"Ginger Quad ParticipACTION"

For time, in teams of two, complete the following:
100m sprint together
75 wall ball, one partner working at a time
100m sprint together
6 rounds (3 rounds each) of the following, with non-working partner holding a plank:
- 5 burpee pull ups
- 5 jumping squats
- 5 push ups
- 5 toes to bar (knee raises)
250 Double Unders, one partner working at a time
100m partner carry (rx requires each partner to complete 50M)


Nathan and I finished this in 16:25

Dance Party Friday

A. Push Jerk 3-2-1-1-1 / Romanian Deadlift 5-5-5

155x3, 175x2, 185x1, 195x1, 205x1

I did Romanian deadlifts with a 55lb kettlebell.

B. Weighted Pull-Ups 2-2-2-2

Ended by chicken-necking a 55lb weighted pull-up.



C. Sled Drag Suicides M-115lb W-85lb 3 rounds 20M (10M and back)-40M-60M
NOT for time. Partner up and take turns.

Done.

 

D. Dance Party cooldown!

Point taken, ladies.

I spotted this note on the CrossFit Regina website today. 

Ladies only: We have started a Facebook group that is for ladies only (sorry fells, some issues need to be discussed in a ladies only environment!). If you’re interested in joining, look for Robin Maier on Facebook and add me, and I will invite you to the group.

I'm 90 per cent sure this is actually a support group for CrossFit chicks who have seen me at the gym without my shirt. 

Ladies, all I can say is I'm sorry. 

In Rod We Trust

Second 6 a.m. workout in a row.   'Cuz I'm hardcore like that, yo.

Honestly, it's just convincing myself to roll out of bed when the alarm goes off at 5:30.  Today I hit snooze twice, which took me to 5:40, but I managed to get up.   I like myself so much better when I make it to the 6 a.m. class.   Until I start falling asleep at my desk at 11 a.m.

 

A. For Time: “Run and Swing”

3 Rounds of 400M Run, 21 Heavy Kettlebell Swings 70/55. 

Damn, that 70lb KB isn't getting any lighter.  I broke up my 21 into sets of 14 and 7 for the first two rounds and 13 and 8 in the last two.  I probably spent too much time resting between the swings, especially in the first two rounds.

Finished in 9:41.

B. 5 forward rolls, Hollow Rock to Superman rolls x10, 5 forward rolls

Done.  Awkwardly

C. Challenge: can you navigate the new pull-up bar entirely by hand?

No.  No, I cannot.   Got about a quarter of the way around and my grip started to hurt.  See the name of this blog for an explanation. 

D. Mobility: Up Dog, Down Dog, Plow, Camel.

Rotate 2-3x through these poses spending at least 30 seconds in each.

This was probably the most yoga I've ever done in one sitting.  I should do more of it, and then maybe I wouldn't have the flexibility of an inanimate carbon rod. 

 

Overheard at the Gym  

 "What's Up Dog?"   Yoga humour.  Really, people only laughed because they were up at 6 a.m. 

Invictus Chipper

We were supposed to do back squat max triples today.  Not wanting to re-tweak my back, I thought I'd just do some light reps with 135lbs.  Even that felt shitty, so I didn't do them.   Harlan told me to hit the foam roller. 

Invictus Chipper

For Time: Row 1000M, 20 Shoulder to Overhead, 30 Squat Cleans, 40 Burpee jump over barbell  (135lb)

I used the Advanced Men's weight even though the only thing that's advanced about me is my ability to keep deluding myself.     Shoulder to Overheads were from the rack and I think I did them in sets of 8, 6 and 6.   The squat cleans took forever.... I believe it was eight full minutes.  Scientists are seriously considering re-classifying me as a glacier.    Finished in 19:39.  Ugh. 

Spring Fling IV

 

Short version

Full results here.

I finished 30th out of 31 men in Division 1.   Fuckin' swimming, man.  Fuckin' swimming. 

Nevertheless, I had a great time and this was as good as any CrossFit competition as I've participated in. 

