Another Fran, another PR

So today was Fran. Andrea advised that I make it my goal to never drop the bar for the thrusters to prevent excess energy being spent in cleaning the bar up unnecessarily. Her reason was sound, and for the first set I did it unbroken. Squats are still really, really tough for me in the thruster position. I attempted to keep my wrists straight to remove a movement (a discontinuity between the weight and my center of gravity), but it resulted in the sensation that the bar was too far forward.

Near the middle I jst went blank mentally, I had nothing in the brain tank to really drive myself, but during the third round I regained some composure and finished it up fairly quickly.

I managed to cut my time by almost a full minute, down to 8:23. Now I'm starting to feel like my goal of having a respectable Fran time (a sub 7 [EDIT] 5) is within my reach.

It's hard to believe that 15 months ago my Fran time was 19:43, a full 11:20 longer than today. I've only done Fran six times in my life, but every time resulted in a lower time.

This is a great feeling, and a great way to end the week before the Hopper challenge. I plan to later post about why I crossfit, and a look back at today in the context of watching friend's first encounter with Fran (Hint: they didn't like her).

Strict press 1 rep max PR and double unders

Simple, but not easy:

Strict press:
1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1, 1

So I knew my pr is 120, but I also knew I hadn't really used my shoulder for six weeks while recovering from the tendonitis. I ramped it up to 120 pretty quickly, and it was tough but I did it. ...The strict press feels different now, post tendonitits treatment. I feel like I have more control now over my left shoulder, and can thus push it harder. I attempted 125, but failed. Then I did 121 and barely got it. then tried 125 again, and failed. It is amazing how little a pound can make.

After that I worked on double unders. My approach was the same as when I used to practice the string bass. Start slow with little increments, and once you achieve some success don't stop until it becomes second nature.

First let me say that one should never do double unders in vibram five fingers. They leave the top of your feet exposedI went from not being able to get one to starting to get one occasionally. I then started to get one on command. I then started to get one double, then one single, then another double. I then got it up to a set of three alternating sets. I would take a few brakes, and when I came back to the double under I would have to go through the progression again each time, but I would get back to the set of three alternating faster each time. Near the end I just got too tired to keep going.

Later that night after I showered I looked at my feet, and the tops of my feet were both bruised and cut. Guess I really do need to work on the jump rope. Very excited though because tonight was the first night were I felt like I made some real progress. Now I'm not as scared of them coming up in the hopper.

Columbus day, but no vacation

So I showed up and the wod was another challenging one:

4 sets
9 muscle ups
9 squat cleans (I did pro at 135)
400m run

did the first round with the mu sub, then where my hands are starting to heal they cracked open and started to bleed again. The pain was a huge distraction with my pull ups and the squat cleans. During the second round of squat cleans I couldn't hold onto the bar and basically ended up throwing the bar up and catching it in the rack position. Andrea saw me do this twice, and then told me to call it a day.

The dnf sucks, but I honestly couldn't focus out the pain in my hands, it's like there are seven knives stabbing me in the palms/fingers.

I attempted a MU a couple of times, and was no where near getting it. Looks like I'll need to start completely over, and will have to work on technique/progressions.

I am very excited about the hopper challenge this weekend, but am realy, really sad to hear it will start at 8:00 am. That is nowhere near what time I'm used to waking up (10:00), let alone up and have been on the road for an hour. If I want to be there at 7:30, then I'll have to leave at like 6:30, which in turn means I'll have to be up at like 5:45 to meet up at CFOT to then take off. Jesus, just getting there will be the greatest challenge for me. I was tempted to just stay up all night, but that's just asking for disaster. Looks like I'll have to try to get into a morning routine this week.

This bais towards morning people is a little annoying, but hey, maybe morning workout people are just better athletes. Of the nine CFOT competitors, I'm the only one who regularly works out in the PM, and I consider myself to be the weakest link on this team (except when it comes to rowing, I own that biatch).

Trying to step it up a notch for the Hopper

I came in for the 5:15 class a little late, so I decided to wait for the 6:00 class and take the opportunity to work on double unders. After working on them for about 30 min, I only got two in a row once. Hopefully I will find my rhythm soon, because I'm getting a little tired of not getting these suckers.

So we had a tough wod, and Jerry called me out on being a competitor for the Mid-Atlantic Hopper.

