Reis Baron - Athlete

OK so lets chat for a second about this.  There's a web site on this planet that actually refers to me as an athlete. Fine so it says that about anyone who ponies up the 10 bucks to register, but we need to contemplate how historical it is for me to enter ANYTHING as an athlete.  Not since little league could it remotely have been said without it being some sort of joke.

Well here I am world!! I'm Reis Baron and I'm registered for the 2011 Crossfit Games.  Do I expect to end up in Carson at the Home Depot Center this summer?  Not at all...but at the encouragement of Crossfit NYC I'll be representing my affiliate team each week for the next couple of months, as I'm judged on weekly workouts and my times are submitted for regional rankings.   Each week the top three results for each affiliate counts towards our score in the "Affiliate Cup".  The top affiliates nationwide will compete at the Games.

So today's WOD was the first competition workout.  I must've refreshed the Games website 50 times before finally going to bed after midnight.  I woke up at my usual time of 4:00 to discover that it was just about as bad as you could imagine.

CrossFit Games Open 11.1
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 10 minutes of:
30 Double-unders
15 Power snatches
The Power snatch loads are as follows:
Men and Masters Men 45-49, 50-54: 75lbs/35kg
Women and Masters Women 45-54: 55lbs/25kg
Masters Men 55-59, 60+: 65lbs/30kg
Masters Women 55-59, 60+: 45lbs/20kg

Doubleunders and snatches.  It's like Crossfiit HQ had a meeting and said "Oh...Reis is competing?! Well, let's make sure this one is extra shitty with a side of 'fuck you'."  But hey, who was I to complain?  After all I'm an athlete, right?

Sara paired up with me, which at first and afterward was a great idea, but during the workout it would prove to shave me down to the remnants of my soul.  I subbed tuck jumps for double-unders and since we were able to sub clean & jerks for the snatches I sensed that I would switch to those pretty early in the game.  As it turned out I didn't realize how right I was...

3...2...1...GO!  I was off and, uh, jumping!  Man are those damn jumps tough.  I could feel my quads slamming into the ground with every rep.  When time came to pick up the bar I knew I would only crank out a couple of snatches before switching, and on rep 3 I did exactly that.  13 clean & jerks later, with Sara's encouragement, I was off to round 2.  Somehow I finished that round, doing 5 jumps at a time and only a couple of clean & jerks at a time.  It was the 3rd round where it started to get real interesting.  I remember at some point Sara announced that there were 4 minutes left and I was in sheer agony, literally capable of crying at any second knowing that we were only 60% done.  I was in so much pain and there was so much to go.  Sara all but pulled every rep out of me in the 3rd round.  It was insane.  I was completely cooked, and somehow I found these pockets of energy and kept jumping, and getting ahold of the bar.  Before I knew it three round were done and I somehow cranked out 11 more jumps.  With 3 seconds left I hit the ground, completely finished and spent beyond any level of exhaustion I've experienced at Crossfit yet.  It was fucking BRUTAL.  Worst.  WOD.  EVER.

ever.

See you tomorrow... :)

Fun with Ladders

BLACK BOX WOD

(current skill: the press)
5 ladders with a kettlebell, a dumbbell, or a barbell with your 10-rep max.

Press 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 (left & right if kettlebell or dumbbell) x 5. Set down to rest between each “rung”. (Rest the amount of time it took you to do the work.)
Focus on form.

Today was a main site rest day, so the Black Box came up with a cool skill WOD for the shoulder press.  I had never done ladders before, nor have I done shoulder presses in quite a while, so I was happy throwing 95 lbs. together and staying at that weight throughout.  I could have pushed it but when you take my legs out of the equation it's tough to add much weight to any situation comfortably.

Jacinto, our 72-year-old Crossfit super hero, came over and saved my ass by helping me to bring my grip in closer.  This allowed me to get multiple reps up a lot easier without crushing my shoulders.  MUCH better...thanks man!

