Sorta Bear Complex

I don't really know what to call the workout we did today. After some warmups and skill review with Adrian, we did the following.

With one weight and without dropping the bar:
5 deadlifts
5 HPC
5 Push Press
5 Front Squat

95 - 105 - 115 - 125 - 135

I really wish I had jumped a little faster on this. I think I could have done 140. 145 might have been pretty tough. Fun workout though, and it was nice because there was no time component.

Last saturday we did a workout on the minute 3 135Lb powercleans and 3 weighted pullups (for me between no weight and 20 lbs. Like I have said before, I suck balls at weighted pullups.

Walk the walk and Zelen/Helercher

Wow. Simply wow. On Wednesday I pulled a double. First time doing it and it was simply awesome. Especially because the second workout may have been the best/funnest group camaraderie workout I have participated in. Here was the deal:

5 Person team - As a team you need to overhead walk (145lbs in our case) 4 laps to the fire hydrant and back. Only one person can carry at a time and everytime someone drops the bar the team has to do 10 burpees on the first lap, 8 on the second, 6 on the third and 4 on the last. We did exactly 5 rounds of five. My guess is we did about 150ish burpees. This was awesome due to the fact that I thought there was no way that I could walk 145 lbs over my head for more than 2 feet. I probably had my longest walk around 75 yards. Check the pic here.

Today we did a horrible zercher squat amalgamation. Basically it was helen with zerchers:

3 rounds
400 m run
21/15/9 zerchers at 135
12 dead hang pullups.

I did all zerchers unbroken. Mainly because I didn't want to put the damn bar down. Dead hang pullups suck, and I suck at them. This is a giant glaring weakness along with: strength, handstand pushups, and regular pushups. I am going to take a skill each month to try and improve. Deadhangs will be the first one to tackle.

Last Thoughts - I weigh more today than I have in probably 9 or 10 months. I actually think this is a good thing as I believe that most of the 5 lb weight gain has been muscle. I still need to make sure I am pushing the strength envelope, but in general I feel this has been an awesome week of PR's. We will see if I can make it to CF tomorrow morning after James' thing tonight.

Californian's are P%ssies

There I said it. We are freaking p&ssies. Why you ask? Because as soon as it gets to 50 degrees outside we scream bloody murder. I was walking around today where its probably 47-55ish degrees. Everyone is shivering. Like this is the coldest cold spell they have ever experienced. Unfortunately I am no exception.

I mean its like minus 4 in the midwest right now, and we are bitching and moaning because yesterday we had to put on our big jacket. Seriously, when are we as a state going to sack up??

Couple Thoughts

So yesterday in the freezing bitterly cold evening with Kstar, we did an interesting little experiment. Here was the Interval

5 pike pushups
3 Thrusters L/R (each arm with 50lb DB)
2 steps with a push press L/R with 50 lb DB (total 4 step ups.
Rest ~1 Minute

Slowest time 49 seconds, fastest time 33 seconds.

Basically we had to beat our own times each time. The penalty was ten burpees. I failed once, but then it was double or nothing on burpees in the last round. I think we did about 8 rounds. The test involved the fact that under pressure we can perform significantly more work (or in this case faster work) than we can not under pressure. This was a fun little test, even if I was freezing my balls off.

This morning we did the following:
With 50lb Dumbells
5 Deadlifts
5 HPC
5 Push Press
10 pullups
15 Box jumps
13:24

This was not fastest enough. I was totally held up by the pullups. This is completely unacepptable. I never let myself rest more than 5 seconds between exercises. Need to get this down to three seconds. Also, I needed to do the work completely unbroken. Next time.

Tonight is another fun WOD by Kelly. I think my plan is to destroy myself this week. Awesome!!

Dale Carnegie

As I all know (no "we" because I am probably the only person who reads this blog) I really enjoy my Dale Carnegie classes. This is the first time that I have been a graduate assistant, and its been great. Its actually quite a bit tougher than I originally thought it would be, but I have loved the challenge of getting up in front of the group more and more.

The difficulty that I have has been less in the speeches, but more in the various interlude things we do. This includes opening a class, preparing to lead groups, etc... I really want to be a DC instructor and the fastest way to get there is to get up in front of the class and become more natural. In the class last night I felt that I really did that. It was the first time I was comfortable. No flubs in the speech, but I do need to bring quite a bit more energy to the table. Next time....

Working out in the hail!!

Today it hailed. When I was crossfitting outside. I think that might be a first. It always amazes me just how many people show up to the 6am class even though its freezing outside (or hailing). Then again, I always end up showing up.

Workout - Ladder progression (i.e. 1st minute 1 rep, 2nd minute 2 reps - 15 minutes 15 reps).
Burpees and 50lb DB thrusters. If you can't finish then reset.

So I did up to round 6 (missing one of the thrusters) - then up to round 4 then up to round 5 again, missing the last two thrusters.

Total reps: 51 burpees, 47 thrusters.

This was absolutely brutal. First time doing 50 lb dumbell thrusters. That shit is significantly more difficult than the 45's. It requires way more stability. One thing I noticed is that I really need to work on midline stability. Its lacking and its going to flare up one of these days if I don't do anything about it.

Deeper Thoughts -

I am now in a period where I feel like I need to challenge myself on every occasion. I really enjoyed the fact that this was really difficult. Not from a lungs perspective, but from a strength perspective. I still need to focus more and more on strength, but hey this is definitely a start.

Jackie

Today was Jackie - 1000m row, 50 45lb barbell thrusters and 30 pullups - 8:33.

This was a great little workout. I had done this maybe 6 months ago with jumping pullups for about the same time. It was about when I first learned how to do pullups. Now that I am more than a year in it was good to get them all done. In my estimation I should be able to do this workout about a minute to a minute and a half faster. I could maybe take 10 seconds off the row and 20-30 seconds off the thrusters (btw did them without setting the bar down, but not unbroken). The pullups were the limiting factor. I came into pullups at about the 5:30 -6 minute mark and they took 2.5 minutes. Way to long. Next time I will get them in less than 2 minutes to bring my time in around 8 or less.

So I am skipping work today. Its not too often that I really skip work, so I am not sure how I feel about it. I am still not sure what I am looking for in a career right now, but either way, I feel that I need to decide if I am sticking it out with my job. The trouble seems to be that I don't really have anything else lined up. Lucky for me I always seem to be able to pull something through exactly when I need it.

On another note, I was having a discussion with a fellow Dale Carnegie participant this last week. I realized a couple things during that discussion. First, I realized that I am really missing a challenge in my professional life right now. I think that is part of the reason that I am embarking on this journey to be a speaker for Dale Carnegie. I really want to teach, and I feel that this is a good outlet for that. On top of that I realized just what I love about Crossfit. Its a challenge!! A real honest to goodness challenge. I need that in my life to continue my own personal growth. Its good to know this, now what to do with it....