Buy 1 Get 1 Free

Brian and I hit up 2 free weekend workouts today. SB Crossfit and Crossfit805 do this every weekend. Check it out.

(1) 10:00 AM

Max Reps in 2 min / Rest 2 min

Situps
Pushups
Squats
Supermans

Then

3 X 400m runs

I was foolish and didn't record my scores. My estimates are:

75
50
85
30

The supermans were easy... just really slow. These didn't fit the circuit very well. Also, I will be praying that the 400m runs weren't a phenomenally bad idea. My knee will tell me tomorrow morning...

(2) 12:00 PM

5 rounds

100 ft walking lunge
Max pullups
20 pushups

Score = total pullups / time

Pullup scores: 20 15 13 13 15
Time: about 18-19 minutes
Score: 3.97

My pullup score were pretty strong. Pushups destroyed me! I'm sure the 50 I did for workout (1) made a difference... still, I need to get stronger!

Rest-ish

Bikram yoga 1.5 hours

My shoulders, hips, and knees are tight. Hopefully this helped.

Rebound

Thursday

(1)Late morning / early afternoon

5 x 5

DL @ 165
Ring dips

Time: 8:33

I thought the DL would be the tough part and the dips would be easy. It was exactly the opposite... the DL actually felt pretty easy. Maybe I'm not as weak as I thought. Nevertheless, I am still weak and need to DL way more.

(2)Night

With a continuous running clock do one pull-up the first minute, two pull-ups the second minute, three pullups the third minute... continuing as long as you are able.

Score: 13 min + 10

The pullups were done more or less unbroken until about the 11th minute. At that point they were anything but unbroken... in fact, I think one of the later rounds was done almost entirely as singles!

Mediocre

Warmed up at the track with a little ring work. A few ring pushups, some ring dips, and some muscle-ups. Overall I felt very weak and nothing went especially well. At least Brian helped me get a feel for back levers.

Next we headed to the gym for some bench:

-Work up to 1 RM

10 @ 45
5 @ 95
3 @ 135
2 @ 155
1 @ 185
1 @ 195 (fail)
1 @ 195 (fail)

-5 X 3 @ 165 (90% max)

Triples felt alright but my 1 RM was well below my PR (210). I think this one amounts to having a pretty bad day in general. I was tired and hungry. I'll be better prepared next time. Besides, Brian says only mediocre athletes always perform their best. I guess this means I'm not mediocre. Thanks Brian.

Belay Slave

Aside from being being Brian's belay slave I took the day off. Your welcome Brian.

The Bear

(1)

5, 10, 15 (unbroken)

Burpees
KTE
Thrusters (45 lbs)

Time: 8:03

(2)

The Bear

7 sets of the sequence:
Power Clean
Front Squat
Push Press
Back Squat
Push Press

5 Rounds, Rest Between Rounds as Needed

Loads:

65
65
95
115
115

Time: 33:00

Ouch. This was hard. I probably could have gone a bit (a very tiny bit) heavier but I didn't have more weight.

Attacking Weakness

Started up with some ring drills. Moved on to olympic lift drills. Finished with my 3 favorite movements of all time: thrusters, burpees, and knees to elbows. This all played out as follows:

(1) On the Rings

Skin the Cat
Straight body inverted hang
Inverted pull-ups
Back lever (attempts)
Support
Push-ups

(2) Olympic lift drills

5 X 3 snatch balance (95 lbs)

(3) Working UNBROKEN sets

15, 10, 8 thrusters (95 lbs)
15, 15, 15 burpees
15, 12, 10 KTE

Comments:

I took several minutes between all attempts in workouts (1) and (2). The point was to develop skills more than it was to get a crazy workout. Does this seem like a reasonable way of doing things?

Weekend Madness

The boys at SB Crossfit cooked up a killer for us this morning:

4 Rounds For Time:

400m Run
50 Box Jumps

Unfortunately my knee is crap and so I sat this one out. Everybody else worked incredibly hard and in the process motivated me to put my best efforts into my own saturday madness...

(1)

1:00 PM

7-5-3: muscle-ups
21-15-9: KB swings (1.5 pood)

Time: 11:48

(2)

7:00 PM

Get estimate of today's 1 RM front squat:

Rest about 1 minute between attempts.