Longer, incredibly self-absorbed version

I tweaked  my back on Wednesday doing back squats and I was still hurting two days later.  I actually tried to pull out on Friday, but there was no one who was able to take my spot on short notice and the Scot in me wasn't willing to kiss $80 goodbye.  Yeah, I would have gotten a T-shirt, but I'm not going to wear something that says "Competitor" on the back if I didn't actually compete.  

I thought I'd give it a shot on Saturday and see how I held up during WOD 1.  I wasn't optimistic after a couple of painful 95lb cleans in the warm-up area (alley). Then I borrowed Matt's belt, and it made a world of difference. 


WOD1 "Grace is growing on you"  (8:00 time cap)

10 Clean & Jerks 135lbs (Grace standards apply, any clean, any jerk)
100m Run (to 50m marker and back)

10 Clean & Jerks 155lbs (athlete adds own weight to bar)

100m Run (to 50m marker and back)

10 Clean & Jerks 185lbs  (athlete adds own weight to bar)


I had a pretty good pace on the first set of 10.  Don't get me wrong, I was by far the slowest in my heat, but I think I was still done it in under 90 seconds.

After the run, the 155lbs went okay. 

I don't remember how much time I had went I got back from the second run.  Less than four minutes, for sure.   I remember thinking it probably wouldn't be enough time. 

Going into this, the 185lb C&Js were kind of scary to me.  I've cleaned more than that for singles plenty of times, but usually not after doing a fair of work already.

However, when I started doing them, they actually went up a little easier than expected.  It could've been because I was good and warm by then, or due to Matt's belt, or just because I was the last one still going in my heat so I got a lot of support from the spectators. 

Ricky Bobby said "If you ain't first, you're last."

Well, in CrossFit, when you're last, they cheer you like you're first. 

Because it was so loud in there, I couldn't really hear my judge Nicole telling me what rep I was on. I probably wasn't paying much attention anyway. 

With 10 seconds left on the clock, all I knew I wasn't done yet, and I couldn't will myself to pick up that bar one more time. 

I found out afterward that it would've been my last one.  Oh, and you get a half-point for a clean.  That hurt a little.

But, going into this, I figured I would likely DNF it.  I did, but I DNF'd it as good as I possibly could have without, y'know, F-ing it. 

After they posted the results, I thought I was tied for last on this WOD, because my name was at the bottom of the page.  I didn't see the second sheet of paper underneath with the rest of the field. 

26th out of 31


Between WODs 1 and 2, I took advantage of the free massages offered to athletes, asking the masseuse to work on my lower back.  That was so great.

* * *

WOD2 - “Save Olympic Wrestling”


12 minute AMRAP of:

5 KB Snatch each arm (55lbs)

5 pullup/toes to bar complex
15 Burpee broad jumps

Having done this WOD on Wednesday, I knew what to expect.  I also knew that there is only one way to do well on this: Don't stop. 

So I went as fast as I could.  The snatches were over quick.  I'm not great at T2B, but I tried not to waste too much time on them. 

After the first round, I felt like maybe I had pushed the pace too much,  I don't know if I noticeably slowed down, but I tried to just push through it.  

Global News was there to take some shots for the weekend sportscast, and when I saw the clips on TV, it sure seemed like I was moving slower than I remembered. 

By the way that coverage also included a clip of yours truly doing this:

Is this a shot from Global Regina's coverage of Spring Fling, or a clip from my long forgotten softcore past?

Sexy, right?   You can look, ladies, but you can't touch.  Or if you do touch, try to make it seem like an accident. 

I had a couple of missteps during the WOD.  One time I started on the T2B, not the pull-ups.  Because I'm a dumbass.

And then, late in the WOD, I couldn't find my kettlebell.  Like, what the fuck?  I know I put it back on the designated spot, so I think the dude in the lane next to me (you can see him in the picture above) misplaced his, and then used mine and put it back on his spot. 

So I took it back, did my snatches and put it back on his spot before he needed it.  I don't know how much time it cost me looking for a new KB (there were 45s in the vicinity so that added to my confusion).  It could have been 10 seconds or it could have been 20.  It may have cost me a few reps, which would have made a slight difference in the WOD and overall standings (maybe one spot, two at the very most) but whatever.

