Headstand 101
Post what you worked on to comments.
__________________
Every Minute on the Minute, 10 Minutes:
Even: 12 V-Ups
Odd: 12 Superman (butt tight, belly tight)
Post what you worked on to comments.
Benson and Vesper hung out on Saturday to watch everyone crush 15.5. Congrats to everyone who competed in the Open! Don’t forget to submit your final scores for 15.5 by 8pm tonight.
News and Notes
- CFSBK’s Hoopin’ Tacos finished their season 12-2, and the play-offs are TONIGHT. They are playing the Stevie Knicks at 6:30pm at John Jay (on 7th Ave between 4th and 5th). Come cheer them on!
- Join us in saying WELCOME to Back-Off Week. It starts today. Our new cycle starts next Monday, April 6th.
- Happy birthday, Jon W. and Jacqueline D.!
The Sweat Spot: Balancing Precision and Intensity for Maximum Gainz
By Noah Abbott
At CFSBK, we always tell people that from their first day of Foundations through the first month or two of group classes, their loading, pacing, and intensity should be at roughly 60-70%. Things should feel easy and athletes should leave each class feeling like they had more in the tank. This is incredibly important advice—your first few months and few thousand reps are crucial for motor patterning. Your body learns the positions and pathways you move through, and if you are assuming imperfect positions or moving inefficiently from point A to B, you will gradually condition yourself to keep repeating those patterns. You can always go back and re-learn these patterns, and to some extent they evolve over time, but starting with great positioning is key to continuing to move well as weights go up and intensity increases.
That covers the first few months, and most of our members are great at following that advice. Everything still feels a little foreign and clunky, so people are happy to stay well within safe and proper parameters while they slowly gain confidence and familiarity with the movements. However, after the first few months, many people struggle to find the proper balance between precision and intensity as they begin to develop as an athlete. Often people fall toward one of two extremes, both of which blunt performance and progress. Either they want to do everything as fast, heavy, and hard as possible, or they are so focused on doing everything perfectly that they rarely work hard enough to elicit a neuromuscular adaptation.
The Three Pitcher Analogy
This analogy was first described to me by a coach in Arizona, using three target pistol shooters as the example. Since (legal) competitive gunplay in Brooklyn is about as rare as a pair of Nike Metcons (ohhhhh snap), and since baseball season is right around the corner, I’m going to modify the example a bit, and use three baseball pitchers as our test subjects. Instead of just calling them A, B, and C, I’ll call our pitchers Alex, Bo, and Chris.
It’s a hot summer day when our pitchers report to the practice field to throw a practice session under the watchful eye of their coach. Coach tells each pitcher to throw five pitches before regrouping and discussing what they need to work on.
Alex is up first, and really wants to impress. He rears back as hard as he can and every pitch is a flurry of elbows and knees. No two windups or deliveries look the same, Alex is falling all over the mound, but he’s throwing HARD. Half the time his cap falls off as he throws—he’s almost throwing himself at the catcher. Further, he’s rushing—the moment one pitch thumps into the catcher’s mitt Alex is already winding up for the next one. He finishes his five pitches, huffing and puffing, with sweat pouring down his face, his hair sticking up in ten different directions, one of his shoes untied, and limps to the bench, totally exhausted.
Bo is next up. Bo looks much more in control than Alex from the get-go. He’s working hard, and obviously putting his all behind each pitch, but he is taking a little more time between each pitch, and looks markedly more in control of his body. Still, you can tell Bo is working, and he audibly yells after his third pitch (“Shucks” or “Rats” or some other folksy, W.P. Kinsella-like exclamation). By the end of his session, he’s breathing hard and sweating, but still fairly composed. He walks to the bench slowly, and looks happy to rest for a bit.
Chris is up last, and wants to outshine Alex and Bo. He’s cool and collected as he walks to the mound, and takes his time getting ready. He is smooth and controlled as he throws, fluid and easy through all of his movements, and takes a lot of time between each pitch to carefully reset his footwork, make sure all of his mechanics are correct, and that he is ready to go. Every pitch looks like a mirror image of the one before, but the catcher’s glove doesn’t pop quite as loud as for Alex or Bo—it looks like Chris is taking a bit off each pitch in an effort to be perfect.
