Tag Archives: Push Press

Pushin’

Yesterday, Big Dave asked me if I could come in for a WOD. I think that he only wanted me to do a Tabata Run, but he told me to jump in on the strength WOD first. It was:

  • 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1: Strict Press
  • 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3: Push Press
  • 5 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 5: Push Jerk

My numbers came out like this:

  1 2 3 4 5
SP 115# 135# 155# 165# 175#
PP 135# 145# 155# 165# 175#
PJ 155# 165# 175# 180# 185#

I was really happy with these results and I think that next time, I will go for heavier weights on the push presses and jerks. V posted some videos of my last 2 sets of push jerks. In case you are interested, here they are. I don’t know which is which:

The above was followed up with a Tabata Run on the treadmill. Thank goodness Dave stayed there the whole time. I was breathing REALLY hard around round 6 and probably would have rested more if not for his coaching.

“Hell”en

Ah “Helen”… the last time we did “Helen” I didn’t Rx the KB swings and it took me just under 13 min. This time around, we started with a challenging warm up (our warm up is YOUR workout, right?) which was 3 rounds of:

  • 30 double unders
  • 10 push ups
  • 1 min hand stand hold

We then went to “Helen”. At the request of one of the coaches (the cutest one, by far), I started off with the 2 pood big boy. If you don’t know what “Helen” is, it is 3 rounds of:

  • 400m run
  • 21 KB Swings (2 pood RX+ (1 round), 1.5 pood Rx (2 rounds))
  • 12 pull ups

My time this go round was 17:44.

After this, we did a strength WOD of:

  • 5 – 5 – 5 push press

My weights were 95#, 135#, and finally 155#.

The good.

I did a little bit better at the double unders than I thought I would. I also did all minutes of the hand stands without breaking. The push presses went pretty well. I would have liked to have tried 165#, but I was really just done by the time we got there.

The bad.

“Helen” was rough. By the time I swung the 2 pood 21 times, I pretty much felt like I was DONE. After that first round, I went down to the 1.5 pood, but still came in just about 5 minutes longer than my previous “Helen” time. Suck.

Overall.

I felt really good up until I finished those 21 KB swings. After that, I was mentally finished. I am not sure how, I even finished the WOD.

Whirlwind WOD Update

Here’s all of the workouts that I missed blogging since my last depressing update…

Wednesday, June 2nd, 2010 @ CrossFit 2717 in Jackson, MS.

3×3 Hang Snatch (Ended with 135lbs)

Then…

5 rounds:

  • 10 KB Swings (1.5 pood)
  • 200m Sprint

Rest 1 minute between rounds. Total time was 9:10.

Then…

  • Run 400m
  • Row 500m
  • Run 200m
  • Row 250m

My time was 7:10.

I felt really good during these WODs. The 1.5 pood KB didn’t seem hard to swing at all! Maybe a little bit of time off was good b/c I felt really happy with my performance here. The only bad thing that happened was that my hand ripped during the warm up while I was doing pull ups. Since I hadn’t been doing them for long (due to my elbow), they were easily ripped. OUCH!

The owner of CrossFit2717 was incredibly nice. Their box was great and it was a lot of fun to work out with them. If you are ever in the Jackson, MS area, check them out!

Tuesday, June 8th, 2010 @ CrossFit 215 in Philly, PA.

3×5 Push Press (Ended at 135lb)

20 Min AMRAP:

  • 7 pull ups
  • 10 box jumps

95lb snatch on the minute no matter what you are doing.

10 full rounds plus 4 pull ups.

This was a really hard WOD. Again, pull ups. Argh. My OTHER hand ripped here and my rip from Jackson, MS, just got worse. It was 20 minutes of constant hand pain. Yes, I know, get some gloves.

Don’t want to sounds like a broken record here, but the people at CrossFit 215 were really nice. The owner was a great guy who was very welcoming and helped me and V through the warm up as it was mostly gymnastics based and unfamiliar. I apologize for the mental picture of me doing anything gymnastics related. I would highly recommend checking this box out if you are ever in the area.

 

The following 2 WODs were at the Black Box in NYC.

Thursday, June 10th, 2010

5 – 5 – 5 – 5 – 5 Deadlift

I got 375lbs up 4.5x, but my last successful 5 reps was at 315lb.

