Hah! I knew you were mortal. Don't worry, you'll be back to full-tilt-boogie (as Freddy C of One World would say) in no time.
Monday, November 16
Rest day. Crazy sore. Kind of unfair that after working out very consistently for months, missing just 1.5 weeks increases the soreness factor by that much.
Heh, between the shoulder injury, getting my ass kicked weekly in jiu-jitsu and the flu, my body (and my girlfriend) have been reminding me of that quite a bit latelyHah! I knew you were mortal.
Monday, November 16
Rest day. Crazy sore. Kind of unfair that after working out very consistently for months, missing just 1.5 weeks increases the soreness factor by that much.
Yeah, the sad thing about exercise adaptations is that you lose them quick. In my exercise physiology class, we looked at how quickly you can lose strength when previously on a resistance training program. I think it showed that in just a few weeks, you can lose over half your gains. And on top of that, she showed us research showing that you don't gain it back faster like some coaches like to say. You gain it back just as slow, and just as painfully.
Strength/Power
Power snatch: 95x3, 115x3, 135x3, 145x3, 145x3, 150x3, 155x3, 160x1xF
Holy crap did I have some serious DOMS in my back today. Every inch from top to bottom, and especially the lats, was sore as hell and tender to the touch. It was a battle just to get myself warmed up and mobile and I felt back fatigue on every rep of the snatch. I also didn't have much pop to my 2nd pull, so getting all 3 reps of 155 was a struggle and I couldn't even get the 2nd rep of 160. Will repeat these triples next week.
Metcon
Tabata intervals: each round is 20 seconds of max effort work followed by 10 seconds of rest. Rest 2 minutes between exercises.
* Rowing: 8 rounds
* Double-unders: 8 rounds
* ~30" box jumps: 8 rounds
Total rowing distance: ~979m (see below)
Total double-unders: 168
Total box jumps: 61
My shoulder is still healing (see below), so I'm still throwing together workouts that involve no pressing motions. I felt like doing Tabatas today and got my ass kicked nicely by them. I started with tabata rowing and tried to use the clock on the C2 to time it. Unfortunately, the clock would stop running if I stopped rowing, so I had to keep the flywheel turning just a bit even during the rest periods. This means the distance measurement is probably inflated. Tabata double-unders and box jumps were fine, which is to say I collapsed and just lay there for 15 minutes when all was said and done.
Shoulder Injury
I was able to do 15 push-ups with minimal pain today, which is definitely an improvement. It seems that my shoulder is healing after all, albeit extremely slowly. I'm therefore going to continue pushing off the cortisone shot in the hopes that my shoulder will eventually fix itself naturally.
Strength/Power
Squat: 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 295x5, 295x20 (PR)
Inverted ring rows, feet on a box: 15, 14, 12
Without a doubt, 295x20 was the hardest single set of anything I've ever done in my life. My back was incredibly tired, I was gasping for breath, and I was really grinding out every rep after #8. I almost collapsed after I finished the set and was out of breath for several minutes after. Now, 2.5 hours later, my legs are already sore. I do not look forward to 300 a couple weeks from now. As for the rows, I tossed them in since my shoulder prevents me from doing pushing motions, so I did some pulling instead of my usual OH press. I very rarely do rows, so I started with just bodyweight today and will gradually add weight on my chest if I continue to do them.
Metcon
As many rounds as possible in 10 minutes of:
5 DB power snatch right arm, 45lbs
5 DB power snatch left arm, 45lbs
10 Knees to Elbows
20 yard Bear Crawl (10 yards back and forth)
Rounds completed: 6 full rounds, plus 10 db power snatches and 6 KTE
Did the CF Sunnyvale workout today, which was pretty fun. I really like DB power snatches, although turning the DB over in my hand really tears up the skin.
Strength/Power
Power clean: 135x3, 185x3, 205x3, 225x3, 225x3, 225x3, 235x1, 240x1, 245xF, 245x1, 250xF
My foot landing has been awful on power cleans and all the reps above 225lbs were ugly. I'm plateauing hard on this lift and my technique is definitely to blame. Going to go back to squat cleans next week to try to fix my foot landing.