I finished with a score of 154 on the WOD (4 complete rounds, plus 10 snatches and 2 PLU/T2B). 
That was good for 26th out of 31. 

* * *

This smiling fool has no idea how bad this is is gonna be.  No frickin' idea.

WOD #3 “Sink or Swim”


10:00 time cap
2 rounds for time:

100m Swim

25 Squats

50m Kick

25 Situps

The last time I swam in any kind of a competition, it was in Cancun in 2010.  That competition involved swimming across a hotel pool (maybe 10m), chugging a beer, swimming across the pool, eating a slice of cheesecake, and then more swimming, and possibly tequila.   

I nearly died. 

This was worse.  Holy shit, I should have gone to swim club. 

As I was approaching the edge of the pool after the first 50m, I looked down and saw how deep it was, then looked up and saw how far I was away from the wall and I thought that I might actually drown. 

I'm pretty sure I forgot to kick my feet for at least some of the time I was swimming.  And when I was kicking, I was kicking them out of the water, which is inefficient and spazzy.  It's good to see that my swimming technique shares some qualities with my Oly lifting.

I couldn't believe people were walking in the water when they got to the shallow end of the pool... until I actually started doing the WOD and that was my favourite part. 

Anyway, I was terrible at this and I have no one to blame but myself.  I knew for weeks there'd be swimming and I did absolutely NOTHING to prepare for it.

I got ANOTHER fucking DNF... I was six situps away from finishing.  29th out of 31.


I would like to note for the record that, despite how terrible I did,  I think it was a great idea to include swimming in this year's Spring Fling.   It's good to see how CrossFit-ness can translate into success (or, in my case, lack thereof) in other areas of fitness that we don't experience every week in the box. 

Plus, the swim WOD also gave us a chance to see Shae wearing a pair of Batman swim trunks he obviously stole from an 8-year-old. 


Holy compressed package, Batman!



And, since I was safely out of the top 8 -- way, WAY out of the top 8 -- I was able to relax and enjoy watching the final event (a fucking Fat Bar Fran) with a couple of my best friends.



So, yeah, good weekend.   

All the best pictures in this post (the two sweet black and white ones, "Swimming Idiot" and "Nacho Time") were taken by Shane Nicholson of EdgeMatic Images.  He takes awesome CrossFit pictures, and I bet he's great at other kinds of photography, too. Hey, maybe you should hire him to take pictures of something.     





Back Squats / Spring Fling WOD2

A. Back Squats 5-5-5

(start at 81%; Spring Fling competitors do sets across )

I did a few warm-up sets and then did fives of 245.

I tweaked my back on this so only did two sets

 

B.  Spring Fling WOD2: “Save Olympic Wrestling”

12 minute AMRAP of:

5 KB Snatch each arm  (10 points)

5 pullup/ toes to bar complex (10 points)

15 Burpee broad jumps (15 points)


3 rounds + 5 KB snatch (right arm) + 5 KB snatch (left arm)  +  5 pull-up/T2B + 9 Burpee Broad Jumps

Front Squats / "Back at the Ranch"

I'm writing this two weeks later, so this is all best guess stuff. 

A.  Front Squats 5-5-5

I think I did 185-205-225

B. “Back at the Ranch” (from Spring Fling 2011)

3 mins Burpee Box Jump overs (24/20″)  - 32?  That seems low.

1 min rest

3 mins Sled Drags for distance (185/125, 135/95, 95/65lb) back and forth to 50m mark.

I used 185. This was terrible.    I couldn't get moving to start.  Ended up with 125m

VolkeFit: "All sorts of suck"

I hit Steve's garage to see what the mad scientist of home-exercising had cooked up. 

Not for time... just for pain:  


50 cal on the AirDyne 

Then three rounds, increasing weight, of:
3 squat cleans
20 weighted lunges per leg (We used 95, 115, and 125)

50 cal on the AirDyne

3x250m sandbag runs

Buy-out: 15 deadhang pull-ups, in as few sets as possible.  I did them in sets of 10 and 5.


