WOD: Cindy. Its time we discuss our love hate relationship.

I think its almost 6 months since my last encounter with CINDY. A few things I learned or was reminded of today after doing this WOD.

1. Shave down your calluses and make sure you have the proper grip for kipping pull ups

2. Chalk is my friend.

3. No shame in using a med ball to make sure you hit all your squats with proper depth.

4. Push ups are the forever the rate limiting step.

5. I love doing Cindy, but I hate how it wrecks my body from head to toe.

WOD: 20min AMRAP “Cindy”

- 5 pull ups

- 10 push ups

- 15 squats

Totals: 15 rounds + 15 reps RX

PR!!! And first time doing it RX too! So with a little math that means I did 80 Pull ups, 160 push ups, and 225 squats all in under 20 mins. Definitely reminds me why I can probably never go back to doing the 45+ minutes of P90x and Insanity. Whenever a WOD takes longer than 20mins, aka chippers, i already feel like thats an eternity. Not sure where I found the willpower to go through 2 rounds of p90x way back when haha. 

The 125 pushup challenge has been doing a number on my chest. Constantly feeling sore. Definitely did me no favors today with the WOD as fatigue quickly set in around the 4th round of Cindy today  with the push ups. Wonder how many more rounds I can do once i build up my push up stamina.

Fun part. After the WOD we had skill work to do…

Skill: Handstand Push ups 5x5

I got one HSPU done before having to scale down to the box version. I dont think any of us in the morning class were able to get through the skill work without scaling down. Coach is a sick bastard haha. Making us do this after Cindy wrecked us. 

strengthfromstruggle:

Consistency is essential. (Taken with instagram)

(via theamateurninja)

WOD: Progress finally!

Ive been somewhat frustrated with my lifting as of late. The PRs are coming at a snails pace. But coach always reminds me the path towards strength is a long and linear road that never stops being difficult. It just wouldnt be worth it, if it were so easy. 

Strength: Overhead squat for 1RM

The last few times we’ve attempted this at the box, there was always some sort of mental obstacle or physical limitation I was dealing with. None of that today. Attacked the bar was my #1 priority. Finished with 135# 

Pretty good considering this time last year I barely cracked 110#. Best part is that I probably could have done another 10#, maybe 20#, but ran out of time and I dumped the bar after landing my 1rep b/c its always awkward racking the bar from the overhead position. Also from experience, it can tweak my shoulder or strain something  if I dont rack properly. So better to just dump it. 

WOD: 3Rounds for time

- 10 squat cleans (95#)

- 20 push ups

- 10 thrusters (95#)

- 20 sit ups

Time: 15:00 

The push ups are getting better. Back on the Push Up challenge, except I programmed it so I can get to 125 push ups without a break in 6 weeks. So far so good. Ive hit 100 straight before, so 125 seems like the next logical step. Just started last week, and still dealing with some of the DOMs from neglecting it. After the initial test, I can only do about 60 straight right now. So some work cut out for me. 

Last note as a reminder to myself. Need to program my training for the summer soon. Only 2 weeks left at my box before I head home and battle the demons of wonderful home cooking and massive amount of free time I have. 

fitbunney:

The TRINITY. 

"Your goal should be to have the YOU of tomorrow kick the ass of the YOU last week"

- Livingsuperhuman

New kicks! NB minimus MR00! Limited color choices between this green, or red. Safe to say I these colors resonate quite nicely with me. 

BAMF

Just one of the many badass coaches at my gym. 

WOD: It’s too early to be a sweaty mess.

I’m done with school! but that doesnt mean I’m done with my fitness efforts. This means still going to bed relatively early and waking up before the sun rises to get in my time at the box. I’m telling you, it’s an addiction. Well there’s always worst things to be addicted to then fitness haha. 

Today was a relatively light day in terms of metcon, but very heavy on skill work. Also the gym’s head coach led our AM crew instead of our normal coach who couldnt make it in. Did i ever mention how much I love the head coach, his knowledge and desire to push everyone out of their comfort zones is much appreciated. No different today with him in charge. Made me go RX when I was scaling down to spare my sore shoulders…

Strength/Skill

1. 5x3 Power Snatch + hang squat snatch + squat snatch 

I only made it up to 90lbs today. But that was expected with the volume of reps we were doing and how sore I still was. Gotta work on activating those lats when setting up and more hip drive. 

2. 5x2 Deficit Handstand push ups 

Seriously?! Yea no mercy on my poor upper body. Surprisingly enough I was able to get in my first 2 sets no problem, and then had to settle for regular HSPUs afterwards without the stacked plates. Abmat free though! 

WOD: AMRAP7

- 7 thrusters (95#)

- 7 Burpees 

Total: 4 + 1 RX

Did a whole round better than i expected. Success! 

WOD: friday 4/27

Celebrated my last day of finals with an upper body massacre!

WOD: “JT” 21-15-9 for time

- HSPU (2abmats)

- ring dips

- Push ups

I was feeling pretty good knocking out those 21 HSPU in the first 1/3 in under a min. I was feeling like that sub-10 min time was within reach. Wrong. 

