Crossfit log for Wednesday, October 26th

So Monday I did go to Crossfit, but I didn't make it past the warm up.

Kicking up into a handstand after the dynamic stretching, i tweaked my back.

Seems that going for flexion to extension can jam my L5-S1.

Luckily I got in to see Rob the same day, before my back got site from compensating, mobilized the joint and got me upright again. Took Tuesday off and was back at it today.

It was a good workout to come back to. Low volume, hardly any flexion except the pull ups (which gravity is not compressing the spine) and no load.

Warm-up was squats, box step ups and kettle bell settings for 5 minutes, and dynamic stretching, which went okay. Didn't even try a handstand.

Did some great pull up drills. Started with Hollie hold then arch hold, then alternating then killing.

After that we did the 1 pull up 1 kip drill. For this I tried doing 1 butterfly/1 kip and it went really well. Even coach Alex said so.

The wood was a15 minute AMRAP
- 10 pull ups
- 10 wall balls 20#/14#
- 10 box jumps 24"/20"

I decided to make it about the pull ups, did women's Rx, for the med ball and the box. Still used the 10' target though.

Did the same as the drills at first 1 butterfly/1 kip until I got 10 butterfly, and it went remarkably well. This may be my new goto.

Went unbroken the first 4 round, round 5 had to break them in two, the switched to regular kip do I could resume unbroken, last round had to break the regular kip. Getting tired.

Wall balls were all unbroken, box jumps were mostly step down with a few jump down. Some were step up. I was a bit nervous for my back on these.

Did 6 full rounds, plus pull ups and 5 wall balls.

Very happy with that.

No issues with my back.

Crossfit log for Thursday, June 30th

Well that didn't go so well.

Between work, Clarisse, the kids and this injury, I just felt like I had nothing in the tank today.

Strength work went okay

Back Squat 1x8 at 75% of med
Rest as needed between sets.

Did 225#

Back Squat 4x5, using same weight per set
Rest 1 min
Romanian Deadlift 4x8, using same weight per set
Rest 1 min

Did 185# on the back squats and 135# on the RDLs.

This was hard on my upper back. But my position was pretty good, or so it felt.

The WOD was no fun.

4 rounds for time of:
21 Box Jumps
15 Rows
9 Sumo Deadlift High-pulls, 135/95 lbs

Too demanding on the posterior chain after all the strength work I guess.

Bailed before the end of round 2.

Meh. They can't all be great.

Crossfire log for Monday, June 27th

So it's true, the hardest part of strength training is putting the weights away.

Last Tuesday, while picking up a 70# dumbbell after the workout I sprained my L5-S1 joint.

Once again, thank my lucky stars for Rob Crispo, he needled the surrounding muscles, but couldn't get the joint to crack, so he mobilized it with a variety of techniques and got me functional again.

He gave me some drills, which I've done daily since, and told me not to go heavy on squats or deadlifts for 7 to 10 days.  Except when I wake up, until it's warmed up, it has been fine, since Friday.

Today, 3 days later, 6 days since the injury, we had 1 rep max pause back squat. 5 seconds in the bottom.  I felt or each rep, and figured uninjured I would have gone for 275#.

225# felt fine so I put on 255# and that went up well, but it was heavy, so I hummed and I hawed for a few minutes and then called it my 1 rep max.

The the WOD.

10 min AMRAP
- 5 deadlifts  255#/195#
- 7 chest to bar pull ups
- 9 burpee box jumps.

I did women's Rx, at that weight the deadlifts didn't worry me, but the burpee box jumps did. For those I stepped down from the box and stepped down into the burpee.  Switched to regular pull ups after round 1.

Managed 3 rounds plus 10 reps at a fairly pedestrian pace.


Post WOD was 3 sets of 10 good mornings vs ARMAP of anchored sit ups. on 1:00 rest

DId 15 sit ups per round and went light on the Good Morning, 45#-75#-75#

Crossfit log for Tuesday, June 21st

Maybe i should have stayed in bed.

Strength work was close grip bench, 1 heavy set of 8, 75% of max.

Warned up with empty bar. 95#, 135# then my working set was 165#. Last rep was a fight, ski good choice.

