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.

Monday's Workout: Balls to the Wall

First up at CrossFit Palo Alto this morning: Single-leg deadlifts. We hadn't done 'em since November of 2010, and in that time, I've evidently lost all ability to pull off this maneuver. Sixteen months ago, I was able to pull the equivalent of my bodyweight off the ground while balancing on one leg; today, I struggled to get even 115 pounds up while wobbling back and forth on my unsteady left leg. I'll just chalk it up to the rust that needs to be knocked off.

Metcon:


3 rounds for time:

• Run 400 meters
• 15 burpee-balls-to-the-wall (20# / 14#)

The balls-to-the-wall move entailed doing a burpee with one's hands on a medicine ball, and then doing a wallball shot by popping the weighted ball up to a 10-foot target.

I only have two things to say about this workout:

• I am a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad runner.

• I should've initiated each of my wallball shots from a deep squat, but instead, I stood up after each burpee and did this awkward push-press-like movement to get the ball up to the target. It was inefficient and exhausting. I would've generated a lot more power had I started from a full squat.

Now I know, and knowing is half the battle.

Result: 10:42 as RXed.

Wednesday's Workout

I broke the “No-Exercise-Unless-You’ve-Slept-at-Least-6-Hours” rule this morning. My seasonal allergies kept me up coughing late into the night, and after I managed to pass out, our three-year-old woke up wailing ‘cause he couldn’t find his favorite stuffed cat -- whose name, incidentally, is “Cat.” (Creativity runs in the family.)

So when the alarm went off at 4:20 a.m. I seriously considered hitting the snooze button and rolling over. But who am I kidding? I knew I’d kick myself if I didn’t go see what crotch-punch of a workout awaited me at CrossFit Palo Alto.

Strength Skill:

• Weighted pistols (2 sets of 5, 3 sets of 3)

On the plus side, I’m able to carry successively heavier kettlebells as I crank out pistols. On the minus side, my left leg is still weaker than Don Knotts in an arm wrestling match.

Note to self: STAY TIGHT AND STOP ASS-PLANTING.

Metcon:

For time:

• 21 deadlifts (225/185)
• 21 pull-ups
• 50 double-unders
• 15 deadlifts (225/185)
• 15 pull-ups
• 50 double-unders
• 9 deadlifts (225/185)
• 9 pull-ups
• 50 double-unders

The pull-ups were fine, but even with barely one-and-a-half times my bodyweight loaded on the barbell, the high-rep deadlifts weren’t as easy as I thought they’d be. During my final set, I had to dump the bar from a standing position after each pull. I also had trouble stifling the alien-sounding exertion noises that escaped from my throat, like “HUHHerrghh-GUH!” and “aaaEEguh-OOHFF!”

And if that wasn’t bad enough, I still had 150 double-unders to crank out. Sadly, I haven’t yet overcome the mental block that forces me to crank out a single-under between each of my double-unders. (This utter lack of rhythmic ability was foreshadowed in preschool, when I repeatedly failed to clap along to the beat of “If You’re Happy And You Know It (Clap Your Hands).” ) The upshot? I wasted a crapload of time.

Result: 13:58. I’m not exactly thrilled with my plodding performance, but I’m still glad I got the chance to tackle today's WOD.

Bonus: After this morning's vicious rope lashing, I'm starting to resemble a Singaporean caught with a bottle of spray paint. Oh, well. It's about time I got in touch with my Asian roots anyway.

Wednesday's Workout

Strength Skill:

• Single-Leg Deadlifts (3 sets of 3, and then 3 sets of 1, working up to a 1-rep max)

These continue to confound me, especially as I kept loading on more weight. I tried doing 'em with a straight lifted leg (the way everyone else seems to be doing this exercise), and found that it's a lot easier to maintain balance and power, but my coach told me to cut it out. "Keep your back knee tucked in," he instructed. "Kicking your leg out throws your hips out of alignment. And try not to put your back foot down."

Fine. I'll just keep wobbling. At this point, I'm able to hoist a barbell loaded with the equivalent of my bodyweight while balancing on one leg, but it ain't pretty.

Metcon:

A fun one today.

3 rounds for time:

• 400-meter run (in my Vibram FiveFingers, as usual)
• 21 Abmat sit-ups
• 12 Renegade rows (using a pair of 45-pound dumbbells)

Result: 8:03. I'm happy with my time. I didn't take any mid-set or between-set breaks, and transitioned quickly from one exercise to the next. It's been a while since I last did renegade rows as part of a WOD, but they weren't that bad, even using the RX'ed weight. I could have run a bit faster, I suppose, but wanted some gas left in the tank for the sit-ups and rows.

