1/29/2014

A. Thrusters, 6 x 7 @ 75; begin a set every :60
B. 1 squat clean + 1 front squat, 1-1-1-1-1-1 emphasize speed over load; begin a set every 2:00
+
AMRAP in 10:00:
100 double-unders
50 wall balls, 20 to 9'
max muscle-ups in remaining time

A. complete. All thrusters between :12-:14
B. 135-145-155-165-175-185
+
11 muscle ups


Good training day. Thrusters felt fast and easy. Squat clean/front squats were good, I failed one attempt at 175 which was weird. I didn't catch it right and fell forward but got it on the second try. 185 actually felt the best, technique-wise, out of all the reps. The wall ball/muscle up workout went well. I was able to do 80 double unders unbroken and then had to take a small break before I finished the rest because my shoulders were getting smoked. I did the wall ball in sets of 10 for the first 4 sets and then 5/5 for the last set. Those definitely made my shoulders/arms nice and tired for the muscle ups. I finished the wall ball at exactly 5:00. My goal was to get at least 10 muscle ups. I knew I wouldn't be able to get a ton because I'm still working on being able to do them with fatigued shoulders/grip. I was able to do them in sets of 2 until the 9th rep, then the rest were singles. Overall I am really happy with how this went, my breathing was good and I never felt like I was dying. I definitely need to work on smaller breaks between sets of muscle ups. 

1/26/2014

On a single 10:00 clock, establish both a max thruster from the ground AND complete 200 double-unders
+
(10:00 rest)
+
AMRAP in 10:00:
10 thrusters, 75
10 toes-to-bars
10 thrusters, 85
10 toes-to-bars
10 thrusters, 95
10 toes-to-bars
10 thrusters, 105
10 toes-to-bars
max thrusters @ 115 in remaining time

155 (PR)
+
complete, 5 thrusters @115

1/23/2014

A. Shoulder-to-overhead ladder from blocks, 1 rep every :60 starting @ 65 and adding 10 every :60, shoulder press for as long as possible, then switch to push press for as long as possible, then to split jerk
B. Power clean, build to a touch-and-go 3RM in only 3 attempts over 125
+
AMRAP in 5:00:
7 wall balls, 14 to 9'
7 toes-to-bar
+
(10:00 rest)
+
AMRAP in 2:00:
Burpees w/2-hand touch to target 6" above stand reach, goal is 32+

A. Shoulder press-105
Push press-155
Split Jerk- 195 (ties PR)
B. 170
+
7 rounds + 3 wall ball
+
33 burpees

1/21/2013

A. Thrusters, 5 x 8 @ 65; begin a set every :60

B. Front squat, 1-1-1-1-1, 20X1, emphasize speed over load; begin a set every 2:00

+

AMRAP in 20:00, increase effort every 5:00 so that last 5:00 is @ Open pace:

2 muscle-ups

4 handstand push-ups

8 kettlebell swings, 53

A. complete, thrusters between :14-:17

B. 155-175-185-195-205

+

9 rounds + 1 muscle up

Thrusters felt really good today, I haven’t done them in awhile but they were pretty fast. I am curious to see what my Fran time would be now that I can do butterfly pull ups. The 20:00 workout was alright. I started at a relatively slow pace. I was able to get three rounds in the first 5:00 but was not able to hold that pace. My breathing was completely fine but the muscle fatigue got to me. The handstand push ups and kettlebell swings definitely had an impact on my grip and forearms, making the muscle ups more and more difficult as the rounds went on. Muscle ups were unbroken until the eighth round, then I had to switch to singles. By the ninth round my forearms were pretty tired. I got the first muscle up and failed the second. I had 10 seconds to try for another one but failed it. So frustrating. Muscle fatigue is annoying because at a certain point there’s nothing you can do but rest until you know you can get another rep.

1/19/2013

10:00 Z1 mixed warm-up of AirDyne, row, ski erg, and handstand walk practice, keep it easy and stay moving throughout
+
10:00 @ 90% of [45 wall ball shots @ 20 to 10' + 90 double-unders + max rope climbs in remaining time]
+
3 rounds, goal is both even run times & even row times:
400m run
:60 rest
500m row
:60 rest

complete
+
complete. 7 rope climbs
+
2:45/2:01
2:25/2:01
2:35/2:01
subbed 30 airdyne cals for the run since the ground was covered in snow


Breathing was really good today. The wall ball workout went well, I was breathing hard but it was actually the muscle fatigue that got to me first. The 20 pound ball to the 10 foot target fatigued my shoulders, so did the double unders. I broke up the wall ball in 5 sets of 9. I got to the rope with 4:30 left and was able to do 7 climbs. My rope climb technique has definitely gotten worse, I am using way too much arm and not enough legs. For the last part I had to do 30 airdyne cals instead of the run since the ground was covered in snow. That went really well, breathing was good the entire time. It was difficult to keep the airdyne times even since I haven't really done a lot on the airdyne recently and wasn't really sure how to pace it but I tried my best to keep them all around the same time. The rows were great, all the exact same time and felt really good every round. I am really happy with how much my rowing has improved. 

