Tyler gets, I dunno... ranty? Preachy? Sanctimonious?

I wrote the following on the CFR blog today.  My goal was to encourage at least a few more CFR members to think about signing up for CFR's Spring Fling.  I worry the tone comes off as preachy or like I take all this shit too seriously (maybe I do... or maybe I don't take it seriously enough), but I stand behind the sentiment. 

Since this blog is where I write about my experiences with CrossFit, I might as well re-post it here.

What prompted it was a post by Robin.

Robin said:
CFR members, we have 8 men and 8 women already signed up for Spring Fling! If you want to compete, make sure you sign up at CFR TONIGHT! Registration will be made public tomorrow!

Which compelled me to write with my two cents.

Tyler said:
Re: Spring Fling – I encourage any CFR member who’s on the fence about this to sign up. Just do it.
16 participants from CFR is a good number, but I think it would be great if we could get some more out for a competition hosted by OUR OWN GYM.
 
Friggin’ Synergy in Saskatoon chartered a bus to so they could have, like 20-some people drive 8 hours across a frozen Prairie in January to FrostFit in Winnipeg. I’m sure they, and Function, and Brio and Flux and other gyms will have good sized delegations. We should too.

So, set aside those lingering doubts and sign up. If you are new and have to scale most of your WODs then sign up for Div 2.

If you’ve been doing CrossFit for a while and can do most of the WODs as Rx’d, then sign up for Div 1.

Look, I don’t have muscle-ups, I’ve never deadlifted more than 315, and I get winded just watching Lance and Shae and Leya and Tiff work out, but I still signed up.

Yes, I will not finish anywhere near the podium and you might not either because there will be some freaking crazy fit ninjas in the same division, but you know what?

It doesn’t matter.

You’ll get to push yourself in a fun, supportive atmosphere with people you know (and people you don’t) cheering you on and there is no pressure because even if you finish last in Div 1 or Div 2 or the Masters category, you’re still way ahead of everyone who didn’t compete.

I can virtually guarantee doing this will make you love CrossFit even more than you already do. Take it from the guy who finished SECOND LAST in 2012 (that would be me… and I barely edged out a new CrossFitter because I could do double-unders and he couldn’t)
Even with my ridiculously fragile ego (I get legit mad when my own 5-year-old kid repeatedly beats me in boxing on the Wii) I still signed up for Div 1 knowing that I could very well finish last this year.

I think it would be awesome if you signed up, too.

Okay… I will get down off my soapbox now.

Then Mike, one of the nicest guys at CrossFit or anywhere else, followed up with a post that struck exactly the kind of tone I wish I had.  Dammit.  No wonder that guy won CrossFitter of the Year.

Mike C  said:

I could not believe how much fun I had at Frostfit. Getting to know Tyler, Jenn and Tiff along with our CFR support team was an incredible experience. I finished 20 out of 25 in div 2 and I came away inspired, enthusiastic and focused on the things I wanted to work on. I won’t be able to compete with many of the athletes at Spring Fling, but if that mattered, how many of us would go to CFR every week other than the super-humans like Robin, Matt, Joel and the others Tyler mentioned? I kind of had the same reaction to other competitors that I do at our gym – amazed they can do what they do, humbled in my own abilities, but really uplifted by how accepting and kind everyone is and how they genuinely root for you to do well.

I have found that the competition was less about competing with others and more about testing yourself in a way you haven’t before – in other words it’s really in line with what makes CFR amazing every day. Sign up if you are hesitant, and feel free to slash Tyler’s tires if you don’t like it. (that’s ok, right Tyler?)

"That's the most blood I've ever seen from double unders."

Today was sort of an interesting day at Crossfit, for a number of reasons.

Firstly, I was the only person who showed up for the 2pm class. In my four years at CrossFit Regina, that might be the first time that ever happened. I've done workouts with just one other person, but doing it all by myself is a different vibe. 

The workout was the "Newport Crippler"  then a ten minute rest, and concluding with a half-Rhiannon.

Newport Crippler (30 x bodyweight squats, then a one-mile run)

My previous time doing this WOD had a time of 10:03, but reading my description of that day makes me believe that I overachieved a bit. I was shooting for a sub-11-minute time today.

I used a 185lb barbell. I did my squats in sets of 15-10-5, just like last time, but I think I was really lacking some urgency. I didn't finish them until 2:49.   I bet I did them in less than two minutes last time. 

The run was s-l-o-w. Making matters slightly more interesting was the fact that as I was trudging along, a cop car drove past me no fewer than four times.

When I stumbled into the gym at 11:14 elapsed, they drove past in the alley and told Aaron that they thought I might have been someone they were looking to arrest, until they realized I was from CrossFit.

