Working from home

Not sure if I'll make it out to the workout today, but if anyone is coming from Haiku or Paia to do the WOD let me know.

Following Ken

I don't usually write about Ken on my blog. He's a quiet dude that doesn't draw any attention to himself.

He's a good athlete though and more often than not gets good scores/times on his WOD.

And while he's not exactly someone I'd call inspired, he freaking pushed me hard today. And he wasn't even trying.

So today was deload week for power cleans. Ken and I are sharing a bar and I tell him I didn't do my one rep max so I'm not sure what weight to use for this.

He says, that's okay, we'll just go up to 175.

I kinda blinked because that's not a weight I would have associated with the words "deload" and "power cleans" in the same sentence.

To me that means go light and work on your technique. And Ken's not a "go crazy lift as much as you can" sort of guy either.

Anyway I agreed and we start lifting. I'm not feeling it. Ken keeps telling me I've got great form and so does Bumper but I'm not exploding off the ground like I should, nor am I pulling my arms up high enough.

So after we hit 145 I tell Ken that I don't think I'm going up in weight anymore. His reaction was classic:

"What? Why? That's not heavy is it?"

From anybody else I would assume they were talking smack. Not Ken. He really couldn't understand why I did not want to go up in weight.

And so I did.

I continued to struggle and have problems but at least we were lifting Ikaika weight and so he joined us now. At the end of the workout I was sweating bullets. A hard  feat during deload week. Thanks Ken.

BUT THEN . . . we break up into three stations for the WOD because we're doing dips, sit-ups and air squats, five rounds of 30 seconds of work and 30 seconds of rest.

I start off with the sit-ups and who's there with me? Ken.

I don't notice him at first but then we get to the dips and there he is, cranking out three dips for every one of mine on the rings.

Then we hit squats and I'm thinking, he's going to dust me unless I match him squat for squat. And so I try.

I'm surprised nobody noticed. I was right behind Ken and doing my best to go up and down at the same time as he was. I figured if we were even on the squats I'd have a chance to pass him on the sit-ups and have a better overall total, even if he was beating me on the dips.

Didn't exactly work out that way. But I definitely worked out a lot harder because of him today, so once again, thanks Ken.

Anyway, on to more important issues. Like my next pair of Crossfit shoes.

I've got more bills to pay but by my next paycheck I'll be ready to get an upgrade.

Kehau tried to talk some sense into me today, but I can't help it. I'm going to get some Pumas.

Besides, I keep hearing people complain about those Innovates and I can't see myself wearing shoes with built in toes.

Gonna get me some yellow Esito Vulc Sala Indoor trainers. Oh yeah. Google 'em.

Later kids,

Rod

Counting Your Reps

I don't usually get serious on this thing but I have to point something out here.

You get from Crossfit what you put into it. There are no prizes, no trophies for lifting the most weight or having the most reps, just personal satisfaction that you pushed yourself and will feel great tomorrow (after you feel exhausted today).

That said, why would you want to cheat  yourself and not be honest about your reps?

Come on, does it really mean that much to have the fastest time next to your name if you secretly doing 12 reps instead of the 20 that everyone else was doing?

Derek is a good example of a guy that sticks to the workout no matter what. Foolishly he picked the 40 pound dumbells even though he had to do overhead lunges and has a gimp shoulder. He ended up finishing last but he stuck to it because he wants to improve his shoulder strength.

He's got goals and he's attacking his weaknesses. I know he cares about his WOD score but that's secondary to improving himself first.

Once in a while I'll sandbag and choose a lower weight (especially for thrusters) but I won't skip out on reps. The only exception is when I'm so brain-fried in the later rounds that I'm like, "Wait, where am I and what round am I on?"

So, hey, don't just count those reps. Love those reps. They're like gold. Everytime you skip one it's like throwing away money.

Personally I love to hate them, but I still count every last one of the.

Anyway, thanks for letting me stand on my soap box, on to other news . . .

