'09 Games Wall Ball/Squat Snatch Workout

This one hurt. More than usual anyway.

3 rounds for time:
30 wall ball shots, 20lb ball, 10' target
30 squat snatches, 75lbs

Sunday Morning WOD

I did this chipper earlier today. During my last cycle of 3 days on, I completed two WODs per day, and I'm hoping to do the same with this cycle. My ability to recovery is really the only limiting factor, and so far, so good.

The other WOD I did today comes from the CrossFit main site. It is:
3 rounds for time of:
95lb front squat, 21 reps
40ft handstand walk
30 GHD sit ups
40ft handstand walk

I was hoping to do this under fifteen minutes and I ended up with 14:55! Wahooo! Good day of CrossFitting, yes sir.

Twoadays.

I've been ramping up my workout frequency over the past several days, trying to complete two WODs per day with some gymnastics skill work mixed in at some point.

Yesterday morning I did 21-15-9 reps for time of:
Turkish get ups & sotts press, both with the 45lb barbell.

Despite having done this workout a couple of times before, the Turkish get ups continue to frustrate me. It's a skill that my body and brain seem to have no interest in appropriating. My time was 16:36. Just to put that in perspective, I've seen it done in under 7 minutes. My accuracy, coordination, and balance with the barbell are all in need of some serious attention.

In the evening I did the CF mainsite workout from two days ago, which is:

Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 20 minutes (aka 20-min AMRAP) of:
5 chest to bar pull ups
10 wall ball shots, 20lb ball, 10' target
15 kettle bell swings, 53lbs

The KB swings were the real wrench in the works for this one, though I managed to do every set of each exercise completely unbroken until the 11th round, which was also my last.


This morning I tried to devise a workout that targeted some different movements and time domains than yesterday's two. I came up with,

3 rounds for time of:
50 double unders
30 GHD sit ups,

finishing in 7:11. A nice blend of skill, speed, and stamina without causing too much strain for my hands, which were a bit raw after yesterday's 165 KB swings and 55 c2b pull ups.

Soon I'm off to do today's second WOD, which will be:

For time:
135lb squat clean, 10 reps
1 rope ascent
135lb squat clean, 9 reps
1 rope ascent
...
135lb squat clean, 1 rep
1 rope ascent

I'll post my time later. I'm hoping for under ten minutes.

Seis de Mayo WOD

This workout was posted on the CF main site earlier this week. It is:

21-15-9 reps for time of
95lb overhead squat
burpees

This is a short sprint of a workout that I was hoping to go sub five on, but I'm still too slow on those overhead squats! Still, it's a fun WOD that I'm sure to come back to. Enjoy!

Oh, and as with the 11.6 video, I apologize for the chronic white noise in the background that sounds like I set the camera next to a propane heater or something. I don't know why the camera is doing this, but I hope to get it resolved soon. In the meantime, you may want to turn the volume down on these.

Open 11.6 Workout

This is the sixth workout of the 2011 Reebok CrossFit games open. It is a 7 minute AMRAP of two movements--a 100lb thruster and chest-to-bar pull ups.

The rep scheme is as follows:
3 thrusters
3 c2b pull ups
6 thrusters
6 c2b pull ups
9 thrusters
9 c2b pull ups
and so on and so on, as high as you can go within the allotted time.

I made it through 15 thrusters and 4 chest-to-bar pull ups before the seven minutes expired.

Spring Chipper

Easter Monday WODs

The first here is a 15 minute AMRAP I did this morning. The second is 4 sets of heavy back squats I did earlier this evening.

Saturday Double Header

This first video is of a more metabolic conditioning type workout that I did early Saturday morning. It is:

4 rounds for time of:
9 box jumps, 30" platform
7 squat cleans, 60lb sandbag
5 ring dips
3 rope ascents


Later in the day, I did more of a strength workout--5 sets, each 3 repetitions of overhead squats.

Sadly, shamefully, this is my first time devoting a strength session to overhead squats. My goal was to hit 155lbs, but 145 ended up being at the edge of my ability for the given number of reps. Next time, though.

Repeat WOD

I've done this workout several times now over the past year, most recently around Christmas 2010. My time then was 11:19, and today I got 9:40! Wahoooo for PRs!

