Level 1 Certification

Friday was a rest day in anticipation of the 16+ hours of Crossfit-ness on Saturday and Sunday, at the Level 1 Certification at Crossfit Fairfax. Needless to say, I learned a lot, and my legs are killing me from the workouts and all of the time I spent hanging out at the bottom of my still-immature air squat.

On Saturday, we did a Tabata squats workout in the morning, and followed that up with a team Fran in the afternoon. I gamed the squats a little bit since our lowest score ended up being the score we reported; 15 was a somewhat solid number, but I'd of course like to do better. Team Fran went relatively well: as a team of 5 (all of the PCF crew who attended the Cert - Jamie, Tara, Jen F, and Laura B), we had to accomplish 200 thrusters (mine were at 65 lb) and 250 pullups. I didn't keep exact track of my numbers, but am guessing I got somewhere in the 45 rep range for thrusters, and about 30 pullups, which were all kipping singles. Ok scores, considering I felt kind of worked over after the morning seminars and WOD. Got some good tips on making my thruster more efficient - I need to keep my elbows down, unlike during normal front squats. This helped me explode a little better into the push press part of the movement.

Sunday they took it a little easier on us and gave us a 10:00 AMRAP couplet of 10 burpees and 10 partner medicine ball situps. The gym was a bit crowded, which may have slowed me down a bit, and I lost count, but I think Jamie and I managed at least 6 rounds, if not 7. Tweaked my burpee form a little bit by widening my stance throughout the burpee, which really helped me get onto my heels and explode out of the pushup position.

I could go on and on about what I learned this weekend, but I have two midterms to study for, and I've already done some serious procrastinating this evening. Monday will be a rest day!

Wednesday was mostly a rest day: all I did was work on deadhang pullups. Did 4-2-2-2.

Today was another modified Stronglifts day:

Back Squat 3x5 (135 lb)

Overhead Press 3x5 (70 lb; 3-4-3)

Deadlift 1x5 (175 lb)

Decided to back off the weight a little for back squats and work on form. I kind of had a feeling today was going to be my first overhead press fail. I'll take another crack at 70 lb next time it comes up in the rotation. Deadlifts were surprisingly hard, probably in large part due to my core being tired by the time it was time to do them.

This evening, I had frisbee practice. Pretty short in terms of time and numbers, but I was glad to get out there and get some short sprints in. I then did 5 sets of 2 pullups with about 90 seconds rest in between before my shoulders called uncle.

Today's WOD was

5 rounds

50 double unders

10 HSPUs

Since I managed a couple of honest-to-goodness HSPUs (albeit with an ab mat) last week and after a consultation with Erika, I decided to try to do at least a few of them each round before going over to a black/blue band harness. Took me around 32 minutes to finish, in equal parts because of my C- double under ability and HSPUs being fricking hard. I also underestimated how much harder double unders would be after a bunch of HSPUs. In any event, it was good practice for both of those movements, and I was happy that I could get an average of 4 ab mat HSPUs every round before going over to the harness. Also, thanks to Ryan P for giving me the "relax" tip on the double unders. It really did help!

Mid-afternoon I worked on deadhang pullups:

3-2-2-2-1-1-1-1-1-1, trying to keep the breaks between sets as small as possible.

I've been frustrated by how hot and cold my pullup ability has been, so I'm going to try and grease the groove as much as I can without overdoing it on my shoulders. After doing the deadhangs, I then worked a little bit on the first part of the kipping pullup progression - swinging back and forth underneath the bar, making sure to employ my shoulders and not my hips to make the movement happen. Props to Again Faster's Mic'd Instructor videos for explaining the progression so well.

After class I did another modified Stronglifts:

Back Squat 3x5 (155 lb; 5-2-1)

Bench Press 3x5 (70 lb)

Power Clean 5x3 (70 lb)

GHD Situps 3x20

I was kind of bummed about failing on the back squats, but it had to happen sometime. The fact that I managed 8 reps on a weight that was 10 lb lower than my previous 1 rep max is probably a good sign, though. I'll probably deload a bit to work on form and work my way back up.

Weekend Update

Didn't get much sleep on Friday night, which resulted in me forgetting that the 12:00 class on Saturday was the free class. I was kind of bummed and also really tired, so couldn't motivate to do the snatch/row WOD on my own. I did decide to work on double unders and a little bit of met con by doing Annie, which is

50 DU

50 situps

40 DU

40 situps

30 DU

30 situps

20 DU

20 situps

10 DU

10 situps

My time ended up right around 13:00, which is pathetically slow, but this was the first time I've been able to do it as Rx'd, so I was pleased about that.

Sunday was frisbee practice, which was short and inside because of the weather. We basically scrimmaged 5s and 4s almost the entire time, which was pretty fun (and a fair amount of running). Resprained my thumb again, though, which sucks.

Thursday turned into another unanticipated rest day. Bleh.

Friday was modified Stronglifts B:

Back Squat 3x5 (150 lb)

Overhead Press 3x5 (65 lb)

Deadlift 1x5 (170 lb)

This workout was made less pleasant by the cold weather (my home gym is in the carport). D'oh! After deadlifts, I tried doing some pullups, and only got 6 done before I decided to take it easy on my shoulders, which were pretty tired from the overhead presses.