1/18/2013

A. Squat snatch clusters, 3 x 1.1.1.1; :10 rest between singles, 2:00 rest
+
5 sets for even times:
2 muscle-ups
4 kipping handstand push-ups
6 deadlifts, 205
:60 rest
+
For time @ 100%:
30 CTB pull-ups
30 burpees

A. 105-115-125
+
:50
:50
:49
:51
:50
+
4:59

Snatches felt awesome today, I was fast under the bar and technique was good. The muscle up/HSPU workout went well, all muscle ups unbroken. The CTB/burpee workout should have been faster. All pull ups were butterfly but I could only do them in sets of 5 and I was taking too much rest between sets. 

1/16/2013

A. Split jerk from blocks, 12 x 1 @ 80-85%; begin a set every :60

B. Hang squat clean, build quickly to 3RM in only 3 attempts over 125

+

For time:

50 double-unders

9 muscle-ups

6 stone-to-shoulders, 95

50m sandbag walking lunge steps, 80

6 muscle-ups

6 stone-to-shoulders, 95

50m Farmer's walk, 70/hand

3 muscle-ups

6 stone-to-shoulders, 95

A. complete @165

B. 165

+

16:06

Split jerks were feeling great today. I think I probably could have gone 5 pounds heavier on the squat cleans, but my form felt really off. I don’t think I was being patient enough with each rep, I was just rushing through it and wasn’t focusing on correct technique. Plus it really hurt my thumbs. The chipper was awesome, my muscle ups are getting so much better. I broke them up 3/3/3, then 2/2/2, then 2/1. I am glad I am able to string them together so consistently, now I just need to work on less rest between sets. Stone to shoulders were all fast, those are getting much better as well. The sandbag lunges were unbroken, I never set the bag down! What! That surprised the hell out of me actually. I thought for sure that part would take me the longest. It definitely fatigued me fairly quickly though. This workout was really fun!

2014 Great Lakes Invitational Recap

This past weekend was the 2014 Great Lakes Invitational in Noblesville, Indiana. The GLI is a huge three-day competition hosted at the Hamilton County Fairground, and I believe it is one of the best CrossFit competitions put on all year. There were 25 teams, 44 women, and 51 men who participated in this competition, and I was on a team (CSC Black) with Jeff, Sophie, and Pat. Teams and individuals from all over came to throw down, including Games athletes like Lindy Barber and Elizabeth Akinwale. Reebok and Progenex were there selling their products, and tons of spectators came every day to cheer on the athletes. The teams had to do 2 workouts per day (listed in the picture below), and it would take too long to recap every workout, so instead I’m going to do a list of my favorite moments from the GLI.

Favorite Moments from the 2014 GLI:

1. Team Event 1, otherwise known as the most frantic workout I have ever done

This was the first event of the competition, and it looked like this:

7:00 to establish a 1RM clean

1:00 rest

7:00 to establish a a 2RM bench press

1:00 rest

7:00 to establish a 3RM overhead squat

I was really excited for this workout because a 1RM clean is my absolute favorite thing to do. For the clean, all four people had to share a platform and only one person could lift at a time. This meant that each person only got three attempts at the most, so we had to be smart about where we wanted to start and end. I don’t think I have ever experienced the feeling of urgency as I did during that first 7 minutes. The men shared a bar and the women shared a bar, which meant we were constantly rolling bars on and off, throwing the collars back and forth, shouting to each other about what weights we needed, throwing weights across the platform, chalk was getting crushed, etc. After a minute or two we fell into a groove, but it was a fast 7 minutes. We did really well on this part, Jeff cleaned 295, Pat 255, Sophie 175, and I cleaned 195. I went for 200 but could not stand it up. The bench press and overhead squats weren’t nearly as frantic as the clean, we decided to have Sophie and I go for all our attempts first, that way we wouldn’t have to take weight on and off because all four people had to share one bar at this point. We both hit 130 for 2 and then Jeff and Pat went. On the overhead squat, Sophie and I got all our attempts out of the way again before the guys went. We both hit 125, I went for 130 but dropped the bar after one rep. This was by far one of my favorite workouts of the competition because it required constant communication and a lot of teamwork.

