Tag Archives: Back Squats

Getting Strong

Lots of hard work again at CFCP last night. It’s amazing to see some of the advances that people are making. Here’s last night’s madness.

Stretches
50 GHDs/GHBE (25#)
50 Heavy Russian KB Swings (2.5 Pood)
3 mins of KB Complex (1.5 Pood)
Deadlift Protocol (415#/24″)
3×3 Hang Squat Cleans (135#, 155#, 175#)
4×3 Back Squat (305#, 315#, 325#, 335#)
4×3 Weighted Dips (20#, 35#, 40#, 55#)
1 StoF of Dips (9)
Hang on rope as long as possible (not long, didn’t time)

In other news, things have been good at the Goldstein house. Little miss Brenna did her first coloring last week. I am super proud and think it’s awesome =)

Brenna’s First Coloring first coloring .pdf

Work Capacity

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Do you haz it?

Stretches
50 GHD sit ups (1/2sies)
50 GHBE weighted
50 Heavy Russian KB Swings (40k)
5x(2 Hang Squat Snatch + 1 Power Snatch with OH) – 75#, 95#, 115#, 125#, 135#(F @ 2)
3×5 Back Squat – 285#, 295#, 315# (PR)
1 set to failure of 4s down back squats – 12 reps @ 195#
3×5 Barbell Row – 135#, 135#, 155#
1 set to failure of 4s down negative pull ups – 9
3x(20 DB lunges (30#), 10 Knees to Elbows)

TIRED.

This Week

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I didn’t get to be nearly as active as I wanted to this week. I usually try to get 3-5 workouts in. Great if I can do 5, but this week, I only hit the minimum of 3. Oh well. I felt really tired this week like my energy has just been sucked out of me.

We (my company) recently moved all of our equipment into the new datacenter, so Jose, Anar, and myself have been spending a lot of time there to work on the servers and configure them. Hopefully, soon, we won’t have to go back there so much. I think being in that windowless, loud server room all day zaps my energy.

We are still waiting on little Baby G to make his/her appearance. I don’t know who wants it out more, me or her, but it would be an understatement that we are ready to not be a pregnant couple anymore.

Monday, 4/11/2011: Skipped. Exhausted. Went to visit my grandmother while V was out with Paula.

Tuesday, 4/12/2011

Back Squats: 10 – 8 – 6 – 4 – 2 – 1 – 6, then 20 @ 50% of 1 rep max

Weights: 220# – 240# – 270# – 290# – 300# – 310# – 220# – 175#

I was pretty happy with this, but I was really sore for the rest of the week!

Wednesday, 4/13/2011

Dragged myself into the gym. I felt like it was a good day to face one of my fears, the 24″ box jump. The WOD was:

5 rounds:

15 box jumps
7 push jerk @ 155#
Rest 2 minutes

I have to say that I debated using 155#, but it turned out OK. I ended up getting faster on each round. My first round was the slowest b/c I messed up cleaning the weight, had to drop, then re-clean. After that round, though, I did all of the push jerks unbroken. The best part of it all is that now I can cycle my 24″ box jumps without fear! Added bonus, I beat the lunch class =)

Thursday, 4/14/2011: Had to go grocery shopping. No time.

Friday, 4/15/2011: Got to the gym, hung out with V for about 30 minutes then realized I could barely keep my eyes open. Looked at the weights and realized that this wasn’t happening. Sorry, Fio!

Saturday, 4/16/2011

WOD 11.4 for the CrossFit Open. Yay.

10 minute “AMRAP” (LOL, are you fucking kidding?!)

60 bar facing burpees (have to jump over the bar after each burpee)
30 overhead squats @ 120#
10 muscle ups

I took the burpees at a moderate pace so as not to gas myself out. I knew wasn’t going to get to the muscle ups, so I just tried to get as much done as I could. I ended up with 84 reps total. If I could do it again, I would focus more on squat snatching the weight after I dropped. Still though, I am happy with this.