Actually, if I was a criminal, CrossFit would probably come in handy.  Running from the po-po, carrying TVs, pulling yourself up to second-storey unlocked windows, jumping over fences, that sort of thing.

CrimeFit, anyone?

There's a new CrossFit affiliate in Regina called CrossFit Villains, so maybe they're trying to capitalize on that underserved market of scofflaws looking to increase their functional fitness. Or maybe what makes them "villains" is their criminally bad website design.  (C'mon, fellas, that badass industrial-looking background makes it a chore to read the actual, y'know, words on your website.)


Half-Rhiannon (five minutes of double unders) 

In my third set, of double unders, I whipped myself pretty good on the arm, right smack dab on a scab on my left elbow that I acquired via rug burn during an impromptu submission grappling match between Harlan and me during the last UFC pay per view. (BTW, I tapped the Big German out, no matter what Harlan says or was captured on video by spectators that night.)

The ensuing bloody mess prompted the quote from Robin that you see in this blogpost title.   My double unders kinda fell apart after that, though I wouldn't blame the boo-boo as much as I would blame being really, really goddamn tired.

153 double unders in five minutes

Hang Power Snatch and Rhiannon

A. Hang Power Snatch 3-2-1-1-1 I didn't follow the pattern exactly, because I am sore from Saturday and Robin advised against it.

95(3) 115(2) 135(1)

Robin, watching my awkward-as-hell hang power snatch: "We're going to have to fix your feet before you go any heavier."


B. Rhiannon - Number of double unders in 10 minutes.

319 (PR) That's a strong improvement over my previous best of 274, but I feel I should have broken 300 long ago.

Shoulder Press / OPT WOD

Shoulder press 5-5-5:

115, 125 (old PR), 130 (PR)


Then, instead of the scheduled metcon, the sadistic deadlift and clean & jerk-filled “Heavy Duty,” I did the OPT WOD from 11am Saturday alongside Blair, because I believe it’s important to stay humble and there are few things more humbling than working out alonside Blair.

For time, three rounds of
12 115-lb power snatches
12 speed burpees (or "lazy burpees" as Robin likes to call them)
12 30-inch box jumps

Blair got 6:30-something, I think. I got 11:39.

Pull-up Cluster / Wall Ball Run

Part 1:
1 minute max Pull-ups, 1 minute rest
45 seconds max Pull-ups, 45 seconds rest
30 seconds max Pull-ups, 30 seconds rest
15 seconds max Pull-ups.

I got 34, 15, 12, 7

I consider this to be good, though I suppose I should have gotten a few more in the 45-second round. That's a pretty significant drop-off. I was going for a PR in consecutive pull-ups in the first round, and I got it (33), then I added one more before the minute was up.

The pull-ups were supposed to be strict gymnastic pull-ups (this sort of stuff happens whenever Robin gets back from a certification, and she just went to a gymnastics cert). I didn't realize until I had to change that I do more of a frog kick, with my own spazzy flair.

Part 2:
As many rounds as possible in 15 minutes:
200 m Run
20 Wall Ball – 20/14lb

Blair got 7 rounds and something, so I was hoping to get within sniffing distance of that. My runs were pretty damn slow from round 2 on.

I got 6 rounds, plus 200m, plus 2 WB.

"Fran Will Not Be Broken”

As many rounds as possible in 20 minutes:
10 Thrusters – 95/65lb – UNBROKEN
10 Pull-ups – UNBROKEN
*To a max of 10 rounds

If you get 8 for example, start over until you get 10 in a row.

Rest 5-10 minutes, then 1K Run for time.

When I first looked on the CrossFit Regina website saw this horrible variation of Fran from the twisted mind of Robin, my first reaction was to cancel my plans to go at lunch.

Then I remembered that being scared of a workout is not a valid excuse to skip it. Actually, I believe one of the unofficial tenets of CrossFit is that if the workout doesn't scare you, it's not hard enough.

So I went. My plan was to attack this workout at a reasonable pace and rest when necessary so I didn't have any broken sets, which would just demoralize me and waste energy. I figured five or six rounds was a reasonable goal.

As it turns out, my strategy worked better than expected and I exceeded my goal.

8 rounds + 7 thrusters.

I don't think I rested unnecessarily all that much, but I may have been able to squeeze a bit more out of myself on this one.

The 1k run totally sucked afterward. About halfway through, my calves were threatening a mutiny and I thought I might have to start walking. Then, on the home stretch down McDonald St. we were running against a strong wind and that was just brutal.

Time was 5:16, which is slower than my 1k average the last time I ran a 5k.

Spirit Away

The backstory on this one is that I did it last year on my birthday and was considering requesting it for this year. As it turns out, it came a week early, so my scheduled rest day was put off.

