Tuesday 12/28:

3 Rounds:
500m Row
12 Muscle -ups

15:54 Rx.

This was a mainsite WOD from 2006.  Tough combo.  I'm still not a fan of doing muscle-ups through the ceiling since smashing my head on the ceiling that one time.

Thursday 12/30:

Again Faster WOD 12:

AMRAP in 10:16 (my time remaining):
6 HSPU
8 over the box jumps (24/20")
10 DB hang squat cleans (40#)

5 rds +2 db hang squat cleans

Made it through 3 rounds of HSPU's unbroken!  Stoked!  I got pretty disoriented between the HSPU's and the over the box jumps.  Last round of HSPU I tried to kip my final rep to finish and failed.  Tried to kip one more and failed again by coming off the wall.  Rested a bit, then did a normal one and finished the HSPU's.  Probably could have finished round 6 if I didn't fail that rep twice.

And if that wasn't enough. I hopped in the tabata bottom to bottom squats with the class. Held 18 the whole way.  That was tough.

Monday 12/27/10:

3 Rounds:
10 deadlifts
30 GHD sit-ups

6:25 @ 315#. 

I was pretty slow on the GHD's.  First round was unbroken, second round broke into 3 sets, third round was down to a few at a time.  Did the first two rounds of deads unbroken, was going to go unbroken on the third but at rep 7 got a nasty headache and decided to set the bar down and take some time to let the pounding stop.  Other than the headache, I felt pretty good going heavy on the deads. 

I'm currently working out a new training plan for the new year.  I'm in the process of assessing some weaknesses and trying to figure out a good mix of programming to hit everything. 

Thursday:

CF Total II

Clean, 1 rep
Bench press, 1 rep
OHS, 1 rep

Clean: 245/260f/255f/250f
Bench: 245/255f/250f
OHS: 185/195/210

Got my strength on with Tom and Moe.  Fun total even though my numbers weren't too great.  I did too many warmups on the cleans and then jumped a bit too high too fast.  I just wasn't feeling the bench, perhaps due to all the ring push-ups the day before...  The OHS's felt really heavy pretty early, but after a bit, and failing to lock out a few reps, things came together and hit a 10# PR.

Afterwards, I worked on a bunch of HSPU's.  Did a few max rep sets where I would do as many in a row real HSPU's and then start kipping to get a few more.  I'm hoping I can use this technique to get a few more reps out of the AMRAP for  AF's WOD 12.  

Tuesday:

One minute on, one minute off:


30 KB Swings - 2 pood
*You have 1 minute to get 30 KB swings. If you do not get 30 KB Swings in 1 minute, count a penalty.
*Perform this workout one minute on and one minute off. Total time is 10 minutes.
*For every penalty counted, perform a 1000 meter row.

 30/30/27/23/23. Tested this one out for Tom to see if it would be a good WOD for the box.  This was definitely a tough one!  My grip was completely shot at the third round.  Unbroken the first two rounds, then all hell broke loose once I had to set the KB down.  We changed the penalty a bit, and instead of rowing, we took the amount of reps I was short at the end (17) and then did that many HSPU's on parallettes.


"Ninja Kim"

3 Rds:

Row 30 calories
30 ring push-ups
30 Pistols, alternating
30 Double Unders

13:36.  Since I didn't get a chance to try out Kim's bday WOD, I decided today would be a good day.  After the KB swing fun from last night, I was feeling pretty beat up, so this WOD was perfect for today. 

20 rep Back Squat:

205#

AMRAP in 15 min. of:
5 Deadlifts (225#)
7 CTB Pull-ups
20 Double Unders

13 rds +1 CTB.  This was an awesome AMRAP!  I went unbroken on the CTB's through round 7 or 8.  Then I broke them into pretty much 4 and 3.  Once the CTB's started going, I switched my grip around more often, and went to mostly chin-up grip, or a more Amundson style pull-up.

After my 20 rep back squat, I played around a little bit with some snatch balances.  I haven't done these is a long time, so I didn't go too heavy.  More just getting used to them again.  I think it's just about time to start hitting the oly lifts again and getting back into the snatch more often...beep booooop.

Friday:

20 rep back squat:

200#.

"JT"
21-15-9 of:
HSPU
Ring dips
push-ups

16:57.  This one was rough.  I knew going in my HSPU's would be down to 2's or singles, but I wasn't expecting the push-ups to be so hard!  First set of push-ups I hit 3 or 4 and was like "HOLY CRAP!"  However, I did not scale this WOD by going to kipping HSPU's!

