Strength/Power
Snatch: 95x3, 115x2, 135x2, 155x2, 165x1, 165xF, 175x1, 185x1, 190xF, 190xF, 190xF, 190x1 (PR), 195xF, 195x1 (PR), 200xF, 200xF
Weighed in at 191.0 lbs this morning, so I finally have a BW+ snatch. 2nd pull was great today, but I again struggled with the catch. On a few of the missed 190 and 195 reps, I somehow ended up on one or both of knees. I must have had the weight too far forward and probably landed on my toes, which then would let me fall to my knees. In one rep, I landed with one knee on the ground and actually managed to catch the weight overhead anyway. I then did a 190lb overhead lunge and stood back up, but obviously that one gets marked as a failure. However, the reps of 190 and 195 that I did get were almost shockingly clean. I had extremely strong pulls, got under the weight lightning quick, and bounced out of the squat to standing before I knew it. Can't wait to snatch again next week and try to break 200.
Metcon
Five rounds for time of:
75 pound Thrusters, 21 reps
21 Double-unders
Jump rope broke in the middle of round 3. Took about 30 seconds to find a new one and the replacement rope was way too long and heavy.
Time: 13:00
The good news is that my shoulder has healed sufficiently to where I was able to OH press 75lbs with no pain whatsoever. The bad news is that I assumed this workout would be easy on the shoulders because it only uses 75lbs. As I haven't done any overhead pressing work in over 1.5 months, the push press part of the 105 thrusters absolutely destroyed me. Both my deltoids and traps were burning like crazy just 2 rounds in and it only got worse from there. I had to break up the thrusters a hell of a lot and ended up with a crappy time as a result. I have a feeling I'm going to be mighty sore tomorrow, but I'm still glad to be able to do overhead stuff again and will gradually start working to rebuild my pressing strength.
Strength/Power
Squat: 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x3, 300x14xstopped
Was supposed to go for 300x20, but I just didn't have it today. It didn't help that my shoulders were sore as hell from yesterday and holding the low bar position was painful, but honestly, I just mentally gave up. Will try again next week and hopefully have someone around to yell at me.
Metcon
* Complete sixteen (16) 110 yard (100 meters) sprints.
* Rest 45 seconds between sprints.
* Each postions has specific times to complete the sprints in. If you do not perform a sprint in the given time take a penalty. Each penalty is equal to 10 burpees.
WR/RB/DB - 14 to 15 seconds
TE/LB/QB - 16 to 17 seconds
OL/DL - 18 to 19 seconds
Ran on a football field outside and had my girlfriend time me. Since I've struggled with running lately, I decided to aim for the OL/DL times as a way to scale this workout down.
Round 1: 17.0
Round 2: 17.8
Round 3: 17.3
Round 4: 18.0
Round 5: 18.1
Round 6: 18.7
Round 7: 18.3
Round 8: 18.2
Round 9: 18.6
Round 10: 18.5
Round 11: 18.0
Round 12: 19.6 (penalty)
Round 13: 19.6 (penalty)
Round 14: 19.8 (penalty)
Round 15: 19.8 (penalty)
Round 16: 19.8 (penalty)
Penalties: 50 burpees
This is a brutal workout. Literally a mile of sprinting and then burpees at the end to punish me for being a slow ass. I tried to pace myself early on in the workout and not go all out, but even that didn't prevent me from totally running out of gas around round 12. Makes me sad to realize I'm slower than an enormous lineman. The only good thing that came out of this workout is that I think I found one item (out of probably many) that was wrong with my sprinting technique: I was not getting my knees up high enough. Once I started doing that - that is, once I started pushing harder of the ground so my legs shot higher - I was able to generate more speed with less effort, which is why my times dropped from round 7 - 11. I still need to practice it a lot more, but at least I'm making a tiny bit of progress with my running.
Strength/Power
Power clean: 135x3, 185x3, 205x3, 225x2, 225x2, 225x1, 185x3, 185x3, 205x2, 215x1, 225x1, 225x1
I just can't win with the olympic lifts: my snatch just starts getting decent the last couple weeks and all of a sudden, my power clean turns to garbage. Every single rep today was ugly: the 1st pull felt wrong, the 2nd pull was slow, my feet splayed out on the catch and I wasn't getting my elbows around quickly. After some hideous reps with 225 I dropped back down in weight to work on form and made some minor improvements. Very deliberatley and consciously locking my back in extension and a slower first pull helped a bit, but the catch was still bad once the weight got above 205. Time to go back and do some more reading and video watching to hopefully figure out what I'm doing wrong.
