Strength log for Wednesday, September 11th

Slept in today. I knew I would, even as I set the alarm last night. I just needed it.

Last night I worked on my squat position in the garage (since I have this wonderful lifting platform and weights). And just looked at my position in the little mirror I have set up (Yeah, I know, I know, but as I am the coach in my garage gym I can't really give myself cues), I had a really hard time keeping my back braced, in a deep position. It was really taxing on my upper back. I decided to set up the bar with a bit of weight and try again. My position was much much better, letting gravity pull my hips down instead of my hip flexors made the difference, although I should be able to do both air squat and weighted squat at least I felt good that my position was good under load. Worked up to 135# and was sore afterwards. Hence the sleep in.

So I went to the Y at lunch, aiming to do similar work as last night, maybe get Ben, the Y trainer who has Olympic lifting experience to watch me. He wasn't around, so I just threw some weight on the bar and tried to forcus on keeping my back tight and braced in a neutral position. I made an effort only look in the mirror directly in front of me to maintain good position. And just kept adding weight. I was doing 3-4 reps upto 165# and things were going really well, so I figured I'd see how far I could ride this train and dropped to single reps at 175#, 185# and 195#. All went up without problem.

My front squat PR is 200#. I put 205# on the bar. One of the body builder I chat with said: "Starting to get some pretty heavy weight going there". "This will be a new PR if I make it".

Down and up. I was stunned. So I added 2 fivers, 215#, I really focused on keeping my back tight. All the way down is stayed nice and straight, about two thirds of the way up my shoulders started to roll forward, but the lift was as good as done, I push through the last little bit and boom! 15# PR.

Needed that.

Progress update of revised weightlifting goals. Derived from intermediate level for my body weight at www.exrx.net

Lift / target weight / current PR
Bench / 190lbs / 185lbs Apr 30, 2013 (up from 165lbs)
Deadlift / 300lbs / 285lbs Apr 25, 2013 (up from 265lbs)
Press / 130lbs / 120lbs May 14, 2013 (up from 110lbs)
Power Clean / 185lbs / 157lbs May 6, 2013 (up from 155lbs)
Power snatch / 140lbs / 115lbs Aug, 15, 2013 (up from 105lbs)
Back Squat / 255lbs / 235lbs May 23, 2013 (up from 215lbs)

New front squat PR

Other lift PRs:
Front Squat 215# Sep 11, 2013 (up from 200#)
Push Press: 155# March 25, 2013
Clean: 175# May 23, 2013
Jerk: 180# Jun 18, 2013
Snatch: 130# July 22, 2013
Clean and Jerk: 175# July 24, 2013

Crossfit log for Tuesday, September 10th

A bit of a change of pace today. worked on hand stand walk. I can't. I can hold a hand stand for short time, but can only walk 1 or 2 steps.

It was fun trying.

Strength was push press, 5 sets of 10, touch and go, no resting in the front rack position, you could rest at the top if needed, but the point was to find a weight you could go non stop. I did progressively heavier starting at 65#, 75#, 85#, 85# and 95#.

I kept thinking, okay this is heavy enough. but I'd go a bit heavier and I was fine. I felt 85# was heavy enough, but for the last round I figured I should try 95#, and it wasn't a problem, so in hind sight I could have gone heavier, but it was still a good workout.

the WOD was 4 rounds of
20 wall balls 20#
15 box jumps 24"
10 pull ups.

11:58

I finished ahead of a number of stronger guys, I'm average at wall balls, but pretty good at box jumps and very consistent on the kipping pull ups.

Crossfit log for Monday, September 9th

Blargh!

Today was lifting competition day. 6 lifts. 3 snatch, 3 clean and jerk. Using something called the Sinclair coefficient to better compare results, it takes into account bodyweight to put everyone on a level playing field. Not to my advantage since I'm fairly heavy but not very strong. Also points will be allocated for technique and the number of successful lifts.

Most people had been ratcheting up of the past few week leading up to today, but I hadn't really.

First half of the class, warm up to 3 heavy snatches in the 95% - 105% of max

Did my first lift at 115#, it was okay, second was 125#, hope to go for a PR of 135#, but I missed at 125#, so my 3rd was at 125# again, and just barely made it. I won't get any style points for sure.

Second half was clean and jerk, warmed up to start at 165#.

