Back Squat/Front Squat
Performance
Back Squat 70% x 8-12 x 2, Front Squat 70% x 8-12 x 2
Leave 2 reps in the tank.
Fitness
Back Squat 2 x 4, Front Squat 2 x 4
Load is 90% of what you used on Wednesday.
Post loads to comments.
Exposure 10/16
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Every 2 Minutes for 7 Rounds (16 mins):
15 Wall Balls 20/10, 14/9
5 Deadlifts 275/185
The goal is to go unbroken at 80-90% each round and score consistent times.
Post times and Rx to comments.
Mark C. at the finish. Not the actual finish! Keep rowing, Mark
- Want to try something other than group class today? Check out Yoga for Athletes at 10am, Active Recovery at 11am, or Open Gym from 2-4pm.
- Registration for the CrossFit Open started yesterday! We’ll make a more substantial annoucement on Monday, but go here to get a head start on the action. Don’t forget to register as a CFSBK athlete. The live announcement of Open Workout 16.1 is just 40 days away.
- Next Saturday: The CFSBK Community Potluck is January 23rd at 7:00pm.
- After Day 1 of Wodapalooza, Team Steel Magnolias (Coach MeLo, Coach K Harpz, and Tina D.) is in 6th place in the Intermediate Team Women division with 150 points. Keep an eye on the leaderboard, and keep sending them CFSBK love!
Hand Care for CrossFitters, Part 1
By Noah Abbott
Editor’s Note: We noticed quite a few questions about hand-related issues in the comments this week, so we’re re-posting Coach Noah and Coach Fox‘s terrific two-part feature on hand care this weekend. This is especially useful and important as we continue to train for the Open. Part 1 was originally posted on 10.20.2015. Look out for Part 2 tomorrow. -Josh
“Friction is the force resisting the relative motion of solid surfaces, fluid layers, and material elements sliding against each other. There are several types of friction: Dry friction resists relative lateral motion of two solid surfaces in contact. When surfaces in contact move relative to each other, the friction between the two surfaces converts kinetic energy into thermal energy. This property can have dramatic consequences, as illustrated by the use of friction created by rubbing pieces of wood together to start a fire. Another important consequence of many types of friction can be wear, which may lead to performance degradation and/or damage to components.” —Dr. Wiki Pedia
While this may be the most boring and technical opening to an article about CrossFit ever, thinking about friction when related to hand care is useful for isolating and overcoming the fundamental problem faced by kippers everywhere. In short, the solid surface of your hand slides against the (much more) solid surface of the bar, leading to dramatic consequences and damage to components (ripped hands) and subsequent performance degradation (having to stop a workout or avoid workouts while your boo boo heals.)
While it may seem like an inevitable rite of passage to do a high volume kipping workout, tear your hands to shreds, and then post pictures of it to social media, ripped hands are simply drags on optimal performance. Further, hands that are constantly rough, flaky, and/or bloody are, to put it mildly, gross. So, what’s fledgling CrossFitter/hand model to do? There are plenty of ways to take care of your hands, both intra and extra-WOD. The following routine is what has worked well for me, use at your own risk (of beautiful, baby soft mitts!).
During a Workout
During a workout, reducing friction is all about reducing lateral motion between your hand and the bar. Make sure you grip the bar right where your palm and fingers meet—any lower and you risk folding skin under the bar, adding to the surface causing friction. Then, grip the bar tightly, and motion during a kip should happen at your wrist, not through your hand rotating around the bar. You are trying to grip the bar with your skeleto-muscular structure, not the thin layer of epidermis covering it. Don’t grip the bar so deeply in your palm that the skin near your fingers scrunches up—that’s creating a fleshy surface for the bar to rip. Here’s Mark Rippetoe, folksy as ever, taking a long time to say just that (this is the shorter of two videos I could find from him).
