Tag Archives: Workout

R.J.

Whoa! R.J. (a Hero WOD) is really tough. When I looked at the main site last night and saw this WOD, my first thought was literally “fuck that shit, are they serious?”. Yeah… I’ll tell you what I really think.

Here’s the WOD… do you think the same that I did?

5 rounds

800m run
5 – 15ft rope ascents
50 push ups

Riiiiiigght.

DNF’d. My first one. I only did 2 rounds and it took me 27:something. I say “something” because the “coach” (more like, the guy running the class) had to run across the box to get his stop watch as they don’t have a large red LED clock. I also say “something” because I really just didn’t have it in me this morning and I am just happy I got to move around a bit.

I wanted to start a new format for how I write about my workouts. I know most of you who read this don’t care what I write. I write this for myself mostly to track what I do and look back on it. Who needs books and writing, right?

So here goes…

What went well in this WOD?

My 2 800m runs went well. I didn’t feel too much pain and I didn’t have to stop for walking breaks. Taking the stairs back up to the 3rd floor after each really sucks though. My push ups were OK as well.

What needs improvement?

My pull ups are definitely not where they used to be. I am having quite a bit of pain on my hands from all of the ripping lately and I just don’t seem to be getting the rhythm of the kipping pull up back as quickly as I would have liked. I think it’s time to buy some gloves as my elbow is no longer hurting.

What was the overall feeling for this WOD?

Tired and sluggish. We have been eating really poorly so this is expected. Garbage in, garbage out. I am SO ready to get back home, eating quality paleo food. I can’t wait to start food logging, tweaking, dialing, and basically feeling better again.

The pizza, burgers, bagels, and whatever else are all delicious, but they are killing me. Am I being lazy about it? Absolutely. The truth is that I don’t really feel like hauling groceries up to the 4th floor then cooking everything in a tiny, uncomfortable kitchen that doesn’t really have the cooking equipment that I need. So, we have been eating out a lot. It’s really hard to stay on track when there are so many options that are novelties (i.e. stuff that I can’t get in Austin). No, I am not saying “I can’t live without my ____________” (shout out to Mark), I am just saying that I will not have the chance to eat this stuff for a while, so I’m living it up.

But… everything comes with a price.

That price is feeling like absolute crap.

CFCP coaches, you will have your work cut out for you when we get back.

Whirlwind WOD Update

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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.

More workouts…

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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.

Scaling Down

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In my last post, I mentioned that I didn’t work out on Saturday b/c my left elbow was bothering me. It seems to still be doing that, so I had to scale last night’s WOD. When I came in, I tried doing a clean with 95lb, a light weight for me, and my arm said there was no way.

The WOD was a team AMRAP. There were 4 stations:

C2 Rower
Box Jumps
Squat Cleans
Sit Ups

For this one, everyone works at their station until the rower has rowed 500m, then you rotate. I had to run instead of row (400m) and I did medicine ball squat cleans instead of using the barbell. They counted at a 2:1. Dave was nice enough to count my run as a row =).

Our team numbers look like this:

	Box Jump	Squat Clean	Sit Up	Row/Run
	33	10	47	500
	27	12	57	500
	26	7	66	500
	47	8	55	500
	26	5	55	500
	38	10	50	500
	32	10	70	500
	35	6	52	500
Totals	264	68	452	4000

I don’t remember who did what. I just remember that I started with the run, so the top, right “500” is mine and V started on box jumps, so “33” is hers. You can figure it out. Out grand total team score was 4784. Pretty good and, no pain!

Quick Recap

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Can’t really write too much right now, but just wanted to get this down.

Last Friday (4/30/2010) we went to OLY night, which is always a blast. We worked on some overhead squats as well as more OLY technique. The WOD was “Grace” which is 30 clean & jerk’s for time.

I did it in 4:15.

I think had I not eaten crappy Mexican food for lunch, I MAY have gotten a sub 4:00 time. I had to take a few seconds here and there because I felt my stomach doing back flips. Not fun.

