Crossfit log for Thursday, August 20th

Fourth day in a row this week and boy am I tired.

Luckly it was a fairly light day. No heavy lifting.

Started with 2:00 of banded monster walk, to fire up the medial glutes followed by a warm up circuit.

4 rounds of:
- 6 glute bridges
- 9 calorie row
- 12 band pull aparts

Then on to the WOD, a hero workout named "Nate"

20 minute AMRAP of:
- 2 muscle ups (scaled to 4 chest to bar pull ups)
- 4 unbroken handstand push ups
- 8 kettle bell swing 32kg/24kg 

I once again used women's weight with the green kettle bell and just took my time moving from station to station.

Was 3 kettle bell swings short of 8 rounds.

On the fourth round I failed the last hspu, so added an abmat and was good after that.

HSPUs are getting pretty good despite my wrist. 

Crossfit log for Monday, July 27th

Feels like I haven't worked out in ages.  Just a long busy weekend I guess.

Clarisse came with me again.  She's a trouper.

We started with 100 double unders and  30 dumbbell box step ups. Went okay.

Wasn't a fan of taxing my grip in the warm up knowing what was coming.

Strength work was 1 rep max back squat.  I was hoping to get up to 315# again, but I wasn't happening.

I made too big a jump I think from 275# to 305# and coach bailed me out too soon. I might have fought it up.  Tried a second time and made sure he gave me time, but it wasn't happening. Oh well, I hit 305# last week at the Y.  So I know I have it in me.  Maybe I'll try a double at like 295# or 300# later this week.

Clarisse fought hard to stand up 165#, a huge PR for her.  #proudpapa.

The WOD was DT.  5 rounds for time, 12 deadlifts, 9 hang power cleans, 6 push press. Rx is 155# for men, 105# for women.

I wanted to attack this one at 115# and try to beat my 12:08 from June 5th.  But it wasn't to be.  Dead lifts were fine, but the first clean in warm up and my wrist just said nope.

The shoulder to overhead was worse.  So I dropped it 105# (women's Rx) and tried that. It was a bit better.

First round, deadlifts: good, cleans: okay, presses: not fun but I composed myself and managed so slowly get the 6 reps done.

Round two, deadlifts: good, cleans: okay, until the last one, getting ready for the press I must have caught it differently knowing what was next, and a sharp pain shot through it. 

Coach came over and suggested doing dips instead of presses, so spare my wrist, and then it occured to me that I had no trouble with dumbbell presses, so I did that.  At first I grabbed 35# dumbbells, but that was too light.  In my mind 50# was too heavy, because the recent strict presses we've been doing, forgot that it was push press.  So immediately after round 2, I got out the 50# dumbbells which works out to 100# over head, not far off the barbell I was using.

The rest of the workout went well.  Finished in 11:28

After we did 1 min max muscle ups, did pull ups, 30 seconds rest, 1 minute max pistols, did air squats, 30 seconds rest, 1 minute handstand push ups, did paralette push ups.

Exhausted, sweat bucket.

Crossfit log for Monday June 1st.

Woke up before my alarm, so I turned it off so as not to wake Kiza.  But then I fell asleep.

Thankfully I woke up only 15 minutes later and hurried out the door. Had to wait on a passing skunk, then got stuck behind some slow drivers.  Frustrating morning.

We were doing partner Tommy V.  A workout that, as I had watch it at regionals with Clarisse, I remember telling, I'm really glad I don't have to do that workout.

Yay.

We started with 5 sets of 5 back squats at 70% (going heavier than last time).

I was a bit late getting in so I worked up quickly, my last warm up set was 5 @ 185#. I did 2 working sets at 225#, then decided to do the last 3 at 245# to make things interesting. But after 2 sets at 245# I was out of time (and I knew I had a ton of thrusters left to do), so I counted my set at 185# and called it even.

Tommy V:
- 21 thrusters  @ 115#/75#
- 12 rope climbs
- 15 thrusters
- 9 rope climbs
- 9 thrusters
- 6 rope climbs

Thankfully the rope climbs would be shared, so I only had to do 14 instead of 27. (Being the stronger rope climber, I did the extra one for my partner Dave).

As I did Friday, I scaled the weight on the thrusters to women's Rx which was 75# which was good, it made the workout all about the rope climbs. I probably could have split the difference and done 95#, but I'm glad i didn't

Coach Alex was giving the class, but coach Connor was around doing some strength work in the back.

Both coaches took the time to complement me on my rope climbs, Alex did twice. Felt good on my old man ego.

Finished in 18:10

Crossfit log for Wednesday, December 4th

I must be patient.

