Winter WOD

There was a bit of snow in London yesterday.  Though its all melted away today, the winter chill remains.  Nothing like a WOD to fight the cold — although I was feeling a little out of it before the workout.  I blame it all on my scarf — anyone else feel a bit choked while wearing scarves?  I always tie ’em up loosely, but somehow they still don’t feel that comfortable.  Five years of experiencing winter means that I don’t always feel like passing out, but I still do every now and then.

All of it went away when the clock hit 1930 though, thankfully, as it was time for the workout.

Socs
Strength: 
Overhead Squats 30 kgs
WOD:
4 min AMRAP —
7 KB snatch right arm (12 kgs)
7 KB snatch left arm (12 kgs)
7 knees to chest

and

1 minute max burpees

3x (total of 15 mins work)

Allan
Strength:
Snatch 3×3(45 kgs)
Front Squat as many reps as possible (57.5 kgs, 16 reps)

WOD:
10 min AMRAP
7 TTB
14 KB swings – strictly vertical (24kgs)

My workout was a lot like my last one from Saturday, 7 KB snatches each arm less the pull ups this time so I thought I would get close to my 6+ rounds.  I knew topping that would be tough as there are burpees sandwiched between each 4 minute effort.  As expected, those burpees made everything twice as hard.  I had to focus on hips for the snatch and a bit for the burpees so I could get up properly so that really wore me out.  I’m happy to report though that was used to be knees up are now almost Knees to Chest — progress!  I completed 6 rounds + 9 KB snatches (one more KB than last Saturday) and a 13, 11 and 12 burpees respectively.

Also, about two weeks ago I failed to do one 35kg overhead squat, and today I did 3 sets of 2 reps at 30kgs.  If we had incremental weights I think I would’ve gotten that 35kgs this time.

Allan’s shoulders have been giving him problems for the past 2 days and it nearly stopped him attending tonight’s session.  He’s recovered a bit more though, completing 5 rounds on the WOD…and he seems pretty happy with it considering his condition.

Burn

rope burn

Strength
5×3 OHS @82.5% 1RM (50kgs, 25kg)
6×3 Clean @70% 1RM (60kgs, 40kg)

WOD
5 rope climb buy in
16-12-8-4
KB swing (24kgs, 16kgs)
Pistols
5 rope climb cash out

Straightforward strength session with overhead squats and cleans. I decided to snatch the weight from the floor to get some practice time in as well (some would term that as bad ass, but I’m not there yet). Then the cleans, which are still a favourite of mine. Hopefully I can get a 100kg clean soon.

I was looking forward to this session as it had rope climbs programmed in, which I have never done properly before (I have done a few ‘no leg’ climbs) but was always curious to see how easy/hard it was. Socs has never done rope climbs so it was quite an accomplishment for her. We kind of forced her to do it, but she scaled it down to halfway up the rope. We talked about it after the session and we reckon she could have done the full climb at least once, maybe twice. Something to consider next time.

The WOD was straightforward enough and I probably lost some time grabbing a bit of a drink and splitting the heavy KB swings on the first 2 rounds. Overall though it was a good session, despite the rope burn I got.

Should’ve, Would’ve, Could’ve

Warm Up
Star run

Strength
Deadlift 8-8-8-8-8plus (60kgs, last set 12 reps)
then
5×1 Clean and Jerk (50kgs)

WOD
10 minute AMRAP
15 Unbroken KB swings (20kg)
5 Strict Pull ups

200m medball run penalty for breaking KB swings

I was quite excited for the day’s session but as soon as we got started, I was thrown a curve ball by the British summer. It was sweltering hot! I believe it was up to 30 degrees, which is quite a departure from the last few weeks of rain. In any case, I believe I could and should have gone to 70kgs on the deadlift as 60 was relatively easy and not really 65% of my working 1RM (which was the aim). I could have probably done more than 12 reps on the last set but I was losing form a bit, probably due to the grip.

Same story on the clean and jerk. 60kgs would probably have been more appropriate as 50kgs wasn’t much of a challenge (sorry for sounding cocky there).

