Deadlifts and "Chipper From Helen"

Back at CrossFit after a week off. The week off wasn't really intended, but I slept in a couple of times and missed 6am WODs. Taking a rest week wasn't a bad thing, as it turns out, but I was glad to get back there tonight.

Did max deadlift singles. For me, it went like this:

285 lbs (PR)
300 lbs (PR)
305 lbs (PR)

I need to get stronger. I wish I could figure out a way to join strength club, but it's only open to unlimited members and evenings are pretty tough anyway.

The worst part about the deadlifts wasn't my inability to lift any more weight off the ground. It was the fact that we had to listen to that crap Miley Cyrus song, "Party in the USA" which is the last thing you want to hear when trying to pick heavy things off the ground. I rant further here.

Then it was time for "Chipper From Helen":

1200m run
63 55lb bell swings
36 pull-ups

The run went really good. I wasn't really sure how to pace myself, but I never got tired and finished it under 5:20.

Bell swings, I did 35-15-13.

Pull-ups, I would have liked to sting together a few more at the start but I only did 12-9-5-5-5.

Time was 10:22.

Better than I expected. Still have some work to go to match machines like Chris T, Nick, and Franz, who were all sub-10.

Willpower? What the fuck is that?

I've been eating pretty clean lately. I won't rate it on the Paleo scale, but it's been mostly meat, fruit, veggies (spinach and red peppers), Tracey's homemade chock-full o'goodness berry-banana-protein powder smoothies, almond butter, and even the odd bit of fish oil.

I haven't been perfect, though because the people who employ me prefer it when I do work at my desk rather than fall asleep, I've been getting through the afternoons with the help of either a Diet Pepsi or an energy drink (FYI: AMP does not work, so don't buy it even though it's on sale at Shoppers). Plus, I have a fair amount of beer in my fridge, and it's not gonna drink itself, so I'll have one or two in the evening while playing Mario Kart Wii with the Boy. You get the fun of driving with an open container without the guilt, shame or legal consequences.

However, on the balance, I've been pretty good about what I put into my body. Part of it is because Tracey is eating really healthy and she prepares most of our meals. As a result, I'm consistently weighing in at 175, or even a few tenths of a pound lower. This would have been a pipe dream before I started CrossFit when I was north of 210 (I think; weighing myself back then was depressing).

Because I apparently enjoy sabotaging any of my personal gains, I was actually thinking of rewarding myself with some 7-11 nachos today, but when I got to work, there were Girl Guide cookies on the break room table, and we were having cheesecake (two different kinds!) for a co-workers birthday.

Tally so far today:
- two pieces of cheesecake
- five cookies.
Last time I checked the breakroom, there was one cookie and half a cheesecake left.

**UPDATE
I got the nachos. Details at Tyler Has Nothing to Say.

Overhead Squats and Ring Dips on the Minute

OHS 5-5-3-3-1-1-1

135-145-155-160(2)-160-165(f)-165

Ring dips: 8 min plus 3

"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.

Hero WOD "Daniel" - Let's see how far we've come

This is the workout:

50 Pull-ups
400m Run
21 95lb Thrusters
800m Run
21 95lb Run
50 Pull-ups

There was snow in the back lane and a cold Prairie wind blowing, so trainer Paul started to write the substitute rowing version on the whiteboard.

Fuck that.

"We're running!" I said. Everyone agreed. Even the guest CrossFitter Paul from Edmonton who was running in those Vibrams (fixed)Five Fingers things that are basically like gloves for your feet.

The runnng in the cold air was pretty shitty. The thrusters were tough, and the last set of pull-ups were brutal.

Time was 19:37.

As far as I can tell, this was only the second time I've done "Daniel" and the first time was back in July of last year, which was about two months after I joined CrossFit.

Back then, my time was 37:29.

I love CrossFit.

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.

"Age-Adjusted Angie" and a new Pull-up PR

Take your age, subract it from 100 and that's how many reps you have to do of:

Pull-ups
Push-ups
Sit-ups
Squats

I'm 33, so I had to do 67 of each, so it was basically "Two-thirds Angie".

Took me 14:00.

Since we started with pull-ups, I thought I'd see if I could beat my personal record of 25. Today, I got 30. The downside was that hanging on as long as I could hurt my sissy hands, so the last 37 took a while.

Burpees/Push Press/Pull-ups

For time, six rounds of:

12 burpees
12 dumbbell push press (2x30lb)
12 pull-ups

Time was 13:07

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.

Ring Dips/Box Jumps/Double Unders

I would have liked to do the benchmark "Helen" again at CrossFit Regina last night. There were a lot of people were getting PRs after a month of Paleo dieting, including Tracey, who shaved two minutes off her time from a month ago. But with the games on Saturday coming up, I didn't want the bell swings in Helen to re-aggravate my back, which is still bothering me a bit from the sumo deadlift high pulls on Saturday. Though, part of me wonders if sitting in an office chair is doing more damage than anything else.

Instead of Helen, I rolled out to CrossFit Creekside to do a made-up workout.

For time, five rounds of:

7 Ring Dips
15 Box Jumps (24" box)
25 Double Unders

I chose dips because it's something I need to work on, and to go Level 1 at this weekend's games I'm going to need to work on them. Plus, I bought the rings, I better use them.

With the way that Robin has been including double unders as a "Games Bonus" following workouts lately, it doesn't take a genius to suspect that DUs are going to be part of one of the workouts. Unfortunately, I have let my DU skills slide. I used to include them as part of my warm-up, but have slacked off. I figured 25 is a good reasonable number, but hard enough to get to if you're already fatigued from box jumps.

My time was 13:50. This is another one of those cases where I think doing the workout solo resulted in me not pushing myself as hard as I would if I was trying to keep up with (or ahead of) someone.