Metcon
Row 2k
Time: 7:48
I was feeling really beat up and exhausted today. Yesterday's sprint workout wiped me out and I just wanted to do a short metcon and get home. I beat my previous 2k rowing time by precisely 1 second. Yay.
Strength/Power
Squat: 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x2, 350x5
OH press: 95x5, 115x5, 135x5, 145x5
Felt stronger on the squat this week than last, so hopefully I'll be back to 355x5 next week. Also did my first real OH press work in more than 1.5 months due to the shoulder injury. I stayed conservative with the weight, though I must say 145 felt a lot heavier than I would have liked. Still, my technique felt solid and my shoulder doesn't feel too bad, so hopefully I can gradually work my way back up.
Metcon
Run 5k
Ran outside on a dirt track.
Lap 1: 1:55
Lap 2: 2:05
Lap 3: 2:04
Lap 4: 2:02
Lap 5: 2:03
Lap 6: 2:00
Lap 7: 2:01
Lap 8: 1:57
Lap 9: 1:52
Lap 10: 1:51
Lap 11: 1:47
Lap 12: 1:46
Lap 12.5: 0:50
Total: 24:13
The plan today was to practice my pacing and do 2:05 laps the first mile, 2:00 laps the second, and 1:55 the third. However, after an uncomfortable first mile (legs were tight from squatting, I guess), I got in a really comfortable groove and decided to speed things up a little each lap. I finished the last half lap at a 1:40 pace and still had a ton left in the tank thanks to my running technique feeling MUCH better. The big difference was just getting my knees higher and more forward (same thing I noticed when sprinting this weekend) to get a better S shape - note the left knee in this picture. This simple change allowed me to relax my body a lot more and evenly distributed the workload through my legs. As a result, both my legs and lungs felt great through out the entire run. I figure one more run to practice pacing and technique and then I should start going for PR's again.
Strength/Power
Deadlift: 135x5, 225x3, 315x3, 365x1, 405x1, 435x1, 435x1, 435x1, 435x1, 315x3, 225x5
I'm not happy with the 435 singles today. Bar speed was slow (especially below the knees) and my back was rounding way too much. I also had a lot of trouble holding onto the bar, even with hook grip, because the bars at the Stanford gym have very smooth knurling and the place doesn't allow chalk. I'd much rather go to CF Sunnyvale to deadlift, but I have BJJ at the same Stanford gym right after lifting, so doing lots of extra driving is not so attractive. I suppose I could use the extra grip work though, and did the 315 and 225 sets back to back at the end primarily to tax the grip some more. These bars really do suck: at CF Sunnyvale, I can hold onto 345x5 with normal double overhand, but at Stanford, the 3rd rep of 315 is already slipping out of my hands.
Metcon
Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu: 2.5 hours
Warm-up: positional drills. Alternate escaping/holding side control, full mount and turtle.
Technique: attaining back mount, getting the rear naked choke and escaping back mount.
Free rolling: 5 rounds of 5 minutes, change opponents each round.
Good class today that showed me the numerous mistakes I was making when I had someone in back mount as well as some nice escapes from it. Free rolling was a mixed bag: I got a couple submissions, one by chimera and one by a weird choke where I trapped the guy's own hand around his neck. I also got brutalized by a guy who has been doing BJJ for 4 years who caught me in a triangle, an arm bar, a shoulder lock, and even a "can opener", which is supposed to be a guard pass, but I'm so inflexible that it felt like my neck was going to snap and I tapped. By the end of the day, I really looked like I got in a fight, with tons of bruises all over my chest, arms and legs, as well as one on my eye and another on my cheek from accidental contact. Going to need a lot of sleep to recuperate from this.
Strength/Power
Snatch: 95x2, 115x2, 135x2, 155x2, 175x1, 185x1, 190xF, 190x1, 195xF, 195xF, 195xF
Once again, my 1st and 2nd pulls felt awesome today, but the catch wasn't there. I got under 195 all 3 times but just couldn't quite lock it out and ended up dumping forward or back. I'll keep working on it and am really hoping to get 205 before the end of the year.
Metcon
* Start the clock. Perform 3 Power Snatches on the minute for 10 minutes.
* Use a maximal weight. 80% of 1 RM.
* For every rep not completed, perform 5 burpees during rest time.
Used 145lbs. All reps completed with no misses.
I should have gone heavier on this workout, probably 155. It was good technique practice for my power snatch, but not challenging enough from a metcon perspective. Kind of makes me want to give Isabelle a shot though.
