Jim vs. The Light Workout

I have a lot of trouble doing a light workout. When I get to the gym, even on what are supposed to be recovery days, I find myself adding sets, exercises, something. I think it’s years of feeling like I needed to do at least two to three sets of four to five different exercises in order for a workout to “count”; CrossFit’s more focused workouts took a lot of getting used to, and doing less is a struggle. (I think it feels like cheating, on some level.)

This is actually a problem, because one of two things happens:

1. I don’t allow myself proper recovery, and I get injured (or at least fatigued enough that I have to stop working out).
2. I treat recovery periods as not-going-to-the-gym periods, and get out of the habit.

But today, I did a pretty good light workout. My usual warm-up for a workout consists of stretching, then sets of lightweight overhead squats, pull-ups, push-ups or dips, back extensions, and sit-ups.* I’ll do two rounds of that, then get to my core workout.

So today, I did a round of warm-up, then an untimed 400m run. Then I did that again. Nice, easy, got my body moving, worked up a bit of a sweat, called it a day. I think that was a light workout.

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* I’ll also often throw in a super-light set of whatever exercise I’m doing that day, and some jump rope.

Jim vs. Shoulder Press

I’m going light this week, for reasons I’ll discuss in a bit. So I just went in to tackle another day of the shoulder press linear progression.

100 x 5
100 x 5
100 x 5
100 x 5
100 x 4

On the one hand, it’s disappointing: back in December, I didn’t have to stop until I hit 115. But to be more realistic, this go at the linear progression was about coming back from June’s injury. I shouldn’t be surprised that, two months later, I’m still not all the way back.

Now, about this being a light week. I’ve just completed four straight weeks of four workouts per week; this was my 17th workout this month. That’s my best monthly total since November 2009.

I started looking at workouts per month toward the end of July, trying to find out why I’ve been putting on weight and losing endurance in the last year. What I found was that I’d just been working out a lot less in 2010 and 2011. I’m going to try to change that. It’ll probably mean working out most weekends, and settling for shorter workouts… but so far, it’s been going great.

That being said, I don’t want to beat myself up too much and not take the time to recover. So I’ll do three light workouts this week, and see how I feel about getting back to it next week.

Jim vs. Push-ups, Pull-ups, Sandbag Squats

Tapped into Crossfit Virtuosity’s programming again, and modified it for home use. The original incorporated overhead squats, which I don’t have the equipment for at home. What I do have is a 25 lb bag of road salt from the winter, and while that’s only a third of the weight Rx’d,  the fact that I’ve never done sandbag work still made this one tough.

25, 20, 15, 10, 5 reps for time of:
Push-ups
Pull-ups
Sandbag squats, 25lbs

I finished in 8:27.  It certainly would’ve been tougher with the OHSs, but this was no cakewalk. Still, I need to make myself a 50lb sandbag soon.

Jim vs. The 400 Club

Today’s title sounds more like a Chuck episode than usual, but I can live with that. If I was happy with yesterday’s results, I’m ecstatic about today’s.

Deadlift
315 x 1
365 x 1
405 x 1

That last set represents a new PR on the deadlift, and the achievement of one of my 2011 goals: deadlifting over 400 lbs.

I’ve been using the term “400 club” in my head since reading this post over at The Strength Rules six months back. As you can imagine from reading that, there’s more than a bit of the sardonic in my use of the term. But that being said, I’m really thrilled with this; it’s not something I would have ever thought possible five years ago.

(Oh, and in terms of progress towards The Thousand Pound club, I’m currently at 880. Which ain’t bad, especially considering I’ve only done bench press eleven times in the last two and a half years.)

But there’d be a helluva lot of work involved if I decided to make that my next big goal. Right now, I’m dealing with a goal that’s less flashy, but more constant. I’ll talk more about that next week.

Jim vs. Overhead Squat, 500m Rows

Nina’s trying to get back into the exercise swing, so I gave her moral support on some bodyweight exercises and joined her on a one-mile run last night. It was a solid warm-up for today.

Overhead squat
65 x 3
80 x 3
95 x 3
110 x 3
120 x 3

That there is a new 3RM, and it was a strong set to boot.  There’s a feeling on the OHS for me, when I get my form correct, where it’s like my body is locking into alignment and I could just do the movement all day. I got that feeling on most of my sets today, including the last one.

I was somewhat bummed because I’d wanted to work on double-unders today, but I’d forgotten my jump rope at home. Turns out, this wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

500m row
1:54
2:12

So I followed up a new 3RM with a new PR on the 500m row, by two seconds. Again, right from the start I knew it was gonna be a fast time. Something just clicked.

Twice in one workout. Awesome goddam feeling, that.

Jim vs. Shoulder Press, Weighted Pull-ups

Not much to say about this one. Solid Monday strength work.

Shoulder press
95 x 5
95 x 5
95 x 5
95 x 5
95 x 5

Weighted pull-ups
+60 (250) x 2
+35 (225) x 4

Well, I’ll say this: the shoulder presses are becoming noticeably tougher, and I can’t believe it’s taken me this long to figure out that I should list both added weight and total weight for weighted pull-ups.

Jim vs. Sit-ups, Box Jumps, Burpees

This one’s another Crossfit Virtuosity joint.

3 rounds for time of:
30 Sit-ups
20 Box Jumps, 18″
10 Burpees

I scaled down the box jumps, mainly because the closest thing I could find at home to jump onto was a dining room chair, which happened to be 18″ tall. I finished in 9:55, and was pleased that the sit-ups didn’t give me as much trouble as I expected. Not that they were easy, but they were “my muscles are getting fatigued” hard, rather than “I’m gonna lose my lunch” hard.

And since I’ve never been a member of the “puking is awesome” school of exercise, this is a definite improvement.

Jim vs. Deadlifts, Running

Went light today, in preparation for next week.

Deadlift
185 x 5
195 x 5
205 x 5
215 x 5
225 x 5

First 5×5 on the deadlift in what feels like a very long time. Felt good, and I do believe I’ll give 400 a go next week.

400m run
1:45
1:52

These are the exact same times I got for my first two runs last time. Odd.

Jim vs. Front Squats, Box Jumps & Pull-ups

This was a good ‘un.

Front squat
185 x 3
165 x 5
150 x 5

A month back I bemoaned forgetting that 185 was my 3RM on this exercise; today I rectified that error. 185 felt like a 3RM, but it was nice getting the fifth rep in at 165. (Seems like 175 is my 5RM on this exercise, which is an oddly tight cluster.)

Then I did a metcon lifted from Crossfit Virtuosity:.

21, 15, 9 reps for time of:
Box Jumps, 20″
Pull-ups

As you can see, I scaled the box jumps back to 20″, and finished in 4:21. Even scaled back, these were some of the tallest jumps I’ve done in a WOD.

Like I said: a good ‘un.

Jim vs. Shoulder Press, Turkish Get-Ups

Thought I’d change things up a bit.

Shoulder press
90 x 5
90 x 5
90 x 5
90 x 5
90 x 5

Well, OK, I’ve been doing shoulder press for weeks. But the weight went up!

The big change was eschewing back squats; I set a new 3RM last week, and I’m gonna stay fresh for some work on either front or overhead squats later in the week. Instead, I did Turkish get-ups:

45 x 2
40 x 3

One change from the usual: instead of doing that number of reps each side, I just did the first set with my right hand, the second with my left. That went easier on my shoulder, and I’m gonna see if I get better results when I’m able to do true 1-2, 2-3, or 3-4 reverse pyramids, rather than being locked into 2-4, 4-6, or (gods preserve me)  6-8.