brikis98's crossfit journal

[brikis98]

Run: ~5k loop around campus, untimed

It was a nice day outside and I just felt like doing a relaxing run near my apartment while listening to an audiobook. Fun times.

HSPU: 5, 10, 10, 10, 5, 5

Nice to finally see at least a slight improvement on HSPU's. Felt pretty strong on the sets of 10, so I'll try for 11 or 12 next time.

 

[brikis98]

Clean: 128x3, 178x2, 218x2, 238x2, 258x1, 268x1, 278x1, 283x(5 failed attempts), 278xF, 258xF, stopped

Very weird day. I started doing cleans and was tossing the weight around with ease. I got so much height on the bar with 268 that I nearly cracked myself in the chin. 278 felt light too. I was expecting to break my PR (288), but to be conservative added only 5lbs... And could not get another rep the rest of the night. I tried 283 five times and kept missing in weird ways: once because the bar landed too far forward, once because it landed too far back (and knocked me on my ass), once with the bar too low, once because I didn't get my elbows around, etc. Something in my technique just totally got screwed up and even when I dropped back down to 258, I still couldn't get a good rep. I have no clue what went wrong, but I was getting nowhere, so I called it a night.

For time: 15, 10, 5 reps of:
Dumbbell Thrusters 50 lbs
Kettlebell Swings 2 pood
Pull Ups

Time: 5:02

Good, short, fast workout. Only issue was that my forearms got massively pumped again (3rd time in a week or so), so gripping the bar and KB was very tough. It feels like my forearms just swell up and closing my hands is tough enough without any weight in them. Not sure if this is a fluke or a sign that I need to do more (endurance-style?) grip work.

 

[brikis98]

Went up to Sonoma with the girlfriend's family for Thanksgiving. Spent 3+ days eating myself silly and drinking fantastic wine, with no exercise whatsoever. It was delightful, but I'm sure I'll be feeling it the next few days as I get back to the gym.

 

[brikis98]

Squat: 135x8, 225x8, 275x8, 320x10
OH press: 95x5, 135x5, 155x3, 165x2, 175x1, 185x1, 190xF, 190x1, 195xF, 195xF

Still sticking with the high rep squatting. I flew through the first 8 reps of 320, but the last 2 were genuinely tough. The weight has gotten heavy enough so that I'm just before the edge of discomfort with my adductor. I'll see how things go next week. I tried to max out again on the OH press, but my technique has gotten sloppy from not going heavy the last few months. The attempts at 195 kept shooting out too far forward and getting stuck at forehead height. I'll switch to working on lighter singles to get the technique nailed down again.

Quarter Gone Bad
Five rounds for total reps of:
135 pound Thrusters, 15 seconds
Rest 45 Seconds
50 pound Weighted pull-ups, 15 seconds
Rest 45 Seconds
Burpees, 15 seconds
Rest 45 Seconds

Did the pull-ups with two 25lb KB's hanging from my feet.

Thrusters: 7, 7, 7, 7, 7
Pull-ups: 6, 6, 5, 5, 4
Burpees: 7, 7, 7, 7, 7

Total: 96 reps

Not a fan of this CFFB workout. The thrusters and burpees were completely limited by turnover rate for each exercise and not conditioning/strength. I had a bunch of rounds end halfway through a rep and I just don't see how you could get more than ~8 reps per round of either exercise with full ROM. The 45 seconds of rest was plenty to recover, so fatigue was never an issue. As for pull-ups, I'm a bit disappointed. The 50lbs felt a lot heavier than I expected and I fatigued quickly. Granted, doing them with KB's hanging from my feet meant I had to do slow/strict reps so they didn't fall off, but I'm pretty sure my pull-up strength/endurance is lower than before. I noticed similar struggles in recent workouts with pull-ups, so I'll need to work on that.

 

[brikis98]

Run: ~20 minutes at Half Moon Bay State Beach. Ran barefoot in deep sand.

Went for a nice walk at Half Moon Bay and decided to do a bit of a run. Running in deep sand is hard. I doubt I made it even 2 miles and my pace was slow, but my legs were totally smoked. Quads and glutes are quite sore now, but at least my feet got some nice exfoliation.

 

[brikis98]

Deadlift: 135x5, 225x5, 315x3, 365x2, 405x2, 435x1, 455x1, 465x4x1, 465xF, 465xF, 465x1

The goal for today was 5 singles with 465 and although it took a couple tries, I finally got it. My deadlift sessions always take a while and I'm finding it harder and harder to stay focused the entire time. I missed the fifth rep a couple times primarily due to mental fatigue rather than physical: I sort of gave up halfway through, as if my brain didn't want to commit to the effort required. After walking around a bit and getting psyched up again, I was able to get the 5th rep after all and with good bar speed to boot. 470 next week.

