brikis98's crossfit journal

[KingGheedora]

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged

Originally posted by: KingGheedora

Originally posted by: brikis98
Saturday, February 21

Workout of the Day

"Cindy"
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Squats

My numbers

23 rounds + 5 pull-ups (PR)

I love this workout, but I'm a bit disappointed by my performance. I still broke my old PR from January 4th, but only by 1 squat and 5 pull-ups. My goal had been 25 rounds, but quite frankly, I just didn't push myself hard enough to get there. I definitely have the physical ability to do it, but the mental drive was missing today.

23 rounds is impressivve. On pull-ups alone the most i can do right now is 3 sets of 7, maybe an additional handful after that (never gone for a record within a certain amount of time). Are the push-ups and pull-ups body weight? What about the squats, any weight?

All the above exercises are body weight. Also, the pullups are kipping pullups. They are easier in the sense that you can use your hips and the rest of your lower body to drive yourself upward, but they get just as hard when both your upper back and lower body start to die out. 23 rounds is nothing to scoff at.

Currently, I'm taking a sports psychology class and we've been talking about psychological tools that allow athletes to perform at a consistently high level for their ability. First of all, arousal (stimulation) levels have a huge say in how you perform. Whether you need to be really pumped or fairly calm to complete a movement depends on what you do. For CrossFit, however, you do need a fairly high arousal level. You can achieve this through increasing breathing rate, imagery (picturing yourself doing the motions over and over, particularly with ease and good form), music, and utilizing other highly aroused individuals (kind of a contagious effect). I've noticed that these sorts of things really help me get the job done better. Perhaps you could try them on days like today where you just don't have the "mental drive." You can always get the drive. You just gotta hit the right arousal state for what you're gonna do. Just food for thought.

That's pretty interesting. Are there any online materials I can read about that? I'm interested about what mind state is required for boxing, it requires a great deal of concentration and focus to win a match, but one might also think that you need to be pumped up. I'm leaning towards calm.

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: KingGheedora
23 rounds is impressivve. On pull-ups alone the most i can do right now is 3 sets of 7, maybe an additional handful after that (never gone for a record within a certain amount of time). Are the push-ups and pull-ups body weight? What about the squats, any weight?

As SC indicated, all the exercises use just the bodyweight in this workout.

Originally posted by: SociallyChallenged
Currently, I'm taking a sports psychology class and we've been talking about psychological tools that allow athletes to perform at a consistently high level for their ability. First of all, arousal (stimulation) levels have a huge say in how you perform. Whether you need to be really pumped or fairly calm to complete a movement depends on what you do. For CrossFit, however, you do need a fairly high arousal level. You can achieve this through increasing breathing rate, imagery (picturing yourself doing the motions over and over, particularly with ease and good form), music, and utilizing other highly aroused individuals (kind of a contagious effect). I've noticed that these sorts of things really help me get the job done better. Perhaps you could try them on days like today where you just don't have the "mental drive." You can always get the drive. You just gotta hit the right arousal state for what you're gonna do. Just food for thought.

Yea, this makes a lot of sense. I have a pretty good idea of what my physical limitations are, so any goal or PR that I'm attempting is almost always going to be within my physical capabilities, and it's really my mental state that determines whether I succeed. As funny as it sounds, exercise, even if it just involves lifting a weight, can be a total mind game. I'd love to read about what strategies work for other people, but I'm sure they'll be quite varied and I'll need to figure out my own. Some of the ones you mentioned - the breathing, visualizing the motions in my head, and music - I've used with pretty good success before.

Next Saturday, we're having another CF competition with the guys from work, and we'll actually be doing Cindy as the workout. Should be interesting to see if I'll be in a better mental state (especially with the competitive atmosphere) and if it lets me push myself to a new PR.

 

[brikis98]

Sunday, February 22

Workout of the Day

Back Squat: recovery
OH Squat: work up to 1RM
Bench Press: 3x5
Power Snatch: work up to 1RM
HSPU: 1xF

My numbers

Back Squat: 135x8, 185x5, 225x3, 265x5, stopped
OH Squat: 95x5, 115x5, 135x3, 155x1, 175x1 (PR)
Bench Press: 245x5, 245x5, 245x5
Power Snatch: 95x5, 115x3, 135x1, 155xF, 155xF
HSPU: 9

Grr, I have got to stop doing these strength workouts the day after I do a ton of air squats. Last week was a workout with 30 muscle-ups and 300 air squats right before heavy back squats. Yesterday I did 345 air squats as part of Cindy, which screwed over my back squats. And unfortunately, next Saturday I'll be doing Cindy again (as part of the competition at work), which means my Sunday workout will suffer again. Oh well.

