Front Squats and Nate 11-28-08

Front Squat

3 x 5 - 155lbs (PR - also a 1 x 5 PR)

I really haven't worked on Front Squats ever.  The only time I've done them is as a part of a squat clean.  I'm happy to finally be addressing this issue and expect to make some good gains in this lift.  

Nate - Packish scaling

As many rounds possible in 10 min of:

2 Jumping Muscleups
4 Handstand Pushups Bridged on shins
8 Kettlebell Swings 1.5 Pood (54lbs)

1 KB Swing short of 10 Rounds. Would have been 10 rounds, but was slowed down when my brother called my last HSPU. Didn't quite lock out my elbows. Doh!

All HSPU's were unbroken except the last round character flaw. All KB Swings were unbroken. Muscleups were done with a quick one or two breath pause.

That was a fun one. Pack scaling is usually seated muscleups, bridged on feet, and its usually a 15 min scaling, not 10. Supposed to keep the metcon under 10 today so I cut it shorter and kept the intensity high. Did the first round of HSPU's bridged on feet then switched to bridged on shins. A baby step up from bridged on knees. Can't wait till I can do this one as Rx'd.

Cash out:  Spend 2:30 in a handstand feet held by spotter.  Did it in 30 second chuncks.  My shoulders were fried from the HSPU's.

Turkey Bowl 11-27-08

10th annual Turkey Bowl Football game.  

Had a great time on the gridiron today.  I subbed 3 hours of flag football for my metcon day.

We stopped playing tackle a few years ago after someone dislocated a clavicle on a kickoff return.  So what happens this year?  My buddy Dan of thirtyninefiftyone.blogpot.com jacked his clavicle!  Nuts!  Now he can't work until sometime in January.  Sorry Dan.  I feel bad for ya man. On the bright side it will be fun coming up with some one armed and no armed WODs in the meantime.  Get better soon!    

Shoulder Press and Jackie 11-26-08

Shoulder Press

3 x 5 - 105

Jackie
- 

1000 meter Row, 


45 pound Thruster 50 reps

30 Pull-ups

9:22

A pitbull of a workout.  Its rare that I beat Dan, he's a stud.  Probably only beat him because he squatted 3 x 5 225, 10 min before he did Jackie in 10:39.  Tomorrow is the Turkey bowl!  Should be nice and muddy since its raining today.  Can't wait for the 10th annual Turkey day football game!

Deadlift and KB Clean/Tuck Jumps 11-25-08

Was supposed to Deadlift 3 x 3 as well as deadlift a high rep set today.  Started to work into heavier weights, but just wasn't feeling it.  So I cut it down to just the high rep set.

Deadlift

205 x 20 - Unbroken

AMRAP:

10 Tuck Jumps

10 Kettlebell Clean and Press - 1 pood (5 with each arm)

10 Rounds and 10 Tuck Jumps, 3 KB clean and Press.

All unbroken except round 9 of Tuck Jumps was two sets of 5.

Back Squat and Thrusters/Burpees 11-23-08

Back Squat

3 x 5 - 230 (PR.  PR for 1 x 5  also)

Definitely felt heavy but bar speed was slightly faster then two weeks ago when I did 225 3 x 5 (my final SS workout).  Bar looked good with the colored bumpers on it.  I need to get some photos of those puppies on here.  Then did:

5 rounds for time of:

7 Thrusters 115 lbs

7 Burpees

11:22

Those Thrusters sure felt heavy compared to the usual 95 lbers.  Figure this will help my Fran time and any time you do thrusters is a good thing.  I'm going to mix Thrusters in at least once a week in my WODs.  Plan on doing more workouts similar to Fran to keep working on it.  I WILL have a sub 5:00 Fran eventually!  My goal is to hit sub 5 by my one year CrossFit anniversary at the end of Jan.  Gotta shave off 2:34. Doable.  Very doable.

