First Muscle-Up / Annie-Karen Mash-up

So pumped to see Tyler do his first muscle up tonight! Great job buddy!!! P.S. that one legged eggbeater move was the tits ;)
-Tiff (on Facebook)


The first part of the WOD today at CrossFit Regina had us practicing muscle-ups or muscle-up transitions. 

To be honest, at this point I had become resigned to the idea that I would ever be able to get a muscle-up.   After all, I've been doing CrossFit five years now, and haven't ever gotten close.   I've done jumping muscle-ups, but that's like having your mom tell you how handsome you look.  

I can do pull-ups (kipping, chest-to-bar and strict) and ring dips competently, so problem wasn't physical. 

It is all mental.  On the very sporadic occasions when I've tried, I've gotten frustrated and given up too easily. 

I couldn't wrap my head around the way to transition myself from being under the rings to over them... the whole "headbutt" thing threw me for a loop.  And I was so bad at it that I didn't want to practice.  

It bothered me a bit that muscle-ups came to others so easily.  But obviously it didn't bother me enough to work diligently and intelligently to change.  (This is a longstanding character flaw)  It was easier to fall back to my position of "I just can't do them."  

Tonight, though, Keenan was showing us non-MU-havers how to do transitions.  He gave a tip about looking up at the ceiling as you pull yourself up, then keeping the rings tight to your body.  Also showed how the false grip is supposed to work... which I guess I had never really paid close attention to.  

I did a couple of transitions, and then, decided to head over to the rings hanging from the ceiling. 

My first attempt was close to how they usually go. Not even close.

Leya gave me some tips on the false grip and doing a BIG kip. 

On my next attempt, I did a couple of big kipping swings underneath before attempting to pull myself up.  I got up pretty high.  I think I even surprised myself at how close I got.   At that point, I had a good feeling that I might get a MU tonight. 

After a few minutes, I grabbed the rings again.  False grip.  BIG SWING.  Look up.  GO!  

I got up over the rings... mostly.  My left arm was able to straighten... but my right arm was still bent.... and I was struggling to lock myself out. 

I have no idea how long I was in that position. I later described it as "the muscle-up version of the Dave Castro deadlift." It felt like 20 seconds, but that's doubtful.  However, it was long enough that people who weren't watching could turn and see what was happening. I was doing everything I could to push myself up, which included, as Tiff alluded to, a one-legged eggbeater kind of thing. 

Whatever I was doing, it finally worked and I was able to lock out both arms. 

I'm not gonna lie, I was pretty happy to finally get that muscle-up monkey off my back.  I posted the above picture  on Facebook with the caption "Finally, after five years. (It was ugly, but it still counts). I think it took Kyle a month."

I got a bunch of "likes" and congratulations from CrossFitters because they're awesome, supportive people... even though this is like congratulating a 12-year-old for finally getting the training wheels off his bike. 

I guess that would be a pretty big day for the 12-year-old, too. 

I didn't make any fewer attempts because my right shoulder was hurting after the extended time I spent not being locked out. 

On to the metcon...

Annie Karen mash-up

20min AMRAP of:

• 30 Double Unders
• 20 Sit-ups
• 10 Wall Ball

This was hard, but the good thing about it is that it was a reasonable number of each exercise so you were transitioning pretty quickly through it. 

I did 9 rounds plus 30 DU and 11 SU.