Here’s how their sessions look when overlaid on a batter and strike zone:
As we can see, Alex is pretty wild, with two of his pitches well out of the strike zone, and no real consistency to any of his efforts. Bo misses the strike zone once, but just by a bit, and most of his pitches are pretty consistent. Chris groups all five of his pitches very close with no misses (for sake of illustration, the pitches are probably even more scattered so they can be seen individually).
Who Is Training Correctly?
While all three pitchers will gain something from practice regardless of intention and intensity, the athlete coach would reward with a “good job, keep it up,” is Bo.
Alex needs to slow down! He’s wild, overthrowing, putting himself at risk of injury with undisciplined mechanics, and isn’t learning much. He is confusing unbridled intensity with hard, disciplined work. He should go back to basics, take a little longer between pitches to make sure he is set, and work on consistent mechanics and technique.
Chris needs to work a little harder. He can obviously throw a fastball over the plate when he takes his time and throws a bit softer than his upper limit. Chris should work on throwing a little harder, working faster, and maybe throwing in some more “advanced” pitches. He won’t develop if he just keeps doing what he already obviously knows how to do. He is too concerned with being “perfect.”
Bo is our ideal athlete, taking his refined technique and then pushing it right to the edge. He is very effective and efficient, but is working hard enough that one in every five to 10 pitches is slightly less than optimal. Note that when Bo misses, he misses small, and then can make a correction the next time to get better. Bo will grow the fastest of the three because he is pushing the limit of his ability.
In CrossFit, we call this Threshold Training.
Threshold Training and YOU
The concept of Threshold Training is as old as CrossFit, being cited early by Greg Glassman (hallowedbehisname) in one of those weird old videos where he draws stick figures on a chalkboard while Tony Budding leers at him. Simply put, the concept is similar to the Pitcher’s Analogy above, that during training athletes need to push themselves hard enough that their accuracy may slightly suffer, but not so hard that it goes totally out the window. There is a sweet spot to find in your training, and falling too far on either side will slow or blunt your progress.
Do you go as hard as possible every workout, only to be outperformed by others who look like they aren’t trying too hard? Do you often have to strip weight or scale movements mid-WOD? Do you feel like your progress is lagging behind your intensity? If so, you might be like Alex in the Pitcher’s Analogy. You need to slow down, go a bit lighter, and focus on being more consistently accurate before ramping your intensity back up.
Do you often finish WODs without really breaking a sweat? Have you never felt that gut-punched, world-spinning feeling after a workout? Do you use the same weight all the time, or hover in a narrowly prescribed range? Do you repeat lifting exposures or avoid adding weight during Olympic lifts if you felt the lift wasn’t 100% perfect? You might be training like Chris the pitcher—you need to push a little further out of your comfort zone. Perfect practice has its place, but during work sets and WODs, a small bit of deviation is expected and encouraged. Pro football players certainly practice perfect running mechanics, but come gameday, nobody praises how perfectly a player runs with the ball, only that they get to the end zone.
A Contextual Approach to Threshold Training
All that being said, the different training modalities, prescriptions, and resulting intensities need to be approached contextually. While we generally avoid “being Alex,” there are rare times when that approach is appropriate. Similarly, there is value to sometimes slowing things down and “pulling a Chris.” Here are some loose guidelines:
Alex (100% intensity, regardless of technique): Last few seconds/final attempts of a competition where there is some real sort of prize on the line. Money? Prestige? Qualification for Regionals/Games/American Open, etc.? You have to decide if it’s worth it.
Bo (90% intensity with 90% perfect technique): Benchmark WODs, Open workouts, competitions, and any WOD where you feel very comfortable and confident with the movement and you have built a sufficient base of perfect practice. Movements should feel like they are on “auto-pilot” and that you don’t need to do a ton of thinking about how to execute them.