A fellow CFer who took a month off came back today and remarked to Sara how much progress I was making.  I turned around after I was done with the second round, and it looked like Sara was laughing at me.  I asked her what she was laughing at and she said she was just so proud of me.  A coworker of mine came back to the office from a month off and said she was blown away at my progress, and my boss saw me in the kitchen the other day and said she didn't know if it's just that she had only seen me while sitting at my desk recently, but she said I looked incredible.  Seems like everything is working out very well.  I'll just keep plugging away...

A Casual Monday with The Jerk

WOD
Behind the neck Jerk 1-1-1-1-1-1-1

Not much to say about today's WOD, except we would have been able to get a lot more weight happening if we didn't have to drop the bar back on our shoulders after we jerked the weight up.  One of the few downsides to the Blck Box being on the third floor is that we can't drop the bar after we lift overhead...a small minus, but definitely annoying when you see example videos of the exercise where people can drop the bar with no problem.

I don't have my notes, but I topped out at 155, knowing if we dropped I could have gotten closer to 200, but my shoulders were getting crushed every time I had to lower the bar back down to my shoulders.

It's always good to have Kevin P. coaching when we do lifting days like this, because he's an award-winning olympic lifter and he's always very precise on form for exercises like these.

An OK day...a little frustrating, but a hell of a lot better than sleeping :).

Over and Over and Over the Bar...

I didn't even realize today was my fourth day at Crossfit this week.  I guess mostly that's because we started out the week with a skill day.  Those aren't too taxing on the body the way a metcon or heavy lifting day is, so I had no reservations about coming in and attempting this one:

WOD

Self-Portrait

With a continuously running clock do one pull-up the first minute, two pull-ups the second minute, three pull-ups the third minute... continuing as long as you are able. Use as many sets each minute as needed.

Fun stuff...I did four rounds of the warmup, which was day one of Sara's two gymnastics warmups:

Kick up to a handstand (x3)
Frog Stand (10 secs)
Tuck L Hang (10 secs)
10 Kettle Bell Swings (16 kg)

Since I've had little problem getting into the handstand, I've been doing 5 reps of handstand pushups instead of just kicking up into the handstand.  I haven't explored much depth, as I keep three abmats stacked on top of each other under my head so I only come down a couple of inches for each rep.  Over time I'll take out the pads progressively, but I'm in no rush...

3...2...1...Go!  We started with one pullup (I used my typical 1.5 thick bands) and, as I'm sure is typical, people were laughing and making light of the fact that there was a minute rest after that.  But the minutes went by quick and one became two, two became three, and before I knew it I was eight minutes in, hoping to get through the round of nine.  I was breaking up all post-5 minute rounds into the first 5, then whatever was left.  It was a decent strategy, but skill (or lack thereof) caught up with me and I found myself one pullup into the 10th round and I was cooked.

So we're watching and encouraging as some of the more impressive CF'ers got into rounds 12, 13, 14, and I think one of them got close to 15 but alas we were all done after that, when all of a sudden Sara says:

"OK...same thing, but Burpees..."

I joked that I could be there all day doing burpees, but I petered out just before the round of 9.  That was a great audible from Sara...I don't think the class before us did that extra workout, and it was cool to get in an extra sweat while we still had time left.

A fun, solid WOD, and happily my last one of the week.  Time for some much-needed rest and relaxation.  Looks like only one WOD next week before the next rest day, so let's hope I come back to something serious.  Either way I'll be there, and that's what counts most of all...

Peace...

Dude...Bro...What do you bench?

Today was the first time I've bench-pressed since I was 16.  I saw it come up on the WOD and I had to laugh.  I was loving the scheme of the WOD, even though it didn't quite turn out as RX'ed:

Complete as many rounds as possible in 12 minutes of:
185 pound Bench press, 3 reps
225 pound Back squat, 5 reps

Because of limited hardware Sara decided that we should scrap the AMRAP and do seven rounds, not for time.  I was fine with that because I was much more into getting myself set on the back squats instead of rushing my way through them to try and get as many rounds as possible.  I settled on starting out at 135 on the bench and 185 on the back squat.  Since my quads were burning from yesterday's sprints I decided to low-bar the back squats, which uses glutes and hamstrings far more than quads.  This is what ultimately saved me.  If we had to high-bar like last week's back squat WOD I would have been in some serious trouble.

