A Rare Thing

Today I saw a unicorn. Or a four-leaf clover. I saw the mythical day occur that hasn’t happened in a long time – I did better than I expected. I exceeded my own expectations. Gasp.

Went in for an 8:30 workout this morning with my wife. Second day this week I got to work out with her, so it was a good way to start the day. We arrived to find Coach Bill getting ready for us and were joined by Todd, Melissa, and Lisa G. A good little crew.

We started with the same warm-up we did on Monday, so I’ll spare you the details. We did a bit of banded work for shoulders again, which was good. Only thing that was sore on me today was my quads and hamstrings – been that kind of a week. But I discovered that jumping rope in my No Bulls is a bit clunky, so I need to play around a bit to see what’s going on there.

As we finished up, we talked about the workout itself:

• 25 minute AMRAP
• Competitor
  • 20 push-ups
  • 30 sit-ups
  • 40 calorie row
• Performance
  • 10 push-ups
  • 20 sit-ups
  • 30 calorie row

We did a trial run with:

• 5 push-ups
• 10 sit-ups
• and whatever calorie option we were going with – I chose 30

The idea was to see how much time we would need on the bike to approximate a 30 calorie row. I sprinted and did 30 calories in less than 90 seconds. (That was the only time that happened for the entire workout btw.) So we decided that if I had to get on the bike, it would be 90 seconds or 2 minutes there. Thankfully I never had to test that. 🙂

I was shooting for 5 rounds plus a bit. I got into the row of the 7th round, so I am thrilled with that. Managed 6 full rounds plus the push-ups and sit-ups and got through 1 calorie on the rower (6+31). All of my rows were pretty consistent, between about 1:45 and 2:05. Definitely slowed down a bit as we moved on.

Shockingly though my left bicep was getting a bit tired from the rowing, my push-ups felt good and I was able to bang out sets of 10 each time without stopping. That was a first. Usually that’s one of the first things to go. 🙂

Ev did the Performance level as well, with knee push-ups and a combination of rowing and biking – and got through 6+10, so she was moving right along as well. I think everybody kicked some serious butt and continued to move through the whole thing.

It was a good day. I’ll take it. 🙂 Great work everybody!

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Team WOD Chaos

Team WODs have been hit and miss with the craziness of soccer this season, but AJ and I made it in today despite the chaos.

The day started with my writing “seminar” at the box, with an attendance of one. 🙂 Drea, AJ, and I had a great chat though that lasted a good hour. It was wide ranging, covering everything from writing to podcasting and social media. Though I was prepared to talk about the writing and blogging portions, I was surprised at how much AJ contributed to the conversation around social media, YouTube, and podcasting. It was eye opening. 🙂

After that though, it was time for a crazy team WOD. We had a small turnout – a few more than a dozen folks maybe. We started with a fun Indian run where we all ran in a line and the first person in line had to jog backwards to the back of the line over and over again. We only went 400m, but it was a casual pace and entertaining from start to finish with a mix of kids and adults running forward and back. 🙂

Back inside, we did a combination of PVC pipe pass-thrus, air squats, burpees, and some push press skill work before breaking into teams of three.

I worked with Steve & Mike (Lisa Grant’s husband who joined us this morning), and AJ worked with Karen & Lisa Stamos. I think there were 4 or 5 teams all together, and Jimmy put together an entertaining WOD for the day:

• 3 person teams, 15 second AMRAP for 80 cycles (20 minutes)
• Working one at a time, each team member worked for 15 seconds at a movement. When they were done, the next team member did the next movement in the sequence. And when the 2nd person was done, the third member would do the next movement… the 1st person would then do the next one in the cycle.
  • Push-ups
  • Wall Balls (we did 20#)
  • Assault Bike for calories
  • Push Press (Mike and I did #75 and Steve did 65#)
  • Ab-mat sit-ups

I have no idea how far we got and I will admit to getting lost a couple of rounds in, but eventually I got back on track. Mike started with push-ups, which meant I did wall balls and Steve did the bike and then we were all over the place.

Honestly, everything felt fine (even 15 seconds of the assault bike), but push-ups were the hardest part of the whole thing for me. I think I was shooting for 8-10 reps on everything but the assault bike (couldn’t read the display and wasn’t paying attention to how many calories).

I will say that 30 seconds of rest after 15 seconds of work was an interesting set-up. Reminded me a bit of a Tabata (20 seconds on, 10 seconds off, for four minutes). Definitely sweating pretty good by the time we were about halfway in!

I didn’t mind a short team WOD today – was a nice change of pace from some of the 30-45 minute workouts we’ve had in the past!

Thanks Jimmy! And thanks Drea for a good chat before. Hopefully it helped!

And now for something a little different…

Since February 2013, I have been going regularly to CrossFit Continuum a few times a week. That’s not going to change any time soon. But occasionally it’s good to step outside the box, if you’ll pardon the pun, and try something different.