Metcon
* Perform 2 Power Cleans on the minute for 15 minutes.
*Use a maximal weight. 80% - 85% of 1 RM
*For every rep not completed, perform 5 burpees during rest time.
Used 205lbs and did not miss any reps, which probably means I picked too light of a weight. As a penalty for this, I immediately followed the power clean workout with:
50 burpees for time
Time: 3:32
My legs were incredibly sore from yesterday's 20 rep squats and got heavy really quickly while doing the burpees. Still, not a bad time considering I found it difficult to sit down today and did two metcons back to back.
How did you get your shoulder injured? Was it while lifting?
There wasn't any single acute incident that caused it. Just one day it got a little swollen, the next day a little more and so on until it got bad enough where I couldn't do any kind of pressing/pushing motion without a sharp pain. It has taken a very long time, but it is finally starting to feel better now - I can do push-ups and other light pressing motions with little to no pain. I'm sure I've lost a ton of pressing strength in the meantime, but as long as the injury isn't anything permanent and heals up eventually, I'll be happy.
Well I was hoping you'd know the exact cause so that it would help us avoid it For someone as experienced and learned as you to be getting an injury this bad, it feels as if mine is just around the corner :/
Strength/Power
Squat: 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x1, 335x5
Deadlift: 135x5, 225x3, 315x3, 365x1, 420x3
Since I skipped yesterday's workout, I decided to do both squat and deadlift today, but dropped the squat weight a little bit. Unfortunately, 335 felt very heavy even though it 20lbs less than my 5RM PR. Something about my technique wasn't quite perfect, so bar speed was pretty crappy. Deadlift went reasonably well and I finally got the 3rd rep of 420. The resets were pretty long between reps, but it was a decent set overall. However, I'm struggling to continue making progress with triples at this weight, so I might start doing 4-5 sets of singles next week. I'll start at ~435 and go up 5lbs a week from there. Hopefully I'll end up at 455 before the end of the year.
Metcon
8 rounds for time:
* 40 yard sprints
* Rest 30 seconds between sprints
* Run at 90-100% effort on all sprints
Ran 40 meter sprints on an olympic track.
Round 1: 6.5
Round 2: 6.7
Round 3: 6.6
Round 4: 5.6
Round 5: 6.4
Round 6: 6.6
Round 7: 6.5
Round 8: 6.0
Errr, not sure what happened today, but this was way slower (1-1.5 seconds) than my previous attempts at this workout. Either we measured the distance/time wrong this time, last time, or I've gotten way slower in the last couple of months. I've certainly been struggling with running technique lately, but this seems kind of excessive.
Strength/Power
Snatch: 95x2, 115x2, 135x2, 155x2, 165x2, 175x1, 180x1, 185xF, 185x1, 190xF, 190xF, 190xF
Second pull felt VERY strong today. Unfortunately, with my shoulder injury, the catch was giving me all sorts of trouble. I tied my PR with a 185 snatch, but this time around it was a fairly solid and clean rep. I would have had 190 - I definitely had enough height on the bar - but twice my injured shoulder gave out just a little bit during the catch and the weight would come crashing down. Very frustrating, but I'm still happy to see a lot more pop in my o-lifts.
Metcon
"Nancy"
Five rounds for time of:
400 meter run
95 pound Overhead squat, 15 reps
Too dark/cold to run outside and I can't stand the treadmills at the gym, so I subbed 400m of rowing for each 400m run.
Time: 15:01
This is about 3 minutes faster than the last time I did Nancy, although back then I did it with 400m runs on a treadmill, so it is hard to compare. I did all the OH squats in unbroken sets, except the final round, which I broke up 11/4.
Shoulder Injury
I haven't seen any further progress with healing, so I made up my mind to get the damn cortisone shot after all. Will call tomorrow to schedule an appointment.
Pscht, what! You know 400m of rowing isn't a legitimate sub for 400m of running Make it 1000m and now we're talking.