Saturday (5/1/2010), Nikki came up with something that looked fun, but I couldn’t do it. She did a 21-15-9 of thrusters and burpee box jumps. I had to skip it because I have been having a good amount of pain in my left elbow when I try to lift something.

I talked to Mike Tillman and he gave me some stretches and exercises to do to rehab it. He did advise me to stay away from pulling type things for a week or so. Oh well…

Endurance and Power Cleans

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This week, per Dave’s suggestion, I am adding in two CrossFit Endurance WODs. Monday (4/26/2010) was the first one:

10x Row 125m / 1 min rest

My set times were:

1) 22.9	6) 23.7
2) 23.0	7) 25.3
3) 23.0	8) 24.3
4) 24.1	9) 25.1
5) 25.2	10) 24.6

This was harder than I had anticipated. The willingness to push hard was gone by set 4. Still though, my last set was less than 2s different than my first.

Tuesday (4/27/2010) night, I had originally planned on skipping, but then saw the WOD and thought it looked fun, so I went. It was:

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Power Clean (135lb Rx) with 200m run after each set

My time was 18:11. As usual, the running sucked. I just feel like a huge lumbering fool whenever I run any distance. Maybe I just should just accept the fact that I will just always suck at running. It just doesn’t seem to be getting any better. Sigh.

At Wladi’s suggestion, we followed the WOD up with a Tabata Row. I went a total of 868m. This is the first time I have actually tracked how far I have went. Pretty interesting.

5k and the Filthy Fifty

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Last Saturday (4/17/2010), we had the finals for the 5k challenge that we had been participating in at CFCP. When we ran this one the first time, four weeks ago, my time was 32:31. This time around, I did it in 30:50. That’s 1:40 in savings. Not too much of an improvement, but at least I didn’t go backwards.

The most hilarious part of the whole day was that I won 2nd place for men in my age group. The fact that I won anything that had to do with running is straight up sad. There must have been only 2 of us =)

Over the CFCP group did really well! V got 2nd place in her age group as well, so, now we have matching prize mugs that we toast with while we drink tea. I also won a snazzy marathon towel as a door prize.

There were a few things that really got to me about this run. The first was that I had not even seen “Mile 2” yet when I could already hear that people were starting to finish. Wow, LAME. Next, after “Mile 1”, I didn’t see a marker for a while. When I saw another one coming up, I thought, “that’s GOT to be mile 3”. When I got up to it and saw that it was “Mile 2”, it was like someone took the wind out of my sails. Still, I pressed on. Running is mental and it’s a battle for me every single damn time.

Yesterday (4/21/2010), we had the pleasure of doing the “Filthy Fifty”. This WOD is a horrible “chipper” which means that it’s just a long list of stuff that you “chip away” at. This list consist of:

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 was a slow and horrible 36:44. Everything was great and went really quickly until I got to wall balls. I think it took me 15 minutes to do the wall balls and burpees. By the time I got to the double unders, which I already suck at, I couldn’t really lift my arms. I don’t want to do this one again for a LONG time.

In other news, I talked to Dave last night about how I’m progressing. I am noticing that my pants are all tighter! What? I eat paleo, almost never cheat, and workout 3x/week at CFCP. What the hell is going on?

My body IS changing. I am noticing that I am more solid in lots of spots and even my stomach is a lot less fatty, it’s just, bigger. Maybe there’s muscle growing under there and still fat on top… I don’t know.

At any rate, Dave suggested that I add in Crossfit Endurance 2x/week when I’m not at CFCP. I am excited about starting this and to see if it helps to increase my results and performance.

Snatches and Soreness

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Last night at CFCP was awesome. I really love the Friday evening class. The Olympic lifts that we are learning are SO much and even more fun when you know how to do them correctly.

We worked more on the Snatch last night and got into doing more of the exercises with weight (presses, snatch balance, heaving snatch balance, etc). The WOD was “Isabelle”. I did this one on Monday in Albany, but I didn’t go with the Rx weight. Last night, I did.

