5k

Horrible, horrible run.

5k on the usual route. 26:46, 8:38 pace. Felt like crap the whole way. Blech.

On the other hand, it was a glorious sunny late winter day, so that was a plus.

quick run...

Feeling a little better after yesterday's cold, so I decided to go for a quick jog... In a goddamn blizzard. I'm moving to Florida.

1.3 miles, 11 minutes, 8:24 pace.

Slow and slippery. I wasn't running so much as I was mincing.

Michael

Three rounds for time of:
Run 800 meters
50 Back Extensions
50 Sit-ups

19:22, new PR by 26 seconds!

Annie

"Annie"

50-40-30-20 and10 rep rounds of:
Double-unders
Sit-ups

12:26. A new PR by like 6+ minutes

Minimal recovery intervals

8x200M, repeat every 90 seconds

Longest was 45 seconds, fastest was 39. Headwinds suck, it was cold!

Shoulder Press/Back Extension

Tim:
7 rounds, for time, of:

Shoulder press, 75#, 21 reps
Back extensions, 21 reps

Steph:
7 rounds, for time, of:

Shoulder press, 35#, 21 reps
Back extensions, 21 reps

Tim: 18:06 (14:32 last time, with a bar, dumbbells are harder!)
Steph: 24:15 (first time - pushed through even though Pukey came knockin')

Lynne

5 rounds of max reps of:

Bodyweight bench press
Pullups

BP: 7,6,5,3,4=25 (down from 36 last time)
PU: 16,15,15,14,14=74 (down from 75 last time)

Wow, a few weeks off and I'm weak as a kitten! Yeesh!

Pullups remained relatively strong, but the end of each set was much harder than last time I did this. Bench, obviously, is in the toilet! Gotta start doing more pushups, it would seem.

Tabatas

8 rounds of:

20 seconds max effort
10 seconds rest

+1 pullups

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

11:00 minutes, for a total of 66 pullups.

95 pounds is 95 pounds

It's not as much as oh, say 200 pounds, but it's enough at high rep counts...

Complete as many rounds as possible 20 minutes of:
95 pound thruster, 5 reps
95 pound hang power cleans, 7 reps
95 pound sumo deadlift high-pull, 10 reps

8 rounds, and it was hard.

I'm coming off of a couple weeks of a weird cold; my sinuses early this week were a solid brick of snot most days. I'm no longer blowing out vast streams of yellow glue-like snot, so I guess I'm on the mend... In any case, it's been kicking my ass. I need to get back on my daily 2 rounds of 15 rep warmup - I've lost a lot in the pullup department these days. I hate my current bar, it rotates and generally makes itself difficult to hang on to.

Random Nastiness

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

BP 8,7,5,5,5 = 30
PU 15,14,12,12,12 = 65
BS 10,9,8,7,7 = 41

Squat setup was weird; I think I could've done a lot more if I had trusted the setup.

Rowing sucks!

Combined a coupla' WODs today - Row 2K, and 3x5 push jerk.

Rowing is wicked hard! I was shooting for an 8 minute 2K, but couldn't hit it - finished in 8:02.

3x5 Push Jerk went at 135, 155, 165, 175 and 185.

So I'm finally starting to get the hang of this motion. Previously, I had my hands between the barbell and my shoulders, and I'd push the thing off my shoulders with my arms. I finally figured out how to have my hands outside my shoulders, and drive the bar up with my hips. I'm still not perfect from there on up, but I think this is a big breakthrough!

Finished up with a few TGUs @ 50 pounds.

Fran

WOD:
"Fran"
21-15-9 reps of
95# Thruster
Pullups

My PR on this one was 8:35. Last time, I managed a horrible 13 minutes. I was hung over and tired, and it showed. This time, however, I pulled it off in 8:06! wOOt!

Finished up with a bunch of ab work:

15 GHD situps w/15 pound dumbell
15 ab-mat crunches
15 knees-to-elbows
15 hanging leg raises
15 swiss-ball situps
15 incline situps w/25 pound plate

Went to the doc yesterday, and he poked and prodded at my toe, and decided it was either a case of overuse arthritis or possibly gout. In either case, the treament is the same, and he set me up with Advil's buddy Indomethacin. Imagine if Advil had a big brother that spent all his time in the gym lifting heavy things and shootin' roids - that'd be Indomethacin. Yesterday, I was barely able to drive home - I was doing all sorts of creative driving with the parking brake, left footing the gas, etc. and I had to nearly crawl up the front steps.

Today, I got outta bed, was able to put shoes on with no pain, and was sorta able to walk. Better living through chemistry!

Arms of... rubber!

