16 Minutes of Glory

What an AMAZING feeling putting up a sub-20-minute time for a WOD where I RX'ed the weight (i.e. lifted using the prescribed men's weight...no scaling, for the lift anyway). I've never done it before, but I'm starting to feel like I'm going to start doing so more regularly. I think my consistency is really paying off in droves, and I'm confident in my ability to lift heavy with good form (in most cases...at least for the first 5 reps or so ;).

Warmup: 20 pullups, 30 kettlebell swings

WOD - Five rounds for time of:
135 pound Back squat, 20 reps
Handstand walk 20 yards

Sara went through the class one by one and asked what weight people maxed on their last back squat. I reminded her that she basically laughed at me after I put up 245 x3 and she felt like it looked like a warmup set. So she said to go for 135 and I was quick to get set up. We also discussed the handstand walk, which obviously I had to scale (seems most people do).  So we tried a "wall walk" where I started in pushup position with my feet against a pole, and I tried to walk backwards until I was flush with the pole, but I lost it each time I tried.  So she said since I've been dying to do handstand pushups in a WOD, she prescribed 7 of them per round after each set of back squats.

Something interesting about the back squats was that Sara prescribed a high-bar back squat.  This confused me because last week we went over how crucial the low-bar position was to back squatting, to emphasize the use of the posterior chain vs the quads.  She said high bar back squats might as well be front squats, as they use the same muscles.  But apparently because of the volume of back squats she still maintained it was best to do high-bar, as she said low-bar would shred our shoulders, which would destroy our ability to do the other parts of the WOD.  I was nobody to argue, as I needed every edge I could get to make this one happen.

3...2...1...Go!  I did the first set of back squats unbroken, and had little trouble doing the handstand pushups, especially because I placed three abmats on the floor under where my head comes down to minimize the depth (I'm still very green on this exercise and there's no reason to push it yet).  Each back squat set after that was broken up into mini-rounds of 10.  I did the last one as 11 & 9, a tip I picked up from one of the regulars, and what a difference it made in getting the second part of the set done.  I'll remember that for future WODs...something happens psychologically that gets you through the remaining reps so much quicker when you have a single digit of reps left...Before I knew it I was done.

WOD Time - 16:00

I turned around and two people weren't done yet.  I was so psyched to encourage other people for a change.  Sara made sure I absorbed the moment. "You did 100 back squats and 35 handstand pushups in 16 minutes...SIXTEEN MINUTES".  I froze as I contemplated what a milestone this was.  I'm really feeling like this past week has been a massive breakthrough for my fitness.  I'm wearing smaller pants yet again, I owned the back squats last Friday and today, did the unbroken runs on Tuesday...what an incredibly productive week!

I look forward to rest and stretching galore this weekend.  Other than that, you may see some diet-related posts.  Otherwise, see you after the next WOD 8-).

Peace...