Saturday:

Team Squatch training:

"Nasty Girls"

3 rounds:
50 Squats
7 Muscle-ups
10 Hang power cleans (135#)

7:42.  This is a good WOD.  Went with Derek and Tom after the 10am class due to a ton of people showing up today.  I set up the low rings which affected my performance a lot.  I was able to do full turnout through the first 7 muscle-ups, but then in the second round I decided to abandon the turnout due to the fact that my knees were almost on the ground every time I would turnout. 

Tuesday I was feeling pretty beat up after the AF WOD 11, so I didn't really want to do much of a crushing WOD.  Jeremy and I came up with a nice little AMRAP to work on some skills.

AMRAP in 12 min. of:
3 Ring dips (45#)
6 L-Pull-ups
9 Toes to Bar

6+7 TTB.  I need to start working on the L-pull-ups again.  Kind of forgot how hard they are.

Wednesday I kind of took the day off.  I was still feeling pretty beat up in the legs, so I did a lot of rolling, some mobility WODs and then finished off with a Tabata row to see if that loosened things up a bit.  The row felt pretty good, and did loosen the legs up a bit.

This morning was the rematch of the AF WOD 11.  Went with Pat to see if we could push each other.  Went with a totally different rep scheme, and was able to shave 16 seconds off my previous time.  I would have liked more, but considering I really didn't sleep last night, I'm happy to even be under my time from Monday.  I broke it up this time as follows:

130 Double Unders
16 Deadlifts (225#)
35 Thrusters
40 Double Unders
12 Deadlifts
25 Thrusters
30 Double Unders
12 Deadlifts
15 Thrusters

7:55.  Snagged on 110 or so in the first set of DU's.  Then got the next 20 pretty quick.  I tried to move slower and pace myself more to avoid hitting the wall like last time.  I had a nice steady pace on the deads, and really tried to focus on slowing my thrusters down and breathing more during them.  Overall, I'm pretty happy with how it went, and it wasn't any better this time around.  It still hurt something awful and I felt like complete crap after it was done.

AF WOD 11

20 Rep Back Squat.

195#.

AF WOD 11:
200 Double unders
9000# deadlift
75 Thrusters (45#)

8:11.  This was way worse than I was expecting.  Those light thrusters really kicked my ass.  This attempt I broke it up as follows:

50 DU's
25 Thrusters
14 Deadlifts (225#)
50 DU's
25 Thrusters
13 Deadlifts
50 DU's
25 Thrusters
13 Deadlifts
50 DU's

This worked pretty well.  I completely ran out of gas when I hit the last round.  I actually had to stop my double unders simply because I could not breathe anymore.  Those thrusters really snuck up on me.  Actually broke up the last set of 25 since I was so gassed.  Will come up with a different strategy and do this one again on Thursday.  Hopefully I can go at least sub 7 min.

Sectionals training:

"Josh"
21 OHS (95#)
42 Pull-ups
15 OHS
30 Pull-ups
9 OHS
18 Pull-ups

6:20.  Felt pretty crappy after the first round of pull-ups.  Started feeling a little sick to my stomach.  Took a few extra seconds to let things calm down before hitting the second set of OHS.  I was able to do all of my OHS's unbroken.  The Pull-ups disappeared a lot quicker than I thought they would.  Talk about total arm pump! 

Later in the afternoon, I hit up another WOD, this time with a team at the affiliate gathering. 

7.5 minutes to establish a 3RM on the bench.

switch

7.5 minutes for:
total meters rowed
total rope climbs

This was an interesting twist on a WOD.  We divided the team in half and one half started on the bench, while the other half started on the rowing and rope climbs.  We could divide the work up any way we wanted to.

I hit 230# on the bench, and probably could have squeezed out a bit more.  When we switched to the row/rope climbs, Jesse did all the rowing and I alternated rope climbs with another teammate.  I was definitely feeling all of the pull-ups from "Josh" in the morning.  It was a totally fun WOD! 

Friday night was day 2 of my 20 rep squat program.

190#.  Added 5# from Monday's 20 reps.  Felt pretty good. 

AMRAP in 12 min. of:

4 HSPU's (rings)
8 KTE
12 Split snatches (95#)

4 +3 split snatches.  This was a hard WOD!  Never done split snatches in a wod before, and they were definitely interesting.  Pretty tough.  I didn't really have any jump left in the hips after the 2k row on Thursday and "Diane." 

Video from the Forward roll/ Handstand walk WOD:
Muscle-up/Forward roll/Pistol/Handstand walk WOD from Mark Buskas on Vimeo.

Thursday's WOD was 2k full of suck.

2k row.

6:49.6!  OWWIE!!!  I literally fell off the rower.  It was good to go at the same time as Pat as it kept me pushing, even though I wanted to quit.  With around 900m left I went hypoxic and seriously considered quitting.  It was not a good feeling.  Stoked to hit sub 7!

Then after awhile of recovering from the row, Tom and I threw down on a WOD.

