Friday, April 18, 2014

Mid-week CrossFit

After a run on Monday afternoon, my plan for the rest of the week was to go to CrossFit on Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, take a rest day Friday, and go to CrossFit again on Saturday.  The three days of CrossFit are in the books, and they were the three toughest workout days I've had in a while.  Yesterday, in particular, was a very tough workout.

Tuesday started with Olympic lifting - 8x3 power snatches and then 8x3 squat cleans.  I kept the weight light on the snatches, and did power snatches rather than the squat snatches on the board.  I'm still trying to protect the shoulder that was injured last year, and if this means dialing back certain lifts permanently, that's what I'll do.  The squat cleans went OK, but the weight was lower than I would have liked.  I certainly could have gone higher for singles.  After that, we did three rounds for time of 50 air squats, 25 pull-ups (band-assisted for me), and 10 hang power cleans.  I did this in just under 13 minutes.  The first round of air squats took 70 seconds and the last round took almost 2 minutes.  So, even a bodyweight movement can suffer as the fatigue sets in.

Wednesday we started with 10x3 split jerks.  I started light here at 115# and eventually worked to 135#.  My clean and jerk PR is 185#, but again, we were doing multi-rep sets, and I wanted to protect the shoulder.  I still felt this one the rest of the evening.  After the jerks, we had 12 minutes to do as many reps as possible of 12 burpees, 12 box jumps, and 12 deadlifts (225#).  I knew I'd be really slow on this one.  I'm slow at burpees all the time.  I hadn't done any box jumps since my surgery, and I'd been doing box step-ups instead, but I wanted to do the jumps in this workout.  And finally, while 225# is not a heavy deadlift for me, a set of 12 was pretty significant.  I also wanted to do every burpee with correct form, rather than the lazy technique I sometimes use where I stand up rather than jumping up from the bottom position.  I told my wife that I would have the fewest reps in the gym, and I was right.  I got through 2 rounds, and nearly completed the third, ending up 6 deadlifts short.  My wife was wiped out from the workout and asked me to drive home.

Thursday had no barbells at all, but it might have been the hardest workout I've done all year.  I started with 10 x 200m run, starting every 2 minutes.  I hit most reps in 53-55 seconds - pretty slow compared to my running days, but OK for now.  After doing that running, the rest of the workout was a lung burner as well - 15 minutes for max reps of 10 push-ups, 15 sit-ups and 20 kettlebell swings @ 45#.  I managed 5 rounds plus the push-ups in the sixth, but I was gassed the whole time.  For the push-ups, I would get 6 or 7 and then rest a bit.  The sit-ups were the "rest" period in this workout.  And, 20 unbroken kettlebell swings simply became a mental game by the end.  I did end up breaking the 4th set into a 15 and a 5, but I did the 5th set unbroken.  My wife beat me by 2 reps.  Good for her.

I am quite glad that today is a rest day.

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