Gobble Gobble! Turkey Team WOD!

Thanksgiving is always a busy day for my family. My wife likes to do the Turkey Trot 5k up at the YMCA — and this year she and AJ took our dogs Pyrite and Rogue out with them, along with a whole gaggle of folks. Sounds like it was very well attended and a crazy scene.

Some years I have done the 5k with her, but this year I decided to bow out and hit the Thanksgiving team WOD at Continuum. And Mickey was able to join me, so we divided the clan evenly — 2 for the 5k and 2 for the WOD. Not too shabby.

We arrived and there were a bunch of people in attendance today for Coach Jimmy’s Turkey WOD… Lara & Jordan, Shaun & Stacy, Tim, Nick & Lisa, Drea, Melissa S, Heather, Todd, and a few other faces as well. We had a great mix.

Jimmy started us out with a 200m jog and then we did:

• 3 rounds
  • 30 seconds of jumping jacks
  • 30 seconds of air squats
  • 30 seconds of burpees

I won’t say that I was fast with any of that. 🙂 But we did our best.

Once that was done, we broke into teams of 3 and started warming up our hang power cleans, grabbing weights for a farmer’s carry, etc.

The workout was:

• 25 minute AMRAP for teams of 3
  • Partner 1 – 200 M KB Farmers Carry #70/#53/#45
    
  • Partners 2 and 3 will work through the following
    
  • 25 Wall Balls #20/#14
    
  • 25 Hand Power Cleans #95/#75
    
  • 25 Burpees over the Bar

Tim, Mickey, and I tackled this with 95/65# on the bar, 20/14# wall balls, and 55/35# farmer’s carry. 

Do you know what killed us the most? The Farmer’s Carry! That was exhausting! But we got through 5 total rounds and chugged through as best we could. 

Long story short, we burned off a few pre-Thanksgiving dinner calories. 🙂

Great work Tim & Mickey and I hope everybody has a happy and safe holiday! It’s awesome to spend part of our day with our Continuum family!

Thanks Jimmy for a fun WOD!

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Farmer’s Carry for 30 mins

This was a weird week — a week between trips. I made it in for a Monday afternoon workout, a Tuesday morning workout, the Wednesday 4th of July WOD (which I never had a chance to write up), a workout on Thursday I DNF’d, and then today. That’s pretty good, I think.

Today’s was a Saturday team WOD after a great mobility class with Heather. She offered some great suggestions on foam rolling, the use of jump stretch bands, some lacrosse ball work, and even some voodoo flossing, plus lots more. I am going to have to figure out how to adapt that work into my daily life now. 🙂

We had quite a few folks for the team workout today… myself & AJ, Jordan & Lara, Jimmy & Drea, Heather, Darcy, Nick & Lisa, Dan, Brent, Chris & his daughter, Carrie, Larry & Karen, Lisa G, and a few others.

Started with an entertaining 400m run where we ran parts forward and parts backward. I won’t say that I followed Drea’s directions well, but I did run parts forward and parts backward. And running backward was tougher on my calves than I thought. 🙂

Once back inside, we did some air squats, some burpees, and some side-to-side lunges before splitting up into teams of 3…

• 30 Min AMRAP – 3 Person Team
• 200 M Farmers Carry – Use two KB or DB #72/#53/#50
• While team member 1 is doing farmers carry teammates 2 and 3 work through the following:
  • 30 partner wall balls #20/#14
  • 20 Box Jumps 24/20
  • 10 pull-ups

AJ worked with Carrie and Chris’ daughter. Jordan found me and we grabbed Chris. Huzzah! Teams of 3. 🙂

We went with:

• Two 55# kettlebells for the farmer’s carry
• Jordan and I did 20# wall balls and we did 14# wall balls with Chris
• Jordan did 24″ box jumps and Chris and I did a mix of 20″ box jumps and step-ups
• Jordan and I did pull-ups (except when my grip gave up and I did a few ring rows) and Chris did ring rows

So how’d we do?

First, let me just say that the farmer’s carry was definitely the worst part of this one. My forearms and grip kept disappearing when we did the carry.

However, we made it through nearly 4 full rounds each of the carry. I went first, then Chris, then Jordan, and Chris finished the farmer’s carry as time ran out. That meant three full rounds with each of us (9 total), plus 2 more, for a grand total of 11.

Ayup. It was a good one. 🙂 Great work Jordan & Chris!

I think AJ said their team got through 10 or so rounds, so they weren’t far behind us. The trick was just to keep moving and the farmer’s carry made that tougher than it should have been. 🙂

So that’s it for this week. Next week we hope to get in some hiking and other fun activities in the mountains. May try and drop in to a crossfit class in Breckenridge. We’ll see how it goes.

Running in the Rain

Today I made it in for an 8:30 workout and met my two daughters there. They are dog sitting for friends of ours at the box and I have to say it was weird MEETING them at the box instead of driving them, but hey… have to change with the times.

Coach Drea had a fun class today. Larry & Dan, Matt & Abigail, Logan, Connie, and the three of us. Looked like the 9:30 class was pretty full as well, which was awesome to see.

