Tag Archives: Heavy Metal

More Workouts

Saturday 9/4/2010 – CFCP (CF Total Challenge)

I can say with a high level of certainty that I totally did not feel like doing this WOD. I was really tired from being up the night before and honestly, I didn’t feel like I “got going” until we got to dead lifts. During the squats, I felt like I was going to fall asleep between attempts.

I am really happy with my numbers. I think that if I focus on technique, I can bump my squat up some. Also, I didn’t hit my PR on the press, which is 175#.

Here’s how the numbers came out:

Squat	335#
Press	165#
Dead Lift	445#
Total	945#

Monday 9/6/2010 – CFCP (Labor Day Free WOD)

Ah, the baseball WOD. I have heard about it, but never actually did it. This was a slight variation, but still fun and actually a hell of a lot more work that it looks like.

10 pull ups
10 burpees
10 squats
10 sit ups
400m run

I ended up with 4 total rounds as I started my last run right as the clock had about 10s left.

Wednesday 9/8/2010 - CFCP

I was looking forward to this WOD all day. I love barbell stuff and this one looked right up my alley. The WOD was very 90 seconds, do 2x of:

3 hang cleans (155#)
3 box jumps

I was really apprehensive about Rx’ing this one as 155# is a lot for 60 hang cleans. I think I did really well for the first 4-5 rounds. After that, though, I started lapsing on the 90s round limit and just proceeded as needed. There was supposed to be a strength WOD after this one, but I had nothing left and didn’t do it.

Thursday 9/9/2010 – CFCP

I was itching to do a WOD today. Life’s been so incredibly stressful and these WODs are literally keeping me sane. I saw this one on the CFE blog and thought I’d give it a whirl. It was 4 rounds of:

10 KB Swings (1.5 Pood)
25 double unders

This took me 8:45. The swings weren’t really bad. Most of my crap time was spent on double unders. They are getting better, but they still are not my best skill. I am starting to be able to get strings of 4-8 at a time.

After the above, I did a quick little strength WOD to help work on my total:

Strict Press 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 (95, 115, 135, 155, 165(F))

Friday 9/10/2010 – CFCP (Heavy metal Night)

Have I ever mentioned how much I LOVE heavy metal night? Granted, by about 4pm on Friday, I am ready to pass the hell out, but I always have this to look forward to. Over the course of the night we did:

5x 1 minute OH Squat Hold
2x 3 Split Jerk @ 70% (135#, 155#)
5x 3 Split Jerk @ 75% (185#)
6x 5 Romainian Dead Lift (185#, 185#, 225#, 225#, 225#)

Saturday 9/11/2010 – CFCP (Open Gym)

My heels and the inside of my calves right above my heels have been hurting quite a bit lately. I think it’s from my shitty form on double unders. You know, your feet constantly smashing into the ground probably isn’t a good thing.

At any rate, this was a team WOD, but everyone had to do everything.I partnered up with Paula for a strategic fireman’s carry. Hehe.

Jason made this WOD to honor the 411 first responders that died at the World Trade Center 9 years ago today. He called it “The 411” as there’s a rep/meter for every one of them that perished on that day trying to help people. He gave a great speech before the WOD. It was:

50 wall balls
100 double unders
50 box jumps
200m fireman’s carry
11 HSPU

Paula and I finished this in 23:<something>. I don’t know the exact time. My lower legs started hurting so badly after the double unders that I could barely do the box jumps (I stepped) then, the run… well I couldn’t. I walked as fast as I could after Paula. She used a med ball for her weight. I don’t think she could carry me if she wanted to. When I finally caught up to her, I carried her back. There was no running. How in the hell these guys pull people out of burning buildings is beyond me.

After the WOD, I talked to Mike for a bit about the pains I’m having and he recommended that I lay off running/jumping for a week or so plus do lots of stretching/rolling in the calf area.

Workouts for the Weak

Leave a reply

These past few weeks have been rough to say the least. While I am ecstatic to be having a baby, the amount of stress that I have been under both at home and at work with just the amount and then the traveling really is making me just fucking miserable.

I got my body fat assessment done again tonight and it was back up to what it was in July when I got back from my honeymoon (22.4%). What was weird was that there was a 6mm increase in one of the measurements. We are going to do it again tomorrow morning just to be sure.

I am not quite sure as to what has been happening. I have been continuing eating as normal, but in the past few months, I’ve seen the following:

inordinate amount of stress (read: cortisol)
excessive work travel (read: not idea food, but still as best I can also, not as much working out)
most likely not enough protein in my diet
not sleeping well. I can’t think of many nights that I got good, complete night of sleep.

This month, I want to focus on getting enough protein and finding a better way to deal with my stress. What I’m doing right now… it’s not working.