Here's what ended up happening:

Warmup: 25 pullups - 40 kettle bell swings (light - 16kg) - 3 tuck "L" hangs

Back Squats (5 reps)
185 (2 rounds)
205 (3 rounds)
225 (2 rounds)

Bench Press (3 reps)
135 (1 round)
155 (6 rounds)

I'm excited for the next skill day that focuses on the back squat.  I really feel like by the time we work on 1-rep max loads I'll be able to push into 300+ without a problem...I guess we'll wait and see, and depending on the day I might not be in a space to come close to that, but I'll definitely try.

The bench press sets were fine...pretty uneventful.  Knowing how infrequently this exercise comes up in WODs it was more of an experiment than anything.  I could have gone higher than 155 but I felt no reason to push it.

Fun WOD...more tomorrow!

Sprints in the Park

Not Reis

On what I hope to be the final outdoor WOD of Winter 2010-2011, (it was 27 degrees out...ouch!), we jogged over to Madison Square Park to sprint for today's WOD:

Ten rounds, each for time of:
100 meter Sprint
Rest 90 seconds

I commented on the Crossfit NYC site that the only time I've sprinted in my life was when they were reloading the tuna sashimi at the all-you-can-eat place near my house on an aggressive Friday night.  So without a reference point, I'm not sure how the below times stack up.  But I do know that my results were perfect for remembering in the absence of a pen and paper to record my times.

:29 - :28 - :27 - :26 - :25 - :24 - :25 - :25 - :26 - :25

I felt my quads thumping towards the end of the day, so I knew some serious pain was on the horizon.  But it felt great, and it was definitely a true Metcon in every way.  VERY tough but felt great to put up fairly consistent times even in the latter half of the workout.

Crazy as it seems I look forward to sprinting WODs again in the future.

Snatch Encore

Well it seems the Black Box is on a mission to improve our ability to do the snatch.  Here we are with like the third skill day in a week dedicated to this exercise.

WOD
Perform 5 sets of the following:
3 reps of hang power snatch followed by 3 reps of overhead squat

Kevin went through the Bergener Warmup again, which I get more out of every time, as I'm trying to remember the positions in these lifts, which are the essence of the exercise.  When I started Crossfit I was so obsessed with getting more weight on the bar that I lost sight of what's important.  There really is a beauty to these movements when they are done properly, so I looked at this as an opportuntity to fine tune even more than last week.  Metcons can be a lot sexier than skill days for the snatch, but I believe the combination of the explosiveness of the exercise, mixed with the proper form, can only help metcon performance over time.

I would post loads, but they were minimal at best...starting with the bar alone, then increments of 5 and 10 lbs at a time after that.  My overhead squats were strong, and despite still being in pain from Friday's squat-fest I was able to get some decent depth in my squats.

A fairly uneventful day from a blog perspective, but anything that helps fine-tune my Crossfit performace is OK by me.

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...

The Week of the Snatch Continues

This is what I posted on the Black Box WOD comments:

Skill Day for the Snatch

Round 1: Horrible Snatches
35 – 35 – 35 – 65

Round 2: OK Snatches
65 – 65 – 65

Round 3: Good Snatches
85 – 85

I’m excited that I hit a PR in my horrible snatch. Other than that it was a fairly uneventful day.
(end quote)

Sara was a lot more excited about my form than I was.  It's tough to really get a command of this exercise.  I think I need to build more strength in my lats before I can really get explosive movement upward.  Before I consider higher weight I need to just focus on form when this one comes around.  I like how it keeps you thinking about all of the proper positions in the progression of olympic lifts (as outlined by coach Bergener), but other than that I just think I need a lot more experience before I'm feeling good about it.