The workout is:

21-18-15-12-9-6-3 repetitions for time of:
sumo deadlift high pull, 75lbs.
push press, 75lbs.

Chipper

Did this one yesterday.

"Hammer"

Wall Ball GHD Couplet

Did this one Thursday afternoon.

Deadlift PR and Another Girl. Nancy.

Yesterday (4/12) I did 7 single reps of deadlift. The loads were:
295-305-315(fail)-315-325-345-350

305lbs. was my previous personal record, so this workout shattered that by nearly 50lbs. Muy bien.

This afternoon I confronted another one of the tempestuous and demanding CrossFit girls, Nancy.

Five rounds for time of:
400m run
95lb. overhead squat, 15 reps

Now, I knew beforehand that I'd done this workout sometime in November of last year, but I couldn't recall my time. Today I did it in 17:57. I guessed my previous time to be around twenty-something but in consulting my log, I discovered it was 16:55.

I am highly skeptical of this November time, as I was not nearly as fast or strong five months ago as I am today. My guess is that I miscounted rounds. Because there's no way. No way. So, I'm considering this new Nancy time to be the benchmark from which I'll now gauge my future encounters.

Fran!

Classic CrossFit workout. A real vixen.

My apologies for the atrocious lighting in this video and the previous one.

Anniversary Helen Workout

About a year ago on this past Wednesday I was in Okinawa getting my ass handed to me by my very first CrossFit workout, the one they call "Helen."

As prescribed the workout is 3 rounds for time of a 400m run, 21 kettlebell swings (1.5 pood or 53lbs), and 12 pull ups. In Okinawa, because of my newbie status, I was only allowed to swing the 26lb. kettlebell--not even the women's prescribed weight, AND the 400m run was almost completely flat, just a small incline at the beginning.

On Wednesday I did the workout with the 53lb kettlebell and the little terror of run that is the first 400m of Noelle Lane--marked increases in the requisite power output. Even with these additions, I managed a near three-minute personal record. Yay!

Open Workout 11.2

This is the second workout of the CrossFit Open. I didn't do it earlier enough to submit my score to the website, but I thought I'd post it anyway. The workout is:

Complete as many rounds as possible in 15 minutes of:
9 deadlifts, 155lbs
12 hand release pushups
15 box jumps

The loads are light and the numbers are small, but 15 minutes is a looong time to go all out. The pushups are a bit clunky, but, by lifting your hands off the ground at the bottom of each rep, the movement becomes much easier to standardize and judge. It doesn't seem like a big deal, but try doing a few and you'll feel the difference.

New Additions to the Family

Steven's been hard at work with the measuring tape and circular saw again. So now we've got both a mountain and a mole hill to play with in our daily workouts, 30" and 16" respectively.

Kitchen WOD

No, it's not a workout. It's a quiche. Two of them actually. One for Steven: sausage and bacon and cheese. One for Amanda: spinach, tomato, bacon, and bleu cheese. Oh, and eggs.

You may be wondering: what's quiche got to do with fitness? Is Kevin going to do 50 walking lunges with each quiche held overhead? Is he going to do an 800m quiche carry, a la pizza delivery style? If so, what's the weight on those bad boys? And how about some crash pads so we don't break the nice Pyrex dish? Is he allowed to wear oven mitts? Etc...

The answer is no--to most of those questions. The quiche is for eating, not back squatting. But, quiche is most definitely related to fitness. Why? Because it's something I eat. I put it into my body. Its contents form the molecular foundation of my fitness, or lack thereof. I'm not suggesting that quiche, in particular, is the anchor of a healthy diet. But! I am suggesting that my habits in the kitchen and dining room have a far greater impact on my health than my habits in the gym.

At my Level 1 certification, this often overlooked reality was phrased to us as the 23 and 1 rule; that is, there are twenty-four hours in a day; say you spend 1 hour at the gym or working out at home; what do the other twenty-three hours of your day look like? Are you getting enough sleep? Enough water? Are you eating food OR food products? How much? At what times? How about sunshine? Or your social life? Or your stress level?