On to the workouts.

Monday 8/30/2010 – At home

I, for some reason, wanted to do something with my kettle bell at home. I decided to do a “Helen”-like workout. It was 3 rounds of:

400m run
21 one-handed kb swings (21 each arm, 12kg)
12 burpees

I clocked in at just under 16 minutes at 15:59. I didn’t feel great during this one, but I did it. Eh.

Wednesday 9/1/2010 – CFCP

I thought this one looked fun and would give me a chance to work on double-unders, the bane of my CrossFit existence. It was 4 rounds of:

10 ring push ups
25 double unders
Red Stripe Run (200m)

I got the worst time of the day with 13:15, completely due to my inability to double under. They still make me really fucking mad, but I am working hard to not get frustrated with them. Trevor tried to help me out a bit after class, and really, I just need to practice.

Friday 9/3/2010 – CFCP

Heavy metal night… we did snatches, 6×3. I started with 95#, the 135#, then 155#. I felt really tired an sluggish. I was falling asleep at my desk around 4pm, so I wasn’t feeling stellar to begin with. Once I got the body fat assessment done, I was just really discouraged for the rest of the night… and still am.

Week Ending Workouts

Leave a reply

Thursday 8/5/2010
I didn’t go to CFCP, but V thought it would be a good idea for me to do this one at home. It was 5 rounds of:

400m run
21 burpees

This one took me down in 22:59.

The Good.

I can’t think of a single good thing that happened during this WOD. Maybe that I didn’t have to walk at all.

The Bad.

Pretty much everything. I was slow as hell on my runs and on the burpees. It was hot as fucking hell outside and really, I’m lucky I even finished this one.

Overall.

Terrible. Just terrible. My energy was gone about 5 minutes in.

About an hour later, I decided to go to the Free class at the new box with V to work on whatever. When I got there, Fio had them doing a WOD that I couldn’t really pass up… another 5 rounds of:

7 Dead lifts @ 225#
21 Double Unders

Although I was really trying for a better time, I finished this one in 9:05 .

The Good.

The dead lifts were cake. They got a bit more challenging in rounds 4 and 5, but they weren’t bad. I did 3 rounds unbroken, then took 1 break rounds 4 and 5.

The Bad.

Double unders… ah double unders… They are starting to get better. In the beginning, I was stringing 3-5 together, but as time went on and I got more tired, they started being 1-2 at a time.

Overall.

Eh. Really good on the deads, really bad on the DUs, so it’s sort of a wash.

Friday 8/6/2010 (Heavy Metal Night)

There was no WOD for this class. We started with the Burgner warm up, as usual, and then moved into working on just muscle snatch, then hang snatch. I got up to using about 135#, but quickly dropped it back down as I got fatigued very quickly.

Saturday 8/7/2010 (Open Gym)
Carson had us start open gym out with some “Bottom to Bottom Tabata” squats. This sucks every time. I got 100 on the dot.

After that, we split up into 6 teams for the WOD. Everyone had to row at least 500m for a total of 7k. When you weren’t rowing, you had to do 7 squats. The total number of squats was one score and the time to row the 7k was the other. I think between the bottom to bottom Tabata and the main WOD, I ended up doing somewhere around 350 squats.

7’s and Heavy Metal

Leave a reply

On Wednesday (7/28/2010) of this week, we did a really fun WOD. It was 7 rounds of:

7 Sumo Deadlift High Pull (95#)
7 Ring Dips (no assist)

My time was 5:47 (very proud of that). We followed that up with a Tabata run. After we rested for a a little while, I decided to do 2 five minute intervals on the C2, just for funsies. In the 10 minutes on the rower, I got 2343 meters total (1163m + 1180m).

The good.

I felt great during the first WOD. My energy level was high, the SDHP’s were cake, and the ring dips, although challenging, were doable. The rowing was pretty good too. It’s good to do longer intervals, I think, so that you can working on stroking efficiently (let the jokes begin).

The bad.

Although I said the ring dips were good, they were still really difficult and I think that I started to loose a bit of the ROM towards the end as my chesticles started to fail. The tabata run sucked hard b/c I had my converse on. I hate running in them. I feel like I am running in clown shoes.

Overall.

Overall, it was a great night. I was very proud of how I performed.

Tonight (7/30/2010), we hit up another heavy metal class where the WOD was simply to find your 3 rep, 2 rep, and 1 rep max clean.

Things were going well. We started with about 95# to warm up, then moved to 135#, 155#, 185# (all 3 reps), then #205. As I was going for my second rep of 205#, I missed my front rack when I caught it in the squat and it pulled my fingers back really hard. I ended up dropping the weight and didn’t do another rep. To be exact, I tried a rep with just 65# to see how it felt and it hurt, so I decided to stop for the night.