I was going to do 3 sets of 265x5 on the back squat, but my quads were very sore, and my legs felt led-like after the first set. I decided it would be best to try it again next Weds and instead work on my OH squat, which uses lighter weight and puts less stress on the legs. My core stability is significantly stronger now and 175x1 was a solid rep with very good depth. However, my shoulders are now the limiting factor, as they really struggle to stabilize the weight up there. More flexibility work and practice should help with that, although I don't do OH squats nearly enough in my workouts.

I haven't done bench press since January 17, so I took it a bit easier today. Overall, despite the total lack of bench in CF, my strength has held up reasonably well. All 3 sets of 245 were very smooth with good bar speed. I'll try to fit 255 in next week.

My snatch technique continues to suck. I thought I had it somewhat figured out last week, but it was all crap today. Back to the drawing board. I picked up a copy of Greg Everett's Olympic Weightlifting book and will hopefully pick up some much needed pointers from it.

Also, for fun I did one max-rep set of handstand push-ups and managed to eek out 9 in a row. I'd love to added these to my GTG workouts, but as I also wanted to add air squats and pull-ups, I just don't think I have enough time - or recovery ability - for that much extra load.

 

[brikis98]

Monday, February 23

Rest day. Man, GHD sit-ups are a bitch. I did them last Thursday, but I can still feel that my lower abs are a little sore. I think they'll finally be 100% healed just in time for tomorrow's workout which, of course, has more GHD sit-ups

 

[brikis98]

Tuesday, February 24

Workout of the Day

Complete as many rounds in twenty minutes as you can of:
15 Pull-ups
15 Ring push-ups
15 Back Extensions
15 GHD Sit-ups

My numbers

Did GHD sit-ups on a ghetto setup as I described here. Did supermans with a 2 second pause at the top of each rep instead of back extensions.

4 rounds + 15 pull-ups + 15 ring push-ups

Woops. Totally screwed up the pacing on this one. I was very shocked when my timer went off to indicate 20 minutes had gone by, as it felt like I was only half way in. I think the supermans with their 2 second pauses slowed me down and I forgot to pick the pace back up after them. Speaking of which, I suck at supermans. My ROM on them is pretty sad, which is probably a flexibility issue. I mean, I know supermans have a very limited ROM anyway, but I feel like I'm barely moving. Moreover, I felt weak on them in general, struggling to maintain the 2 second holds for that many reps. I guess this is just another component of my posterior chain that needs some serious work. Pull-ups and GHD sit-ups went reasonably well. The actual pushing part of the ring push-ups wasn't too bad either, but keeping my body straight during the rep got progressively tougher as the workout continued. Those sit-ups and supermans really do a number on your core.

 

[brikis98]

Wednesday, February 25

Workout of the Day

Squat
OH Press
Power Clean

My numbers

Squat: 265x5, 265x5, 265x5
OH Press: 115x5, 140x5, 160x3, 115x8
Power Clean: 135x5, 185x3, 205x2xF, 205x3, 225x1, 235x1 (PR)

Awesome day at the gym. My first work set of back squat felt a little slow and heavy, but sets 2 and 3 were excellent: good bar speed, good depth and especially good glute/hip drive out of the hole. I really like doing sets across for the squat as it lets me get really confident with a weight before moving up. With ascending sets, you only do one set with the heavy weight and then have to make a decision for the next workout. Unfortunately, sets across generally mean more volume, so I'm not sure how much longer I'll be able to keep that up with heavy back squats. I guess I'll keep it up as long as I see no negative symptoms, which means next week I'll try out 275x3x5.

Power clean felt good today. My form was cleaner and I had a lot of jump in me. My form did breakdown on the 3rd rep of 205 the first time around, but I was able to fix that right up on the next set. I felt pumped about it and decided to try for a PR. After a solid rep with 225 (my old PR), I eeked out 235, a new PR. However, I have to admit it was uuugly. It landed somewhere on my upper chest, with my hands awkwardly bent under it. I managed to wriggle it onto my shoulders, and I'm still going to count it, but I didn't quite get the elevation that I wanted on the bar. As my hip has been feeling fine, I think I'll try squat cleans next week. My old squat clean PR is 245, but since then I've worked my power clean up to 235, so I'm hoping to see a good increase.

