Suffer to Honor

I am skipping ahead in my posts since I am woefully behind and I really want to write about this particular WOD.

Every Memorial Day around the country, Crossfitters honor the sacrifice of one Lieutenant Michael Murphy by putting themselves through some serious effort and pain.  Lt. Murphy loved this particular WOD, calling it "Body Armor."  After he was killed in action, the workout was renamed for him.  This is the official WOD from CFHQ.  This is more about Lt. Murphy.

Most of our coaches and several athletes as well were at the Regional competition over the holiday weekend, so our box did this WOD late.  We had 2 hours scheduled for this because it is a brutal and lengthy workout.

6/2/12 WOD #56 "Murph":

• Warm up: 400 m run
                  10 jumping lunges
                  10 clapping push ups
                  10 inchworms
                  10 pull ups
• WOD: Murph
             1 mile run
             100 pull ups (two red bands)
             200 push ups
             300 squats
             1 mile run
             Time: 86:11

We could (thank God) partition off our marathon of pull ups, push ups, and squats however we wished.  After all, there is no point in shaking out your arms from your pull ups when you can shake out and do some squats at the same time.  I decided the easiest way to partition everything was to break it down into 20 sets of "Cindy."  Cindy is one of the mean girls of CrossFit and she consists of 5 pull ups, 10 push ups, 15 squats.  I know I can do all those sets unbroken so I knew that would be faster than trying to do 10, 20, 30.  

Push ups.

I won't lie: this sucked.  And it could have sucked worse.  We were also encouraged to do this with a 20# weighted flak vest.  I declined to do that because I knew darn well I would hurt quite enough, thank you, even without it.  Next year I will do the vest.  The day was quite warm, and that quickly became an issue.  I came in from my first mile and everyone else was well into their pull ups/push ups/squats...this meant the box was hot and super stuffy. I ended up using half my water bottle to splash onto my face, neck, and chest between my push ups and squats (if I did it after the squats then my hands were wet for the pull ups and that is no bueno.  Even with hurried wiping off on my shorts and application of chalk).  

Pull ups

I felt like the first half went much slower than the second half.  I needed to rest more, I overheated more, I hurt more.  The second half was easier and better. Even so I managed to do most of my sets unbroken- I had to stop mid-pull up once to kick the box out of the way cause I was hitting it, and towards the end I did stop one set of push ups to lay down on the cold cement floor.  I also had to drop to my knees for my push ups starting around the half way point (and I sacrificed several seconds to grab an abmat to pad my knees and keep me from bruising my patellas).  I am also ashamed to admit that for the first time in my CrossFit career,  I had to walk part of my run.  That last mile was a beast.  

But I finished it.  

Suffer to Honor

Max back squat and grownup push ups

Periodically our workouts are designed to test our limits in one particular movement.  One this day, we were focusing on back squats.  The workout is to work up to a weight at which you fail and then work backward from there to find your maximum possible weight.  And the only trick is you have to do this in a total of 7 reps.  You see a workout like this on the board and you wonder how on earth it will take up a sufficient amount of time in the hour.  The answer: I actually stayed late.

Part of the time was the difficulty of barbell math (ok, so the bar plus 25 plus 25 plus...how do I get to 125 again?) and swapping things out from my partner to me.  But part of it was truly that this took some serious time.

I took this warm up very seriously because I assumed the work out was going to be quick.  So I chose this day to switch from my girly push up crutch to grown up push ups.  I also did not take breaks during the warm up (which I will admit I often do.  Especially when burpees are involved).  I treated it like its own WOD and I enjoyed it.

5/16/12 WOD #50

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  4 rounds of Cindy: 5 pull ups (2 red bands)
                                               10 push ups (not girly anymore!)
                                               15 squats
• WOD: 1*1*1*1*1*1*1
             115*125*135F*130*135*140F*140

Each F stands for failure- I was unable to reach depth and drive back up at that weight.  Although if you look at my results I failed and redeemed myself twice.  Unfortunately it was all about form for me.  I used to think I was good at squats.  But since I bottomed out so much, now I am reworking my squat form and it is killing me a little bit.  Now I am not reaching depth, rocking forward to my toes, leaning forward...No good. Just no good.  So I am working now on my air squats to make sure my form is good and then apply it to the darn overhead squats and back squats etc etc.