The biggest thing you can do during a workout to avoid rips is to pay attention to your hands and fear the last 5-10 reps of a workout. Every time I’ve ripped it’s been between reps 95 and 100 in a workout like Angie—that’s usually the part when you are tired, stomping on the gas, and having to really throw everything behind every rep. The added force and shift of attention from your hands to the clock often leads to a rip, just as you finish the workout. If you feel your hands getting hot (thermal energy!) or skin starting to shift, drop from the bar and rest for a bit. In the words of Papa Osorio, “Be careful,” and be especially careful at the end of a workout.
Also, unless you are literally in danger of falling off the bar and cracking your head open, don’t overdo it with the chalk! (This shouldn’t even be an issue if you are gripping with your thumb around the bar, like a homo sapien.) While chalk can help promote a good relationship of your hand to the bar, especially if you are a little sweaty, overchalking can cause your hand to stick when you don’t need/want it to, especially when trying to release the bar.
There are a number of ways to protect your hands from the bar. CrossFit’s commercialization has led to all sorts of gloves, wraps, and other bar-hand barriers being available. For the most part, the tradeoff between protection, grip, and “feel” is up to the user. Generally gloves offer lots of protection but poor grip and feel (also, do NOT buy Reebok’s CrossFit gloves, they are just marked-up batting gloves, which you can buy for 10 bucks elsewhere). Gymnastics grips are a pretty good compromise. Classically they are suede (fancy!) with a wrist wrap, like these from Rogue, or these from MuscleDriver. NaturalGrip makes a lower profile version that is a permanent (or at least semi-permanent) grip that you secure with athletic tape or a wrist wrap. The NaturalGrips are based off the tape jobs people have been using to protect themselves pre/post tear for a while, which are also a good option. Here is a pretty involved way to tape, very similar to the heartier NaturalGrip. Here’s a slightly quicker/dirtier way to do it, more appropriate mid-WOD. The main theme is that the tape needs to run both lengthwise and across your palm, otherwise it will roll up under and movement and either fall off your hand or be the world’s crappiest bracelet. Further, you don’t need tons of tape, your hand shouldn’t look like this when you are done.
Home Prep
Taking care of your hands does not start and stop when you walk in the gym. A little consistent attention at home will make sure your hands are both less aesthetically gross and less susceptible to tearing at the gym. Flaky, cracked hands with big, raised calluses are asking for trouble, because the rough callus represents one half of the two solid surfaces that create friction. Since we can’t do anything about the bar, making sure your calluses are smooth and low-profile will keep you from tearing.
There are plenty of tools for shaving down calluses, but in my opinion most of them suck. Pumice stones, Ped-Eggs, nail files, and other sorts of abrasives require daily use and are pretty slow. I think of them more as “finishing” tools for getting your hands smooth after the real work has been done. For this heavy-duty work I recommend the Tweezerman Safety Slide Callus Shaver with Rasp. The Tweezerman is basically a razor blade on a stick, akin to a cheese grater for your hand. You use it when your hands are dry and it shaves your callus down in big, satisfying flakes. It has a built in rasp for the fine cleanup work at the end, and only costs 10 bucks, making it the king of callus care in my book. While it takes a little bit of bravery the first few times, it pretty quickly becomes natural to use and works wonders. Get one, and again, don’t use it in the shower, it will bite into your softened skin and get stuck, as opposed to slicing off nice little flakes.
Lastly, make sure to keep your hands moisturized. Buy a decent lotion and use it whenever you can, especially after you cut your calluses down. Smooth, supple hands are less prone to cracking, and won’t stick to the bar like dry hands. Just take it easy with the scents, this isn’t middle school.
Wound Care
If you do rip, don’t freak out. First, assess where you are in the workout. If there are six pull-ups left, just finish the damn thing. If there are 60, it’s scaling time—no sense in ruining a week of training just to finish.
Make sure you wash the wound and spray some Bactene on it. Cold water is key here—hot water will sting like bajeezus. Then let it dry. When you get home, cut off any excess skin. I use the Tweezeman for this, but you could use nail scissors, a katana, an angle grinder, or whatever you want.
