Tag Archives: Burpees

Week Ending Workouts

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.

Back to CFCP

Thank goodness we are back. We really missed CFCP, in case you haven’t noticed. Working out in other boxes really drove home the fact that CFCP is totally awesome and really, the best place you could ever go to work out.

Last night’s fun consisted of:

  • 25 burpees
  • 50 squats
  • 25 burpees
  • 50 back extensions
  • 25 burpees
  • 50 push ups
  • 25 burpees
  • 50 sit ups

Originally, the burpees were supposed to be 500m rows, but Nikki made an executive decision to sub them. I am assuming probably because we didn’t have enough rowers. This took me 21:18 to do.

What went well?

The squats and back extensions were OK.

What needs improvement?

My sit ups always need improvement. My push ups were OK, but I was running into a lot of muscle failure, so I could only get 1-3 push ups at a time. Sandwiched between 25 burpees, it was rough.

Really though, what needs improvement is my “keep going”. I took lots of breaks and did the burpees pretty slowly.

Overall feel

Not too bad. I would have liked to break 20 minutes on this one, but really, after the month we just had, I am happy to be back, sweating, moving, and going in the right direction. I was definitely breathing hard, but I found that the weak link was my upper body just giving out.

This week’s stuff…

This week has been busy. As it’s getting closer to the wedding, I am finding that more and more of my “free time” is taken up with planning, making decisions and really, just trying to figure stuff out.

Today, Sunday (4/11/2010), I am flying to Albany for work. Although I hate traveling for my job, I am a little excited about this one as I will get to visit CrossFit Albany! Also, today, I am finding myself to be REALLY sore in almost every body part due to this week’s workouts.

On Wednesday (4/7/2010), we did this:

  • 50 ring dips
  • 400m run
  • 50 push ups
  • 400m run
  • 50 HSPU
  • 400m run

My time was 21:51.

This workout sucked. Really. It sucked. It was really hard. I tried a few HSPU before the WOD started and planned to try to do SOME of them as Rx’d during the WOD, but that didn’t happen. I was able to do about 25 of the ring dips Rx’d before I could no long hold myself up. I had to put one foot on a box at that point.

I went out for my run. On the way back, I was thinking “Ok, 50 push ups… this is cake… bust ‘em out”. Yeah. That didn’t happen either. I came back in, got down and did about 6 at which point I looked my coach and said “I’m not even out of breath! My chest is just shot.”. She laughed. Ha ha. I ended up doing 2-3 at a time until I eventually got to 50.

Another run, no problems.

I’ll bet you can guess what happened with my HSPU. =)

They didn’t really work out. Dave came outside and told me that I could do negatives. I tried that and made it until about 10 reps. At that point, I couldn’t hold the handstand anymore, so I moved over to using the box in the pike push up position, thing. That sucked. It sucked hard. I am still sore.

Friday (4/9/2010) was another awesome heavy metal night at CFCP. We essentially did a repeat of the first week, working on the Bergner warm up and snatch, but then we did the Bergner warm up and skill transfers with weight. That was SO much fun! Dave had us do a really short WOD consisting of the following:

3x

  • 5 muscle snatch
  • 5 snatch balance
  • 5 overhead squats

This one wasn’t for time so I didn’t time it or push hard to finish fast. This was strictly to work on form on all three of these movements. Also, I didn’t use a lot of weight, just 65lbs. It’s nice to do these WODs where you can focus on the form and learning the movement.

When we got home, we were both itching to do something else. Victoria came up with a terrible fast WOD. We jokingly called it “sorta-bata”. It’s basically Tabata sprints based on the 20/10 interval/rest, but instead, you 3s of rest. The caveat is that you have to do 4 burpees before you can rest. So, sprint, burpee, rest, repeat 8x. The faster you do your burpees, the more rest time you get. I wanted to puke by the 3rd round.

Saturday (4/10/2010) we came to open gym at CrossFit Cedar Park and did the following partner WOD:

  • Red stripe run (~200m)
  • 100 burpees
  • Red stripe run (~200m)
  • 100 squats
  • Red stripe run (~200m)
  • 50 of those things where you lay on the grown, raise your legs, and your partner throws your feet down

This was a partner WOD. The rules were:

  • You could split the work any way you want to.
  • You can’t do any work without your partner. Meaning, if your partner’s lagging on the run, you have to wait for them to get back before you can get to work on your next thing.

Me and V finished in ~13 minutes (somewhere between 13 and 14) which I am pretty happy with. I thought we did a great job, actually. We split the burpees and squats by alternating 5 each. That worked out really well. I think we were a little more haphazard with the last ab thing, but we still finished quickly,

I said to V this weekend “do you notice that you’re not always last anymore?” and she said she did and noted that we have quite a few new people. So, after being at CrossFit Cedar Park for almost a year we have definitely made gains. We finished this WOD sort of middle of the field. What I love about this group is that everyone hung around when they finished and cheered on the people that were still going.

After this WOD we went back inside and Dave the destroyer made us do planks. At that point in time, my upper body didn’t really have much left to give. We did three 1-minute holds. I was able to do the first one all the way through. The second and third had at least 2 drops. There was nothing left there. Oh well. Maybe a few days of recovery are in order.

So, now, right this second (1pm on Sunday) I am on a plane headed to Albany (well, DC to get a connection, anyway). I got lucky on this trip and got 1st class tickets on the way there. Honestly, I didn’t even realize they were 1st class when I booked it but here I am. I don’t know if I will be able to go back to coach again. =)

The main difference I notice is in food service and quality. Sure, the seats are bigger and more comfy and you get to get on and off the plane first, but the food is noticeably better and served on actual real plates. It’s really weird to me. Also, there’s one flight attendant dedicated to the 8 seats in first class, so you can get what you want when you want it. Weird.

