21-15-9 Rep rounds for time of:
Thrusters, 95/65
Kipping Pull-Ups
Scale the workout appropriately and work on your discomfort tolerance today.
Post time and Rx to comments.
compare to 2.13.13
Congratulationt to Matt Cohen and his wife on the birth of Violet!
Violet Octavia Cohen, 7 lbs and 10 ounces, was born at 2:02 AM on September 19th after only 90 minutes of labor. She was almost born in the car, and I missed the actual delivery in the five minutes it took for me to park after dropping my wife off at the hospital door. Violet was in such a big hurry to get out, but now all she does is sleep.
Happy Birthday Emily V!
MEAT and VEG CSA Pickup Today, 6-8:30 PM!
Please remember that today is the October meat and chicken delivery date, as well as the weekly vegetable CSA delivery.
Private and Semi Private Yoga Sessions with Whitney
Crush Week beating you up? Take a bit of extra time to recover with yoga. Whitney offers private, semi-private, and small-group sessions in which she tailors the practice to each individual. Sessions can include restorative poses and deep stretches specific to your own personal sore, stuck, and painful post-WOD business.
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25 Abandoned Yugoslavia Monuments that look like they’re from the Future
Why Tough Teachers Get Good Results WSJ
Angela Lee Duckworth: The key to success? Grit
3:32 Rx'd – PR
0:18 PR – All thrusters unbroken. Pull-ups started to fall apart due to fatigue at the end but really happy with the improvement.
6:45 Rx'd – First time
I am glad to benchmark my first Rx'd Fran. There is definitely room for improvement and already have identified three hot spots. I feel that I could have stuck with the pain to get in an extra rep or two. To me, it is about getting out of the comfort zone, being ok with it, and pushing it.
I came across the Bring Sally Up challenge on the interwebs…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fc2mZkyb2so
Holy crap Dan. Nice work.
To pick up the thread from yesterday on pain tolerance–I talked about it w/ Nick last night, and he offered that this is something you train, just like everything. Wasn't it Fox who wrote the essay about getting comfortable being uncomfortable? You practice. You get used to being terrified (because you always are). You have a plan–never drop the bar, no more than 3 breaths between sets–whatever–and you practice sticking with your plan.
I rowed just for one year but it helped me so much with all this stuff (though I probably need to get back into the game a bit…). In rowing you are racing. There's another boat across from you and you have a shot at beating it if you just go fast enough. There's a cosxwain (in the boats I rowed in there was, anyway) telling you to pick up the pace, up the stroke rate, pull a power ten. There are people in front of you and behind you who are doing all that. So you don't have a ton of choice about whether you go harder or not. Without the ability to choose not to go harder, you really do learn how hard you can go.
3:04 Rx
Did this Tuesday since I just joined and am still figuring out how to get my schedule to line up with the pre-programmed rest days. Did the thrusters UB and the PUs through the round of 15, but the round of 9 got a little uglier than i was shooting for.
6am private with Josh. Worked a complex of 1 clean, 1 hang clean, 3 front squats. Quads are a bit sore from doing Fran yesterday making the front squats harder than I would have guessed. Cleans mostly felt good. Had one near the end where I kept the bar so close it ever so slightly brushed my chest and landed with a feather touch in the catch. That felt nice. Then we worked on handstand walks. Managed to do about 5 or 6 steps a few times with a small bit of assistance. Everything feels wrong upside down, but I'm seeing some progress.
Re: pain tolerance. My Fran PR came last February after I had been training for the Crash-Bs. I credit all that brutal Crash-B training with upping my ability to maintain intensity. But like any muscle, you've got to use it or lose it. My time yesterday reflects different training priorities over the past 6 months.
6am with Noah and McDowell. Scaled the weight to 45# and did scaled volume jumping pull-ups. Finished in 3:57. Would like to do this again soon at a higher weight. But it was the right scaling for me today.
Congrats to everyone on their PRs!
Interesting to move to put a cute baby on the blog, and then so discreetly mention that Fran is the WOD.
I see you mgmt!
Long time, no update…
September was a tough training month that ended with 2 injuries in 10 days. Boo!!! First, I messed up my rotator cuff OH pressing and then I tweaked my back really good Saturday deadlifting… Which was really a bummer because it was the lift I was feeling the best about this cycle. Back to the drawing board.
And back in the gym last night to do some mobility work and see how the back felt squatting.
Better than I expected actually.
Squat: 245x2x2
DB Bench: 50x8x2
Ring rows: 2×8
Band pull downs: 4×10
The injuries seem to be coming around nicely, but it's a nasty setback and there will be no total Sunday and I don't expect to compete Nov. 17th as I hoped. Maybe December 10th at the King of Prussia USAPL meet…
Those Yugoslavian monuments are incredible!
Holy Moly.
You are not kidding about mental toughness! I went into this unsure about what weight I was capable of doing, but I wanted to try 65#, as I had done a workout recently with thrusters at 58# and it seemed so close to that.
