re: Daily CrossFit Thread: Workouts and other musings..

Open Season is upon us!

I competed on a team this past weekend at Wodapalooza. Some recaps up on how bad we sucked in planning.

Event 5
Another long chipper workout where we had poor planning
20 Wall-Walks (One handstand holds, one works, one rests)
60 HSPUs (One handstand holds, one works, one rests)

240 Synchro SUs (Two work, one rests)

60-40-20 Synchro DL, Hang Clean and Front Squats (3 different weights)

We thought we could get away with only two people handling the Wall walks while the 3rd comes in with a big set of HSPUs.. WRONG! First Set of HSPUs was 20, our next guy (who thought he was good for at least 15-20) knocked out only 2 and we were forced to chip away on the remaining 40. Killed our time completely.


Event 6
Worm Fran
21-15-9 Thrusters
45 Pullups-30 CTB Pullups, 15 Bar Muscle Ups (2 hold the worm while 1 works on these movements)

New found respect for people having to hold a heavy, unorthodox object.

The thrusters were OK. We got out of rhythm a few times and picked up some no-reps, but the hard part of the event was the worm hold. You couldn't rest your arms anywhere on the body and it was difficult to breath and get your HR down.

Bad judge on the Bar MUs fricked us. First guy hit 2-3 reps and the head judge came over and told our judge to watch his feet because he was close to glide kipping (feet go over the bar like gymnasts do) but he wasn't (our own videos show it) and he received 4-5 no-reps in a row.

He came down, frustrated, and switched out to our next Bar MU guy who wasn't as proficient. He would have powered thru 12 reps but oh well.

Event 7
3 rounds each (follow the leader style)
18 Echo Bike Cals
24 Reverse Lunches holding to 35KB in the front rack
12 S2OH with the KB

We crushed the first round (I thought we had it in the bag after I went 95 RPM pace and blew through the 18 cals) but my legs crashed on the final event of the weekend on the 2nd round of lunges. My last echo bike cals ended up in a driving rainstorm as the sky opened up, adding to my misery.




My takeaways:

1. WZA Organizers were dumbasses (yet will not admit it) on having us run the 5K on the mountain bike trail.
2. No max lift with the Worm being the heaviest item we picked up all weekend but it was a shared movement so it wasn't too bad.
3. I need to work on a shitload of single-legged movements moving forward: lunges (front & back) and bulgarian split squats. Bilaterally, I'm fine with strength & endurance, but ISO leg movements are a huge weakness of mine.
4. Next year, we will be smarter on breaking up movements so we don't crash and burn.

I was going to start my own new thread to discuss what I'm doing, but I decided to bomb in on y'alls CrossFit™ Thread because what I'm doing is in this "neighborhood". This is a novel of a post, after this one I'll be shorter and sweeter, but I wanted to lay out my rationale and backstory for why I'm basically homebrewing my own "cross-fit" style workouts.

I've tried CrossFit™ in the past and failed miserably at it. I am not physically capable of doing these WOD™ workouts.
"So,... that's no problem, just scale it." says Mr. Crossfit™ Coach. So I scaled it, and I still couldn't do it. I found myself spending way too much time sucking wind, laying on the ground, just dying. And it's expensive to do this. I'd show up, do a little mobility/stretching, maybe some technical practice on a particular move/lift, and then the WOD™ where I'd find myself on a knee or on my back, recovering for several minutes before I can do anything again. In the end, I'd estimate that anywhere from 50-75% of the WOD™ session for me was eaten up by heavy breathing and the inability to participate due to gross fatigue, and too often the WOD™ would include things that I just wasn't able to do at all, no matter how well recovered. I didn't blame the coaches (maybe I should, I don't know, but it's not my style), or CrossFit™, I only blamed myself. It was embarrassing and demoralizing. I learned that being able to "scale" for yourself takes greater skill than I had originally thought, but I also felt that if I "scaled appropriately" that I'd be doing such a chopped down version of what the coaches were assigning to the class that I really felt like I had no business being there in the first place.

