Chris H. lets Coach McDowell know he’s his number one fan
News and Notes
- CFSBK Endurance Coach Mike O. wants you to know about the Unbreakable Runner 5K Challenge with CrossFit Endurance whiz Brian MacKenzie. It’s a challenge to improve your 5K time over the course of nine weeks. You need to submit a GPS-ed 5K time by the 16th, so learn more here and get on it! If you have any questions, email michael.olzinski [at] gmail.com.
- There’s a lot of new Lost stuff that’s been Found. Claim it by 11/27, or we’re giving it to someone who needs it more than you.
- NBC’s series “American Ninja Warrior” is casting Season 7. Do you think you have what it takes? Click here to apply, and here to see some of the competitors from last season.
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The Solar System and the Earth Big History Project
Saturday's Programming
In teams of three with one partner working at a time, complete AMRAP in 30 Minutes of:
Max Reps Bench Press
250 Meter Row
Choose a load that allows around 10+ reps when fresh. Score total pounds moved by the team on the bench press. Use a spotter for each and every set.
Post total pounds to comments.
Tomorrow's WOD was not as bad as I was afraid of, given my memories of the 5-rep heavy bench + all-out 250 WOD we've done in a couple of Crush Weeks before.
Teamed with Peter and newcomer David, 95#. We did 184 reps (17,480#) as a team, of which 60 reps were mine. I got through 6 full rounds and am feeling swole!
No mas Crush Week for me. I'm DELIGHTED to be using my 5th class of the week on AR tomorrow!
I am totally applying for American Ninja Warrior!
Another small 6am Friday class with NickDowell. I did Thursday's clean & jerk work. I went 1×135, 1×145, 1×145, 1×155, 1×155. The jerk was the limiter here and I pressed out my last two reps. I'm pretty consistently too soft when I put the barbell overhead; it's an issue with snatches as well. However, I'm pleased to note that I'm consistently nailing the cleans at 155. That was a PR just a couple of weeks ago and now I feel like I clearly own that weight.
The db bear complex was an hellacious shit show the less said about which the better, probably. Started with 30 lb dbs, around round 10, I switched down to 25s, then around round 13 or 14 (I think), I got a mouth-flooding-with-saliva, tunnel-vision, light-headed, you're-gonna-puke signal from my body. So I stopped there to save myself and everyone around me the treat of an EMOM dry heave cash out. Not finishing that workout is bugging me more than it probably ought to. I just have to shake off the ego blow and regroup a bit before tomorrow.
If any woman can do it, it is JB!
Make up from yesterday – Last night at 7:30pm with Ro and Noah
I worked up to 205 on the clean and jerk. Missed my first attempt – caught the clean with my elbows a little down, and was very soft in my catch on the jerk. Second attempt went better – the clean felt great, and while I am not sure if it was the prettiest jerk ever, I stuck it for a 10# PR. As I was setting up, MeLo told me it was time to PR, so I am glad I did.
The bear…, well, it happened. It was rough. Rx for me would have been 50#, which I did not think was sustainable for 20 rounds. I started at 40, did 7 rounds, and then fell off. I switched to 30, and did 11 more rounds, so I missed two overall. I think 35 would have been a more sensible option for the whole workout. This honestly felt like the toughest thing I have done in this gym – worse than 14.5 (both times).
Quad week is what I'm calling this week so far. I've been bad about posting…so (dealwithit) here's 3 posts.
Tuesday – Monday's WOD – Noah – 8:30
Thrusters – felt horrible. This was a bad shoulder day coupled with the fact that thrusters seem to make my right shoulder really angry. I worked up to 155. and then did a couple strict presses. Nothing really to take from this other than fix my f'ing shoulder.
WOD – Wall Balls.
Since I can't do MU's I wanted to try something crazy and see how far I could get through the Wall Balls…Noah intelligently talked me out of it…and I was pretty happy with my time through 150. I went 75-25-25-25 with two about 15sec breaks in the breaks. Finished that in 5:55'ish…DU's 3×30…8:30…and then 30 burpees and got back to the WB's for 9 more.
Wednesday – 7:30 – Melo – JB – McD
Pain. Tuesday really did me in. I could barely do an air squat. **warmup – 3rounds/25 airsquats** WTF.
