Strength and Olympic lifting log for Thursday, December 31st

A night out with my fiancee (or as Delilah said my beyoncé) a couple of drinks and a bit of congestion in the back of my nose/throat I slept in again, by choice.

Work day new year's eve ended at noon, after we were given the okay to leave for the day, I headed to the Y for my last workout of the year.

Started with squats, since I forgot my gear yesterday.

I worked up to a heavy single of 305#.  I wanted to try for a double, but the weight went forward on the way up. I was able to recover and stand it up, but I was no longer interested in going for another one.

So, then I moved on to cleans.  I figured why not see what I can muster towards my goal of 100kg.

After switching to singles at 185#, I jumped to 205# and it went up very well. Then I was going to go with 215#, my current PR.  At the last minute I figured why not add 2.5# plates for 220# and make it a new record.

And doing the maths, turned out that it would actually be 100kg: my stated goal (although my real goal is two plates, 225#).

Well 220# went up like 205#, I was really stoked, so there was no way I was leaving without at least trying 225#.

I recruited a buddy to film the attempt, and somehow I got it.  Didn't catch it as solidly as 220#, but I got under and had no trouble standing it up.

So new PR for my last workout of 2015.  That's pretty cool.

New Clean PR.  

Strength:
Bench: 230# November 19, 2014 (up from 225#)
Dead Lift: 365# September 17, 2014 (up from 355#)
Press: 145# September 9, 2014 (up from 140#)
Back Squat: 315# March 2, 2015 (up from 305#)
Front Squat: 280# September 29, 2015 (up from 275#)
Overhead squat: 155# September 22, 2015 (up from 145#) 

Power:
Power Clean: 205# July 4, 2015 (up from 195#)
Power snatch:  140# Dec 5, 2014 (up from 125#)
Push Press: 185# Sept 15, 2014 (up from 175#)
Clean: 225# Dec 31, 2015 (up from 215#)
Jerk: 205#  Dec 13, 2014 (up from 185#)
Snatch: 145# Apr 23, 2015 (up from 135#)
Clean and Jerk: 205# Dec 13, 2014 (up from 175#)

Strength and accessory log for Wednesday, December 30th

Late night, and up in the night so no Crossfit.  Grrr.  Planned for the Y at lunch but after leaving the house realized I forgot my lifting bag.  Double Grrr.

So I did what I could:  strict press, 3 rep max, followed by heavy rows, 3 sets of 3 at 165#

Press went well, hit 125# for 3, knew 135# wouldn't happen, so I tried 130#, got two! But the third just wouldn't go.  I'll take it.

Hit the row pulley machine at 105# for 8, 135# for 5, then 3 triples at 165#.  Felt good.

Will to 3 singles at 180# next week.

Strength and accessory log for Wednesday, December 23rd

Went to the Y at lunch, again, since I'll be a slug until after Christmas, and worked on overhead and accessory work.

Got a Christmas surprise, the new barbell arrived just as I did and Seb let me be the first to use it.

Nice bar. bushings not bearings (as expected), but smooth rotation (new bar), and pretty good whip.  I liked it.

Did press, push press, jerk, building up to max strict press of 135# and max push press of 185# (hadn't hit that in a while) but failed to lock out 195# with the jerk, but I was tired and sore, so I called it after that.

Then I followed up last Wednesday's accessory work with 5 triples of supinated rows on the pulley machine at 155#.  Went well.

Next week, if I can get to the Y I'll hit 3 triples at 165#.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, December 23rd

Didn't want to get out of bed this morning.  But since it will likely be my last Crossfit class until after Christmas, I dragged myself out of bed and planned to go easy. 

When I signed up just before leaving the house, there 14 of 14 spots left, I would be the only person. Thankfully Kyle and Véro where there when I arrived. I guess they hadn't signed up for the class.

Warm up was 3 rounds of 5 pull ups (strict), 10 empty bar thrusters, and 12 sit ups.  Did two rounds.

Started with a clean complex EMOM for 7 minutes:  1 high hang clean + 1 hang clean + 1 clean.  Don't drop the bar until after all three are done.

Did 135#, 145# and 155# for the first three rounds and stayed at 155# to the end.

Last couple of rounds were getting rough.


Then, after all those heavy back squats yesterday at the Y, we had 1 rep max back squat. Crap. 

Got up to 295# and called it there. 

The WOD was a 21-15-9 couplet of deadlifts and box jumps, 245#/30" for the men and 165#/24" for the women.  There was a 10 minute cap.

