Rajj with a good overhead position in the American swing
- Happy birthday, Mike W.!
Fitness App Recommendations
By David Osorio
Below are three fitness related apps that I recommend. Check out the description and see if any of these make sense for you. If there are other fitness apps you like, please let us know about them in the comments.
myWOD
This has been the best workout tracker I’ve come across yet. Often trackers have very specific formatting that doesn’t allow you the flexibility to put in the different kinds of segments typically seen in a class. myWOD is easy to use, easy to search, and you can fill in all your lifts to see long-term progress without having to go through your book looking for previous exposures. I also like that you can customize all the lifts and make up your own benchmarks. There are also built-in timers, how-to videos for common movements, and other things you can tweak. It’s two bucks, but since I started using it I don’t think I’ll ever go back to paper and pen.
Starting Strength Warmup
This is a great app for people who are not sure how to warm up their lifts on their own. Simply put in your work weight and the app automatically calculates your warm-up weights and reps for you. It also differentiates between Squats, Bench Press, Deadlifts, Pressing, and Power Cleans, which often require different jumps even given the same work weight. If you’re often confused about how to warm up your lifts or want the machines to do the thinking for you I recommend it. The only downfall is that the lowest weight it can process is 45lbs, so if your warm-ups or work weights are at or below that, then it won’t really be useful.
Coach’s Eye
We often use this app with our clients and use the slow motion and frame-by-frame features to show people how they’re moving. You can even draw little lines and markers on yourself to see your relative joint positions and bar path. This is a good app if you know what you’re doing already or want to have a coach look at your form from a video. Otherwise, you’re probably just as well with the new slo-mo camera standard on iPhones.
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The Origin of Life Big History Project
Wednesday's WOD of Death
Fitness
AMRAP 15 Minutes:
100 Sit Ups
80 Calorie Row
60 Burpees
40 Russian Kettlebell Swings
20 Pull Ups
Performance
AMRAP 15 Minutes:
60 Calorie Row
50 Toes to Bar
40 Burpees
30 Russian Kettlebell Swings 72/53
20 Muscle Ups
Post rounds and Rx to comments.
Smolov Week 2 Day 1
4 sets of 9 at 345lbs.
Still felt pretty fast. Really worked on getting deep in these. Felt good.
3 sets of:
10 GHD Sit-ups
0:30 GHD Planks w/ 55lb plate.
Then some ABC.
Woof. Not surprisingly, those freaking wall balls have left me crippled today. I got NINE hours of sleep last night, and still felt like I got hit by a truck this morning…
8am with Lady Fox, performance version of tomorrow's WOD. Got 154 reps, which means I got to the bell with about 10 seconds left and banged out 4 swings. Looking back in my notes to 14.4 (which this WOD was modeled after, mercifully sans wall balls and cleans), I had done the row in under 4:00 (which I was able to do today) and finished the T2B around 9:00 (they took me 10:00 today). Burpees were absolutely crushing for some reason. And THEN for our "cash out" we had to do a 400m heavy farmer's carry! What is this, Crush Week or something?!
Looking forward to a rest day tomorrow and then hitting Thursday and Friday mornings for more torture.
6am. Wednesday's WOD, perf version: 184 reps (or 4 muscle-ups). Row felt good today. Finished in a little under 3min. T2B went 7-7-7-7-7-5-5-5. Kipped all but the last 10. Finished the T2B around 8min and then came the burpees. Dropped down for the first one and felt like my soul was crushed into the floor. Where did my arm strength go? Finished the burpees just after the 12min mark, busted out a set of 20 swings and then a set of 10 leaving a little over a minute for the MUs. Did 2 sets of 2. I'm definitely getting better about being aggressive on the MU kip when I'm tired.
My lower half is a mass of soreness right now: sore quads, sore posterior chain, sore calves.