Bilge pumps will not indefinitely keep a ship afloat. At some point the breach must be repaired. I'd wager the "breach" in your average American lifestyle--concerning health anyway--is food related. A single daily workout--no matter how intense--will not balance an otherwise toxic day of living and eating. GI tract trumps workout every time. Or, another way to think of it: 23 > 1. Big time.

So even though I won't be push pressing these Pyrex masterpieces, they still represent an integral part of my endeavor for better fitness. In an effort to spare you reader(s?) a soapbox-style nutrition lecture, I'll simply make these two points concerning food:

1) The CrossFit dietary prescription for avoiding disease and optimizing athletic performance (note: if you don't think of yourself as an athlete, you're missing out on life. seriously. life moves. you should too.) is to "eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. Keep intake to levels that support exercise but not body fat." And if you're looking to compete at an elite level in any sport, you'll probably need to weigh and measure your food, giving careful attention to the macronutrient composition of every single thing that goes down the pipe.

This prescription (excluding the weighing and measuring), in my opinion, is hardly a puritanical or stifling way to eat. Before yelling in outraged outrage and disagreement at your computer screen, consider the fact that our Paleolithic ancestors, who subsisted almost exclusively on meat (in its broadest sense--animal flesh) and vegetables (latitude depending), dined on as many as 100 to 150 different foods. How many different animals have you eaten? Or, perhaps more to the point, can you even name all the vegetables in your grocery store's produce section?

The truth is most of us tend to only eat between 15 and 25 different foods. If this figure seems inaccurate, try keeping a food log. Remember, real food only has one, maybe two ingredients. Kellog's Special K is not food but a food product. Food is typically what you find on the perimeter of the grocery store, you know the same place you find the refrigeration containers and the misting sprayers. These products were once alive and, were it not for our storing methods, they would soon be either compost or carrion. Have your Rice Krispies ever decomposed in the pantry?

Hair splicing and nit-picking aside, an honest food log will reveal a remarkably impoverished spread of foods when compared to the diets of our ancestors. Thus my claim: "meat and vegetables" is hardly as Spartan as it might seem at first blush. The seeming frugality of the category is a failure of our curiosity, effort, and interest, not of the content itself.

2) Food is intensely personal. Everyone has heard the expression "you are what you eat" but few of us are quick to evaluate ourselves in that light. Though I've certainly made an effort to inform myself on human nutrition, there's still no book or magazine or news report or government agency or even medical doctor to which I'll give more heed than my own experience with food--how what I eat affects how I feel and perform. Daily life should be the ultimately proving grounds for what constitutes healthy eating--I eat one way and feel like shit, I eat another way and feel like a superhero; at what point do I need a doctor or the FDA to solve this for me?

Excuse Me, You Dropped Your WOD

Big news on the homefront: my older sister Amanda recently earned her Level 1 certification at Iron Major CrossFit over in Fort Leavenworth, Kansas. As such, she's now easing into her programming grove by writing workouts for both Steven and I. I tried this one yesterday:

In 20 minutes, complete as many rounds and reps as possible of:
20 double unders
15 GHD sit ups
10 power cleans @115lbs

I managed to squeeze out 8 rounds plus 31 reps (so 20 double unders and 11 GHD sit ups) in the allotted time. For just getting started with programming, I was really impressed with Amanda's combination of movements and time duration. It was a great workout, better by far than many that I've programmed for myself or others. Go Manda Panda!

Holy Hamstrings

Poor ole hammies!

Rotary Park WOD

I found myself in Kirksville, Missouri brainstorming potential WODs yesterday afternoon on a playground in Rotary Park. Here were some of my initial ideas.

WOD: Climb and slide. 20 minute AMRAP.
Problem: other kids climbing and sliding at a sissy pace; parents whine when I push their little twerp kids out of my way.
WOD: 10,000 merry-go-round spins for time.
Problem: motion sickness.
WOD: Freeze tag.
Problem: no friends.

I may have been friendless and a little above the average age of playground participants, but I wasn't without my trusty 1.5pood kettlebell, with which I threw together this little Helen-esque WOD:

3 rounds for time:
400m run
21 KB swings
5 HSPUs
Finished in 9:29.