With each rep from there on out, it was just falling into a deeper and deeper hole of upper body paralysis. The ring dips do you no favor what so ever and take out of you what ever upper resolve you have left. It was definitely the rate limiting step for me. 

Final time: 11:15

Hero workouts…. as they say. If it has quotations around it, prepare yourself for an ass kicking. In other news, increasing my training days starting next week. Time to sweat off all this booze running through my system all day yesterday celebrating the end of the semester! 

WOD: Wednesday 4/25

Death by power cleans:

Results. 9 mins + 8 reps (115#)

Hook grip. Why you so awkward!?!

WOD: Filthy Filthy Mondays….

Got to the gym early today to get a little extra warm up time in. Trying my best to increase my efforts to prevent those injuries. Training is about to kick up an extra notch once this last week of finals is over with. 4-5 training days are making a comeback!

Is it weird that i was oddly excited to see the WOD on the  board today? As for my classmates, their looks of agony after reading the white board was priceless.

WOD: Filthy Fifty - for time

- 50 box jumps (24in)

- 50 jumping pull ups

- 50 walking lunges

- 50 KB swings (35lb)

- 50 KTE

- 50 Push presses (45lb)

- 50 sit ups

- 50 wallbalsl (20lb)

- 50 burpees 

- 50 double unders

I remember this WOD was on the board during my first week of crossfitting over a year ago and we had to scale it down to the thrifty thirty. Even then it was murder. Today was a good benchmark as to how far I’ve gone since then. My strength still has a long ways to go, but body weight workouts with lighter weights like these really set me up for good times. I’ve somewhat become the the little engine that could when it comes to endurance or stamina based WODs and my class mates often egg me on about how fast I’ll set the time to beat for the later classes (where all the firebreathers are!) Like it’s a foregone conclusion I’ll finish first.. if anything crossfit  has made me a lot more humble and appreciative of the gains I make. I’ve somewhat lost my edge in the competitiveness department and shifting my focus more towards approaching each WOD with the right intensity. Everything else is secondary. 

This philosophy is probably best represented during WODs like these where no matter how well trained or conditioned you are, you’ll hit that mental barrier. That point when you feel like you’ve done a million reps, but have another million more to battle through. Maybe it’s weird, but this is when Im the most calm and zen like during WODs. My brain just shifts into methodically knocking out one rep at a time. Dont stop. Just keep knocking out one rep at time and then you get to breath. Did that at just about every station I hit today. It served me well, finished first and produced a time I very happy with. 

Time: 22:15 RX 

- 

WOD: Thursday = Fun day. 

Broke the norm to join the thurday AM group today because I had an easier final scheduled today and wanted to be able to stay up late studying tonight without waking up at 5am. 

Today’s class was thoroughly enjoyable from beginning to end. 

Warm up: Stretch + Indian line  800m sprint

Warm ups are pretty routine, but today coach threw in a wrinkle that shook off any lingering drowsiness from waking up before the sun rises. Indian sprints! The class got in a line and whoever was at the end of the line with the medball had to sprint to the front, and throw the med ball over head to the person behind them. The ball would work its way back to the next person at the end, and the cycle repeated. After 800m we ended up in front of CHICK-FIL-A. Guess what we did… burpees right in front of the breakfast line of cars. Not to mention they had a person outside in the cow costume. It was quite the sight. Then we proceeded to repeat the indian sprints back to the gym. 

Yep. That was just a warm up. 

WOD: “James T” - 4RFT

- 19 pull ups

- 11 hang cleans (95#)

- 10 HSPU

- 13 Front squats (95#)

At first I thought this was  hero WOD, but turns it we were honoring the head coach’s son’s first bday! Born 4/19/ 2011 at 10lbs and 13oz. The kid is big! So we had to celebrate properly with this brutal WOD. It was definitely a head to toe ache with this one. Picking up on kipping the HSPU really helped me eek out a few of the tougher reps. Everything else was just a grind.

Time: 27:15 

WOD: ouch

Today was brutal. like most days.

Skill: 

1. Snatch 5x2 - work up to 90% max (110#)

Wasnt feeling the pull today like usual. Hamstrings and lower body were extra tight today. Probably the lingering soreness from the close to 100 squats we cranked out at 95# on Friday’s WOD

2. Pistol technique worked

- I got on pistol RX on my right leg. Everything else was a mess. 

3. Deadlift technique

- Got introduced to the hook grip today and it feels so awkward. Also the extra pressure it puts on my thumb was super uncomfortable. It’s suppose to help your grip strength though. Good thing the WOD was DL intense, so extra hook grip practice was due.

WOD: 4 rounds for time

- 12 deadlifts (185#)

- 12 Pistols (blue band)

- 12 Pull ups 

- 12 burpees 

Everything sucked. 

Time: 19:22

The hook grip did help with the deadlift. Usually my grip strength gives away pretty quickly and makes lifting anything heavy a lot more difficult. Today my grip wasnt so much the problem as much as the deadlifts felt super heavy. Possibly due to the high rep count, but I took forever busting up DLs in 3-4 spurts. Pull ups, still ugly as usual. Best kipping streak was 6.