Two magic letters

01 Feb
Warm Up
Hip mobility work

Strength
6×3 Power Cleans @70% 1RM (A:52.5kgs, S:30kgs)
Kipping ring dips or 1RM weighted

WOD
50 Thrusters (A:42.5kgs, S:25kgs)
40 Hang power cleans
30 Box jumps
20 Ring dips

When I first saw the WOD on the board I wasn’t particularly chuffed about it. The sheer numbers and weight involved was mind-boggling. But then I just reminded myself that the only way to improve was to get down to it and do the work. So I loaded the bar with the Rx weight of 42.5kgs and went for it. It was a suck fest and felt the dumplings we had for lunch trying to make a comeback around the 40th thrusters. But I soldiered on and chipped away straight on to the hang power cleans. Then I realized everyone was miles ahead and were either on the box jumps, or ring dips or finished. I didn’t let that get me down and just kept a decent pace of work, never stopped more than I should on the box jumps and broke down the ring dips into 5s then 3s and 2s. I finished in 15m13s which was surprisingly good! I was happy about that! Socs did better at 12m42s.

02 Feb
Strength Session
3×3 Press
3×3 Squat

Accessories:
Weighted pull ups
Ring dips/dumbell reverse flyes
Barbell roll outs/single leg deadlifts

This time I did not mess up the numbers and was successfully able to press 45kgs for 5 reps on the last set as well as 100kgs for 5 reps on the squat. Happy days. As usual there were all the accessory workouts to get our strength up. Looking forward to getting bigger numbers up soon.

Hope

Warm up
Squat sessions
Pre WOD setup

WOD
Crossfit Hope
3 rounds (1 minute each exercise, 1 minute rest after each round)
Burpees
KB Snatch (16kg)
Box Jump
Thrusters (2x 12.5kg DB)
Pull ups

Still out of sync recently, missing out on note 1 but 2 sessions at Crossfit London UK. I made my way to the box and I saw the previous group doing something quite nasty. 3 rounds of something, something bad. Then I saw it on the board, Hope. My world shattered at that point. I wasn’t in the mood for something that was modeled after Fight Gone Bad, I had a bit of a sore back, my nutrition is need of a kickstart… all the excuses started piling up. All I knew was this was going to suck.

After a few rounds of practice on some key technical movements, Sally asked for volunteers of who wanted to go first. My hand flew straight up, surprisingly for a moment I was the only one with my hand up. I didn’t care, I wanted to get it done and over with.

I kept a steady pace and just chipped away at it until the bell rang. I didn’t get a chance to see how things got broken down but ended up with 79-65-57 reps on the 3 rounds. I could have pushed a bit on the last 2 rounds but considering I was stepping off the box and was having grip issues on the pull ups, I felt I gave it a decent shot.

Boracay Body Part 14: Girly Weight

Since some of our workouts take place in different countries on the same day, we’ll be joining a few of our workout entries. And yes, Socs is taking part of the Boracay Body experiment.

Allan’s workout

Warm-up
Run through movements for WOD

Strength
Deadlift 4-5 sets warm up, incrementing weight to 1×5 work set (95kgs)
Socialist Pull ups in between sets (in my case 1 set weighted pullups with 24kgs, 2 sets kipping pull up practice)

WOD
20 Burpees buy in
30-20-10
DB Thrusters (10kgs dumbells)
Overhead situps (10kgs plate)
20 Burpees cash out

When I saw ‘deadlift’ on the board I wasn’t too happy about it. I feared I was doing too much deadlift recently that it might be detrimental to my progress. But for some reason, the technique just clicked. I kept the form relatively well and I was able to pull 95kgs for 5 reps, new 5RM! Plus I was able to string a few kipping pull-ups together! Awesome!

The WOD was quite good actually, I knew the thrusters were going to suck so I stuck to the girl’s Rx weight of 10kg dumbells instead of the boy’s 15kgs. It was a good decision as the overhead sit-ups also took a bit out of the shoulders. Overhead sit-ups is where you hold a plate over your chest while on your back and do a sit up, ending with the plate over head. I finished 16:15, a minute and change over the 15 minute cut-off.