I just realized that I had planned to do ascending sets of 3 x 5 on the squat instead of the same weight straight across for all 3 sets.  I will use ascending sets from now on.  It is much easier on recoverability.   

Elizabeth 11-21-08

Elizabeth (Pack Scaling)

21-15-9

Power Clean 115lb

Bar Dips

8:34

Couldn't hack the Rx'd version of 135lbs and ring dips.   Could barely hack the bar dips.  Ended up putting my foot down on most of the reps to help me out of the bottom a little.  Its pathetic really, how weak on dips I am.  Oh well, onward and upward.  Just need to work on them. Hopefully I'll one day be able to call them a strength and not a weakness.

Karen 11-19-08

Karen - A pack/puppy scaling

150 Wall ball - 10 foot target, 10lb medicine ball

5:57

Should have used a heavier ball, but this was the heaviest I have.  I was able to hold a pretty fast pace and keep the intensity high.

Had three friends over tonight for the workout.  After Karen, for our cashout, we played a game of horse on the rings.  Some of the things we did were:  L pullups, 3 skin the cats/15 second one legged planche/15 second one legged lever/3 skin the cats, 20 ring pushups with good depth, 20 seated muscleups, and all kinds of other very basic gymnast progressions.  Had to cut the game short because it was taking too long for anyone to loose.  Just a little too evenly matched.  I was maybe the worst one there.  Not fun.  Need to work on my ring skills.  

Helen 11-17-08

Helen as Rx'd

3 Rounds for time:

400M Run

21 Kettlebell Swings - 1.5 Pood (53 lbs)

12 Pullups

1st Rd:  2:49

2nd Rd: 6:51

Total:   10:59

I actually meant to do this with my 44lb Kettlebell, so I could get another metcon comparison to the last time I did Helen (also with 44lb KB) in 10:00 minutes.  However I think when I wasn't looking my brother switched it to the 53 lb KB.  I did the first round unbroken.  During the second round, it just felt heavier then it should have.  Did 15 then 6 swings.  When I set down the weight I looked at it and realized it was the 53lber.  No wonder it felt hard, because it was!  This was the first time I've done Helen as Rx'd and I was pretty happy with my time.  All I have to do is take off 59 seconds off my time and I'll qualify for Brand X's underdawg club, and get a T-shirt 

 http://www.crossfitbrandx.com/index.php/forums/viewthread/1100/

Josh had a great day today.  He did Helen with the 35lb KB in 9:40.  That is a 4:28 PR!  Monstrous improvement!

OHS 11-16-08

Used my brand new Pendlay Bar and Wright colored bumpers for the first time!  Very snarky stuff!  The Pendlay economy bar and black Wright bumpers will now take a backseat.

Overhead Squat

95 x 5

115 x 3

125 x 3 (PR)

130 x 3 (PR)

135 x 3 (PR)

140 x 3 (PR)

Was thinking I was going to start a new strength biased Crossfit program today, but decided that taking it easy for a few days might be a good idea.  I kinda fried myself by doing Fran, Grace and Angie right after SS.

Angie 11-14-08

Angie

100 Pullups

100 Pushups

100 Situps (abmat)

100 Air Squats

26:55

I felt super sluggish on everything but the squats.  I was expecting my metcon to be negatively effected by SS, and I think this a good example.

Power Clean & Grace 11-13-08

Power Clean:

95 x 5

115 x 5

135 x 3

145 x 3

155 x 3 (PR)

175 x 1

185 x 1 (PR)

190 x 1 Failed

Grace with 115lbs (Old School style with power cleans and push jerks)

4:18 (PR),  16 seconds improvement compared to 8-24-08

Had a great day of PR's today.  My plan was to do Grace today so I could compare my time today to my pre Starting Strength time like I did with Fran yesterday.  The idea is to compare my metcon status to see how much if any that I've lost.  So far I've PR'd in Grace and Fran.  I need to do a little longer metcon WOD like fight gone bad and see how I score on that.  