Chris (sub-maximal intensity with 100% perfect technique): Warm-ups, skill practice, new or rarely seen movements, any movement that you don’t feel super comfortable with, are trying to iron out a “kink” from, or any time an old or recent injury or mobility restriction is taxed or bothered during execution.
Aaaaand I’m Done
Okay, enough sports analogies, this is getting ridiculous. Stay tuned for my next article, in which I create a hackneyed and longwinded analogy between muscle-ups and nineteenth-century Russian literature.
Train smart, train hard, and don’t be afraid to explore the outside edge of your comfort zone.
__________________
A Stop-Motion Tour of New York City The Atlantic
Would you consider yourself more of an Alex, Bo, or Chris (Alexia, Bonnie, or Christina for the ladies)?
Alex Jones, Bo Derek, Chris Evert…
Came in for 15.5 last night. Ouch. I had done a test run of the 27 round on Friday, and was going to break the thrusters up a lot more from the beginning, but I felt pretty good coming off the erg so I went 9,8,5,5 or something like that. Bad idea. Getting back to the bar for the 21's and I was almost immediately reduced to 4's and 3's. I even failed a third rep somewhere in the 15's. Slogged through to the finish in 13:47, so met my sub-15 goal. Wouldn't mind never doing that again.
Oh and did some heavy power snatches to warm up and hit 80kg which is definitely a PR for power.
Yea…
but is Chris throwing changeup, changeup, fastball? That mirror image arm slot you speak of is what you're looking for in a good pitcher regardless of speed (troll)…
Great article, and well-timed might I add as I reset for this upcoming new cycle…I have some goals in mind around spending more time on perfecting my form on a couple movements, which hopefully will eventually allow me to go heavier/faster when needed…I wouldn't say I'm an Alex, but I'm definitely not a Bo either…somewhere in between the two…need 25 hours in the day.
For those interested in the outcome of the Nerd Olympics, I ended up in a 3-way tie for 10th place. Since ties at the tournament are broken by who did better in the most recent puzzle, I am officially 12th (of the three of us, I did best on puzzle 4, the 11th-place contestant did best on 5, and the 10th-place guy beat us both on 7). I'm still top-10 in my mind though!
Headstand work was fun, even though it does expose my weaknesses rather nicely. I also figured out that I've been doing V-ups wrong for years. So much harder when you start with your hands behind your head instead of on the ground!
I promise to read Noah's article and figure out which one I am later.
Love the article Noah. Shout out to k2h2 for a great rings class yesterday.
P.S.: I had no idea Skee-Lo was so good at crosswords – I have to start spittin' out lyrics apparently.
P.S.S: Anyone else need a contant reminder about the location of their quads?
My quads feel great!
P.S.S.S.: Anyone else need an "s" in the word "constant"
P.S.S.S.S.: Vesper and Benson are pretty cute.
Nice article Noah. One of my biggest challenges in Crossfit is pacing. I'm a bit disappointed if I don't get to that intense place, but if I get there too early, I find sabotage myself.
Perfect example being 15.5. I did it Friday at noon, judged by our very own essayist/coach who might well have been thinking about muscle-ups & Russian literature while I wept and panicked and bailed the bar halfway across the room (Did I hear him murmur "Kipping is all, Natasha Alexandrovna"?)
After the first 10 thrusters, I wanted to quit. I wanted to quit the WOD, quit the gym, never to return. I had to finish, but every single thruster felt like torture. My rep scheme ended up something like 10-6-5-3-3 on the first set of thrusters and downhill from there. This is maybe because i suck at thrusters, or (looking back) I definitely went out too fast on the row. (I did the first row in about 57 seconds). My time was 15:07 and it was pure misery. I lay in a heap on the floor for about 30 minutes afterwards.
I was so frustrated that I decided to do it again this morning. Mcdowell and Katie accommodated me at 6AM. Joy kindly judged me. I decided I would go very slowly and deliberately at first, do short sets and keep my heart rate down. Even if I didn't get a better time, I wanted to keep the quality high and find an enjoyable pace, rather than be suffering from the start. This time I started out with 1:35 on the row and calmly stuck to my small set plan and took breaks long enough to go out to coffee. Final time? 13:43. 84 seconds off. And while I was panting I didn't even need to sit down afterwards.