Superman Socks Debut

I was pretty stoked for this workout primarily because I had broken down and ordered some amazing socks from thinkgeek.  Specifically: these ones. I am hoping they will make me faster and make my box jumps look pretty sweet.

Alas, they did not help me with overhead squats.

5/14/12 WOD #49:

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  2x: 10 pass throughs
                        10 OHS
                        10 snatch balance
                        10 v-ups
• WOD: 15 minute AMRAP
              15 OHS (35#)
              30 lateral jumps-over-bar (over and back)
              45 ab mat sit ups

I didn't realize this until just this very moment, but it turns out I didn't write down my result for this WOD.  I do know that it was not as good as I was hoping.  In fact, I think I was just short of two full rounds.  Maybe almost three rounds.  

My overhead squats were repeatedly not pretty.  I had to strip off a bunch of weight, I nearly threw myself backwards doing a snatch into position, I had to bail repeatedly.  My form was decidedly off.  And then the lateral jumps were surprisingly difficult!  I was pretty convinced that I was going to trip over the bar and crack my head open on a weight rack.  At least I am solid on the sit ups :)

Running and ropes

I got nearly all the way up a rope during this overtime workout.  Nearly to the top.  Not quite though.  It is super freaky swinging nearly 15 feet in the air and then looking down.  Next time I won't look down and I WILL make it to the top.

5/10/12 WOD #48:

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  21 push ups
                  21 grasshoppers
                  21 back ext
                  21 seconds chin over bar (not so much)
                  21 jumping lunges
• WOD: 3 rds for time
             800 m run
             200 flutter kicks
             Time: 22:49

I am working on my kipping pull ups and they are coming along nicely.  Hopefully sometime soon I will be doing pull ups without a band.  And my rope climb is almost to the point where I can actually say that I can climb a rope.  That means I need a new personal goal to work toward.  I think that goal is going to be: run faster.  Any WOD that involves running is abysmally slow and I would prefer for that to not be the case.

Otherwise how will I survive the zombie apocalypse?

How to make burpees suck more

Burpees suck.  Everyone hates them.  But they are a full body workout and come up pretty darn often in CrossFit.  And we mix them up sometimes!  You can make them into burpee pull ups where you jump up onto the bar at the end of each burpee.  You can do what we did for the Open and have a target you hit at the end of each burpee.  Or you can do burpees-over-box and at the end of each burpee you do a box jump, then do another burpee, then do another box jump.  That's one rep.  One rep of suck.

5/9/12 WOD #47:

• Warm up: Run 400 m
                  25 burpees
                  50 2ct mountain climbers
• WOD: 5 rds for time
             10 box over burpees (20")
             20 hollow rocks
             10 alternating one-armed push ups
             Time: 35:32

For those counting at home, that comes out to 100 burpees and 100 box jumps.  Which explains how close I came to biffing it on the box jumps- Twice!  I just caught the edge with my toe as I jumped up and landed on my knees on the box.  No injuries, no bruises, but it made me go even more slowly as I continued: gathering myself mentally and physically before each jump.  And yes, I was going slowly.  Some people were finishing their 5 rounds before I started on round 3.  Depressing.

One-armed push ups are tricksy.  I was having some serious trouble with them as I kept torquing my knee wrong while trying to position myself correctly.  So I modified them to doing them from my knees and suddenly I was doing one-armed push ups, by God!  And I have to say, that is a pretty good feeling.  ...unlike burpees.

Another day, another mile

For reasons that are unclear, I have been suffering from shin splints since the Open.  Which probably everyone is tired of hearing about because I think I moan about it every time we run for a WOD.  But in spite of this and also in spite of the fact that we are now forbidden from running around both buildings thanks to cranky neighbors, I still managed to cut down my mile time again.  For those counting, that means that instead of 4 laps around 2 buildings for your mile, it is 8 laps around one building which is harder to keep track of when you are trying not to throw up.