Socs’ Workout

Warm Up:  5min jump rope, bear crawl, alligator plus two other “animal” moves I don’t know, leg swings, arm swings, bootstrappers and rollovers

Strength:  Deadlift 5×3 (50kgs)

WOD: 10 mins AMRAP

10 box jumps
10 KB snatch (5 per side, 12kg)
3 L pull ups (blue band pull ups)

I haven’t done box jumps in a while, but I’ve not used a kettlebell for a WOD for much longer so I was preparing myself mentally for it.  Jill actually caught me practicing the KB snatch in between one my deadlift sets — I was trying to recall Sally’s instructions on how to do it properly.  I was also trying to figure out if I should follow Sally’s recommendation for me on the snatch.   That is, to go heavy but with less reps.  5 reps per side was not too much, however the RX weight for women was 12.  I figured I’d stick with 12 as I haven’t done it in a while. I just have to make sure I nail each one properly.  I also decided to use the blue bands on the pull ups this time.  I was already modifying it a lot by not doing L sit pull ups, I had to exert maximum effort.  Plus for 3 reps I should be able to do blue.

In the end, the 10 minutes ended up harder than it looked.  My left arm KB snatches were definitely much weaker than my right ones and I even decided to use the left one first.  I figured the less tired I am the better I can concentrate on the weak arm.  The blue bands were tough especially on the last round since I was already tired.  I even gave myself a “No Rep” when I didn’t go above the bar.  How’s that for honesty?

In 10 minutes, I managed 5 rounds + 2 box jumps.

Dos Equis

Warm up
1-2-3-4-5-4-3-2-1
Pull ups
Push ups
Box jumps

Strength
3 Strict Shoulder Press every minute on the minute (35kgs)

WOD
5 rounds, 2 minutes of:
15 Dumbbell Thrusters (20kg)
10 burpees
Maximum Dumbbell hang power cleans
One minute rest

Score the number of dumbbell cleans.

So I as back on Saturday for a regular class and Colin actually posted the WOD early in the morning so I knew what I was getting into for the 11:30 class. I kept the weight relatively low on the strength session as I didn’t want to be too eager, I think I could have gone with 40kgs or even 45kgs (I think 45kgs was my 5RM before). My ultimate goal is to break that 50kg ceiling, it would be nice to know I can press a sack of rice (I’m Filipino, we think in terms of sacks of rice).

The WOD went well in the beginning as I cranked out 10 hang power cleans, unfortunately I had two big Xs on the next two rounds. I was getting a little disappointed and just told myself that I just had to do the work no matter what. It paid off and I managed to squeeze in 3 and 1 hang power cleans on the last two rounds. Pathetic, but as Colin mentioned, the WOD was a test of your mental toughness rather than anything. It was meant to try and keep working continuously for 2 minutes despite the suck factor of having two of my least favorite moves in the triplet.

Gently down the stream

Skills
300m row – easy pace, technique

Warm-up
1 minute row (291 meters)
Rest
4 minute row (953 meters)

WOD
Strict Jackie
1000m row
50 Thrusters (20kgs)
30 Strict Pull-ups

I think the title is quite appropriate for today’s session. Phil is heading out to sea on a sailboat in the next few weeks and for his last class he made us row, a lot. I am not sure if this was intentional, but hey I’ve got a catchy title for my post.

Now I’ve been a bit of a fan of rowing for quite some time, some of our homemade WODs pre-Crossfit London UK consisted of rows and such. Not that I’m any good at it, I still lack the capacity to break the 2:00min/500m pace consistently for any duration and today was no different. Even with the new found technique, I can’t seem to row fast enough. Another one of those things to work on.

I was pretty happy with my pace for most of the WOD, even if I was the last to finish on the row. I could probably have pushed a little bit more on the thrusters, but damn 50 is a big number. Then there was the strict pull-ups. I was able to string my first 10 in sets of 5, but it was all downhill from there. I may have burned myself out halfway through so I barely made the 15 minute cut-off (was it 15 or 12? I can’t remember). I could have probably made better time if I rested or paced properly and not have a bunch of no-reps, so I was a little disappointed. Even then I think the fact that this was Strict Jackie and my first time to do this particular benchmark WOD, I think I did pretty good.