I'm not sure what it proves about anyone else, but definitely for me I just can't go out too fast. I have about 30-60 seconds of real max 100% effort (this may be age also)
Great article, Noah. I will assume it is entirely coincidental that you chose the name Christina. Although in the back of my mind I hear Fox saying "put some weight on that bar, Christina!". That happens more often than it probably should (including in the middle of 15.1). On the other hand, I've made it through nearly two years of crossfit without injury, while continuing to make steady progress along the way. I'm in this for the long haul, so it's working out just fine for me.
LMAO. I KNEW I was going to forget to change my name back on my home computer!
I definitely think I'm more of a Christina than a Carrie or Samantha. I think 15.5 was a humbling experience that I really need to push myself a little more sometimes even just a nudge when it comes to RX workouts (this was my second one after FGB). Both times I eventually became disappointed in myself, when I shouldnt, because I'm really used to 'playing it safe' on most WODS where I pretty much reach the goals I wanted, so when I get out of my comfort zone and freak out a little! Hopefully this cycle I can be more of a Bonnie!
Great article, Noah!
After finding out that Bo knows where it's at, I'd like to most closely identify myself with him – duh.
But, I am no fool. I recognize that still being relatively new to Crossfit, I sometimes struggle with my inner Alex AND Chris.
More often, I am too measured, precise, and obsessed with doing things "perfect." I like when things move well. Why change that? But obviously I need to take the next step to continue to improve. But comfortable is comfortable! Because of this, I definitely shy away from adding more weight and just getting after it – for olympic lifts especially. I'm still not super confident in them.
I will say that, lately, I think I have become better about finding more of a balance. After training for Iron Maidens, and building so much strength, my old olympic lifts now feel like air, which is amazeballs..only now I need to get them back to where there's more of a struggle to make the ganiz, baby.
Just a quick note about tonight's Tacos games – there will be many, in case anyone wants to come but can't make it at 6:30. Here's the schedule:
06:30 PM – Game 1
CFSBK Hoopin' Tacos – CH
Stevie Knicks – BL
07:10 PM – Game 2
CFSBK Hoopin' Tacos – CH
Stevie Knicks – BL
07:50 PM – Game 3 (if necessary)
CFSBK Hoopin' Tacos – CH
Stevie Knicks – BL
08:30 PM
Championship
Game 1
08:50 PM
Championship
Game 2
09:10 PM
Championship
Game 3 (if needed)
As far as fitness stuff goes, I PR'd my deadlift on Friday night at 460#, which was a 45# increase over my last PR. Then last night I tackled 15.5 in a heat at open gym with Todd C. and K Harpz. Fun times trying to keep pace with them both. Ended up finishing in 11:29. Got a little lost during the rest periods on some of my thruster sets (the round of 21 was psychologically daunting), otherwise I think I could have gotten this sub-11. This one actually made me want to re-test Fran, as I think I have gotten a little better at thrusters and can knock some time off my last run through. I know they program that sometimes as part of Level 1 courses, so maybe when I do that in a couple weeks I'll get my chance.
GO TACOS! ONWARD TO VICTORY!
6am with McDowell and Katie
Nice and easy morning which was very much needed after a 15.5/Barbara weekend.
Handstands went well and I was able to get more vertical than I thought I would. We practiced these a fair amount in Ken's Rings Class. I had zero chance of pushing up into to a HSPU by the way. Zero chance.
Great article Noah! I consider myself a Bo Chris hybrid. As much as I push myself I still have an element of over caution. I need to kick that habit and really go for it sometimes.
Realized I never posted about 15.5 on Saturday.
I'm happy with how this went, especially considering all the whining and dread that I expressed while coaching and watching others do it during group classes.
