Chelsea "DAMMIT!!"

Benchmark Girl “Chelsea”:
“Cindy” on the minute for up to 30 minutes
Cindy = 5 Pull-ups, 10 Push-ups, 15 Squats


Start a round of Cindy on the minute and keep going until you can’t complete the round within the minute. Continue doing rounds of “Cindy” until 30 minutes is up.

The problem with Cindy has always been the push-ups. They burn out your arms FAST. I didn't participate in the push-up challenge that CFR is doing this month, but I may do one on my own starting April 1.


I only got 7 rounds on the minute. The "DAMMIT!!" in the blog post title quotes my reaction upon falling two squats short of eight rounds. It was really ignorant of me to do, because there were CrossFit Kids in the gym. I was extremely pissed off and disappointed in myself, but that's no excuse. I've reigned in my swearing at home and at the gym a fair bit, but I still have work to do.

Then, I wallowed in self-pity for a good minute and ended up with 14 rounds at 20 minutes, which I don't regard as a real Cindy score because of so much resting during the early part, when you're fresh. For example, BrianB did Cindy on the minute for the entire 30 minutes, but his real Cindy score would be higher than 20 if he didn't spend 30 seconds of every minute resting.

After 30 minutes, I got 19 rounds, plus 5 pull-ups, plus 4 push-ups.

Unbroken wall balls + double unders = No star for Tyler

Four rounds of:

30 unbroken wall ball
60 unbroken double unders

I've never done more than 40 unbroken DUs, so I didn't have any illusions of besting that by 50 percent four times in a row. I did hope to do the WB unbroken, but knew that would be a tall order.

As it turns out, I did two of the rounds of WB unbroken, and each of the DUs in three sets. This was a tough one, and I don't think anyone got the rx'd star. BrianB did the WB unbroken, and Paul did the DUs unbroken, which are both pretty impressive feats on their own.

Time was 19:46

Much to learn, young Tyler has. Much work left to do, there is

Sorry for the Yoda-esque title. I've been playing a lot of swordfighting on our new Wii Sports Resort game, and I'm feeling sort of Jedi.

I went to CFR tonight to take part in strength club. The competition team training, of which most of the strength club members are a part, has introduced some new stuff to the curriculum. Tonight was a lot of snatch work, followed by a mini metcon. ("Heavy Jackie": 1000m row, 30 push press with 125lb, 15 pull-ups; my time was 8:17, three seconds behind Harlan.)

I won't go into all the details, but tonight was a good reminder that I need to consistently practice Olympic lifting technique.

But my biggest CrossFit priority this year is getting stronger. How much stronger? I don't think it's out of the question for me to have a CrossFit total that's over 800. I'm at 705 now, and I think with some hard work, I should be able to put at least 50lbs on my deadlift, 30 on my back squat and 20 on my shoulder press.

I thought about going nuts with the milk, but I have a hard enough time staying lean as it is. I would like to go the Chris T. or BrianB route and have a low amount of body fat, but still be able to move a sufficient amount of heavy weight, have a pretty good metcon capacity and look decent with my shirt off (I realize that's vain; I'm so vain that I do think that Pat BenetarCarly Simon song is about me).

If I want to get better, I gotta get stronger. While it was fun to do the same workout as the competition team, I think I will stick with the regular strength club programming from this point forward.

Franxiety

I've got to do "Fran" in less than five hours and my head is filled with nothing but questions:

-What time should I reasonably expect? I'm hoping to take a minute off my previous time of seven and a half minutes. Is that too optimistic? Too cautious? Chris T and Brian B were both sub 5 minutes... I'm not quite in their league but should I be shooting for sub-6? Maybe I should just stop thinking about times and go balls-out?

-I ate chili at lunch and some sugary treats in the morning. Is that gonna fuck me over?

-Since when do I pay that much fucking attention to what I eat?

-Why the fuck does Fran make me feel like this? Originally, when it was supposed to be last Friday, I started having Franxiety on Wednesday. I'd be in a meeting at work and my thoughts would drift to the upcoming Fran, and then I'd start getting all nervous and excited and twitchy. I mean, more than normal. What's the big deal? Hell, if I don't like my time, I can come in on a Sunday and do it again, right? Yeah, right, Tyler. Fran is not a big deal at all. Nosiree.

-When is this feeling going to end? Actually, I know the answer to that one: When this fucking thing is done.

"Grindy"

10 clean and jerks (135lbs, and the cleans are full squat cleans)
5 rounds of Cindy (5 pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 squats)
10 clean and jerks
5 rounds of Cindy
10 clean and jerks

The last time I did Grindy, it was back in June of 2008, about a month after I joined CrossFit. Back then, I did it with 95lbs and it took me 34:29, and I'm pretty sure I wanted to die afterward.