Strength/Power
Squat: 135x5, 225x5, 275x3, 315x3, 300x20 (PR)
OH Press: 95x5, 115x5, 135x5, 150x5
Woot, 20 rep squats with 300lbs. 20 rep squats are as much a mental challenge as a physical one and today I was really helped out by a buddy of mine at the gym who was there to yell at me so I wouldn't give up part way through the set. It was brutally hard, but I got through it. After that, I worked on OH press. 150x5 was very tough and gave me a glimpse of how much strength I've lost from the shoulder injury. It'll take a lot of work to get back where I was, but I'll keep busting my ass until I'm there.
Metcon #1
Ten rounds for time of:
3 Weighted Pull-ups, 45 pounds
5 Strict Pull-ups
7 Kipping Pull-up
For weighted pull-ups place a 45 pound dumbbell between the legs above crossed ankles and jettison the dumbbell after third rep and continue with strict pull-ups and then the kipping pull-ups. Coming off the bar or going to ground constitutes termination of a set.
Scaled down to 5 rounds.
Time: 9:31
Sets: 9
This workout gets hard incredibly fast. The first two rounds took one set each, the next two took two sets, and the final one took three. I scaled down to just 5 rounds as this is the kind of workout that leaves me with debilitating DOMS for a week, interfering with all subsequent workouts. Next time it comes up, maybe I'll go for 7 rounds.
Metcon #2
Max double unders in 2 minutes
Double-unders completed: 115
Felt like burning my lungs out a little bit after the pull-up workout, so I decided to bust out some double-unders. I did the first 62 in a row (prob a PR) but then got slightly less coordinated as my shoulders and lungs started to fatigue. It's a fun workout though, so I might keep tossing it in at the end and see if some day I can get to 2 minutes straight of double-unders (some kind of gold standard, I think).
We do no-gi BJJ, so grip hasn't been much of an issue. On the other hand, the back fatigue from deadlifts does affect me from time to time, but I'm getting used to it.Are you doing gi or no-gi BJJ? I ask because doing heavy grip work before a gi class would be a killer.
Strength/Power
Power clean: 135x3, 185x2, 205x2, 225x2, 235x1, 245x1, 250x1, 255xF, 255x1 (PR)
The 255 power clean is one more 2009 goal done. Technique felt a bit better today and all the reps up to 235 were pretty clean. After that, I got a bit sloppy, and 255 was down right ugly, but I'm counting it.
Metcon
Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
115-pound Hang clean, 15 reps
12 Ring dips
21 Sit-ups
Subbed power hang cleans for hang cleans (legs VERY sore from 20 rep squats yesterday) and did sit-ups on an abmat with feet unanchored in the butterfly position.
Rounds completed: 7
Used way too slow of a pace on this workout, took too many breaks and didn't get through nearly as many rounds as I should have given that I was only doing hang power cleans. Only good news is that my shoulder felt fine doing ring dips, but as this was the first time I've done them in over 2 months, they were pretty tough.
Friday, December 11
Rest day. Just found out that the NorCal qualifier for the CF Games is March 6-7, which is much earlier than I expected. I don't think I'm going to have enough time to make the huge improvements I need in my metcon (especially running) before then, but I'll give it a shot anyway.
Considering where you're located (California, the mecca of CF affiliaites), have you thought about having someone do your programming for you? I know that many CFG athletes have it done for them, for various reasons.
Good luck!
Strength/Power
Squat: 135x5, 225x5, 275x5, 315x2, 355x5
OH press: 95x5, 115x5, 135x5, 155x5, 160x5
I got through all 5 reps of 355, but the bar speed was too damn slow. I think I'll repeat it again next week. My strength on the OH press took a nice jump today as I absolutely blew through the 155 set. I then gave 160x5 a shot and since I got through that without issues, I'll go for 165x5 next time.
Metcon
5 rounds of 500m rowing. Rest 3 minutes between rounds.
Round 1: 1:37 (PR)
Round 2: 1:41
Round 3: 1:46
Round 4: 1:47
Round 5: 1:47
Rowing technique was better today. I figured out that before I had been leaning back too early, thereby nullifying some of my leg drive. By staying at the 1 o'clock position for a bit longer, I got much more power from my legs and was then able to get a better pull using my own bodyweight as I drove back to 11 o'clock. My form still needs more work, but it is good to see my 500 times coming down. Goal is to get down to 1:30 by March.
Strength/Power
Deadlift: 135x5, 225x5, 315x3, 365x1, 405x1, 435x5x1
Deadlift + static hold (5 sec, double overhand): 315x1, 335x1, 355x1, 365x1
Felt great deadlifting today. The 5 singles with 435 all had much better bar speed than last week - the first rep even felt light - so I'll be going up to 440 next week. After that, I worked on my grip strength a bit, doing deadlifts with double overhand grip and holding the rep at the top for 5 seconds. I was at CF Sunnyvale instead of the Stanford gym, and with barbells that had proper knurling and plenty of chalk, I was happy to see my grip holding out just fine up to 365.