"Elizabeth"
21-15-9 reps of:
Clean 135 pounds
Ring dips

Time: 8:18 (PR)

This is the second time in a row Elizabeth has come up on a day I deadlifted 465lbs. The difference is that last time, I only got 465lbs once and my time on Elizabeth was 10:19. Yay for improvement

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Did you do squat clean or power clean Elizabeth? Squat clean is such a different beast on that WOD :X

 

[Deeko]

Congrats.

 

[brikis98]

Did you do squat clean or power clean Elizabeth? Squat clean is such a different beast on that WOD :X

Squat clean, which is definitely the toughest part of that workout. High rep front squats/thrusters/cleans are lethal.

 

[brikis98]

Clean: 128x3, 178x2, 218x2, 238x2, 258x2, 268x1, 278x1, 283xF, 283x1, 288xF, 288xF, 288xF
Split jerk: 128x3, 128x3, 178x1, 178x1, 198x1, 198x1, 218x1, 218x1, 238x1, 238x1, 248xF

Finally managed to get 283 on the clean today, but couldn't quite tie my PR of 288. However, I do think I identified the problem: the bar is getting away from my body, so I have to lean/jump forward to catch it, which just does not work well with heavy weights. I'll have to work on keeping the bar path closer to my torso. I then did a bunch of technique work on the jerk. Some reps felt great, but others were awful. Still need a lot of work to get more consistent.

8 rounds for time:
5 HSPU
10 pull-ups
15 box jumps, 24"

Time: 13:01

 

[brikis98]

Run: 6x200, 2 minutes rest between rounds

Ran on a high school track, lane 2, in VFFs.

Round 1: 33.6
Round 2: 34.7
Round 3: 36.0
Round 4: 41.1
Round 5: 40.5
Round 6: 40.9

The goal today was to go ~85% and get used to 200m running. Despite my relatively slow pace, I could tell my body is not used to anything remotely fast, as my calves, glutes and hamstrings all got very tight after round 3. Worse yet, my left leg - the one where I had the hamstring and adductor injuries - got noticeably tighter than my right. This made me worried that (a) I could reinjure something and (b) that I'm not running symmetrically. I slowed my pace down even more for the last 3 rounds to be safe. I think I'm going to have to work my way up very gradually on these 200's: I'm a crappy runner to begin with and the last thing I need is another injury.

 

[brikis98]

Squat: 135x5, 225x8, 275x8, 315x3, 325x10
OH press: 95x5, 135x5, 155x3, 175x6x1

My "high rep, low weight" squatting has lost the "low weight" portion. 325x10 was a tough set, very much reminiscent of 20 rep squats. The good news is that my adductor felt a little better than last week, and I'm happy to take whatever progress I can get. On OH press, I did my first session of singles, starting with a fairly light weight. Bar speed was very good and I caught & fixed some technique errors, so it was a productive session. 180 next week.

5 rounds for time of:
7 Deadlifts 315 lbs
21 Knees To Elbows

Scaled down to 5 deadlifts and 15 KTEs per round.

Time: 10:44

Massive grip failure on this workout. My hands are pretty beat up from the last couple weeks of deadlifts, cleans and pull-ups; I could tell while warming up that it would be an issue as it hurt just to hang from the pull-up bar. I scaled the numbers down a bit, taped up my hands as best I could and went for it anyway, but ended up spending most of the workout just waiting for my hands to stop hurting, so my time is pretty weak. Moral of the story: I need to (a) take better care of my calluses and (b) toughen up my hands more as it's holding me back on pull-ups, rope climbs, etc.

 

[brikis98]

Row: 2k for time

Time: 7:20

Went out way too fast. Maintained ~1:44 for the first 1k, which burned out my quads and made me slow down dramatically for the last 1k, so my final time was 3 seconds off my PR. Need to remember to pace myself a bit better next time and I'm sure I'll do better.

 

[brikis98]

Deadlift: 135x5, 225x5, 315x3, 365x2, 405x2, 435x1, 455x1, 470x4x1, 470xf, 470xf, 470xf

So close and yet so far. I wanted to get through 5 singles of 470, but just could not get the 5th one more than a couple inches off the floor. OH well, 470 is a new belt-free PR for me, so I'm still happy.

As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
5 L pull-ups
10 push-up
15 air squats
2 laps of farmers walk around the gym with a 50lb KB in each hand (~100m?)

Round completed: 9 + 5 pull-ups + 10 push-ups + 7 squats

First time doing push-ups since the shoulder injury, so I tweaked Cindy (L pull-ups instead of normal pull-ups plus 2 farmers walks per round) to ensure I wouldn't do too many reps. Didn't have any trouble from the shoulder and it feels great today, so all is well.

 

[brikis98]

My company was changing data centers this weekend, which is a very important but very error prone process. As a result, everyone had to take a shift and be in the office this weekend in case something went wrong. I was at work from 12-5 on Sunday and leisurely headed to the gym, forgetting that it closes at 6 on Sundays. I changed, got nicely warmed up and was just about to start working out when I heard the announcement that "the gym would be closing in 10 minutes." I did the following workout in a mad hurry, only pausing between sets to change weights.