Started with the same warm-up as yesterday and added in a bit of a running warm-up as well. The only equipment we needed was either a pair of kettlebells or a pair of dumbbells for the farmer’s carry.

What was the workout in this morning’s nice, cool, light fall rain?

• For time:
  • Performance
    • 400m run
    • 100m farmers carry, 50/35# dumbbells
    • 800m run
    • 100m farmers carry again
    • 400m run
  • Fitness
    • 300m run
    • 100m farmers carry, 35/20# dumbbells
    • 600m run
    • 100m farmers carry again
    • 300m run

I did somewhere in-between the two with:

• 300/600/300m “run” (walked some)
• 100m farmer’s carry x2 with two 50# dumbbells
• 11:35

The girls did:

• Mickey: fitness w/ 25# kettlebells, 9:25
• AJ: fitness w/15# kettlebells, 9:43

Was good to get them both back to the box. Mickey has been way busy of late, but has been doing scaled versions of some of our workouts while she’s in her weights class — but it was nice to have her in the building for a bit.

We’ll see what tomorrow brings, but we heard it’s a shorter (7 minute) couplet, so maybe it’ll be good. 🙂

Great work everybody!!

The First Hold is the Hardest…

The last few days were crazy, so I need to spend some time catching up on these posts. Let’s talk about Saturday first and then I’ll add another post about today’s later.

Saturday was a blur, but it began with a team workout at CrossFit Continuum. We had a great turnout — probably 15 or more people. I wasn’t counting heads, but Ev, AJ, and I wandered in to find Larry & Clare setting up and we had a bunch of folks drop in in 2s or 3s over time.

We started with a bit of tag. Larry had us chasing after one another with an ab mat held like a pizza box. Knock it off and pay the price, until there is only one person standing. We did burpees. We might have done something else as well. It was fun.

Once we were warmed up, we paired up for the workout. Marino was kind enough to be my partner for the day and Ev & AJ paired up.

• Team WOD for time with a partner:
  • 800m Farmers Carry 53/35#
  • 100 Bar Only Back Squats/Plank Hold
  • 90 Pull Ups/Superman Hold
  • 80 Sit-ups/Wall Sit Hold
  • 70 Burpees/Hang Hold
  • 60 Hand-Release Push Ups/ Handstand Hold
  • 50 Box Jumps 24/20″ box/V Hold
  • 40 Buddy Deadlifts 220/155#
  • 400m Farmers Carry 53/35#
• Each partner carries two kettle bells for Farmers carry if we have enough. Every time partner breaks on a movement, switch positions and continue.

Larry changed it a bit — making the air squats into back squats — but the rest was pretty much as Jordy’s Goodbye was written.

After tearing both my hands last Thursday doing the bar muscle-up transitions, I was a little concerned about some of the movements. Farmer’s Carry and pull-ups? Ouch.

So we started off slow and we think fried ourselves doing the 800m Farmer’s Carry (Marino and I were talking about it later with Larry.) But we did:

• 800m Farmer’s Carry – Marino had 45# kettle bells and I had one 55# kettle bell I passed hand to hand. We went to the 200m mark, not the 400m one or the longer 800m route. And we stopped quite a bit at the 50m mark.
• We knocked out four sets each of 45# back squats pretty quickly while doing the plank hold
• Pull-ups were rough. I did 5 pull-ups and the rest ring-rows. Marino chugged through the pull-ups and we did them 5-10 at a time. Superman Holds were interesting
• Sit-ups were easy for me, but the wall sit hold was tougher than it should have been. I was starting to feel that in my core pretty quickly.
• The burpees were AWFUL — and the hang hold on the rig I seriously thought I was going to pass out a couple of times. Breathing was a big problem during that round
• Push-ups weren’t bad. I held a squat and Marino did a handstand on the wall while we got through them. I was just running out of hands and forearms by that point.
• And we got about 30 20″ step-ups into the 50 box jumps before we hit a 45 minute hard stop Marino suggested. I was good with it. 🙂

Seriously the holds in this one were the killer part. Somehow I didn’t manage to tear my hands again, but that was a big concern the whole time.

The ladies made this look easy!

Marino was hanging tough here…

Just sitting down on the job

The girls did awesome and finished the whole thing in about 60 minutes

(Pictures courtesy of Larry Hinkin — thanks Larry!)

We got done, headed home, and then drove to soccer in Denver. So I’m sure sitting the rest of the day did me zero favors. 🙂

Thanks Marino for being my partner — we didn’t finish but we kept on chugging!

Great work everybody!

Grip Killer

This morning there was a little bit of a happy dance as I sent my daughters off to school. And a certain amount of melancholy as I accepted that I’d be the lone representative of our household at the 8:30 crossfit class. But I’ll get over it. 🙂

I arrived along with Melissa & Carrie and the three of us tackled the workout Coach Drea set before us. Of course, we had to begin with an entertaining warm-up first.