I knew I would have to take the first two big rounds calmly and steadily, as I tend to sink into a pit of despair if I redline while doing my least favorite barbell movement. I did a quick mental run-through of the workout thinking it could go something like this…
27 cal – 2+ minutes
27 thrusters – 10-9-8 reps, under 2 minutes minutes
21 cal – a little under 2 minutes
This would put me around 6:00…
21 thrusters – 8-7-6 reps, 2-ish minutes
15 cal – 1:30 or less
15 thrusters – 6-5-4 reps, 1:30 or less
9 cal – less than 1:00
9 thrusters – 5-4, less than 1:00
So I figured I should definitely get 13:00, but that if I really pushed, I could get closer to 12:00.
Well, I did this in 12:31, so was right on schedule. Stuck to the plan!! I remember starting my 21 thrusters just over the 6:00 mark and thinking I was in good shape and just to stay calm and not blow it. Zach had some great judge whispers, including: "Okay, you get to rest on the erg after this. So pick up the bar now." It was true — it felt a lot better knowing I could go sit down on the erg, close my eyes, breathe, and steadily pull, rather than having to do burpees or something else. This helped me take slightly less rest between thruster sets, although I did spend time with hands on my knees for sure.
Managed to stay out of the dark mental cave that thrusters usually put me in, though. This feels like a grand achievement.
This was about 50-50 gas and legs for me… that fight about halfway up coming up from the bottom of the squat on ever rep in the last 2 rounds. Just sucks.
Enjoyed this article–great timing! Prioritized being a 'Christina' the first 6 months I did crossfit. Wanted to focus on technique, become fitter and healthier, and not get injured.
I reached a turning point this year, however, with participating in Iron Maidens and the Open. Seeing the Comp Team succeed and struggle with muscle-ups in 15.3 and seeing the amazing strength of ladies at Iron Maidens was super inspiring. I realized I need to be more like 'Bonnie' if I ever want to improve dramatically. Just exercising is getting a little boring.
I've been trying to push myself harder (I could still do this way more). It's honestly so much more fun to see big improvement and to push your body to a level you didn't know it could go. Endorphins! I'm going to stop being afraid and just trust technique, I guess, hopefully not becoming Alexia in the process…
As for the next article: suffering, mental anguish, redemption…def plenty to work with for creating a muscle-up analogy.
I'd say 90-95% of the time I'm a "Chris" and creep into "Bo" territory once every blue moon.
Did 15.5 today which was by far the workout I was most nervous for this open. It's two movements that I struggle with and metabolically some where I'm not super comfortable going. Warming up with 27 cals, some thrusters, 21 cals, some thrusters and then more thrusters up to 115 was pretty good although it spooked me as the warm-up felt pretty hard.
27 Cals: Kept this between 1000-1100 Cals/H
27 Thrusters: 12-9-6
21 Cals: About 1000 cals/H
21 Thrusters: 9-7-5
15 Cals: about 700-800 cals/H THIS IS WHERE THE WHEELS CAME OFF
15 Thrusters: 6-5-4 PAIN CAVE
9 Cals: 600-800 cals/H OMG I DONT WANT TO GO BACK TO THE BAR
9 Thrusters: FUCK IT GO UNBROKEN
12:20
Thanks to Noah for keeping me on task and strategizing this workout.
I wanted to get naked after I finished this, shoes, socks, knee sleeves came off then I laid on the ground for like 5 minutes then went out side and laid on the side walk for another 5.
Now I feel great!!
This has been a really good Open for me. What I lack in pure engine I make up for with skill so I was able to put up some respectable scores given the C+J, HSPU, Muscle-Ups, Double Unders, OHS, T2B and C2B Pull-Ups that came up this year.
I need to work on my overall strength, engine and pain tolerance.. but what else is new!
Excited to see how it all shakes out on the leaderboard
Giddy happy to be done w 15.5. I'd been dreading this one. I felt like I got through the other work-outs more on technique than gas. This is the kind of no where to hide work out that worries me and two of my least favorite movements.
Didn't do much to prepare specifically and not a whole lot of conditioning these days but the extra lifting and eating gave me the sense that I could handle the thrusters.
