Really good workout today.
It was a 20 minute AMRAP:
10 Thrusters 65# (scaled was 75#, Rx 95#)
2 lengths weighted overhead walking lunges (35#) about 22 steps
2 lengths "waiter walk" 16kg kettle bell
4 lengths "farmer walk" 2 20kg kettle bells.
Did 4 rounds + 5 thrusters. Those lunges were killer after the thrusters!
Had
a breakthrough finding my rack position on the thrusters. Finally!
Hands wider than shoulders but elbows in at shoulder width allowed me to
rest the bar on my deltoids without breaking my wrists, and more
importantly not resting the bar on my fingers, but in the palm of my
hand. Granted my elbows weren't as high as I'd like for say a front
squat, but worked well for the thrusters. I need to try heavier now!
Wednesday, 30 November 2011
Tuesday, 29 November 2011
Crossfit log for Monday, November 29th
I want to get this down before the feeling fades.
I missed Crossfit this morning because Dex was up at around 3:30am to 4:30am and my alarm had been set for 5:30am. Well, when I got back to bed lets just say the alarm was no longer set, but I digress.
I decided to go tonight, but on Mondays the 7:30pm class (the only one I could go to), wasn't Crossfit, it was Olympic Lifting, with professional weightlifting coach Daniel Robitaille.
"Today we'll be doing the snatch". Crap. I've never done a snatch and I can't even overhead squat, a necessary part of the snatch. Thankfully he asked if there was anyone who had never done a snatch before, and sadly I was the only person to raise their hand.
"Okay, I'll keep a closer eye on you", and I suddenly felt like he was in my corner.
The first thing we did was overhead squats to warm up. I just couldn't do them. Not sure if it's a shoulder mobility issue, or a thoracic spine mobility issue, immediately Dan turns to Francois (our Crossfit coach and Dan's protégé) "You know what he needs? He needs to do a split snatch" then he turns to me and says "They don't do it anymore, but I did it in my day and held the Canadian record doing it".
He seemed almost excited by the prospect, like he'd been waiting for some time for an opportunity to teach someone this technique that had fallen into disuse.
So after a few minutes of instruction and a couple of trial lifts with an empty bar, I was doing snatches like everyone else, but in my own special way.
Then we started putting weight on the bar and working parts of the lift, just the catch, just the landing, driving with the bar across our shoulders instead of from the ground, catch it, then squat (or for me lunge), the putting pieces together until we had a bit more weight on the bar and were doing the full snatch.
It started to gel for me, and more often than not I actually looked like I knew what I was doing. To receive praise from a guy like Dan, who's been there and coached world championship bronze medallists says a lot. He asked me three times "Are you sure you've never done a snatch before".
I pulled one really good one off and from across the room I heard him yell out "Now that was a good split snatch".
It was really gratifying to have someone of his experience giving such positive praise for my effort, telling me I was a strong athlete and had great body control. Granted, he's a coach, it's his job to do that, but it felt wonderful. Really wonderful.
I missed Crossfit this morning because Dex was up at around 3:30am to 4:30am and my alarm had been set for 5:30am. Well, when I got back to bed lets just say the alarm was no longer set, but I digress.
I decided to go tonight, but on Mondays the 7:30pm class (the only one I could go to), wasn't Crossfit, it was Olympic Lifting, with professional weightlifting coach Daniel Robitaille.
"Today we'll be doing the snatch". Crap. I've never done a snatch and I can't even overhead squat, a necessary part of the snatch. Thankfully he asked if there was anyone who had never done a snatch before, and sadly I was the only person to raise their hand.
"Okay, I'll keep a closer eye on you", and I suddenly felt like he was in my corner.
The first thing we did was overhead squats to warm up. I just couldn't do them. Not sure if it's a shoulder mobility issue, or a thoracic spine mobility issue, immediately Dan turns to Francois (our Crossfit coach and Dan's protégé) "You know what he needs? He needs to do a split snatch" then he turns to me and says "They don't do it anymore, but I did it in my day and held the Canadian record doing it".
He seemed almost excited by the prospect, like he'd been waiting for some time for an opportunity to teach someone this technique that had fallen into disuse.
So after a few minutes of instruction and a couple of trial lifts with an empty bar, I was doing snatches like everyone else, but in my own special way.
Then we started putting weight on the bar and working parts of the lift, just the catch, just the landing, driving with the bar across our shoulders instead of from the ground, catch it, then squat (or for me lunge), the putting pieces together until we had a bit more weight on the bar and were doing the full snatch.
It started to gel for me, and more often than not I actually looked like I knew what I was doing. To receive praise from a guy like Dan, who's been there and coached world championship bronze medallists says a lot. He asked me three times "Are you sure you've never done a snatch before".
I pulled one really good one off and from across the room I heard him yell out "Now that was a good split snatch".