Next was and alternating triplet: 25 banded side bends each side, dumbbell bench press for 8 reps, strict pull ups, pick a number you can hold for 3 sets

Side bends were rough, obliques were shot for yesterday's Y workout. First 2 round only did 12 per side until i noticed it said 25 per side, not total.

Bench started with 50# then 70#, and 70#(4).

Pull ups for 5 reps each round.

All fine and good until i went to our the dumbbells away, and pulled something in my left lower back, likely my oblique. QL or glute med.
Grrrrr

Did the WOD anyway, didn't really involve much back.

15 minute AMRAP
- 5 pull ups
-10 handstand push-ups
-15 pistols alternating

Pull ups were a snap
Did bear stance hspu
Pistol progression with heel on top off toes.

Went well. 6 rounds plus 5 pull ups.

Satisfied with that

Crossfit log for Thursday, May 12th

Well whatever I did Monday, even with physio, I'm still feeling it.

I hope it's not soft tissue damage. I'll try and book with Rob asap.

Despite that, I made it to the gym, figured I'd do what I could

It was in two parts, both 4 rounds of e minute AMRAP with 2 minute rest with 5 minutes in between.

Part 1
3 min AMRAP + 2 min rest X 4
- 30 double unders
- 20 abmat sit ups
- 10 push press 75#

Rest 5 min

Part 2
3 min AMRAP + 2 min rest X 4
- 12 med ball cleans
- 10 slam balls
- 8 alternating pistols

Try as I might, I couldn't get past the second set of sit ups in 3 minutes. Even the times i got through the DUs unbroken. Mixing sit ups and double unders is cruel.

Part 2 was murder on the hips.  Never made it past the med ball cleans second time through.

Scaled the pistols by draping my foot over the front of my working foot.

Glad that's over.

Crossfit log for Monday, May 9th

Kiza is out of town yet again. But with Clarisse home, i was able to get to Crossfit this morning.

Felt like strongman day.

Started with sumo deadlifts vs one arm dumbbell presses for 4 sets
7-7-5-5 for the deadlifts and sets of 8, each arm for the presses. 1 minute rest between each

Did 225#-245#-275#-295#(2) 295#Mar be a PR, I'll have to look it up.
And 20#-35#-45#-45#. Got heavy at the end.

Then 3 sets of suitcase carried 150' vs strict barbell press 7-5-3

Did 32kg (70#) kettle bell, then 40kg(88#) kettle bell and finally the 100# dumbbell. Dumbbells stuck for carries, they roll into your fingers and grip become horrible. Next time we pull out the handled barbells.

Did 95#-115#-125#(X)-115# for the presses. Those carries destroyed my press.

The WOD was not fun.

15-12-9 of
- dumbbell hang squat clean thrusters
- burpees

Drudged through. Shoulders and core spent.

Last burpee last round, felt a twinge in my back

Luckily i was headed to physio a bit later.

All good now.

Finished in 9:25. Dead last, but i finished.

Olympic lifting log for Monday, November 30th

Went to the Y to do something.

Decided on a clean complex: 1 power clean+1 hang clean+1 clean

Worked up to 185# where I did only the power clean.  at 175# it was fine, but my back was still out of sorts so I called it a day.

Before leaving I did some supinated rows on the pulley machine at 120# for 8 and 165# for 5.  Not easy. Couldn't get full range to the chest, I may drop a bit of weight next time.

Then I did my "all fours breathing" drill and headed back to work.

Crossfit log for Monday, November 30th

Wow, that was a whole lotta volume for a Monday morning. Saved by the time cap.

After a 4 minute warm up of 5 kettle bell swings, 7 wall balls and 1 shuttle run, we got set up for the WOD:

4 rounds for time with a 16 minute time cap (thank goodness):
- 21 box jumps
- 18 wall balls
- 15 kettle bell swings
- 12 burpees.

Could've done without the burpees, or 3 rounds instead of 4. 

Thankfully the time cap stopped me at exactly 3 rounds.

After that we did 14 minute EOMOM (every other minute, or on 2 mintues):
- 1 snatch from the hang, 1 snatch from the floor.

I had a hard time getting all the pieces together,  either the pull wasn't to full extension, or I failed to commit to get low and the catch was more power snatch than snatch, or I wouldn't keep it close to the body and it would arc out.  It just seem that with the exception of 2 or 3 of the 14 lifts, at least one element was off.