Front Squats & Rope Climbs

This is another mainsite workout posted early last week. It is:

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 reps of 135lb front squat, alternating with 1 rope ascent (15ft.)

It's not that I lack all creative ability in workout construction; I've just been really enamored with HQ's programming lately. As of roughly 5pm this evening, my sister Amanda will have earned her CrossFit Level 1 certification, officially enabling her to devise some workout madness of her own. I'm thinking in one of the coming weeks I'm going to have her write all of my workouts--do a full two circuits of 3 days on 1 day off programming. We'll see. In the meantime, enjoy the fun.

Med Ball Couplet

This is a main site workout from a couple of days back.

5 rounds for time of:
15 medicine ball cleans, 20lb. ball
15 wall ball throws, 20lb. ball, 10' target

Snatches!

No, it's not what you think. The snatch is an Olympic lift, in which the weight goes from ground to overhead in one movement. An extremely technical lift, it doesn't allow for near the amount of weight that could be used in either of its constituent lifts--the deadlift and the overhead squat. In other words, even though I can deadlift over 300lbs and overhead squat 155lbs, I can only snatch 125, my new PR as of shooting this video.

The workout is:

Snatch 1 rep every minute for 15 minutes.

I don't have every rep included in the video. Most are there though, with a few entertaining "misses" sprinkled in as well. Enjoy.

Meat and Potatoes

This is a mainsite workout I scaled back a tad.

4 rounds of:
5 L pull ups
15 push ups
10 chest-to-bar pull ups
15 push ups
15 pull ups
15 push ups

No frills. Just fun, or something.

Fitness is...agency.

A well-known CrossFitter and affiliate owner, Blair Morrison, has published a series of articles in the CrossFit Journal over the past several months reflecting on the nature of fitness, going beyond the measured and empirical definition posited years ago by Greg Glassman and offering up some thoughts on the more subjective—though often no less striking—rubrics of fitness; things like character, potential, defense, and identity. Anyone who’s ever committed themselves to the trials of a CrossFit workout would no doubt attest that these other elements—though more averse to measurement—are all, in some manner, tangled up with intensity—the elixir of human movement.

As of yet, there are several standards unmentioned by Morrison that I believe to be noteworthy. Foremost among these is agency. Fitness is agency. Fitness is possession of the means to an end, the ability to act from a position of power, and although the various “ends” we humans now seek in the 21^st century are no different than what we’ve been seeking for millions of years—food, water, shelter, community, and purpose—our means are quite different.

“Hunt” and “gather,” for most of us, have become little more than references to our past rather than active verbs that characterize our living. Plenty of other verbs intrinsic to non-domesticated lives—jumping, throwing, sprinting, swimming, wrestling—are more and more absent from day-to-day activities, relegated instead to the realms of sport.  Even our most coveted and necessary of actions—sex—is being sidelined more often. As a population, our fitness is in need of careful attention and rehabilitation, either that or Viagra, depending who you ask.

What can in one light be construed as a health crisis might, in a different light, be considered signs of our success. Grocery stores on every corner, a continuous supply of water and electricity in every home, an elaborate network of roads and highways, access to the entire span of human knowledge at the push of buttons, motorized transit for every person. Indeed, our cleverness and ingenuity as a species has allowed us—more so than any other time in history--to hold the traumatic volatility of the natural world at arms length.

Moreover, our path toward more abundance and security with less effort has been exponential, and rather than abandon these advances and adopt stone-age existences for the sake of our health, why not simply reinvent our relationship to technology? If technology is merely a crutch, a way to circumvent our own exertion, well then there’s nothing intrinsically unhealthy in that. What’s unhealthy is living as though the crutch is your leg. What’s unhealthy is replacing fitness—your own means—with tools. Those who don’t find ways to exert themselves amidst our sea of luxurious living will surely be a weaker, frailer bunch than those that do.

Of course, this is why CrossFit is taking the industrialized world by storm. It provides a systematic, progressive, and holistic regimen of exertion than can span the course of a lifetime. From an evolutionary perspective, CrossFit is the antidote to the indulgences born of our technological success. CrossFit provides the stimuli that our sheltered living no longer does, at least not often enough (for many of us anyway), and when an individual continually subjects himself to such stimuli, he achieves an amazing thing: fitness. He achieves agency. He achieves the means to act from a position of power rather than reliance.