As it turns out, that was the first day I was able to do unassissted pull-ups (I always thought it took me a few months to get those) and that was also the day I tore my hands to shit... which led to me wearing gloves and mummy-taping my fingers for a long time, which is the reason for the title of this blog.

Today, my time was 24:33.

I'd be lying if I didn't say I was a little disappointed in myself on this one. I really lacked some intensity this morning. I spent more time trying to figure out which shoes to wear than I did warming up and getting comfortable with the C&Js, and it showed in my shitty form. I'm not saying I should be getting a sub-15 minute time on this, but I could have shaved two or three minutes off of this.

Basically, from almost the beginning, I was in the "Let's just plod through this mode" rather than saying "I'm gonna attack this fucking workout like a pack of crazed dogs." I'm not going to blame the music this time, even though Taylor Swift was playing at one point, because Franz quickly addressed that situation.

Other ways I sucked:

-Resting too much in between reps on the C&Js. BrianB flew through his and actually looked back at me as he was going through his first round of five Cindys and said, "You only have to do 10." Yeah, I know. I just suck, alright?

-My squat cleans came around toward the end, when I remembered to hold my breath and keep my core tight. But there was a point earlier in the workout where I basically did a power clean, front squat, ugly push press/half-jerk hybrid.

-I apparently have forgotten how to do a split jerk. My push jerks felt and probably looked completely amateur.

-I took breaks during the squats in Cindy. I took a break during fucking squats.

Anyway, enough of me whining like a little bitch. Everyone's entitled to a less than stellar workout once in a while... the key is to figure out what made it shitty and fix that for next time.

I'm gonna take a rest day tomorrow and come back with a big fucking smile on my face on Friday.

Here's a video of some guys doing a Grindy, but with 3 x 5 rounds of Cindy, and only 2 x 10 C&J. They also only do a power clean, which makes me think that maybe we didn't have to do squat cleans. Oh well, a little more hard work never killed anyone. Check out the nice butterfly kips they're using, and notice that they're basically doing push presses.

"Partner Pumpkin Pie" and adventures in Vaseline with D3

"Partner Pumpkin Pie"

With a partner, perform the following:

AMRAP in 25 minutes:
50 Wall Ball – 20/14lb
40 Double-Unders
30 Bell Swings – 55/35lb
20 Push-ups
10 Pull-ups

I partnered with BrianB and we got 5 rounds, plus 30 WB. This was pretty tough, mostly because BrianB was done his share of the reps so fast I didn't get much of a break in between. At least I was courteous enough to take my time with my share.

Afterward, the bonus was do do five minutes of situps. I just knew this was gonna suck. BrianB, with his ridiculous abs and cardio, never stopped, kept a nice steady pace, and actually sped up in the last 30 seconds, and got 178.

Then it was my turn. Because I didn't want to get "monkey butt" from so many sit-ups, I headed over to my bag to get some Vaseline to put on my ass. D3 asked me if he could have some, too.

"Sure," I said. "But you have to get all you need with the first scoop." D3 is one of my favourite guys at CrossFit Regina, but I'm just trying to keep my Vaseline free of assy contamination. (The same "one-scoop" rule applies to myself).

We each took a scoop and ducked into the bathroom to apply it. To ourselves, of course. Get your mind out of the gutter.

Y'know, before I joined CrossFit, I probably would have thought it was weird to go into a public bathroom with another dude and emerge with Vaseline on my ass.

By the way, I got 120 sit-ups in five minutes. Not great, but at least my ass doesn't hurt.

Gearing up for the Games

Today, participants in the upcoming Saskatchewan CrossFit Games (co-organized by the Regina and Saskatoon affiliates) were invited to do two workouts, one at 9am and the other at noon, in order to begin to get used to what it's going to be like in a couple of weeks.

9am

Three rounds of:

12 x 115 lb overhead squats
12 x 24" box jumps
12 x chest-to-bar pull-ups

We were given a 15 minute time limit to do this, and each competitor was assigned someone to count our reps and make sure our form was perfect. I was lucky to have Ferrah do mine. She provided just the right amount of steady encouragement throughout.

The worst part of this was the overhead squats. Actually, getting the 115 lbs overhead with a snatch was very tough, so it actually probably helped my time in a way, because it made me more reluctant to drop it. The first set of 12, I was able to do all of the squats uninterrupted. Getting low enough without losing my balance was a big challenge. I did end up falling on my ass during the second set. Always fun.

Somehow, I managed to finish with a time of 8:18, which was the best time of the day. I attribute it mostly to Brad Flood being next to me. I was finishing my squats a bit faster than him, but then we'd move to box jumps and he was popping up and down like it was completely effortless. (Note to self: Do more box jumps) It was everything I could do to just try to stay ahead of him.