A Final Thought
In the end, the biggest factor in not ripping is simply time. The longer you do this stuff the more time under tension you accumulate, and the more conditioned your hands become. Further, the easier pull-ups are for you, the less likely you are to tear. Most coaches and OGs brag that they haven’t ripped in “forever,” but like most people they probably ripped a bunch initially, and then slowly got strong, skilled, and epidermically-conditioned enough for it to not be a big issue.
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Why You’re (Mostly) Wrong About CrossFit T Nation
Being Present: Valerie Voboril YouTube
8am with DO & FOX.
Still smarting from flaming out during OG last night; I realized when I got home that I was way, way under my macro requirements for the day…
Things went much better today!
HBBS 90% 285x4x2, front squat 90% 245x4x2. Still struggling to register where the bottom of the back squat is, but I think I got it right the 2nd set. Weirdly I don't have these problems with front squat.
Took the WOD too light today. I thought WB would build up on me and I wanted to stay consistent each round, so I chose to break up WB into 8/7 and a 185 DL. Ended up doing the last two rounds unbroken and finishing feeling like I had several more rounds in me.
BSQ 165x2x12. FSQ 135x2x12
WOD & 225/20
With the games fast approaching I will be wearing a steadily increasing amount of Reebok branded Crossfit gear. When we are about two weeks out I will be doing all of the WODS sans shirt. You've been warned.
9am with David and Fox. Performance lbbs: 195x2x12. These weren't super heavy, but they definitely winded me. Fox noted that my back was getting a little soft on these, which DO noted was getting my wrists out of good position. It's always going to be something…
Perf. fsq: 140x2x10. I could have finished two more reps on these sets, but they wouldn't have been with perfect form, so I opted for the "only the good reps" approach.
I did the metcon at 185# with a 20# wall ball to a 10' target. Rounds were :53, :53, :53, :53, :54, :56, 1:03. The broke up the last two sets of WB 8-7 and 10-5. I tried to take David's advice to rest consciously with my face neutral and not registering the suck and breathing deliberately to lower my heart rate. That lasted until the last couple of rounds when my body overrode my mind and scowled and gasped without my conscious input. That may explain the slower times in those rounds. Or maybe it was the 75 wall balls and 25 deadlifts that came before. Can't wait to see how my lower body feels tomorrow.
@Shawn – I can attest your lower body will not be at its peak tomorrow. My legs are lead today.
RE: the hand care guide, this was extremely helpful to me when it originally posted. I use Noah's Hand Grater — aka The Hater™ — every few days and this Kiehl's Hand Salve daily to keep the mitts in good shape. Hadn't ripped in a solid 3 months until recently (even then it was very minor and the result of ~120 pull-ups in a two day span). Prior to that it was a monthly occurrence that would have had me scaling or missing time. Very much appreciate the great write up!
HBBS: 210x12x2
FSQ: 180x12x2 (the last couple of reps on the second set got ugly – shoulda probably stopped at 10)
The WOD was just brutal after this.
12pm with Whit
HBBS: 145x9x2.
FS: 120×8 & 120×9
WOD with 14/9 and 155# DLs.
Finished all rounds between 55 and 60 seconds.
1) 5 TNG Power Snatches Every 2 mins for 7 total sets
78, 83, 88, 93, 98, 98 failed 5th rep, 93
– overall these felt good. Only 1 or 2 ended up with wide feet.
2) 3 TNG Power Clean and Push Jerk Every 2 mins for 7 total sets
103, 108, 113, 118, 123, 128, 133
-got challenging in the end but all completed fairly smoothly.
3) Crash b's recovery row
40 mins, 6950m, 2:49 avg, 17s/m
4) 20 mins mobility!
Noon Class
BSQ 215 2×4
FSQ 200 2×4
WOD – All rounds unbroken, felt good today, enjoyed getting to do some deads again. Finished each round in just under 1 minute, was consistent throughout the WOD.
