Balancing Act

It’s now been almost three weeks since a plumbing disaster forced us to hole up in a hotel -- and we’re still weeks away from being able to move back home. It’s not ideal, but it’s not the end of the world, either. We’re coping pretty well, all things considering. But there is one thing that annoys me to no end: We no longer have room for our designated babysitters (read: parents) to spend the night, which means I’m now unable to regularly attend the 5 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto.

Major bummer.

Still, there is one silver lining: I get to sleep in.

I missed Friday’s workout, and this morning’s, too. Five days without exercise makes me a dull boy. I was antsy to get back into the gym, so I scrambled to wrap things up at work today so I could squeeze in an evening workout. Tim promised that today’s WOD was “gooooood” (with six -- count ‘em: SIX -- o’s), so I raced down to the gym in time for the 5 p.m. class.

And here’s what we were treated to:

For time:

• 30 sandbag floor-to-shoulders
• 400-meter run with sandbag
• 30 wall ball shots (20lbs / 14lbs, 10-foot target)
• 400-meter run with medicine ball (20lbs / 14lbs)
• 30 plate ground-to-overheads (45lbs / 35lbs)
• 400-meter run with plate (45lbs / 35lbs)
• 30 overhead kettlebell swings (70lbs / 53lbs)
• 400-meter run with kettlebell (70lbs / 53lbs)

As Trish instructed us about each of the movements and standards, the only thing going through my mind was: “Really? Six o’s?”

The sandbags were fine, though I can’t say I ran with lightning speed with the floppy weight draped across my right shoulder.

The wall balls were, well, wall balls. They’re not my favorite, but I survived them. But I’d never run with a medicine ball before, and had a difficult time trying to find a halfway-decent way to hold the sucker. I tried carrying the ball in front of me -- but it was too cumbersome and draining. I tried carrying on my shoulder -- but again, I found it too awkward.

Finally, I stuck the damned thing on top of my head, kept it steady with my hands overhead, and ran. I’m not saying it was easy -- my arms lost feeling after a while -- but it was less uncomfortable and imbalanced than the other methods I tried. The ball is soft(ish) and weighs only 20 pounds. Besides, people all over the world carry stuff on their heads, right?

I was actually feeling pretty decent as I grabbed a bumper plate and started my ground-to-overheads. The first 10 felt pretty good and strong. But after that, the 45-pound weight began feeling increasingly heavy. And running with the thing was not fun. I tried to stick the plate on my head, but it felt like it was going to crush my skull, so I opted for the good ol’ cradle carry.

Up until the kettlebells, I’d gone RXed, but I knew that hoisting a 70-pound kettlebell over my head wasn’t in the cards for me today. Even with a 53-pound kettlebell, I found myself pausing a few times between swings to catch my breath. With my grip strength shot, I wasn’t relishing the thought of lugging that thing with me on that last 400-meter jaunt. I farmer-carried it as best I could, and made it out of the parking lot before Kerry shouted out that it was easier to shoulder it. With the kettlebell pressed against my ear, I finished the course and collapsed just inside the gym’s open rolling door.

“Uh, you may not want to be sitting there when the next person comes in and drops their kettlebell,” Trish advised.

Result: 22:38.

(And yes, I’ll admit it: It deserved six o’s.)

Monday's Workout

The boys were up all night crapping their pants. M knew I was still recovering from a cold, so she looked after our sick kids, generously allowing me to sleep through the worst of the ass-explosions so I'd be (relatively) well-rested for the 5 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto. I know I don't say it often enough, but my wife is all kinds of awesome.

Strength Skill:

• Single-Leg Deadlifts (5-3-3-1-1)

I'm tightening my gut and keeping my hips down low. I'm pushing off my heel, and I'm keeping my head in line with my body. But I still suck at one-legged deadlifts -- especially when I do 'em while balancing on my left leg. I'd make a horrible evil one-legged space pirate.

Metcon:

2 rounds for time:

• Run 400 meters
• 20 ground-to-overheads (75# / 55#)
• 15 box jumps
• 10 toes-to-bar

This was reminiscent of this year's Open WOD 12.3 -- you know, the one that murdered me. Thankfully, today's version was a lot more sane, but it was still a kick in the pants.

I'd like to say I held back because I'm not feeling 100 percent, but the truth of the matter is that I simply got my butt handed to me. The ground-to-overheads weren't a problem (I did a mix of snatches and clean & jerks), but the box jumps knocked the wind out of me today.

Result: 10:12 as RXed.

