A leisurely 5k, but a 5k nonetheless. As the first workout of my vacation, I went running with Nina, my sister, and my dad. We ran down to the boardwalk and back, which Nina mapped out as just over 5k. It took us about 40 minutes; I feel like I could’ve gone faster, but socialization and yesterday’s debacle gave me ample reason to take it easy.
And since I can’t remember the last time I ran that far, and I wasn’t feeling very winded at the end, I’ll call it a win.
Angie wins, hands-down.
I did this one a while back, 60 reps apiece on pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, and squats. I figured I’d keep the same number, see if I could beat my time.
Ha. Ha.
I got through my pull-ups, push-ups, and half the sit-ups in around seven and a half minutes, then spent the next few minutes retching. I haven’t gotten punked by a workout like this since I don’t know when. Not sure if it was dehydration, not enough sleep, insufficient warm-ups, or just me having a crappy day. But that experience didn’t make my day any better. Gah.
As I’m about to embark on a week without access to bumper plates and Olympic racks, so I decided to get in one more strength day before my departure. A 5×5 push press workout seemed to fit the bill.
75 x 5
95 x 5
95 x 5
95 x 5
105 x 5
The first three sets were me getting a good handle on the form. Shoulder press is feeling very natural to me, and push jerks have also been solid; push press took a bit of wrangling, but by the last two sets I felt like I could be handling heavier loads than I was attempting. This is worth remembering the next time I do this one.
Ah, CFT, it’s been a while.
If you don’t know, the CrossFit Total is your combined single-rep max for back squat, overhead press, and deadlift. You get three attempts to hit your max for each of the three exercises. Injury prevented me from partaking of the CFT the last two times it came up, so I haven’t tried it since the end of January. Here’s how I did today, maxes in bold.
Back squat: 225-235-255
Shoulder press: 125-135-140 (fail)
Deadlift: 295-305-315
TOTAL: 705
Going by this helpful chart, I’m still a Novice, but I’m knocking on the door of Intermediate (just 17 lbs shy). When I did this back in January, I only hit 615.
Breaking 135 lbs on my shoulder press has become my white whale: even adding a mere five pounds rendered it seemingly undoable. I actually felt relieved just hitting 135 again, since I couldn’t do that a few weeks ago, but it meant that shoulder press was the only exercise I didn’t increase my max on today. I’m sure it’s as psychological as it is physical at this point; I’m going to address both by doing a 5×5 shoulder press workout every fortnight or so, possibly for the rest of the summer.
It’s Memorial Day weekend, but I’m gonna try not to veg out entirely. At the very least, I got this one in today:
3 rounds for time:
Run 400m
35 Squats
I finished it in 9:20, which was more than I’d hoped for. Squats were slower than I thought they’d be, and a had a vicious stitch set into my side about 100m into the final run. I’m getting better at running through a stitch, at least.
Which is not to say it doesn’t still suck, of course.
Well, in this case, dumbbell bench press. You see, in Teagle Hall, the rowing machines are in the upstairs gym and the bench press stations are in the downstairs gym. Rather than run back and forth, I substituted dumbbell bench press, which can be done upstairs. The Pack scaling for this one called for 1/2 body weight bench press, which would be 90 lbs for me. Knowing* that dumbbell bench using a given weight is tougher than barbell bench with the same weight, I used 40 lb dumbbells, which represents 44% of my body weight.
For time:
Row 500 meters
Dumbbell bench press, 30 reps
Row 1000 meters
Dumbbell bench press, 20 reps
Row 2000 meters
Dumbbell bench press, 10 reps
I knocked this out in 19:02, which really felt great to me. (The time, I mean; I was on the floor after this one.) In fact, this whole cycle felt like some of my best work in a while.
* And by “knowing” I mean “assuming (on the basis that it’s always felt that way to me)”. I could be completely wrong.
Posted in WODs
Tagged 1k row, 2k row, 500m row, bench press, dumbbell bench press, rowing
So, the prescribed WOD that I would’ve done today involved an exercise that is impossible at Teagle’s downstairs gym, so rather than deal with the hassle I subbed in a 5×5 shoulder press workout. Since the problematic experience with my last 7×1 shoulder press WOD, I’d been wanting to put some focused work into this exercise. Today seemed a good opportunity. The sets broke down like this:
75 lbs x 5
85 lbs x 5
95 lbs x 5
105 lbs x 1; 95 lbs x 4
95 lbs x 5
This was solid. My shoulders felt good and fatigued at the end, and set #4 told me very clearly what weight I should be using for these 5x5s. I was unsure about this substitution, since it’ll make my current three-day cycle very upper-body focused, but in hindsight it seems like a good call. Anyway, I have a feeling that the holiday weekend — and associated gym closing — will mean a lot of running and squats for me next cycle.
Back to the workouts, with another lovely 21-15-9 metcon that shares a name with someone I know. This one involved deadlifts and handstand push-ups — or a stop on the HSPU progression, at least.
“Diane”
21-15-9
185 lb deadlift
Handstand push-ups (feet on bench)
I finished this in 6:35, and then hit the ground and lay there feeling gelatinous for a couple of minutes. This was the most weight I’d done on a deadlift “endurance” workout, and the whole thing ended up feeling better than any metcon I’ve done in a while. I had to break up the deadlift sets a bit, but I’ve come to expect that on these workouts; I didn’t need to break up the HSPUs at all, which makes me think I need to start working on real handstands. Could be a good goal for the summer.
I haven’t really gotten a chance to do a glute-ham sit-up (GHSU) since we found out — the hard way, in Nina’s case — that doing that exercise on the back extension station at Teagle Hall could injure your back. The Noyes fitness center on West Campus has a proper GHSU station, but it’s a lot tougher for me to get to, and lacks amenities like a decent sized locker room and an issue room to grab workout clothes from. (Not their fault, really: Noyes caters to students who live in the adjacent dorms, not staff like me.) As such, I hadn’t done a GHSU for weeks before stopping by there today to tackle this WOD:
Four rounds for time of:
20 GHSUs
15 back extensions
And wow, did I pay for it. I’d gotten OK at the GHSUs, but they were nothing but pain for me today. I was reduced to doing bursts of 2 or 3 for most rounds, and it took me 7:59 to finish the WOD. Ow.
I may need to find a way to get over to Noyes at least once a week, and keep these in the rotation.
Another seven sets of one rep apiece, this time looking for my max load on the power clean. And I seem to have found it, within a certain margin of error. My results:
95 lbs x 1
105 lbs x 1
115 lbs x 1
125 lbs x 1
135 lbs x 1
145 lbs x 0 (fail)
145 lbs x 0 (fail)
135 lbs x 1
I ended up doing eight sets because Scott up at CrossFit ‘Cuse always said to end on a good rep. Maybe I should’ve dropped back down to 135 after my first failed attempt at 145, but I felt really close, so I wanted to give it another go. Overall it felt good, and this was the first time I found myself tempted to drop to a full clean to catch a heavier load just a little bit lower, which was kind of neat in and of itself.
I’m vaguely worried that I’m developing a mental block around loads greater than 135 lbs going above my waist, but I’ve only really got two points of reference for that. For now I’ll refrain from borrowing problems from the future.
