Tuesday Night Workout: 40-30-20-10

Yesterday morning I had a really hard time rising to the alarm at 4:30, so I set the alarm for an hour later and decided to hit CF last night. But wow oh wow, was this a doozy.

40-30-20-10
For time
OHS 35lbs
Lunges 15 lbs
KB swings 35 lbs
Ring push ups

Now the weights for this were not incredibly heavy, and they weren't supposed to be. They were supposed to be light enough that you could just fly through. Surprisingly, I did just that. The ohs felt great actually, and I'm finding these days that I actually kind of LIKE squats now. Shh... don't tell Jerry. No really, squats used to be a really bad achilles for me, but they've gotten a lot better. I just need to remember to initiate with my butt back instead of bending my knees first. I also noticed the improvement in my hip speed when I did KB Swings. Normally these are also a bit of a struggle with me because of the hip movement, but I actually tore through them pretty quickly (well for me anyway). I did really well with this circuit.... until.... the ring push ups.

As if normal push ups don't suck badly enough, try doing them on a lowered set of rings. Oh yeah, let me tell you... I had a good fun grand time banging out 100 ring push ups. Yeah... about that... not so much. I honestly think too though that one of the worst things about this workout was the strap burn. Seriously, I took a layer of skin off my arms, and today I have bruises forming. It's uber retardo looking. And I keep hurting myself cause I forget and then lean in the doorway or cross my arms. Grrrrr... But, even though this was a killer and I was grunting and screaming "I hate these f'ing (I didn't really say f'ing... I censored myself here... c'mon now) things!" this was really a good workout. It was good for me to work the push ups and work on speed. That is, as Andrea put it, the next frontier for me. Somewhere between July and now, I went and got a little strong. For me, the next level of my fitness is working on perfect form and motion and speed. I still have a few kinks here and there I need to work out. Clean pull from the floor, deadlifts etc. But overall... a good day in the... hmmm... well I can't say Blue Room, so, a good day at the new box. :)

PS- The push ups slowed me down so much I don't really want to admit my time...

Monday night workout: Max Thruster 1-1-1-1-1-1-1

"Thruster? I damn near killed 'er!" Har har har har har... ;) Oh such fun with innuendos in CF. Didn't I write a blog about that? Hmmm... if not, I should. :O)

So, our Monday night workout was a pretty good strength workout. We were working on max thrusters. You know, I've never actually hit a max thruster workout, so this was interesting for me. My hip function and my speed off the bottom have been something that I've been working on for awhile. So, this was an interesting test for me. I knew after doing that heavy Fran back in September that I could put up 90, but I wasn't sure how much higher I could go without losing the thruster and finishing with a press. Andrea was looking for a wave of contraction because, well that's what a true thruster is. Sooo... my weights looked like this.

55
75
85
95
95
105
65

I did 95 twice just because it felt like I lost that solid movement that Andrea was looking for. So, I just hit a repeat. I think that I could have gone higher than 105, but I wasn't feeling it, and I was starting to lose the integrity of the movement. So I dropped down and just worked on hitting it for the speed off the bottom. I think that was a good choice for me. So, all in all, not too shabby.

Clean and jerk

Alright, since Robin's giving me crap, I guess I better get these up huh? It was a crazy weekend with district swimming and work and what have you but I guess Robin doesn't take excuses very well... :P On a positive note before I get too into these, our ladies team finished as the district runners up behind the three (probably four from the looks of things) time state champ girls team. I was proud of them. They swam very well, and it's the first time in the ladies' history I believe that they've done that well. We're a weak conference (I'm not being mean we really are) in terms of swimming, but still, they swam well and it was nice to see.

Hokay, so clean and jerk. Andrea has been doing the programming this last week or so and she's picked some doozies. Here we go...

1 clean
5 jerks

2 cleans
4 jerks

3 cleans
3 jerks

4 cleans
2 jerks

5 cleans
1 jerk

Now, this is a pretty speedy workout, but man let me tell you. I threw 100 lbs on that bar and on day 5 of my CF week, it took me over 5 minutes to get this done. I was sore, tired, and this hurt like crap. Note to self, 5 CF days in a row = bad idea. It's also challenging not to bring 100 lbs down under control and not crack yourself in the chest before going for another jerk, cause yeah, if you drop the bar you get to do extra cleans... woot! :P

Wednesday night workout: Cindy

With torn calluses in the palm of my hand...on the new fixed bars.. and on day 4 of CF week... I decided to still go and do Cindy. I'm the smartest person alive! Jerry told me I could sub abmats, and Andrea made me feel like a wuss (not intentionally but she said she had done Cindy and hers were worse then mine... *Katie hangs head for sheer and utter wussitude*) and so I got my butt on the bar and actually (surprisingly) busted out the best Cindy I've ever done.

I mean, I know it's no land speed record, but if you've been reading me long enough (or hell really even short enough) you know that body weight movements, and workouts that involve speed are two of my achilles. And to combine them into one workout, well crap. Let's just say that Cindy and I aren't BFF's, hokay? Soooo, anyhoo, I busted out 12 1/4 rounds. I have to say, I was pleased. It's the best Cindy I've done, and circumstances abounding, I will def take that.

BTW, if you want to know why I keep saying "Hokay" you really need to watch this... ps... if you're at work... turn the volume down LOW... there are a few too many bad words... :) Just FYI...