It was really gratifying to have someone of his experience giving such positive praise for my effort, telling me I was a strong athlete and had great body control. Granted, he's a coach, it's his job to do that, but it felt wonderful. Really wonderful.
Saturday, 26 November 2011
Crossfit log for Saturday, November 26th
Good workout today
"Helen" meets "Grace"
Helen is 3 rounds for time
-run 400m (more like 300m)
30 kettlebell swings
12 pull-ups
Grace is 30 clean and jerks (Rx was 135# men/105# women)
It was a two person teams. Both had to compete each of the three runs from Helen together, the rest could be traded of at will.
But we had to use the same kettle bell and the same bar bell.
I teamed up with Kamil, who sometimes comes to the morning workouts, we are pretty evenly match, I'm better at some things, him at others.
We agreed on 75# for the Grace, but afterward I think we agreed that 95# would've been doable.
We finshed in 14:08.
I'm stronger in the pull ups so he wanted to start them and I'd take over when he hit his limit (usually 4 or 5), so first round of Helen he did 15 kb swings, then I did 15, so he'd be ready to go on the pull ups, next round I finished the run ahead so was aloud to start the kb swings, and did 10, the he did 10 and I finished with 10 while he went to the pull up bar. Third rounds I was back first again, but could only manage 5 swings, then he did 15 and I finished with 10. It worked out well.
Grace went well, considering the fatigue from Helen. We split up the clean and jerks unevenly Kamil taking most of them (K/J : 8/7 5/5 5).
"Helen" meets "Grace"
Helen is 3 rounds for time
-run 400m (more like 300m)
30 kettlebell swings
12 pull-ups
Grace is 30 clean and jerks (Rx was 135# men/105# women)
It was a two person teams. Both had to compete each of the three runs from Helen together, the rest could be traded of at will.
But we had to use the same kettle bell and the same bar bell.
I teamed up with Kamil, who sometimes comes to the morning workouts, we are pretty evenly match, I'm better at some things, him at others.
We agreed on 75# for the Grace, but afterward I think we agreed that 95# would've been doable.
We finshed in 14:08.
I'm stronger in the pull ups so he wanted to start them and I'd take over when he hit his limit (usually 4 or 5), so first round of Helen he did 15 kb swings, then I did 15, so he'd be ready to go on the pull ups, next round I finished the run ahead so was aloud to start the kb swings, and did 10, the he did 10 and I finished with 10 while he went to the pull up bar. Third rounds I was back first again, but could only manage 5 swings, then he did 15 and I finished with 10. It worked out well.
Grace went well, considering the fatigue from Helen. We split up the clean and jerks unevenly Kamil taking most of them (K/J : 8/7 5/5 5).
Friday, 25 November 2011
Crossfit log for Friday, November 25th
DNF
4 rounds for time:
15 Thrusters 95#/65#
20 kettle bell swings 20kg/16kg
I don't know what went wrong today. I chose the women's weight and still only managed two rounds before throwing in the towel.
I've been sore in some corners around the shoulder, 65# thrusters shouldn't be a problem for me.
Now on top of shoulder mobility, hamstring tightness I think I can add upper thoracic mobility to the mix.
Well I guess the bright side is that the more weakness I find, the more of them I can work to correct.
4 rounds for time:
15 Thrusters 95#/65#
20 kettle bell swings 20kg/16kg
I don't know what went wrong today. I chose the women's weight and still only managed two rounds before throwing in the towel.
I've been sore in some corners around the shoulder, 65# thrusters shouldn't be a problem for me.
Now on top of shoulder mobility, hamstring tightness I think I can add upper thoracic mobility to the mix.
Well I guess the bright side is that the more weakness I find, the more of them I can work to correct.
Wednesday, 23 November 2011
Crossfit log for Wednesday, November 23rd
Cindy is another one of those WODs I've been looking forward to doing, ever since I learned to do the kipping pull-up.
Finally got my chance today. Cindy is a 20 AMRAP: 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats.
Almost made it to 12: 11 + 10 squats.
My limiter was the push-ups. I think it's because I have a bunch of knots in my upper lats near the shoulder, in my delts and my traps again near the shoulder, not to mention my ticeps, tight pecs and biceps. Essentially I'm a mess.
Needless to say I'll be doing some mobility work at the gym at lunch.
After the WOD I did something called a Landmine bar twist, tabata (8 rounds of 20 seconds all out, 10 seconds rest, so 4 minutes).
Basically holding one end of a 45# barbell with the other end anchored to a pivot point on the floor, you rotate your body keeping your arms straight, bringing the bar to waist height on one side, than back up to the start position, and down the other side. Good core workout.
Feels good to get a solid workout done.
Finally got my chance today. Cindy is a 20 AMRAP: 5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats.