First off, Kehau, aka Tehau, aka the reason people searching for the term "Samoan woman" on Google end up at my blog, has recovered from her illness and returned to the gym.

Actually she's not quite recovered and I heard her coughing a bit yesterday. That might be why I ALMOST beat her during the WOD.

I know what you're thinking, you're thinking, "Hey Rod, are you actually trying to brag about ALMOST beating a still recovering girl who just got back to the gym and probably isn't 100 percent yet? Really?"

No, I'm not bragging. I'm just stating a fact. I was like 30 seconds behind her finishing time. Might have been 40 seconds.

But damn it I beat the other women. And the guy who just joined this week. Yeah.

Also I must really apologize to Patty. We sorta kinda fought over the red jump rope in the gym on Wednesday because it was one of those that doesn't get tangled up. She relented and took a crappy rope instead.

But when the WOD started I SUCKED. I should have just handed that rope back to Patty because I wasn't doing any good with it. I wasted the rope. She could have gotten double the reps she did if she had my jump rope and I probably would have gotten the same because it was just one of those days. Derek was right, some days you have double unders and some days you don't.

Actually I owe Patty two apologies. While doing planks I was farting like crazy and she was right behind me. I can't help it. Any sort of workout that involves strengthening your core muscles and I'm pushing out gas.

You'd think that I would feel more embarrassed by this but I've heard enough of YOU folks next to me to know that I'm not the only one with this problem. Thank God the fan was facing Patty's direction on Wednesday though.

Okay guys, I have to work today so I WON'T be doing the Saturday workout which looks like it sucks anyway. But I would have if I didn't have to work.

Later kids,

Rod

Lunges hurt

You know that feeling when you look up at the WOD board and think, "Yeah, that doesn't look too bad today?"

Well whenever you think that you are wrong. You're always wrong.

This is not a theory or a hypothesis or an educated guess. This is just the truth. It's a law of inverse Crossfit reaction to RFM workouts.

Every single time, and I mean every single time, that I have thought I was going to have an easy workout I have been completely off-base.

It's not that I think it'll be easy, I know it's going to be hard. But it's the degree of hardness which I'm always wrong about.

Take the other day when we did the run, box jumps and push ups. I'd rate that a 7 on the scale but when I looked at the board I was thinking more like an 8.

Today I saw the board and thought, 7, because it was a dumbell complex of power cleans, push presses and lunges.

Eff that, it was a 9. Those lunges were nuts. I did the first round (we had to do 5) and was like WTF?

See, you had to hold the dumbells over your head while you were lunging. Not only did that make your shoulders tired but you have to stabilize your core muscles too.

What that means is you're doing a shitload of work for just to do five lunges on each leg.

The icing on the cake was that we got to rest five minutes then do 30 burpees.

In comparison the burpees were almost relaxing compared to the lunges. I think I relaxed too much though. While I was trying to go slow and steady my gym buddies were ripping it. Bruce and Ikaika and Derek all finished around the 1 minute mark while I almost needed 2 minutes.

Yeah . . . .oh well.

On another note, been checking out these Puma Fast Cats Crossfit shoes. They look sweet AND I can wear 'em with jeans.

Hey if I'm going to spend $80 I'm wearing those suckers more than just at the gym. Check 'em out:

http://www.shop.puma.com/Men/Footwear/Motorsport/Speed-Cat-SD-Shoes/pna301953,en_US,pd.html&cgid=23000#!i%3D29%26color%3D22%26size%3DUS_9

Aight, I'm out. Later guys.

Rod

A Good Workout

Finally.

So today's workout wasn't exactly one of my bread and butter workouts. Run 800 meters, do 10 box jumps then 10 push ups and see how many rounds you can hit in 10 minutes.

Push-ups I can do. The other crap not so much.

Plus the back was tight again. DMeyer helped me stretch though and I kinda skipped the deload strength workout.

But hey, you gotta listen to the bod right? Besides, I hate to have seen what would have happened if I hadn't stretched.

So we start off and of course, everybody blows past me. Derek and Bob and Patty and Kats and everyone.