The WOD was just right though. I have always been breaking my reps into sets of 5s or 10s, but this called for 15 unbroken heavy swings. I managed to do that for 4 rounds, but mentally I was struggling a bit and my grip was getting close to failing as well. I had to take the bullet and do the penalty run on round 5. I definitely need to work on my mental toughness as well as my grip. I managed a decent score I think, as my goal was 5 or 6 and I could have probably done 6 if not for the run.

Boracay Body Part 28: A long night

Strength
7×2 Heavy Deadlift (110kgs)

Pre WOD
3x Max Deadhang pullups + 1 minute rest

WOD
20 Minute AMRAP
6 Push ups
12 KB swings (24kgs)
18 Goblet Squat (24kgs)
Star run

Post WOD
5 minutes max double unders (50ish)

I was sort of glad it was heavy deadlifts for the strength session yesterday, I felt relatively strong and was able to bang out good reps at 110kgs. I tried for 120kgs (my PB) on the last set but failed to get it past my knees. I was either overthinking things or got burned out or probably it was just one of those days, everyday is not a PB day. I may still need a bit of work to get past 120kgs.

It was then to pull ups which I also need a bit of work. Not just with the strength aspect but also with technique, yes even a simple pull up has technique to it.

Then it was on to the main WOD 20, I grabbed the 24Kg kettlebell as this was the only way I can improve (plus 12 swings isn’t too bad, plus I didn’t want to incur the Wrath of Kat… just kidding). Looked ok at the beginning, until we had to go out for a run. I hate running, I wasn’t in the mood for running so the running held me back. 6 push ups? Easy. 12 KB swings? Not too bad actually. 18 goblet squats? I can dealwith that. Star run? Fuckin’ hell. I had to walk maybe half of the last star run as I was getting pretty bad stitches, I managed to finish 4 rounds in a little over 20 minutes. Still need more improvement.

Then 5 more minutes of double unders. I was able to do a few sets of 5-6 I think. I was just going through the motions as I am still recovering from an ankle injury, which I think is recovering well. So hopefully I can get some more double under practice and get that bloody thing off the list.

Making Faces

I’ve been a bad blogger and neglected to record my previous workouts. So let me make up for it by recounting two of the recent ones:

Friday April 20 – “Karen” 150 wall balls for time (14 lbs) 

I got this done in 10:29…more than 2 minutes shaved off from my previous Karen! Granted,I still could not get the ball high enough, but it was as close to it as I could.  Thighs were extremely painful after this, but I still managed to try some of the bodyweight movements that we’re testing to determine our levels (will post more on that later on).

Tuesday April 24 – 10 minute AMRAP of 15 burpees and 10 KB swings (16kgs)

There was no debate in my head this time, I was going for it RX.  It would be heavy and it would be painful, but I knew if I just kept that power coming from the hip, I could survive, even if it meant less reps than everyone else.  In 10 minutes I managed 4 rounds + 15 burpees + 6 KB swings…nearly 5 rounds which was what most people got on average.  Not too far off considering I went for the weight.  My burpees still need lots of work.  Lots.

Tuesday was also quite interesting…during the warm up we did a bit of bear crawls…I ended up bruising my left thumb.  I must’ve scraped it against the floor.  Very minor injury but I had it cleaned and wrapped up right away as I didn’t like seeing the blood.  At the end of the WOD, we were supposed to do 10 strict pull ups before leaving.  Since I’ve managed a few jumping pull ups already (the bar was still high up even after the jump so I was pulling myself up properly over the bar — just still cant do it from a hanging position — It will come SOON!) I thought I’d start with that.

So I jumped up and held on to the bar.  At that moment Eamon and the rest of the guys cheered me on and were greeted by my pain face.  The pain face was not because of the effort being exerted to get myself up over the bar.  I had, at that moment, gotten cramps on my right leg with my toe pointing downwards.  I had to ask for help since I couldn’t jump down and land on my leg and Eamon helped me down.  Ignoring the cramp pain, I think that was quite funny.  And slightly embarrassing.