Thursday, January 27, 2011

Superfit results


Going to flesh this out later, but posting now that I placed 66th out of 73. Not exactly happy, but it is what it is and I have a plan for improving. Here's a picture of me doing the KB workout, the last one (and the one I did my best in).

Off to class, we're having a TON of snow here in Alexandria so I'm hoping for any kind of turnout.

Friday, January 21, 2011

Thoughts te day before competition

So, here is the workouts for the weekend:

Event 1: “Individual Skill Test”

  • Unbroken L-Sit Hold. You get one attempt at holding your feet off the ground. The legs must be straight. Clock starts as soon as you lift your legs off the ground. (2 minute limit)
  • 1 minute rest (rest starts immediately after you fail the L-Sit Hold)
  • Unbroken Medicine Ball Chest to Bar Pullups. There will be a medicine ball held between your legs (20/14) and for each rep you do with the medicine ball you will get 30 points. If you drop the ball, you can still do chest to bar pullups, but each rep only counts for 1 point. If you drop off the bar at any point, your attempt ends. (2 minute limit)
  • 1 minute rest (rest starts immediately after you drop from the bar)
  • Unbroken Max Rep Overhead Squats (135 / 95). Bar starts from the ground. You can get overhead however you want and the time starts as soon as the bar moves from the ground. If you drop the bar or the bar touches your shoulders or head after you have it overhead, your attempt ends. (2 minute limit)
  • 1 minute rest (rest starts as soon as you drop the bar)
  • 500 Meter Row (no limit)
Everything here is something I'm pretty good at, except for the med ball c2b pull ups (WTF?!?!). Yesterday I worked with an 8# med ball and got a few, then I got scared I'd wear myself out and stopped. Today I tried a 14# one, got a few, and then stopped for the same reason. Also tried it with 20#, but I couldn't get it up there (so annoying). That being said, I think I can go for at least 30 secs with the L sit hold, maybe longer. With the OHSs (Yes!) I'm not sure how many I can do unbroken of 135#, but I can do three reps of 195 and 21 reps of 95#, so I'm thinking I should go for 12-15. For the Row, I think I should have a 1:3X in me. Honestly almost all of these play to my strengths, just look at my wish list for what I wanted to show up. However, even having said that, I'm afraid that my strengths won't be strong enough. But that's crossfit for you. I'm really not sure

Event 2: “Stings Like a Bee”

5 Rounds
  • 275/185lb Deadlift, 6 reps.
  • 24 Double Unders

Time cutoff is 7 minutes. If you don’t finish, your score is total number of reps, but you can’t rank higher than someone who does finish.

This one is going to be the most difficult for me, as 275# is going to be really heavy for me. I fear that I'm going to do one rep, get light headed, and have to take a knee. Very excited about the double unders, I'm getting way more consistent with them now. I just hope I'll be able to finish 1.5 rounds, to be perfectly honest.

Event 3: “Death Becomes Us”

  • 6 Minute AMRAP of Max Rep Squat Clean Thrusters (115 / 80)

Starting on the first minute, and every minute thereafter, do 7 for men and 4 for women chest to bar pullups. Score is total number of thrusters. And no, you don’t have to do pullups on the last minute. We will not allow a pause between the squat clean and thruster, so no jerking or push pressing. There must be an unbroken movement from the bottom of the clean to the top of the thrusters. You can pause in the bottom of the squat.

God I hate Thrusters. The squat clean will not be difficult, it will be the thruster part that will suck. My goal is to get 40 of these, so it is almost like a heavy Fran.

Event 4: “The Great Equalizer”

10 Minute AMRAP

  • 20 KB Swings (55# / 35#)
  • 10 Goblet Squats
  • 5 OH Squats (each arm)

A Goblet Squat means you hold the kettlebell in front of you and it is not allowed to rest on your shoulder. Score is total number of reps. On the swings, we are looking for the kettebell to be pointing straight up overhead and the shoulders totally open. If the bell droops, that’s a no rep.

I'm really not sure how to feel about this one, 50# isn't much, but I've never done OHSs with a KB before. I'm going to go for 7 rounds.

Event 5: “Train Wreck”

  • 50 Box Jumps (~30″ / 24″)
  • Lunge Length of Mat (~40 Feet). Men hold 52# Sandbag and 55# kettlebell however they want. Women hold 32# sandbag and 35# kettlebell however they want.
  • Run 800 Meters with the sandbag.
  • 10 Ground to Overhead (135# / 95#)
  • 10 / 5 Muscle Ups

The top 5 men and the top 5 women will compete in event five. The final event score counts double given the smaller number of competitors. Bar positions will be determined by who comes back first from the run. Muscle up stations will be chosen in order of ranking g0ing into the final event. For muscle ups we will need the arms to be fully extended at the bottom and see the wrist turned outward. Time cutoff is 25 minutes and whatever place people are is the final place.

