The gym followed their regular template today with a combination strength workout followed by a MetCon WOD.

Today’s strength workout was 5×5 shoulder presses. We did 15 rep sets last week, so this would give me a chance to boost my numbers up a little more. I’ve never tried for my 1RM, so I’m using this strength workouts to help me get a feeling for what that number probably is. I did warm-up sets at 35# and 45#, then started with my max 15RM of 67#. Since that was pretty easy, I added on 10# and did that for two sets. Now that I was half way though, I tried pushing up a little more to try to find my failure point. I did a 82# set with a little struggle on the last rep, and pushed to 89# for the last set, only getting 4 reps before failure.

On to the WOD.

3 Rounds of:

10 Burpees
20 KB Swings (45#/35#)

I did a few 45# KB swings before the WOD, to see if I thought I could handle that weight.  I figured I could get through one round, then switch to 35# for the remainder.  By the 10th rep into the WOD, I wasn’t able to keep my elbows straight, so I switched to 35# at that point.  In the middle of the second set of burpees, I suddenly felt all my energy drain.  I was surprised by the suddenness of it.  The rest of the workout was a trial.  I was having a hard time with the burpee jump.  I remember feeling like I had a pained expression while doing the last 20 KB swings with no break (Thanks Landon and Dave).  I didn’t beat many people, but I felt like I gave it my all.  That’s all I try for.

Time: 4:28

The trainers have been busy the past few days, making new toys to torture us with.  They stuffed a bunch of army canvas with wood chips to make an uneven heavy sack.  Today we had to use them in a workout.

First, though, we had a strength workout.  Three sets of 15 shoulder presses.   I did 35# and that was pretty easy, so I stepped up to 67#.  This was a bit too aggressive.  I did 10 reps and this was all I could do.  After a bit of a rest, I did 5 more reps with this weight, then stepped down to 50# for a final 15 reps.

3 Rounds of:

10 Alternating Sandbag Cleans (5 each arm)
Run to Truck with Sandbag

Kyle suggested that I use a 42# bag and decided to stick with it after a couple of trial reps.  I though that the workout would catch up with me even though it felt easy at that time.  I should have used a heavier weight, since I cruised through it.  The running was difficult though.

Time: 4:27

We started out today’s workout with some strength work – three sets of eight snatch-grip deadlifts.  I worked my way up to 177# at which point Landon pointed out some poor form when lowering the bar.  I did another two reps at that weight with correct form, and went on to the WOD.

3 Rounds of:

30 Double Unders
30 KB Swings (45# / 35#)

I brought the jump rope I use at home, which is a lot lighter than the ropes at the gym.  It is also adjusted almost perfectly for my height.  Despite this, I didn’t feel too good on the double-unders.  I was only able to string 3 together in a row at the most, where my P.R. is eight with a gym rope.  I haven’t practiced double-unders with my rope at all.  I only use it for speed work at home.  I am planning to bring it with me to the gym and do 30 before every workout in order to get better at them.

For the kettlebell swings, I used a 35# weight.  I think I could do a shorter rep workout with a 45# weight at this point, but I knew that 90 reps would be tough for me using a 35# kb.

Time: 10:40

Today’s workout was long, but didn’t leave my body blasted like yesterday’s did.

3 Rounds:

800M Run
50 Situps
50 Good Mornings

Last time I did 3×800, my average split was 3:26 and I tried to keep my pace as close as I could to that time today.  The good mornings were a new movement for me.

Splits:

• 3:21 run / 3:27 sit-ups & good mornings
• 3:35 / 3:17
• 3:27 / 3:06

Total: 20:12

My average 800 time was slower by 1 2/3 sec compared to last time, which surprised me.  I thought I would be slightly faster.  I kept each round much closer to my average though.  I felt unsure about the movement on the first round of good mornings, which slowed me down.  I didn’t know if I was keeping my lumbar curve as I bent over, and also didn’t know if I was bending over deeply enough.  Landon assured me that my form was good and I sped up on the second and third rounds.

It was a longer workout than many, but I felt good afterward.  Most 20+ minute workouts have been killers.  This one was long, but pretty easy.  We’ll see how tomorrow goes.

I knew that today’s workout would be quite difficult, but I didn’t think it would knock me down so badly.

For time:

25 pull-ups
50 deadlifts at 135 pounds
50 push-ups
50 box jumps with a 24-inch box
50 “floor wipers” (a core and shoulders exercise at 135 pounds)
50 “clean and press” at 36 pounds (a weight-lifting exercise)
25 more pull-ups

I didn’t scale the workout down near enough.  I could do any one or two of the exercises as I scaled them, but I didn’t acknowledge the cumulative effect that such aggressive exercise would have.  I did Fran last week with jumping pullups, so I decided to do JPU from 1 20# bumper plate.  I should have used two, or a 12″ box.  I thought I could do 50 133# deadlifts, but moved down to 89# after the first 15.  For my push-ups, I did 25 strict, then struggled through 25 knee push-ups.  Box jumps on a 24″ box.  I can do this height, but it gets slow at the end.  Maybe could have done a 20″ box instead.  89# floor wipers, then dropped to 67#.  I only did 30 reps before quitting.  I felt like I was gonna pass out.  My heart was racing.  By this time, I was so wiped out that I was doing one or two floor wipers at a time and needing lots of rest between reps.