So last night, I started on the hundred pushups plan. 5 rounds of pushups with 60 seconds of rest between each set. Rep count was 10, 10, 8, 8, and then to failure. Then I get to work, check the crossfit main page, and the WOD is this beast:

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
15 Push-ups
12 Ring dips
115 pound Push-press, 9 reps


I ripped through round one, and it went great. I went to do the pushup portion of round 2, and realized I was in grave trouble... I managed 5 rounds in 20 minutes, and in the end I'm pretty happy with that.

While I was grunting out inelegant reps, it occurred to me that the relatively basic periodization schedule in the hundred pushups plan would probably work pretty well for pullups, too, so I did the same cycle on pullups today. It didn't go as smoothly as last nights pushups, but I suspect 100 pullups might be possible...

800M Frolics

BW 182#

Warmup: short sprints

WOD: 4 rounds of 800M runs

3:02
3:13 (ugly)
3:12
3:21

Misc:

10 pullups
10 bodyweight inverted rows
10 hi/lo towel pullups
30 back extensions
30 medicine ball pushups

Today's workout

Quick warmup:
- 15 pullups
- 15 dips
- 15 roman chair situps
- 15 back extensions on GHD
- 15 walking lunges

5k run at 23:21 - 9 seconds off my personal best. I'm hoping to knock this one down this summer.

Barbell shoulder press - 5 rounds of triples

115 lb
135 lb
135 lb
135 lb
140 lb

The back is on the mend, woohoo!

Crossfit WOD - Nancy

CFWU 2x15

Followed by:

"Nancy"

Five rounds for time of:
400 meter run
95 pound Overhead squat, 15 reps

Last time, 18:40

Finished up with some incline bench work, cause I'm vain.

This workout (and there's a similar one later in the week with snatches instead of OHS) is a total bitch.

The runs are pretty easy, and a 95 pound overhead squat wouldn't be a big deal if your heart rate wasn't already really high. But after the run, core control is really difficult, which makes a decent OHS really, really hard to control. Managed to squeak it out in 17:58.

Today's workout

Warmup 2x15

Everything on Crossfit today I've either already done, requires back work, or requires significant cardio, which my snot filled head would make very difficult, so I came up with my own thing:

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of the triplet
Pullups, pushups, squats

9:02

Followed up with L-pullups, handstand practice (I will learn to do a freestanding handstand pushup) and some incline bench work just for the hell of it.

The back felt pretty good, actually. I didn't stress it much, so there's no telling how it'll hold up under load, but it wasn't screaming like it was on Tuesday.

Now if I could just kick this sinus crap...

Deadlift woes

So on Tuesday, I was deadlifting, seven rounds of singles. I did a few warmup reps at 315, and then started in with the work set. The first few rounds, I pulled 385. I moved up to 395, within 10 pounds of my PR. It went, and actually went pretty well, so I figured, "Ooooh! Let's see if we can hit that PR again!"

I loaded on the extra 10 pounds. I gripped the bar, and gave a mighty pull. The bar came off the ground, then an inch, then two, then three... and that was it. I couldn't pull it. I set the bar down.

Bummed, I pulled off the two dinky little 5 pound plates. I then regripped, and pulled again, and the weight started to rise.

This time, however, something happened - I felt something shift in my back, and suddenly my back hurt like hell. I stopped immediately, and put the weight down. I knew I was definitely done for the day, so I started pulling the plates off. As I was doing this, I figured out what I'd done.

After failure at 405, I pulled off a measly 10 pounds, didn't give myself any time to recover, and pulled, hard, again. Fatigue in my lower back caused me to round it, and then there was a large shear force on my spine. I suspect that what happened was a herniated disc. The "shift" I felt was the disc giving way.

As of today, I can move around OK, but I suspect it'll be a while before I deadlift any serious weight again. Thank god for Advil and ice!

Lessons learned:

1. When dealing with large loads, allow for recovery time between rounds, even if the previous round didn't go.

2. I need to work on my deadlift form - must maintain a straight lower back. It was an absolutely sickening feeling having my back do what it did.

Doin' Grace

"Grace"

135 pound Clean and Jerk, 30 reps

Before I did this WOD, I watched a video of Greg Amundson doing it in like 2:30. I figured 10 minutes would be long enough - 4x his time. How hard could 30 reps in 10 minutes be?

Hard.

I got a lotta funny looks from a dude on the leg extension machine from all of my grunting and talking to myself. ("C'mon, three more and you're done") CrossFit WODs tend to garner a lot of funny looks anyway, but this dude was positively perplexed at what I was doing. :)

I managed to bring it in at 8:41, which made me happy. I figure I can probably get it to 8:00 without too much trouble now that I know what to expect. I could probably clean 135 pounds 30 times in about 4 minutes, but a clean and jerk adds a lot to the exercise. At first, I found it a very odd feeling, having not done a lot of them. But towards the end, I started to really feel the power of the jerk - it seems like I could throw a lot more up in the air if I could clean it. A split landing helps a lot too - it helped me actually drop under the bar, as opposed to pushing it up like a push press.