12pm

At 9am, all we knew about the noon workout was that it would involve a salt bag. I joked, "Hey, after the 115 lb overhead squats, a 45 lb salt bag will feel light."

I should have known better.

With two saltbags in an oversized army surplus duffel bag:

400m run (yep, carrying the 90 lb bag anyway you like, without using the straps).

30 clean and jerks with the bag. ("Grace")

Climb the rope and ring the bell (thankfully, not carrying the two salt bags with you.)

I was placed in the second heat, which means I had to count for one of the competitors, James, who's an absolute animal and one of CFR's most elite athletes. That's when it hit home just how frickin' hard this workout was going to be. James's weighted 400m run was faster than a lot of people's regular 400m time, but he looked like he was going through Hell on the C&Js. He finished in just over 10 minutes, which was pretty incredible. Here's a video of BrianB doing C&Js with the bag. BrianB is in awesome shape, so watching this should tell you how tough this workout was.


After ripping up my hand on a rope dismount a few weeks back, I wasn't thrilled about the idea of a rope climb. But after seeing how the other competitors did in the first heat, I figured that I probably wouldn't finish the 30 C&Js before the 13 minute time limit, so it wouldn't be an issue.

When it was my turn, I had a pretty good time on the 400m, but it was very tough to get any kind of speed on the C&Js. I was taking way too long between the reps, but James was very good at keeping me going, making me aware of the time and giving me advice on the best way to keep the bag jerkable. He said my form got better and faster as I got toward the end. Part of that was just me wanting to get done so I wouldn't have to do it anymore.

I finally got done the 30 C&Js at around 11:00, so it was time to climb the rope. I took a quick drink, chalked my hands, and got on the rope. If I was fresher, I would have tried it no-hands, but today I needed my feet, too. Although I'm not sure how much spreading my knees out bowlegged and pinching the rope between my feet really helped. When I finally got to the top, it took a fair amount of willpower to get one hand off the rope to ring the bell at 11:50. This time, I climbed down and emerged free of any hand trauma.

Painstorm: Olympic Bar Mile

This was requested by Pam, who wanted to do a Painstorm for her birthday. Crossfitters come up with crazy ideas like that.

It consists of:

Run 400m

Using a 45lb bar:
50 back squats
50 front squats
50 overhead squats

Run 400m. God, this sucked after all those squats. I actually had to rest after 200m.

Using a 45lb bar:
50 shoulder presses
50 push presses
50 push jerks

Run 400m. Took another rest at the 200m turnaround.

Using a 45lb bar:
50 hang cleans
50 hang snatches

Run 400m

My time was 30:33

I sprinted as fast as I could on the final 200m run, mostly in a desparate attempt to stay in front of D3 (he tends to pass me right at the end of workouts). I stuck my head in the gym to yell "Time!" then immediately ducked back out so I could vomit behind a dumpster.

I didn't actually throw up, but that was only because my stomach was empty. I did spend a few moments dry heaving, trying to do so quietly, to not disturb Leya, who was doing her reps a few steps away in the alley.

I guess my first meeting with imaginary CrossFit mascot Pukey the Clown will have to wait.


BrianB set a new gym record at just over 28 min. That dude is an animal. Christian and Chris T. were both under 29 min as well.

"Barbara"

For time, five rounds of:

20 pull-ups
30 push-ups
40 sit-ups
50 squats

Rest three minutes in between rounds.

Total time, including the 12:00 in breaks was 38:44. My round times were:
4:23
5:14
5:39
6:04
5:24
_____
26:44 total work time.

The problem with this one is the math. If you think about the total number of reps you have to do, it's pretty daunting. Of course, since looking on the CrossFit Regina website last night, it's pretty much all I could think about.

During the workout, my pull-ups were fairly bad and my push-ups were atrocious. By the third round, sit-ups were like torture.

AngDesj was chasing me the entire time, and she kept letting me know about it. The last round, despite my head start, she made up a lot of time on the pull-ups and then passed me on the push-ups. But she's got an issue with sit-ups, so I thought I could catch her.

It was weird, something came over me during the sit-ups. It wasn't really a second wind, but more like I was suddenly filled with an inner peace that relaxed me and let me just do the work without feeling a lot of pain from my abs. I just closed my eyes, went to work, and was able to do 25 straight, and finish the rest pretty quickly. I also did better on the squats in the final round than any other round, doing 30 straight, quick breather, then two sets of 10.

Afterward, I felt like death. I was semi-concerned that I was going to pass out on the drive home.

Michele and BrianB kicked ass on this one.

I found a video of a "Babara" workout on YouTube. I particularly enjoyed how the dude in the muscle shirt isn't doing full pull-ups. Full extension on the arms, fucker!

Oh, are they anchoring their feet for the sit-ups? Yes they are. Are they sitting all the way up? No they are not. Someone needs to yank this gym's affiliation.