Last year we met Coach Nicole and her family, new to Colorado Springs but definitely not new to CrossFit. She coached at Continuum for a while and had to leave for personal reasons to go do a few other things. Well, now she’s doing a little personal training on the side.

Two big things about why we kept in touch with Nicole. One, she’s an amazing lady and just fun to work with. Two, Ev’s schedule has been preventing her from getting into the box at regular class times, so we’ve been looking for ways to supplement our Continuum time with a little extra training. She’s been working with Nicole now for the last couple of weeks after work and in the middle of the day on her day off to try and stay on track.

Today is the first time I was able to hop in and join her for a session with Nicole and it won’t be my last. 🙂

And before anybody gets worried. No, we’re not leaving Continuum. I look at this as supplemental work. Extra things to slip into the schedule here or there to help with some areas I need to work on and want to attack from a different angle. So once or twice a week we’ll hop into a workout with Nicole to add to the fun we’re having at Continuum.

So… back to today.

These sessions will be in Nicole’s garage and she’s got it all decked out with a couple of squat racks and other things so it’s an intimate little home gym. She was working with a nice guy today when we arrived (a little early), so we just hung out until she was ready for us and chatted a bit. But we quickly got into the swing of things.

We warmed up with:

• 20 side-to-side squats
• 1 minute standing pancake
• 30 second side hold (each side)
• 1 minute standing figure “4” (each side)
• 45 second plank to pike (sort of a plank to downward dog)

Most of it was fine, but the side holds got a little spicy and the figure fours — oof. 🙂

Once that was done we did three rounds of:

• 8 dumbbell floor presses (think DB bench press), 20#
• 30 second handstand hold (or angled/inverted pike push-up off a box for Ev)
• 8 reps of the “victory” movement from crossover symmetry
• we also did a little forearm smashing to help loosen up my wrists for the handstand hold, which helped

We were good and warm after that, so we moved on to part two:

• 6 sets: behind the neck strict press
• every two minutes we would do a number of reps
• reps: 6, 5, 4, 6, 5, 4
• I did 75#, 85#, 95#, 85#, 95#, 100#

I looked nothing like this. 🙂

Finally, we did a little metcon:

• 5 rounds
  • 25 sit-ups
  • 50 single-unders (or double-under practice or box step/holds for Ev)
  • 100 ft overhead walk with dumbbells (20# DBs)

Now… this got a little spicy in spots. Sit-ups and single-unders, fine. OH walk with DBs by round 3 was starting to get a little hairy with the left arm on the return trip, but we straightened it out as best we could and kept on moving.

In round 4, Nicole asked me to do some double-under practice. So I did a few attempts and then did 50 single-unders for rounds 4 and 5. I did my usual, calm (apparently too calm) approach to my double-under attempts. Made my first attempt, failed a few, moved on.

In round 5, Nicole urged me to try and put the same kind of effort in that I would for a PR attempt. Push the speed and intensity. So I tried that. Not sure I made any of my attempts, but she was happier with them. She doesn’t think it’s the hand speed of the rotations that’s really the issue, but instead it’s the way I don’t attack each rep.

And in retrospect, she’s probably right. I still think the speed comes into play, but I’m comfortable with single unders. Very comfortable. TOO comfortable, one might say. So attacking these double-unders with more fire or intensity is probably a good thing.

Ev finished ahead of me in 12:04. And I finished in 14:14 with my 50 singles and doubles attempts in those last two rounds. Not too bad. She kicked my butt in the sit-ups, as always! I’m not there to be competitive. I’m there to learn new approaches and shake some things up. 🙂

So there will be other sessions with Nicole in the weeks to come. We’ll play with things and see if I can get over a bit of my left side/right side issues and some of the head games I play with myself. Nicole has a unique way of pushing and pulling differently than some of the other coaches at Continuum.

I’ve grown comfortable with the laid back approach we apply at our box most of the time, so I’m glad to inject something new into the equation to shock my system a bit.

Thanks Nicole and great work hon. 🙂

No Bear Walks Like THAT

Um. Some days you look at the workout and say “sure, I can do that.” Other days, you look at the workout and say “um, maybe?” And the rest of the time. it’s just me wondering how badly I’ve neglected some of my biomechanics over the years as I stumble through movements that should be easy.

Maybe it’s just me, but today was definitely in the latter category.

Headed in with AJ for an 8:30 class with Coach Bill, Jonathan, and Logan. And we had fun, as per usual, even if we did grumble during the warm-up and the WOD more than a little. 🙂

Talk to the Paw

Warm-up today was:

• 2 rounds
  • 100m run 
  • 10 inchworms
  • 30 sec hollowbody hold
  • 10 single leg deadlift with dumbbell
  • 30 sec archbody hold
  • 10 pike push ups
  • 30 sec handstand hold

None of us was all that keen on running, but 100m wasn’t awful. First set of inchworms were rough. The holds were both rough. Well, honestly everything was a bit rough. Right elbow was annoyed. Shoulders were sore.

