6/29 WOD

"CrossFit Total"

Back squat, 1 rep
Shoulder Press, 1 rep
Deadlift, 1 rep

Love the CFT! But with the hip flexor still a bit tender on deep squats I had to be careful with this one. Didn't want to re-aggravate the injury. Did a good warmup but wasn't feelin' it on the squats. Was happy though that I hit the same number as last time with the limitations. Should easily beat it once I'm all healed.

The shoulder press was disappointing. I'm not sure what I need to do to press more. I actually even dropped this time. Irritating.

Now onto the deadlift - something where I can actually move a fair amount of weight. I was excited after getting some digital coaching. I think I had pretty good form this time, really paid attention to my setup, strong torso, return to the ground, etc. Weight went up pretty good for a new PR!!! This lift put me over my PR for CFT too!

Back Squat - 245
Shoulder Press - 115
Deadlift - 360
Total - 720

Went from okay to bad to great. Very happy overall.

TWay and Unelastigirl were in the gym for:

For time
5 Beginner Pull-ups
5 Box dips

TWay - 7 rounds, 5:55
Unelastigirl - 10 rounds, 7:24

Good effort today, still want to see less legs involved in these moves as their strength progresses.

6/27 WOD

Two rounds of:
Right arm barbell push-press 12 reps
Left arm deadlift 12 reps
Run 800 meters
Left arm barbell push-press 12 reps
Right arm deadlift 12 reps
Run 800 meter

Go heavy, run fast. Post time to completion and loads

Well, have never done this one before. Read up and people said to go light when attempting this one if it is your first time. So I did. But I think I could've gone heavier. First problem was I did a shoulder press vs. push press. Could've used that momentum to push more weight. Definitely could've done more with the deadlifts.

38# press, 88# deadlift

800m splits - 2:55, 3:17, 3:22, 3:04

Total time - 24:33

Looking forward to a nice rest day tomorrow! Yeehaw!!!

6/26 WOD

"Nicole"

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
Run 400 meters
Max rep Pull-ups

Post number of pull-ups completed for each round

First ever Nicole for me. Slowly getting the running legs back - still a bit behind where I was pre-hip flexor injury. Don't think the sub-6 minute mile is within reach at this time. Maybe another month and I'll go for it...

As usual, a tough one. Crazy trying to catch your breath while knocking out pullups. Ran past several people who were outside taking a late night walk enjoying the pleasant temps. Must've thought I was some wacko breathing as hard as I was but only running a short distance. Little did they know...

400m split time, pullups (dead hang)
1:21.8, 12
1:20.6, 8
1:30.9, 7 (underhand)
1:37.4, 6
1:41.2, 7 (underhand)
1:36.8, 6
6 rounds, total time 19:20, total pullups 46

I suppose in the spirit of CF, I should've gone out and run a 200m. I preferred laying on the floor trying to not pass out... another favorite CF past time... :)

6/25 WOD

Complete as many rounds as possible 20 minutes of:
95 pound Thruster, 5 reps
95 pound Hang Powercleans, 7 reps
95 pound Sumo Deadlift High-pull, 10 reps

Decided to scale back to 65# for the above. Still nursing that sore hip flexor so don't want to fully overdo it. I must say, 95# would've been tough, as the 65# deal was pretty rough near the end. I'm certain I could've done it, however the rounds probably would've been chopped in half with many more breaks.

10 full rounds

Unelastigirl did:

Buttercups:
Complete as many rounds as possible 12 minutes of:
20 pound Thruster, 5 reps
20 pound Hang Powercleans, 7 reps
20 pound Sumo Deadlift High-pull, 10 reps

Form was sketchy on just about everything - we'll need to do some more practice of these moves without weight. But still a lot of effort there. Unfortunately someone is going to get hurt if they don't focus more on form...

11 rounds

Good job!

6/24 WOD

Buttercups:
3 rounds for time of
run 200 m (run)
12 kettlebell swings, 18#
6 press, 30#

Rest day for me but Unelastigirl showed her commitment. Put her through a tough one, the 6/22 WOD scaled. She worked hard - great output and great effort. Very consistent through her rounds. Probably should've made her do 5 rounds...

6:19

6/23 WOD

Front squat 3-3-3-3-3 reps

Well, with the hip flexor injury, took it easy on this one. Felt pretty good though with the lifting shoes and the wood lifting platform now in the gym. Can't wait for this again when I'm 100%. Should be able to hit 200# as last time I did 180+. Didn't want to push too hard though and re-aggravate this injury. Getting close to back though. Probably 90%.

88 - 108 - 128 - 138 - 148

6/22 WOD

Three rounds for time:
Run 400 meters
1 1/2 pood Kettlebell X 21 swings (or 55 pound dumbbell swing)
12 Handstand push-ups

Well, the injuries and recovery time have definitely hurt me. 400 times were slower and didn't seem to have the capacity to power through it. Although the KB swings seemed reasonable even at the 53# weight. And I did scaled HSPUs via my squat bar contraption set at 52" high.