I started my nutritional supplement program Monday, and it's already day 2 and I still don't see a difference.  Duh, it'll take more time than that, I should know better.

WOD Wednesday was a deceiver.

Much like the workout from September 12th, we thought they'd made a mistake.  It was even a Hero WOD. It looked too easy. This couldn't be right.

Oh but it was.

"Whitman"
5 round for time
15 kettle bell swings  24kg
15 power cleans 95#
15 box jumps 24" box

Three rounds would have been a good hard WOD. Five was just no fun.

The first set of box jumps were really hard, couldn't get my feet up!  Subsequent rounds were okay, as I found my legs, but man I was worried that first round.

Started the second round at 3:39, finished at 7:24.

I didn't get any better.  Finished in 21:36.  In my defence I did Rx weight (scaled was 75# on the bar and 20kg kettle bell).

Glad that's over.

Crossfit log for Friday, November 22nd

Took yesterday off for physio and back at it big time today.

For strength we did 5 rounds of 5 strict press, rest 1 minute, 5 strict pull ups, rest 1 minute.

I did 95#, and it was a good weight.  The last rep was a bit of a fight to get up.  I did the pull ups just body weight and had no trouble doing all 5 sets of 5.

The WOD today was "DT"
5 rounds for time
12 dead lifts
9 hang power cleans
6 power jerks/push press

All using the same bar, so same weight.  Rx is 155lbs, only Adam and Botch did this weight.

I hummed and hawed, and thought Natasha was doing 105 (women's Rx), and my ego said I had to go heavier. I've done 95# and 105# in the past, but I don't think I've ever done 115#.  So that's what I chose. As it turns out Natasha did 85#so I could have gone lighter and still satisfied my ego, but I'm glad I didn't.

I was happy with my 16:06 performance, until I read my old blog posts complaining about going over 15 minutes.  Oh well.  I went hard.  I tried to make sure when I picked up the bar I was not putting it down until the before last rep.

I say before last, because with "DT", the strategy is this, if you have to drop, don't drop on the last rep of the dead lift or the clean, since you will have to dead lift it to start your first clean and you'll have to clean it to start your first jerk.  It makes more sense to drop on the 11th dead lift, take a break, the do the 12th dead lift as you start your cleans.  Same goes for the last clean before starting the jerks.

On the third round I finally committed to keeping my hook grip when catching the cleans, this made it much easier to get through them, but on round 4 my hands got sweaty and I lost the grip on the 7th rep, and I had to drop it.  So when I picked it back up, I made sure to do the last 3 cleans and immediately start the jerks.

I worked hard.  I'm happy with my 16:06.   It was the heaviest "DT" I've ever done.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, November 20th

It was somewhat more difficult to get out of bed this morning.

I tried a new "pre-workout" drink mix, Adam gave me to see if it would have any impact on my workout.  It's called "N.O. Xplode"

Didn't really notice any difference.

No strength work today.   But it was a Hero WOD called 'Jack'

20 minute AMRAP
-10 push press  95#
-10 kettle bell swings 20kg
-10 box jumps, 24" box

I paced myself well.  Averaged 2:30 per round

had one lousy box jump left when the time was up! Score was 7 rounds + 29 reps. 1 short of 8 rounds.

The first 2 rounds were around 2:00, so I got progressively slower, but I kept my breaks short.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, May 29th

Ugh. Hero WODs are brutal.

Today we did "Blake"
2 lengths of the gym walking overhead weighted lunges (Rx= 45#, scaled 25#)
30 box jumps 24" box
20 wall balls 20# ball
10 hand stand push ups (scaled to 5 with 2 abmats under head).

4 rounds for time.

I'm not sure if the 2 lengths of lunges works out to the 100' in the official WOD description, I think it's more like 60', but it still sucked, so close enough.

Staggered the start, for some reason I thought finishing with the box jumps would be a good idea. Not so much. Although I was good at them, bouncing off the down jump using loaded hams, calves and achilles to propel myself back up, great drill for running form. Wall balls were hard, I couldn't seem to break parallel and got a lot of grief from coach Isabelle.

Handstand push ups with two abmats went really well, only the last 2 of round 4 I couldn't lock out.

Done in 25:45. Glad that's over.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, April 10th

Killer WOD today. Two Hero WODs combined, but thankfully in teams of two. Share the load.