Again, “Isabelle” is 30 snatches for time. They don’t have to be full squat snatches with the OHS, they can be power snatches if you are strong enough.

Last night I got this done is 6:16… almost 3x longer than it took me with 95lbs on Monday. Whatever, I am happy with that.

After the WOD, I wanted to try to go a bit heavier on the snatch. I was able to get 155lbs. I quit there as I was tired.

This morning for open gym, I was on the fence as to whether or not I wanted to work out. I am sore as hell, tired, and well, just not really feeling that hot. When we got there, the WOD was:

3 rounds 1:30 on, 0:30 off of:

Dead lift (225lbs)
KB Swings (24kg)
Pull Ups

I didn’t count my reps on this and really just did the best I could with how I felt. After the first round, I really didn’t want to do any more. You can’t stop though, unless you want to be the target of endless ridicule, so I just kept going.

We did some grocery shopping after open gym, then got home, ate and took a really long nap. Almost 3 hours, I would say. We had a goal to clean the rest of the house today, which we did some of, but not all. It’s been like 2 months that we are trying to do this. Maybe before we leave for MS, it will get done. Who knows.

Tomorrow, we have the finals for the 5k challenge. I am really tired and sore, so, this will be an interesting experience, for sure.

Albany

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Albany was a pretty nice little city from what I saw of it. I guess I really didn’t see TOO much, though. At the very least, I found one good place to eat (The Barnsider Restaurant). The people that I came here to work with were really nice. I know I posted a rant about offices just a few days ago and, for the most part, I do really feel all of that stuff, but I didn’t really mean for it to reflect on the people there. They were really a pleasure to work with.

Big thanks to Crossfit Albany for letting me drop in while I was in town. Here are the WODs that I got while I was visiting…

Monday (4/12/2010)

30 Snatches for time
1 Mile Run – Untimed

We started out with some Bergner warm up, which is always good. I got the 30 snatches done in 2:26. The Rx weight for this was 135lb but I opted to go with 95lb instead as I wanted to work on my form a bit. I have never tried to snatch more than 105lb. Last time I tried that much, it went up easy, but I still think I can get better on my lifts. Getting that down is more important to me than throwing around 135lb at this point in time.

I know you will be surprised to read this, but I felt very sluggish during the run. I started out sort of quick then died off. I never really got into that groove where it became easy. I tried to focus on pose the whole time and I think I’m getting better at it. Still, though, it came and went. At least now, I know when I am swinging my legs with my hip flexors.

Wednesday (4/14/2010)

Before I left the hotel for the office, I hit up the “workout room” and used the treadmill for some Tabata Sprints (Slight Incline 10 mph)

Later, at Crossfit Albany, we did the following:

3×5 Strict Presses

Followed by:

“Running Cindy” (AMRAP in 20 minutes of {400m run, 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 air squats})

Followed by:

3×10 Hang Squat Clean with no dip (45lb Bar)

Starting off with the presses was pretty cool, actually. It was fun to have a little strength WOD built in before the actual WOD. My weights were 95lb, 115lb, & 135lb. They were all easy. I guess I had no frame of reference as I haven’t done much strict pressing since starting Crossfit. It reminded me of the old gym days doing military presses. At least now, I know for next time, I can probably start with 135lb.

Incidentally, the warm up for this WOD took it out of me, a bit. It was 3 rounds of {7 (ring rows, lunges, ring dips)}. When I woke up this morning, I was sore in my upper back and chest… I think this is why. Ring dips kill me every time.

Anyway, moving on.