16:04

TWay and Unelastigirl were in the gym tonight. Did a scaled Barbara:

5 beginner pullups
10 pushups (on knees)
15 situps (assisted)
20 squats

TWay struggled after 2 weeks off and did 3 rounds in 12:03. Unelastigirl is finding her form a little more quickly - 5 rounds in 12:33. Too much yapping during the workout - need to be pushing harder. Plus all that yapping is going to drive me nuts...

6/21 WOD

Ten rounds for time of:
3 Weighted Pull-ups, 45 pounds
5 Strict Pull-ups
7 Kipping Pull-up

For weighted pull-ups place a 45 pound dumbbell between the legs above crossed ankles and jettison the dumbbell after third rep and continue with strict pull-ups and then the kipping pull-ups. Coming off the bar or going to ground constitutes termination of a set.

Post time and number of sets to completion.

In the immortal words of Nancy Kerrigan... WHYYYYYYYYY?!!!! Ooh, I don't like this one at all. Something about 150 pullups just plain sucks. Decided to back off on the weight - went to 35# instead of 45#. This made a huge difference. The workout was much more tolerable. Plus I did 1 minute breaks between the full cycle. That seemed to help. Forget counting the sets as discussed above - each weighted pullup after about 4 rounds was a single.

26:48 (vs. 40+ minutes last time 45# for weight for 8 sets)

Unelastigirl made it back after a two week hiatus (sick one week). We did some bench press work. The 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 dealie. Did some warm up stuff and off she went. 45-50-60-65(f)-65-70(f)-70(f). Good effort and nice job getting back in the gym.

6/19 WOD

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
Handstand push-ups 5 reps
Bench press 135 pounds, 10 reps
Push press 95 pounds, 15 reps
Dips 20 reps

Okay then... that sucked. My handstand pushups still blow and then throw in all that overhead press and tricep work? You have got to be kidding me. Got through the first round as RX'd. Substituted 10 ring dips for the regular dips. About 6 minutes to get through. Not great. Not horrible though either.

Then onto round 2. Crap. Was able to lower myself from a handstand position twice, but there was no way I was pressing up. So took the time to build up a 55" high structure (two plyo boxes and some bumper plates). Was able to do the leg assisted HSPU's that way. Holy crap that took forever. Got through the rest of the stuff okay and checked the stopwatch. 18 minutes. Tried doing some more HSPU's to no avail. Should've done some more bench and dips in those last two mins as I could've I think.

2 rounds, the 2nd round HSPUs scaled. Eek.

So as a penalty for the poor performance, I did some work with my new 26# slosh pipe. Me likey...

6/18 WOD

For time:
50 Wall-ball shots
50 Pull-ups
35 Wall-ball shots
35 Pull-ups
20 Wall-ball shots
20 Pull-ups

Use 20 pound medicine ball launched to a target ten feet above the ground.

Well, still nursing the hip flexor strain but getting better. But didn't want to aggravate it so for the wall ball shots I put an 18" box behind me, lowered to about parallel instead of full depth. Actually made the wall ball shots tougher I thought since I couldn't use the force of the upward movement to launch the ball. Legs definitely didn't get the same workout that's for sure. And that a boatload of pullups, did 5 rounds of 10, 7 rounds of 5, and 5 rounds of 4 to get through them all.

First real metcon type work in a week+, so that was good. Felt good to sweat again.

21:29

6/17 WOD

Hang power snatch 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 reps

Alrighty, nice to be back after a week off nursing my assorted injuries. Guess I did a number on myself doing those squats - back and hip flexors. Back is 98% but the hip flexors are still probably 80%. But all this rest has made me tired and ironically kinda cranky. So back at it tonight.

This is not a lift I have done before, so was not very good at it.

65-65-70-70-70-75-75-75-75-75

I had those 70s I though pretty good, but once I added that 5 additional pounds the form was a struggle - although I think I did a good job getting under it vs. pressing it. Sure looks easy on the video. Oh well, chalk up a new experience and another development opportunity. Just glad to be back in there throwing some weights around.

JDub and The Dark McKnight are back!

Okay, 1/2 marathon is over, time to do some real training... :) JDub is motivated and ready to rock that dead hang pull up by the end of the year. So she was in the Gin Gym on her own yesterday and today with The Dark McKnight.