Friday's Workout

Waking up at 4:20 in the morning isn't a picnic, but today was particularly bad. As soon as I stuck a contact lens into my bleary left eye, it tore into two pieces and lodged in the back of my eyeball. Even after a good ten minutes of fishing around with my fingers, I came up empty. My eyes were blood red. I needed help.

M had stayed up past midnight (blogging, of course), and I should've let her sleep in. But she was my only hope of getting the shards of plastic out of my eye. I gently shook her awake. Startled, she unleashed an ear-splitting scream directly into my face.

It was that kind of morning.

But after M realized that I wasn't a home invader, she gamely trudged into the brightly-lit bathroom to help dig the torn lens out of the deep recesses of my eye socket. Ah, love.

With a fresh contact lens in place and my wife back in bed, I joined the rest of the 5 a.m. crew at CrossFit Palo Alto.

Strength Skill:

• Front Squats (5-3-3-1-1)

No PR today. My previous best was 205 pounds, and I managed to get to just 200 today. Squatting one-and-a-half times my bodyweight felt like a great accomplishment months ago, but I've been stuck at this weight for eons now, so I'm looking forward to pushing past this plateau soon. Maybe the secret to lifting heavier is to start eating like Steve Pan:



Or maybe I just need to keep practicing.

Metcon:

• 25 plate burpees / ground-to-overheads (45lbs / 35lbs)
• Run 400 meters with plate (45lbs / 35lbs)
• Run 800 meters without plate

The first part of this workout involved doing a burpee on a 45-pound bumper plate, and then lifting the plate off the floor and hoisting it overhead -- and repeating this two dozen times. It sounded horrible, but it wasn't bad. Aside from some slight trouble getting my dainty little fingers under the plate to pull it off the floor, the heavy burpees, this movement was pretty much problem-free.

The running, on the other hand, was a hell of a challenge. I was the second person out the door to start the run, but by the time the first 400 meters were done, two others had passed me.

Gaah.

Result: 9:52 as RXed.

Wednesday's Class: Back to School

It felt good to return to the 5 a.m. class.

Strength Skill:

• Zercher Squats (5-5-5-3-3)

Mark and I paired off to tackle the Zerchers. I only made it through four sets; I dumped the bar on my final rep, even though I was squatting 30 pounds lighter than my 1RM from last December. Ankle permitting, my goal for the cycle is to hit a new PR -- which means I have a ways to go.

Metcon:

• In 3 minutes, run 240 meters and then max reps of pass-throughs;
• In 3 minutes, run 240 meters and then max reps of wallballs (20lbs / 14lbs);
• In 3 minutes, run 240 meters and then max reps of dumbbell ground-to-overheads (45lbs / 30lbs);
• In 3 minutes, run 240 meters and then max reps of box jumps (20").

Score = Total reps.

Sadly, I'm not yet able to run on my ankle, so I rowed 250 meters each time instead. I'm not a huge fan of the erg (to put it mildly), but it was better than trying to hobble around the block.

This workout was clearly intended as a tune-up for this Saturday's Fight Gone Bad (and if you haven't donated yet, shame on you, you big mooch). My at-home attempts at wallball shots and box jumps didn't go so well last weekend -- my ankle didn't appreciate the pounding -- so I was hopeful that I'd see marked improvement during today's WOD.

Not so much.

The wallballs didn't feel too bad, so long as I didn't jump up into the throw. But prior to spraining my ankle, I'd been able to string together over two dozen unbroken wallball shots -- something I couldn't come close to replicating today. And my box jumps were just miserable. I winced every time my left foot smacked down on the box and on the floor. After a few reps, I started slowly stepping off the box after each jump.

Result: 80 (using RXed weights but rowing instead of running). As a point of comparison, the Terminator beat me by 58 reps. In other words, I got schooled -- but it sure beats sitting at home.

Friday's Workout: Slow Burn

M and I woke up late this morning. By the time we arrived at Kauai CrossFit after a long drive down the Kuhio Highway, it was a couple of minutes after 6, and Jerome had already begun leading the group through some light stretching.

Thankfully, we didn't miss any of the scheduled warm-up:

Jump rope for 3 minutes, and then three rounds of:

• 30 seconds of handstand hold
• 30 seconds of chin-over-bar (basically, a static hold at the top of a pull-up)
• 30 seconds of L-sit
• 30 seconds of mountain climbers

Yes, the warm-up was just 9 minutes long, but by the end, I'd already worked up a nice sweat. (Which, by the way, isn't hard to do while exercising outside in the warm, muggy air.)

Next: the main event.

