Nothing Sunday about this Sunday WOD

Five rounds of:

• 50 double-unders
• 20 one-handed kettle-bell overhead lifts
• 20 box jumps
• 20 knees to elbows

Didn't record my time. Was 30+ minutes or so.

Burpees and heavy thrusters

Today's WOD: Five round of:

• 10 burpees
• 7 x thrusters (135/95) [I did 115 lbs]

Time = 12 minutes and change. Very humbling when you have break the thrusters down into sets of two...

150 kettle-bell swings

Don't think I've ever done this one before: 150 kettle-bell swings at 20kg. Time was 9:47. Not sure if this is something we'll ever do again, but let's mark it as a PR.

Again, feeling really good at the gym these days. Zone diet really kicking in, I think; down to 182.5 lbs.

After this WOD we did a team row, which from a personal perspective, required 2 x 500m sprints.

Mr. Spectacular does overhead squats and ring dips

Today's WOD: Four rounds of:

• 12 X Overhead Squats [115 lbs/ 75 lbs]
• 9 X Ring Dips
• 6 X Mr. Spectaculars [35 lb DB/ 25 lb DB]

I did 95lbs overhead squats and fully prescribed Mr. Spectaculars. Time: 19:47. Very tough, but felt good.

Mr. Spectacular: dumbell squat clean to dumbell push-press, set the dumbells down and walk your hands out to a plank position, do a push up, walk your hands back in, pick up the dumbells and back into dumbell squat clean.

In this video they use Kettlebells...we used Dumbells, they do Power Cleans, did Squat Cleans.

Strength work and a twist on "Blackjack"

WOD:

• Back Squat - 3 sets of 5 reps @ 85% of 1 rep max
• Press - 3 sets of 5 reps @ 80% 1 rep max

"BLACKJACK"

• 20 jumping squats - 1 jumping pull up
• 19 jumping squats - 2 jumping pull ups
• 18 jumping squats - 3 jumping pull ups
• 17 jumping squats - 4 jumping pull ups
• etc...

Time = 14:57.

Hang-cleans to thrusters

Interesting WOD today: No clock for this one:

• Max pull-ups

Rest followed by five rounds of:

• 10 x hang-cleans to thrusters with progressively heavier weights (with modest break between rounds)
  

Note: The movement (and the round) doesn't count if there is a break in the movement from the hang-clean motion through to full overhead extension; other than that you can rest all you want

Here's how it all went down:

• 18 consecutive pull-ups
• Rounds went: 75/85/95/105/6@115lbs
• 12 consecutive pull-ups
  

5k row

Rowed 5,000 meters in 19:04.

Squat cleans and 200 m runs

Hopper Deck Thursday wrought:

• 10 Cleans* @ 115 lbs/ 75 lbs , Run 200 m
• 9 Cleans , Run 200 m
• 8 Cleans , Run 200 m
• 7 Cleans , Run 200 m
• 6 Cleans , Run 200 m
• 5 Cleans , Run 200 m
• 4 Cleans , Run 200 m
• 3 Cleans , Run 200 m
• 2 Cleans , Run 200 m
• 1 Clean , Run 200 m

*This is a full squat clean from the ground

Time = 18:48

Starting to feel like myself again.

Note: We did a WOD like this back in November, but with 95lbs; I completed it in a time of 16:32.

Man-maker madness

Long and hard WOD today that consisted primarily of man-makers:

• 50 Wall Ball 20lbs/14lbs
• 50 Sit ups
• 30 Man- Makers 35lbs/25lbs
• 30 Wall Ball
• 30 Sit ups
• 20 Man- Makers
• 20 Wall Ball
• 20 Sit ups
• 10 Man- Makers

Time = 26:26 @ 25lbs. Definitely felt much better today. Good to do a met-con after nearly 2 weeks of heavy WODs.

Blue Monday

Today's WOD:

• 100 Double unders

then 21-15-9 reps of:

• Deadlift 225 lbs/ 155 lbs
• Toes to Bar
• DB Squat Cleans 35 lbs/ 25 lbs

finish with

• 100 Double Unders

I didn't feel so good doing this one. I struggled with severe dizziness and dark spots in front of my eyes. My theory is that I've lost too much weight too fast and that my body is still transitioning into The Zone. I also feel like I still not 100% after the long Christmas layoff.

