Crossfit Open 2016 log for Saturday, February 27th

Well that was an unmitigated disaster.

16.1 was announced Thrusday.

A whopping 20 minute AMRAP of
25' overhead walking lunges 95#/65#
8 bar facing burpees
25' overhead walking lunges
8 chest to bar pull ups

Every 5' of lunges counts as a rep. so 26 reps per round.  Also if you drop the bar on the lunges you have to go back to the last completed 5' marker.

Spent two days worrying about pacing the burpees or running out of chest to bar pull ups. Needn't have worried, the lunges killed me.

Couldn't lock out so after two rounds the muscle fatigue settled in and I had to repeatedly drop the bar.  Was hoping to get at least 5 rounds, didn't even make 4.

CTB went really well.

Nothing like a kick in the teeth to refocus your training. Luckily I have an appointment with Rob Crispo Monday.  I'll give him the details and look at chipping away at this limiter.

Olympic lifting log for Thursday, February 25th

Slept in. Missed Crossfit. Went to the Y for some work.  They did power snatch and burpees with kettle bell swings. So I worked on snatch. Screw the burpees.

Started with power snatch, doubles, at 65# for a few sets, 95# for 2 sets and 115# for two sets.  Felt good.

The pull was strong, no pain in my lower back at all.

Moved on to snatch balance.  Had trouble balancing in the bottom at first.  But it worked out as I worked up to 135#.

Finally moved on to snatch. Did a couple of really solid reps at 95# and 115#.  Caught them right in the slot.  It really feels effortless when you catch it right.

Bumped it up to 135# and caught one ugly one and one really nice one. So I decide to try 145#.

First attempt my knee hit the ground. So I didn't even bother standing it up.

Tried again and bam! Caught it a touch forward, but I was locked out and no knee touch! Stood it up legit 145#.  Now I can claim my PR at 145# for realz!

Tried 150# twice, and just couldn't get under it.  Same deal as 145#, knee on ground on the first and caught forward on second but couldn't recover this time.

I was starting to tire as well.  Soon. 

New(old) snatch 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: 220#  Jan 5th, 2016 (up from 205#)
Snatch: 145# Feb 25, 2015 (up from 145# but not really)
Clean and Jerk: 205# Dec 13, 2014 (up from 175#)

Accessory log for Wednesday, February 24th

Quick trip to the Y and it was a good one.

Started with landmine rows but had overhead carries with suspended kettle bells version 2.0 on my mind.

I did on set each side of the land mine rows with empty bar then jumpe right into a working set with 60#, might have been a big jump.  But I got through 6 reps each side.  Felt a bit anti-climactic so I did another set of 8 each side with just the 35# plate.   Felt a bit better after that.

Then I go the bands and a weighted bar I assume they use for bootcamp classes or something.  (I'll next time what they are actually for) 

It weighs about 10#, not quite a long as a barbell, so my hands were a bit closer together, but not too much. Started with 12kg kettle bells, since the 16kg ones last time were so heavy. 

With the lower weight of the bar and possibly because my grip was closer, the 12kg wasn't enough.  Bumped it up to 16kg ~35# per side plus the 10# bar makes for 80#.  That was challenging.

The other thing I changed up was not doubling up the bands, so the the kettle bells hung almost to the floor instead of around my waist. 

This made is easier to drop, and with the lighter bar made the swinging less violent.

So I did 4 sets of carries the width of the gym and back.  1 trip with 60# ish and 3 trips with 80# ish.  Really challenging. Obliques were fire, traps and shoulders too. 

The guy from last time showed up after my second trip, so I got to give him the "I worked out the kinks" jab. 

All is well.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, February 24th

Woke up at around 2:30 and had a hard time falling back to sleep. When my alarm finally rang at quarter to five, I was torn, and took a long time to decide.

Since this log entry exists, it's clear the my decision was to get up and get going.

It was an interesting day at the box.  Improvised warm up of push ups, air squats and shuttle runs before jumping right into WOD #1:

3 rounds for time 15-12-9
- power clean  115#/75#
- jerks 115#/75#

Split the difference at 95#, tried to see how far I could get without putting the bar down.

Turns out the answer to that is 30 reps.  I got through the first round completely unbroken, but going back to power cleans after the jerks (technically push press, but I digress) was just too rough apparently.

Even once I started, I got to 9 and put it down before the last 3, and tried to go straight into the jerks, but after only 1, I had to put it down.  Regrouped and hammered out the 12.  For the 9s at least I had the wisdom to stop at 8, and use the 9th to go into the jerks when I was ready.

So hammering the first round cost me, but I'm glad I did it.  Finished in 5:55ish.  Happy with that.

