So I DIDN'T get to do Fran on Monday (21-15-9 of thrusters and pull-ups). I was having some "intestinal" issues that day.
I blame the shoyu chicken from last week. Knew I shouldn't have eaten that. Ugh.
But I talked to Bruce the next day who surprised me by saying, "Ho brah Fran was easy. I did all the thrusters unbroken."
I was like, damn. At first I thought this was just another example of Bruce's incredible will to lift beyond pain. Then Bumper pointed out that Bruce probably wasn't in pain to begin with.
"Guy squats 335 pounds 10 times," he explained. "Do you really think 95 pound thrusters were a problem for him?"
True. Then Sir Bumpalot added (yes I'm making more nicknames for him) "Everybody talks about improving their performance during the WOD. You want to do that you gotta hit the strength workouts hard."
Yeah. That's the ticket. Get super strong lifting heavy weights and start shredding during the WOD. I can do that. I'm in.
So, let's review Beezlebump's advice so far:
1) Concentrate on speed during the WOD. Go lighter on the weight if you have to.
2) Lift HEAVY during strength until the weights you lift during the WOD feels like paper mache.
I like this plan. Mostly because it means lifting more and being in pain less if I do it right. I'm down.
So . . . Tuesday we do snatch balances. Sort of a weird squat press thingie. I went up to 105 and that was pretty heavy. I think I could have done 115 or even 135 but it was my first time. I'll try going up next time.
Then for the WOD we did 100 burpees. I. Shit. You. Not.
Were we worried? Hell yes. A bunch of people at the gym said they actually thought about not coming. I would have been one of them but I had already missed Fran so you know, I had to come.
By the way, is it SICK that I was jealous of all the people who were complaining about how sore they were after doing Fran on Monday? I needed therapy and they call it burpees.
So I had a plan and it wasn't bad. There was this Crossfit game WOD that had people try to see how many burpees they could do in 7 minutes. So that was my goal. 7 divided by 100 equaled 14 or so burpees per minute. Not a bad goal.
We started and I did 14 burpees for the first two minutes. Then I went down to 12 reps. Then I did 10 reps per minute till I hit 70 reps. After that was at 6 minutes already and just did the last 30 straight.
It was a surprisingly good pace. I didn't bog at all and I ended up getting a time of 7:57.
Whaddaya know, having a strategy actually worked. What can I say, I'm learning.
THEN . . . today we deadlifted. I went up to 295 and did it 5 times. Or 4. I could have gone for more but my grip sucks.
Our WOD for the day was interesting though. Thirty box jumps, thirty sit-ups and a 50 yard farmer's walk. Then 20 box jumps, 20 sit-ups and a 100 yard farmer's walk, then 10, 10 and a 150 yard walk.
I was almost last today, I need to go faster on those box jumps because everything else was okay.
Workouts have been going well, some back pain but things have been good. Can't wait for the Friday workout.
God I hope I don't regret saying that.
Later folks,
Rod
I blame the shoyu chicken from last week. Knew I shouldn't have eaten that. Ugh.
But I talked to Bruce the next day who surprised me by saying, "Ho brah Fran was easy. I did all the thrusters unbroken."
I was like, damn. At first I thought this was just another example of Bruce's incredible will to lift beyond pain. Then Bumper pointed out that Bruce probably wasn't in pain to begin with.
"Guy squats 335 pounds 10 times," he explained. "Do you really think 95 pound thrusters were a problem for him?"
True. Then Sir Bumpalot added (yes I'm making more nicknames for him) "Everybody talks about improving their performance during the WOD. You want to do that you gotta hit the strength workouts hard."
Yeah. That's the ticket. Get super strong lifting heavy weights and start shredding during the WOD. I can do that. I'm in.
So, let's review Beezlebump's advice so far:
1) Concentrate on speed during the WOD. Go lighter on the weight if you have to.
2) Lift HEAVY during strength until the weights you lift during the WOD feels like paper mache.
I like this plan. Mostly because it means lifting more and being in pain less if I do it right. I'm down.
So . . . Tuesday we do snatch balances. Sort of a weird squat press thingie. I went up to 105 and that was pretty heavy. I think I could have done 115 or even 135 but it was my first time. I'll try going up next time.
Then for the WOD we did 100 burpees. I. Shit. You. Not.
Were we worried? Hell yes. A bunch of people at the gym said they actually thought about not coming. I would have been one of them but I had already missed Fran so you know, I had to come.
By the way, is it SICK that I was jealous of all the people who were complaining about how sore they were after doing Fran on Monday? I needed therapy and they call it burpees.
So I had a plan and it wasn't bad. There was this Crossfit game WOD that had people try to see how many burpees they could do in 7 minutes. So that was my goal. 7 divided by 100 equaled 14 or so burpees per minute. Not a bad goal.
We started and I did 14 burpees for the first two minutes. Then I went down to 12 reps. Then I did 10 reps per minute till I hit 70 reps. After that was at 6 minutes already and just did the last 30 straight.
It was a surprisingly good pace. I didn't bog at all and I ended up getting a time of 7:57.
Whaddaya know, having a strategy actually worked. What can I say, I'm learning.
THEN . . . today we deadlifted. I went up to 295 and did it 5 times. Or 4. I could have gone for more but my grip sucks.
Our WOD for the day was interesting though. Thirty box jumps, thirty sit-ups and a 50 yard farmer's walk. Then 20 box jumps, 20 sit-ups and a 100 yard farmer's walk, then 10, 10 and a 150 yard walk.
I was almost last today, I need to go faster on those box jumps because everything else was okay.
Workouts have been going well, some back pain but things have been good. Can't wait for the Friday workout.
God I hope I don't regret saying that.
Later folks,
Rod
