Tag Archives: Strict Press

SuperStrong

Bigg Dave started a new strength class at CrossFit Cedar Park called “SuperStrong“. We could NOT pass this up. It’s an 8 week class (2x/week) that focuses on making you freaky strong.

I haven’t really been blogging my workouts a whole lot as, for a while, I was happy just to get into the gym and move around. But now that we are doing more strength oriented workouts, I need to record stuff so I can gauge my weights.

Monday 9/19/2011

CrossFit Total – 3 attempts to find your 1RMs of:

  • Dead lift
  • Back squat
  • Strict press

Apparently, the starting strength stuff I was doing over the summer has had a pretty good affect on my capacity. My numbers worked out like this (holy crap!!):

  1 2 3
Dead Lift 425# 445# 455# (PR)
Back Squat 315# 345# 365# (PR)
Strict Press 155# 175# 180# (PR)

It was a good night, with a trifecta of PRs. My total was 1000 on the dot and it felt fantastic. I haven’t PR’d something in a really long time and it felt nice to show some progress SOMEWHERE.

My last successful CrossFit Total was back in October of last year and was 945# (445# DL, 335# back squat, 165# press). I have added 55# to it (10# DL, 30# back squat, 15# press).

Wednesday 9/20/2011

“We are going to get sore tonight”… he said as class started and… yes, he’s correct.

The workout last night was:

Hang squat snatch: 5 – 3 – 3 – 3 (75#, 95#, 105#, 115# (2, then lost grip).

Then,

  • 3×5 Front Squat, then 1 set of negatives
  • 3×5 Strict Press, then 1 set of negatives
  • 3×5 Dead Hang Pull Up, 1 set of negatives

Weights used:

  1 2 3 Neg
FS 225# 245# 265# 155#(12)
SP 155# 155#(4) 145# 135#(8)
PU Me Me Me Me(6)

I am pretty happy with all of this. My strict press seems to have suffered a bit, but it could be just fatigue, so I’m not really stressing about it. I really surprised myself with the front squats and the pull ups seemed pretty easy… not the negative… those were a bitch.

On top of all of this, the class runs from 645pm – 830pm, which is sort of hard with little Ms. Brenna, but, she has been SUCH a good baby and the people in the class have been so incredibly tolerant and helpful with her. I can’t thank them enough for not making us feel like we had the annoying baby there (I don’t think she’s annoying at all, but some people just don’t like kids).

Anyway… she has been a really good baby through both classes now and everyone in the class is awesome. This is why I love CrossFit and this gym. Thanks, guys (and gals)!

Filthy Fifty and Dead Hangs

Friday, 3/25/2011

Ah, the “Filthy Fifty”… this brings back some bad, bad memories… the last time I did this WOD, I couldn’t do double-unders, knees to elbows, and I pretty much sucked wind the entire time. I think that I even asked Robin if I could do more than 45# on the push presses b/c “Trevor said to”. Ha.

This time around was much different. Again, here’s what the “Filthy Fifty” is:

  • 50 Box jumps
  • 50 Jumping pull-ups
  • 50 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood
  • 50 Walking Lunges (50 steps)
  • 50 Knees to elbows
  • 50 Push press, 45 pounds
  • 50 Back extensions
  • 50 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball
  • 50 Burpees
  • 50 Double unders

My time this time around was 29:42; ~7 minutes better than last time and most importantly [to me], UNDER 30 minutes!! The big difference here from last time was that I can now do double-unders and for some reason, the K2E’s just clicked and was able to get the rhythm. Don’t get me wrong.. this is a miserable 30 minutes. The burpees were by far the worst. They felt like they’d never be over. 

Monday, 3/28/2011

Tonight’s WOD was FUN! It was:

5x

  • 5 strict pull ups
  • 7 strict press @ 95#
  • 15 air squats

This took me 4:44, WAY less time than I thought it would. So, thanks, Fio! I guess those extensive warm-ups really DO help!

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.

Game Changer

Do you ever have things in life occur that you would call game changers? Sure, I’ll bet everyone does. There was a great example of this yesterday at CFCP.

Yesterday was a particular stressful day for a number of reasons. I wasn’t planning on working out, but when 5pm rolled around, I thought it might be good to relieve some stress.

Earlier in the day, I had checked the blog and saw the WOD. It looked short, quick, and fun. When I got to the gym and saw the board, well, that was a game changer. See, whoever wrote the blog (DAVE), didn’t mention that the WOD was THREE ROUNDS… not just a straight through mini-chipper thing.

Review. One round, quick, fun. Three rounds, horrible.

Ay.

Immediately, the thoughts of “I don’t want to do this” and “this is WAY more work that I was expecting to do today” started. I tried to squash them. The actual WOD was THREE rounds of :

  • 50 push presses (65#)
  • 40 kb swings (1.5 pood)
  • 30 sit ups
  • 20 push ups
  • 10 ring dips

Imagine one round. Sprint, just get it done. Now, imagine three rounds. 150 push presses? 120 kb swings?! That’s a lot of work. It took me 27:05 to get this done and I was sucking wind the entire time.

What went well?

I think that I kept a pretty good pace throughout. The weights weren’t really that heavy.

What sucked?

Took lots of breaks, but tried to keep them short. The first 15 sit ups every time were horrible for me. It was like my body was overloading from the KB swings, then I lay down and it took a few to re-stabilize.

Overall.

My energy level was pretty good until about the end of the second round. I am not sure where I pulled the third round out of, but, hey, at least I finished.

 

Prior to this, we did a 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 – 1 strict press. My weights were:

  • 135#
  • 145#
  • 155#
  • 175#
  • 185# (F)
  • 180# (F)

So, a 175# strict press is pretty good for now.

Rowing and Presses

I went to CFCP last night to do an endurance WOD. I took the one right off of the CFE website:

  • 10 x 30s all out sprints (on the C2) with 2 minutes of recovery in between

The blog didn’t say to record distance, but I did anyway. I actually did 11 rounds as 1 was “punishment”
from Wladi for “not trying hard enough”. All in all, I covered 2130 meters.

After I did that WOD, I hung around so that Victoria could take the 6pm class. During that time, I practiced some dead lifts, some cleans, and did some strict presses. We have a CrossFit Total challenge coming up and wanted to get an idea of where my strict press is.

What went well?

I thought that I did well on the rowing WOD. I pulled as hard as I could on every round. On the strict presses, I did 3x @ 135#, 3x @ 145#, then 1x @ 155#.

What sucked?

I really tried to keep my 500m time on the rower between 1:30 and 1:40. There were a few rounds where my energy dropped off even though I was pulling as hard as I could. Those rounds ended up a bit about 1:40. On the presses, I was hoping to get 3x @ 155#, but ended up hitting some muscle failure.

Overall feel.

Pretty good tonight. The endurance WOD really sucked the energy out of me. I walked around with dry mouth for a little while after that one. I thought about doing the WOD that the 6pm class did, but then opted not.