The good news is that I cleaned my former 1 rep max twice with little problem, so, I suspect when my hands are feeling better, my max will probably now be higher.

My hands still hurt this morning, though.

In other good news, I had Dave measure my body fat again yesterday and here’s how it broke down:

Body weight: 219lbs (previously 221lbs, down 2lb)

Body Fat Analysis (caliper test)

Chest: 20.5mm
Abdomen: 34.5mm
Thigh: 22.5mm

Total Body Fat: 22.8% (previously 24.4% down 1.6%)
Fat Mass: 49.93 (previously 53.9lb, down 3.97lb)
Fat Free Mass: 169.07 (previously 167.1lb, up 1.97lb)

V is going to take my measurements again today so that I can see if they have changed at all. I doubt they have very much but I won’t know until she actually measures. At any rate, I am happy to see this progress, even if it is just a little bit. At least it’s in the right direction.

Weekend Workouts

Leave a reply

Heavy Metal night came back this week! I had missed it.

This class (Friday, July 23rd, 2010) was all about snatch. We started with the Burgner warm up, then moved on to lots of reps of this lift. Here’s the WOD that Dave had us do:

10 minutes – 1 snatch on the minute (I used 95# for about 1/2 then moved to 115#)
10 minutes – 2 squat snatches on the minute
5 minutes – 2 snatches on the minute + 5 burpees

I don’t really know how to measure work capacity over time for this one, but the weight felt good. I maybe could have gone a little heavier, but we hadn’t done lots of snatches in a while and it was nice to work on the technique.

It took me a little while to get comfortable with catching the bar in the squat position, but once I did, it flowed really well (I thought, anyway).

Saturday morning (July 24th, 2010), we headed over to CrossFit Leander’s open gym to workout with them and do sampling for Perfectly Paleo. I will be so bold as to say that I was tapped after the warm up, but pushed on so as not to appear a “wuss” with the following WOD:

21 – 15 – 9

Push up
Sand bag press (60#)
Sand bag step up (30″ (I think), with 60# sand bag)
400m run

This was followed up by a 135# sled pull up the driveway and back.. .which really sucked.

My time was in the 18-19 minute range. The idea was to actually have a few minutes of rest in between each round as there were stations and you couldn’t go until the station was free, but there were so few people using the station that I was at (the RX station) that I had no rest. Boo hoo. Suck it up.

What went well?

Push ups were easy. The presses were surprisingly hard. I had to consciously make sure that I wasn’t putting a dip in there and doing a push press.

What sucked?

It was hot out. Really hot out. This made it hard to run. The step ups were really hard too, but I got them done.

Overall feel.

Overall good. Again, it was really hot which made this whole thing just miserable.

Snatch Night

Leave a reply

I’m sure you are sick of reading these words, but I can’t really say it enough… It’s good to be back at heavy metal night. It’s still and by far my favorite CrossFit class.

This time we focused only on the snatch. We spent most of the class working with PVC on the different parts of the movement, then the movement all together. Near the end of the class, we did the following WOD:

Set the clock to 10 minutes. Each minute, do 3 snatches. On the last minute, do as many snatches as possible.

I got 12 snatches on the last minute which totals 39 total snatches in 10 minutes. Not too shabby.

What went well?

I used 95lb, so the snatches were not really too heavy. I thought about going with 115lb, but wanted to focus more on form as I have not done snatches in a while. I think for all 9 sets, I was able to do the 3 snatches in about 15 seconds give or take a few.

What needs improvement?

On the last minute, I think I could have done better on firing the snatches out. I was having a bit of hard time controlling the weight on way down to set up for the next snatch. I think if I could get this under control a bit better, I could have gotten more out.

Overall feel.

I will admit that I got off to a bit of a slow start getting the movement just right again, once I got it, I felt great during the whole class as well as during the WOD itself.

More workouts…

Leave a reply

I haven’t been great about writing workouts the day of. There has been a lot going on here and blogging has been the last thing on my mind. Sorry, no one’s perfect, but then again, I am sure that maybe only like 3 people read this.

Friday (5/14/2010) Heavy Metal Night

5×3 Squat Clean
5×3 Jerk
5×3 Clean & Jerk

This WOD was a LOT of fun for me, but I couldn’t use the Rx weight due to my still healing elbow. I used 65lb. It was not timed. Later, I tried some heavier clean and jerks with some higher weights and it felt OK, but I didn’t want to push it.

Saturday (5/15/2010), we took the Yoga class at Lululemon as we (Perfectly Paleo) were invited to bring food and talk a bit about our business. Yoga is rough and the class was pretty challenging for me.