My plan for years has been to try this out again and avenge myself against this kind of training and finally prove to myself that I am capable of doing this kind of high intensity conditioning work, I just need it perfectly tailored down to whatever my level is. I've finally laid a good foundation for myself with other gentler forms of conditioning, and it's time to start doing my own WODs™, if they should be called that, and I don't need to be joining up at any Box™ anytime soon, I can accomplish what I need to at my garage/home setup, and I can do it for free, in a manner that allows me to avoid feeling like a fat, disgusting failure that can't do anything.

First attempt at creating a WOD™ came out with this,
I named it "Courier"
4 rounds for time:
a) 100 jump ropes (single under)
b) 400 meter ruck with 30lbs in the pack, while carrying my 44lb kettlebell in my hand or hands the entire time, I can switch hands and carry it anyway I want just so long as I hold in with my hands/arms the entire time.
c) 10 burpees
d) front squat to OHP with 135lb x 8

Well, this sounded good, but I did a little testing beforehand on the day before I planned to do this, and after some thinking this was probably too ambitious, so I scaled my own WOD™ that I wrote for myself before I even attempted it! See? This shite is hard. I'm kidding, I didn't consider this scaling. I considered it "editing" and it was a wise decision. I basically chopped it in half. As I progress in my abilities I'll move more towards the first version of this WOD™, but for day #1 this was great and I feel I got great results and feedback from doing it.
Second attempt at "Courier"
2 rounds for time:
a) 50 jump ropes(single under)
b) 200 meter ruck with 30lbs in the pack and carrying the 44lb kettlebell
c) 10 burpees
d) front squat to OHP with 95lb x 5

I finished in 20:11, this was what I wanted to do, about 20 minutes as intense as I could go, and I wanted to craft a combination of elements that were highly challenging but wouldn't cripple me and put me on the ground for 50% of the session. I can skip rope okay, 50 is about my threshold for reps though before I start to hit my foot/ankle due to fatigue and getting out of sync. I was able to do both rounds of 50 reps without stopping either from running out of breath or hitting my foot. Threw on the pack and picked up the KB and took off for my marker, this segment was the toughest for me and I felt miserable the entire time. Haven't breathed like this in a long time, but that's what I was wanting to create. Something that took me right up to MY threshold and maybe a little bit over, but not too much that I'd have to take a protracted rest period. I was able to push myself to continuously move over 200 meters, although the second trip just about killed me. After a short(approx 30sec) rest I started in on my 10 burpees and was able to get 10 done in about 90 seconds each time. The front squats to OHP were the only part that was too easy, I could have handled the 135lb x 8, but I was worried because I have bad form with front squats due to poor ankle and wrist mobility. It's something I need to keep working on but I was able to do this just fine. Overall I was pleased with how close to my max abilities this kept me for the 20 minutes. My watch and HR monitor tell me I was in zone 4 for 11:48 and Zone 3 for 5:52, that's almost 18 minutes of a HR over 125, not a bad show for the first outing. The overall pace was outstanding, very little recovering during the workout. I would estimate my total recovery time during this entire workout was between 2-3 minutes. It was mostly just the work and the suffering and that's exactly what I wanted. I feel like I'll get a lot out of this and I'll be better for it.

The plan will be to do these WODs™ on Tuesdays and this is another place where I will make a sharp departure from how CrossFit™ seems to program, I will do the same exact WOD™ next Tuesday(04/16), and the next Tuesday(04/23), and the next Tuesday(04/30. If I can beat this week's time next week and keep improving my time over 3 weeks then I'll go for the full 4 rounds or I'll write another WOD™ and work on that one for another month.

If I can manage to reproduce this experience over and over I will consider it a success.

I just finished my second week and it is certainly tough, especially since I'm just getting back in after a 5 month layoff. I'm working with the owner and working on a fat loss/muscle gain goal over 15 weeks. The first week my legs were fried and this past week was my back/triceps. Just doing the workouts and eating clean I can see a difference and don't feel so bloated. Ready to see how far I can take this 45 yr old body.