Almost made it to 12: 11 + 10 squats.
My limiter was the push-ups. I think it's because I have a bunch of knots in my upper lats near the shoulder, in my delts and my traps again near the shoulder, not to mention my ticeps, tight pecs and biceps. Essentially I'm a mess.
Needless to say I'll be doing some mobility work at the gym at lunch.
After the WOD I did something called a Landmine bar twist, tabata (8 rounds of 20 seconds all out, 10 seconds rest, so 4 minutes).
Basically holding one end of a 45# barbell with the other end anchored to a pivot point on the floor, you rotate your body keeping your arms straight, bringing the bar to waist height on one side, than back up to the start position, and down the other side. Good core workout.
Feels good to get a solid workout done.
Monday, 21 November 2011
Crossfit log for Monday, November 21st
Fran really does a number on some major muscle groups.
Traps are a bit sore, lats are really sore, pecs are tight, triceps are tight, delts are sore, biceps are tight, hips are tight.
Always make for an interesting workout, next time.
Back squats went okay. No PRs to be had, wasn't looking for any!
Did 5 sets of 8-5-5-3-3 at 115-135-135-155-155.
I have an issue when I push my knees outward to open my hips, my feet tend to splay (like a duck), which is not ideal. Tight aductors aparently. So focused on that today, and it went well.
The WOD look fairly easy.
3 rounds for time
12 burpee tuck jumps
8 strict press
I went 8:04, and sucked on the presses. I can't push my body through my arms and I can't seem to lock out my elbows. Ever. I'll talk to my RMT about it, see if she has any ideas.
My triceps and shoulders were still trashed from Saturday, so I had to resort to push press by round 2.
I'll go work out the kinks at lunch at the Y.
Traps are a bit sore, lats are really sore, pecs are tight, triceps are tight, delts are sore, biceps are tight, hips are tight.
Always make for an interesting workout, next time.
Back squats went okay. No PRs to be had, wasn't looking for any!
Did 5 sets of 8-5-5-3-3 at 115-135-135-155-155.
I have an issue when I push my knees outward to open my hips, my feet tend to splay (like a duck), which is not ideal. Tight aductors aparently. So focused on that today, and it went well.
The WOD look fairly easy.
3 rounds for time
12 burpee tuck jumps
8 strict press
I went 8:04, and sucked on the presses. I can't push my body through my arms and I can't seem to lock out my elbows. Ever. I'll talk to my RMT about it, see if she has any ideas.
My triceps and shoulders were still trashed from Saturday, so I had to resort to push press by round 2.
I'll go work out the kinks at lunch at the Y.
Saturday, 19 November 2011
Crossfit log for Saturday, November 19th
Today we had a choice to make. We could either
do Jackie, or we could do Fran. It was an individual choice, not a group
one. Two people opted for Jackie, since there were only 2 rowers, I
figured it would make sense to just do Fran.
Jackie is row 1000m, 50 thrusters @ 45#, 30 pull-ups, the thrusters are light, but rough after the row, and 30 pull-ups is 30 pull-ups.
Fran is three rounds, 21, 15 and 9 reps of 95# thrusters and pull-ups, so a total of 45 each, but the thrusters are heavier and they are broken up.
I've done Jackie before in 15:09, at prescribed weight and unassisted pull-ups, but I can't to 95# thrusters and have to scale it to 75# (which took me 9:44).
I decided to try and do Fran at 85#, 10# closer to Rx.
It was rough. Took me 13 and half minutes. The pull-ups were fine, but man that 10# more make a big difference.
Some that were lighter weight and assisted pull-ups were close to 6:00 and Francois said they needed to up the weight and us less assistive bands. So I think that's my plan. I'll go back to 75# until I can go sub 7:00 or sub 6:30 before I increase the weight again.
So at the very least, I got a good plan out of today's workout.
Jackie is row 1000m, 50 thrusters @ 45#, 30 pull-ups, the thrusters are light, but rough after the row, and 30 pull-ups is 30 pull-ups.
Fran is three rounds, 21, 15 and 9 reps of 95# thrusters and pull-ups, so a total of 45 each, but the thrusters are heavier and they are broken up.
I've done Jackie before in 15:09, at prescribed weight and unassisted pull-ups, but I can't to 95# thrusters and have to scale it to 75# (which took me 9:44).
I decided to try and do Fran at 85#, 10# closer to Rx.
It was rough. Took me 13 and half minutes. The pull-ups were fine, but man that 10# more make a big difference.
Some that were lighter weight and assisted pull-ups were close to 6:00 and Francois said they needed to up the weight and us less assistive bands. So I think that's my plan. I'll go back to 75# until I can go sub 7:00 or sub 6:30 before I increase the weight again.
So at the very least, I got a good plan out of today's workout.
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