Moore and More

Nothing caps off a week at Crossfit better than a hero WOD.  It's a shame we have to do them at all, as they are created in tribute to either a fallen soldier or man/woman of service.  Today I felt like I was going to put up a good showing in tribute to 29-year-old David Moore of Indianapolis, who sadly was shot to death as he approached a pulled-over stolen vehicle this past January.

WOD: "Moore"
Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
Run 400 meters
Max rep Handstand push-up

I've been steadily progressing with handstand pushups, and I was psyched for today because I hadn't run in a while, and it's been some time since I've been able to do a metcon with handstand pushups.

We did the standard sub for a rope climb, which was three two-handed ring pullups.  I lowered the ring just enough to be able to jump into it, as I'm definitely not ready for dead-hang ring pullups yet.  All in due time...the rope climb started the WOD.  We got set up and we were ready to...

3...2...1...Go!  We were out the door and down the stairs in a pack, and as is typically the case my immediate pace out the door found me many steps behind the pack.  I didn't want to gas myself too early, because I wanted to really give the handstand pushups my best effort.  That said I was running pretty much as fast as I can without sprinting...

I came charging back into the box and already had my plates set up against the pole...one 45, one 25 and one 10 pounder.  OK so that only gives me like 3-6 inches of depth, but it's what I need to gain the strength and confidence to develop this exercise.  As it is I'm amazed that I've been able to hold handstands for as long as I have, so any significant amount of reps at this point is a bonus.

I cranked through the first set and felt like I could keep going, but I didn't want to make this WOD like others where I've pushed too far on handstand pushups and almost messed up the workout (and myself in general).  I stopped after 14 reps.

On I went through the next few rounds...feeling great entering round four, as I wanted to at least get four rounds under my belt.  I finished the handstand pushups and we had 30 seconds, so Sara said to run the stairs and try to make it back up.  We heard her yell "Time" as we hit the bottom.

WOD Results: Four Rounds - Handstand Pushup Reps: 14 - 12 - 12 - 10

Wow...48 handstand pushups.  That's no joke.  Sara said it was time to take out the 10-lb plate.  I was pretty psyched.  I felt great to hit another benchmark with an exercise that a lot of people dread.  I kind of love these, so I look forward to getting more depth in the future.

Yet another great week at Crossfit NYC.  See you Monday!

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. :)

Dope on a Rope

OK, so I can only imagine that the day I actually climb a rope...what a glorious day that will be...for now though I scale, and I scale hard...

WOD
Five rounds of:
15' Rope climb, max reps in 3 minutes

Scale to - Grab Rings overhead, start in squat position, jump & touch chest.  3 reps = 1 rope climb rep

Reps
42 - 35 - 33 - 36 - 34

So I imagined myself burning out by the third round, but I was actually able to power through this one OK.  Kevin gave us some amazing stretches to do afterward, which likely save my wrists, forearms, and chest.  He said we likely couldn't tell, but the compression of our chest to get up to the rings was intense, and without the stretch we would feel it hard (I'll likely be feeling it hard no matter what).

Also a great warmup today.  I feel more confident rowing, especially for shorter spurts like 500m.  I average around 1:50 per round, but depending on what else is in the warmup I easily go over 2 minutes (I didn't pay attention to the exact times today).  Here's what we did:
(2 Rounds)

500m row
10 Pushups
10 GHD Situps
10 Hip Extensions
10 Overhead Squats (PVC)
10 Pullups (Scale to Ring Rows)

All in all a decent Monday.  With tomorrow being a rest day I might ask to do one of the previous metcons, as I'm itching to tackle a big one that is way out of my comfort zone.

I need to get some bonus posts in about some amazing things I've been reading, on the web in general, but more specifically in the Crossfit Journal.  If you haven't subscribed yet it will be the best $2 a month you ever plunked down.  More on this soon...so many directions to choose from.  I've been nerding out on this shit hard.

For now...peace...

"Thompson"

Today we did "Thompson", named after David Thompson, a special forces officer killed in Afghanistan back in January.  It was a cool and challenging WOD, and I was happy to give this one my all in officer Thompson's memory, and in the general spirit of getting after it.

10 rounds for time of:
15 ft Rope Climb, 1 ascent
95 pound Back squat, 29 reps
135 pound barbells Farmer carry, 10 meters

I scaled the rope climb by grabbing two rings (pushed together in the center) above my head, then jumping up touching alternate shoulders each rep (x15).  Man that farmer carry can be a serious bitch at the end of three rounds. I'm most comfortable with any kind of squat, so while doing 29 reps of back squats was no joke, I was able to get through those OK.

I don't currently have notes on the exact number of rounds I did, but I remember it being in the 3-4 range.  I hope to find the paper I wrote these on sometime soon.  For now the best I can remember is that I was toast at the end of my last farmer carry, and it would have been dangerous to continue...