We got to the halfway mark and turned around and as we started running downhill I was like, "Hey, I might be able to catch up to a few people."

So I passed my first victim, she who will not be named but she does cute little cheers during our workouts. Anyway usually she always runs in front of me but when I passed her this time I must have caught her by surprise because I heard her say, "Oh really?" as I ran by.

Then I went past Kats and another guy that just joined. Only Bob, Thumper (no I didn't just develop a lisp, we have a Bumper and a Thumper at our gym now believe it or not), and Derek.

I wasn't going to catch up to them but I did start jumping as soon as I got near my box. Whatever my reasons I even used the taller box than I usually use. I figured I can jump 10 and not kill myself.

Anyway we start jumping and I'm not going slow but I'm not going fast either. Just a steady pace.

Push-ups were tough with that pause at the bottom but I ripped through those as quickly as possible and then it was time for the box jumps again.

Before we knew it the 10 minutes were up and I had pounded out 5 rounds and 4 leftover box jumps.

Not amazing but better than usual. The thing I'm most proud of though is this: I didn't stop.

Yep, that's right. Usually I'd be on the floor DURING the workout, trying to catch my breath. This time though I kept a steady pace, no resting, at least not for more than a second or two.

I don't know, maybe my body was just happy that I only had to run the 800 once. Maybe Bump saying that he didn't want those rebound jumps helped me concentrate on doing good technique and slowing it down enough for me to relax.

Who knows, whatever happened it worked though.

And by the way Erin H, the Pats are going DOWN . . . NEW YORK BABY!!!!

Hoo-RAH!!!

Peace,

Rod

Almost wished I didn't look at tomorrow's workout

Running, thrusters and burpees.

You know, I go to Honolulu for business and miss a couple of days of Crossfit then I come back and I see the worst workout ever posted for Friday.

I'm already not looking forward to Saturday. I see much pain and suffering in my future.

Please God, give me Man Strength for tomorrow's workout. Amen.

Man Strength

Today was push press for strength again. This time we were looking for that 1 rep max.

The last one rep max I had was 205 and my technique sucked. This time I had a slightly better idea about what to do and how to do it. 

But first I want to talk about a phrase Bump coined today. It's called, "man strength".

We were watching Bruce put up 215 earlier and it got stuck right above his head while his elbows were bent.

Usually when someone gets stuck right there it's all over. It's not supposed to be humanly possible. Especially with push press. You lose the momentum from the dip drive that you generate with your legs and it's all up to your shoulders.

Except Bruce has man mountain shoulders. That damn thing was stuck above his head for several seconds, enough time for anyone's muscles to get exhausted with 215 overhead. 

Frickin Bruce pushed that thing up anyway. Just pure strength. Bump looks at me and says "that's man strength."

Now before I or Bump get any accusations of being sexist I have to clarify. Not every man has "man strength" and you don't have to be a man to have "man strength." 

Bruce has man strength because he did the impossible, because that weight should not have gone up from that position but it did.

Case in point, when my turn rolled around I ended up with 215 as well. I got it up, barely. Afterwards I saw stars, little birdies and bright lights surrounding my head and my back felt like someone hit it with a sledgehammer.

That's not man strength, that's just all sorts of stupid. But I had slightly better form doing 215 than I did doing 205 months ago so I'm happy about that.

Then came the WOD. Ten handstand pushups, 15 pull-ups, 20 air squats. Those pull-ups killed me. 

Figures I finally learn how to do double unders but I let my pull-ups slack. Lame. 

Also, I received a few comments about my handstand technique where I kick my legs against the wall as fast and as hard as I can. This saves me a couple of seconds.

Kats said he thought I was going to smash through the wall. Sorry buddy, it's an advanced technique, I can teach it to you but it might take a few months to master it. 

Seriously though, I think everybody should try it. Bet you do faster HSPU rounds next time. 

And because I invented it they can name the technique after me. Like the Antone Kick Stand Start or something. 

Come on, you know you want to try it.

Okay peeps, I'm out.

Rod