Monday's Workout: Bloody Mary

As soon as I popped out of bed this morning, I tested my right groin and my left ankle. The groin felt pretty spiffy, all things considering. It was a little sore, but nothing a little stretching couldn't handle. The ankle, on the other hand, felt like crap. I still couldn't get up on the toes of my left foot, flex properly, or put much weight on it.

Yes, it's Labor Day in the U.S. Yes, I have the day off of work. Yes, I have a pulled groin and a sprained ankle. Yes, I still hauled my butt to the 5 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto.

Why? Because I'm insane. But I'm not the only one. Five of us nutjobs showed up before dawn to get our WOD on. And it was a doozy:

"Mary" - As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:

• 5 handstand push-ups
• 10 pistols
• 15 pull-ups

I knew I wouldn't be able to do the pistols with my left foot. I've always been terrible at single-legged squats on my left leg -- and with a bum ankle, it was a no-go. But my right groin felt okay, so I decided to crank 'em out exclusively with my right leg. I knew I'd pay for this decision with a super-sore right butt cheek, but what's one more pain in the ass (literally)?

The Terminator and I set up next to each other, and when the clock started, we went head-to-head. That man robot is fast. Every time I pulled slightly ahead, he'd close the gap. I did my damnedest to stay a few reps ahead of him, but we traded leads a couple of times.

It wasn't until the seventh round that I noticed that the pull-up bar was slick with blood.

The skin surrounding the calluses on both my hands had torn off. I've torn my hands doing pull-ups before, but this is the first time I've ever noticed it in the middle of the workout. I was leaking DNA everywhere.

My right hand was particularly bloody, so when Tim handed me a paper towel, I used it to sop up some of the blood. I then wrapped it around the bar so I could get a better grip to finish my pull-ups. I was determined to finish nine full rounds, but in the end, I was one rep short.

The funny thing is that during the WOD, nothing hurt. Not my ankle (except the one time I came off the wall after a set of HSPUs and landed awkwardly on my left foot), not my groin, not my right butt cheek, and not my hands. When the 20 minutes were up, I was more pissed about not hitting my goal of 9 rounds than anything else.

The pain didn't hit until a few minutes after the workout. Others in the class had torn hands, too, and one by one, we marched into the restroom to rinse off the blood and yelp as the water stung our hands.

(Want to see a barftastic photo of one of my hands post-workout? No you don't. I'm pretty sure you don't want to see this.)

As I type this, my hands are bandaged up like mummies. I feel like an absolute idiot for not taking better care of my hands and letting my calluses build up enough to tear my skin. My butt cheek has been seizing up all day, and my left ankle is still throbbing. But on the plus side, my groin feels like a million bucks!

Result: 8 rounds + 29 reps as RXed.

Special thanks to Rachel for cleaning the blood off my pull-up bar for me, and to Graeme for picking up the bloody paper towels I'd strewn across the floor.

Tomorrow: A post on hand care.

The Infamous Abmat Ass-Crack Rash

So you’re new to CrossFit, and for the first time, you encounter a WOD that demands an unholy number of Abmat sit-ups -- like this one or this one or this one.

You’re excited about trying this out, so you gamely throw an Abmat on the floor and get crankin’. By the tail end of the workout, you’re exhausted and marinating in your own sweaty juices. With every sit-up, you’re violently jerking upright and spraying everyone around you with a fine mist of salty liquid. (They’re totally grossed out, but continue cheering you on anyway.)

But then you finish, and you PR’ed. Good work! You feel awesome. You ARE awesome. “My abs are gonna be sore tomorrow,” you think to yourself, “but I’m gettin’ purdy good at this CrossFit stuff.”

A half-hour later, you pop into the shower. And that’s when you notice the stinging sensation. You reach back and gingerly probe where it burns. Your eyes widen.

YOU HAVE AN ASS-CRACK RASH.

Okay, so it’s technically not in your ass-crack; it’s actually well north of your butthole proper. After grabbing a mirror, you see that the rash is by your tailbone, where your plumber’s smile ends -- or begins, depending on the direction you wipe. (Always front-to-back, people. Always.) You might have one big patch of red, irritated skin, or maybe it’s a couple of areas on both sides of your cheeks. Perhaps some skin has rubbed off, and you’re bleeding. Yes, that’s right: Your rear end is oozing blood.

The rash is sensitive to the touch. Water stings. The simple act of sitting or walking makes you wince. You momentarily consider “borrowing” your wife’s sanitary pads to line the rear of your tidy-whities. You're terrified you'll become another Ass Napkin Ed. Finally, you break open a first aid kit and ponder the logistics of slathering your crack with Boudreaux’s Butt Paste and sealing up the entire area with Band-Aids and masking tape.

While you stand there, pantsless but unsexy, wondering how long it’ll take your rash to heal (answer: about a week, assuming you keep the area clean and infection-free), it dawns on you:

The Abmat did this to your sweet, innocent bum.

Damn you, Abmat. DAMN YOU TO HELL.

And the worst part? You can’t brag about this injury. It’s not a “cool” injury like the time you face-planted while mountain biking down Mount Tam and needed stitches, or the time you fell and broke your arm while rock climbing. It’s not even a stupid-but-mildly-amusing injury like the time you were doing bench presses and your spotter’s sweat dripped into your mouth, causing you to gag and drop the loaded barbell on your chest.

No matter how many CrossFitters get ass-crack rashes, you won’t hear much about ‘em. People at your CrossFit gym will regale you with stories about cutting their foreheads with barbells while doing snatches, or ripping up their calloused hands with high-rep pull-ups, but bloody rashes located inches from their poop chutes? Like Lord Voldemort, these are boo-boos That-Must-Not-Be-Named. No one, it seems, wants to volunteer information about what's happening between their butt cheeks.

Well, except for me. And some folks who have emailed me about their sit-up-induced carpet burns. And these people over here. And the guy at my gym who approached our coach before yesterday’s Abmat-intensive WOD and said: “What can I do to avoid getting another scab in my ass crack?”

So what's the answer? How can you avoid getting a burning sensation where the sun don’t shine?

The solution is not to stop doing Abmat sit-ups. They’re awesome, and so much better than the plain vanilla version. (Why, you ask? Read this.) Besides, how sad would it be to let a little butt skin derail your exercise routine?

Some people say you should pull on some compression shorts to reduce or eliminate the ass-grinding friction. That probably works fine, but I have a simpler solution: Do your sit-ups on a thin, padded exercise mat. If your yoga mat's too thin, just fold it over once and put your Abmat on top, so that your tailbone is on the mat and not on the floor of your garage or gym.

I got a nasty rash the very first time I experienced a sit-up-intensive WOD. (Yes, after months of internal debate, I am finally ready to publicly concede that I do, in fact, have a butt crack.) But with a mat under my bottom, my ass-crack has been fine and dandy ever since. It's really quite spiffy. I'd post a photo, but I'd hate for you to vomit all over your keyboard.