7 rounds of:
3 deadlift (started out at 275, then dropped to 225)
6 lou burbees (double push up)
9 C-2-B pull-ups

The DL's were not that tough, but I couldn't figure out how to keep my spine straight. Again, I kept tension in the core, but they really were ugly so I took the 25's off and kept going. I don't think lowering the weight really helped speed me up, but they felt less dangerous.

the burpees were ok, I never really waited more than a second between reps, if at all.

The pull ups are what got me. Jerry said that if your chest doesn't touch it doesn't count, especially for me since I'm preparing for the Hopper Challenge. I didn't have too much of a problem for the first 4 rounds, only like 4 or 5 fails. However, the fifth set had about 7 failed attempts, and the the sixth round it took about 9 attempts before I got my chest to touch the first time. I probably ended up doing 25 pull ups to get nine C-2-B's. My hands also gave out this round, tearing in about seven different places. For the seventh round, mostly everyone was done, so Jerry and Harold kept telling me to go for it, and even though my pull ups didn't result in my chest touching the bar, Jerry counted them. I wasn't going to argue.

My hands are shredded now, and at the end I just felt like I had failed everyone, and had let them down. I knew that wasn't the right attitude to have, so I started to think about in a positive manner. I might not be the fastest or strongest, but I'm not doing to beat other people. I'm competing in the Hopper challenge to have fun and to gain experience. There are so many exercises that I can't do (muscle up, hand stand push up, Double Unders) that it is inevitable that one of the WOD's will have one. I'm not sure what will happen then, but I will give this my all, and focus only on myself.

Running like the wind, and finding a kip to the air squat.

A simple wod, but it's as tough as you make it to be.

5 rounds
400 m sprint
40 air squats

My time was 17:06, and I think I did a good job of constantly pushing myself through this workout. During my run I still can't figure out what to do to increase my leg speed. My lungs felt fine, I just could figure out how to move my legs fast enough to really feel like I'm sprinting.

I know the idea of not figuring out how to move my legs sounds retarded, but I'm still figuring out the POSE stride. I can feel myself lean forward, and I can really feel my hamstrings pull me forward as I run "downhill", but there seems to be a limit on how fast I can get my legs moving.

I've also figured out how to do a kip for air squats. Most people throw their hands up as they go down. This is done to help teach core tension and proper squat technique, but the movement isn't necessary (I think) to actually having a good squat. I think my squat is good enough that I can have my upper body work independently of my lower body, and I've found that if your move your arms bent and move them in a circle with your body, it's like a butterfly kip. Another way of looking at it is I try to incorporate the upper body movement that people use in a box jump to lift me up to the standing position. I started to figure this movement out last time we did Murph, and I have to say it really helps. Mentally, I think I'm holding two big scoops, and I need to scoop water out of a bucket in front of me. As I descend into the bottom of the squat, I dig deep into the water, and as I start to stand I have to thrust the water high into the air. This really does seem to minimize the use of my legs, and made this workout that much easier.

So much easier, in fact, that I feel like something is inherently wrong with it. I must talk to one of the coaches and see if this kip is legit or not.

Wednesday

Had to be a rest day because I saw Dr. Craddock yesterday. For those of you that don't know, Dr. Craddock is my Doctor of Osteopath who works on my muscles to make sure everything in my skeleton is in alignment. After an adjustment, he doesn't want me to work out the next day. It's tough to obey this (especially when the wod is find your 1 rep jerk max), but I've found ignoring this advice leads to a lot of discomfort.

Cleans, L-sit, dips

This was an intimidating wod:

10 ROUNDS of 3 Cleans (heavy), 5 L-sit Pullups, 7 Dips

I went "pro" with 135# clean, but the hard part was the L-sit and dips. During the last two rounds I broke down and had to kip up, then do negative L-sits, I also ended up using the floss for the dips on the last two rounds. I decided that using the floss and getting full rom was a much better option than doing half-ass dips without assistance. This is the second time I done dips in like six weeks, so my ego is ok with using the floss. ...I'm not 100% confident that my decision to use the floss was correct since I relied only on intuition, but I plan on trying to look up any source that has an answer.

Another thing with this WOD is I find it very difficult to keep mental focus for that long. Dayna caught me just standing there in front of the barbell. I was in a kind of a daze, and hearing her voice snapped me out of it. I really need to figure a way to push myself through long workouts.

I was DFL again, with a time like 39:23. I really need to walk into these things with a mental game plan, or else I wind up not pushing myself as much as I could.