Five rounds of:

15 overhead squats (115 lbs)
25 burpees
20 weighted sit-ups (30 lbs)
10 snatches (115 lbs)

Last year, I did it with 95 lbs in about 45 minutes. In what is still one of my all-time favourite CrossFit memories, I was the last one still doing the WOD, and had a bunch of fellow CrossFitters cheering me through the last reps. (Update: here's a picture of the final snatch from last year, provided by Robin)


Tonight, I rx'd the fucker and it took me 50:43. I would have liked to get it done around 45:00, and I did spend a lot of time resting, but this is just a nasty little bitch of a workout.

Oh, and once again I was the last person done, and once again, I had a bunch of CrossFitters cheering me on.

That's one of the (many) things I love about CrossFit.

Queensland Australia Sectional WOD #2

After yesterday's Strength work, I wanted to do a CrossFit WOD today and this one is perfect in that it is only 10 minutes of work and shouldn't mess me up too bad to do strength stuff on Thursday or Friday.

10 mins max reps, consisting of the following stations:
4 minutes – Thruster 110/77lb
3 minutes – KB Swing 55/35lb
2 minutes – Muscle-ups
1 minute – Burpees

People like me who cannot do muscle-ups, sub 10 pull-ups. That means I don't get the RX’d star, which is sort of a bummer. I've been meaning to get an MU tutorial, seeing as it's my other major CrossFit goal for the year. The problem is that the Strength workouts take at least an hour, so time is sort of an issue. I should probably just carve out some time to work on some muscle-ups when I know Aaron or Robin is going to be there, and after I've done some work on that, I could do a brief metcon as well. Perhaps I'll try to work that in next week.

Athletes move from one station to the next at the end of the allotted time without rest.

My results:

35 thrusters
43 bell swings
20 pull-ups (equal to 4 MU for the purposes of scoring)
14 burpees
____________96 total. I thought I could break 100 on this. I spent a little too much time trying to catch my breath. Still, I felt pretty good about this. Not necessarily because the result was all that impressive (it wasn't) but just having done it.

Either that, or it just might be a nice day out and I had an extra dose of Vitamin D this morning. Life is good. Go out and hug someone.

Painstorm XXXVI

10-8-6-4-2 front squats, push press, thrusters
10-20-30-40-50 pull-ups
10-15-20-25-30 burpees

I woke up stiff and had a pretty good internal debate with myself this morning about whether to take a rest day, knowing what I was in for with this one.

I mean, that's just a shitload of pull-ups, any way you slice it.

I probably would have elected for a rest day, but I stupidly wrote,"This Painstorm terrifies me" on the CrossFit Regina website, so everyone would have known that I pussied out. See, it's not being a pussy that I'm ashamed of, it's people knowing I'm a pussy.

So I rediscovered my testes and headed to the gym.

Then, just seconds before we started, Robin casually mentioned that when she did this in January, it took her 55 minutes.

What the hell was I supposed to do with that information? Good thing my bowels were empty or I might have shat my pants.

37:54

If you wanna be a big dog, you gotta run with the big dogs

That was a line I used to explain why I decided to sign up for Division 1 at the Saskatchewan CrossFit Challenge.

In CrossFit, the biggest competition is within yourself. How much did I improve from the last time I did this? Did I go faster? Did I lift more?

It makes sense that those are the victories you focus on and chase, because you will see progression, and that progression will motivate you to keep coming and to keep improving. Especially when you first start out, and the WODs seem impossible and the people who can do them all as rx'd seem like impossibly athletic cyborgs.

This article from Again Faster reminds us that it's not such a bad thing to look at those around you who are stronger and/or faster than you. And, rather than accept the fact that they are better at CrossFit (or at least certain aspects of it), and they always will be... why not try to catch up?

Rather than look at the fastest guy or gal in your class and say, "She's amazing, I could never do what she's doing," maybe look at what they are doing and realize that it is possible for a human to perform at that level.

There will be times that you surprise yourself. It happened with me when I did "Helen" and you know the real reason why? I was trying to come close to Robin's score.

Look, I know there are limits to what a human body can do, and as a 33-year-old, three-or-four-day-a-week CrossFitter who likes to drink beer and eat shitty food on occasion, I might not ever get 23+ rounds of "Cindy" like James. I might not ever get a 346 on Fight Gone Bad like Franz. I might not ever run a 5K in 21 minutes like Nick.

But you bet your ass I'm gonna try.

Saskatchewan CrossFit Challenge

It was held at CrossFit Saskatoon on Saturday and it was a hell of an event. I started shitting bricks about Thursday.

There were more than 80 athletes from Regina, Saskatoon, and a handful from Alberta.

