Jim vs. Burpees

Not much time today, so I went for “nasty, brutish, and short”.

Burpees x 50

Finished in 4:46, nine seconds faster than last time.

Jim vs. Double-unders

The discovery that the room I do my home workouts in has a ceiling high enough to let me do some rope-jumping led directly to today’s workout: doing as many double-unders as possible in 15 minutes.

I managed to get 99 done in that time; since I still don’t have the consecutive double-under down, each of those was a single-single-double combo. (And said number doesn’t, of course, capture all my single-single-FAIL combos, or the joy of hitting my bare feet with a speed rope on said fails. Which were, granted, preferable to the times I tagged myself in the back of the head.)

In the past, I’ve usually measured my double-under success in how long of a successful streak I could get; while I noted at least a streak of eight today, it was good to use a different metric on this one. It made even the streaks of one and two feel like they were worth something, and that motivated me to keep going even after I got tired.

Jim vs. Muscle-up Progression

I don’t even want to think about how long those rings were gathering dust. (Of course, me being me, I didn’t just think about it: I used metadata to figure it out. April.) In any case, several weeks without barbells means I’m gonna have to get creative with the home workouts, so today was all about the muscle-up progression.

Muscle-up progression (kneeling to transition) x 50

Finished in 6:25, which is less than 30 seconds longer than it took me to do 30 of these back in April. Rawk. We’ll see what I come up with for tomorrow.

Jim vs. Power Clean, Deadlift

This was my last day with the barbells for a few weeks, so I tried to make it count.

Power clean
95 x 3
115 x 3
125 x 3
135 x 3
145 x 3

Deadlift
225 x 5
250 x 5
275 x 5

So I ended up with a new 3RM for the power clean, and while that last set of deadlifts was 20lbs of my 5RM, I have done five-rep deadlifts since July. Something to work on for the new year, and a good end to this one (barbell-wise, anyway).

Jim vs. Thrusters, Push-ups, Pull-ups

I’ve always said that what “Fran” needs is ten more thrusters, ten more pull-ups, and fifty push-ups thrown in for fun.

Oh, wait: I’ve never said that, because that would be insane. And yet…

For time:

10 thrusters
5 push-ups
1 pull-up

9 thrusters
5 push-ups
2 pull-ups

8 thrusters
5 push-ups
3 pull-ups

…

1 thruster
5 push-ups
10 pull-ups

I finished up in 11:43, using 75lbs for the thrusters. It was unpleasant. It’s almost twice as long as my “Fran” time from exactly a year ago, but as noted it added a lot of reps plus many more transitions. So I guess I’m gonna have to do “Fran” again after the break to truly calibrate it.

Fun.

Jim vs. Shoulder Press, Back Squat

I’m kinda gorging myself on barbell work this week, what with Teagle being closed from December 25th through January 17th.

Shoulder Press
115 x 3
115 x 3
115 x 3
115 x 3
115 x 3

This was theoretically the start of the next phase in my linear progression, but three weeks off will probably force me to restart it again in January. Maybe i can get to one of the other gyms and keep this going; unlike the Olympic lifts, the shoulder press is allowable pretty much anywhere on campus with a barbell.

Back Squat
145 x 5
165 x 5
185 x 5

This I did mainly because back squats are almost always a good idea, and it felt good to get it in.

Jim vs. Bench Press, 1k Row

It’s been a while, bench press.

135 x 5
145 x 5
155 x 5
165 x 5
175 x 8

Again, this was revisiting an exercise that doesn’t get a lot of love from the CFI programing, or from CrossFit in general. It was fun pushing that last set, to see how many reps I could get.

Ended with a 1k row, coming in at 4:31. Still four seconds shy of my PR, but eight seconds faster than my time from last month.

Jim vs. Squat Variations

I really like this workout; can’t believe it’s been a year since I’ve done it last. I decided to use the same loads as last time, just to see how it felt.

Back squat
185 x 3
205 x 3

Front squat
145 x 3
165 x 3

Overhead squat
95 x 3
115 x 3

Overall, it didn’t feel that difficult. The 115 on OHS was tough, but it’s also my 3RM. The back squats and front squats felt damn near easy. I need to push myself next time; I’ve been using the last week to revisit exercises and build confidence, and next week I’ll need to actually capitalize on it.

Jim vs. Shoulder Press, Turkish Get-Ups

My shoulder press linear progression came to a moment of change today.

115 x 5
115 x 5
115 x 2

I’m pretty sure that 115 is a new 5RM for me on this lift, so I’m not disappointed with getting so far. But rather than end this experiment, I’m gonna alter it: next week, I’ll drop back to 110, and start the linear progression over using 5×3 days instead of 5×5. We’ll see how that works.

I also worked with Turkish get-ups for the first time since May:

25 x 1, both sides
30 x 1, both sides
35 x 1, both sides
37.5 x 1, both sides

Kinda wished I’d pushed to 40, which is my 1RM, but I forgot to check what said max was before I went to the gym. Still, after six months off, this didn’t feel too difficult (even after yesterday’s Angie and the aforementioned shoulder presses).  I’ll do these again next week, or later this week, and see where my PR is at.

Jim vs. Angie (55%)

One of the ways I motivate myself on days when I’m feeling unmotivated is to ask myself not if I want to do the work-out, but whether I want to have worked out. Today, it took me until 5pm, but I decided that I wanted to end my weekend having worked out.

Angie (55%)
55 pull-ups
55 push-ups
55 sit-ups
55 squats

Finished in 9:01, which is 16 seconds faster than my 50% time two weeks ago, and drops my “theoretical Angie time” from 18:34 to 16:24. Keen. Very glad I got myself correct and did this today.