Metcon:

As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes:

• 5 handstand push-ups
• 10 dumbbell ground-to-overheads (35lbs / 25lbs)
• 15 toes-to-bar
• 20 bent-over dumbbell rows (35lbs /25lbs)

I knew I could do all these movements using the RXed weights (i.e., a pair of 35-pound dumbbells), and I wasn't concerned about the toes-to-bar -- but I also recognized from past experience that the HSPUs would take me forever to finish. (And possibly cause facial hemorrhages to boot.) All of this was expected.

What I didn't expect was that the dumbbell moves would take me as long as they did. I especially struggled with the bent-over rows; although I have a vague recollection of doing similar exercises in P90X, I'm rusty. My form was ugly, and I stopped for more breaks than I'd like to admit.

During one of my breathers, Jerome walked over and shared with me that the original workout as listed on the Main Site was "an 8-minute AMRAP" incorporating similar movements -- not a 20-minute one. "But there's no way the other gym members would go for that," he continued. "So we threw this one together last night."

On the one hand, I REALLY wish Jerome hadn't told me that he'd extended the length of the WOD by 250 percent. But on the other hand, I felt like a badass (albeit a slow one) every time I flipped upside down against the wall to eke out another HSPU or five.

Result: 3 rounds plus 39 reps as RXed. I was the only person in our class to do this workout RXed -- but I was also the slowest. Ugh. I'm determined to do better next time, but I guess "next time" will have to wait -- we're flying back home tomorrow.

Nonetheless, mark my words: You'll definitely see both of us back at Kauai CrossFit again.

Pavel Would Not Approve

I secretly fear that this is what I look like when I attempt kettlebell ground-to-overheads (like this past Friday).



Incidentally: What kind of performance is this supposed to be?

[Source]

Friday's Workout

As part of our warm-up, the 5 a.m. class took a slow 400-meter jog while Tim wrote the workout on the whiteboard. When we got back to the gym, he was still writing. Even when the pen started running out of ink, he kept going.

Uh, oh. Not a good sign.

The gory details, after the jump...

Wednesday's Workout

Strength Skill:

• Deadlifts (2 sets of 3, 3 sets of 1)

At long last: Double bodyweight deadlift PR! Woo hoo!

I know that's not saying much (especially considering these strength standards), but it's not bad, right?

Wait -- WHAT? An eight-year-old can do this? And a 115-pound girl can deadlift 2.6x her bodyweight? YOU ARE KILLING MY BUZZ, MAN.

Metcon:

Rotate through four stations, spending one minute at each:

• Burpees-to-Bar: Do a burpee, and then jump up to touch the pull-up bar. Each rep is scored as 1 point.

• Ring Rows: Simple, straightforward, hard. Each rep is scored as 1 point.

• Calorie Row: Each calorie burned while rowing on the erg is scored as 1 point.

• Dumbbell Ground-to-Overhead: Use one arm (doesn't matter which one) to get a heavy dumbbell from the ground to a locked-out position overhead. Dumbbell snatches and jerks worked pretty well with this one. Each rep is scored as 1 point. (RXed weight for men: 45 pounds.)

This was done Fight Gone Bad- style -- meaning we rested for one minute after completing all four stations, and then repeated everything again twice, for a total of three rounds. The entire workout takes just 14 minutes, but it's a LONG 14 minutes.

Results (as RXed):

• Round 1: 72
• Round 2: 53
• Round 3: 44
• TOTAL: 169

Tim calls this WOD "Not Quite Gone Bad," but I'm not sure I agree with the "Not Quite" part.

Monday's Workout

I'm spending way too much time with bumper plates.

Strength Skill:

• Deadlifts (2 sets of 3, 3 sets of 1)

I was shooting for 280 pounds (2X bodyweight) today, but couldn't even match my old PR of 270 pounds. I maxed out at 265, and spent the second half of the workout mentally kicking myself for it. That wasn't particularly productive, as this morning's metcon wasn't exactly a walk in the park.

Metcon:

For time:

• 25 Burpee/ground-to-overheads with a 45-pound bumper plate
• 400 meter run - holding a 45-pound bumper plate
• 800 meter run - no plate

Result: 10:09.

My kindergartner's about 45 pounds. I imagined doing a burpee and then hoisting him overhead -- 25 times. And then grabbing him and running 400 meters. The uneven weight distribution would have thrown me off balance, but on the other hand, I'd have a better grip on my five-year-old. Plus, during the run, I could just have him clutch onto my back and save myself the agony of trying to keep a hold of a heavy plate with fingers stiff from the cold.

I'm such a whiner.

Let's end on a positive note: After dropping off the weight for the final 800 meters, I felt like I could fly. It was like a weight had been lifted off of me. Because it was.