Oh well, at least there were a couple of good ones.

After that, being short on time and still a bit sore, I rushed through the heavy double front squat (settle for 225#) and did 2 sets of 8 at 185#, which was hard enough. 

Glad that's over.  Booked another appointment with Physio Rob on Wednesday.  Can't wait.

Strength log for Friday, November 27th

Forgot to set my alarm and missed max back squat day at Crossfit.

So I went to the Y to make up for it.

Hit 305#, but couldn't get out of the hole at 315#. 

I didn't really fight for it, because my back isn't 100%.  I got about a quarter way up and stalled, contemplated fighting for a second or two, decided not to, dropped back down in to the bottom and sat there for another second or two deciding whether to try again, but I quickly realized if I didn't get it first try, the added fatigue and the fact that I'm essentially paused in the bottom, there would be no come back from this. 

So I let it roll of my back into the cage and called it quits.

Did some supinated rows with the pulley machine. 8 @ 120# and 5 @ 165#

It was pretty good on the pulley system.  I may alternate between the barbell and the pulley.  Maybe not. 

Meh. Another day.

Crossfit log for Thursday, November 26th

Yesterday I spent a very long time at the physiotherapist, I had pulled my quadratus lumborum, or QL on my right side, which is a lateral stabilizer, which was giving me grief when pulling from the floor.   That didn't take too long so he had time to work on my shoulders and hopefully help my overhead squat stabilization.

He said the the QL was the more likely culprit for the problems stabilizing overhead, but he did the work anyway, there were plenty of knots to needle.  Plus he did some compression and torsion on my rib cage to improve my thoracic mobility. 

It was an intense session and instead of hot packs, I went home and soaked in an epsom salt bath for half an hour.

So today, I went to morning Crossfit for the first time in nearly two weeks. 

Felt really good to be back, despite the dead lifts in the WOD.

Started with Pause Push press, deeper drive, pause at the bottom for a 3 count and then explode up into a push press for 4 doubles, I did 135#, and 3 sets at 155#.  Felt great.

Then close grip bench,  worked with Kamil and just did 115#, wasn't interested in push on this one.

The WOD was crafted by Coach Connor, a 21-15-9 triplet of my least favorite exercises:
- deadlift at 225#/155# 
- lateral burpees over bar
- box jumps 30"/24"

I scaled the dead lifts to 135#, no interest in hurting my recently fixed back. Burpees suck.  Did 3 box jumps at 30" nearly wrecked on the 4th.  24" from there on in.

Took me  15:13 to finish.  Meh.  First day back, wasn't out to impress anyone.

Crossfit log for Friday, November 20th at Crossfit Bytown

My back is way better midday than in the early morning.  Without Crossfit Bytown I would have had no workouts this week.  Mornings were a non-starter and no access to lunch time YMCA, these guys saved my sanity.

Second workout of the week was harder but I was alone in my class.  There were other athletes working out, but they were the competitive group doing their own thing.

I got to skip the 500m row since I'd already ran 1km to get there.

So after some targeted mobility work we did 5 sets of clean and jerk triples, touch and go, ascending weight.

Started at 135# after warming up with the empty bar and 95#.

Moved up to 145#, 155# and 165#, where I stayed for the last set.  I likely could have gone to 175#, but we still had the WOD to do. Back held out surprisingly well.

Coach Everett watched most of my lifts, and had very little to correct, so yay.  He even thought my jerk was way more than my clean, because it looked very solid at 135# and 145#, I said as it got heavier it was harder to commit to getting as low as I do at this weight.  But that was very motivating.

The WOD was Open WOD 14.1, 10 minute AMRAP of:
- 30 double unders
- 15 ground to overhead, 75#/55#

I had planned to split the difference on the weight at 65#, but I just realized that coach Everett loaded my bar while I changed shoes and he put 75#, the bastard!

So at least I can compare to when I did it during the 2014 Open.  I did 3 rounds + 37, this time I did 3 rounds + 38.  So there's that. 

Double unders when well,  snatches tanked me.

At least I got it done.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, November 18th at ByTown

Training off site for work going stir crazy without opportunity to workout, and discovered that Crossfit ByTown is just over 1km away from the training facility.