5/7/12 WOD #46:

• Warm up: 500 m Row
                  3 min jump rope work
                  10 pass throughs
                  10 pull ups
                  10 back ext
                  10 sit ups
• WOD #1: 1 mile run for time.  10:41 (13 seconds off!)
• WOD #2: 20 minute AMRAP
                  5 push ups
                  10 pull ups
                  20 sit ups
                  40 DU (120 singles)
                  Total: 4 rounds + 15 reps

Actually, this workout was an awesome cluster of awesomeness because not only did I shave 13 seconds off my mile (that much closer to a sub-10 minutes baby!) BUT I went down several bands on my pull ups!  I have been sitting on green for a while (the second heaviest band) but Lori saw me on my first round and declared that I was more than ready to move down a band.  The next band is purple, followed by black, followed by red.  The purple and black bands were in use so Lori grabbed two reds for me to use together (we think that is somewhere between purple and black). And although it was WAY harder to fling myself up with those bands than it was with the green, I could still do it.  Of course, I had to stop between every other pull up to shake out my arms.  But still.

Following the example of Regionals

Everyone is watching the highlights from the Regionals which are happening right now.  One of the surprising events for the athletes was dumbbell snatches: 100# for men, 70# for women.  One arm at a time, going from the ground to overhead in a smooth motion. Pretty friggin' beastly.

So we got to do it too!  Of course, the heaviest dumb bell we have is 55# so rumor has it we will be getting some new weights soon.  Prescribed weight for women was 35# and 55# for men during our workout.  I did it lighter, but I still felt like a bad ass while I was hauling that weight up in the air!

5/3/12 WOD #45

• Warm up: 500 m row
                  3 min jump rope work
                  2x: 10 OHS
                        10 Push ups
                        10 Back extension
                        10 second HS hold
• WOD: 4 minute row for distance: 768
             4 minute AMRAP 5 HSPU, 5 strict pull ups (green band): 3 rds + 6 reps
             4 minute AMRAP 20 m farmer's carry (started with 20# and switched to 35#), 20 DU: 3 rds
             4 minute AMRAP DB snatch (20#): 16 snatches each arm

For some reason, the snatches made my feet cramp up.  Ah well.

Scaled bad-assery

The warm up for this WOD involved doing rope climbs.  I have not done a rope climb successfully before but I figured a warm up was a great opportunity to give it a shot.  I managed to get myself halfway up a rope!  ...I don't know how it looked from the ground, but I am sticking with halfway.

5/2/12 WOD #44

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  2x: 7 strict pull ups
                        7 jumping lunges
                        7 burpees
                        7 HSPU (scaled)
                  1/2 rope climb
• WOD: AMRAP 12 minutes
             15 ft rope climb (scaled)
             15 push ups (girly)
             9 rounds + 1 rope climb + 7 push ups

Scaled rope climbs are lowering yourself down to the ground and back up to standing three times for every prescribed rope climb.  Normally this takes me a little bit of time, as I slowly lower myself down and come back up.  For some reason I started this workout with a sense of urgency- I wanted a lot of reps and a lot of rounds.  I move fast at push ups anyway (note to self: I should probably switch to non-girly push ups soon) and I just attacked the scaled rope climbs as fast as possible.  I felt like I was finally in beast mode!  It was sweet!

Manion

Manion was a marine killed by sniper fire in Iraq on April 29th, 2007.  He was 26. This workout was created in honor of him.

5/1/12 WOD #43: Manion

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  3 minute jump rope work (perfect!  This gave me a set time to just practice my double unders.  I didn't get any, but I feel like I am getting close.  The rope hits my toes on the second round so I either need to jump higher or spin faster.)
                  Bear crawl
                  Crab walk
• WOD: 7 rounds for time (30 minute cap)
             400 m run
             29 back squats (55#)
             3 rounds + 400 m run + 6 squats

My squats have a problem that is not common.  I am too flexible.  I drop down into my squats fast and hard and bottom out.  Then it is hard to come back up- I pull my knees in and tip slightly forward onto my toes in order to complete the movement. None of of this is good for my knees, or likely the rest of me either.  So thanks to two very good coaches I worked on my form.  

I think I made some improvement, but it is a lot to concentrate on all at once: elbows back, shoulders strong, butt out, don't bottom out, knees forced out, keep everything tight, chest up, don't collapse on the floor...you get the picture.  

