Leg Day

How many squats can you do? There were about 200 squats hidden in todays WOD. See if you can find the hidden squats. Oh, I did get to the box and changed in time to do most of my Intu-flow warm up prior to the official start up.

3rds
5 med ball cleans
5 box jumps
10 jing jangs

Strength
Back Squat
Week 2
Refer to your chart

Metcon
5 rounds of:
20 squats
10 burpees
5  powerclean 155/95

Finisher
100 knee tap crunch
Stretch

The back squat strength work was 3x3x200#,230#,260#. The last set was supposed to be max reps but my back kinda cracked in a weird way so I stopped. My legs probably were up for several more reps but I decided to play it safe.

I had loaded up my bar with 135# for the Metcon and was contemplating doing the Rx 155# but Ty suggested I use 115#. Great suggestion, that was plenty heavy enough as I haven't been doing power cleans. I never would have made it through with the heavier weight.

I made it through the 100 knee tap crunches in sets of 10 with just a pause to catch my breath a little. No extended breaks. No major cramping of the abs this time. I didn't really stretch out. I just wanted to get home to a shower, food and ICE for my back. Oh, I also spent a little time on my inversion table, too.

Squats Again I Love Squats

I barely got to the box in time to change clothes let alone in time to do my extra warm up before the workout started.

Start up
3rds
Walking heel grab
20 jax
200m run

Strength(20 mins)
Back Squat
Work up to 1rm

W.O.D
2RFT
20 squats(use med ball for depth)
20 chest to bar pull ups
200m run

Finisher
1 min couch stretch per side
1 min hip opener per side
1 min single,arm parallel per side
1 min max rep sit ups with anchor/partner

Observations from the start up. My legs and shoulders are really tight. I could barely grab my ankles, couldn't get the heel. I need to work on flexibility and suppleness. Running still sucks. The first 200M hurt my knee, the sharp stabbing pain again where I had surgery. I think I really need to do more warm up before running because it didn't hurt on the subsequent 200M runs.

Hooray for squats! We had 20 minutes to work up to a 1 rep maximum. I got 315 pounds! I haven't squatted weight since I lived in Chattanooga, TN 15+ years ago! And I did it without a belt. Those young whippersnappers in the gym better watch out! As long as I stay healthy I'm pretty sure I can catch them on squats and deadlifts.

The WOD was OK. Even after doing the max rep squat I was able to do the first set of 20 air squats down to a med ball unbroken. I had to do jumping chest to bar pullups I think I got through them in sets of 5. I made the it through the first 200M w/o walking! Yay! Second round I had to break my squats down into sets of 5, same for the chest2bar except I got stuck at 14 reps and had to do 3 then 3 more to get 20. I walked for about 20 or 30 steps in the middle of the second 200 but someone yelled "Come on Charles!" and I was able to rev up from my lumber to a real run for the last 75-80M!

The finisher was all good but for the 1 minute of situps. My core has always been a weak spot all the way back to my days of doing Kung Fu at Yale with Sifu Miles Brody. I only got 18 situps and my abs cramped up something fierce. No time for any extra cool down stuff today. It was closing time. I really need to get to the 0530 class or the 1715 class instead of 1815.

Finally a WOD I Felt Good About

I was stiff and sore this morning. Every time I got up from my desk at work I had to loosen up. After lunch I went outside and stretched my hips by lying back on the wall in front of the building and allowing first one leg then the other to hang free. I could really tell the difference when I got up and walked around the parking lot. I got to Distinct Crossfit in time to do my normal Intu-Flow warm-up routine and a little extra shoulder mobility but not much.

Start up
1 min hamstring stretch per
1 min Calf stretch/smash per
Otm 6
5/10/15 suicide

W.O.D
Amrap 9
7 Med ball clean 20/14 (RX2 16/12)
7 Push press 105/65 (RX2 95/55)

Strength
Box squat(set box height to parallel)
5x2 climb

Finisher
2 rds
10 side plank punch through
10 scap push ups
10 cuff iso

So I was the slowest one on the suicides. I was also the oldest one in the class. I still averaged 20 seconds on each round. Not to shabby. Coach Derrick predicted I would be in the 20-25 second range, so yay me for doing it at the bottom end of his prediction!

The med ball cleans were hard. It wasn't so much the weight, especially since Derrick had me doing the 12# on the cleans and only 55# on the presses. It was the squatting for reps as my thighs were already sore. Even more was the cardiovascular fitness required. The push presses were just easy. I should have used more weight on both. I'll know better next time. I finished 6 rounds plus 7 reps of med ball cleans.

After a brief rest we were on to the 5x2 box squats, pyramiding up in weight. This was my zone when I was a younger man. I loved squats and deadlifts.

I wanted legs like Tom Platz when I was a teen ager. I didn't make it but damn I trained legs hard.

I think today was the first time I have squatted with weights since I tore my right glute and started having back problems way back in 1997 or 1998. I pretty much gave up lifting weights for years after that. I thought I would never be able to lift heavy again and just didn't want to do light stuff.

I wasn't super heavy today: 2 reps at 115, 2 reps at 165, 2 reps at 185, 2 reps at 235, 2 reps at 255! Just under my super fat body weight of 265. It just felt GOOD!

I only did one round of the Finisher. I didn't realize I was supposed to do two rounds. Plus it was late. I went to the 1815 class today instead of the 1715 class. I also had to leave to drive out to Furman to pick up my son Isaiah from lacrosse camp. That also meant I didn't do my usual Prasara Yoga cool down either. Oh well. I'll do more stretching and mobility work tomorrow to make up for it.
P.S. I got over 10K steps, too!

24 Minutes of Hell

Yesterday I did my first official Crossfit workout at Distinct Crossfit. It was a cool rainy afternoon. The coolness was great, the humidity not so much. I listened to some rock music at high volume in my truck on the way to get pumped up. I got there so early prior to the 1715 class that I sat in the parking lot for a while and watched about half of the original Nasty Girls video, which was the first Crossfit video I remember seeing online. I got there early to sign any required papers.

Even with that I was still way early! I spent about 15-20 minutes warming up before the WOD started.

Intu-Flow Warm Up and extra shoulder and hip work: 16 minutes.

The WOD

Start up
1 min of each 30s per side on stretches
Couch stretch
Hamstring stretch
Hip opener

W.O.D
3 rds
40/20
Agility ladder
Ball jax
Rope slams
Box hop overs
Ball slams
Tire sledge
Cone runs/shuttle
Farmers carry

Rotate stations. Cycle through 3 times.

Finisher
Stretch and roll

Prasara Yoga Cool Down: 16 minutes

I'll leave it to the reader to look up the exercises in the WOD. We did three rounds of the eight exercises. We performed each exercise for 40 seconds and rested 20 seconds during which we moved to the next station. This doesn't look to hard but trust me it is. Midway through the second round I felt on the verge of throwing up. Luckily I recognized it and throttled back and kept myself just under that vomit level of intensity. This probably had more to do with my general lack of conditioning than anything else.

And guess what? The box owner and head trainer said that this was a "recovery-type" workout! Man, a full bore high intensity and/or heavy weight workout will be MURDER! Anyway, I did my normal Prasara Yoga cool down after it was done. I felt energized once it was all over and I had downed a good quantity of water.

Once I got home and had a shower the tiredness hit me. I wanted to just sleep but I had to go pick up my youngest son from TKD class. After that I had dinner and headed to the quiet living room for a nap before getting up to perform server maintenance starting at midnight for my job. I'm now in the middle of updating firmware on two HP Blades prior to upgrading VMware ESXi to 5.1U2 on those same two blades.