On Tuesday, I went there at lunch and introduced myself and asked about drop ins.  Everett, know Frank and Isabelle (the local Crossfit community is quite friendly).  He told me to use the free class option since I was just passing by. 

Very cool of him. So I signed up that night and brought my gear. 

Took off about 5 minutes before class broke for lunch and ran to the box.

Thankfully it was a short workout.  Unfortunately is was a short workout.

Man that was tough.  Started with some targeted mobility work and then an 8 minute EMOM of 8 thrusters.  Rx was 95#/65# so I split the difference at 75# (could've done 85#, but didn't want to risk over doing it while representing Physics).

The WOD was called Mission Impossible.  Yikes.

For time:
- row 2000m/1400m
- EMOM death by burpees.

So start rowing (I opted for 1400m) at minute 1, get off and do 1 burpee, resume rowing, minute 2 do 2 burpees, and so on, until you can't get back on the rower before the minute is up.

I managed 1054m, and 7 burpees, so 8 minutes of work.  Man burpees suck.

The run back was much harder than the run there.

My back is still tight.  It was a risk going there, but I really need to do something. I've registered for Friday, but I'll bail if my back is too troublesome.  Hope I'll be fine, I need my fix.

Minor workout log for Friday, November 13th

What a week, between Remembrance Day, and working from home yesterday and straining my right glute during Tuesday's deadlift workout, I haven't worked out since.  I have a massage appointment in 20 minutes, so I'll post this quick log and be on my way.

I couldn't not workout three days in a row.

Also, my barbell has been at the Y since Wednesday and I wanted to use it and make sure Dave and Seb knew that they were welcome to it too.

Since it was destined to collect dust in my garage all winter, I decide to offer it up, along with my women's bar to the Y to relieve the pressure of so few barbells.

So the women can use the women's bar (not many of them lift, but those who do won't have to compete with the men for a bar) and when Dave or I are there we won't be using up one of the few bars we have.

Win-win.

So I went today and did a few overhead squats and a few jerks just to use it.  Wrist was bugging me, I may go back to see Rob once more.

Now, for the Rogue bar, it's shouldn't be a problem as it'll be locked away for Seb, Dave or myself.  But the women's bar, I may have to sign some sort of waiver to let the general population use it.  We'll see what the manager says, next week.

Crossfit log for Monday, October 26th

I may have spoken too soon Friday, when I said it was one of the tougher WODs I've done.

Today's took the cake. Holy crap.

I barely made it through the warm up of 7-5-3 of front squats, jerks, overhead squats.  My wrist was really bugging me, I hadn't warmed up adequately. So I only ended up doing the first round.

Oh well.

There was a ton of work on the board.  A 1 rep heavy snatch, plus some snatch grip dead lifts and a 5 min CTB pull up AMRAP, but first we had to get through the WOD:

For time:
20 Thrusters  95#/65#
20 Sumo Deadlift High Pull
20 Jerks
20 Overhead Squats
20 Front squats.

Starting at minute 1, EMOM, stop and drop the bar, do 5 burpees.

O.M.G! Even scaling to 75# didn't help.

Hurried through the first 20 thrusters, no way I wanted to do more of those after burpees. Made it. 5 burpees took me like 20 seconds with only 40 to go, I still had to address the bar, I managed to get 10 SDHP before hitting the burpees again, so I figured next round finish them off .  Yeah, no.  Made 7. More burpees, but I was so tanked there was like only 15 seconds left, so I rested and did no work while waiting for the next set of burpees.

This paid off, I was quick on the burpees, like 17 seconds, finished off the SDHP and hit a couple of jerks.  But the jerks were really taxing.

Overhead squats were worse, took four rounds of burpees, one of which was the no work between sets kind.  Front squats went well, 2 sets of 10, thank Zeus.

17:57.  So that's 85 fucking burpees.  Ugh.  Took us forever to recover. 

Subsequent classes would get a 3 burpee option.  That would have been a different workout.

So there was no way we were doing snatch or deadlifts.  We all opted to do the 5 min EMOM of pull ups, minus the chest to bar. 

Cycling through 5 rounds, of 1 pull up, 2, 3, 4 and 5 unbroken, coming off the bar all 5 times between rounds.