These kinds of workouts make me giddy. I had really high expectations for this WOD. Although I didn’t completely meet them, I am still happy. I really wanted to get 375lb and I think I made too big of a jump from 315lb to 375lb. Despite the fact that “technically” my 5 rep max is 315lb, I still think that getting 375lb up 4.2x is really good and shows that I am getting stronger.

 

Sunday, June 13th, 2010 (this was outside and was not affiliated with CrossFit NYC)

4 mile run for Colon Cancer in Prospect Park, Brooklyn. My time was 43:27, in Vibram Bikilias.

I made some bad decisions right before this run. I don’t think I got enough sleep and well, I ate an entire huge ass bagel like a hour before the race. I felt heavy, weighed down, and sluggish through most of the race. My first mile was awesome though, because it was at a slight decline. Really easy to run.

There were lots of long, slight inclines too which don’t really agree with me. I had to take about 3 walk breaks too. Oh well. Maybe I’ll skip the bagel next time.

Wednesday, June 16th, 2010

Clean & Press Ladder

Do a 10 min AMRAP of 1-5 clean & press ladder (1, 1-2, 1-3, 1-4, 1-5). Rest 3 minutes, then repeat with a countdown of 10 minutes. You must reproduce what you did in your first set. For every 5 seconds over 10 minutes that it takes you to finish, you have to do a burpee pull up.

I got 3 full ladders plus the first 2 steps on in the first 10 minutes, then 3 full ladders plus 4 steps the second time around. I used 95lbs.

This was a FUN WOD! I loved this one! I think it was intended to be done with strict presses, which the coach told me about 3 minutes in. Since I had started with push presses, I just stuck with push presses. I really didn’t want to do any burpee pull ups, so I worked really hard to meet/beat what I did in my first set.

I have to admit that I am somewhat disappointed with CrossFit NYC. A WOD is a WOD, so we are still getting that but, well, the experience there is somewhat underwhelming. The coaches aren’t really THAT involved or, well, as involved as I have seen in the other boxes that we have visited. We met a woman there who went to the games that was REALLY nice. Probably the nicest person we have met there… anyway… she said that if we wanted better instruction, we probably needed to go to one of the other affiliates in the city or come to the morning/lunch class. I would like to that, schedule permitting.

You’re Pushing It

… well, I am, but that was all I could think of for a title.

Despite my (still) super sore legs and general malaise at the end of the day yesterday, I decided to drag my sorry ass to work out at the 5pm class. I checked the workout on the site and saw that there was no running. My spirits were uplifted slightly due to this AND the fact that I felt I could wear my Vibrams. When we got there, I was pretty nervous when Dave said “let’s go outside”.

I have never run in my Virbrams. Dave gave us the choice of either a Tabata sprint OR “Death By 10 Meters”. I lobbied for Tabata sprint, because that’s a 4 minute thing as opposed to potentially 20+ minutes for DBTM. It was effing cold out and I wanted to get back inside ASAP. Tabata sprint it was.

My first few sprints were great, actually. Wearing the Vibrams is a constant reminder for me to try to POSE and not smash my heals on the ground. I did smash my heals a few times and I quickly switched back to POSE. It also helped that I kept hearing Dave scream “PULL! PULL! PULL!”.

When we got back inside, the workout was:

3x

  • 40 push press (65lbs)
  • 30 squats
  • 20 ring dips
  • 10 double-unders

Looks simple, eh? I don’t know what I did to deserve this punishment, but I finished it in 15:33. I hear I still beat a 55 year old man by about 18 seconds. Thank goodness =).

The push presses were, surprisingly NOT the hardest part of this thing. They were challenging, yes, but the ring dips were by far the things that made me want to throw a tantrum, throw up, then quit. Johnny U didn’t so I guess I couldn’t either.

The squats went by pretty quickly. I did my first set unbroken, my second set in breaks, then, with Chad’s coaching (i.e. “Do this set unbroken, don’t stop, I don’t care if it hurts.”) my third set unbroken. Nice.

I did my first set of ring dips 1-3 at a time with some kipping to mostly full reps. The rest of the sets were pretty much me jumping up and holding myself for a second or 2 before crashing back down to the ground. They seemed never ending.

The double-unders also got me frustrated. I did the first set of them alternating between singles and doubles, only counting the doubles. The next two sets were 30 singles. I tried a bunch of times on the second set to get a double under, but just couldn’t do it. Oh well, I guess I need to practice those.