"Diane"
21-15-9 of:
Deadlifts (225#)
HSPU

8:07.  May not have been a PR over my 165# days, but I was stoked to crank out that many HSPU's!  Did sets of 5 in the 21's.  Finished the 9's with sets of 2 with a couple singles in there.  I think the handstand walks have increased my strength dramatically for the HSPU's.

Get Uncomfortable!

Tuesday was my "get uncomfortable in a WOD" day.  Jeremy and I decided to get crazy and do a recent mainsite WOD.

3 Rounds:
10 Muscle-ups
10 Forward rolls
20 Pistols
20yd Handstand walk

33:56.  We weren't really going for time since we both knew we need to work on handstand walking a lot more.  Jeremy and I traded off on the muscle-ups and handstand walks.  Could probably shave off a good 10 minutes if I tried to push myself faster.  Believe it or not, this WOD was actually super fun!  The forward rolls left me extremely dizzy, and only wanted to do a couple at a time. 

Back At It

Yesterday I got back to squatting.  Since the heavy squat cleans felt good on Saturday, I figured it was time to start throwing the weight back on the back squats.  Rather than just jump right back to my old Wendler weights, and probably do something stupid and hurt myself, I'm going to kind of ease back into things.  Figured this would be a good time to try a slightly different approach to some strength training.

20 rep Back Squat

185#. 

So here's how this is going to work.  You're supposed to take your best 5 rep max and then take 80# off of that.  Since I'm just easing back into things, I decided let's start at BW, sounded like a good idea.  You are going to squat twice a week.  For me I'm thinking Monday's and Thursdays or Fridays, not sure yet.  Each time you squat add 5#.  The goal is to get 20 reps unbroken.  If you have to break them up, take as little rest as you can and get right back on the bar and keep going till you hit 20 reps.  The idea is that if you took 80# off your 5RM, in 8 weeks your 5RM will now be a 20 rep max.  Sounds pretty awesome eh!?

I warmed up on some OHS, and then hit a tough little WOD, with a fun and nasty little twist.

21-15-9 reps of:
OHS (135/95)
GHD sit-up wallballs (20/14)

9:39.  The GHD wallballs are freaking nasty!  I could really feel my abs and quads working extra hard to string these together.  Started off with around 9 or 10 in a row, then was down to 3's or 4's the rest of the way. 

Sectionals

Yesterday was a good day to start off some sectionals training.  Great group of athletes all ready to throwdown! 

12-9-6 reps of:
Squat clean (175/105#)
HSPU

8:58.  This was a good one.  First time lifting heavy in two weeks.  Felt good, other than feeling like I haven't squatted heavy in awhile. 

Tomorrow I'm going to start up Wendler again.  I'm going to take some weight off my previous numbers as to not just jump back to super heavy weights.  Probably somewhere around 15-20# or so.  Also going to take a look at my volume of training and try to tweak some things and add more variety and not just a lot of heavy lifting.  Also, I am going to push myself to do 1 WOD a week that will crush me.  Crush in the sense of, I may not be able to do some of the exercises.  I recommend for anyone to read Blair Morrison's article in the CrossFit Journal.  Time to get uncomfortable!

Thursday was a good day.  After taking Tuesday and Wednesday off, my body felt pretty good going into Thursdays WOD.  While my body was feeling rested, sleep wise was the opposite. 

Complete 2 rounds of each of the following couplets:

"Adriana"
Row 36 calories
36 Wall ball shots (20/14)

"Steven"
21 Burpees
42 One arm KB swings (53/35)

14:28.  Stormed through the row/wall ball and had a good lead on Tom.  For some reason decided to do sets of 10 kb swings and then set the kb down.  Tom came back during the first set of swings and started the second set of burpees just ahead of me.  I sped up the burpees a bit to retake the lead, and then went to sets of 5 swings per arm with switching in the air.  This worked much better and was way faster.  Don't know why I didn't even think of doing this the first set.

After the Bday WOD, Tom and I came up with a nasty little gymnastics WOD. 

9-6-3 reps of:
Muscle-ups
Ring handstand push-ups
Skin the cats

12:32.  Surprisingly, the muscle-ups were the hardest part for me.  I don't know what it was, but I just could not do them very well.  Must have been more wiped out from the Bday WOD than I thought.


Friday was a horrible AMRAP.

AMRAP in 20 min. of:
12 Power snatches (65/45)
10 Push-ups

15 rds +4 power snatches.  I simply could not hold onto the bar anymore.  As I write this, I have realized that I have a couple blood blisters on my hands from all the snatches.  I ended up doing probably around 6-7 rounds unbroken on the snatches, then went to sets of 8/4 for the most part.  I slowed down my cycle time on the snatches from my normal pace to make sure and get my back set on every rep.  The back feels good, other than being tight this morning.