95 lbs X 3
115 lbs X 3
135 lbs X 3
155 lbs X 1
175 lbs X 1
185 lbs (Fail)

1 RM weight = 175 lbs

Time: 11:50

(3)

7 X 3 front squat (135 lbs - 75% 1 RM)

Time: 10:15

(4)

4 rounds for time:

500 meter row
50 box jumps (24")

Time: 25:02

Comments:

The muscle-up/KB circuit was hard but certainly didn't destroy me. Muscle-ups were limited by strength (but felt much closer to full extension). KB swings felt good. I had to keep the MU at low reps in order to keep the flow of the circuit at a resonable pace. Maybe next time I'll try smaller sets of both repeated more times so that I can get similar power output from both movements. Any suggestions?

I am fairly confident that my true 1 RM front squat is significantly heavier. I expected it to be low given that I was only taking 1 minute breaks and I was a bit tired from a long day and workout (1). No matter, the real purpose was to figure out what weight to do the triples at.

The triples at 75% felt good and hard. I had to fight but I wasn't ever dangerously close to failure.

The final circuit was beautiful. I felt like I really joined the rest of the SB crossfit crew in their WOD. Props to Phil and Russ... 24" boxes suck.

Rest Day

Today was a much needed rest day... looking forward to a great group crossfit workout tomorrow. Speaking of which, I really can't express my gratitude enough to SB Crossfit. CJ, Bill, and the whole community rock. Thanks for all the feedback and drill ideas to help me push through to new levels of fitness.

In other news, I've been doing some reading. What is fitness? I can't believe I've known about crossfit for close to 2 years and only now really took this article seriously. I have some questions and ideas I'll be posting soon on this topic.

Absolutely Filthy

"Filthy 50"

For Time:
50 Box Jumps (24")
50 Jumping Pullups
50 Kettlebell Swings (35#)
50 Lunges
50 Knees to Elbows
50 Push Press (45#)
50 Back Extensions
50 Thrusters (45#)
50 Burpees
50 Double-Unders

Time: 40:15

Most of these movements felt relatively easy... in that the 50 reps were completed without breaks or with only a few (short) breaks. KTE, thrusters, and burpees however thoroughly handed my ass to me. I had to chew it back a couple of times during the burpees. These 3 killers took the majority of the time and were broken as follows:

KTE: 10 10 5 5 5 5 5 5
Thrusters: 10 10 10 10 10
Burpees: 10 10 10 10 10

I guess I know what to work on...

Under the Bar

I didn't get a real focused olympic lifting session in yesterday, nor did I do any other kind of WOD so I am counting it as a rest day. I more than made up for it today:

(1)

Snatch to overhead squat: 45, 65, 95, 115
Clean to front squat: 115, 145
Clean and jerk: 145, 145
Clean: 95, 95, 95, 95

(2)

Using a 1.5 pood KB

75 KB swings
25 burpees
50 KB swings
50 burpees

Time: 21:35

(3)

5 x 5 false grip ring pull-ups

(4)

Watch the Lakers come back from 20 to win game 1. It was a good night.

I really need to work on getting under the bar on my olympic lifts. I feel fairly comfortable power cleaning and power snatching but when it comes down to heavy loads I'm gonna need to start pulling myself under the bar instead of pulling the bar over me. I think a lot of my problem is fear and lack of confidence... I don't trust my front squat or my overhead squat to catch heavy loads. I suppose this simply means that I should front squat and overhead squat more often. Any other drills out there that I should try out to improve this weakness?

The KB-burpee circuit was meant to mimic the rowing-burpee workout on the crossfit website a couple of days ago. While I think I stumbled upon a fun combo, nothing hurts quite like rowing does. Also, I originally intended to do a third round of 25 swings and 75 burpees but I called it because I am a pansy. My body and mind are exhausted but I do wish I did that third round...

