Our gym started its performance challenge about two months ago.  Today was our final exam. I felt like I did pretty well last time.  Let’s see if I’ve gotten any better.

1RM Deadlift

I’m still lifting too much with my back and not my legs.  I was surprised that my back wasn’t sore the next day though.

Deadlift: 288#

For time:

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 been working on my double-unders, but the burpees had taken so much out of me that I wasn’t able to string them together at all.

Time: 15:03

Since last time, I added 10 k to my deadlift, and took 3:22 off of my WOD time.  I’m pretty happy with that.

No strength workout today.  Well, I guess I should say it was one big strength workout.

“Linda”

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of:

1.5x Body-weight Deadlift
1x Body-weight Benchpress
.75x Body-weight Squat Cleans

My max deadlift is 1.5x my body weight, so I scaled as follows. I pretty much halved all of my weights.

• Deadlift : 133# (74%)
• Bench Press : 89# (49%)
• Clean : 67# (36%)

I was surprised that, of the three movements, I found the bench press to be the easiest.  When I move my weight up next time, I can probably be more aggressive with my bench press weight.

Time: 23:37

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

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.

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

4 Rounds of:

4 Deadlifts at 85% of 1 Rep Max (If you don’t know your max, we’ll find a weight that works)
Sprint to Truck (300M)
7 Burpees

When I looked at today’s workout, I knew that I’d be able to push through it pretty quickly.  On the 10th, we did a 5x3rep deadlifting skills workout.  I did two reps at 221#, but stepped it down because Kyle didn’t like my form.  I don’t know my 1RM.  So, I could have probably done 187# on this workout, but Ben didn’t like my form when lowering the bar at 133# so I went with 155#.   I tried to pace myself on the sprints.  In the past, I’ve gone out too quickly from the gate, and then my last rounds are really slow.  I felt like the burpees were really efficient.  I was able to do a hop and drop myself on the floor without incurring the energy wasting penalty of lowering myself to the floor.  I was really happy with my performance today.

Time: 7:05 @ 155#