Running Cindy went well for me. I didn’t take any breaks, which makes me happy. Well, it didn’t really make me happy during the workout, but thinking about it now does. I am getting to the point, I think where I am starting to rest less. Sometimes you need to just keep moving even if it’s not at the pace you really want. I didn’t take any walk breaks on my runs, which is kind of amazing to me. In total, I got 6 full rounds + 200 meters. When you think about it, in 20 minutes, I did:

6 – 400m runs + 200m = 2600m … that’s 1/2 a 5k, which is a little over 1.5 miles.
30 pull ups
60 push ups
90 air squats

Pretty good…

The last part of this workout was what they referred to as the “tall clean” drill which is basically a hang squat clean but without the “dip & shrug” part. The object of this is very similar to a “snatch balance”. You have to get under the bar without moving the bar very much, if, at all. Obviously, this is more difficult as you have to get under the bar when it’s at your waist as opposed to getting under it when it’s racked across your back. It took me a few tries to get the idea, but eventually, I got it and could see how this could really help with the squat clean technique. This was particularly challenging too as I was really worn out from all the previous stuff.

Regarding the rest of the stuff about the trip… mostly, it was pretty good. I stayed at a Holiday Inn Express which was really nice and very comfortable. They had a hot breakfast every morning which is always good for someone like me. My rental was a Hybrid Toyota Camry. I had never driven a hybrid before, so it was pretty interesting. Honestly, the best part about this car was that it had bluetooth integration. It’s so great for your car to just be your hands-free device the moment you get in.

The trip home… well, that didn’t go so well.

If you were reading any of my Facebook posts yesterday, you could probably tell that I was in a bit of a mood. All of the problems stemmed from missing my connection in Newark. I was supposed to fly from Albany – > Newark, then Newark – > Austin. The flight coming IN to Albany was 1.5 hours late. That means, no connection for me, and that’s the LAST flight coming out of Newark to Austin. Awesome. All I wanted to do was be home.

Anyway… at the desk in Albany, I asked the Continental rep what the best thing to do for my baggage was. It was clear that I wouldn’t make my connection so, he recommended “short checking” the bag so that I could pick it up at the baggage claim in Newark.

When I got off the plane in Newark, I hauled ass to the continental desk where I got a bit upset. They informed me that they would not cover my hotel as the plane delays were due to ATC (air traffic control). I had a few words for the woman behind the desk, but then realized that their policies are not her fault. Oh well. Turns out most of the hotels in the area were booked as this whole volcano thing caused lots of flights to be cancelled which, in turn, results in, you guessed it… people getting stranded in Newark and needing a hotel.

Luckily for me, I am on business travel, which means, (sorry Ben) my company gets to pay for continentals incompetence.

Back to the lady at the desk. She called a few hotels in the area and they were all booked. Finally, she called the Hilton and they had rooms, so, to the Hilton I would be going. I asked her, then, what would be best for my bag. She said to leave it and it would be on the plane tomorrow morning. OK.

Now, I take the monorail thing 3 stops over to P4 which is where the hotel shuttles do their pick ups and drop offs. I wait. And wait. And wait. Finally, I call the hotel at which point, they inform me that they pick up at the bottom of the hour. It was 9:10. Awesome.

Just for grins, I called Continentals baggage services to see what was up with my bag. I had a feeling that it was spinning around the carousel back in Terminal A (4 stops away on the monorail). I was right. I asked if they could pick it up and re-route it back onto my flight for tomorrow. The rep said that I could NOT and that if I didn’t go and pick it up, I would have to file a lost baggage claim when I got back to Austin, and that they would send it.

Argh.

So I get back on the damn monorail and go back to Terminal A where my bag is in the baggage services center WITH A TAG ON IT THAT HAS INSTRUCTION TO RE-ROUTE IT FOR MY FLIGHT IN THE MORNING. I am about ready to scream at this point. Also, it’s past 9:30pm and if I don’t get back to P4 (4 stops away, remember?) in time for the shuttle, I will have to wait another hour for the next one.

At this point, I just took a cab to the hotel. I was done dealing with people’s gross incompetence at well, everything.

I got to the hotel, checked in, ordered room service, talked to V for a bit and went to sleep. No, my room service was NOT paleo. No, I don’t care. It was the only time on this trip whe
re I didn’t make a great food choice and I’m OK with that.

Now, I am waiting to board my morning flight. I had better not have any more problems.

P.S. My flight landed 35 minutes early! It’s good to be home…

End of the week…

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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.