Tried to just be steady throughout. Row was fine. Went to aggressive on first set of T2B…did 10, 5-5-5 and then the rest were a collection of 1's, 2's and 3's. Burpees 20-20 with couple big breaths in between and KB swings were 10-10-10.
I got through all that with about a minute left and did somewhere in between 5-10 pullups…I blacked out so I really couldn't tell you. I thought the workout went really fast…maybe because the T2B took forever.
Friday – 10am – Thur work – McD
C&J
95x2x2
135x2x2
155
185
205
215 – PR
Monday was a bad shoulder day. Today was a great shoulder day…wasn't growling at all. My actual PR attempt was not smooth at all. Slightly grazed my shin on the clean and dip was not organized, so I lost a little momentum…but what I did feel got me to the PR was weeks of slowly tweaking my footwork @ that 90% weight for 5weeks to where when I needed my footwork to be right it was. I would've loved to have given 220 or 225 a shot, but learned from last week, you can't rush a PR attempt, so I was happy to walk away at 215
BEAR DB WOD – 45#
dear lord this was dark. I got some encouraging comments beforehand.
"We'll see you in 4 rounds"
"Even your hulk hogan goatee can't save you"
aaannnddd…both of them were right. The only reason I didn't stop at 4 was because, well, I'm stubborn. I got through 7. On 8 I missed the thrusters and moved to 30#, and I was actually happy that I made it through the rest of the rounds. At 10 I thought I had no shot. 10-15 was really dark. The rest was fake and I could hear my achilles stretching every thruster.
Honestly one of the harder WOD's I've done at CFSBK.
I need a nap.
11am lifts
Deadlift
280×5
330×5
375×5
Squat
175x5x10
The accessory squats today were far worse than the accessory deads, presses, or bench presses earlier this week. Low back was tensing up a bit, probably was overextending a bit.
12pm Group Class
3 Rounds NFT of:
20 KB Swings 20kg
15 Sit-Ups
10 Ring Rows
Teamed up with Adam and Burt to make Team ALL DAY BOY (ADB) for tomorrow's partner couplet.
We used 115lbs for the Bench and I completed 5.5 rounds under the cap
R1: 20 reps / :58
R2: 14 / :56.9
R3: 15 / 55.9
R4: 13 / 55.0
R5: 10 / 53.2
R6: 8 / —
This was pretty hard but I admittedly should have pushed harder on the Erg. I tend to "blow up" with erg sprints, meaning I'll pull a hard piece and then be obliterated for the rest of the workout so I tend to pace them… rather I tend to OVER pace them..
Finished with some CrossOver Symmetry Iron Scap and then I made a frog with the legos.
David, I was very impressed with your Lego frog. Great job.
Oly homework-
Snatch complex- 53 x 5 x 5
Clean Complex- 63 x 3 x 5
Rack jerk- 53 x 3 x 5
Snatch pull- 83 x 3 x 3
***
Deadlift LP- 250 x 5. This felt heavy. I might need to be less aggressive with the jump next week or do a set of 3. Need to have a think about it.
6am. Partnered with Dan and Space Ghost for tomorrow's partner WOD. We got through 6 full rounds each and I got an extra set of bench at the end. Worked at 185#: 17, 15, 10, 8, 8, 8, 6. Felt alright afterward. Not nearly as bad as the variation of 5 rounds of 5 reps max weight bench + 500m row.
10am
Saturday WOD- This was a good one! We cleared 6 rounds each at 65lbs.. I did 13 for 5 rounds then 14 the last. Probably could have gone heavier.
Between OLY class yesterday and rest day today, I got to witness 2 classes do the bear… It looks awful!
6 am w. Nick and McDowell doing yesterday's programming.
Clean and Jerks @ 115# – 120# – 120# F (press out) – 125# – 130# (PR by 23#)! Last time I did C& J for max weight was in July at 107#. The jerk part has always been a bit easier for me, so focusing on only the cleans in the fitness version of this cycle really allowed me to move up in weight in this complex. I still have a lot more work to do on this lift to improve my form, particularly on the clean portion (work on better/more dynamic hip drive/pop, arm pull AFTER the hip drive is completed, drop faster and further down under the bar), and I suspect that I will be working on improving these for a looong time to come.
