B-Squad: Front Squats, Hang Cleans and Metcon

A. Front Squats 3-3-AMRAP.

I used 205.  On the AMRAP, I got up to 7.



B. Hang Squat Clean - work up to a tough double

I got up to 185.

Christian gave me some solid advice here to help me keep my form in check.   I've only worked out at B-Squad twice, but there seems to be a real focus on watching athletes closely and correcting their form on the lifts. That is a good thing.  



C. Metcon

Four rounds of the following:

• 250m row
• 3 burpees
• 6 push-ups
• 12 mountain climbers (L+R=1) 
• Rest two minutes

My times were:
1:22
1:21
1:21
1:25

Even a small amount of mountain climbers can get old quick.  This was a cleverly designed metcon in that it was short enough (and incorporated enough rest) to hit hard and not stop during the working portion, but it was still challenging.



Overheard at the Gym

"Why is my dad the only one signed up to work out?  Is it because nobody else likes this gym?"
-My son (age 7)

Christian laughed hard at that one, but I still made the kid do 10 burpees and gave him a gentle talking-to at home.  

Early morning Ginger Power

A. 15(to 20) minutes to Back Squat Double (~3 attempts) then 85%x3x2

Doubles: 255, 275, 285, 300(PR)
85%: 255x3x2

I'm not gonna lie, I'm pretty happy with the 300lb PR. I should have tried 300x1 long ago before, didn't have any confidence I could do it until I managed to do 275x5 about a month ago.

Christian attributed this to "Ginger Power first thing in the morning."

He likes referring to me as a ginger because he thinks it bothers me. I'm not a ginger but -- just to be clear -- it doesn't bother me that he calls me a ginger. Gingers are awesome, whether or not they have souls. It bothers me that he thinks it bothers me, if that makes any sense. I guess I just don't like seeing him derive joy from anything.



B. 4x600M Row, 2-5 minute recoveries

Yeah, this was not fun. 2:05, 2:05, 2:12, 2:24

Me: "I took a nice little rest on the last one. I regret nothing."

Ryan: "Just enjoying a ride down the river."

Me: "Look, there's a deer!"

C. Unbroken Pull-ups M=3x(5 Dead Hang+10 Kipping)

Time was running short and my arms were burnt out so I did one set and not as rx'd. Did the 5 deadhangs plus 2 kipping. Took a nice rest and did the remaining 8 kipping.

Strength - Workout B

Given what I said in yesterday's post, I decided that I was going to do some Strength work today, no matter how "fun" the WOD looked.

Aw, damn, it's Filthy Fifty. I haven't done that for a year, and my 33-plus-minute time from back then is just begging to be improved upon. Oh well, a promise is a promise.

Back squats - Three sets of 5 x 215 lbs

I continue to be amazed at how heavy this feels, when I was at one point squatting 265 for fives. It goes up, but... damn.


Bench press - Three sets of 5 x 145 lbs

Heavy. Reaching the upper limits of my capability there. I wonder if I should still be going up by five lbs each time, or change it to 2.5 lbs? Maybe I'll wait until I actually fail.


Power cleans - Five sets of 3 x 155 lbs.

Still pretty good. The hook grip hurts.


I did five snatches of 135 lbs for fun afterward.

Tomorrow's workout may involve back squats and running. Maybe I can do Filthy Fifty then.


Overheard at the Gym:
(Discussing what the hook grip has in common with a condom)
Christian: "You know you should use it, but it just doesn't feel right."

“The 16 Ton Toolbox”

As a team, members must accumulate to a total number of reps, calories, and pounds in the following exercises:
Pull-ups 120
Burpees 160
Rowing 200 calories
Deadlift 32000 lbs with 185lb bar

I teamed with Christian, James, and Jordan. I dubbed us "Team SexyFuck" for reasons I can't quite explain.

I came up with the idea of splitting the work into four rounds of:

-8 or 7 pull-ups
-10 burpees
-11 deadlifts
-12.5 calorie row

The advantage to this is that we were able to work in short bursts, with rests built in, because the rowing always took the longest.

We finished in 14:01. It was my fault that we didn't break 14 minutes, because the way that the rotation worked, rowing was my final station. I was the shortest guy, which is a slight disadvantage when you're rowing.

Afterward, we did a tire-dragging relay. Wow, did that suck.

Overheard at the Gym

Christian: "Just so you know, I can't do muscle-ups with an erection, so you're gonna have to put your shirt back on."

Deck of Cards Saturday

The one thing about doing this Strength programming is that I "miss out" on all the "fun" of doing the WODs that everyone else at CrossFit Regina are doing. And there have been some nasty looking WODs lately.

It's weird, but after a month of not suffering in the same way as everyone else at CrossFit Regina - even though it's my choice to do my own thing for a little while - I kind of feel left out.

(This is the part where Tracey would tell me that I'm being such a girl. Good thing she doesn't read this blog.)

Anyway, to alleviate my feelings of CrossFit loner-ism (can you tell I write things for a living?), I'm trying to hit at least one WOD a week and it's probably going to be Saturdays for the most part. Hopefully, I'll be able to retain a bit of metcon capacity, too. This past Saturday, the 10a.m. WOD was the good ol' "Deck of Cards."

Pretty simple:

Do the number of reps that the card's value represents. (Aces = 11, duh)
Hearts = Pull-ups
Diamonds = Push-ups
Spades = Squats
Clubs = Sit-ups
Jokers = 20 Burpees, and you double the reps on the card that comes next.

I was invited into a group of four with the Competition Team members Christian, Kim F., and Kat. They had all just finished the 9a.m. workout involving some kind of Tabata-related torture, so I had nothing to complain about. But Christian still was the first one done on every rep.

I can still feel it in my shoulders a couple of days later.

"Kodiak"

It was actually Tracey's day to go, but the alarm went off at 5:45 and she didn't think she could make it to the gym on time. I missed yesterday morning, so I said I would go in her place.

"Kodiak"

Seven rounds of:

3 power snatch (touch and go)
6 overhead squat
9 back squat

Do this all in a sequence, with no breaks in between. This isn't for time, but you increase your weight each round.

My numbers:
75-85-95-105-110-115-120

I'm fine with this and it's heavier than I thought I would end up doing, likely due to trying to keep up with Christian.

My snatches were looking pretty sketchy by the end, but I got that shit overhead and that's what counts.

Keeping it overhead was another thing. Overhead squats are always challenging, but they felt pretty good today, and my shoulder isn't bothering me like it did the last time we did these.

On the transitions to the back squat, I was trying my damndest to not bash the hell out of my neck, but I was pretty eager to let the weight down.

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.

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.