I decided to go with my cousin Jerrod's advice tonight and work into some heavier weight with low reps right before the WOD so it would feel super light when I did Grace.  The 3 rep PR is not too impressive because strangely enough, I really haven't worked with 3 reps much at all with power cleans. Definitely shows that I'm no Olympic lifter, just a guy using O-lifts within the confines of CrossFit, much of which has been self programmed.  I could have hit a higher weight with the triple, but then I got it in my head to try for a single rep max.  I might have pushed that strategy a little too far by attempting a single rep max and sapped some strength that would have come in handy during Grace.  I think I could have shaved a few seconds off my time if I hadn't done the single rep max, but not much.  I kept repeating to myself during the workout that I didn't have to stop and rest just because I was out of breathe.  It seemed to work as I felt like I pushed the pace pretty hard and didn't really take any type of real rest.  I did drop the bar from overhead every single rep which caused me to reset on the bar 29 times, so I guess you could say I took 29 mini rests throughout the workout.  Overall  I'm very happy with my performance and the three PR's I put up today.  

Fran 11-12-08

Fran as Rx'd:

7:34 (PR)

25 second PR!!!  I simply cannot believe it.  It doesn't make any sense.  After 6 weeks off of CrossFit, my Fran time improved!?  I'm flabbergasted.  I've got to give props to my buddy Dan who pushed me by insulting my manhood and saying I was doing Fran as Rx'd even though I wanted to do it with 75lbs in order to get a respectable time.  I was just hoping for sub 10 minutes.  I don't know how to explain a PR.

The only thing I can think of is that the difference was in the thrusters.  The bottom of the thruster felt notably stronger then it did before, I'm guessing because of all the back squat workouts (18 to be exact!) I've done in the last month and a half.  

I had 4 guys yelling at me throughout the workout and all were watching my form.  I got called on one bad thruster in the first set at #12 when I didn't lock my elbows out.  This workout absolutely wrecked me.  I worked just as hard on it as any workout I can remember.  I was on the ground floundering like a pathetic little girl afterwards.  It hurt just to breathe.  I'm loving it!  

The End of Starting Strength Cycle 11-12-08

It's time I end this Starting Strength cycle.  I have been following the program religiously in regards to programming (other then the two overly ambitious 10lb deadlift jumps, which resulted in not handling the last deadlift workout with good form...watch the video if you need to), getting every single workout in, drinking a gallon of milk a day, and getting 8 hours of sleep, but I just haven’t been able to put down 7,000 calories a day.  Its been more like 4,000 a day sometimes 5,000.  Rippetoe the creator of the program has said that this is just not enough to bulk up and continue the linear progression as needed. 

The primary reason I went on SS was my goal of bulking up to jump up into a bigger fighter’s weight class or two so to speak and at the same time getting useable strength (a secondary goal).  In the world of fighting whether its the UFC, wrestling, boxing, or a cop fighting somebody jacked up on PCP, the bigger man has an advantage.  Not to mention the possibility of avoiding a fight in the first place with the more intimidating command presence that a bigger cop gives off.  Obviously there are bodybuilding programs out there that I could bulk up on, but thats a bunch of crap as there is little function fitness involved there.  So my primary goal of getting bigger has been compromised (and the strength gains will be diminished as well) because I haven’t been able to eat enough.  Working graveyards as a cop is not conducive to eating truckloads.  There are nights when I go call to call and hardly have time to pop in a cliff bar, forget about putting down the kind of regular, disciplined, large meals that are necessary.  It’s made it not worth it for me to continue.  Let alone the fact of everything I’ve given up with not doing CrossFit.  I’ve argued with myself the entire time I’ve been on this program about why I’m not doing CrossFit.  But I guess I had to run my little experiment, and so here I am.