Posterior Chain Couplet

This is a CrossFit HQ workout that I've taken and scaled down. It is:

21-15-9 reps of 225lb. deadlift, alternating with 400m runs.

Before the workout, I estimated 1) that this combination of movements was going to manhandle my posterior chain (lower back and hamstrings) and 2) that eight minutes would be a stellar and marginally obtainable time for me. I don't usually play this sort of guessing game with my workouts, but I felt particularly determined to test my threshold for this combination and so decided to wear a wristwatch, allowing me to gauge my pace on the 400s. Pleasantly surprised, I crossed the plane of the garage door at exactly 8:00. Booyah, posterior chain.

Grand Canyon Mule

This clever workout was concocted by Meg and Rich Mottl of CrossFit Kirkwood. I came across it while perusing their site one afternoon in December and did the workout that same day (got it done in 14:37). It goes:

50-45-40-35-30-25-20-15-10-5 double unders, alternating with 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 pull ups and bench press.

The bench press is supposed to be bodyweight, but I used 115lbs in both instances. Somehow, despite even its popularity in more mainstream fitness regimens, bench press has been a lifelong weakness of mine. Still, I managed to bring my time down by about 90 seconds, finishing in 13:04.

A brief aside here: "Double-unders," as you'll see in the video, refer to a jump rope maneuver in which the rope passes underfoot twice for every jump. In some instances you may see me doing a few single passes before I get into the double-under rhythm. As a movement, they're a real devil, taxing both cardiovascular/respiratory endurance and muscular stamina, not to mention the other neurological qualities they test and improve--coordination, balance, agility, speed, and accuracy. Learning to do them, even while winded, will be a great boon to your fitness. Enjoy!

Squat WOD

I came up with this workout a couple days ago and tested it out on Amanda and Steven.

For time:
20 back squats
15 front squats
10 overhead squats
5 thrusters

After watching them push through it, I decided to give it a try today. My goal was to avoid dropping the barbell at any point. Didn't quite hit that mark, but I was pleased to stay under five minutes. Enjoy!

pull ups & wall balls

This couplet is the mainsite workout for today; it is:

7 rounds for time of:
10 wall ball shots, 10' target, 20lb. ball
10 pull ups

I was hoping to finish this in under five minutes, and despite doing every set unbroken, the pull ups were a little slow.

Mainsite Fun

The brilliant minds at CrossFit Headquarters came up with this entertaining bit of suffering for today's WOD:

Run 1 mile
100 GHD sit ups
100 back extensions
Run 1 mile

Mix and match the sit ups and back extensions as needed.

My first mile was 7:20, second was 8:02, and total time was 23:45. Everything along the posterior chain was so lit up by the time my second mile rolled around I'm not sure you could really call it "running." Still, with the warm spring-like temperatures and clear skies, it was refreshing to be outside without gloves or a hat. I'd like to believe that I can ease and acclimate my way into high-intensity workouts amidst the infamous high-intensity humidity of St. Louis summers. Wishful thinking.

Some Assembly Required

I did this workout yesterday. It's 5 rounds for time of:

15 box jumps, 24" platform
12 toes-to-bar
9 back squats, 135lbs
6 kettlebell swings, 70lbs
3 muscle ups

Though I've been able to do muscle ups for a few months now, this is the first time I've programmed them into a workout. My goal was to make myself winded for the muscle ups, as doing them fresh isn't all that difficult. I've found that one of the best ways to improve proficiency in a given movement is to put it right in the midst of an already taxing lineup.

Also new to my workouts is the 70lb. kettlebell. At almost half my body weight, it packs a large and irresistible punch. Imagine attaching a handle to Jupiter and then trying to swing it. Buckets of fun.

Thruster Climb Couplet

Thrusters and rope climbs are a tenacious combination. Next time I'll do it with either more weight or more rounds. Still, a good workout.