Landed it quite well, but it felt heavy. Again I was going to do my second at current PR and try for 180# for my third. Coach convinced me to add a couple of 1.25# plates to make it a PR at 178#, but both attempts failed. Would I have made 175#? I'm not sure, but I don't think I would have, it just wasn't there today.

Feeling kinda bummed. But I have to remember that every race can't be a great race, it takes the bad ones to appreciate the good ones. Lessons learned in running still apply. Thankfully.

Besides, this is the year of mobility and I still have lots to do, and not a lot of weeks left in 2013!!!!!

Crossfit log for Friday, September 6th

Snatch balance 3 sets of 3 did empty bar.

Strict press vs strict pull up combo
- 4 sets of 5 each. Did 95# and body weight. Good enough for me.

WOD was 21-15-9 of:
-burpees
-box jumps 24"
-pull up, kipping

9:05
Box jumps after burpees, not so easy. Pull ups were all unbroken.

Crossfit log for Thursday, September 5th

Interesting workout.

We started with a "power clean ladder" so 5 bars were setup 135#, 155#, 185#, 205# and we didn't bother setting up the 225# (the girls were: 85#, 95#, 105#, 115#, 125#), you had 1 minute to do as may reps as possible of power clean at the first bar, move to the next bar, 1 minute rest, 1 minute AMRAP.

Power clean is pulling the bar from the floor and hiking it up to the shoulders in a front rack position like a front squat, but "power" means you catch it high, the hips have to be above the knees. This requires more "power" to launch the bar high enough to catch so high (unlike a squat clean that you catch in a deep squat and you don't have to pull it nearly as high).

I'm in that sad place were the women's weight would be too easy, but the men's weight is beyond my ability. My PR is 155#, so I did what I could, I got 8 reps at 135# then managed to get 4 at 155# (I'm definitely ready to establish a new PR on the power clean).

The other guys were all able to get a couple at 185# and at least 1 at 205#, we ended up quickly setting up the 225#, 2 guys tried but couldn't manage to catch it. (Later today the "big boys" will get some big numbers on this workout.

The WOD was a sprint/thrusters combo.
5 rounds
5 thrusters @ 105#
3 shuttle sprints (the the next building and back = 1) about 25m each way. So 150m per round.

Finished in 8:33. Wasn't bad, I'm not great at thrusters, but I'm still happy with my result.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, September 4th

Strength work today was split jerk from the rack. Work up to 3 heavy singles.

Ended up doing 155# for 3 sets of 1. They need to be faster, but I was able to lock them out. Would've liked to go heavier but that was 85% of my 1 rep max, so I should be content with that.

WOD was good. Played to my strengths
500m row
followed by 3 rounds of
8 dips on rings or on bars (did bars)
1 rope climb
7 shoulder to overhead. 105#

Went pretty hard on the row, finished in just under 1:50, and thankfully I'm strong on the dips, did my 8 unbroken. I was still winded from the row, so I took a few breaths before my rope climb. I'm good at rope climb. Shoulder to over head, not so much. I didn't put the bar down, but I rested in the front rack a bit too much. After another 8 unbroken dips I was starting to recover from being completely out of breath. Rope climb was a quick affair, this time I pumped out 5 push press in a row, really wanted to drop the bar, but I didn't want to have to clean it back up again, so I rested a few seconds in the front rack and did the last two reps. for round 2.

Round three was rough, arms were toast by now, had to break up the dips, 4 and 4, last rep was a struggle. Rope climb was okay. For the push press, I did 4 then dropped it, took a few seconds and cleaned for 3 more and I was done. 8:15

Beat Kamil by 5 seconds and Adam by nearly a minute.

Crossfit log for Tuesday, September 3rd

Long weekend didn't help my wake up. But I rolled out of bed anyway, yay me.

Strength was 10 minutes to 80% of snatch max for 2 reps.
then 10 minutes to 80% of clean and jerk for 2 reps.

10 minutes isn't enough. Did okay 115# snatch was ugly but it went up, 155# clean and jerk was ugly too. oh well.

WOD was a 12 min AMRAP
50 wall balls
50 double unders
40 wall balls
40 double unders
30 pull ups

First set of 50 double under, I went unbroken! I think that's a new record. The set of 40 was a disaster.

Made it through 1 round and 11 wall balls. Happy with that.