Made 19 rounds, so 55 pull ups, total.  Ugh.

Power and accessory log for Wednesday, October 21st

My shoulders still feel fine, but I still opted to do nothing that would tax them at the Y today.

I wanted to do accessory work, but I also wanted to lift and do some power work.

I decided to start with some power cleans and hang cleans, working up that little complex to 195# where I failed on the hang clean, but totally go the power clean.  Got both at 185# easily.  Wrist is feeling pretty good.

Then I did some supinated barbell rows,  a warm up set at 115# for 10 reps and a working set at 165# for 6 reps.  Felt pretty good.  Made sure my back was as close to horizontal as possible.

After that I did some dumbbell rows, warm up at 75# for 8 reps per side and 100# for 5 each side.

Then I called it a day. 

We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

Crossfit log for Tuesday, Septermber 15th

Well I guess two great days in a row was too much to ask for.

Can't complain really, but today wasn't such a great workout.

The warm up was good.

5 minutes of 8 Romanian deadlifts (empty bar), 5 pull ups, and 1 shuttle run.

Then the eagerly anticipated low hang clean and jerk.

I was really hoping to do something awesome here, but it wasn't to be.

Wrist took a while to warm up.  135# was nice. 165# went up really well. 

Jumped to 185# and just had no explosiveness.  A lot like the snatch yesterday at 145#, except, the snatch was within 10# of my PR, but my clean PR is 205#, a full 20# difference.  So a bit frustrating.

I peeled back to 175# and it took everything I had to clean it. The jerk wasn't a problem, but man, I need to work on my clean.  I just need my wrist to heal a bit more first. 

So I'll keep doing accessory work in the mean time.

The WOD was a tiny little 6 minute AMRAP of 6 overhead squats and 6 handstand push ups.

I did women's Rx at 95# and kipping hspu, made two rounds.  Had no shoulders left for round 3.

So not great, but better than nothing.

Crossfit and physio log for Monday, September 14th

I went to physio after Crossfit for the first time in several weeks (Rob was on vacation), and since my wrist was feeling much better this week, I was expecting a quick and painless visit.

I took all of labour day weekend off, 3 full days, and when I came back on Tuesday, it hurt worse than ever, really started to worry, but as the week progressed it felt better and better.

You can imagine my surprise when the needling found knot after knot, twitch after twitch.  Ouch.

Anyway it's on the mend.

In fact I PR'd my snatch from the hang on it before the appointment.

No actual WOD today, we did a 5 minute alternating 100m row 30 double unders for a warm up. Double under went really well.  I'm getting the hang of my new rope.

Then we did the 1 rep max low hang snatch.  I haven't topped 125# in ages.  I caught 125# on August 25th, but failed at 135#.  My 125# attempt today wasn't pretty but I got under easily. So easily it was more of a power snatch than a snatch.  So I knew if I committed to getting under it, I had more in me.

So I put on 135#, first try my knee touched the ground, no rep.  Tried again and nailed it.  Although I caught it a bit high.

Maybe if I hadn't had to take two attempts at 135#, I would've hit 145#, but as it was, all three attempts for a snatch PR (not even from the hang, even regular snatch) failed on the second pull, just not enough explosiveness at that weight with what fatigue I had in me.

Oh well, 135# is a PR from the hang

Then we did 3 singles from the ground at 75% of max. I shared Pat's bar at 105# instead of the 100# I had planned. For the sake of 5#, I just clean up my bar right away instead of at the end.

This was easy compared to what we had just done.

Finally we did 1 max set of strict pull ups. I'm pretty sure I've never done more than 7 in a row. 

I got 10, so I'm counting that a my new PR. 

Not a bad day overall.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, September 9th

I've had a few workouts lately that I push really hard, harder than usual. Today was one of those.

After the warm up of rowing 100m, 12 goblet squats and 7 strict push ups for 5 minutes, we did fairly light strength work.

4 sets of 4 back squats at 70%, so 221#, rounded down to 220#. And 5 sets of 5 strict press at 60%, 85#.


Did the squats with Pat, who was doing 210#, so adding 5# per side was a snap.  Did the presses with Kamil, since we use the same weight and as an added bonus, put the rack at the same height.

Didn't use a belt. Did sets of 5 for the first 2 sets of back squats, autopilot.