Holy Forearms II

I did this workout toward the beginning of November of last year. We had just gotten a couple of 53lb. kettle bells, and, in a possibly misguided effort to hit the ground running--with the big dogs--I made up this little workout that involved ninety(!) kettle bells swings.

The workout is 3 rounds for time of:
30 KB swings
25 wall ball throws, 10' target
20 pull ups

My time in November was 17:23. I've shaved off nearly 5 minutes since then! Clearly, my work capacity isn't suffering in 2011.

The combination of swings and pull ups at the transition of each round lends a jello-like consistency to the forearms. Untying your shoes after the workout can be a chore. Enjoy!

21-15-9, repetitions?

I've been doing a lot of workouts with this format lately. Here are two more. I did the first one last Wednesday and the other one I did just yesterday. Enjoy.

And the other--this one is sumo deadlift high pulls and overhead squats.

Sunday Triplet

Yesterday I did a triplet consisting of 21-15-9 reps of:
deadlift, 205lbs
box jump, 24"platform
GHD sit ups

Enjoy.

Hang Power Clean & Burpee WOD

This is a main site workout which, as rx'd, uses 135lbs, but I chose to scale it down to 95lbs. Someday...

Meet Cindy. Again.

Yesterday I did a classic CrossFit workout called "Cindy", in which I--the lucky participant--attempt to complete as many rounds as possible in twenty minutes of: 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, and 15 squats. In early August of last year, I was able to complete 21 rounds. I managed 24 and change on this one, but not before Cindy had her way with me. When it comes to basic gymnastics, there are few better rubrics for endurance than Cindy, a real gem. Enjoy!

Team WOD!

Team workout! For some reason, we've never tried this before--sharing reps across a set time domain. Turns out to be a lot of fun. We all agree there should be more of these to come!

Gymnastics WOD

In my post from yesterday I mentioned gaining proficiency with new CrossFit movements (new to me, that is) and cited "pistols" and "handstand walk" as examples. Before doing the gymnastics workout shown in the video, which is of my own design (the workout, that is), I had never done either of these movements as part of a workout. You might guess my satisfaction then for performing at the level I did, completing 100 pistols in total and 125 feet of handstand walking; such numbers came as a pleasant surprise. Writing this a day after the workout, I can say with certainty that handstand walks have a particular knack for taxing the shoulders. You might say that I'm in a lot of trouble with the Trapezius IRS. Wow. Terrible. Why would I write such a thing, let alone display it before the world?

Lastly, just for clarification--a "pistol" is nothing more than a one-legged squat, in case that wasn't made clear in the video. So, essentially, the hip goes from full extension (standing) to full flexion (bottom of the squat) and then back to full extension using only one leg. Fun stuff.

Dis-Grace

"Grace" is a classic CrossFit workout of 30 clean and jerks for time, using 135lbs. In this video, I've scaled the workout by using 115lbs. Although 135 isn't an insurmountable weight for me for this movement, it's heavy enough to skew my power output substantially. In other words, I'll move more foot/pounds per minute with 115 than I would with 135, while at the same time maintaining better form than I would with 135; this is the purpose of scaling--stay safe and maintain the highest possible intensity.

One of the pitfalls of working out solo is that the reps you count in your head don't always correspond with reality. Luckily, the camera never lies, and so after reviewing the video and discovering I'd actually only completed 29 reps (!), I thought it was only appropriate to change the workout name accordingly. Sorry, Grace; I meant no offense.

Found the Stylus

So I realize it's been well over a month since the last post. Despite the online absence, I've still been CrossFitting like crazy, hitting some new PRs and developing competency in new movements like pistols and handstand walks. As the title of today's post suggests, my lack of posts was due in large part to a lost camera, my Olympus Stylus Tough 8000, which has now been found. Expect videos from here on out, until I lose it again.

The WOD in the video is:

4 Rounds for time of:

20 wall balls, 20lb. ball to a 10' target

15 GHD sit ups

10 pull ups

5 burpees

Perhaps it's worth noting that this is my first post-vacation WOD. Although said vacation was a pretty active one--snow skiing!--there's no real way to maintain your body's familiarity with high-intensity without doing high-intensity workouts. So, this one hurt a little. Enjoy!