Either way, a productive day, even if it didn't level me like a lot of the others do.

One for "Mick"

Some days things just come together.  A lot of the time you could say I'm kind of "chasing it" energy wise during Crossfit workouts.  I feel like I do well, and much better than when I started.  But in general there comes a time in many WODs where I hit the wall and it takes everything I have to push through and get it done.  There's no mystery there...I still have a long way to go before I would say I'm fit, and my sleep during the week is horrendous.  So once in a while when I crush a workout it feels damn spectacular...ESPECIALLY when it's a WOD of this magnitude.  Today was no fuckin joke, and I surprised even myself when I had some breakthroughs along the way.

WOD - "McCluskey"
Three rounds of:
9 Muscle-ups
15 Burpee pull-ups
21 Pull-ups
Run 800 meters

This was a "Hero WOD" - one that is named after a soldier who died defending our country.  This one was for Jason "Mick" McCluskey of Oklahoma who sadly died at the age of 26 in Afghanistan.  I think of where I was at 26...I hadn't even met my wife yet...so much of my life hadn't started yet.  At 38 I have a lot to be thankful for, so I was happy to lay it all on the table for Mr. McCluskey one time.

The scaling for this one was pretty cool.  Sara had us grab a pair of 35-lb dumbbells.  For muscle ups we did a pushup while holding the dumbbells, then at the top of the pushup we did a dumbbell row with each arm.  For burpee pullups I did a burpee then jumped up on a box and did a jumping pullup.  The regular pullups I did with 1.3 thick bands (the .5 was being used so I sucked it up and used a smaller one for my second one)

When you look at this WOD it's pretty crushing.  I love the 21-15-9 rep scheme, and it's very cool how they reverse it here...but adding the run is sadism at its finest.  Being the massochist that I am this one had my name all over it.

3...2...1...Go! I got a solid pace going and purposely didn't go to failure on the first round of pullups.  I broke it up into 6-5-5-5 and it went pretty smoothly.  The huge surprise came during the first run.  I ran out to 6th Ave, kept a steady pace, and by the time I rounded 24th St I realized that I didn't need to stop and walk...I just kept running...and running...until holy shit I rounded back onto 26th and finished the first run UNBROKEN.  How sick is that?  I've never run more than a block at a time in my entire life! I was sizzling on adrenaline and cruised through the second round, that is until the pullups.  By the second half of the set I was doing 1-2 at a time, but I got it done and out I went for run #2.  BOOM!  Unbroken again...what the hell was happening?  What an incredible feeling to run this consistently for this long...I sailed back in after the run and kept plugging away.  I could tell this one was running long, but if the firebreathers were putting up times of 25+ minutes I knew I was going to clock in at about an hour, which was fine with me...as long as I finished.  Somehow I got through the pullups again and I raced toward the door.  Then a pretty crazy thing happened...

...Wayne is the coolest of the cool.  An elder gentleman who started Crossfitting a couple months back.  We've had some pleasant exchanges about the challenge of Crossfit and we've seen each other at the Black Box many times, as we both come several times a week.  Anyway Wayne had finished the WOD already, but as I passed him to head down the stairs he said "I think I'll come along for this round."  I couldn't believe it.  He was DONE.  Something about my taking forever on these WODs possesses people to do extra rounds.  I don't know who is more demented...but obviously I was flattered that Wayne gave THAT much of a shit about me to join me for the final run.  As it turned out my pace was so rocking that he easily walked beside me as I ran, but hey I RAN, and once again...UNBROKEN!

WOD Time - 54:21

The encouragement, feedback, and general comaraderie at the gym has been humbling to say the least.  I'm having a blast with Crossfit...and there's no doubt a lot of the above has to do as much with my progress as any physical gains I've had.  This is turning out to be quite the life experience.

I don't know how well I honored McCluskey's memory, but I'm satisfied that if I had the chance to meet him I'd be honest when I say I gave this one absolutely everything, and it gave me back even more.