I’ve been on SS now for 6 weeks.  I gained 15 pounds in the first two weeks, and for the last month haven’t gained anything!  I’m stuck at 183/4 lbs depending on the day.  I haven’t stalled out yet, and thats the only reason I've kept going… because I’m curious to see how much farther I will go until I stall out.  I would have started to PR on Shoulder Press a week from today, PR on Cleans on Friday, and I’m already PR’ing on Squats and Bench.  I’ve put a lot into this and did not want to quit without giving it my entire effort.  Thats not who I am.  But lets face it, to try and gain 30 pounds in 3 months and not as a 16-20 year old kid is a tough goal.  Doable?  Probably.  But very tough, and you HAVE to follow the program verbatim.  Which I haven't been.  7,000 calories is just not happening.  I've tried and tried to keep pounding the food hard and to be aggressive about it, but it just aint happening.  I hate to admit defeat in an area that seemingly just takes a little discipline, but here I am.  And so you know I found without a doubt the hardest part of this program was eating enough.  The only reason I can see to continue is to see how far I can make it before I stall out.  But to the detriment of the rest of my fitness.  So I’m not considering this a full on success, but a partial success.  I’m a bit conflicted about it, but I know that I'm no longer truly following the program as it was designed.  I also know that if I stop SS and get back on X-fit I will definitely still be able to continue to PR on these lifts (and a bunch more for that matter), while at the same time get my metcon back and improve on it.  So CrossFit here I come!

Starting Strength Day 18, 11-10-08

Squat 3 x 5 - 225 lbs (PR.  Also a 1 x 5 PR)

Shoulder Press 3 x 5 - 100 lbs

Power Clean 5 x 3 - 135 lbs

Wow.  Squats felt heavy today.  Some days you are the bug, some days you are the windshield.  Today I was the bug.  

Bar speed was real slow, but I ground them all out.  I'm hoping part of the reason for this was it was just an off day.  Looking forward to hitting it hard on Wed with 230 lbs.

Starting Strength Day 17, 11-7-08

Squat 3 x 5 - 220 (PR)

Bench Press 3 x 5 - 140 (PR)

Deadlift 1 x 5 - 300 

Squats felt heavy today.  Finished all of them, but my form wasn't as tight as it should have been.  I'm confident next week should be doable. It'll be the hardest lifting of my life, but I know the work will get done.  This time next week I'll hit 235 for 3 sets of 5 which will be only 5 lbs short of my 1 rep PR of 240 (as of 5 weeks ago).

My deadlifts aren't where I want them to be.  I've done 315 for 3 sets of 5 before with a slightly rounded back.  After doing SS this long, I really thought at this weight I'd still be pulling with good form.  

Your critique on my form is welcomed.  I'll start:  My back is flattening out waaay too much and dangerously close to rounding if its not already.  This isn't happening from a lack of attempting to keep my lumbar locked tight.  Seems to just be a lack of strength to hold it tight at this weight.  Also on my first rep, I need to start with my butt higher.  My butt rises a couple of inches before the bar is lifted off the ground. I've known that I do that for a month now, so its a little frustrating to still be doing it.  I realize now I should have been recording more often so I could be monitoring it.  Here is the video.  

Starting Strength Day 16, 11-5-08

Squat 3 x 5 - 215 lbs (PR)

Press 3 x 5 - 95 lbs

Power Clean 5 x 3 - 130 lbs

Squats felt pretty good.  Any critiques on my form are welcome.

Starting Strength Day 15, 11-3-08

Squat 3 x 5 - 210 lbs (PR)

Bench Press 3 x 5 - 135 lbs

Deadlift 1 x 5 - 295 lbs

I'm enjoying the fact now that every time I squat it will be a PR until I hit a plateau.  The Squats felt pretty good.  heavy, but good.  It definitely helps to whip myself into a mental frenzy right before each set.  I tried to focus on that and really get psyched up.  I'm now confident I'll get 215 on Wed and 220 on Fri.  Added 10lbs to the deadlift again today to make them tougher like the squats are.  I'm still using a palms toward me grip on both hands to try and build up my grip strength.  I'll continue doing so as long as possible until my grip fails and then I'll switch to an opposing grip so my grip won't keep me from working up into heavy weight.