6am with McDowell and Jess
Question for coaches. In a work out like today's where you have T2B but not MUs should you mix and match and do a perf/fitness hybrid? I would much rather have done the perf version and just substituted Kipping pull ups for the MUs. (Or maybe I should just man up and get my muscle ups in order.)
Hit the fitness version today. 100 sit ups, 80 calories and 49 burpees at the cap.
Nice seeing Kevin in the gym this morning.
Cage wins this one, unsurprisingly. 145 reps for me. Wish I'd made it to the KB, I can do the 24 kg pretty quick. But T2B took forever. I wonder whether I should have done the fitness version of this just to keep moving. I spent a lot of time staring at the bar because I don't have a great kip, so I'd have to wait to recharge long enough to get a strict one. I don't think I was resting too long because occasionally I'd miss, which tells me that if I cut my rest periods more, I would have had more misses also.
Anyway, I'm glad that's over. Sorry I missed 8 AM, Cage and Christina — one too many glasses of wine last night 🙁
Cash out with 24 kg KBs. Yow, 400m is a long way to carry those suckers!
Yesterday's WOD at 10am with lady fox/McDowell:
Thruster: 93, 98, 103, 108, 113, 123#
Was gonna stop at 118 but Jess suggested that I go for 123. And it went fine! Thanks for the extra push!
WOD: 246 reps!
Got through the wall balls/double unders with a little over 2 min for bar muscle up attempts. And I got 6! This was pretty exciting, except I still can't string them together. Now if only I could do them on the rings…hopefully soon!
Stuck around to work on stringing together my bar muscle ups, which was a fail because I was too tired. Should've known better. Decided to work on my false grip instead…..tried hanging from the bar with a lacrosse ball in each hand for a few sets of 30s. Goodness gracious this hurts.
Matty – You should have done the Per version, and maybe had time for a few attempts at muscle ups. This WOD is written in a way that even getting to the rings is like icing on the cake, hence Peter having one minute for them. Next time…
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11am 5/3/1 Boring But Big Challenge Day 2
Squat
225×5
260×5
295×5
Deadlift
225x10x5
T&G Power Clean
Find a heavy triple
135
155
175
185
195
Need to get better at cycling my hook grip back in on the way down.
After two lovely days of rest, back at it. Still a bit sore from Morrisson on Sat.
Row 20 calories
Foam roll (quad/ITB, t-spine/lat)
Scapjack!
Deadlift: 135×5, 165×3, 185×1
200x3x3
-heavy! got a little soft on rep 3 of second two sets, but not bad (according to fox+mcd)
-hook grip throughout sets
-Fox gave me a good tip about breathing/bracing with an open mouth. will try this next time in warm ups.
Press: 33×5, 53×3
65x5x3
-also HEAVY! wasn't sure I'd make it through these. gave myself lots of rest and hit them all.
-Fox/McD gave some good pointers; wasn't using my hips to shift at all. this got better as sets went on. also tend to overextend at the top (which i know), so just remember to press STRAIGHT UP and shrug.
5 kipping MU attempts afterward. Failed all of 'em.
didn't have quite enough pop up an over on the first few. rested and got it together a bit better. last one was closest, got up and over but didn't keep the rings tight.
2 rounds:
-3 strict dips
-3 "keep-it-close" rocking drill
6am with McD and Jess
Fun metcon today. 180 reps: rowing was hard with legs on fire from yesterday, TTB were 5's until the last 15, when they started breaking down into sets of 2 and 3. All kipped. Burpees were sucky but better than doing wallballs. Did the swings in 3 sets of 10 and finished with about a minute of time on the clock. I made two attempts at the rings but couldn't get on top of them. To date I've never gotten a muscleup at the end of a big wod like this. One day…
In any case, I found this a lot easier than 14.4, although my score was the same for that.
6 am w. Jess and McDowell doing tomorrow's programming.