As I hummed and hawed, I remembered my plan to go easy and figured if I wanted any chance of finishing under the cap I should just go  women's Rx for everything and for get about using the 30" box or splitting the differenct on the deadlifts.

So I did women's Rx and had a great workout.  Finished right in the pack at 7:13.

Very happy with that..

Strength and accessory log for Tuesday, December 22nd

Had a great workout at the Y today.

Wanted to lift heavy.  Torn between cleans and back squats.  Since we did a ton of power cleans this morning and when in doubt you should always squat.  I voted for squats.

Decided to do 5 singles, and see how close I could get to that elusive repeat of last March's PR of 315#.

Warmed up to a double at 275# then began my singles at 295#.  Then 300#, 305#, which went up easily, even smoother than 300# did.  At 310# I fought a bit, but I got it.

For the fifth set I tried  310# again, looking to make it smoother, like 305# was over 300#.  Got it, much less fight. 

Very happy with that.  Maybe next time I'll try a double at 305# or 300#.

Then I did some RDLs, a warm up of 8 reps at 135# and a working set at 205# for 6 reps. 

That was good too.   Took a bit of a steam and headed back to work.

Good workout.

Crossfit log for Tuesday, December 22nd

This wasn't going to be fun.


Back to back mini WODs for Tuesday's f
15-10-5
- Power Clean  135/95#
- HSPU

 - Then Directly into -

15-10-5
- Hang Power Clean 135/95#
- Ring Dip

Used women's Rx, and it actually wasn't too bad.   HSPU sucked after the first 10 reps.

Ring dips, usually my strength, are a lot harder when you triceps are trashed from HSPU!

But I got through it.

Today was a day for scaling.  The post WOD was 2 6 minute EMOMs with 2 minutes rest between.


6min EMOM:
- Row 15/10 Cals

 - Rest 2 mins -

6min EMOM
- 5 C2B + 10 Push-ups + 5 Box Jump Overs

Rows went 15 cal, 12 cal, 12 cal, 10 cal, 10 cal, 15 cal  (last one, took the whole minute).

Second part did regular pull ups, scaled to 7 push ups.  Made 2 rounds like that, the dropped to 5, 5, 4 and the last round, having more time with no need for rest did a full 5, 10, 5.

So there.  Spent, but it went better than I expected.

Crossfit log for Monday, December 21st

Monday Crossfit.  Rough, of course.

Even the warm up was rough.

It was a sprint chipper of:
- 25 Medicine Ball Cleans
- 20 Wall Balls
- 15 Sit-ups
- 10 Superman Rocks
- 5 Squat Snatches, 75/55 lbs
- 2 Shuttle Runs

I was just about ready to go home after that.

Then we did snatch balance, working up to a one rep max.  I stopped at 135#.  Did it twice because the first one was ugly.

Then 1 rep max overhead squat.  Also did 135# and also did this twice.  Didn't get deep enough on the first one.

Granted my warm up going split snatch balance wasn't quite a OHS warm up like most everybody else, but it was okay.  

Then the WOD, teams of 2,  worked with Dave and Justin shadowed us.

2 rounds for time of:
- 20 Overhead Squats, 115/80#
- 20 Toes-to-bars
- 10 Squat Snatches, 115/80#
- 10 Bar Muscle Ups (scaled to 15 chest to bar pull ups)

I scaled to weight to 95#.  Dave did 85# and Justin did Rx.   Dave was really struggling with the OHS, he stopped at 8, so I did my 8, thinking we'd do 2 and 2 to finish off, but he was talking to the Coach Alex, so I just did my 10, as Justin was waiting.  Then I just did the remaining 2, that's what teamwork is for.  So we were able to go to the T2B.

These were okay, a bit slow, but we did our 10 each.

Snatch was even harder on Dave, but his last rep, running out of arms to muscle it up, he totally pulled himself under the bar, if he had caught it in the slot, it would have been the best snatch of his life.  But he caught it forward and lost it, but we counted it anyway. 

I did my snatches (I think I did an extra for his missed one, not sure) and moved on to the CTB.

Again, slow but done.  Then on to the dreaded round 2.

Dave shed 10# from the bar to 75# and he was a new man.  Too bad he hadn't done that from the start.  Breezed through the OHS, mine were fine until rep 8, really had to fight to maintain shoulder stability. But managed to get through my 10.

T2B were even slower 2nd time through.  Snatches went really well for everyone, and finally struggled through the CTB to finish off.

It wasn't a ton of work, but it was hard work.   Good job team!