The second WOD which we started only after an extended break was a 20 minute EMOM:
- odd minutes 5 deadlifts, start light and add weight as you went.
- even minutes 10 box jumps

Worked with Kamil and Justin,  they shared a bar and Justin started on the box jumps.

I went immediately after Kamil on the deadlifts, but somehow they both had a box and the box jumps were taking more time than the deadlifts, so if I wanted to finish in time, I did my box jumps at the same time as Kamil.  This gave me a bit longer break before the deadlifts but a shorter one before the box jumps.  Worked out.

We started with only 115# on the bar, then round 2 went to 135#, then 155#, 185# and 205# where we stayed until the last round where Kamil went up to 225#, so I followed suit.

The last 5 minutes were getting rough as fatigue set in.

My back actually feels better now than it has in a while.  So I guess it was a good call to go today.  Yay.

Crossfit log for Tuesday, February 23rd

Finally my kind of workout.

Jumped right into a row interval session, 1 minute on, 1 minute off for 6 round or 12 minutes.

Got some pretty good splits in the low 1:40s

Skills was a clean and jerk complex: 1 power clean + 1 hang clean + 1 jerk. Work up to 1 heavy set.

165# felt good, 185# felt heavy so i stopped there.

Finally the WOD. 7 minute AMRAP of increasing reps by 3:  3, 6, 9, 12... of
-thrusters 95#/65#
-pull ups

Choose women's Rx, to keep the bar moving. Did as well as is hoped, 5 rounds+5 thrusters.
95 reps. Same volume as Fran plus 5 thrusters.

Good workout.

Accessory and mobility log for Monday, February 22nd

Went to the Y to work on mobility and then got the crazy idea to try an overhead walk with kettle bells hanging off the bar for shoulder stability.  

Strongfit use a yoke for this kind of overhead work, but I've seen a few guys do this with hanging kettle bells.  (Like this) but used a barbell and 16kg kettle bells.  Too heavy.  Was going to go lighter until new guy, "fitness trainer" called me on it saying it was way too risky and proceeded to suggest alternate exercises.  I wasn't going to argue and wasn't really planning on doing this drill anyway, so I moved on, but I still a little angry that he called me on it. And he approached me like he was curious about the drill.  (Even he admitted that it was a dick move to broach the subject like that, and I know he meant well, but if there is a next time, I'll shut him down).


Next time I'll use the 12kg kettle bells and one of the lighter mobility bars. And I'll not double up the band so the kettle bells will be closer to the floor in case I have to bail.

After that I did my grip strength drill with my make-shift wrist roller,  did 2 reps at 17.5# and 4 at 25#.  Forearms were toast after that.

Then I did my thoracic mobility drill but didn't do the hip drill because I didn't bring my resistance band.

Done.

Crossfit log for Monday, February 22nd

Back/hip still not 100% and shoulder still a bit tight in some positions but I got to the gym anyway.  Felt better than last week so I really had no excuse.

I also forgot to set my alarm but woke up on my own 26 minutes after my alarm would've rang.

Spent all of 10 seconds contemplating going back to sleep, but I hadn't gotten my clothes ready the night before, so if I was going, it had to be now.  So up I got and hustled out the door in record time.  Arrived at the gym 1 minutes late. But thankfully went unnoticed.

It was an okay workout.  Warm up was 3 rounds of 10 scap push ups, 10 empty bar overhead squats and 10 burpees.  First round of OHS sucked, but go way better for rounds 2 and 3.  Skipped the last 10 burpees because there would be some in the WOD, no point wasting them now.

Skill work was snatch.  Quickly work up to 80% and do 6 singles, rest as needed.

Did 105#, and all but 1 landed pretty solidly.  I was very satisfied with my lifts.

Strength work was back squats, 5 triples.  I usually do that volume at 85% of max (~ 265#), my last warm up was 225# but rather than jump 40# I did the first set at 245#.  Felt heavy, but I still went to 265# for the second set.  That was really heavy.  But I kept it there for sets 3 and 4, but the fourth sets was rough and time was running out, so for the last set I dropped it back to 245#. 

Still happy with that.

The WOD was not fun. 
10 minute AMRAP of:
- 15 snatches  75#/55#
- 30 burpees over bar lateral
- 60 double unders.

I was still tying my shoes then the clock started (thanks coach), so I was behind.  My choice of weight was bang on, I split the difference and went with 65# and just hammered them finishing first. of the four of us at class.

The burpees were another story.  As expected my lead evaporated. 30 is a lot. 

Double unders sucked, took me to 35 reps before I got my shit together and finished off  with 25 in a row.

Second round of snatches weren't as fast, but I got through 10 fast then had to put it down, and finished off with 5 quick ones.  Got through six more stupid burpees and finally time was up.

Glad that's over.