JDub did this yesterday (scaled):

Walking lunge 100 ft.
21 Pull-ups
21 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
18 Pull-ups
18 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
15 Pull-ups
15 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
12 Pull-ups
12 Sit-ups
Walking lunge 100 ft.
9 Pull-ups
9 Sit-ups
Walking Lunge 100 ft.
6 Pull-ups
6 Sit-ups

And today they did this (scaled):

"Nasty Girls"

3 rounds for time of:
50 Squats
7 Muscle-ups
135 pound Hang power cleans, 10 reps

Awesome stuff! We will be flipping tires up the street in no time... :)

6/14 WOD

Well, still nursing the back/glute strain - could probably work around it but want to make sure things are back to normal and it doesn't set me back even further. So in my place, my 9 year old daughter filled in for me.

Cindy (puppy scaled)

As many rounds as possible in 12 minutes
1 pull-up
4 push-ups
7 squats

She freakin' rocked it! 21 total rounds with about 10 seconds to spare. That is 21 pull-ups, 84 push-ups, and 147 squats. Amazing stuff. She even said that next time she wanted it to be a little tougher with more pull-ups. Ahh the energy of youth. Soon she will be crushing me on the WODs... :)

6/10 WOD

Back Squat 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 reps

Might be reaching that point of needing to take a week off. Or get a little more sleep. Or maybe it was just the legs being fried after those pistols yesterday and then the thrusters the day before. After the death by deadlift WOD, I figured I needed to focus on form better for this WOD. Definitely made an impact - trying to keep the weight on the heels made this tougher and I couldn't get close to my PR (which now looking at might be a bit inflated since I likely used poor form - particularly weight shifting to toes).

Warmup: CFWUx2 - 135x8 - 185x4 - 205x2

225 - 235(fail) - 225 - 230(fail) - 225 - 230 - 230

So yes, below my PR of 245, but like I said better form. I definitely felt this more in the glutes then the previous ones. Gotta start focusing on the heel drive in my air squats too. Did tweak my glute/low back on about the 4th lift. Probably should've quit there but just couldn't get myself to do that. Happy overall but will likely feel that tweak for the next couple o' days...

6/9 WOD

"Mary"
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
5 Handstand Push-ups
10 One legged squats, alternating
15 Pull-ups

First time trying this one. There definitely is something about Mary. Schnikeys, surprise, another tough one. I semi-scaled - did the HSPU's to my 55" bar setup, and did the one leg squats to a 12" box. After I finished I was able to complete a full round at full depth so next time I'll do that.

6 full rounds + 5 HSPUs.

Not bad. Sure would've been nice to have yesterday as a rest day though and not have done all those thrusters just the day before... Didn't have much energy/power tonight...

I won some rubber bumper plates!!!

So very cool! The folks at Wright Rubber were having a t-shirt design contest. I figured I would send in a few entries, what the heck, couldn't hurt. The only rules of the contest were that you had to use their logo and one of their slogans (I chose the "Train the Wright Way" slogan).

Cool thing was they were giving away three prizes:

1st - 230# rubber bumper plates shipped
2nd - 160# rubber bumper plates shipped
3rd - 50# rubber bumper plates shipped

I got the e-mail that I took 2nd place! Sweet! Interesting that they didn't choose the design I thought was my best design. The first place winner did a very contemporary MMA/fight style t-shirt that looked good. The CF crowd will very much dig it. Mine was more retro/vintage (at least that's what I was trying to create). So without further adieu, here it is:


I actually preferred this logo, with a photo of an actual bumper plate (but I'm not complaining and it sounds like they will print out the 2nd place design too!):

6/8 WOD

Five rounds for time of:
75 pound Thrusters, 21 reps
21 Double-unders

Really wish I could've had a rest day today. But I already cashed that check. This one was deceptively tough. 75# thrusters... not bad. But 105? Ugh. Double unders sap the energy out of you quickly too. If you did 5 times the volume in single unders it still doesn't even come close to the intensity of 1 double under.

I did the first set of thrusters all the way through but then after that it was 3 sets of 7. For the double unders, it would take me 2-3 attempts to get through all 21 typically, until the last one where I did the full 21 straight through. Killed me. Haven't hurt that badly in awhile.

21:13

6/7 WOD

"Lynne"

Five rounds for max reps of:
Body weight bench press
Pull-ups

Had to skip Saturday because I was not anywhere near where I could complete this WOD. I hit that DL WOD very hard and am still feeling the after-effects of that workout. My pull-up numbers suffered big time from the soreness of the DL WOD. Bench press improved a little bit though, so that is encouraging. Did 4 minute breaks between rounds. Still no kip... :( 160# bench press.

Previous Lynne:
Bench 12-11-9-7-6
PU's 17-15-12-12-12 (fairly certain these I didn't full extend to bottom)

Today's Lynne:
Bench 13-12-8-9-7
PU's 15-12-10-9-9 (full strict pull-ups, good ROM)

So 112 vs. 104. I'm blaming the DL's for significantly impacting my pull-ups, as I know I can do more than that (and have done more). The full ROM help softens the blow too...