WOD 1
800m run
50 45lb sandbag thrusters
30 burpee pull-ups to an 8'5" bar.

12 minute time limit.

Here's a video explaining in detail.



I just wanted to get done this. With the time limit, there were plenty of good athletes who didn't get done in the earlier rounds, and I really didn't want to get a DNF. 12 minutes isn't a lot of time for this. There's no shame in a DNF, but I really, really wanted to finish this one.

I was one of the first ones in from the run, did the thrusters in sets of 25, 10, 5 and 10.

The last part was the worst. Burpulls to a fucking 8-foot-5 bar. That's like Nature taunting me for being short. I'm 5'9" with no vertical, and actually missed my first fucking jump, and at least a couple others.

I finished in 10:57, I think. That was good for 9th place out of the Division 1 men.


WOD 2
Anyway Overhead

You get three lifts. The heaviest weight you can take from the rack, onto your shoulders and then overhead counts, whether it's press, pushpress, push jerk or split jerk.

Demo video:

I haven't done enough weightlifting to know my max, and I didn't warm up because I'm an idiot who doesn't pay attention enough to know when it was almost our time. First lift was 135. Second was 165. I almost asked for 180, but went to 185 on the third and got it. I may have been able to do a bit more, but not much. There were some really strong dudes in Division 1, so 185 was only good for 14th in that event.


WOD 3
Three rounds of
1 minute Row for Calories
1 minute 95lb Snatch
1 minute Double Unders
1 minute 75lb KB swings
1 minute Rest

Demo video:


It's scored like a Fight Gone Bad, so maximizing reps was everything. The way this was structured, if someone is good at DUs, they were going to do well... as long as they had something left in the tank by the time they got there. Good news for me, who can do them, bad news for awesome athletes like James who just don't do them that much. I borrowed Hardcore Ange's speed rope and did okay on them.

Those 75lb KB swings were just inhuman. See the picture at the top of this post. The rest was basically just enough time to get back into the rower. It was good for 5th place in this round.
After everything was said and done, I finished in 8th place out of 19 guys. I have absolutely no problems with that, and feel lucky to have finished that high. Hell, Robin and Flood finished in 8th in their divisions, and I'm flattered to be in the same company as them.

Christian was the top CFR rep in Division 1, coming in fifth place. We had five guys in the top 10, though. Kelly and AngDesj were 1 and 2 in the women's podium. BrianB got third in Division 2, though he should have been in Division 1, and probably would have finished higher than me.

I was so grateful to have my wife Tracey and the Boy cheering me on in events 1 and 3, taking pictures and making sure I got plenty of good nutrition before and after. I am sure that I wouldn't have done nearly as well without her coming with me. Tracey was completely supportive and she was on "Mom" duty for the better part of the weekend so I could focus on the SCFC events (and then the afterparty). Yeah, I'm not sure what I did to deserve someone so awesome, either.

The Boy (two years old) even showed off his burpee technique in between events and won a few fans.

I also consider myself fortunate that I was able to go to this great event with an awesome group of people from CrossFit Regina. There were no assholes and no egos, just strong, supportive people who cheered on their fellow athletes. We even got visited by Nick and Christine, awesome CrossFitters themselves, who drove up just to cheer us on.

It was a great weekend.

"Friday With No Two Pizzas" and Vaseline on my ass

The name of the WOD comes from a quote from an episode of "Friends," which is Robin's favourite show. You can see the full quote on the second comment here.

For time, four rounds of:
400m run
50 sit-ups
50 sumo deadlift high pulls (45lbs)

That's a lot of sit-ups. And the problem with me and sit-ups is that once I do a certain amount, I get a blister on my inside right buttock, just outside the crack, at the point where the tailbone makes contact with the floor, causing friction. The technical CrossFit term for this is "Monkey Butt."

200 sit-ups would normally mean a few days of really uncomfortable sitting, along with occasional urges to throw my feces at people who anger me.

However, for the first time, I used a trick that Simon passed on a while back. He said the trick was to reduce the friction between your ass and the floor using Vaseline or something like that. It worked pretty well, I gotta say. No Monkey Butt.

As for the workout, it was tough. After the first round, I knew it was going to suck bad, as my running, sit-ups, and SDHPs all slowed down considerably. I had the Janimal on my tail the whole time.

25:56. We didn't have time to do the "Three Minute Fran" that was also on the books. Oh well.

Handstand Hold

I swung by CFR to do the remaining 35 wall ball for today.

On my way out, Robin asked me to do the challenge of the day, a handstand hold.

We faced off. I lasted 1:05 and Robin, who may be the most quietly competitive person I know, lasted 1:10 to set a new personal record.