Beaten Up by CrossFit

In the past couple weeks, as my weight has dropped a bit, my shoulder has felt better, and I recovered from a head cold, I've had some really good workouts.  I had an amazing workout last Tuesday.

This past Monday, we started with Olympic lifts and then the main workout was a ladder of burpees and power cleans:

10 minutes, as many reps as possible:
3 power cleans
3 burpees (jump over barbell after each burpee)
6 power cleans
6 burpees
9 power cleans
9 burpees
...

I was amazed to finish the round of 15 and get in 7 more power cleans.  I felt strong for the entire workout.

Tuesday, we started with back squats and front squats.  After doing an intense squatting cycle last summer and into September, I've backed off on the weight for my squats recently.  But Tuesday night, I did sets of 6 at 225, 245, 265, and 275.  The last set surprised me a lot; I simply felt strong.  When I started CrossFit, my one-rep max was 265 and it's now 365, so 6 x 275 shouldn't be a killer, but it was almost easy.

After the squats, we had an unusual main workout:

12 minutes, as many reps as possible:
30 front squats
40 toes to bar (I do knee-ups hanging from the bar to protect my shoulder)
50 kettlebell swings
100 single unders
50 tuck jumps

I used 95# for the front squats, and a 53# kettlebell.  The 100 double-unders and 50 tuck jumps were a substitute for 100 double-unders.  My double-unders are improving, but I'm nowhere close to doing 100 of them in a workout.

Now, the interesting thing about this workout, is that we would normally do something like this "as quickly as possible", not "as many reps as possible".   Looking at the workout, I wasn't sure if I could even finish one round in 12 minutes, but I made that my goal.  Again, I felt fairly strong, and I made one round plus one rep. Interestingly, my wife, working out right beside me, also did exactly one round and one rep.

After the workout, I added 5x5 of pull-ups on the minute.

After two good workouts, I was excited to get to the gym last night.  During the warm-up, we did some overhead squats holding a PVC pipe.  Just that movement told me that my legs were still feeling the effects of the squats the night before.  I was suddenly worried about the tough workout on the board.

We started with power snatches and clean and jerks.  Five single reps of each at 80% of our one rep max.  That was pretty easy.  Then, the main workout:

3 rounds, as quickly as possible:
30 pull-ups
30 deadlifts (relatively light weight)
30 box jumps

I used assistance bands for the pull-ups.  I used 115# for the deadlifts and this felt surprisingly difficult.  As I started the first round of box jumps, I was really worried.  I almost missed half of the first 10.  Missing a box jump usually leads to bruised and bloodied shin, or even worse, a fall onto a hand or wrist that could be disastrous.  By the time I'd gotten through the 30 box jumps, I was convinced that finishing the workout as defined was going to be dangerous.  My legs were simply too tired.  I almost decided to do two additional rounds of 30/30/15.  I even thought about two more rounds of 15/15/15.  Finally, I decided to simply switch the box jumps to step-ups and do all the reps.

On the third round, near the end of the pull-ups, I was doing mini-sets of only 2 or 3 reps.  But, I finished.  I did the last round of deadlifts as sets of 14, 9 and 7.  And, I got through the step-ups.  Total time was 19:01 and I was fried.

I drank as much water on the way home as I could.  My wife agreed to cook dinner after I drove us home.  I fell asleep on the couch before dinner was ready.  I think I was asleep by 8:15.  I woke up to eat some dinner and headed to bed.  I did get close to 10 hours of sleep, which certainly helped.

But, we have another tough workout tonight.  Tomorrow is a rest day, with a big snowstorm due during the day and I need some rest before skiing in (hopefully) deep new snow on Saturday.  I just have to get through tonight somehow.