6/5 WOD

Deadlift 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 reps

Frightening day - I guess I shouldn't have opened my mouth when I said I like the heavy days. This one is a beast since I know my 1RM - 333#.

So did the CFWU x 2 and then did some warmup DL's.

132 x 8
198 x 4
228 x 2

Okay, then came the heavy stuff (for me):

288 - 308 - 333 - 338(PR) - 343(F) - 343(PR) - 343(F)

Pretty stoked to increase my PR by 10#. But the form on that 343 was terrible - back angle too low, I had to jerk to get it started, and hips raised before shoulders. The 338 lift was better, but still need to work on form (back angle and hip raise).

This workout wrecked me...

6/4 WOD

Yay! Rest day. Thank goodness. But Unelastigirl was here again. Capped off a strong cycle by doing a scaled "Erin".

Three rounds for time of:
8 pound Dumbbells split clean, 10 reps
15 Beginner Pull-ups

The split clean was a new move for her, so we practiced it a little before she started. Takes a little coordination, but she was getting close. Need to focus on locking out the arms at the top.

Rd 1 - 1:45
Rd 2 - 2:47 (5 extra split cleans)
Rd 3 - 2:21
Total - 6:53

Beginner pull-ups, had to keep her honest for full ROM. But pretty good and a strong effort. Nice way to finish up the week. Keep the faith. You're already in better shape!

6/3 WOD

For time:
Run 800 meters
40 L pull-ups
Run 800 meters
40 Strict pull-ups
Run 800 meters
40 Kipping pull-ups

Holy schnikeys!!! This one sucked. Was looking for some bushes to throw up on the second 800m but was able to keep it down. How many more stinkin' pull-ups? Interesting though that I read somewhere about not chalking to help prevent tears. I tried it and my hands actually hurt less. Sweet.

Couldn't do full "L" pull-ups, knees were bent. And of course can't kip but did a little momentum kick pull-up.

Run 800 meters (2:48)
40 L pull-ups (7:23)
Run 800 meters (3:17)
40 Strict pull-ups (11:16)
Run 800 meters (3:17)
40 Kipping pull-ups (6:59)

34:56

Sufficiently toast.

Unelastigirl was in the gym but TWay bailed this time. So we did some form work with overhead squats.

5-5-5-5-5

Just used the PVC pipe but was really working on ROM - as her nickname implies, very limited flexibility in shoulders. So this was a tough one for her. But made some improvements. Incremental steps. If she just trusts the program, she'll be good. Was definitely a tough one for her. More good work!

6/2 WOD

Overhead Squat 5-5-5-5-5 reps.



Haven't really done these with much weight, but I remember in Phoenix for spring break doing some at 65lbs. Of course, now that I look at that WOD (Nancy), I did 15 reps @ 65# (but recall struggling with shoulder mobility on those). Oops, should've started heavier.

65-85-95-115-125(3)

Next time I start with 115lbs, which is what I'm doing in the video above. I think really only #3 and #4 were good. Still need to work on form. Shoulders are nice and toasty after this WOD. Great core lift.

Christmas in June at the gym too as my weightlifting shoes arrived. So very exciting. They turned out exactly as I designed them, and I really like them. Much more comfortable than expected and the lifts felt good in them. Did today's WOD in them.

And the newbs continue to show up and work. Their consistency should be applauded. Today was a scaled version of Hansen.

3 rounds
15 KB swings 9# KB
15 squat thrusts (parallette assist)
15 situps (assisted)

Unelastigirl killed it tonight - she did 5 rounds and used the 18# KB vs. the 9# she used when she last did it. Her time was 12:12 for 5 rounds with the heavier KB. Last time was 12:03 for 3 rounds and lighter KB. Awesome work! Will you please stop with the "I don't feel like I'm getting in shape" talk? Sheesh.

TWay did better too with more aggressive squat thrusts. Her time improved as well from 12:46 to 11:27. If we can reduce the leisurely H2O breaks, that time would be even faster. Good work!

6/1 WOD

"Erin"

Five rounds for time of:
40 pound Dumbbells split clean, 15 reps
21 Pull-ups

Nearly made a fatal mistake on this - tried the first split cleans (with barbell) with what I thought was 93lbs. Did one to test it and got the thing up but 15 five times?!!! No way. Then as I was lowering the weight I realized I had 135lbs. on there. Whoops. Small difference. Subbed dumbbells with 95# barbell.

4:17 - 6:27 - 5:51 - 6:34 - 6:04

Total time: 29:16

The newbs were here and were subjected to:

1-1-1-1-1 shoulder press
3-3-3-3-3 push press
5-5-5-5-5 thrusters

Shoulder press - 25-30-30-35-40
Push press - 40-40-40-40-40
Thrusters - 40-40-40-40-44

Still have crazy limited ROM on the squats. Gotta keep on workin' on that.

Way to work!