The runs rather quickly became staggers after the first round.  Squatting with weight 29 times makes your legs all wibbly wobbly so I had some trouble forcing them into normal movement for a run.  I kept myself going on the run, honestly, by remembering that scene in Forrest Gump where he is carrying his entire injured platoon out of the jungle one by one.  Sorry guys, I just watched that movie the other day and it became my mental military reference for the work out.  Don't hate me.  And don't hate Tom Hanks- he is the nicest guy in Hollywood from what I hear.  And he loves his volleyball very much.

Nooners are fun!

Yup.  Dirty jokes abound in CrossFit.  Snatches, nooners, and yesterday we had a discussion about squat form that degenerated into poop references.  I promise we are, most of us, adults.  At least physically.

This particular workout was on my Thursday off so I took advantage of the opportunity to sleep in and hit the noon class instead of the 6 am.  I enjoy hanging out with a different group of people- each class has it's own personality and it is nice to mix it up.  This time I got in early enough that I got to watch one of my friends finish the workout- always dangerous because I got to see how hellish it looked before I even started.

4/26/12 WOD #42:

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  50 m: high knees
                           butt kickers
                           lateral shuffle
                           grapevines/carioca?
                           broad jump
                 10 pass throughs
                 10 OHS
• WOD: 3 rounds for time
             400 m run
             15 OHS (35#)
             30 weighted sit ups (25#)
             Time: 21:13
• OT: Max overhead hold 25#: 2:30

For the sit ups you grabbed an appropriate weight plate and held onto it while going through the sit up motion, bonking the weight against the ground both when your hands go back and when you sit back up.  And yes, they suck as much as you would think.  By the end I was having to do them in sets of 10 to get through them.  I was the final finisher in my class, BUT I actually beat the time of two of my friends in other classes that day, so I felt pretty good about that.  

I don't always do the overtime, but since it was my day off and peer pressure had everyone doing it, I sucked it up and held another 25# plate over my head.  My goal was to not drop first and I accomplished that goal.  I actually think I was the 4th or 5th to drop, and it was more because my arms were going numb either from lack of circulation or a grumpy nerve in my shoulder or something.  

Great burning thighs of fire

After Tabata hell my thighs were killing me.  Resting in squat position made my legs practically cramp up with death.  So imagine the joy in my soul when the workout two days later was all about lunges.  ...reading that back to myself makes me sound a little bitter.  But in truth, I love this stuff and my butt is going to look AWESOME because of it.

4/25/12 WOD #41:

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  10 mountain climbers
                  10 sit ups
                  10 good mornings (35# bar)
                  10 HSPU
                  10 ring pullups
• WOD: 100 overhead lunges (25# plate) for time.  Every time you drop the plate, complete 5 ring ball ups.
  Time: 8:16
• OT: 2 minutes of kipping ring pull ups -> none completed, but I tried!

I set myself a goal for this workout: I wanted to complete 25 lunges at a time before I let myself drop the weight.  I succeeded!   By the end of each set, my quads and glutes were burning like the fire of a thousand suns.  And my shoulders were not in a very happy place either.  I should also point out that I did not actually get a ball up, I mostly just pulled my knees up as far as I could.

Tabata hell

I fell a little bit in love with Tabatas when Jen came out to visit and I had my first Tabata.  I really liked the intervals and having an excuse to rest briefly.  This one may have ended my love affair...

Rather than rest during the 10 second breaks, instead we held an active position before going back to the workout.  This resulted in mild agony and less reps overall because I needed to shake out whatever body part was weeping with pain during the 20 seconds of work.

4/23/12 WOD #40: Tabata Hell

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  5 straight pull ups (2x)
                  5 turkish get ups (15# each arm)
                  5 HSPU (weight rack)
                  5 jumping squats
• WOD: Tabata Hell
             Squats (rest at bottom)- 53 reps
             Push ups (rest in plank)- 60 reps
             Thrusters (rest with bar overhead)- 35# for three reps, then 15# for the rest- 34 reps
             Sit ups (rest with legs 6-12" above floor)- 64 reps
             KB swings (rest without putting the KB down)- 15#- 61 reps
             Total reps: 272

Poop.  I was hoping to break 300.

I really need to rest less.

My amazing bruise.