Right before going to the gym to do 15.5 I had the idea to tell McDowell I was about to go to the gym to do 15.5
McDowell is the man. Within about 10 minutes I had a plan, knew exactly how to warm up judiciously and was somehow excited about the work out.
I know I'm a weak rower and my quads blow up w little mileage to show for it, so I found a reasonable pace that basically allowed me to stabilize my breathing and give my legs a break 650-800 cal/hr
Then I had a plan A and B written on a board for my thrusters. Stuck w plan A the whole way. Rested 3-7 breaths bw sets and stayed right on the bar.
9/7/6/5
8/7/6
8/7
9
Took a full 10 second break (not sanctioned by McDowell and I doubt he would have approved) before the last set of thrusters to make sure I got them. They were a sprint! I felt good and punchy afterwards — hyper. Thanks McDowell 🙂
Oh! And my time — 13:05 but honestly I was so happy about feeling great and sticking with the plan I dont even know what that time tells me.
Seriously, I'm posting again mostly to make sure I don't show up as Skee-Lo any more.
I feel like which one of these three archetypes I am depends on whether I'm doing powerlifting or a metcon. In powerlifting, I probably tend to be more the A-type. In metcons…actually, is there a fourth type? Because I feel like I act like C in a metcon but my motivation isn't necessarily perfection, it's reluctance to enter that really dark place. Yeah, I know. Bad CrossFitter! No biscuit!
Great article. I think I hover somewhere between an Alexia and a Bonnie, depending on the day/workout. One thing that became clear to me this open is that, while I've been doing this for long enough and am light enough to have some base for high skill gymnastics movements, these definitely expire much earlier in a workout than they should. Part of this was due to going out too hard at the beginning of workouts, and part was due to not having the mechanics/recent practice in these movements to keep them together when I get fatigued. In general, I also think I tend to chase after fast times and big weights, and sometimes forgot to focus quite so much on form. It took me six months of CrossFit and a lot of pain and fatigue to learn that every day can't be game day! I know I have an engine, but this year I'd definitely like to work on my work capacity and movement, which will definitely require that I approach workouts as a Bonnie, or even Chris, more often.
With that said, I am taking a rest day today because I am hurting from 15.5 and Barbara!
Noah I hope you're serious about the russian lit thing as you clearly know how to write an epic. I broke this article up into sets of 21-19-15-12-9-8-7 paragraphs to read it
I'm totally playing – great article. I've injured myself too many times in the past being an Alex that now I'm a Chris, and generally lacking confidence. I just want to do things the right way and not blow my shoulder out again is all I am trying to say.
That said, I loved crush week!!! Pushing myself as hard as I could really made me see the areas where I've made progress and I'm super pleased about it. I mean it also highlighted weaknesses (thrusters… Any amount) but I am choosing to look at the positive here. Really looking forward to what's next.
Really great article Noah, love this analogy! I definitely started out my CrossFit days as a full blown Alex. I just didn't know any better, which resulted in a pretty frustrating shoulder injury. I now bounce back and forth between Bo and Chris. When i'm feeling really good, i'll try to push myself into the Bo-zone. When I start creeping towards the Alex end of the spectrum, i have to listen to my body and remind myself that it's okay to be Chris every once in awhile.
Wanted to come on to post about the detailsof 15.5, but unfortunately I have a lot of work to do. With all of this CrossFit excitement, i suppose that my schoolwork has been benchwarming for the past couple of innings …..(ZING!)
15.5- 11:28 RX
That was uber spicy.
7:30 with Ro and DO
3 rounds of whining non stop while also running 550m and doing 15 burpees. boo!
Headstand practice. Oh lord.. being upside down is not my thang, but I decided to stop being a baby about it. I got up there but I kept almost falling backwards and doing exactly what DO told us not to… randomly moving my arms! I'm happy I even got past the little tripod part.
little 10 minute EMOM was good, reminds me of my lack of abs 😉
Fun 5:30 group class tonight. My deep deep upper abs are SUPER sore from softball practice yesterday — all it takes is a bit of dynamic rotation (throwing, batting) and my obliques hurt like whoa.