I almost quit after the first 10 thrusters. Seriously- in my head I was like 'what do you think you're doing? This is way too heavy! There is no way you can do this!' Somehow, I kept going. I have no idea how, but I did. This has never happened to me before, in any way, ever.
I did this in February in 5.23 at 43# with jumping pull-ups from a 20" box. Today, it took me 8.14 at 65# with a 16" box. Those kipping pull-ups are a far-off dream, but I am so happy with this improvement.
Thank you CFSBK for making me stronger, in more ways than one.
Yoga with Whitney afterwards was heaven, as was the two hour pre-work nap from which I just awoke.
Great job everybody on all of the PR's and Fran-ass-kicking!!!
6am
Slogged through this in 8:31. I knew I wanted to Rx this but started having second thoughts during Noah's "this should be a sprint" speech before we started.
I am happy to have Rx'd because now I have a benchmark to improve upon but that was a struggle.
Strangely enough I have had an incredible amount of energy all day. I like this feeling.
7am partnered with Brad who crushed it around 6 and change.
For me this was my first time doing Fran RXed 9:46.
Last time I did it about 9 months ago I did jumping pull-ups and made 8:45.
Biggest issues is my right wrist really starts hurting about the first 9 in and just doesn't stop.
I think that 3:04 is new leader board 1 position if only it was coach judged.
All I can say is, if Fran is day 2 of Crush Week, I'm sad? secretly happy? that I'll miss the final day. Going to make a point of coming in tomorrow and Friday before I leave for my vacation though!
Congratulations to Matt! Violet looks just like her Daddy…
2013 Crossfit games on ESPN, started at 8.
Jesus, early posters brought it!!! Great times!
Me…meh
7:37 Rx
I have no idea what my previous PR time was and I don't feel like looking it up.
That picture : ) I remember staring at that scenario for hours. Congratulations and enjoy!!!
Lots of really inspiring times and stories on this work-out. Also thanks for the pain feedback.
Charlie – So cool that you stuck with it!!
Thanks Arturo, McDowell, David for letting me squeeze in some cleans on a busy night. Feels a bit like unfinished business (had to rush out and not sure I approached it the right way), but I'm very happy to have had a chance to work on it for a while. How the time flies…
First time doing Fran, 7:30 class partnered with the lovely Jess and Aileen. Kept thinking about Charlotte's comment, "Without the ability to choose not to go harder, you really do learn how hard you can go." Rxed the thrusters and did jumping pull-ups. I think my time was in 7.30ish? It was somehow both awful and awesome. I felt kind of blind and deaf the whole time.
I also dig that once these benchmark WODs are over, you want to do them again super soon to see if you can get better… and in that vein, loved Charlie's post, and KH's from yesterday. Well done, ladies!
I think you can learn discomfort tolerance, but I also think some of it is innate. I've always noticed that wrestlers seem to be able to explore that area quite deeply. Must be the hours spent training by having someone trying to literally grind you into the floor.
I know this is one of those areas I'm pretty weak in. In my mind I always make the "tactical decision" to put the bar down, but really I'm just uncomfortable. I'm always in awe of the handful of folks at our gym (Dan L. comes to mind first and foremost) who just don't ever quit and can always just keep pushing.
I know Rudy works at it a bit in his programming at Outlaw, doing lots of 1-3 minute max effort pieces where you are supposed to purposefully disregard strategy or pace and just go all out. Badass.
Make-up post from yesterday:
70 reps on yesterdays workout. 10 HSPUs in the round of 12 and 6 toes-to-bar. By 10 HSPUs in I had had my hand slip out from me twice. Terribly spooked, I called it there and moved on to the next movement. On the plus side, it was great to get more experience kicking to wall when tired. Used one abmat and kipped all the HSPUs. Toes-to-bar felt really smooth and organized.
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Made it to the 8:30 for Fran today.
I got pits in my stomach on several occasions today just thinking about this. Joel proved an excellent partner–extremely encouraging and calming. Finished in 5:45 for a :15 PR over my last attempt at CFGC about 8 weeks ago. Kept my sets nice and big throughout. The next step is to shorten some of the breaks.
My two cents on the experience: this is a workout that two years ago would have been so far beyond my reach, when I could barely move my body up hanging from a pull-up bar. He probably doesn't remember, but Noah watched me flail with a blue band to try and finish a scaled ladder version of Fran in 11+ minutes at an open gym last summer. Though I'm very proud of how I got myself through it today, there's clearly a lot owed to the excellent coaching and careful programming that helped me get there.
Excited for the rest of Crush Week!
Fran RX'ed. First time. It's been years in the making.
Time: 10:42
Last time I did this was Dec 2012 with a 43# bar, so… ya.
It happened. It wasn't fast. But things felt fine and kept form and position relatively good throughout.
Thanks Becca and Hayley for your support!
I am like Noah with respect to discomfort. It is not my strongsuit. Nonetheless, I set a Fran PR by about 25 seconds today, at 5:25 rx'd. I gained a good amount of strength in the past year, and now I am finally getting my gas back, especially playing for the tacos. I'm a bit heavier than I used to be due to muscle gain, and unsurprisingly, the thrusters are now relatively easier than the pullups.