Thoughts:

-God, that AirDyne is an awful/amazing thing.  Three minutes or so was a nice little sprint. The fact that Steve does 15 minutes on it regularly astounds me.

-My first time doing weighted lunges with a weighted barbell.  Almost fell over a couple of times, and really had to concentrate to get through the last reps. 

"Team Zeus"

"I wanted to enter the CrossFit Games but failed the urine test due to the fact that I piss lightning."

"Team Zeus"
3 for time of:


30 Wall ball shots, (20/14)
30 Sumo deadlift high-pull (75/55)
30 Box jump, (20″)
30 Push press (75/55)
Row 30 calories
30 Push-ups
10 Body weight  205lb Back squat

I did this in a team of three (team name: "Drawing Blanks"), with my two partners working out at the same time. 

We split each exercise in half, so they did 15 then I did 15s, except for the backsquats, obviously.

While one partner(s) was working, the other one skipped.  That definitely increased the suck factor, although since the skipping didn't count toward the final score, there was definitely a tendency later in the WOD to delay getting to the rope.  Generally, though, I did a minimum of 30 single skips every time, and more often 45-60. 

31:28.

What in the "Helen" am I doing here at 6am?

Every weekday morning,  I set my alarm to wake me up at 5:33am so that I might go to CrossFit for 6am.  Even if I hit the snooze button, I'm usually awoken around that time by the persistent yipping of my Yorkshire terrier, Yoda, demanding to be fed. 

He will not shut up and there is the implied threat that if I don't immediately respond to his demands, I will come down to my kitchen and find a puddle of canine piss on the floor. 

"What did you expect, human? I have NEEDS."

Working out at 6am has a number of advantages over doing so 12 hours later.  It frees up my evening so I can spend time with my family. The gym is never overcrowded, and I am able to focus better on what I'm supposed to be doing. There's a sense of camraderie among the hardy souls who get up that early to put themselves through whatever exercise hell has been programmed that day.  It's a beautiful time of day, especially when I walk out the door invigorated by the workout, breathing in the crisp morning air, with the morning sun shining warmly as the promise of a new day awaits me. 

Despite all this,  I get to maybe one 6am class every two weeks in the non-winter months when my job permits (some times of the year, I have to be at work at 7:45, with some prep work done at home beforehand, so those times are a write-off). and mostly because I don't go to sleep early enough

Today, though, I managed to get up, eat a spoonful of Nutella, and get to the gym in time to do a classic benchmark girl WOD...

Helen

Three rounds for time:
400m run
21 bell swings (55lb)
12 pull-ups

9:30. 

It's six seconds slower than my PR, but more than a minute faster than when I last did it just over a year ago. 

So that was a pretty good way to start the morning. 

Sandbag Shitstorm / MUs #2 and #3

The programming at CrossFit Regina called for a strength segment and metcon, as per usual.

I was looking forward to doing back squats for the first time in a while, but got hung up at home so completely missed that part.

I did get there in time for the metcon, though. 

 

A. "Sandbag Shitstorm"*

*not the official name... but it's an awesome name and if you think otherwise, I will fight you. 

10min AMRAP:


30 Sand bag walking lunges 45/20
30 sand bag shouldering (15 each) +5 squats with bag on left shoulder, 5 squat with bag on right shoulder
100 sand bag carry

I got 2 rounds, plus 30 lunges plus 15, uh, shoulderings and 4 squats.

I guess that's okay.  But I think I was without inspiration due to a lack of appropriate WOD music.

Given the sandbaggy nature of this WOD, they should have played "Darube" by Sandstorm on a constant loop. (Please enjoy this timeless techno classic, accompanied by visuals of legendary MMA fighter Wanderlei Silva mauling people by punching, kneeing, and stomping.  Oh so much stomping)

Really, this song should be the soundtrack for all of our lives.  It would make us all a minimum142% better. 