I'm down to 184lbs from 195lbs, and combined with my low blood pressure, I'm experiencing massive head-rushes and dizziness. I've upped my Zone fats by 3X in hopes that I'll stabilize at a reasonable weight (currently on a 17 block day).

Cindy with weights

Interesting WOD today: AMRAP 20 minutes of:

• 5 x power cleans (95lbs)
• 10 x push presses
• 15 x back squats

Did 6 1/2 rounds. Surprisingly hard, still feel like I'm getting my legs back.

*Note: Today marks the beginning of Week 2 on The Zone.

CrossFit Games 2008 WOD

The WOD we did today was featured at the CrossFit games in 2008: Five rounds of:

• 5 deadlifts (275lbs) -- I did 250lbs
• 10 burpees

Time = 6:48.

Prior to this workout we did a series of strict presses working to our max. Hmmm, definitely sensing a strength bias at the gym this week.

CrossFit Total

Hopper Thursday yielded CrossFit Total. We did it six weeks ago, so I wasn't expecting to see too much progress, but I did fairly well setting two new PR's in the process:

• Press = 110lbs [PR from 105lbs]
• Back Squat = 235lbs [matched PR]
• Deadlift = 355lbs [PR from 345 lbs]
• CrossFit Total = 700

Onwards!

Snatchin' and double-underin'

Today's WOD:

• 60 Double Unders
• 60 Sit ups
• 20 Squat Snatch 95lbs/65lbs
• 30 Double Unders
• 30 Sit ups
• 10 Squat Snatch
• 15 Double Unders
• 15 Sit Ups
• 5 Squat Snatch

Prescribed weight was 95lbs, but I did 75lbs as I slowly ease into things. Forgot to note my time. But it wasn't very good -- the double-unders holding me back as usual.

Remove the routine

A colleague of mine posed the question: "If you do 50 push ups spread throughout the day, every day, is it as good as 100 push ups done at once every other day?"

To which I responded:

Neither. What's needed are diverse sets of fully functional movements performed at high intensity.

Not happy with my answer, he asked me to elaborate, so I did:

I stand by my answer--and I'm quite aware that you're doing other movements. If your goal is to be as physically fit as possible (which I believe it is), you need to mix up your workouts and focus on your proficiency across all modal domains (skills and drills) and time domains (which means being on the clock). If you're doing a high number of push-ups every day (or every other day), you're (1) clearly not introducing other integral movements into your workouts and (2) you're not giving yourself enough recovery time for that particular movement.

I don't believe that either option you've presented is particularly beneficial over the long haul. It sounds far too routine-ish to me. I would definitely have you keep 100 push-ups as part of your workout regimen, but you need to introduce it at fairly random intervals and intermixed with other movements. As well, you should introduce a different quantity of push-ups in the workouts (20, 40, 60, whatever) and intermixed with other functional movements.

As for spreading the same movement across the day, I don't think that's a good idea. Again, high intensity movements over short time domains should be your focus (it will improve your stamina, endurance, and cardio). If you want to do two intense workouts over the course of each day, that's fine--just spread them out by about 5-6 hours.

Consequently, if I'm forced to answer your question, I would say that you should do 100 push-ups in the same session. I'm sure you could do it. Give it a try. Even if it takes you an hour. Just break down each set into manageable portions and/or intermix it with other movements.

Back at the gym

My first day back at CrossFit Connection after 2 1/2 weeks. Today's WOD: 21, 15, 9 of:

• Thrusters (95lbs)
• SDHP
• Floor wipers

And the special sauce: Eight box jumps between each of the movements.

Time = 25:12 (doing 85 lbs). Pretty awful, but hey, it was my first WOD in quite some time. I battled dizziness and a bit of nausea throughout, but it had to be done. Looking forward to being myself again at the gym.

Back into the swing of things

Took a leisurely 5km run today to shake out the cobwebs after nearly 2.5 weeks of inactivity (not including 6 consecutive days of skiing in Mont Tremblant #quadsburn).