Started in the shin, moved down the ankle to the foot. It's possible there is a secondary nidus as well because there is a spot just below the ankle that is tender as well. Go me.

Deck of Death

Saturday workouts tend to be interesting and crowded.  And often painful.  This was no different!

The Deck of Death was a team workout.  Each team got a full deck of cards and had to complete the entire deck for time.  Each suit represented a movement with the number on the card dictating the number of reps.  Every member of the team had to complete the allotted movements on the card before the next card could be flipped (which ended up giving our team penalty burpees because some of the guys were getting a little gung-ho about flipping while the slower teammates were still trying to finish the movements.  And yes, I was the slower teammate.  This resulted in a lot of yelling: "NO I STILL HAVE THREE BURPEES LEFT, STOP FLIPPING THE DAMN CARDS."  But anyway...).

4/21/12 WOD #39:

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  10 walking lunges
                  10 sit ups
                  10 push ups
• WOD: Deck of death
             Spades: squats
             Hearts: burpees
             Diamonds: push ups
             Clubs: sit ups
             Jokers: 400 m farmer's carry (35# then 20#) or fireman carry
             Face cards: 10 reps
             Ace: 11 reps
             Time: 46:42

Even though every movement had equal reps, this felt like never ending burpees.  We may have cheated the joker cards, actually.  Our team did 200 m of firemen carry (getting carried is not actually a picnic.  My sternum felt bruised from the shoulder digging into it.  On the plus side, after approximately 10,000 burpees, it was nice to be able to breathe for 200 m) then we each did the remaining 200 m with a farmer's carry.  I started with the 35# weight but that was awful and the weight kept digging into my wrists and I had to drop the dumb bells every 50 ft or so.  I switched to 20# weights for the second joker card and, while it was still hard, it didn't feel like I was dying.  

Do you want photo evidence?  For once, I have that!  

Squats.

Push ups (girly style)

I am not adjusting my pants, I am just adjusting the weight.

Trudging.

This was my rally face as I knew I was being photographed.  Rally face fail.  I still look awful.

This is my "praying dog position of please-no-more-burpees"

The Team!

Bit by the Box

I believe I have mentioned before that box jumps are notorious for causing injuries in CrossFit.  If you don't have a solid landing, you can slip off and really tear up your shins.  Well I did a bunch of 24" box jumps with no problems, and yet on this work out I managed to hurt myself on the box.  *headdesk*

4/18 WOD # 38

• Warm up: 800 m run
                  2x: 10 walking lunges
                        10 sit ups
                        10 push ups
                        10 back extensions
• WOD #38.1: Death by sprints
                       One minute intervals- 1st minute one 50 m sprint
                                                        2nd minute two 50 m sprints
                                                        3rd minute three 50 m sprints
                                                        ...and so on until you can't finish the allotted distance in the allotted time.
                       Result: completed round 3 and was steps away from finishing round 4 successfully.
• WOD #38.2: 10 min AMRAP
                       10 HSPU
                       10 pistols (alternating)- I used bands as assistance
                       Total: 3 or 4 rounds (lost track) + 5 reps

So how did I hurt myself?  Well the scaled progression for HSPU is to either hook your feet up over a bar on a weight rack and get your torso as vertical as possible, or to get your knees up on a box and do the same.  I had done the bar before, but there were enough people at the bar level and few enough weight racks that I figured I would just do the box.  It happened as I was pulling myself down off of the box to head over for pistols (one-legged squats). I am not the most graceful person in the world, and having your knees up on a box and your hands down on the ground is not the most graceful position to be in, so I managed to smack my shin into the corner of the box.  I gave myself a mild scrape and then a surprisingly large goose egg.  Now, about a week later, I just have a colorful and large bruise spanning my lower shin and ankle with some nice gravity-dependent spread down to my foot.  

Smooth.  That's me.  At least I didn't need to go to the ER, like the last two box jump injuries!

In which I got what I asked for

Every day CrossFit HQ posts work outs.  Often they look insane, but one caught my eye and looked like fun.  So I tagged Lori in a comment requesting the work out and sure enough we did it!

