Congrats to DH3 who PR-ed his squat on Sunday at 375#!
- Happy birthday, Rebecca GC and Betsy S.!
All The Good Reps, and Only the Good Reps
By Chris Fox
Originally published on 1.12.2015
We’ve almost all been there before. You’re tired, it’s your 50th pull up, handstand push up, power snatch, or whatever. You sort of, kind of, maybe executed full range-of-motion—but then again, maybe you didn’t. Then, you maybe even tried to squeeze in another (no) rep! Coaches see this, your fellow athletes see this, and you see this.
With a judge in front of you—whether it’s a regular group class, during the Open, or at a local throwdown—you’ll have a harder time getting away with garbage reps. I’d suggest that you shouldn’t let yourself off the hook in your daily training either. Your continued progress over the long haul is the ultimate goal. You want your movements to be truly quantifiable. If you count reps where sometimes your chin gets over the bar and sometimes it doesn’t, then you’re left comparing apples to durian fruit.
At CFSBK, we strive for virtuosity—the principle that you should aim to perform even the simplest movements exceedingly well. With effort and practice, your 300th squat in “Murph” can and in fact should be a mirror image of your first. Be honest about your reps and if you’re not 101% sure, then don’t count them. It sucks, yeah, but don’t be that person who moves really fast but really poorly. Don’t be the person who the next class coming in looks at and says “Uh uh… that’s not a rep.” Be the person with whom you’d be impressed, even if it slows you down a bit. Consider that you may need to scale WODs sometimes. The Rx isn’t for everybody, and even if you do some or most of our WODs Rx’d, there may be some that you should scale load and/or volume. Then, even when you really, really tried to do a good rep but didn’t, resist the urge to count your effort as execution. Only count the good ones.
Crush Week began yesterday. Remember: all the good reps, and only the good reps!
Tonight at 7:30pm: Pilates with KH (a.k.a. Cage)
Have you ever been told by a coach or PT that you have a weak core? Are you not sure what “keep your ribcage down” means? Do you suffer from a tweaky lower back after lifting heavy weights? Help is on the way! The Pilates Method can be great “accessory work” for a Crossfitter, not only because it improves flexibility and strengthens the abdominal and back muscles, but mainly because it can help you figure out HOW to use these muscles properly. Come join Kristin Hoesl (KH) in CFSBK’s first ever weekly Pilates class. We’ll go over neutral pelvis, engaging the transversus abdominis (say WHAT?), stabilizing the rib cage, and finding good shoulder girdle positioning. So if any of this sounds intriguing to you, come drop in on!
Schedule: Tuesday nights at 7:30pm upstairs in the CFSBK Annex
Price: Individual classes and 5-packs can be purchased here, or you can use your regular CrossFit group class membership to attend
Learn more about KH in our interview with her, called “‘Mad Abs, Yo!’ How Pilates Complements CrossFit, and Getting to Know Kristin H.“
Want To Improve Your Gymnastics Skillz?
Join guest gymnastics coach Ken H. as he takes you through four weeks of gymnastics strength training. This 1.5 hour long class will incorporate different facets of body weight strength training and movement. Specifically, each class will be composed of three to four distinct areas, such as: warm-up and active mobility, rings skill work (muscle ups, levers etc), body weight strength conditioning, balance (on hands and feet), and flexibility. Students will be asked to have a goal or intention to focus on for the next six weeks. Students can then focus on that goal outside of class.
When: Sundays from 2-3:30pm, March 29, 2015 through May 3, 2015
Price: $120 for 6 Weeks
Cap: 8 Participants
Pre-Req: previously attended rings class, or 1 pull up for women, 3 for men
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Fastest Star in the Galaxy Got an Unusual Start The New York Times
How CrossFit Became a $4 Billion Brand Forbes
An Open Letter From Your Horrible Facebook Friends The New Yorker
Wednesday's Programming
For Time:
550m Run
21 Back Squats @ Bodyweight
400m Run
15 Back Squats @ Bodyweight
270m Run
9 Back Squats @ Bodyweight
Post time and Rx to comments.
6AM with McJess (Monday's Workout)
Bench – 6 reps at #155
The i really wanted to get 7 or 8 but that 7th rep wasn't going to go up. The 6th rep was a bit of a struggle and I think that got to me mentally so I didn't have anything left for the 7th. Either way, I'm happy with the progress.
Death By Burpees – 120 reps (15 rounds)
Started off with non dynamic burpees and kept going with that as much as possible. On the 10th round I saw I finished before everyone else and I knew I was screwed. This was such a great exercise in restraint. My shoulders were fried at the end.