Wall balls 20/10
Deadlifts 275
Great classes this morning followed by a fantastic session with a long term client who PRd his squat, press, and deadlift by a combined total of 115 pounds and a 1200 pound CF Total. I woke up feeling strong today and thought I'd ride all that energy into my own lifting at noon.
Didn't work out that way. Ah well.
Snatch waves
68-73-78 (x3)
Missed 78 all 3 times.
Clean and Jerk waves
83-88-93
No misses.
Good Mornings
175×10, 10, 8
DB Split Squats
45x10e x3
Felt sluggish while moving and my back feels off again after. Going to leave the good mornings out or do them light as Jess suggested.
1:00 PM class
HBBS 2×8 @225
Front Squat 2×8 @180
I went low on both my front and back squat today. I was really tired today for some reason and everything just felt super heavy today. Definitely not a good day for me today…lol.
The WOD today kicked my BUTT! But I managed to do it RX. I usually love wall balls…but today they were not my friend. I managed to go unbroken for each round, but definitely felt like tapping out after round five. I had to dig deep and really fight for the last three rounds.
Make up from yesterday:
Open gym – worked on muscle up transition on the rings with a band. Did 3 X 5. Did 5 single muscle ups and a few failed reps in there. Need to feel confident on them before I try to learn how to string them together. Nice to use open gym time to practice because whenever they're in the WOD I always opt out. Did Friday's snatch work 75, 85, 95, 100, 105, 110, 115.
Saturday Noon with Whit:
LBBS: 205x12x2
Front squat: 180x10x2
These wind me. Probably could have gone for sets of 12 on the front squat but knew there was a WOD ahead of me. Also was on a bar by myself so I didn't have anyone to nudge me to throw in those extra reps.
WOD.
20lb wall ball and 225 on the dead life. All unbroken. All rounds were pretty consistent: .45, .45, .46, .47, .46, .46, .45.
Snatch+Hang Snatch
242x2x2
253x2x2
Squat
418x4x3
418x3x2
Press
192x5x3
Hbbs: 100 12×2
Fsq: 90 11×2–> could've done another rep but I would've *definitely* not had two reps in the tank
WOD:
Super consistent! :54-:56 every round. 125# (should do 135 next time. 170 is my current 1rm) 14#/9
Breathing slowly during rest was KEY. I focused on feeling my heart beat fast and just focusing on it/letting it be.
Felt like I could've done 10 more rounds. I was barely sweating but I was working hard. Kind of cool.
OG: big crew did a mile "recovery run" (we're training for murph)
Bench press 75 5×3 1s pause first rep, superset with :15 l sit. Iron maidens!!
Hand stands, a little du practice, back bends, then shlomo made me row 500m, barbell mashing, and some planche practice tips from John. Good times 🙂
Don't forget your KillCliff, Jay!
Saturday OG
LBBSQ: 185x12x2
FSQ: 157x12x2
First week that the 12's felt hard. No chance of not hitting my reps though
OTOM WB/DL Couplet
Did this as Rx'd
Knew this was going to be hard, if not impossible to stay on the clock given the 15 wallball shots. Considered scaling to 10 reps per round and doing it at 225 but decided I should grin and bear it as far as I could at the Rx.
Made it through 5 rounds on the clock before the wheels came off a little. Couldn't recover from the wall balls. Did the last two rounds basically as an AMRAP. Finished at 14:46
That's a lot of wall balls and I hated every single one of them
OG
Overhead squat sets up to 135 at 3 reps.
Then MU practice and finally linked 3 in a row, twice.
Mini-wod of 4 rds: 7 Thrusters, 7 burpees over the bar, run to 4th and back
LBBS: 170 x 12 x 2
FSQ: 133 x 12 x 2
WOD Rx. This was my wheelhouse, but was plesantly surprised to stay unbroken throughout the wallballs. Working opposite Charlie gave me a huge extra push. Fastest round was 38 second, longest was 42.
Afterwards: Recovery mile run with the crew.
Bench Press: 105 x 5 x 2, 107.5 x 2, 105 x 3 – Misloaded bar for last set, so quick fix. Then 97.5 x 3 with a pause.