Anyway. When I land in DC, I’ll have about an hour to get connecting flight to Albany. Once there, I need to get my car. I decided to go with Hertz this time. After renting from that P.O.S company last time, I won’t use a little guy anymore. Usually, I like to patronize small businesses, but that last rental company was just horrible. Just horrible.

I am trying to decide what day to go to CrossFit Albany. Truth be told, I am leaning toward Tuesday and Wednesday as I am really freaking sore. Yes, even my hands are sore. Go figure. My only argument for going on Monday would be to talk to some of the people there to see if they can recommend any good places in town to get some paleo food. That’s really the worst thing about traveling for work.

Trying to stay paleo on the road is relatively difficult as you really can’t be sure of lots of ingredients when every meal is prepared by someone else. Sure, you can stay “low-carb” but avoiding grains, bread, pastas, potatoes, but to be truly paleo to the degree that WE do is hard. Good luck finding grassfed, free range, or even just “organic” meat out in restaurants. Lame. Hopefully the guys at CF Albany will have a few suggestions.

<Witty Title>

bad_day

I had a pretty bad day today. You know, those kinds of days where nothing seems to go right? You don’t feel like you got anything of consequence done. You feel like you are fighting upstream with everyone and everything around you. That was the kind of day I felt I had.

If I would have missed a workout today, well, that would have been bad, but luckily, V and I made it to the 6pm class. Upon walking in the door, I started feeling better. A little self inflicted punishment to help forget about the day and how much it sucked… that’s a good thing.

Tonight’s workout, I hear, was a qualifying WOD somewhere (not sure of where exactly) but it was five rounds of:

  • 5 power cleans (Rx @ 155lb)
  • 10 burpees (did as many strict as possible)
  • Red Line Sprint (roughly 200m, and there was no sprinting)

My time for this one was 14:41. I thought I did a pretty good job of keeping myself moving while not taking too many breaks. The first three rounds were OK, but the last two felt like someone had removed all oxygen from the planet Earth. Not a pleasant experience.

After the WOD we hung around and talked for a little while. I love the people that we have met at the gym. They are so incredibly nice. Not really any douche bags to be found there.

V and I hung around the house for a bit after getting home. I didn’t feel like cooking so we just scrounged around. We watched some more of a movie that we started a few days ago, then went to sleep.

Unable to sleep by the constant turmoil that is my upcoming wedding in Mississippi, I now sit here writing this blog post. I don’t really want to get into the details of what is ailing me on a public forum, but it has been the source of many hours of lost sleep. Needless to say, a huge weight will be lifted on June 6th, 2010.

I love the girl I am marrying more than I can ever describe. That’s got nothing to do with it. It’s all coming from the event itself.

At the very least, I managed to be a little bit productive by creating a fan page for Crossfit Cedar Park. If you go there and you love it like I do, take a second to log onto Facebook and be their fan.

I guess I’ll try to go to sleep now.

Welcome Back…

Every time I go away on business, I have the intention of working out. This time, I think I was able to do it. I was able to get one WOD in last Tuesday (2/23/2010). I made this one to do in my hotel room:

10 rounds of

  • 10 push ups
  • 10 sit ups
  • 10 squats
  • 50 jump ropes

It took me right around 14 minutes to do this one. I didn’t have a stopwatch going. I just looked at the clock when I started and when I ended. I would have done double-unders, but I was on the 2nd floor and didn’t want to start heel smashing.

About 3 days later, my car was buried under 2-4 feet of snow depending on the side of the vehicle. I totally consider this a WOD. I worked like an animal for over an hour to get it completely dug out. Next time I am in a blizzard, I will see if I can improve on my time =)

It seems like every time I take a break from the gym, the workout that is planned for when I come back is really hard. In fact, I sometimes think that the coaches sit around and say “Bryan’s coming back today, what’s really hard for him?”.

No,  I don’t REALLY think that, but it sure does feel like it. In fact, I don’t think it would matter what work out was picked for my first one back. It will pretty much always suck.

Last night’s WOD was deceptively hard:

7 rounds of

  • 10 db cleans (Rx 40lb in each hand)
  • 10 burpees
    There it is again. Just 2 things. 70 times. Argh. This took me longer than I would have liked. I clocked in at 15:56 after lots of breaks. Better luck next time kid…

SUCK!

The last few workouts have been nothing short of brutal. On Friday (2/12/2010), we did this lovely number:

  • 10 cleans
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 jerks
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 clean & jerks
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 jerks
  • 10 burpees
  • 10 cleans

I finished this one on 10:44 (Rx’d with a 135lb bar). I really liked this one. It was fun and pretty challenging.

I didn’t go to open gym on Saturday because we had the garage sale for Big Brothers Big Sisters. Thanks to the people who helped with their time and to the people that donated things to sell. Mostly, thanks to Crossfit Cedar Park for letting us do it there. It was a great location and we raised about $300. Not bad for 1/2 a Saturday of selling people’s junk.

Last night (2/15/2010), I went to the gym in the morning to drop off some macaroons to sell. While I was there, I happened to see the WOD and then dreaded it for the rest of the day. When I arrived at 5pm, I warmed up and then had butterflies until this thing started:

4 burpees on the minute while completing:

  • 20 Thrusters
  • 20 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls
  • 20 Push Jerks
  • 20 Overhead Squats
  • 20 Front Squats

It didn’t seem SO bad when I first started, but, as with any “on the minute do something” workout, it got bad really fast. The fastest time for this workout in the sectionals was in between 3 and 4 minutes. Wow!

The longer time goes on, the more frustrating this thing gets. Just as you’re about to pick the bar up, the clock beeps and it’s time to do burpees again. BLARG!

Anyway, my time was 14:42. I was pretty happy with this, mostly that I finished in under 20 minutes.