Last night (5/18/2010), we had the pleasure of “Elizabeth” which is:

21 – 15 – 9

Squat Clean
Ring Dip

I didn’t Rx this one either. I used 95lb on the bar which wasn’t really all THAT tough. I also had to sub push ups for ring dips as they hurt my elbow. Thanks to some really good coaching from Chad, I finished in the 7:50ish range. I don’t remember my exact time, but I pushed really hard.

Chug-A-Lug

Leave a reply

It sucks to not be able to do workouts with heavy weight like I so love to do, but I am almost recovered. Still, I am keeping weights light on workouts that could possibly cause my elbow to flare up again. Patience… patience…

Last Friday (5/7/2010) was heavy metal night again. For me it was like, soft rock night, I guess. The real WOD was to do 10 muscle snatches, 10 burpees, and 10 pull ups, but that was too much of a risk for me given my elbow pains. Deric modified it to the following, which still sucked.

3 rounds, not for time:

10 snatch balances (95lb)
10 burpees
20 GHD Sit Ups

I did mess up a few of the snatch balances. It really is a lot about focus and core strength. You can’t really let your mind wander on these.

Saturday (5/8/2010), I helped judge and coach the Epic challenge preliminary round. It was great to see people push themselves and make really awesome break-throughs.

Tuesday (5/11/2010) Endurance WOD for distance:

Run/Rest

4 min/3 min
2 min/30 sec
1 min/3 min
2 min/30 sec
4 min

I named this WOD “Chug-A-Lug” because that’s how I felt while doing it. Running sucks… blah blah yadda yadda.

Wednesday (5/12/2010), still recovering on the elbow:

4 rounds

400m run
7 Barbell complex (dead left, hang clean, push press, back squat, push press)

Man, I wanted to go Rx on this one SO badly (135lb), but I tried a hang clean with just 95lb and I could see how it could start getting to me when I am tired and form goes to shit. I decided to play it really safe and go with 65lb. It was still a great WOD and I finished in 14:50.

One thing in particular that I noticed was the my first 400m was really easy. That’s REALLY abnormal. The rest of them weren’t too bad either.

Today’s endurance WOD looks horrible, but I guess you can’t cherry pick =)

End of the week…

Leave a reply

This weeks “Heavy Metal” class (Friday, 4/3/2010) was a lot of fun. Our friends from Ft. Hood (Centurion Crossfit), Amy & Donny came to work out with us. It’s always nice to have people from other places come down to visit and workout with you. It helps build the community which you are probably sick of hearing about.

We started out with the Bergner warm up, like we do every week. We went over some different snatch drills and the moved on to talking about the clean & jerk. For this class, we concentrated on the split jerk.

After going over drills with the PVC, it was time to start playing with some weight. We started out with a modest 65lbs to work on form. I have some flexibility issues going on in my upper arm/shoulder area that make it really hard for me to get the bar racked. I am working on this.

After working with 65lbs for a bit, we started upping the weight. I won’t bore you with the weights for every lift in between, but I eventually maxed out for the night with 205lbs. I was pretty happy with myself there. There’s a video somewhere, but it’s still on the flip camera, un-rotated, and unedited. By the time it gets on here, I will probably be pushing 300 =). P.S. There’s also a video of my falling on my ass and dumping like 155lbs or something. I told V that she can only post that one if it’s cut with some funny music and sound effects.

Saturday morning (4/4/2010), we decided to head on over to Crossfit Leander. We had met some of the people from there when we were selling at sectionals. They all seemed really nice. When we got there, surprise, everyone was super nice. I love that Crossfit is a douche-bag barrier.

The WOD that they had planned was pretty cool. We started out with a pretty lengthy warm up. It’s pretty much the same one that Crossfit Central does with some ladder drills thrown in at the end.

Once that was done, we had to find 3 eggs out in the area. Inside of each egg was a piece of paper with an exercise or “EGG-zercise” as they called it that day. These 3 movements made up your Tabata set. I drew box jumps, air squats, and pull ups. They had the Tabata sets as 15/15 (as opposed to the normal 20/10) as there are new people. The 15/15 is a bit less work and a bit more recovery.

I didn’t track my numbers but it was still a good workout that tired me out.

Our eating has pretty much been crap since about Friday. I feel pretty awful right now. I can feel swelling all over my body. My joints feel like crap. I am bloated and am producing some pretty bad smelling… well… never mind. You get it.

It’s weekends like this that make inspire me to get down and dirty with Paleo for a while before “cheating” again. I NEVER, repeat N-E-V-E-R feel like this when sticking to paleo foods.

There’s a lot of other stuff going too, but I am finally feeling sleepy again. No doubt, tomorrow being Monday will suck the life out of me, so I had better try and get some sleep to deal with it as best I can.