Finally, before leaving, I tried a few handstand push-ups with my hands on bumper plates (since I don't have paralletes). This extends the ROM of the HSPU to almost that of an OH press and felt excellent. I only did 3 reps, but I'll definitely practice them this way from now on.

 

[brikis98]

Thursday, February 26

Workout of the Day

"Helen"
Three rounds for time:
Run 400 meters
1 1/2 pood Kettlebell X 21 swings (or 55 pound dumbbell swing)
12 Pull-ups

My numbers

Ran on a treadmill. Did 55lb dumbbell swings.

Time: 11:04 (PR)

Man, Helen is a bitch. I had been hoping to get under 11 minutes, but didn't quite make it. I thought I'd be able to do all sets unbroken, but even in the second round I had to break up the swings (14/7), and in the third broke up both the swings (11/10) and the pull-ups (6/6). Finally, it took me ~12 minutes of lying on a floor to recover from this 11 minute workout. Brutal.

I ran at 10 mph today rather than 11, which I think helped me shave off almost 45 seconds from my previous PR of 11:48 from November 23. At this distance, every extra mph on running yields only seconds of improvement but costs me disproportionately more in fatigue. I wonder if running at 9mph, at least for rounds 2 and 3, would save my lungs enough to let me get through the swings and pull-ups faster.

 

[brikis98]

Friday, February 27

Rest day. CF competition with coworkers tomorrow.

 

[SociallyChallenged]

Originally posted by: brikis98
Friday, February 27

Rest day. CF competition with coworkers tomorrow.

Nice man. Good luck!

 

[brikis98]

Saturday, February 28

Workout of the Day

Squat: 3x5
Benc: 3x5

My numbers

Squat: 275x5, 275x5, 275x5
Bench: 255x5, 255x5, 255x5

So, we were supposed to have the CF competition today but for some reason, none of my coworkers showed up. I waited around for a while, but eventually gave up and left. No idea what the issue was, but I wasted a bunch of time getting to that CF gym, waiting and coming back. Sigh.

Anyways, I got back to my own gym and in the little time I had left, did a quick workout. I guess the good thing is that back squat felt very light today. All 3 sets went up nice and easy, with very good depth and excellent hip/glute drive out of the hole. It's pretty surprising, as 265 definitely felt harder a few days ago, but I'll be looking forward to 285 next time. Bench press also went ok, although by the 3rd set, the bar speed had dropped off quite a bit. Since I'm benching barely once a week, I think I'll conservatively try 260 next time.

 

[brikis98]

Sunday, March 1

Workout of the Day

Complete as many rounds in twenty minutes as you can of:
Run 400 meters
15 L-Pull-ups
15 Hip Extensions

My numbers

Ran on a treadmill. Did hip extensions on a 45 degree hyperextension machine.

4 rounds plus another ~200m of running

The story of this workout is that L-pull-ups are brutal. Not only is the pull-up portion harder without the possibility of kipping, but keeping your legs up while your body flies up and down a pull-up bar is freaking hard. On a number of reps, I just could not keep the technique clean, as my knees often ended up bending and my toes would dip below 90 degrees. Oh well, hopefully practicing some more l-sits will eventually make me better at these.

 

[brikis98]

Monday, March 2

Rest day. Hamstrings are really sore.

 

[brikis98]

Tuesday, March 3

Workout of the Day

Squat: 3x5
Press: 3x5
Power Clean: 5x3
HSPU on bumpers: 3xF

My numbers

Squat: 285x5, 285x5, 285x5
Press: 115x5, 135x5, 160x3xF
Power Clean: 135x3, 160x3, 185x3, 205x3, 215x3
HSPU on bumpers: 4, 4, 2

Odd lack of flexibility today. My hamstrings were very tight and sore from Sunday's workout, which made it quite difficult to get into a proper squat and to get good hip drive going. I made it through all 3 sets, but I'm not happy with the bar speed. I think next time I'll only bump it up to 290 rather than 295. The hamstrings were also a bit problematic on the power clean, and I didn't get the bar quite as high as I wanted it on the 3 reps of 215.