I think the "official" CF sub is 500m of rowing for 400m of running, but that never made sense to me. A very respectable 500m row time is 1:30. However, 1:30 for a 400m run is downright slow. If the time/effort is to be at all comparable, I feel like a 400m row is a much better sub.
Strength/Power
Clean: 135x2, 185x2, 205x2, 225x1, 245x1, 255x1, 265xF, 265x1, 275xF, 275x1, 280xF, 280xF, 280xF
Just as with the snatch yesterday, second pull felt strong today, I tied my previous PR, but no luck on a new one. My 3rd pull and catch is weak on both lifts and the cause of most of my misses, so I'll need to work on that.
Metcon
Christine
3 rounds for time:
row 500m
12 deadlifts @ bodyweight
21 box jumps @ 20"
Bodyweight has been in the 190-195 range recently, so I used 195lbs for the deadlift.
Time: 9:40
This was a nice, fast paced workout that's a total quad killer.
Strength/Power
None. All gyms are closed today.
Metcon
"Murph"
For time:
1 mile Run
100 Pull-ups
200 Push-ups
300 Squats
1 mile Run
Partition the pull-ups, push-ups, and squats as needed. Start and finish with a mile run.
Ran outside on an olympic track.
Time: 33:40
I finally found a track that has pull-up bars nearby, so for the first time, I was able to do Murph without having to run on a treadmill. I think this was the major reason for my time being about 1 minute slower than my Murph PR, which is just another example of how badly I need to improve my running. The good news is that my shoulder felt great through all 200 push-ups.
Strength/Power
Squat: 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x1, 345x5
Ever since I missed 1.5 weeks due to the flu, my squat hasn't felt the same. The bar speed isn't quite as good and I'm not getting as much of a bounce out of the hole as I was before. I managed to grind through all 5 reps of 345 today but there is no way I would've had 355x5, which is what I was doing before getting sick. Not sure what the issue is, but I'll carefully go up to 350 next week.
Metcon
Crossfit Endurance workout:
* Run 1mile TT then do 2 x 400 holding TT pace for each 400 (deviate slower the TT pace and foul). Rest 2 min after the 1 mile run and 1 min between 400’s
* Foul: 1min isometric below parallel squat
Ran outside on a weird non-oval dirt track that measured to 400m on Google Maps.
1 mile time: 7:10
400 times: 1:40, 1:41
I had two very specific goals today, neither of which was to set a new PR:
(1) Work on my running technique: focusing on lifting my leg (with my hamstring) as soon as it hit the ground made my legs feel lighter. I also felt my hamstrings working very hard, instead of just my quads. I also didn't get any blisters whatsoever, which suggests my foot landing was better.
(2) Learn to pace my runs better: I've spent too much time running on treadmills, so I suck at running at the proper speed outside. The idea today was to run all laps at a 1:45 pace (7 minute mile), which went reasonably well. I was a little slow during the 1 mile run and a little fast on the 400m runs, but all laps were within 5 seconds, which is good enough. Lungs felt fine and overall, the runs were relatively easy. Next time I'm going to go for 1:40 laps, then 1:35 and so on.
If I can just get 2 outdoor runs in per week, I should see some improvements in my running pretty damn quick. It's easy to get one in on the weekend, but weekdays are more of a problem as it is dark and cold by the time I get off work and head to the gym.
Strength/Power
Deadlift: 135x5, 225x5, 315x3, 365x1, 405x1, 435x1, 445x1, 455x1 (PR)
One more 2009 goal accomplished. I was actually just supposed to do a bunch of singles with 435, but the first rep went up so quickly, that I couldn't resist going for a PR with 455. It was a slow and slightly ugly rep, but I ground it out and celebrated at the top with a nice grunt.
Metcon
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: 2.5 hours
I had missed the last 3 weeks of classes for various reasons (flu, parents visiting, etc) so getting back into BJJ was a little rough today. I got arm barred 3 times, triangle choked a couple times, and generally had my ass kicked all day long. Still, I learned a bunch about side control today, including proper positioning when attacking or defending, how to escape, and how to perform an arm bar from side control. Good stuff, but I'm already sore as hell.