I’m sure that this one will come up again.  I’ll scale it properly next time and I know I’ll get through it.

“Kelly”

Five rounds for time of:
Run 400m
30 Box Jump (24″/20″)
30 Wall Ball (20#/14#)

I didn’t know what to expect from this workout. I knew it would be long; the running alone would take between 10 and 15 minutes. There would be no way I’d be able to finish this workout with a 20# ball, and I was hesitant to use a 14# ball since I had to switch from a 14# to a 10# the last time I did wall balls (10 days ago). I also haven’t been good with 24″ box jumps. I always would jump all the way up with straight legs instead of jumping and landing in a squat, then standing up.

I made it through the whole thing. Wall balls were slow, but good; box jumps too. During the third round, I decided that I would do only four rounds.  I was just too tired; the workout sucked.  After the fourth round, however, I was too tired to remember that I had made that decision until about 10 steps after I started running. I couldn’t really stop now. I struggled through the last round with Darren finishing a couple of minutes before me.

Splits:

• 6:16
• 2:02 run / 4:41 box jumps & wall balls
• 2:13 / 5:20
• 2:24 / 6:09
• 2:36 / 5:15

Time: 36:56

I attempted Fran a bit over a year and a half ago.  I didn’t know the point of MetCon workouts at that time, so my scaling lost almost all of those benefits.  Instead of scaling it in a way that kept my heart and breathing rates up and keeping the intensity level high, I gained a lot of muscle fatigue and spent most of the time recovering.  I scaled today’s workout back a little bit more, but my time was so much faster.

21-15-9 reps of:

Thrusters (95# / 65#)
Pullups

I went with a 45# bar for the thrusters and did jumping pull-ups. I did the first round of JPU while standing on a 20# bumper plate (about 4″) and added a second bumper for the second and third rounds. Final time: 8:15 or so. I need to get kipping pull-ups down! Then I could stop with most of this jumping pull-ups bullshit.

We had a fairly brutal workout today.

WOD for Time:

Run 800 Meters
21 Kettle Bell Swings (45 # / 35 #)
21 Knees to Elbows (or leg raises)
Run 800 Meters
15 Kettle Bell Swings
15 Knees to Elbows
Run 800 Meters
9 Kettle Bell Swings
9 Knees to Elbows

I was able to do about 10 strict knees to elbows, then the rest were done while standing on the short box. My arms were a little bent and they were a bit easier. Next time I’ll stand on a 20# bumper plate instead so my arms aren’t as bent.

I went with a 35# kettlebell and I’m glad I did. My form broke down a bit at the end and I would probably have a lot of back pain from a 45#.

Splits:

• 2:57 run / 3:22 kb & k2e
• 3:31 run / 2:11 kb & k2e
• 3:50 run / 1:05 kb & k2e

Total: 16:56

The workout today was hard, but didn’t leave me completely comatose for the next half-hour.

6 rounds of:

30 sec. rowing (count calories), 30 sec. rest
30 sec. wall balls, 30 sec rest
30 sec. mountain climbers (count each foot), 30 sec. rest.

In the first round, my rowing power was 13 cal, and was down to 8 by the last.  I started with a 14# med ball, but I could barely do the exercise by the third round, so I switched to a 10# ball.

Score: 400

After the WOD, we had a gymnastics fundimentals lesson, where we learned the hollow and arch positions.  We learned them on the ground by doing hollow hold/rocks, and arch holds/rocks.  I could barely do the hollow hold, and couldn’t get a single hollow rock.  My back strength is quite lacking.  Something else to work on.  *Sigh*

Today was the first day of the gym’s Performance Challenge.  We had two different benchmarks, 1RM deadlifts, and a metabolic conditioning workout:

Run to Stop Sign (~700 M)
30 KB Swings (35# / 25# )
30 Burpees
30 Double Unders
30 Push Presses (45# / 35#)
Run to Stop Sign (~700 M)

I’ve never worked on my max deadlift before, so this was a real treat.  I worked my way up from a couple of warm-up sets,  177# to 265#.  I tried 288# and got it almost up, but the bar started rolling out of my hands and I wasn’t able to fully stand up before losing control of it.  I tried a second time with a mixed grip, but couldn’t stand up.  I probably could have played around with weights between 265 and 288, but decided that what I got was good enough.

The MetCon WOD was not fun.  I took it easy on the first run so that my breathing and heart rate weren’t completely blown away before I started the hard stuff.  While doing the KB swings, I learned a lot about how to do it correctly.  I finally got the “explosive hips” that everyone kept yelling at me for not doing in the past.  I got through everything else by breaking them into sets of 2-5.  The final run was a jog.  Yuck.  Final time: 18:25 Rx