The Front Squat - Reunited and it Feels so...

Monday rest days simply kick ass.  Ease into the week after a weekend of recovery with some strength coaching from Kevin P.  Solid.

BLACK BOX WOD (current skill: front squat):
front squat 5-5-5-5-5

Today I reunited with the front squat for the first time on a strength day since February.  Back then I did triples and got to 200 lbs.  Today was sets of five, so I treated this like uncharted territory, not knowing or expecting where I would go with this amount of reps.  Sure I've had months of training, but every strength day is different, so I was happy to just get something on the bar and lift without expectations.

Warmup – 45×5 – 65×3 – 95×3 – 145×3

I felt pretty damn good once I got some decent weight on the bar, so I figured I would just go for it and hope for the best.  I felt like it wasn't out of the realm of possibility to hit my 3-rep max PR on my first WOD with sets of 5.  Here's how it went:

WOD (sets of 5) 145 – 165 – 175 – 185 – 200*

Fail on #5 at 200, but that was essentially the goal...reach your max set of 5, and getting four solid reps was good enough for me at 200 lbs.  I think honestly once my shoulders get more comfortable in the rack position I'll be able to really get into front squats more.  But I can't expect them to be as productive as back squats, so I feel pretty good about where I'm at.

Ready for tomorrow...

Woulda, Coulda, Shoulda...

Today's WOD was posted as a 10K run.  Even if I was capable of running a 10K in a reasonable amount of time, I wouldn't have the time to do this before work.  So I rolled the dice on coming into Crossfit, hoping Kevin would allow me to do yesterday's WOD:

WOD - For time:

135 pound Front squat, 10 reps
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
135 pound Front squat, 9 reps
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
135 pound Front squat, 8 reps
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
135 pound Front squat, 7 reps
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
135 pound Front squat, 6 reps
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
135 pound Front squat, 5 reps
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
135 pound Front squat, 4 reps
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
135 pound Front squat, 3 reps
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
135 pound Front squat, 2 reps
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
135 pound Front squat, 1 rep
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent

Fun looking WOD!  I wasn't anticipating much resistance from Kevin, and I was excited to see one of my CF buddies Reda already doing that WOD as I walked in the door.  Kevin said it was no problem to do it, so I went ahead and got set up.  I was very confident I could RX the weight, as I did the 100 back squat WOD a few weeks back, and did that one in the high-bar position. Sara says that makes it basically the same exercise as a front squat, as you employ your quads a lot more than your posterior chain with the high-bar.

But anyway Kevin said the rope climb, which we scaled to four jumping pulls on the rings (touching chest each rep) would take a lot out of me between squat sets, so I reluctantly heeded his suggestion to do 115 lbs instead.  I knew I would be more than comfortable with 135, but I never want to pretend I know more than the trainer, as this is never true.  Though while I'm confident about very little in Crossfit, I'm confident that I can squat heavy, and I've proven that I can do a lot of reps at 50% of my PR 1-Rep Max weight. I don't fault Kevin for not knowing that, as Sara has much more of a handle on my history with these types of WODs. Needless to say I put the 115 on the bar and got ready to hit it.  There were around five other people who showed up...as I told Kevin, nothing silences a Crossfit box more than a 10K run...Kevin programmed a sick WOD for the other people with double-unders, sumo deadlift high-pulls and chinups.  "Good luck to them" I thought...though I probably needed that WOD more, I was now even happier to be doing yesterday's. We did a warmup that included shoulder dislocates, ring rows, and back extensions.  After that we were ready to hit it...

3...2...1...Go!  I got a great pace going right off the bat.  With the descending rep scheme I didn't hold back much on the squat sets, all of which were unbroken.  The ring pulls weren't bad, but by the fifth set I saw what Kevin meant, even though I still felt I could easily have handled that 135.  I heard Kevin calling out the time and I really felt I had a good shot at putting up a sub-10-minute time for the first time since Fran.  But this would not come to pass, as I hesitated one too many times, and damnit did I really need that drink of water going into the 8th set?

WOD Time: 10:10

I'm nobody to complain when I put up a 10-minute time for any WOD.  But it's further evidence that moving forward I'll be able to hold my own with RX'ed weight on WODs with squats.  I would have been happy putting up 12+ mins but lifting 135, but better safe than sorry I guess, and I got a decent sweat going to kick off the week.  Mission accomplished. :)

Front Squat Friday

Not Reis

What a cool, mellow morning today at The Black Box. Not a lot of people, and plenty of space to get your warmup on, and get into some serious front squats.  It's another rest day for the CF Main Site so as usual NYC has a skill day.  Our skill for the day?  The front squat.

WOD
Front Squats (Seven rounds of three)
3 3 3 3 3 3 3

My most recent session with rounds of three front squats yielded a PR of 185 lbs.  I was definitely looking to break that record today, as I've been getting more comfortable pushing the weight higher.

Warmup
Handstands (x3) (I attempted some handstand pushups with three stacked abmats to support my head.  Sara said from now on when the warmup calls for handstand attempts I should do hree handstand pushups with the abmats)
Pushups (10)

Elbow Stretch (30 seconds) x2 (we got in rack position under the bar and just stretched our elbows forward and up, to try and loosen up for the front squats).

Front Squats
Warmup Sets:  10 x 95 - 5 x 115

WOD:  135 - 155 - 175 - 185 - 185 - 195 - 200 (3-rep max PR)

Wow...that was some weight for sure!!  I feel great getting into the zone where I can really start establishing my benchmarks with the lifting exercises.

I was able to fit into the 3X Crossfit shirt I bought from the main site last month.  When I got it in the mail I laughed because I'm a comfortable 3X across most brands, and this thing barely fit over my chest and not at all around my belly.  SIZING FAIL!  Either way I decided to try it on last night and BOOM...IT FITS!  So I sported it at the gym today.

Feelin great, hittin PRs, setting new benchmarks...a great week all around!

I think I'll get into some more diet stuff over the weekend.  It's such a big part of my daily life and I feel most of my posts have been CF-centric as of late.  Expect some of that soon.

Thanks again for checkin out the blog!  Enjoy your weekend...

Peace...

Frontin' Some Weight

Today was a skill day for the Front Squat.  I remember going over this exercise in Elements class, but I haven't done them as part of a WOD.  I had no past performance to go by, so I figured I'd start light and see what happens.  Knowing that squats and lower body stuff in general is one of my stronger areas, I looked forward to
getting the weight up there (if the form didn't cause any pain like it did unexpectedly for the last Back Squat WOD).

Warmup:
30 jumping jacks
25 lunges (in place, alternating legs)
leg & wrist stretches
20 PVC shoulder dislocates (est.)

95 lbs. x 6 (getting my feet wet before setting my first weight)

WOD (RX'ed as "Front Squats:  3 -3 -3 -3 -3"):

115 - 135 - 145 - 165 - 185

Once again I feel like I left a little weight on the table.  But I felt great holding my form once I got up to 185.  I need to work on shoulder flexibility so I can get (and keep) my elbows obscenely up during the squat.

I cashed out with 30 jumping ring dips, which were going well until I finished and I noticed that my forearms were scraped up pretty good from the straps holding the rings...I need to figure out something to guard against this next time...maybe a couple of those leather spiked forearm guards that the guy from Judas Priest wears...

Feelin great!