Front squats 1-1-1-1-1-1-1

After last night I got up early this morning to hit CF at my normal time. I rolled out of bed at 4:30 and scurried my behind to CFOT. I was stoked to see that today was a strength day. After the pull-ups tore my hands to crap last night, I was hoping we'd stay off the bar today, so I was happy that today was a front squat day. We've been doing lots of 3-3-3-3-3 so I was even more interested to see that today was a max day. Soooo, I busted out the squat rack (woot for squat racks!) and I got jiggy with it. (Yeah, word, I said jiggy with it. What are you gonna do about it?)

I started low to get some good warm-ups in and then ramped up from there.

35 X 10
55 X 5
85 X 5
115 X 1
135 X 1
155 X 1
160 X 1
165 X 1
170 X 1 (F)

By the time I got to 170 I had the jiggly leg syndrome. You know, where your legs wiggle and jiggle and you know you're not going to get anything up. Sooo, next time, note to self, I'm going to jump from 155 up to 170. The gaming of a strength day is critical I'm learning. Ramping up too slow causes me to get jiggly leg syndrome before I can get up my true max. I think gaming the strength days is key. I'm learning this slowly. :P (In case you haven't noticed, I can be a bit dense sometimes. :P ) I think tomorrow may be a rest day... I've been on for three days straight, but we'll see. It all depends on my hand. It hurts like a biotch and if we get on the bars tomorrow I'm done. It's going to bleed and I'm not going to be happy. Soooooo... we'll see.

Monday's metcon ninjary...

I'm not going to lie... after the Grace Challenge on Sunday, I zonked out. I mean, out out. I climbed in bed at about 12:30. I woke up sometimes around the 5:00 time frame and couldn't figure out where I was. I was zonked. Soooo I tried to go to sleep on Sunday, but I couldn't sleep AT ALL. I tried to get up yesterday to get to CF but I didn't get to bed until at least 1, so I called in a "snoozer" and decided that since CF is now offering later classes at night, I would hit a later class.

Perfect! So last night I rolled into the 5:45 class and hit Andrea's little doozy. It looked like this.

800 M run
21 DL
9 Pull-ups
15 DL
15 Pull-ups
9 DL
21 Pull-ups
800 M run

This should have been a smoker, but honestly, my back was hurting and the deads felt wicked bad. Sooo, I decided to play it smart. I backed the weight down. It was supposed to be bodyweight, but I started with 135. Andrea was watching me do my deads and we both agreed that something was off. So, we threw the weight off and just watched form. I have a very flat back, which is why I always round on my deads. I had an "AHA!" moment. So, when we ditched the weight, I really tried to work on getting my chest out. Getting my dead form down as well as say, my cleans, is going to take a lot of work. Over the last few weeks, it's gotten better, but still room to grow. I think backing down is key. I need to stop trying to think heavy all the time. I love to throw me some heavy weights around, but sometimes I just need to back off. (That should be a duh kind of thing, but it's taken me awhile... yeah yeah yeah, I know.)

FYI... we got the new pull-up bars in on Saturday. This was the first workout with fixed bars. I tore my hands miserably. It's not one of those tears you can ignore... it's right in the middle of my hand. Ouch. Fixed bars are going to take some getting used to... more learning for the teacher... how ironic... :P

Grace Challenge Finals

Back in the beginning of December, we hit the beginning of our Grace Challenge. The idea was to choose a weight, train 8 weeks, and then hit the same workout with the same weight again, and look for improvement. Now, there was a bit more to it of course as Jerry also put money on the line for the best man and woman in the pro and elite categories, as well as the most improved.

During our initial trial run, I decided to go elite and use 100 pounds for the Grace Challenge. For those of you who aren't familiar with Grace, or who have a hard time keeping all the ladies in line, Grace looks like this.

Grace
30 rep
Clean and jerk
For time
RX-85 lbs

I love shoulder/upper body work because next to my tongue, my shoulders are probably the strongest muscles in my body. Honestly. So, the Grace Challenge seemed right up my alley. In our trial run I somehow managed to bust out a 4:48. I was pretty pleased with that, seeing as how the CF ninjas do it in about 2:30 with less weight than what I used. I was pretty happy with that.

Going into the finals today though, I was really nervous. I really didn't want to go slower, and I'll admit, I went in with the fastest elite time and I really wanted to win. I know that at times I'm too competitive for my own good, but for once, just once, I wanted to be on top of the white board.

I went in and just hit it hard. I busted out a 4:07 with 100 lbs. I was really happy with that, and thought to myself, that maybe, just maybe I might actually win this thing. That was until our uber athlete hit the bar a few minutes later, and then just basically kicked my ass. That was frustrating. It's not that I'm not happy that I went faster or PR'd, but it was a challenge. It was a competition, and GD I wanted to win.

I know I posted that whole thing about PR's the other day, and I know it seems like I'm going against my whole thing, I'm not. Really, you shouldn't compare your output to someone else's in a workout. Having said that though, today was actually about competing. It's not like today was just another workout. And just for once, I wanted to actually sit on the top of the white board. I know that's retarded because that's not what CF is really for. CF is for making yourself better, which I did, but just once I wanted that, and I was really bummed that it didn't get to happen. It's a frustrating feeling sometimes when your best is just not good enough. I know I'm more competitive than I should be about this, but like I said, sometimes I am too competitive for my own good.

Tomorrow will be back to business as usual....