Crossfit log for Friday, November 29th

Linda. 

Again.  This is what I wrote on November 1st, last time we did Linda:

You know those days where you go to the gym and have a good tough workout and feel energized and ready to face the day.

Yeah well that didn't happen today.

Linda is a brutal, draining, work horse WOD

I was planning on starting my nutritional supplement program for today's workout but didn't get to it.

I wish I had, a pre-WOD supplement might have helped

Linda: 10 rounds (reps were: 10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1) 
- dead lifts 1.5 times body weight
- bench press, body weight
- clean, 0.75 body weight

There was no 30 minute cap this time, get through it.

I scaled thing differently this time, but I still ended up stopping at 30 minutes. Making it to the end of round 6.

I went heavier on the dead lifts (205# instead of 185#), heavier on the bench, (145# instead of 135#), but lighter on the cleans, (125# instead of 135#)

Dead lifts were okay, but on the seventh round, my back was sore and I didn't want to do even 4 dead lifts.

Bench was a mistake, but one I'm glad I made.  On the fourth round, I couldn't make the last of 7 reps.  So I dropped the weight to 105# (just the way the barbell math worked for me and my partner, Peter), but I did 33 reps at 145#, so I'm happy with that.

Cleans were fine, but my back was getting sore from the dead lifts.

So all in all I feel I did better than last time.   Even though I'd like to complete this workout, I sincerely hope not to see it on the board any time soon.

Crossfit log for Thursday, November 28th

I was wondering why I was so sore, especially in my obliques and lats as I arrived at the box this morning.

We hadn't really worked those muscles this week.  Maybe the rope climbs, or the toes to bar, but not really.

Then it dawned on me: shovelling.    I guess it was a good workout after all.

We did some snatch work.  We had the choice of snatch pulls or snatch dead lift. Since we'd done quite a few pull workouts at Olympic lifting classes, I opted for the dead lifts.  3 sets of 3 at 185#, after working up to that weight naturally.

Then we did heavy back squats, max effort for 3 reps.  Worked up to 225# and as time was running out, decided to call that my max effort.  I've done 240# for two, so I should have at least tried 235# but 225# was hard.

The WOD was a good one.  For me anyway.

10 min AMRAP
-10 wall balls  20# medicine ball
-4 pull ups (add 1 pull up each round)

So, round one: 10 wall balls, 4 pull ups, round two: 10 wall balls 5 pull ups, etc...

I did all the wall balls unbroken, and all the pull ups until the last round (round 8 for 11 pull ups) I had to stop at 9 and jump back up for the last 2. I managed to get through the 10 wall balls with 2 seconds left on the clock, so not even enough time for a single pull up in round 9.

I honestly don't understand how Adam beat me.  I was a machine.  I think I took too much time between stations, and apparently Adam is like lightening when it comes to wall balls (although, given the laws of gravity I don't know how I could go any faster)!

Either way, I'm happy with my result.  I pushed really hard and did almost everything unbroken.

Did the math, 90 wall balls and 60 pull ups in 10 minutes.  Not bad.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, November 27th: Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow

Today started with a warm up of shovel a path to the car, clear the car and shovel behind the car to get out of the drive way.

Showed up 5 minutes late, but Alex was still writing the workout on the board, so I didn't miss anything.

Very interesting workout.  I really liked it.

Partner WOD, 16 min AMRAP  (weights given for men/women)
1 x rope climb
2 x box jump 30"/24"
3 x dead lift 185#/125#
4 x toes to bar or knees to chest
5 x thrusters 75#/55#

Partner A goes through everything, then partner B does, repeat.

I ended up doing 85# for the thrusters, Rx was 95#, but more importantly, on a 35# women's bar, I could use 25# plates, which are okay to drop.

My partner was Lana.  She did really well. She wasn't used to doing toes to bar, but managed to get many of them and resorted to knees to chest when she had to.

This WOD was about thrusters.  One rope climb, no problem.  A couple of box jumps no sweat. Dead lifts weren't that heavy, and only 3 reps. Toes to bar, okay, tricky if you don't have the right technique, but only 4, completely manageable.

5 thrusters at 85# where where this got interesting.  The first few rounds
 were fine, but it got harder with each round.

We averaged about 1:30 per rounds  completing 10 full rounds, and Lana finishing the dead lifts of round 11 at the buzzer.

Crossfit log for Monday, November 25th

I don't know if its the extra mobility work I've been doing since my last physio appointment, or the salt water bath the Nordik Spa on Friday morning, but for the first time in I don't know how long I didn't feel sore and defeated going into this morning's workout.

5:30 am on a Monday isn't usually the time to feel energized and empowered, but that was me, today.

We started with 5 sets of :
2 split jerks, rest 1:30
5 front squats, rest 1:30

Weight was 70%-75% of max cleans and jerk. I opted for 135#, right in the middle of 70%(130#) and 75%(139#).  Felt good.  I failed to lock out a couple of jerks, but at that weight was able to press them out overhead.

Felt pretty good in the overhead position, so I guess the mobility work is helping.

Front squats at 135# were fine.

Next was 4 sets of 4 deficit dead lifts, standing on a 25# plate, I did two sets at 185#, but coach said I was rounding my back at the bottom.  I gave it one more try but right away he said no.  So I redid set 3 and did set 4 from the floor.

The workout was devious, looked tough but manageable on the board, but once I got started, holy crap!

8 min AMRAP, increasing reps each round (2, 4, 6, 8...)
- squat cleans  115#
- burpees

The plan was go hard on the burpees, take my time on the cleans.  Well, I didn't have a choice.  Getting up from the cleans got really difficult, really quickly.

Made it through the 2 first rounds and was only 2 minutes in,  this was going to be long!  The 6 cleans on round 3 really slowed me down, so the burpees went well. Made it through the 10 cleans of round 5 but only had time for 4 burpees.

Score 4 rounds + 14 reps

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.

Physio and mobility work: it does the body good.

After my frustrating experience with one armed overhead kettle bell squats, I made an appointment with my physiotherapist. I've done a ton of work over the past year to get my body in a state where I can perform most of the movements required by Crossfit, movements that every normal healthy body should be able to perform.

The good news is I have the necessary range of motion, but I lack the motor control to achieve that range of motion.  Which is especially good news because it's easier to fix than flexibility and mobility issues.

He gave me some more exercises, plus I found a great blog post by Eric Ressey with some more exercises of overhead work, and I've been using the foam roller to beat the crap out of my pecs, lats, traps and back.

On top of all this I'm still working my hamstrings, glutes and hips to try and get deeper in the squat, and Mitch suggested my quads may be tight.  Great.  There aren't enough hours in the day to roll and massage an stretch and mobilize and strengthen all the body parts I need to address!

At least it's progress, but more importantly, it's a plan, that will lead to more progress.

My year of mobility is running out.  I may have to extend it a bit.

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.