Thursday May 7th, 2015

Thursday:
A. Single Leg Elevated Split Squat (Bulgarian Split Squat)
1 x ME - #60 8 reps left, 4 reps right, felt awkward, not sure if I was hitting the depth necessary. I had a tough time staying upright, I wanted to bend at the waist to get depth.

B. 3 x max DUs - 121 - 125 - 130 rest 3:00 bet
This really got my shoulders pumped and heart rate up! These were 3 fairly solid efforts, I've hit the 150 mark before, but these were solid. I did notice that I started flopping the arms around the 80-90s. Also, it is VERY tough to count and breath at the same time!

 C. 20 sets of 5 UB CTB Pull-Ups -
13:40 - slow, no flow but no tears thanks to @thenaturalgrip, those things are legit! I didn't really have a plan, just wanted to be sub-15 on this one. I may have been able to push the pace a bit more, should have tried every 20s for a set, but I was trying to ensure no fails for this test. I want to get my technique down, I feel like I'm just flopping around.

CrossFit Open 14.1

The first WOD of the 2014 CrossFit Games season was announces Thursday night, and it is a repeat of the very first Open workout from 2011. A 10 min AMRAP of 30 Double Unders and 15 Snatches (#75). I did not participate in that first Open as I had yet to find CrossFit. As part of my training leading up to the Games Season, I performed a 7 min version of this one at the beginning of February. I felt like I had a pretty good handle on this workout leading into it. 

I decided to hit it after school on Friday. All of my morning workout crew have signed up for the Open this year, and most decided to hit it up then as well. We setup and warmed-up. I ended up going last and post a score of 355 reps. Very solid. I was hoping to be over 350 for it. The bump in the road came after the workout. After uploading the video and posting my score, It became evident that the last 40 seconds of my video was missing. So the online judges, correctly noticed this and informed me of it. In addition, I missed a DU rep during one of the rounds, and my score was reduced to 330. Below is the original attempt at 14.1. 

On Saturday morning, less than 14 hours since my previous attempt, I was not ready to do this workout again. I hit some mobility and then went on a 10 mile mountain bike ride (trail and gravel combo) to spin out my legs and get the blood flowing. 

Sunday came and I decided to redo the workout. I go with the guys around 11 and began warming up and prepping for the workout. We set-up 2 iPads, an android tablet, and an iPhone to ensure that the video would be there and in it's entirety. 

I decided to approach the workout in much the same manner. i hit the first 3 rounds of snatches unbroken, and then switched to 8-7 for two rounds before finishing out with 5-5-5. I hit mostly 31 DUs to ensure that I didn't come up short in this one, and I mistakenly hit an extra snatch during the 3rd round. I finished with a total of 358 reps. I did miss on one round of the DUs. Overall, there are a few places in which to improve my work in this setting. First, I need to make sure I am hitting the prescribed reps and not more. Also, when I put down the bar, I need to be sure to only drop from the wait, no more super-starring it. This caused the bar to travel too far during from my spot during the workout spending precious time and energy recovering it. There are some technique ares to improve as well with bar path and hip contact during the snatch proton to speed up cycle time and shorten the bar path from a swooping one to a tighter line. Below is my 14.1 redo.

I also need to thank my friend for helping film and motivating me to push through this workout. There are with me every morning at 5:30 and have helped keep me motivated and pushing everyday. I can;t say enough of how much that means to me. 

Saturday February 22nd, 2014

Saturday

Testing Day:  Fran- ALL OUT

Fran was not kind this morning.  I finished around 4:20.  26s slower than my last Fran. The thrusters felt better than my previous Frans, but I was a mess on the pull-ups.  I had no rhythm to them today.  I was unable to generate any momentum today.  I finished the round of 21 at the 1:25 , and it took longer than that for the round of 15.  I wasn't very pleased with this performance this morning.  I didn't seem to have it together for this one.

REST at least 1 hour then:

For time: 80 Wallballs #20, 45 double unders, 6 muscle ups.

This went better than Fran. I finished in 5:12. Split the Wall Balls up into sets of 10 trying to cycle every 20 seconds and then a 10s break.  I finished the wall balls around the 3:45 mark. These felt very solid today.  I failed a couple of times on the DUs.   Coming back to the MUs, I went 3-2-fail-1. Similar to the pull-ups, I didn't feel I was generating anything from my shoulders.  

I did feel a bit off this morning.  Not sure what was going on with things today. i'm hoping that this cough is Fran related and not something coming on for the next few days... the "Open" is less than a week away!

Thursday February 20th, 2014

THURSDAY

A.   15 minutes snatch tech work. 1 power snatch, 2 OHS, 1 hang snatch. Weight to allow for fast under the bar. Speed over load.  

working sets were 75-95-100-105-115-125

The power and OHS felt pretty solid, the hang still feels off. I did hit power snatches at #155 and #165, failed at the #170 attempt, but kissed the bar. The power snatches felt solid. I still need to work on a focus point and not pulling early with arms.

Lactic Endurance

3 Rounds

5 shoulder to overhead #135

7 burpees, AFAP 

9 TTB

I finished in 2:45. This was a tough triplet for me. I didn't seem comfortable on the movements. After the first round, I could not cycle the T2B. I didn't fall into a good rhythm pattern on the STO, weight was not an issue, more of a movement pattern problem.

rest 4:00

3 Rounds

2 Bar Muscle ups

7 KBS - #88

30 double unders

I finished in 2:52. This felt better than I thought it would. The bar muscle up were a bit rougher on rounds two and three. I had a fail early on the last set of DUs.

rest 4:00

30 Squat Cleans, #95

I finished in 3:25. I came apart on these. My form went south after the first 9. i had high hip sand really started to smoke my lower back. I was very rounded and caused myself to dump the bar twice. I'm not real happy about my performance on this portion of today's work. I really need to step back and regain form when movements like this come up. 

January 28th, 2014

TUESDAY

Some days don't go exactly as planned. DUring yesterday's training, I tore a callus on my left hand during the last set of CTB pull-ups. The tear really hindered my grip for today's work.

Power Clean build quickly to a 5RM

I was able to get to #195 on this. I was able to hit 3 reps at #205 before not being able to maintain. I had hoped to go over #200, but I could get a solid grip with the tape covering the rip on my left hand. 

7 sets - focus on maintaining same time across all sets

3 muscle ups, 250m row, 9 WB #30, 50 DU. Rest 2 minutes. Try to hold the same time across all sets.

1 - 2:12, unbroken on the MUs, WBs, 1 miss on the DUs, row stayed in the mid-low 1:30s for 500 split. The #30 med ball was a whole new experience however.

2 - 2:12, another solid round, unbroken on everything this round, similar row. Recovery was slightly longer.

3 - 2:12, solid again, unbroken save for a single miss on the DUs, row ticked up to the high 1:30s recovery slightly longer

4 - 2:53 - missed on 3rd MU, tape come loose on the hand, rower reset and I had to bring up the monitor, stayed unbroken on the WBs and DUs. Row ticked up between high 1:30s and low 1:40s

5 - 2:19 - had a solid round, same split on the rower, unbroken WBs, a miss on the DUs

6 - 2:46 - came apart, singles and a couple of misses on MUs, row was high 1:40s, had a drop on 8th rep on WB, missed once on the DUs, recovery to a bit

7 - 3:41 - lost it again, singles and fails on MUs, 1:50 for the split, unbroken WB, a couple misses on the DUs, very spent after this round.

Looking back, i'm not sure if my grip was the biggest factor, or if it was the wear from the first time doing heavy WBs coupled with MUs and rowing that had the most affect on the failed MUs (which is where this one is made).