Not much to tell here.

The WOD wad 5 rounds for time
- run 200m
- 5 squat cleans, 205#/135#

205# wasn't happening, and I didn't think 185#would go either, women's Rx seemed too little, so I opted for 155#.  My wrist felt totally fine. Weird.

Before we started I noticed Kamil also had 155#, so I totally thought game on!

Running in lifters sucks, but cleaning in flats sucks worse. So I used my Asics lift trainers, it was the best compromise available to me.

First run was pretty much the same for everyone, but I finished the cleans before Kamil. Stayed ahead of him on the second run, and again faster on the cleans.

The run started to hurt, and he caught me at the end getting to his bar before me, but once again, finished ahead on the cleans. As I walked to the door catching my breath he passed me. I didn't let him get too far ahead, and we finished the cleans neck and neck.

He got a good lead on me on the last run, but he was hurting on the cleans at this point, I just hammered them out and finished 4 seconds ahead in 12:51

I was totally rolling on the ground moaning and grunting in a pool of sweat afterwards.

It's good to go to that dark place every once in a while.

Crossfit log for Tuesday, September 8th

My wrist is really starting to bother me. It'll be two months tomorrow that I injured it and it's still as sore as it was last month.

I took 3 full days off and this morning it was worse than last week.

I had to resort to paralette push ups  for the first round of warm as my first handstand push up was a complete fail.

Warm up was a 6 minute AMRAP of:
5 Handstand Push-ups
5 Strict Knees-to-elbows
2 Shuttle Runs

Running was fine, first round I did 3 instead of two.
Strict knees to elbows was really good.
By round two the hspu were doable, but I didn't even get through 3 rounds.

Strength work was overhead squat 4 sets of 3.

Worked with Kamil.  I was worried about my wrist on these, but warmed up on the hspu work and warming up on the ohs, it hurt but didn't hurt more as the weight went up, so I kept going.  Maxed out at 115# for the last 3 sets.

The WOD was a variation of Fran.

21-15-9 reps, for time of: 

Row (calories) 

Thruster, 95/65 lbs 

Chest-to-bar Pull-up

Scaled to regular pull-ups and 75# on the bar. Good choices.  Finished in 13:46, middle of the pack. Didn't really fade.  Last round unbroken.  Kamil and i started on the Thrusters since there weren't enough rowers for everyone.  Made the first set of 21 thrusters a bit easier to manage.

I need to time my row better, I used to get 1 calorie per pull, but lately it's been closer to 2 calories for 3 pulls.  Gotta let that flywheel spin down a bit between pulls.

Turned out better than I had expected.

Crossfit log for Friday, September 4th

Okay, I'm done. I'm so glad this week is over.  I've been exhausted.  Getting to bed too late. Doing higher volume even with fewer sessions. Doing accessory work targeting oft neglected muscle groups. Plus a nagging wrist injury.

I'm a mess.

This morning we started with 3 rounds of 8 romanian deadlifts at 0.5x bodyweight plus 25' banded monster walk one side, 25' the other side. (I skipped the last monster walk).  The RDL, were good, I'm really pushing to get as deep as I can to stretch those hamstrings under tension.

After that we did 3 sets of 3 back squats at 92%, which I estimated at 290#, so my last warm up set, which became my first working set was 275#, and already I knew I was in trouble, no glutes thanks to the lunges from the other day. Hamstrings were dicey,  everything has been taxed this week.  Set two, I upped it to 285# and that was challenging, but I did it.  I didn't bother going up to 290# for the last set, and just stayed at 285#.

It'll have to do.

I didn't really do the low hand clean and jerk 4 sets of 3 at 77% of max.  My wrist and lack of doing these of the past few weeks, I just wasn't into it.  I did a few cleans working up slowly, to test out my wrist for the WOD instead.

The WOD was a chipper:
- 15 heavy cleans  185#/ 120#
- 30 bar facing burpees
- 60 wall balls.

With my wrist, fatigue and lack of olympic lifting lately, I only managed 135#, tried 155# in warm up and it wasn't happening. 

Burpees were slow and systematic.

Wall balls were 4 sets of 15. 6 sets of 10 might have been better, the break between sets was sometimes excessive.

Was really glad when it was done.  11:18 final time.