DB Bear w. 20# DBs. Rx for me would have been 30 – 35#, but it turned out the the 20# DBs were the right weight for me. Finished Rds 1 – 19 each between 0:29 – 0:32, and barely felt like I could catch my breath in the remaining 30 secs of each round. I had the 25# DBs next to me the whole time, contemplating before each round whether I should bump up the weight or not. I finally picked up the 25# DBs for the last round, and took ~0:47 to get through the round. I'm glad I did it, but I don't think I would have been able to sustain the workout at that weight for all 20 rounds. Thrusters were by far the limiter for me in this workout.
Hope you're feeling better Shawn!
6am with McD and Nick
Fun being in a small class again and doing yesterday's program with Neal and Shawn.
C&J: 175, 185, 190, 205 Miss, 205 Miss
190 felt pretty easy, so I took McD's suggestion and went for the PR. I pulled 205 plenty high but didn't get down, and missed the clean both times. Not sure why, honestly. I know I've got 205 in 2014.
DB Bear Complex: @ #35 dumbbells
My bodyweight is 170lbs, so 45% would be 38.25 lb dumbbells. After reading comments here I opted to round down, which was a wise choice.
I felt good for rounds 1-14 finishing each one in 27-29 seconds. Then things took a nose dive: thrusters started to drag on round 15. I failed to complete rounds 16, 17, and 18, but then I got back on it, and completed 19 and 20 to finish just under the buzzer. This was one of those things that was just out of reach and made me want to try it again in a few months.
Btw today was the first time since Monday that I could walk without excruciating pain. Good times at CFSBK.
OG tonight.
Bench, 100x3x5. Started my new cycle with this so it's easy, which is good, given tomorrow's WOD.
Deadlift 185x3x5. When I focus, I can get it, but I lost my positioning on the last rep of each set. Will hit this again next week.
Then K HarpZ, Lil JB, and I did the barbell Bear complex for 25 minutes. We started at 73#, then went to 83 after a few minutes, and then did 88 for the last 10 minutes or so. Fun times.
CrossOver Symmetry afterward AND I got a few kipping pull-ups for the first time! Which is a bit ridiculous given how long I've been doing this stuff, but I had kind of crossed them off as something I just sucked at and never wanted to practice. But I think I can get them soon if I keep at it and stop being a scaredy cat.
And HUGE congrats to Katie Harper on getting not only her first muscle up, but then going back and stringing two more together. Awesome to watch.
OG
Snatch, Heavy Single
220
242
253
264
275
286F
264
CJ, Heavy Single
220
264
308
330
319
Pause at knee snatch pulls, 100%+
319x2x3
Had to finish crush week even though I can't make class tomorrow. Did Saturday's workout by myself with double rest periods…the clock got switched during my 30 minutes, so I think I ended up doing extra time.7 rounds, used dumbbells because OG is intimidating and I wanted to keep things simple. 15-17 reps each round at 17.5lbs. I think they were too light.
Group class is way more fun than crossfitting by oneself. Honestly, the highlight of this workout was adding some basic animals to the CFSBK lego zoo. That frog is legit!
Congrats Kate R!!
Clean & Jerk: 1-1-1-1-1
Minimal barbell warm ups
35kg – clean, push press, split jerk – 2x
45kg – clean, push jerk, split jerk
47kg – clean & jerk x1
50kg x1
52kg x1
55kg x1
57kg x1
60kg x1
62kg C, failed the jerk – didn't pull under at a all
This is about 1kg less than my best c&j. All felt really solid up to this point
Would have liked a little more time to try this weight again and one more jump
I'm beginning to think if I could nail down my nutrition (mainly the timing of it), my lifts would substantially improve — I notice a great deal of fluctuation in performance from one day to the next and I think the most obvious variable is my nutrition.
EMOTM — 20 min
5 DB deadlifts
5 DB power cleans
5 DB thrusters
20# — fine except thrusters were hard on shoulders
45% would have been 25#, that would have fried my shoulders
I generally really like DB work although thrusters are the worst
C & J – Worked up to 80kg – right around bodyweight and the highest I've been since my injury. Felt really good and crisp.
DB Bear – Did this with sets of 5 at 40# (Rx'd is like 40.5#) Didn't find this to be that bad actually. Finished all rounds in :25 – :28 Rest felt like it kept getting shorter each minute though.