4/16/12 WOD #37:

• Warm up: 400 m run
                  25 burpees (I only did 15)
                  10 jumping squats
                  10 sit ups
                  10 grasshoppers
                  10 pull ups
                  10 jumping squats
• WOD: For time: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
                            Chest-to-bar pull up (green band)
                            Box jumps (24")
                            GHD sit ups
                            Time: 23:35

I liked the looks of this one because it took normal movements and kicked them up a notch: instead of normal pull ups, you do chest to bar; instead of box jumps at the normal women's standard of 20", do them at the men's standards of 24" instead; instead of ab-mat sit ups, do them on the torture machine known as the GHD.  The decreasing rep count is nice because by the end you are exhausted but you only have to do 3 more of each, then 2 more, and then just one rep of each movement and you're done!

This work out sucked while I did it.  At one point on the GHD I looked up at Lori and said, "What crazy person requested this WOD?"  But as always, it was awesome, it was fun, and it felt great to get through it! This was also a milestone for me because I was nailing my taller box jumps without a problem.

Here is the official demo of this WOD:

Helen again

This was an exciting benchmark WOD, because way back in February I did Helen for the first time.  So almost exactly 2 months later, I got to see how much I improved!

4/11/12 WOD #36:

• Warmup: 400 m run
                 50 double unders (or not)
                 5 pull ups
                10 push ups
                15 squats
• WOD: Helen!
             3 rounds for time: Run 400 m
                                        21 KB swings (started with 20#, 15# on the last two rounds)
                                        12 pull ups (green band)
                                        Time: 15:34

I knocked more than a minute off my original time and did it with a green band this time rather than a blue!  I also did a heavier weight for the first round although I backed it back down.  Also exciting about this work out: I wasn't the last finisher.  It is never a thing to be ashamed of when you are the last finisher, but it is sort of nice to actually finish before someone once in a while.

I know I am woefully behind on my posts, but I will try to catch up again!  

Wanted: wrist straps

We do a lot of met-con style work outs at our box (and yes, I had to google met-con to make sure it meant what I thought it meant.  Metabolic conditioning with lots of cardio and body weight exercises).  So it is always a special treat when we have a weight lifting work outs!  I guess this means I should pony up my extra $20/month so I can start going to the barbell club and get in some more lifting-heavy-shit time.

4/10/12 WOD #35:

• Warm up: 400 m run
                  2x: 7 squat jumps
                       7 back extension
                       7 GHD sit ups (I'll explain GHD in a later post)
• WOD: 100 Overhead Squats for time.  Each time you drop the bar, you must do 7 over-the-bar burpees (aka your burpee ends by jumping over the bar you just dropped).
  35# to start, dropped to 15#.
  Time: 12:47

To put this WOD in perspective, this was just a portion of one of the official WODs from a previous year's Regionals competition.  That particular brand of torture involved 100 pull ups and 100 kettle bell swings and 100 double unders as well.

We do OHS a lot in warm ups, but that is usually with just a PVC pipe so the feel is very different. You get the bar up by doing a snatch so we did the Bergener's warm up to get the movements ready for that.  Then you hold that bar up over your head with your arms held wide and your head through your biceps (aka the bar is behind your head).  Then you stick your booty out and start squatting, keeping that bar in a "sweet spot" that allows perfect balance as the rest of your body is moving.

My goal was to minimize my burpees because I truly hate them.  I wanted to get through 25 squats at a time.  Well I managed the first 25, barely, but my wrists were starting to kill me from holding that heavy (for me) bar in place.  So on my next attempt at 25 I could only get through 12 before my wrists, shoulders, and elbows all rebelled on me and failed.  Then I did 12 more and had to drop again.  I was extremely frustrated.  I felt like I could do the movement, but the weight and something about my form was putting the pressure on my joints and I couldn't handle it.  I was nearly in tears as I pulled my weights off the bar so I could finish.  In penance I guess for having to drop the weight, I was determined to get through the rest of the squats in one go.  I barely did it, but I by God I did make it through without having to do more burpees.