Did a modified version of Stronglifts A today:

Back Squat 3x5 (145 lb)

Bench Press 3x5 (65 lb)

Power Clean 3x3 (65 lb)

GHD Situps 3x20

Pushups 3x15

Was a little worried about lingering neck pain from yesterday, but decided to go after it anyhow. Man, does dropping down to 3x5 make a difference! I don't know if it was psychological, but I felt good to great throughout all but the last couple of back squats. Bench press was solid, and power cleans were a fun, welcome (and light, at my chosen starting weight of 65 lb) addition to the workout.

P.S. Neck felt fine throughout workout.

Monday was an unscheduled rest day due to my cold. Damn.

Tuesday was

Double Tabata

L-pullups (scaled to regular dead hangs)

Overhead Squats (65 lb)

61 reps

Not an impressive number by any stretch of the imagination, but there were a few factors working against me, namely dropping the bar on my neck too hard during the second round of OHS and having to ditch during another round. Felt good otherwise on OHS form, and am glad I scaled up to 65 lb (the Rx'd weight). Pullups were not great, as I only managed 2-4 per round (and couldn't count some because I didn't get up over the bar), but hey. At least I did real pullups, so I'll take it.

Saturday we spent nearly the whole class drilling the snatch with PVC (wasn't nearly as dirty as it sounds), then I worked a little just on form at 55 lb. I then did a few skin the cats and even managed a few handstand pushups, which was a first! I used the skinniest side of the ab mat, so it wasn't technically full ROM, but I got pretty dang close. Arms still felt pretty tired from the two previous days of pullups, pushups, and presses, so I didn't push it too much.

Sunday was frisbee practice and that's it. I felt a cold coming on before practice even started this morning, so I took it relatively easy and then decided to not go to the evening WOD...

Took a crack at Stronglifts B today:

Back Squat 5x5 (140 lb)

Overhead Press 5x5 (60 lb)

Deadlift 5x1 (165 lb)

Pullup 3-2-2-2-2 (arms were too worn out to make it through all 10 sets)

3-45 sec prone bridges

This workout is now officially hard - back squats have been pretty tough for the past few weeks, but today overhead presses and pullups were hard too. I'm guessing it had something to do with yesterday's workout, but the weight for overhead presses is starting to approach my previous 1-rep max, so I'm not surprised things are getting tricky.

From now on I think I'm going to replace inverted rows with 5x5 power cleans, just because I'd like to work on them more. Also, just realized that I should be doing 1 set of 5 deadlifts. Oops. Will rectify that next time.

Tuesday was a planned rest day, and Wednesday was an "oh damn I'm going to fail my anatomy and physiology quiz if I don't spent the entire day studying" kind of rest day. Today I intended to do the Oly lifting class and Stronglifts A afterward. I made it to Oly lifting, during which we worked on the snatch. I only managed a solid one at 65, which was kind of disappointing (I got 70 up, but let the bar get too far out front from me so it was hard to lock it in at the bottom), but it was nice to work on form.

Got home and started to squat, then decided it wasn't going to work out today (core was a little too tired from the snatching). Finished the rest of Stronglifts A, which was

Bench press 5x5 (60 lb)

Inverted row 10x3

Pushups 3xf (15-15-15)

Reverse situps 3x20

I then did a small pullup pyramid (4-3-2-1).

Pushups were a little painful because of my thumb, and I felt a little lethargic, but oh well.

I spent Saturday and Sunday at my frisbee team's regional qualifying tournament. We ended up placing second and qualifying for a spot at the national tournament at the end of the month! I felt relatively good, albeit a little slow, over the course of the weekend. I have a feeling that my focus on improving my strength may be slowing me down a little bit, but I don't really care right now.

Tonight I did Stronglifts B:

Back Squat 5x5 (135 lb)

Overhead Press 5x5 (55 lb)

Deadlift 5x1 (150 lb)

Pullup 10x3

Really need to concentrate on form on all of these exercises: for example, if I maintain a tight core for back squats, things are much easier. Same goes for overhead press and deadlift, actually. Pullup form wasn't great on all of my sets, but am going to stay at 10x3 for the next couple of times just to work on it. Even though it's still taking me a while to recover in between those sets of 3, I still think I'm making some progress, strength-wise. Now I just need to fit in a little kipping pullup work to really up my chances of being able to do pullup workouts as Rx'd.

Wednesday turned into an unscheduled rest day, due to some studying issues.

This morning I did Stronglifts A:

Back Squats 5x5 (130 lb)

Bench Press 5x5 (55 lb)

Inverted Row - Bar 10x2

Pushups 3xf (20-15-15)

Glute Ham Situps 3x10

Can really tell the difference when I set my back properly on the squats. Otherwise, I'm feeling pretty good about being able to get through these sets.

At night I did Gwen:

15-12-9

Clean and Jerk (85 lb), all touch and go

85 lbs was tough, but I got through without it getting too ugly. Need to remember to shrug hard when I get tired.