Strict Pullups: 7 sets of 2.
I had SO MUCH FUN TODAY!!!
No idea where my energy came from as I have been dragging all week but seems like today was the day!
Hatch Week 9 Day 2
Back Squat
45 x 10, 95 x 5, 135 x 5, 180 x 5 , 205 x 5 x 3
Front Squat
135 x 5 x 4
Bench Press
45 x 5, 74 x 5, 95 x 3, 105 x 2, 115 x 3 x 6
Joined in with 1PM group class WOD thank you coaches!!
WOD Rx and I wasn't looking at my times but then I caught a glimpse of Kayleigh and I decided to ramp it up. Lots of fun! From the rounds I counted, worst was :41, best was :39 and I did that twice. The BIG DEAL for me here was that I did the wallballs unbroken! I may have mentioned this before but they used to be my nemesis. I couldn't even get 10 unbroken this time last year. This workout was fun and I could have done many more rounds 🙂
1 mile cooldown run with the ladies and Rob for a bit! Took it really slowly and it felt good!
OG- did some ab stuff and practiced some skills I want to get better at.
2RNFT
10 x abwheel roll-outs
15 x GHD sit-ups
4RNFT
5 x HSPU (1 abmat)
5 x kipping pull-ups
50 x DU
Then spent some time doing strict pull-ups and messing around with some butterfly swings. Didn't keep track of how many 🙂
EMOM 8 mins
2 x snatch @ 63 x 3, 53 x 5
I know I was a bit all over the place today but I felt great so may as strike while the iron's hot, right?
Performance squats:
LBBS: 147x10x2
FSQT: 112x10x2
Metcon done at 155#. Started with 165 on the bar but dropped down after the first round because…wall balls. Rounds were 1:01-1:14….yup, wall balls.
Today was TOUGH!
One mile super slow recovery run with the crew.
OG:
Bench:
107.5x3x3
97.5×3 paused
3×3 butterfly pullups
5 handstand walks all 6'+ a few inches worked in in between and after bench sets.
HBBS – 220x12x2
FSQ – 185x10x2
Could have finished all the FSQ if I had used a belt, but decided to stick with my plan of not using one for the cycle. This was a lot of reps.
Metcon Rx'd – all rounds between 45 and 47 seconds. Set up a little funny on the first round of DLs and got my back a little rounded, but the rest were better.
First let me start this off with saying that today was definitely the roughest day mentally that I have had during a workout
Up at 6am to do some work fork work that was supposed to take 30 minutes, go back to sleep, work again at 9am for 30 mins and then be done. Well The work didn't last 30 minutes, issues arose that had me working until 2pm. I told Monique to go to class without me and hopefully I can make OG
Made it to OG and after the first squat set I felt like I had no energy(could be because all I had was a protein shake at 9:30)
LBBS: 1×8 #205 1×6 #205
FS: 2×5 #145 (did this for 8 last week and it felt alot better so I knew something was off)
After the squats I had already made up in my mind that I wasnt doing the WOD. Until Mike came and asked if I was doing it cause he was looking for people to do it with. I couldn't say no and used him to motivate me. It ended up being 3 of us doing it together.
WOD:
1:05
1;05
1:05
1:10 Dropped DL from #255 to #225
1:30 Dropped to 10 WB for last 3 rounds
1:34
1:32
Rounds 1-4 all WB unbroken, felt good. In the 4th round I did 1 rep DL at #255 and I felt my form was about to go to shit so dropped to #225 for the remainder of the workout. After the 1st WB in the 5th round thats when a rush of emotion just hit me and the battle to fight the "F87k this shit, I'm going home" and the " I dont think I can make it" began and was soooo hard to fight. Like I would try to dig deep and then as soon as I got the " I can do this" feeling it was immediately suppressed. I knew I could leave just stop, I don't know how I would have explained it to Mike. I scaled down to 10WB broken into 2 sets of 5. Glad I didnt quit.
THIS WOD WAS ROUGH!!!!