Second round of the warm-up was better, but not by much. 🙂

After that, we looked at the GHD for a hot second. I was all set to do today’s workout there until we did some hip extension practice and Bill had me shift the position of the GHD so it was squarely in my quads. To say that I didn’t appreciate the pain of that particular position would be an accurate statement, so I decided (wisely, I think) to adjust my lofty goals.

• Performance:
  • 4 rounds for time of:
    • 20 GHD sit-ups
    • 20 hip extensions
    • 50-ft. handstand walk, 10 attempts max
• Fitness:
  • 4 rounds for time of:
    • 15 sit-ups
    • 15 good mornings
    • 100-ft. bear walk

I adjusted the workout slightly:

• 4 rounds for time of:
  • 20 sit-ups
  • 20 good mornings
  • 100 ft bear walk

So let me talk about that bear walk for a minute. This is not the traditional bear crawl that we’ve done in the past. I can do that pretty effectively. This was something else entirely. Bill wanted us to use opposing hands and feet and try to get the rocking motion of a handstand walk into the mix.

This bear is walking the way I walk like a bear…

Um. Yeah, remember how I said earlier that sometimes I wonder about my own weird physical limitations of biomechanics? My brain and body don’t connect like some folks do. We have a bit of a rough relationship in fact. This was one of those times where we had a full on argument.

On all fours, move your right hand and your left foot. Now move your left hand and your right foot. If you’re anything like me, you can do it – albeit slowly – if you think about it. As soon as you stop thinking about it, you go back to right hand/right foot, left hand/left foot. Or at least, I did.

I would go maybe 3 or 4 “strides” and then suddenly realize I’d shifted back to my old habit. I had to consciously think through every… single… step… and even then I ended up left left right right more than half the time.

Frustrating. Definitely frustrating. And I’m not sure how much of that is brain and how much is body, but there you have it.

How’d we do?

• So we got going and I blew through the sit-ups and good mornings each round in around a minute. It took a LOT longer to get through the bear walk. By the time I was done, I finished in 18:57 and it was a struggle.
• AJ did 4 rounds of 15 hip extensions and GHD sit-ups on the GHD machine, plus the bear walk, and finished in 23:20. She did great and hung on to the end.

Definitely not one of my favorite workouts of recent days, but hey. I’m sure there’s a lesson to be learned somewhere. 🙂

Great work folks and I hope the 9:30 class (another big class today) had a great time with it too! Thanks Bill!

Six in a Row?

Some weeks it just works out that I get to spend more time in one of my favorite places. This was one of those weeks. Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning. Wednesday afternoon and Thursday morning. Friday night with 18.2 and today with a team WOD. Yeah, I may be a little sore, but I’ll be good to go come Monday again. 🙂

Today’s workout was written up by Coach Larry and it was a good one to take advantage of the beautiful weather we had this morning. We all might have been a little slow (except for Brent, who ran hard every round it seemed), but we survived. 🙂

Ev, AJ, and I headed in and were joined by Caleb & Megan, Austen, Deana & Marino, Stacy & Shaun (and Stacy’s sister), Nick & Lisa, Jonathan, and Brent. Not sure if I missed anybody, but I was a little surprised by the fact the had so many after 18.2 last night. Was a fun crew. 🙂

We started with a modified version of the warm-up we did all week and added some running drills, but were pretty soon off to the races.

• 30 Minute AMRAP – Teams of 2
  • Partner A – 400M Run
  • Partner B – Shoulder to Overhead (135/95)
  • Switch and repeat
  • Partner A – Run 400M
  • Partner B – Back Squats
  • Switch and repeat
  • Partner A – Run 400M
  • Partner B – Sit Ups
  • Switch and repeat
  • Partner A – Run 400M
  • Partner B – Box Jumps (24/20)
  • Switch and repeat

Jonathan and I tackled this one together. We initially were going to go with the 135# shoulder to overhead but I convinced him to drop it to at least 115# after a brief attempt at three reps. 🙂 I think Marino & Shaun were doing it with 95# and that probably would have been the better plan. 🙂 Ev & Lisa worked together and AJ worked with Austen. And there was one team of three I think.