I can't put my finger on exactly why, but I'm able to fly through Abmat sit-ups without much trouble or effort. I'd suspected I was doing them wrong, but my coach watched me perform today's workout, and didn't seem to have a problem with my technique. Could it be that all my Ab Ripper X practice from last year is paying off?

Wednesday's Workout

Strength Skill:

• Single-Leg Deadlifts

Before this morning, we hadn't practiced single-leg deadlifts since July. Not surprisingly, I have not managed to develop cat-like agility in the intervening months. In other words, I still kind of suck at trying to balance on one leg while repeatedly lifting a heavy-ass barbell off the ground.

Metcon:

A doozy of a WOD. For time:

• Run 400 meters
• 21 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls (95 pound barbell)
• Run 400 meters
• 21 Push Jerks (95 pound barbell)
• Run 400 meters
• 21 Thrusters (95 pound barbell)

Result: A perfectly respectable 12:39 -- but I was the last in my class to finish today. I'm not making excuses, but my fellow 5 a.m. classmates are frickin' INTENSE. (Okay, maybe I am making excuses.)

The worst part: The thrusters. This isn't the first time I've cranked out a set of 21 thrusters at 95 pounds, but that was at the start of Fran. Trying to do 'em at the end of a hard workout is another matter entirely. I could barely string three thrusters together at a time.

As I packed up my gym bag at the end of class, though, it suddenly occurred to me that I no longer spend hours racked with nerves on nights before my CrossFit workouts. The anxiety that used to unsettle my stomach as I headed to bed? Gone! Weirdly enough, I don't know when I stopped freaking out about the next day's WOD. I still get butterflies, but they don't appear until the WOD gets written on the whiteboard moments before our coach yells "3-2-1-GO!" The workouts are more fun than terrifying now, which is a good thing.

(One exception: Rowing. I hate, hate, HATE it.)

Wednesday's Workout

As if practicing single-leg deadlifts wasn't enough this morning, we were put through a spectacularly hellish metcon today:

4 rounds:

• Row 500 meters - max effort / speed
• 10 barbell roll-outs
• Rest 2 minutes

I know it doesn't sound like much, but did I mention how much I fucking hate rowing? Because I do.

The barbell roll-outs weren't that bad, but rowing a total of 2000 meters with all-out intensity -- after heavy sets of single-leg deadlifts -- was extremely unfun. During my rest breaks between rounds, I rolled around on the floor, clutching my screaming quads and trying like hell to just. stand. up.

"You okay?" Coach asked after I tumbled to the floor after my third round of wild-eyed thrashing on the erg.

No, I was not okay. I was hyperventilating and my legs were exploding.

But I finished.

(My row times: Round 1 - 1:44.9 / Round 2 - 1:49.8 / Round 3 - 1:56.9 / Round 4 - 1:58.7)

Wednesday's Workout

Strength/Skill: 

Single-leg deadlifts. Three sets of 3, followed by three sets of 1.

My balance is crap.

Metcon: 

For time:

• 400 meter sprint
• 21 barbell front squats
• 30 Games standard push-ups (as introduced in this year's CrossFit Games: at the bottom of each rep, quickly drop to your chest and lift both hands off the floor while maintaining a strict plank position throughout)
• 400 meter sprint
• 15 barbell front squats
• 20 Games standard push-ups
• 400 meter sprint
• 9 barbell front squats
• 10 Games standard push-ups

The hardest part: Power-cleaning the barbell off the floor at the start of each set of front squats while still trying to catch my breath from the run. I finished in 13:08.

Wednesday's Workout

I felt great this morning when I showed up at my CrossFit affiliate, but my sunny disposition was quickly pounded out of me.

After a quick warm-up (I did a bunch of dumbbell snatches to knock off another Level One testing requirement), we practiced doing single leg deadlifts. I figured I could just cut my normal deadlift weight in half and crank out a bunch of these babies. Sounds logical, right?

Not so much.

Doing deadlifts on one leg challenges not just your strength, but your balance as well. (Duh.) I ended up lifting only about 115 pounds, which is kind of embarrassing. (I kid you not: The 105-pound girl next to me pulled more weight than me.)

I tried to make up for my suckage during the metcon. On today's menu:

3 rounds for time:

• 15 Hanging Knees-to-Elbows
• 15 Handstand Push-Ups
• 20 Kettlebell Snatches

I finished in 7:08, though to be perfectly honest, my handstand push-ups (HSPUs) were actually pike push-ups, and I only used a 35-pound kettlebell. But I'm committed to practicing until I get better at this -- especially HSPUs.