WU: 3 RDs: 550m run, 15 burpees
I always feel like crap on my first run of the day. Laps 2 and 3 felt much better. Still slow. Focused on falling forward and kicking back. momentum! Burpees were fun.
Headstand practice was great. I feel so much sturdier up there as my midline stability has gotten better with CF over the years. I did two attempts at kipping up into a HSPU. the first one I probably got about halfway and then gave out so took a little side tumble. The second one I was being cautious, so I pressed back instead of straight up, and locked it out on the way down… so not actually a HSPU. This was fun! I need more strict pressing strength here, though.
V-ups and super mans were cool, too. just a good time tonight 🙂
OH, also… great article Noah!
I think I started very much as a Chris. Nervous to go too hard and be less than perfect in form. Having danced for a billion hours before ever doing CF, I felt like I learned how to make repetitive movement be exactly the same each time, so that's what I was supposed to do. I think the moment this really shifted for me was a couple years ago during 7 minutes of burpees when McDowell looked at me and was like "why are you doing burpees like that in a workout like this? just fall down and get up!" I was doing perfect little (impossible) push-ups, and didn't realize I could but a bit of sprawl and dynamics into the mix.
I still steer towards Chris, but I find myself in the Bo-zone a whole lot more these days, especially as I push myself into higher-skill movements and heavier weights. I really try to stay out of Alex territory except for maybe the last few moments or reps of a terrible workout when you just want to be DONE.
I haven't worked on handstands since this summer so wasn't sure how they would go, but I surprised myself! I was able to do them from a straddle and piked position. Great instruction on the progressions. I think all the hollow rocks we do helped with control and keeping my core tight!
EMOM completed. Anything not involving my quads was a plus today.
Jogged a little over a mile afterwards. Trying to squeeze in a short jog a few times a week so I don't die when I start playing field hockey this summer.
I am definitely a Chris, but don't have perfect form on any lift! I have dropped a significant amount of weight off of all my lifts several times over the past 2 years to focus on form. I also tend to go slow and steady during metcons. I need to suck it up and get out of my comfort zone by adding more weight to the bar and by moving faster on metcons! I know I have more in me!
Whit, glad I could return the favor, you & Arturo really helped me shave some time off of 15.5. I usually groan when thrusters come up in a WOD, they've given me so much trouble in the past. Looking back to 14.5, it took me over 20mins to finish that 1, & I was miserable, it almost broke my spirit. It seems like the bad workouts are most memorable. Some time ago Arturo had me focus on mobility so that I could be in a better position for the thrusters & save my wrists. I've gotten eons better with my front rack positioning, but honestly for a moment riding my bike up Degraw towards the gym, I thought for moment that if I ran thru the red light cutting across traffic on 4th ave 'I wouldn't have to do 14.5'… glad I toughed it out tho, really surprised myself with how well I was moving. Feeling like I can PR my Fran after that. Moral: don't cherry pick workouts/movements, find your weaknesses & turn them into strengths.
time 11:37
thrusters
10-9-8
12-9
9-6
9
My quads feel the opposite of Great!
Thanks for all the nice comments guys, and for sticking with the article to the gruesome end. Shakespeare said "brevity is the soul of wit," so I am obviously the soul of twit. Hope the article helps.
I would like to point out the Alex, Bo, and Chris are all gender neutral names. C'mon kids, I live in Brooklyn, I fight the patriarchy as hard as anyone….or something.
Sad to not have completed the final WOD of the Open this year (in addition to posting a 1 for 15.2 when my leg was a mess), my back was not going to be happy about it after Thursday's tweak…so very Chris of me.
I'm certainly on the "Chris" spectrum, with a bit of "Alex" thrown in for the final minute or so of any WOD. It's how I've stayed away from any major limiting injury in my years, and I don't plan on deviating. Sure, I would like to "crush" more WODs more than I do but I'm ok with just being me. My brain always works on a risk vs reward wave. I'm happy to do the things that CF Games athletes do, even at half speed/load/intensity. It's part of why I was drawn to CF so many years ago.
Looking forward to the next training cycle!