This is for the top 5, which I doubt I'll make, but in case I do here's my plan. Running with the sandbag is going to be the toughest, as we never do that at CFOT, but I should burn through the box jumps and do decently with the C&J of 135. The most muscle ups I've ever done in a "row" (should note that this is one at a time) is five, so this will be tough for me.

I wish I was having dinner with the rest of the CFOT crew down in Charlotsville, but unfortunately Kristin doesn't get off of work until late tonight, so I'll be showing up at around 11, maybe midnight. I have a feeling even if I got there early I'd have difficulty going to sleep because I'm such a late night person.

One thing I've noticed is I'm not really nervous. I don't feel the need to really hype myself up about this. I've tried to make each workout count, I believe in my training, and that my performance is going to be based on a lot of little choices I've made, instead of one big decision I've made or an action I've taken. It's too late to really do anything that will make a difference, and I don't think there's really anything I could do different.

I've done a lot of performances, like I've sung and danced solo in front of over a thousand people, and I guess I'm using the same approach here. I feel fairly calm, but I know that when tomorrow comes I'm going to be pumped with adrenaline. Alright, time to start packing....

Tuesday, January 18, 2011

Quiet before the storm

Can't believe I'm going to be competing this weekend. We'll find out the work out 48 hours in advance, which on one hand I don't like because I will have time to freak out about it, but on the other hand I will have time to prepare myself (and not freak out). I just keep picturing workouts with handstand push ups, lots of muscle ups, and pistol squats. But who knows, maybe the strength wod will be overhead squats, and the met-con will have box jumps, rowing and double unders.

Everyday I really do try to give it my all in the gym, I know that I won't have a chance to do it over again so I have to make it count. I just wish I was stronger, faster, and more skilled. But I doubt that desire will ever change, so I'm glad I still have the fire.

Had seven people show up for the pull up class last week, very exciting and glad to get things back on track. This time around there were more higher-skilled people, like people who were there to work on stringing their pu's or wanted to learn butterfly.

Today the WOD was the Hopper wod of AMRAP back squat 225 for three minutes. This workout really does make me feel weak, as I see so many people posting in the 30's. But I managed to squat the weight 4 times in a row, and then managed to get 7 more (not unbroken). That's 11 total, 2 more than back at the Hopper. ...I feel like this type of workout is what really typifies my weakness, how I can start out strong and then my body just stops responding.

But, on the bright side, I am seeing improvement. The Paleo Challenge is going along well, it's helping me stay on the diet on the weekends. I'm noticing some difference in body composition, and I imagine this is helping out my hips a lot since it lowers inflammation.

Tuesday, January 11, 2011

First Friday, Annie again

So I was very pressed for time so I couldn't do something sexy like DT, but I wanted to see how my DU skeelz are going, so I did Annie for the gym's first Friday.

Time was 9:24, with a PR of 46 DU's in a row. From what I can tell this is about a 100 second PR from the last time I did this, although I thought I did it again after last March.

I'm signed up for another competition, the Superfit competition, and it's in like two weeks. Unlike the Hopper, we'll find out what the workouts will be about 48 hours in advance. Again I'm scared of failure, scared that I won't be able to do anything. But I have to keep remembering how much fun I had at the last competition and the I'm getting stronger and faster, that I do this not to win but to test and motivate myself.

Last week's class

Well, with the beginning of the year no one showed up for class. It was squats, and the core group of people who attended have gone through two cycles of my class, and combine that with the lack of new people and it wasn't a big surprise. I worked on Pistols for a little while, I'm getting much, much closer to hitting my heel with my butt. Once I've mastered this movement I hope to add it to the mix of movements I teach, but we'll see what happens.

...The other day I saw someone rolling out their trap/rhomboid area, and I recognized it immediately as some one with a tight neck- tight scalenes. I introduced them to a great stretch for the neck, and after he worked on it the pain went away. When he was working on the other side of the neck, he gave me a funny look and asked, "what is it you do again?" I told him that I'm a patent examiner, that I look at circuits all day (like the one seen here).

"So you just do this for fun?"

I thought that was pretty funny.

Tuesday, January 4, 2011

A New Year

Well, I've been out of town for two weeks with a mother of a cold and was in Dallas/Home for Christmas, so it's been two weeks and I only worked out once (and got light-headed). Back in the Gym today and it felt great, except that I left the workout feeling I could have pushed myself harder. Really got to learn how to suck it up and just do it.

5 rounds
5 Push jerk (at 135#)
10 Box Jumps

Time was 4:29, but I need to get better at pushing myself through box jumps. For the first two sets I was all plyometric and just bouncing on and off perfectly, but then I hit a serious wall and was worried about it affecting my push jerk (I really want to not lean back with that exercise).

Hacked up a lung afterward, felt better after that.

Also posted some flyers for my class, listing what I'm doing for the month. Hope this helps, and thanks to Erin for the idea.