Crossfit Dream Journal
Episode One: “The Squat Off”
So this is what went down in my unconscious mind between 4:15 – 6:10 am this morning. It was the weekend. Just like any other weekend, until I realized, to my horror, that today was the day of “The Squat Off”, the highly creative name for a 1RM squat competition at CFSBK. I was doubly horrified because I was dressed in my civvies: grey Nike Frees (I want to buy another pair of them but f’ing Nike discontinued this style), Barbell jeans (the MOST comfortable jeans ever for someone will beautifully sculpted quads like myself – you can even lift in them as Alex Cox demonstrated one day (in his jeans mind you, not mine)), and some kind of shirt (NOT a tank top because I am legally prohibited from wearing them inside and outside my apartment) and black hoodie. So I show up at the Squat Off and its pure chaos. About a hundred people there. All strangers. Long line at the registration table. AND NO RACKS OR BARS ANYWHERE. Clearly not a Margie/Jeremy production. So I take a seat in the bleachers(?) and start stressing about the fact that I am not really dressed appropriately. And I have no idea what my opener will be because I missed a lot of squat exposures this cycle. Then I looked down and was miraculously wearing a pair of Carolina blue mesh shorts. Good. But then I didn’t have my lifting shoes and I knew the Nike Frees would be too “squishy” and f’ me up. So I sent Niko home for my Adidas. Then I realized it was probably not a good idea to let him cross a six-lane highway by himself so I ran after him and dragged him back – remembering that I leave my lifters at the gym in a fetching green bag. Then I lost Niko in the crowd. But he hates going to these comps so it’s not too surprising that he slipped away. Then these girls came in – like 30 minutes late – and they are talking really loudly (so friggin’ rude). David O turned to me and said, “If there is one thing that I hate, its people coming late to class.” And he gave me this penetrating, icy, like March 24, 2015 cold stare – because he KNEW that I was late as well. And then I finally saw someone I recognized from the gym who had judged me (and no repped me several times) in a Subway Series event a few years ago. (Could fear of disapproval be a theme? Not sure). Then a giant rainbow, butterfly, unicorn kitten (see my Facebook profile pick) appeared and took me on an incredible journey through the clouds. And then I woke up. OK, the last part didn’t really happen but without it this dream is pretty damn lame. I did not get a chance to lift at the Squat Off but I am sure my numbers were MASSIVE (like Matt Katz/Serene LARGE) because I was literally dreaming.
Don’t read the blog at 3am to discover that the Wednesday workout includes 20 squat reps at bodyweight.
Thoughts, referrals welcome.
I'm not sure what I just read, but I think you should exclusively wear tank tops, Jay
Quick make-up from yesterday.
NFL Combine Bench
19 reps at 225lbs
Really enjoyed this. This was my first time every giving it a shot, and I think I went too fast out of the gate. Should go more slow and controlled next time. I did really go for a major back arch, which helped (Thanks, Jeremy!).
Failed on my 20th rep, wish I had gotten that one. Hoping for 25 next time around.
Death By Burpees
Finished round of 15 + 12 reps
I'm not good at going to the dark place that's needed to do well on this. Noah bet that I would do the best out of the 4:30 p.m. class for some insane reason. I did not. I would not have made that bet.
Looking forward for some supersquatz tonight.
6am with Jess and McDowell. On only got in 3 reps at 185 on the bench work. I finished the cycle out doing 185x3x5, so I'm not sure what happened here. My arms are feeling a little beat up for some reason – especially my elbows – so I'll chalk it up to that.
I got through 11 reps in the round of 16 in the Death by Burpees workout. That gets real in a hurry and it's a hell of a sneaky way to do a metric ton of burpees. I think I actually managed to move fairly efficiently here – at least in the middle rounds. There's basically zero chance of there not being burpees in 15.5, right? I'm ready…
Count me as another vote in favor of Jay wearing only tank tops.
8am with Jess and McD.
Did some light bench work, working on getting some strength back. Worked up to 135 X 7 with pauses at the bottom.
Death By Burpee – did kb's instead and used the 3.5 pood KB. Made it through the round of 14. Started losing my back.
I think there should be a posting leaderboard on the wall… most in a day, most in a week, oddest, funniest, Most to solicit additional comments. So far Ive Jay-Star on a few of theses….
6am. Wednesday's squatastic WOD: 11:29 @ 195#. Bodyweight measured (post WOD): 199#. Thought this was going to be worse than it was. Did the squats unbroken, though slowly. I think my legs are going to be really sore tomorrow.