The other flexibility issue I had today was my shoulders. This really made the press a chore, although I missed the 4th rep due to bad technique (pushed it too far forward) and not really because of flexibility. I'm damn sure I can get at least 4 reps, if not all 5, next time. When I was doing wall extensions after the workout, my ROM was worse than it's ever been. I'd actually made pretty good progress on this stretch in the last few weeks, but today was a massive regression. No idea what caused my rotator cuffs to get so stiff, as I don't think I injured them in any way and there's no pain, but hopefully it'll be gone tomorrow. Anyways, I finished the workout with some HSPU on bumpers and I gotta say that going down those extra few inches makes the exercise a whole lot tougher. However, I also feel far more muscles engaging over this longer ROM, so I think it's well worth it.

 

[brikis98]

Wednesday, March 4

Workout of the Day

"Angie"
For time:
100 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
100 Sit-ups
100 Squats

My numbers

Time: 19:50 (PR)

The good news is that I beat my previous Angie PR of 22:04 (from January 13) by a hefty margin. I think the main reason was a lightning fast start, as I got through all the pull-ups in ~7 minutes and all the push-ups in ~3 (the GTG push-ups definitely paid off).

The bad news is that something weird happened during sit-ups and squats. After just the first 10 sit-ups, my abs were on fire. It felt like I'd been doing sit-ups for hours and forced me to break up the last 80 sit-ups into sets of 5-7. Given that I was effortlessly banging out sets of 45 when I was doing GTG sit-ups last week, this was very disconcerting. As I struggled very painfully through all 100 (the burning sensation was awful the entire time), I figured that the push-ups and (kipping) pull-ups must have tired my abs out, but then the same exact thing happened on squats: 10 reps in and my quads were burning very painfully. There's no way I used my quads much on any of the first 3 exercises, so what gives? It's as if after the very fast start on pull-ups and push-ups, my body could no longer clear away lactic acid effectively. I know I set a PR, but I still performed significantly worse on the sit-ups and squats than I'm capable of. I don't know enough about this, so does anyone have a clue as to what could have caused it?

 

[brikis98]

Thursday, March 5

Workout of the Day

Three rounds for time of:
24" Box jump, 50 reps
185 pound Deadlift, 21 reps
30 Pull-ups

My numbers

Time: 20:45

Very fun workout. Paced myself a little too slowly on the box jumps and deadlifts. Also, after 100 pull-ups yesterday, it was pretty tough to get through the 90 in this workout. If this workout comes up again, it should be easy to improve my time.

In other news, my gf got into a Stanford PhD program and we're heading to San Francisco tonight to go visit. Not sure how much time I'll have for workouts, but as the forecast for the area has it at 60 degrees this weekend, I'll hopefully find time to do at least some running.

 

[RaynorWolfcastle]

I haven't visited the forum in ages and I just looked through this thread. Glad to see that you're still pushing hard and getting some nice gains, keep up the good work!

 

[brikis98]

Friday, March 6

Rest day. Out visiting Stanford and San Francisco with the gf.

Originally posted by: RaynorWolfcastle
I haven't visited the forum in ages and I just looked through this thread. Glad to see that you're still pushing hard and getting some nice gains, keep up the good work!

Thanks!

 

[brikis98]

Saturday, March 7 - Monday, March 9

No time for workouts as I was exploring San Francisco with the gf these days. Granted, we spent 3 - 6 hours walking each day, but I've been itching to get back into the gym.

 

[TallBill]

What's GTG ?

 

[brikis98]

Originally posted by: TallBill
What's GTG ?

Grease The Groove. You do a large number of sub-maximal (<80% of max) sets of some exercise (e.g. push-ups) multiple times through out the day. Supposed to be a very quick way to increase the number of reps you can do on that exercise.

 

[TallBill]

Originally posted by: brikis98

Originally posted by: TallBill
What's GTG ?

Grease The Groove. You do a large number of sub-maximal (<80% of max) sets of some exercise (e.g. push-ups) multiple times through out the day. Supposed to be a very quick way to increase the number of reps you can do on that exercise.

Ah yeah, very familiar with the technique We used it quite often with pushups in basic training. And honestly, I should try it again with pushups because I have a PT test coming up soon.