I started running because that’s one of my least favorite things to do, so I might as well get it over with. 🙂

• Run 400m, Jonathan did 22 s2oh
• Jonathan ran 400m and I did 24 s2oh
• I ran and Jonathan did 38 back squats
• He ran and I only got through 23 back squats. My hamstrings were singing by that point. 🙂
• Then I ran and Jonathan did 69 sit-ups
• He ran and I did 65 sit-ups
• I ran and he did 39 24″ box jumps
• He ran and I did 42 20″ step ups
• And then we started over…
• I ran and he did 23 more s2oh
• He ran with about a minute left and I got through 10 more reps
• Total reps in 30 minutes = 355

Now, I’m not going to lie. I ran the entirety of the first 400m and did some combination of walk/run for every other lap. 🙂 But other than that I felt like I hung in with everything but back squats. Apparently the 55 dumbbell squats I did last night may have caught up with me a bit. 🙂

Anyway… We did great. Everybody kept moving and that was really the name of the game. By the time we were done, Drea & Jimmy were there, along with Todd. I

We watched Nick & Todd take on 18.2 while our friendly neighborhood chiropractor put us back together. Yeah, it was a good day.

Thanks for a good workout that got us out in the sun today Larry! And great work everybody!

Kiana’s WOD 2018

I’ve written multiple times about this workout. We have done it every year since the WOD was created and will do it many more as a reminder of those lost far too soon.

AJ and I headed in and we were among the many who showed up to honor Kiana’s memory and support Monica, Dan, and their family. They are great folks and we are always happy to put in the work to remember Kiana’s love and light every year.

The workout is the same as it’s been every year since it was founded.

Kiana’s WOD – Four Rounds for Time:

• 2 Squat Cleans #185/125
• 15 Push-ups
• 99 Double-unders
• 12 Sit-ups
• 23 Deadlifts #185/125
• 13 Box Jumps 30/24″

Scaled, Level II:

• Squat Clean #135/95
• 99 Single-unders
• Box Jumps 24/20″

Scaled, Level I:

• Squat Clean #95/65
• 99 Single-unders
• Step Ups

This year, I felt like I was going to be a bit better able to attack this workout than in previous years. Still not quite to the point where 185# squat cleans are in my bag of tricks, but I felt like I can move through the Scaled (L2) version a bit more efficiently than in previous years.

Turns out I was correct. I modified the workout a little as always but it was about the same as in previous years.

• 135# squat cleans and deadlifts
• single-unders
• push-ups, sit-ups
• Step-ups to a 24″ and then a 20″ box

And I was done in 24:14. Last year I completed it in under 32 minutes. The year before I finished in 30:46. So this is about 6 and a half minutes better than my fastest previous time. I’ll take that.

AJ did it again this year, but scaled dramatically to avoid tweaking the knee she sprained a couple of months ago. Even so, she was done in 19:11 with a 35# bar, single-unders with some double-under practice, and 20″ step-ups except for the last round where she did full box jumps. She did awesome.

Honestly everybody did awesome. This is always an emotionally charged event and we are just thankful we can continue to show our support.

Kiana is missed, but never forgotten at our box. Monica and her family are lovely folks and we will work to keep their daughter’s memory alive for many years to come.

Love and light.

Here are some pictures from the day!

Angie WOD

Woke up this morning feeling like an elephant was sitting on my chest, so I suppose it’s time for me to take a turn with the cold that’s been going around. But by 10 or so, I was feeling almost human so I decided to head in at lunch time for a Noon class with Coach Drea.

John and I tackled the warm-up and Drea suggested (wisely) to do our strict pull-ups and ring dips before we did Angie. This is a new 30 day challenge at the box where we do a few of these each day after a workout to try and beef up our skills. The goal is to improve our strict skills so that the kipping ones get easier. 🙂

Strict anything is not really my cup of tea, but I managed 3 strict pull-ups and 6 strict ring dips today. Good start to the challenge anyway.

And then… Angie.

• Angie – for time
• 100 pull-ups
• 100 push-ups
• 100 sit-ups
• 100 air squats

That’s the Rx/Competitor version. We thankfully had a couple of scale options:

• Performance:
  • 60 pull-ups
  • 60 push-ups
  • 100 sit-ups
  • 100 squats
• Fitness:
  • 50 ring rows
  • 50 knee push-ups
  • 50 sit-ups
  • 50 squats

It’s been a very long time since I recall doing this one. Last time I wrote up doing it was April 2015 and I honestly don’t know what I did as far as reps went, but I have a score written down of 29:08. And Drea said she thought we may have halved the reps – so 50 across the board.

Today I did the Performance level (so 60-60-100-100) and chugged through it. I think I talked through the whole thing too, commenting on the music more than a few times. (It was a Classic Rock mix, so I didn’t complain much until Guns and Roses “Patience” came on. 🙂 )

Some of my pull-ups were a little rough, but I did 60 of them. After that I was slow, but pretty steady. Finished in 23:54. A bit better than a 5 minute PR nearly 3 years later. I’ll take that.

John did the full rep scheme and finished in under 20 I think. He was moving!

May have to take a nap later. 🙂 Thanks for the encouragement along the way, Drea!