Metcon
For time: run the Stanford Dish Trail (a hilly 3.7 mile loop)
Time: 31:00
What an AWESOME run. I was apprehensive about how my legs would handle the hills, but after some burning in my quads on the first incline, I got into an incredibly comfortable rhythm and was able to comfortably run the entire trail. My POSE technique felt great: very smooth, effortless and light footed (also, I got no blisters whatsoever). Although there was a light drizzle the entire time, it was still a very peaceful and beautiful run, with great views of Palo Alto and wildlife - including a hawk flying 10 feet away from me - all around (check out some guy's awesome pictures of the trail here). The CF games seem to include lots of hilly running, and while this isn't exactly the same (its a paved trail), its still a great place for me to practice. I can't wait to go again.
Strength/Power
Snatch: 95x3, 115x1, 135x1xF, 135x2, 155xF, 155x1, 155xF, 135x2, 135x2, 155xF, 155x1
The olympic lifts drive me crazy. One week my technique is flawless and I'm snatching nearly 200lbs and the next week I can barely hold on to 155. I just could not get under the bar cleanly, lost a bunch of reps forwards and backwards and the reps I did get were ugly. I finally got frustrated and stopped. Hopefully next time I'll be back to normal.
Metcon
3 rounds for time of:
50 Squats
7 Muscle-ups
135 pound Hang power cleans, 10 reps
Time: 14:55
Although I can do 7-8 muscle-ups in a row on the pull-up bars, I never had a place high enough to hang my rings back in MA, so I never did more than 1 in a row on them (often from the knees). However, CF Sunnyvale has a set of rings hung plenty high, so I no longer have an excuse not to learn. Therefore, today was a "trial by fire" where I spent an inordinate amount of time getting through the 21 ring muscle-ups in this workout. My technique definitely got better towards the end, though I am surprised at just how different the two types of muscle-ups feel. Unfortunately, it took me so long to do the muscle-ups, and the power cleans and squats were so quick/easy by comparison, that this workout wasn't much of a metcon challenge. Therefore, I followed it up with:
For time: row 500m
Time: 1:37
An all out row is always a nice burn out to end a workout. I tied my 500m PR, though I'm confident I could get down to 1:35 if my legs were fresh.
Tuesday, December 15
Strength/Power
Thruster: 95x3, 135x3, 175x1, 185x1, 205x1, 225x1, 235x1, 245xF, 245xF, 245x1
I've never done thrusters outside of a metcon (such as Fran) and decided to go for a 1RM today. It took a few tries, but I finally got 245, which I'm pretty happy with. I really wonder if without the whole front squat thing, my pure push press would be even higher. Ironically, this is higher than my split jerk max, although I always sucked at split jerks and haven't done them in many months now after smashing open my chin. I really should start doing them again, but I'd be lying if I said I wasn't apprehensive about hitting myself again.
Metcon
"Cindy"
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Squats
Rounds completed: 28 (PR)
After a lackluster metcon yesterday, I busted my ass today and got one more 2009 goal done. I feel absolutely trashed now, but also extremely happy: this is literally twice as many rounds as I completed on my first try of Cindy over a year ago. I do have to say that settings PRs now is a little bit bittersweet: it was awesome to see improvement, but then it dawned on me that at some point in the future, I'm going to have to beat this number, which means wrecking myself even more. It's true what they say: Crossfit never gets easier, you just get faster.
Strength/Power
Power clean: 135x3, 185x3, 205x3, 225x3, 235x3, 245x3 (PR), 255x1, 265x1 (PR)
Go figure: my snatch form this week started to suck, but all of a sudden, my power clean got way better. I actually found it helped to be a little less upright with the power clean but to very consciously lock my back in extension and maintain the same back angle for the entire 1st pull. The result was a much more powerful second pull and a better landing under the bar. Things went so smoothly that I set a new 3RM and 1RM. Not too shabby.
Metcon
Run as far as possible in 20 minutes.
Ran on an olympic track in lane 4.
Laps completed: ~9.85
Distance: ~2.50 miles
I did a calculation and in the last 3 days, I have done around 700 air squats, plus weighted squats in the form of snatches and thrusters. Not surprisingly, my quads were very heavy today and I was dragging ass the entire run. My lungs felt fantastic due to the slow pace, but with the way my legs were moving, I'm surprised I made it even 2.5 miles.