• 200m run
• inchworms
• slow plank to push-ups
• crab walks
• hollow body rocks
• bear crawls

then we went outside for…

• 50m run forward
• 50m run backward
• 50m side shuffle down
• 50 m side shuffle back

When we got back inside we did a bit of a refresher on dumbbell push-jerks before doing deficit push-ups on dumbbells. Considering that I thought it was going to be handstand push-ups, regular push-ups weren’t so bad.

The workout was pretty straightforward:

• 5 rounds for time (3 rounds for Level I):
• 200-meter farmers carry
• 20 deficit push-ups, hands on dumbbells (12 deficit push-ups at level II) (20 knee push-ups at level I)
• 10 push jerks
• Rx was 60# dumbbells, Level II was 40/30# dumbbells, Level I was 25/15# dumbbells

Farmer’s Carry is always a bear for your grip. Today was no different. And my workout ended up being a bit all over the place.

• 200m farmer’s carry (55# kb round 1, 35# kb round 2, 35# kb passed hand  to hand round 3, 35# kb two hands round 4, 35# passed hand to hand round 5)
• 12 deficit push-ups
• 10 push-jerks with 20# dumbbells (when grip went in round 2, I started doing right-arm only for a bit, but mixed and matched one and two-arm push jerks from that point on)

It took me 24:02. Carrie finished in a bit under 19. And Melissa was done about the same time I was.

This was definitely a grip killer.

When the easiest part of the workout for me is the deficit push-ups? That’s weird. But this all comes down to my forearms not wanting to release. They get “swole” and then that’s it. So I need to do more to roll them out and figure out how to loosen them up a bit.

But thanks for the encouragement Drea and great work Melissa & Carrie. They did awesome!

The Monday Catch-up

Mondays are hard. But we’ll survive. We had a good weekend – a break from soccer madness. It meant we could go as a family (*gasp*) to the team workout for CrossFit Continuum on Saturday and go do some fun things afterwards. That was kind of nice for a change. 🙂

Saturday Team WOD – OUTSIDE!

Saturday we all piled into the car with our Weimaraner pup Storm. She’s nearly 11 and still behaves like a puppy, so she’ll always be the “puppy” to me. It was an outdoor workout at a local park. There were maybe 12-15 of us out there having fun in the grass.

Partner Carry was fun when your partner was tiny!

Of course we couldn’t just get together without having a WOD! We divided into two teams that worked simultaneously on two tracks…

• Team A: Complete as many reps as possible in 12 minutes of:
  • wallball bear crawl 20 lb (must have 3 points of contact)-cone to cone=1 rep
  • 6 sit-ups (at each cone)
  • 6 push-ups (at each cone)

**At the same time**

• Team B: Move as much weight as possible in 12 minutes of:
  • Yoke carry (all members of the team must move the yoke at least 1 time from cone to cone)
  • team members can add and remove weight as needed
  • To earn 1 yoke carry team members must complete
  • 1 farmer carry (KBs) or 1 team member carry (cone to cone)

**At the end of 12 minutes there will be a 3 minute rest and each team will switch to the other set of movements.

I’ve never played with the yoke before, so that was interesting. Shaun & I moved it with 300+ pounds on it and it wasn’t bad. I tried with all the weights on it and couldn’t get it to move comfortably, but it was fun. And I carried AJ back and forth a couple of times in addition to some farmer carries with the kettle bells.

And the “bear crawl” was more of just a “crawl” – but that was fun too.

I think everybody had fun. And Storm had a good time too, chasing squirrels and trying to keep up with everybody. She was exhausted when we got home. 🙂

Today’s WOD

So today… not so fun, but definitely a good workout.

I arrived with Ev, Sarah, and Anne – and Coach Drea had us under her wing. We started with some stretching. Couch stretch and then a 2 minute squat hold. That squat hold was awful.

Once that was done, she had more in store for us. A warm-up that was three rounds of:

• 100m run
• 6 roll-to-candlesticks
• 8 burpees
• 10 air squats

It was kind of amusing because that 2 minute squat hold fried my quads pretty quickly. Walking and squatting was a challenge, let alone running. 🙂

And then we talked about scaling options for the workout…

• 5 rounds for time of:
• 15 chest-to-bar pull-ups
• 30 one-legged squats, alternating

None of us did that version. We all did some variation of:

• 5 rounds for time of:
• 8 jumping chest-to-bar pull-ups
• 10 one-legged squats, left side to a med ball, stack of plates, or weight bench
• 10 one-legged squats, right side to a med ball, stack of plates, or weight bench

Scaling is the only way this works. 🙂

The fun part was doing this neat little move where Drea had me try and add some kipping motion to my jumping C2B. By pivoting around like that I was able to get over the bar, not just under it – it was entertaining.

But it was the pistols that really fried me. I was sweating like a beast. Something about putting all my weight on one leg or the other plays havoc with my systems. A lot of it is flexibility and range of motion. I simply don’t have much of either. More than I did when I started 3 years ago – but still not where I should be.

Definitely a challenge – which is a good thing. 🙂

And it’s definitely a Monday. Good luck folks! Have a great day!