Did the fitness version of the WOD and got through 11 of the KB swings (28 kg). I knew the sit-ups would be my strongest, so I tried to move through these at a fairly good rhythm and unbroken, finishing in about 3:10 min. The 80 cal row felt like it would go on forever, and I definitely lost steam throughout, but finished this part by ~8:45 min. Then the burpees: had to break these into 10's and didn't get through until about 14:30 min, definitely the hardest part of the workout for me. Then I banged out 11 KB swings before time was called.
Between yesterday's never-ending wall balls and today's burpees, my quads are on fire. I've had to walk between the two floors of our office several times today, and I keep wincing every time I have to walk down the stairs.
Oly Cycle.
Snatch- Power snatch from knee with pause at the power position.
53 x 5 x 5
Clean and jerk- power clean from knee with pause at power position.
83 x 5 x 1
Must focus on dropping under the bar for the jerk. Need to practice footwork daily.
Tried some DUs and gave up too soon.
Pull-ups -1 x 2, 8 x 1, chin-ups 2 x 5, 3, 2, 3, 2.
CRASH-Bs
2 x 16'/5' 16SPM
1. 2.15.8 16SPM 3533M
2. 2.17.5 16SPM 3489M
Yesterday's WOD at 4:30pm with Jeremy:
Thruster: 105, 110, 115, 125, 130#
Think I could have gone for 135 and even 140, but my right hip flexor is tender, and I wanted to crush the WOD. My push press 1RM from a few months ago is 130, so I'm happy with how this went.
WOD: 260 reps
Got through the wall balls in 7:05, which was 5 seconds longer than my goal. Got yelled at a couple times to get lower, but otherwise, my reps were all solid. Did 40/20/20, then sets of 10. DU (20/20/20/10/10/10) with a little less than 3 minutes to slog through 20 burpees. 45 minutes later and I finally don't feel like vomiting.
Congrats on the bar muscle-ups KHarpz!! Once you have one, stringing them together will come quickly. I find I actually get a better kip coming down off the bar then I do from a cold start.
Back from Cali, still taking it easy. Think I'm going to take a stab at my first metcon in a while tomorrow. I'm trying to find that balance between not making myself sick again and, you know, not losing my mind.
Wednesday Performance Wod.
Got thru to the MUs.. 5 MU attempts. 3 Fails. Zero grip strength. Grip further ruined by Cash Out disaster. Ouchie.
Pierre: thank you for finding my keys in your shoes and for bringing them back to the gym.
Lauren S: thank you for taking everything out of your bag twice in search for them, before we knew they had already been shoe-snatched!
And, Josh: thank you for coordinating the search and rescue.
Kate R & K HarpZ – Amazing work on yesterday's work-out. I did that one once and have been afraid to attempt it since
Whit H – What's the "keep it close" rocking drill?
I'm not sure what's wrong with me, but I seem to be dodging crush week.
Sleep has been great, nutrition decent, stress high but of the exciting variety.
After essentially 3 rest days, I got a mini-workout today
Mobility –
Lax ball on quads, glutes
Double green band hamstring stretch
Green band hip flexors thing 15×2 each side
Warm up x 3
15 air squats
30 DUs
8 ring rows, 2 sec pause
FSQ 3-3-3 (unfortunately without lifting shoes)
45×5, 95×5, 115×2, 125×3, 130×3, 135×3
Felt really solid
Tried 140×1, F – bailed forward at the bottom
General gym frolicking involving handstands, skin the cats, kipping pull-ups
I can only hope I wake up in the morning with renewed motivation
@Lauren: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wxzOrYbSf5k
if that doesn't work, just search "muscle up russell berger" in youtube
the one I'm talking about specifically starts at 2:05. i just made up the name 😉
Another rought one today…
HBBS 3RM
412×2** Hip is killing me and it felt like the world. Discouraging because before I left last week i hit 407×5 easily…
363×2
352×2
BTN Push Press, 3RM
264
Bent over row, 5RM
275
LOSS OF GAINZ. Still need more recovery time after Cal Strength Shenanigans.