 

B. Muscle-Up practice

So I figured that I'd do the backsquats with the 7pm crowd, after doing the metcon at 6:30.  When I mentioned this to Aaron, he replied, "Your backsquats will be severely compromised by the metcon."
While I am the #VoiceOfReason for my Neanderthal buddies on our upcoming UFC roadtrip to Winnipeg (a group which includes Aaron), I have to admit that he was right.   It's reassuring to know I have someone who can step in as a #SubstituteVoiceOfReason should I get stabbed by a Winnipeg ne'er-do-well or throttled by Harlan. 

Instead of doing backsquats, I thought I'd work on muscle-ups, since I hadn't been able to get a second one since the day I finally knocked the MU monkey off my back. 

I got some tips from Ann-Marie and Leya.  After a few frustrating attempts and walking away, I did a few jumping MU's and then came back to the rings with no one around. 

Nailed it.  I was so happy, I just stayed up there and waited until Leya noticed from across the gym, since it seems like the only time I can do these fucking things is when she's present. 

I then made a less than graceful dismount that ended up with me falling down on my ass. 

A few minutes later, I decided I wanted to try for a second one.  I got it, though it was a bit more of a struggle to push myself up.  No one-legged eggbeater move though. 

So, in the course one evening, I managed to increase my lifetime total for MUs by 200%. 

3 Position Clean / "Metabolic Mania"

A. 3 Position Clean (Floor, Mid Thigh, high hang) 70% x 4

These were squat cleans, just to be clear.


I used 155 for the first one, and 165 for the last three.  That's a bit higher than 70% of my one rep max, but you can blame Brad Fo for that. 

The trick to doing the high hang is pulling yourself under it really quick. 

 

B. “Metabolic Mania”

5 rounds:
1 min of Double unders
1 min of plank Push ups (start in plank position on elbows, walk hands up to push up position then back down to plank. Alternate hands that push you up)

Rest 30 seconds

Plank push-ups were horrible. 

Going from memory, here's how each round looked like for me:

DU  PPU
70    17
61    16
60    15
51    14
50    15

Total score of 368. 

"Nothing good happens in a back alley"

2 rounds for time:

10 Thrusters (115lb)
shuttle run (20m, back, 30m, back)

15 Push Press (115lb)
shuttle run (20m, back, 30m, back)

20 Kettle Bell Swings to Shoulder Height 70lbs
shuttle run (20m, back, 30m, back)

25 burpees
shuttle run (20m, back, 30m, back)

The Rx'd version of this calls for dumbbell thrusters, using 55s.  We had a shortage of those so I volunteered to do a barbell version with a slightly heavier weight.  Even though the weight was heavier, not having to do this with dumbbells means this was an easier version.  Not that it was actually easy, mind you. 

15:26. 



Overheard at the Gym

The Boy accompanied me to the gym, and did the workout in the back alley with the rest of us.  He followed the pace set by Shae, rather than his old man, who was considerably slower.

My son is a very inquisitive little boy. You don't so much have conversations with him as you get interrogated by him.  He just constantly asks questions.  While I love my son as much as one human being can love another, this habit can be somewhat maddening.   I've developed a few coping mechanisms (don't worry, bleeding hearts, none of them involve electroshock training) but have somewhat gotten used to it.

For people who aren't around my kid very much or aren't forced by the laws of nature to love him, his habit might be considered either mildly amusing or insanely annoying. 

Leya, God bless her, seemed to fall in the former camp, and she temporarily immortalized a few of the Boy's questions on the CFR whiteboard.

(To me) "Is she stronger than you?" "Yes, she is."

"Why am I so sweaty?"

(To me) "He's better than you!" He ould've been referring to Lance, Shae, Justin or just about any dude who was there on Sunday, really.  I think he meant "better at CrossFit," but could have been referring to my moral fiber, my contributions to society, or my potential usefulness in the event of a zombie apocalypse.

(To Leya) "Were you born here?" "Yes." "Do you live here?" "Sometimes it feels like it." "Where do you sleep?" "I pull those crash mats up over the bathroom and sleep up there."