Friday's Workout

Despite the lingering soreness in my throat, I felt more than good enough for class this morning.

Strength Skill:

• Strict Weighted Pull-Ups (2 sets of 5, 3 sets of 3)

It feels like I've lost some strength since the last time we did weighted pull-ups. Even without throwing much weight in the weight vest, I had trouble clearing the bar on my last couple of reps. Looks like I gotta start greasin' the groove again.

Metcon:

5 rounds:

• 30 seconds of overhead kettlebell swings
• 30 seconds of rest
• 30 seconds of burpees
• 30 seconds of rest

The folks who showed up at CrossFit Palo Alto yesterday did "Jackie," so in comparison, this workout looked (on the whiteboard, anyway), like a lark. After all, today's WOD requires only five minutes of work. How hard could it be?

Pretty hard, actually. This was a maximum-effort, all-out sprint, and it involves two of the best full-body exercises around: kettlebell swings (a.k.a. the "brutal distillation of everything ketttlebell training is about: power, explosiveness, flexibility and lung searing 'cardio'”) and burpees ("the one exercise to rule them all"). The 30-second rest intervals gave us just enough time to catch our breath, scrawl down the number of reps we just cranked out, and hustle back into position for the next round of work.

My goal: To squeeze in 15 swings and 12 burpees in each round, for a total of 135 total reps.

Result: 132 reps, using a 53-pound kettlebell. I managed to hit my targeted number of swings each round, but towards the end, my burpees got slower and more awkward-looking, and I missed my goal by 3 reps. Still, I'm pretty happy with my performance today -- it was a great (read: ass-kicking) way to launch into the weekend.

(Final note: XFitMama is super-hardcore. After the WOD was done and the rest of us were splayed on the floor, she wanted to keep going. And she's five months pregnant.)