5 rounds 20min cap
10 cleans 115#
18 pull ups
18 dumbbell hang squat cleans with 30# dumbbells.
10 handstand push ups
10 toes through rings/knees to chest on rings
5 handstand push ups
15 medicine ball cleans 14#

Teamed up with Pat, a much stronger guy than me, but not stronger in everything apparently. He went first. The cleans for him were an snap, where I had to work much harder and take a bit more time to setup. The pull ups he did fine. I have a really strong kip and breezed through my 9. He seemed to struggle with the squat cleans, but I hammered them out. Hand stand push ups we each did our five and kept going. He couldn't get his toes to the rings so he did knees to chest. I had no problem, so did toes through rings. Next batch of hand stand push ups, he did 3 and I did 2, then we did the easy part, the med ball cleans. Yet he still seems to struggle.

Second round got rough, he really struggled with the squat cleans. Too late it occurred to me to break them up more in 5, 5, 4, 4 instead of 9 each. We did that for the hand stand push ups, 3, 3, 2, 2. Round three was worse, at least we broke things up better, but I was flying through the dumb bell cleans and shockingly the hand stand push ups too. He struggled through his 3, then I hammered out 6, leaving 1, he wanted to do it, I was like go for it, but that put me in starting position, so I did 9 of the 15 med ball cleans.

Took my time with the barbell, since it was still heavy and Pat could use the rest. Did my pull ups, and here he took a lot of time to get started, but once started did all 9 unbroken. I did my 9 dumbbell cleans, starting to struggle on the last two, then he started his, struggling through 3 reps before the bell rang.

So I felt pretty good about myself after that. Especially on the hand stand push ups. I surprised myself there.

Anyway, 3 rounds + 40 reps in 20:00. I'll take it!

Crossfit log for Tuesday, March 19th

Today we did split jerk. 3 sets 3 reps. Did 125#, probably a bit too heavy, as it was supposed to be 65-70% which would've been between 104# and 112#

I was going to do 115# but there were no 10# plates to go from 95# (two 25# plates) to 115#, there were only 15# plates left, so 125# it was.
I wasn't as fast as the workout demanded, but I had no trouble getting it over head.

WOD was a "Hero WOD" called "DT" named for a fallen soldier.
It's 5 rounds for time of
12 dead lifts
9 hang power cleans
6 push jerks

Rx is 155#, yeah, not for me, blue scaled was 105#, but that wasn't happening today. Went with 95# and was happy I did.

Almost a year ago, I wrote:Back at Crossfit today.
Rough one. A "hero" WOD (typically harder than most WODs) called "DT", 5 rounds for time: 12 Dead lifts, 9 hang power clean, 6 push jerks.

Blue scaled was 115# on the bar, after a little warm-up I knew I wasn't doing blue. Settle on 95#, but after two rounds, there was no way I was doing another 3 at that weight, so I dropped it to 85# and that went better, but still hard. Took me like 15 minute, I didn't even look at the clock when I finished.

Last December I wrote:Wednesday was a Hero WOD called "DT"
5 rounds of 12 deadlifts, 9 hang power cleans, 6 push jerks, I think I did 105# I think I was 18:35. Brutal.

So not a great history with DT. Interesting that the scaling was 115# last year, but 105# this time around. But compare to last year, I had no problem finishing at 95# and went 14:02 today, clear improvement over last year.

Crossfit log for Monday, December 24th

A bit delinquent on posting

Wednesday was a Hero WOD called "DT"
5 rounds of 12 dead lifts, 9 hang power cleans, 6 push jerks, I think I did 105# I think I was 18:35. Brutal.

Friday was two back to back bench mark WODS:
Isabelle (30 snatches for time) followed by Grace (30 clean and jerks for time) with 5:00 min rest between.
Did 75# for the snatches (because I can only power snatch and that's a weight I can handle)
Did 95# for the c&j. Rough, shoulder's need work, it was easier to push press the weight than jerk it. it was ugly.

20:06 (finished the snatches in 6:40, 5:00 break, so almost 10:00 for the clean and jerks)

Maddening seeing as I got my PR in the clean and jerk only a couple of weeks ago. Oh well. Marathon training has been hurting my Crossfitting for sure.

Did the test run in my super suit on the treadmill at the Y amid stares and funny looks, but it was successful. Heat dissipation may be an issue but with a 5am start and the possibility of splashing water on myself. No chaffing. I'll definitely wear it for the half, we'll see about the full.

Ran 31.3km Sunday. Glad its over. Taper starts now.

Crossfit log for Sunday, April 1st

Back at Crossfit today.

Rough one. A "hero" WOD (typically harder than most WODs) called "DT"

5 rounds for time:
12 Dead lifts
9 hang power clean
6 push jerks

Blue scaled was 115#, after a little warm-up I knew I wasn't doing blue scaled.

Settle on 95#, but after two rounds, there was no way I was doing another 3 at that weight, so I dropped it to 85# and that went better, but still hard.

Took me like 15 minute, I didn't even look at the clock when I finished.