I spent the rest of the day working on things that needed to get done around the house. I hung a little shelf outside out back window for the cats to use when they go outside through the window cat door, I cleaned our shower, I weeded out flowerbeds, and lastly, I built an HDTV antenna on the cheap that works WAY better then the crappy one that I PAID for. Check it out:

Maker Workshop – DTV Antenna & Steadicam on MAKE: television from MAKE magazine on Vimeo.

More Back Squats

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Last night was fun! I know that I usually just write about the workout, but since we did so much during out warm up, I’ll include that too!

Warm Up

Death By Double Unders: 10 – 20 – 30 – 40 – 50 – 65 unbroken (5 fails) – I got to the 30’s and got somewhere around 33. Couldn’t get 40s. Oh well.
30 pull ups – I practiced my butterfly kips here and they are certainly coming along. I can get about 5 consistently now.
30 ring push ups
15 burpee box jumps – These just suck. That’s all.
Stretching

Strength

Back Squat: 5 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 5 @ 75% of your 1RM. In my case, my 1RM is 345#, so 75% of that is 258#.

After a warm up set with 155#, I moved on and up:

195#
225#
245#
265#
275#

WOD

500m Row
25 GHD sit ups
25 GHD back extensions

I did this one in 8:03. The second I finished my first 500m, unhooked my feet from the C2, and stumbled over to the GHD, I immediately regretted my decision to use the GHD. When the WOD was over though, I was happy that I did b/c I think that doing it on the floor would have been too easy.

Wall Ball Fran & Back Squats

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It hasn’t really been a great week as far as getting workouts in. Between work kicking my butt on a regular basis and all of the things that we need to do still to get ready for out little one (getting the house ready to be painted this weekend among the most urgent), WoDs have sort of taken a back seat.

Tuesday, 3/8/2011

“Wall Ball Fran”

21 – 15 – 9

Wall Ball (20#)
Pull Up

My time was 5:28. My butterfly kips are still coming along. I think I make a bit more progress every time. Before the WoD, Fio, Chris, and I had an interesting conversation. We were wondering how this equates to regular “Fran”… 95lb thrusters vs. 10′ wall ball with 20#. We were wondering how the force and work required to do 1 95# thruster compares with the force and work required to throw a 20# ball 10′. If I were better at physics, I would figure it out =)

Thursday, 3/10/2011

“Death By Double Unders”

10 – 20 – 30 – 40 – 50 unbroken; 8 tries max

I completed my 30s, which is a first. Most frustratingly, though, I got to 39 then tripped on my last attempt. Maybe next time!

Back Squats with 100 GHD Sit ups & Back extensions between sets (total, not 100 between each)

8 – 8 – 6 – 6 – 5

My weights worked out to be:

185# – 205# – 225# – 245# – 265#

I broke the GHDs into sets of 25 in between. I am feeling this one today!

CFCP Total Finals

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The finals for the CFCP total challenge were today. I have to say that I was really apprehensive about it as I didn’t get 6 full weeks of working out in due to travel. Also, I haven’t really been working these lifts. On top of that, I slept horribly last night.

Anyway, I decided that I would just give it my best and do whatever I could do.

We started with back squats, my least favorite of the three lifts. I started with 335# which was where I ended last time. No problem. Then, I went up to 345#. Again no problem. For my last set, I was going for 355#. I grabbed the bar, racked it, stepped back, got down, the as I started pushing back up, I heard a very loud POP in my lower back.

Ouch.

Josh helped me dump the weight and I immediately laid down. Robin came over pretty quickly and had me do a few stretches, press ups, etc.

It didn’t feel horrible, but I was pretty sure I was done for the day. I could probably have done the strict presses, but there’s no way I was dead lifting 445# in that condition. I would have just injured myself further.

The worst part of this all is that my mother and grandmother came to watch this. In being a member of this gym and doing this stuff for about a year and a half, I have rarely injured myself. The worst that’s really happened to me thus far has been muscle soreness.

Oh well. It’s a sport, after all and sports will have injuries from time to time. I guess we will just need to see how long this one takes to get better. Right now, it’s iced.

I was really disappointed that I had to leave. I am really proud of the rest of
my friends that went on, finished, and showed incredible progress over the course of the 6 week challenge. You guys rock and inspire me.