2. “135”

This was the second event on Saturday and it was awesome. It looked like this:

All athletes use a bar with 135 pounds

Female 1 (me): 21-15-9 of back squats/pull ups

Male 1 (Pat): 21-15-9 of squat cleans/ring dips

Female 2 (Sophie): 15-12-9 of hang cleans/box jumps (24”)

Male 2 (Jeff): 15-12-9 of thrusters/chest to bar pull ups

This workout was in relay format, so I started, and once I finished I had to run back and tag Pat, once he was done he had to run back and tag Sophie, etc. When we walked out on the floor, I was surprised to see that for the back squats the bar had to be taken from the ground instead of from a rack. I guess I just missed the part where they mentioned this, but I was pretty pissed at myself for not knowing this haha. I was planning on breaking up the back squats 7/7/7, 5/5/5, and 5/4, and I knew if I had to clean it from the ground every time it would waste more energy and time. The workout started and I stuck to my plan of breaking things up. All my pull ups were butterfly and felt great, plus the pull up bar was super grippy and I felt like I could hang on to that thing forever. Once I got back to the bar for the round of 15, I noticed some of the females were struggling to clean the 135, so having to take the bar from the ground actually worked to my advantage. By the round of 9, I was breathing pretty hard and had to literally crawl, like some weird giant toddler, on top of the box to get to my pull up bar. I finished the workout a full minute faster than when we did it in practice and I was really happy with that. Pat was up next and did really well on his part. His dips were really fast, and also can I just say that it’s pretty badass that we had a 51 year old on our team. He finished and tagged Sophie, and she crushed the hang cleans. It was awesome. A lot of females were having trouble with the hang clean, but not Sophie. She finished her workout and tagged Jeff, and he fucking brought it home for us. His thrusters looked easy and his butterfly CTB pull ups looked effortless. Overall, we finished second in our heat and a full minute faster than when we practiced it last weekend. That was a great feeling. I’m pretty sure all of us felt like we were going to puke, but it was so cool to finish second in our heat and 4:00 before the time cap. We strategized that workout perfectly and everyone’s strengths contributed to their individual workout.

work it work it twerk it

3. Watching Megan compete as an individual

Megan is one of my closest friends at the gym, and to watch her compete and hold her own against Games athletes like Lindy and Elizabeth was so cool. On the first day, she cleaned 210 pounds. Then later that night she won her heat for the wall ball/toes to bar workout. On Saturday she came in 4th overall for the sandbag run/pistol event, then later that night she demolished the row/run/row workout. It truly was inspiring and exciting to watch her do so well. She is an amazing athlete and an amazing person as well. Megan, if you’re reading this I am proud of you, sorry if this embarrassed you hehe

4. Heavy Grace and the Jerk Ladder

This workout was definitely my absolute favorite event of the competition. I love heavy clean and jerks, so I was really excited for this workout. This is how the event was set up:

115# Clean and Jerk, 30 reps followed by 135# Clean and Jerk, 30 reps

*partition all reps as needed

Time Cap: 10 minutes

-- Rest 2 Minutes --

“Jerk Ladder” (front rack only)

10 bars - 50 seconds on, 10 seconds off

145-155-165-175-185-195-205-215-225-235

Sophie and I agreed to split up the 115# clean and jerks in sets of 2 and trade off one rep each on the 135#. That plan worked perfectly, I never found myself really that out of breath, the trading gave us just enough time to rest for a second before we had to lift again. We ended up finishing the first part in 7:02, almost a full 2:00 ahead of anyone else and 3:00 before the time cap. The feeling of winning our heat was so cool, I think we were both surprised we were able to finish that quickly. It was so so cool!! It also benefited us because we got a full five minutes of rest before we had to move to the jerk ladder. Once the time cap was up, we picked up our bar and moved it to the rack. The jerk ladder started at 145 and went up by 10 pounds each minute. We were responsible for changing our weights and knowing how much was on the bar, our judge wasn’t even allowed to tell us how much was on there. This was stressful for me because I’m terrible at math and I’m bad at being able to calculate bumper plates, especially in a fast-paced situation like this. Luckily Sophie handled all the math and told me what to put on each time. We started at 145 and all the jerks felt really easy. Sophie and I both hit 195 which was exciting because that’s our jerk PR. I was not expecting to get that high, I figured I would only get up to 185 because I thought I would be way more fatigued. Sophie went for 205 and failed, so the bar dropped to the ground. This moment was also one of my favorite parts of the weekend: Sophie and I each grabbed an end of the bar to try and hoist it back on the rack, but I was too short and the bar was too heavy so I was not able to put it on my side of the rack. We set the bar back down on the floor and Sophie said “let’s both clean it” and without hesitation we stood next to each other and power cleaned the 205 together. It was fucking sweet. Sophie’s quick thinking definitely saved us. I tried for the 205 but failed. While we were doing the jerk ladder, the guys were doing their clean and jerks. When they finished, they moved their bar over to the rack and we were allowed to help them put weight on. Pat wasn’t able to get the 245 but Jeff got all the way through 275 which was great. Sophie and I ended up coming in 13th overall for the heavy Grace and 6th overall for the jerk ladder, we were both extremely excited about that. Pat and Jeff came in 17th on heavy Grace and 23rd on the jerk ladder. It was also really cool to watch Wolfgang finish the entire jerk ladder in the next heat. This was definitely my favorite event of the entire competition, I was so proud of how we all performed on this.

