Last Friday Feels Like a Million Years Ago

Honestly? I can't remember how long it took me to finish last Friday's workout. Guess I should blog more frequently, huh?

I do recall, however, repeatedly attempting bar muscle-ups prior to our metcon, and failing over and over again.

I've done ring muscle-ups, but bar muscle-ups are terra incognita for me. I almost managed to crank out one -- on my last try, I got my upper body over the bar, and my left arm was in position to push up, but my wonky right shoulder gave out and I flopped back down. Argh.

I'm so close to getting a bar muscle-up that I can almost smell 'em. Sadly, my right wrist has been sore and swollen since the weekend, which means I've gotta take it easy for a little while. But I've got my eye on you, bar muscle-up.

Friday's Workout

Strength Skill:

• Handstand Push-Ups (5-5-5-5-5)

My new favorite way to do handstand push-ups: Kip with one leg. Kipping keeps me from fatiguing too quickly, but I've found that when I kip with both legs, I tend to lose my balance and fall away from the wall. Keeping one leg up against the wall and kipping with the other leg is the perfect compromise: I can generate some additional pop with a strong kick while still maintaining a good amount of stability. Also, I've found that placing my hands a few inches outside of shoulder-width makes it a lot easier to push off without exhausting myself.

Between sets of HSPUs, we played around with rope climbs. A number of us were able to pull ourselves up to the top of the rig using just our hands, though it was murder on our skin.

Metcon:

6 minute AMRAP of:

• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...! burpees
• 1, 2, 3, 4, 5...! pull-ups

Rest one minute, and then:

6 minute AMRAP of:

• 200-meter row
• 20 dumbbell push presses (10 with each arm, 45lbs / 35lbs)

I sped through the first six-minute AMRAP as fast as I could. My goal was to go at a quick, steady clip and avoid pausing, and finished with 10 complete rounds for a total of 55 burpees and 55 pull-ups.

But then came the rowing and push-presses.

The rowing wasn't bad, but the 45-pound dumbbell was too heavy for me, and slowed me down immensely. I finished only two rounds of the push presses, for a total of 40 reps.

Result: 150 total reps as RXed.

Monday's Workout: Home (WOD) Alone

M's in the middle of her week of night shifts, and without a sitter, there was no way I could (legally) leave the kids at home to hit the 5 a.m. class at CrossFit Palo Alto this morning. Silver lining: I got two-and-a-half hours of much-needed extra shut-eye.

Later in the day, Tim shot me an email entitled "Today's WOD" with a link to this video from CrossFit Central:

It looked awesome, and I couldn't get it out of my head. I had to do it.

Metcon:

• 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 of:

• Toes-to-bar
• In-and-outs
• Jumping lunges

After dinner, I tucked the boys into bed, took out the garbage, changed into some raggedy shorts, and set up a pair of homemade parallettes. By the way, here's a handy tip: If you're making your own parallettes with PVC pipe, use a racheting pipe cutter instead of a hand saw. I got one at Home Depot for $10, and it made pipe-cutting a lot easier (and less messy, too).

But first: Warm-up. I got my 15-foot Rogue climbing rope in the mail today, so after securing it to a rafter in the garage, I clambered up and down a half-dozen times.

I love new toys.

Anyway, once I got loose, I started a timer and got going.

The pull-up bar in my garage is mounted a bit too close to our washer and dryer, and I kept banging my heels against the door of the washing machine, but otherwise, the toes-to-bar were fine. The jumping lunges, too, flew by quickly. (They brought back not-so-fond memories of doing endless "Mary Katherine" lunges from P90X Plyometrics a bazillion years ago.)

The in-and-outs, however, proved more challenging for me. I'd underestimated their difficulty, or perhaps I'd overestimated my level of physical coordination. Either way, by the middle of the WOD, I found myself struggling to keep my legs and body straight once my heels hit the ground. But despite my wobbly legs, I kept moving, and managed to get through all the reps without stopping.

Result: 9:10 as RXed.

Monday's Workout

A good day. After practicing snatches (5-3-3-1-1), we were treated to Fran:

For time:

21-15-9

• Thrusters (95lbs / 65lbs)
• Pull-ups

Last April, I finished Fran in 6:32 (and in August, hampered by a groin injury, I did it in 6:56). We don't encounter Fran very often, so I reallyreallyreally wanted to establish a new personal best.

The first round was awesome. I got through all 21 thrusters without pausing, and despite my forearms catching on fire, I made it through the pull-ups without any problems either. But after a couple of thrusters in the second round, I had to drop the barbell and take a breather. My legs felt like they'd been smashed with a two-by-four.

In the end, Fran wrecked me -- I had trouble getting up off the floor afterwards -- but I PRed by more than half a minute today! Of course, there's plenty of room for improvement: I took too many mid-set breaks, and I'm pissed off that I failed to clear my chin over the bar on my final pull-up of the workout. By forcing myself to re-do the rep, I missed my shot at finishing under 6 minutes. There's always next time, I guess.

Result: 6:00 as RXed.

(Bonus: This afternoon, I dropped by the Firehouse -- Tim's workout space away from CrossFit Palo Alto -- and learned to climb a rope. I've now decided I want need one for my garage.)