The lessons I think I need to pull from this WOD are all about form.  I think part of my problem was I didn't get my weight in that sweet spot and that made the movement difficult and put extra pressure on my joints.  I also decided I need to get some wrist straps to help keep my wrist from hyperextending on long, weighty work outs like this- that way I can concentrate more on the rest of my form and less on how much my wrists hurt.  Finally, I don't usually get frustrated during WODs.  Exhausted, yes.  Disbelief that I might make it through, always.  But usually not near-tears-anger at myself.  So on the rare occasion that that might occur, I think I need to step back, look at what I am doing wrong, take a deep breath, and modify so that I can complete the work out.

Hug a twinkie!

This WOD had quite the turn out- possibly because people were hoping there may be actual twinkies involved.  Or, like me, they couldn't resist giggling when they thought of "hug the twinkie" so everyone just had to come and see what it was all about.

This was a WOD posted by CrossFit HQ and slightly modified for our box in deference to the amount of torn hands from the previous day's max pull ups.

4/6/12 WOD #34:

• Warm up: 400 m run
                  2x: 10 pass throughs
                        10 burpee box jumps (because actual burpees just aren't evil enough sometimes)
                        10 good mornings
                        10 sit ups
                        10 push ups
• WOD: for time
             800 m run
             10 rounds of: 10 tuck jumps
                                  10 hug-a-twinkie
             800 m run
             Time: 22:20

Hug a twinkie has its origins in gymnastics where a pommel horse is used (hence the twinkie reference).  To do this move you lay on a "twinkie" (aka a box or a GHD machine, or something where the crease of your waist is at the edge of the object).  Then you brace yourself and, in a controlled manner, bring your legs straight up to the point where your hips are open, then back down again.  My "twinkie" was a weight bench with a bunch of weight plates stacked up on it.  Pretty early on in this work out it became apparent that the limiting factor was not going to be my athleticism (although God knows it was a factor), but my ability to breathe while lying flat on a hard surface after a bunch of tuck jumps, and the bones of my pelvis digging into the edge of the plates.  I ended up with some impressive bruises in places that I cannot show off in public.

Here is a video of the unmodified WOD (knees-to-elbows instead of tuck jumps) that will probably explain the twinkie thing better than me:

  

Nicole

For the first time since I had to take a week and a half off for being sick in February, I decided to skip Monday's class.  My theory was that I was still nursing some shin splints that started during those damn wall balls so an extra rest day would probably do me some good, and that I would still be able to get my three weekly WODs in on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday.

Lo and behold I ended up working the 7:30 shift at work and therefore couldn't do the 6 am class on Tuesday. Crap.  So my first work out of the week ended up being on Wednesday.  And I got to meet another one of the mean girls of crossfit: Nicole.

4/4/12 WOD #33: Nicole

• Warm up: 400 m run
                  2x: 7 turkish get ups (TGUs)
                        7 K2E
                        7 HSPU
                        7 Pull ups
• Challenge: max one rep weight for TGU: 15# (failed twice on the 25# kettle bell)
• WOD: 20 min AMRAP
             Run 400 m
             Max pull ups (each time you drop from the bar, you go do another 400 m)
             Reps: 38 pull ups and 5 runs

This was a great opportunity to work on my kip.  I am still on the green band which challenges my strength but not so much that I can't work on my form at the same time. I do think my kip is coming along fairly nicely.  When I actually get a good one I can string a few together with ease, although much of this work out was spent hanging from the bar, trying to breath, and gearing myself up for one more kip.  I did beat my initial "max pull up" challenge from before the Open (which was on blue band)- back then I did 11 before dropping, and during this work out I did 12 with the green.

I suppose I should explain the Turkish get-ups.  Conveniently enough, I was explaining them to Andrew the night before this work out so I nearly laughed out loud when I saw them on the board.  So a TGU starts with you on your back, holding a kettle bell up above your head.  The key is to never break eye contact with the kettle bell, or you will lose your form and possibly smash your nose.  The knee on the same side as the KB is bent and your opposite arm is thrown out.  You sit up, always with the KB straight up in the air, and plant your opposite hand so that you can get your hips underneath you, bringing the non-KB leg back so you end up in a lunge position.  Then you stand up.  Ta daa!!  But to complete the rep, you need to do the whole kit-and-caboodle in reverse so you end back on your back, dangling that KB over your breakable face.

Here is a video that will likely explain it better....although he is using a dumbell instead of the kettle bell, the motion is exactly the same.