Team CSC Black ended up coming in 17th place overall. We were happy with that, we performed well and there were a lot of tough teams competing. I had so much fun during this competition. It was extremely well-run, the workouts were really creative and challenging, the equipment was nice, the judging was fair, and the athletes were amazing. Thanks to CrossFit Indy North/Three Kings CrossFit for putting on such a cool event. Also thank you Babs, Cody, Tom, Heather McC and Amber for coming out to watch and support all of us! Megan, you are awesome. Stephen, Leah, Jessie, Wolfgang, you guys killed it and it was great getting to compete/hang out with you all weekend.

Pat, Sophie, Jeff-thank you for being such fun, cool, talented people. I was so excited and proud to be part of this team and I had a blast competing with you guys!

Team CSC Black

It was a great weekend at the GLI. I am already looking forward to next year. Onward!

Here are some other cool pics from the weekend:

1/7/2013

7:00 build to a tough clean single
1:00 rest
7:00 build to a tough bench press double
1:00 rest
7:00 build to a tough overhead squat triple
+
3 rounds @ 90%:
3 muscle-ups
30m yoke carry, heavy

205 (PR+5)
130
120
+
complete, all muscle ups unbroken


Great training session today! I was not expecting to PR my squat clean at all since I only had 7 minutes until I had to move on to bench press. I started with 145, then 165, 185, 195, and then figured I would go for a PR just for the hell of it. I went for 205 with 20 seconds left and got it! I am pleased with how I did on the bench, I thought I would be closer to 120-125 so I was happy with 130. I was a little disappointed with the overhead squat triple, by that point I was getting tired and my overhead squat is pretty weak already. I think I'll be able to get 125 at the competition. The muscle up/yoke workout was good, I was really excited that I was able to string together 3 muscle ups each time, I have never done that before. The yoke carry was tough and sort of awkward, I have only done that once before. Overall an awesome day. 

1/5/2013

10:00 Z1 mixed warm-up of AirDyne, row, ski erg, and handstand walk practice, keep it easy and stay moving
+
10:00 @ 90% of [2 rope climbs + 6 alternating pistols + 200m sandbag carry @ 80]
+
3 sets for even times:
500m row
15 CTB pull-ups, mandatory sets of 5
15 wall balls
3:00 rest

complete
+
complete
+
4:45
4:35
4:45

1/4/2013

15:00 row + axle clean & hold practice, goal is a few reps @ 130 when breathing from row effort, practice transitions w/partner
+
For time:
10 clean & jerks, 115
5 clean & jerks, 135
+
Event 4 run-through as team

complete
+
2:50
+
complete

1/2/2013

A. Split jerk from blocks, 1 set every :60 starting @ 125 and adding 10 every :60
+
For time:
200m sandbag carry, 80
20 alternating pistols
15 power snatches, 95
10 rope climbs
200m sandbag carry, 80

A. 185 (195 Fx2)
+
18:17


Split jerks felt good today, I was hoping to get to 195 but I failed it twice. 195 is my split jerk PR so I wasn't sure if I would get it or not but I think I might be able to do it in the competition. The second part was pretty frustrating. I was able to do the sandbag carry without putting it down which was good, but that's going to be rough during the competition. Pistol squats felt good. I think I should have broken up the snatches differently, I went 3/3/2/2 then singles. By that point I was breathing pretty hard. The rope climbs were terrible. My technique has gotten worse, I was using way too much arms and not enough leg, so by the 5th rope climb my arms were already really tired. I was resting too much between climbs so Stephen had to tell me when to go on each one, otherwise I would have just wasted too much time resting. I felt really bad after this workout because I imagined performing that way during the competition next weekend and it wouldn't be good enough, especially the rope climbs. I'm glad I got to run through a bit of it so I know what to work on before next weekend. 

1/1/2013

1500m row @ 2:05.0 pace
+
4 sets of:
150 row @ 2:00.0 pace
1 axle cleans, 130
:30 axle front rack hold
2:00 rest
+
4 sets of:
:30 row @ 100%
4:30 rest (8:00 after set 3)

6:09.1/2:03.1
+
complete
+
158 meters
157
159
154

12/31/2013

A. 1 squat clean + 1 front squat, build to a max in 10:00 (clock starts once you're above 125)
B. Overhead squat, build quickly to a moderate triple
+
For 18:00:
1st: 2 tough close-grip bench press
2nd: 2 muscle-ups
3rd: 10 box jumps w/step-down

A. 190
B. 120
+
complete
bench press @115