@85%

This looked a little daunting, having done squats the day before, but luckily I only went up to 315x5 :). I used 475# for my calculations, being that this is the most I have done for one rep, so my weights were 305#, 355#, and 405#. My strength ended up looking like this:

305x5, 355x5, 405x9

This is by far the most reps I have done with this type of weight on my back - and actually, the 1RM calculators out there suggest that my max for squat might actually be 515-525#. This is exciting, because this means if I can cut to 175# without losing strength, I can get a 300% body weight squat - but that's 20# away, and it's unlikely that I will maintain my strength.

For the metcon we did:
10 rounds, every minute on the minute:
95# push press x5
20# wall ball x10

I ended up making it 8 rounds, in the 9th I only got through 5 wall-balls.

This workout left me sore - having done squats the day before, and more today; then with deadlifts/double unders yesterday; with push press + wall ball today - my legs and shoulders/upper back are pretty shot!

Now it's time for a weekend of rest, and back to the gym on Monday.

March 1, 2012 - New Format

So my new format for workouts comes from my gym - CrossFit 321 (www.crossfit321.com). I'm trying to use the same format for my own workouts:

Warm-Up
Strength
Met-Con

The warm-up for March 1 was:
1000m row (3:55)
10 Over-Head Squats (OHS) w/ 45# bar
10 Hand Release Push-Ups
3 pistols per leg

For my strength, I made it a squat day, 4 sets of 5 reps:
135#, 225#, 275#, 315#

These were all "ass-to-grass" variety, meaning, I went down as low as I could, basically to where your butt is in-line with your ankles. I don't go this low with my heaviest lifts - for those I go just below parallel, but with my lighter weights I try to go as low as possible, so that as my max weight improves, I can do my previous maxes with this type of depth.

I would typically do (for MadCow) 5x5 starting at 225#, and working up to, e.g. 435# (on my last workout) - but although I have had some great success, I am breaking from that format in favor of a metcon based workout, as that is my current weakness.

My metcon was as follows:

21 Double Unders
21 DeadLifts (225#)
3/4 mile run
15 Double Unders
15 DeadLifts (225#)
1/2 mile run
9 Double Unders
9 DeadLifts (225#)
1/4 mile run

I don't have my times currently, but the first round was ~9 minutes even, and the second was pretty close to the same. My full time ended up being just over 23 minutes, right in the range of 5 minutes. This workout was pretty brutal. I ended up spending 1 minute just trying to get air back into my lungs at one point. I went pretty aggressively - my 3/4 mile (all treadmill, btw) was 5:55. My 1/2 mile was 3:55, and my 1/4 mile was about 1:37.

I'll definitely do this again. I dub this workout "Nasty Nate", not to be confused to the CrossFit hero "Nate" workout.

Progress

Alright, so I lied. I haven't made any posts in nearly a year and a half now.

Now that the bad news is over, the good news is, one of my goals has been met in this time - I have achieved a 300# Bench Press.

Unfortunately I have not also hit the 300 APFT Score (just yet). In October my score was 295, with my missing points on the sit-ups. I've decided to target abs pretty substantially, and since then, I have started doing the P90X ab-ripper X routine to increase my abdominal endurance, to hopefully increase my sit-up score on the APFT. However, since then I have also put off my running, and before my next APFT test, I think I need to do some work there. I actually have 2 300 goals to work toward right now.

#1 300 APFT Score
#2 300% bodyweight squat

I think these goals will actually work out well together, more on that soon.

So what have I been doing? Well, largely, StrongLifts 5x5 (http://stronglifts.com) although, once I realized I was already doing well above what I should be for this program (I used it as an opportunity to really work on my from), I have since switched to Madcow 5x5 (http://stronglifts.com/madcow-5x5-training-programs/). I got some really good results of this, including increasing my Bench Press to 300+ (I know I can do 300, but I'm not sure how much more). Based on last week's workout where I benched 275 for 4 reps, theoretically I have hit 305-309.

Anyway, now that I've updated I'll post my last two workouts.