Post Monday Chest Explosion Workout –
Ouch.
I've gotten out of the habit of posting on the blog this past week. I have too many make-ups, so I'll just go from yesterday.
15.4 (re-do)
I attempted this first on Saturday and it did not go as expected. I went out very quickly, going unbroken on the sets of 3/6/9 hspu and hitting the cleans surprisingly quickly (for me). I should have known when I got back to the wall for the 12 hspu before McDowell, that I had done something wrong! Got totally stuck on the hspu here. I usually consider these one of my strengths but the combination of (a) not working on these lately (an excuse I know I've used almost every week ,but one that continues to hold true for many of the higher skill movements we've been seeing in the open) and (b) the hspu standard (which necessitated that I bring my hands a little closer together, and made me realize that it's possible I've never done a legit hspu in my life!) really fucked me up. I literally spent 5 minutes trying to get through these 12 hspu, and my growing frustration as the ratio of no-reps to successful reps definitely did not help (Lady Fox did provide excellent encouragement, though.) Got back to the barbell with about a minute left and made it through all six of the cleans, which, surprisingly, posed much less of a problem in this workout than the hspu.
Strategized much differently yesterday. Broke ALL hspu into groups of three, took it slower on the cleans, and ended up with a tie break time about a minute slower than Saturday's. Got through the set of 12 hspus with zero no reps, and back to the wall to get 12 hspu in the round of 15 (with some unfortunate no reps here–I think if I strategized this better I could have gotten through the round of 15). The cleans felt MUCH harder than Saturday (I'd also cleaned in Sunday's workout), and my shoulders felt pretty spent, but this was a good lesson for me on the benefits of breaking things up early especially when my work capacity is a bit diminished as it has been lately (I feel like I did a good job on this in the first two open workouts, but not so good on the past two). As Ro mentioned, my "power cleans" are more like muscle cleans with a terrible splat (landing with legs super wide), and I could get a lot more bang for my buck here by getting underneath the bar like a normal person. Something to work on.
I thought the hspu would pose no problem for me on this workout, so I was a little disappointed. Still, had I seen 125 cleans in a workout a year and a half ago, I would have had to do all of them as squat cleans and wait at least 30 seconds between each. So…progress!
I wanted to do the burpees today (duh), but I think I need a rest day. Tomorrow's workout looks right up my alley too though! 😉
10AM group class
Bench Test:
warm ups: 45×5, 85×4, 105×2, 115×1
125×4
REALLY thought I could crank out a fifth, but just got stuck about 3-4 inches off my chest. This is 10# off my recent PR, so to be expected I guess!
DEATH BY BURPEEEEEEEE:
Cleared the round of 16 and splatted through 14 reps in the next round.
= 150 burpees
When I cleared 15, I really did not want to keep going. I was also envying the folks in classes I coached last night who did this in big groups and had lots of people egging them on. I think that peer pressure always helps me push through when the nausea factor is high.
Cool down: calf, Tib Ant, and quad/itb mash. Minimal pec mash; should do more later.
R knee started feeling funny this morning; not sure why. Going to keep an eye on this and make sure I'm paying attention upstream and downstream.
hahahaahaah
Jay.
@Jay-Star – mesh shorts. Good. 🙂
I was in a gym 3 times today and it wasn't until the 3rd time that I actually did something.
DROMS, air squats
Lax shoulders, traps
FSQ
20×5
40×5
50×3
55×2
60kg (approx 90%) x3x3
10 Handstand holds near wall :03-:08
6 RFT
5x Power Snatch @65#
2x 3-pull-ups, 3-dips (red band)
8:26
MU drills x5
5 box humps
5 red band transitions
Mash biceps, triceps
1pm with Ro
"Death by Ro"
5 Rounds –3 min rest btwn rounds
20 cal row
15 DB push press #20
10 strict sit ups
15 DL #135
20' box step ups
Kept all my rounds within 4:30ish. Best round was 4:09????
I bitched through every rest period after the second round. Pretty miserable stuff, but still enjoyed it when I think about it. Of course Ro's cues to "Smile" were helpful.
Felt smoked, but happy I stuck with it and kept my times "somewhat" consistent.
Ready for a rest day.
Did Wednesday's WOD today:
Squats at 185 (that's what I weigh, people), finished in 11:52. Didn't feel very full of gas but everything moved ok. The push press to rerack on the back was the worst part, just a weird movement that we obviously do very infrequently. Ran SLOW.
Immediately afterward (like 10 minutes or so) my hamstrings and butt felt like someone had kicked them for a few hours.