Clean & push jerk: 128x3, 178x2, 198x2, 218x1, 218x1, 228xF, 228x2, 238xF, 238x1
Power clean: 218x8

It was kind of crazy rushing through all the reps, but hopefully I got something out of it. When I got home 20 minutes later, I warmed up again and did a quick metcon:

Burpees: 50, for time

Time: 2:38

Good news: I was finally able to do burpees with a proper push-up today, so my cycle time was shorter. Bad news: I need to build up my push-up endurance again, as my shoulders totally burned out after 40 reps, and getting off the floor was a real challenge.

 

[brikis98]

Squat: 135x5, 225x8, 275x8, 315x3, 330x8xstopped
Clean and press: 95x5, 135x5, 155x3, 180x6x1

I've had a crazy week and a half at work and have missed a bunch of gym days. Sadly, my quads seem to get deconditioned from squatting VERY quickly. I was going for 10 reps of 330 and felt strong enough to get it, but my quads started to cramp up and out of fear of them totally locking up, I had to stop after rep 8. Every damn time I miss more than a week of squatting, this kind of crap happens. It's very frustrating. After that, the CF class needed all the squat racks, so I started my OH presses by cleaning the bar. Somehow, this seemed to make the press easier and I was able to absolutely tear through all 6 singles of 180. Maybe I'll make this clean & press thing a regular habit.

As many rounds as possible in 10 minutes of:
10 KB swings, 70lbs
10 knees to elbows
10 push-ups

Rounds completed: 6 + 10 swings + 3 KTE

I definitely should have had 7+ rounds, but just didn't push hard enough.

 

[abaez]

Don't want to hijack, but on Tuesday I did Whitten:

5 rounds
22 KB swings (2 pood)
22 box jumps (24")
500m run
22 burpees
22 wall ball (20#)

Made it in 49:35. Not a smoking time, but I felt great throughout and kept a good 10 min/round pace. 5 months ago when I started crossfit this would have taken me probably 80 minutes+ to do this, so the difference is amazing.

 

[brikis98]

Don't want to hijack, but on Tuesday I did Whitten:

5 rounds
22 KB swings (2 pood)
22 box jumps (24")
500m run
22 burpees
22 wall ball (20#)

Made it in 49:35. Not a smoking time, but I felt great throughout and kept a good 10 min/round pace. 5 months ago when I started crossfit this would have taken me probably 80 minutes+ to do this, so the difference is amazing.

Nice work! Seeing constant improvement in your fitness is a fantastic motivation.

 

[brikis98]

Run: 0.5 miles barefoot @6mph, 2.25 miles in VFFs @8.5mph

Another late night at work, so I just took a light jog to clear my head.

 

[brikis98]

Deadlift: 135x5, 225x5, 315x3, 365x2, 405x2, 435x1, 455x1, 475x1, 485x1 (PR), 495x1 (PR), 500xF, 500xF, 500xF

Booooyaaaa! 5 plate deadlift! A solid 20lb PR and a huge milestone. I got greedy and tried a few times for 500lbs, but was way too fatigued to get it, so that'll have to wait until 2011. Video of 495: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rj9W-Z9SUGQ.

Muscle-ups: 3, 3, 4, 4, 4, 3

Definitely getting better at these, but I still need to learn how to chain them together. I lose the false group too easily on the way down, so I have to reset a lot between reps.

Burpees: 50 for time

Time: 2:30

 

[conorvansmack]

Nice job on the deadlift PR, that's awesome! Do you use the hook grip/thumb-lock?

 

[brikis98]

Nice job on the deadlift PR, that's awesome! Do you use the hook grip/thumb-lock?

Thanks! Yep, I use hook grip.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Sweeeet. Nice lift, man. I could've sworn you had 500 in you. You likely would have with fewer warm-up sets. Nice job though. Looked solid.

 

[brikis98]

Sweeeet. Nice lift, man. I could've sworn you had 500 in you. You likely would have with fewer warm-up sets. Nice job though. Looked solid.

Thanks! I thought I'd get 500 as well, but 495 really wiped me out: I felt fatigued, slightly light headed and a little shaky. The latter two are probably because I don't usually use a belt and am not used to the increased pressure. When I tried 500, my legs were willing, but I just could not stay tight enough. I'd get the bar off the floor a few inches, but then my back would start to round, the bar would swing away from my shins, and there was no way I could rescue it. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get it next time.

 

[norsy]

Thanks! I thought I'd get 500 as well, but 495 really wiped me out: I felt fatigued, slightly light headed and a little shaky. The latter two are probably because I don't usually use a belt and am not used to the increased pressure. When I tried 500, my legs were willing, but I just could not stay tight enough. I'd get the bar off the floor a few inches, but then my back would start to round, the bar would swing away from my shins, and there was no way I could rescue it. Oh well, I'm sure I'll get it next time.

Congratulations. Were you really planning to go for 495 today or just gave it a try since it must have seemed attainable? If not, what would you attribute such a big jump to?