 

[brikis98]

Tuesday, March 10

Workout of the Day

Squat: 3x5
Power Clean & Jerk: 3x3

My numbers

Squat: 285x5, 285x5, 285x5
Power Clean & Jerk: 185x3, 185x3, 185x3

GTG

Dead hang pull-ups: 5 sets of 10 (50 total)
Sit-ups: 5 sets of 40 (200 total)

I took a couple days off from work for my brief San Fran vacation, so I had to work late today to catch up and had to keep my workout short. I also missed a few days at the gym, so I decided to be a bit conservative on the weight. I repeated my 3x5x285 on the squat, which felt alright, but I still wasn't too happy with the bar speed. I'll probably try 3x5x290 next time. On the power clean & jerk, my form didn't feel particularly smooth, especially on the jerk portion. I was able to grind through all the reps, but I need clean up my split jerk before I go up in weight.

I'm also going to start recording my GTG numbers in my journal, as I had been slacking on them the last 1.5 weeks. Hopefully, this will keep me honest. I've decided to use the GTG approach for dead hang pull-ups, sit-ups, push-ups and air squats, but no more than 1 or 2 of these on the same day. I'll fit them in on whatever days I can to minimize interference with that day's workout. For each exercise, once I can easily get through 4-5 sets of it, I'll increase the reps by 2-5 for next time.

 

[brikis98]

Wednesday, March 11

Workout of the Day

"Fight Gone Bad!"

Three rounds of:
Wall-ball, 20 pound ball, 10 ft target (Reps)
Sumo deadlift high-pull, 75 pounds (Reps)
Box Jump, 20" box (Reps)
Push-press, 75 pounds (Reps)
Row (Calories)

In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute.The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. On call of "rotate", the athletes must move to next station immediately for best score. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower where each calorie is one point.

My numbers

Based on available equipment, I had to sub wall ball for thrusters with two 20lb dumbbells (reps) and row for burpees (reps).

Thrusters: 25, 21, 17
SDHP: 16, 14, 15
Box Jump: 18, 20, 20
Push Press: 23, 22, 22
Burpees: 13, 12, 12

Total: 270 (PR)

This was my second attempt at FGB and I broke my old PR from January 27 (when I used the same substitutions) by 25 points. I'm not sure how my substitutions compare to the real FGB, but I suspect the thrusters are a little easier than wall ball but the burpees are a lot tougher than rowing. At least with rowing you can go slower and still rack up some calories. With burpees, you either do them, or you don't. Burpees are also my arch nemesis, never failing to make me feel like I'm going to die. Good stuff.

 

[brikis98]

Thursday, March 12

Workout of the Day

Run 10K

My numbers

Ran on a treadmill.

Time: 52:27 (PR)

Long slow distance (LSD) running is a pretty piss poor way to exercise. It's a crappy way to train for anything other than LSD running (and even then a healthy dose of higher intensity stuff is essential), it's boring as hell (would be better outside, but not everyone lives in warm climates), it takes a bloody long time, it's high impact in a bad way, and it kills your flexibility. When I was done with this run, my thighs and calves were ridiculously tight and I had to spend 20 minutes stretching just to get back to normal. Worse yet, I feel that these 52 minutes will do less to improve my fitness than 5 minutes of Fran or 11 minutes of Helen. I guess CF includes these long runs to train the body to be able to perform for long periods of time as well as absorb lots of impact, but they aren't much fun.

Anyways, I beat my old 10K PR of 55:17 from October 11. Granted, that PR was actually part of a 15K run and I did it outside, but an almost 3 minute improvement still makes me pretty happy. I actually got my weird side stitch about 2 miles in and had to slow down for 3-4 minutes until it went away, so I probably could've done even better. At any rate, I've decided that once the weather warms up a bit, I'm going to try to learn the POSE technique. I had meant to start a couple months ago, but since I hate running on treadmills, I couldn't get the motivation to devote some time to learning it. Nicer weather should be coming soon, so I think I'll start trying it out on the weekends for 10-15 minutes at a time after my workouts.

 

[brikis98]

Friday, March 13

Workout of the Day

Rest day.

GTG

Push-ups: 5 sets of 40

I was going to do GTG air squats, but my legs are very sore after the last 3 days of CF, so I'm giving them a break. In general, I've been crazy busy these last few days and haven't had enough time for GTG, so I'm not sure I'm getting in enough volume for it to be effective.