Intervals

WOD:

1 min Deadlifts (135 lbs)
500m Row Sprint
2 min rest
1 min Weighted Situps (32.5 lbs)
500m Row Sprint
2 min Rest
1 min DB Thrusters (35 lbs each db)
500m Row Sprint
2 min rest
1 min Weighted Dips (25 lbs)
500m Row Sprint
2 min rest
1 min Jumping Bar Squats (45 lbs)
500m Row Sprint

Keep track of total reps for each round. For every 15 seconds it takes to complete the row, subtract 1 rep from your score. Your total score is all of your reps added together (including subtractions from the rowing)

My scores:

13
1:45
18
1:45
18
1:51
8
1:47
28
1:44

Total reps = 85
Total row time = 532 seconds
Number of 15 second row intervals = 35.5

TOTAL SCORE = 49.5

Comments: This circuit was really awkward to do in the gym. It would be much better in a legitimate crossfit facility with enough people involved to count reps and keep time for you. Nevertheless, it was excessively fun... you know, in that lucidly recalling what you had for lunch kind of way.

Fix Me

I decided to take Sunday off from high intensity training. However, I have a hard time doing nothing so I spent a half hour or so in the afternoon working on muscle-ups. I was thrilled to add 7 more notches to my crossfit bedpost. Even more thrilling at the time was getting the last 4 as a pair of linked doubles! A couple of hours later I returned home (still giddy as a schoolgirl) and decided to try to get some of my new toys on tape. After warming up with a few singles and doubles I got my brother to record a serious effort... in which I got a PR of 3 linked reps! Of course only the last failed rep was recorded. This turned out to be a blessing because after a short rest I tried it again. Check it out:



Please offer feedback on how I can make these better. Two things jump out at me right away:

(1) I am far from getting full extension. Part of this is because the bar isn't high enough and I have mutant legs. Still, I know there is a strength issue there that I need to train.

(2) I have a massive kip. Seriously, when the camera comes around to the side you can see that I am almost completely horizontal. Is this okay?

(3) Looks like I'm not really pulling the rings into my chest and armpits. In fact, it doesn't look like I am pulling the rings very much at all. It's as if I just sorta lock off and use my kip to get my body around.

Anybody know any drills that would clean me up?

Gas Prices

For the last several weekends a couple of local crossfit trainers (CJ and Huff) have been hosting free workouts and getting everybody incredibly psyched for the gym they plan to open in the near future. I am incredibly grateful to them for taking the initiative and getting together an awesome crossfit base here in Santa Barbara. I am also thankful to them for thinking up fun and unusual ways to kick my ass. Todays WOD was a perfect example of their diabolical, sadist genius. At least they saved us some money on gas...

Max Rounds in 20 Minutes:

50 m car push (It's not a technical exercise. We literally just pushed cars.)
Rest while steering team does 7 burpees.
50 m car push
Switch with the steering team

Count: 7.5 rounds

Comments:

This workout was a lot of fun. The first 50 m was down a slight decline. Hence, the way back sucked. Really sucked. We had to dig deep every trip. We got stuck at the crux on the way back in our 6th round and despite ample screaming and yelling couldn't budge the car. We got it with a third pair of hands... teamwork rocks.

Permutations

Training Skills:

Before I headed to the gym for the WOD I played around outside on my rings. I got my first ever muscle-up last Saturday. Today I got 5 more (5 singles I should say... linking reps is the next step). I don't really feel like I pull that hard, I am just kipping like a mf. I have a long way to go... still, doing muscle-ups makes me feel decidedly less like a pansy.

For Time:

Note: 55 lbs is slightly more than 1.5 pood

21 Bench Press (135 lbs)
15 Pullups
9 Dumbbell Swings (55 lbs)

15 Bench Press (135 lbs)
9 Pullups
21 Dumbbell Swings (55 lbs)

9 Bench Press (115 lbs)
21 Pullups
15 Dumbbell Swings (55 lbs)

Time: 13:19

Comments:

I weighed in at 178 lbs today (measured after the workout... probably lost a couple pounds in sweat). The official SB Crossfit WOD Rx'd body weight bench press... this would have amounted to a ton of triples and doubles for me so I scaled it back. As it turns out, I didn't scale it back enough. Every set was broken (several times, even after I dropped the weight to 115 in the 3rd round). Same deal on the pullups but I think that can be explained by the ring training before the workout. Dumbbell swings were hard but appropriately weighted. I feel fairly confident with swings... I just wish I had my kettlebell.

Question:

What are the training goals of a circuit like this? Should I strive to find weights that I can press in unbroken sets or are the slightly heavier weights ideal? Maybe I should just man up and do body weight? My feeling is that the point is really to meet pukey the clown... this would mean I need to find weights that I push all the way thru without beaking. True?