AM
3 sets:
300m ski erg @90% aerobic
:60 rest
20 airdyne cals @90% aerobic
:60 rest
500m row @90% aerobic
:60 rest
20 airdyne cals @90% aerobic
:60 rest
:60 freestanding handstand hold attempts
PM
A. Split jerk, 3-3-3 building to a max for the day; 2:00 rest
B. Power clean, build to a heavy single
+
For 15:00
1st min: 2-3 power cleans, 82-85% of B
2nd min: 5 deadlifts, 82-85% of B
3rd min: 50 double unders
+
10:00 airdyne @Z1
AM
complete
PM
A. 155-175-180
B. 200
+
complete @170
3 cleans each set
+
complete
Great day today. Split jerks felt really good, I probably could have gone to 185 but I was a bit shaky on 175 so I only jumped up 5 pounds, I wanted to make sure I hit all 3 reps.
FINALLY cleaned over 195! I haven't been able to hit 200 for a few months. It wasn't pretty, I caught it pretty close to parallel and I could tell my back was rounding as I was standing it up, but I'm happy to finally get over the 195 mental block.
The EMOM was really fun, I enjoy the power clean/deadlift/double under combo. Cleans were at 170 and were very easy, I did 3 each time and I was able to pick up the bar with hardly any rest between singles. Double unders were all unbroken except for the fourth set, I tripped up on the 49th effing rep. DAMMIT. I can tell my double unders are getting much faster, so that's cool.
Hold the vision, Trust the process Program design by Stephen Flamm
Thursday, January 22, 2015
Wednesday, January 21, 2015
1/20/2015
A. Hang squat snatch, 5x3 unbroken @105, begin a set every :90
B. Front rack alternating reverse lunges, 3x10-12; 2:00 rest
C1. DB bench press (back to feet planted), 3x max @45/hand, 20x1; :60 rest
C2. Pendlay row, 3x2-3, 20x0; :60 rest
+
5:00 airdyne, increasing effort every :60 so that last :60 is hard
+
3 sets:
:45 airdyne @97%
5:15 walk rest or airdyne very easy
+
5:00 airdyne @Z1
A. complete
B. 125-135-140 (10)
C1. 7-7-6
C2. 145-155-165(2)
+
complete
+
complete
+
complete
Snatching was really solid today. My speed under the bar is definitely getting much faster, I think being around lifters like George, Alex and Austin has impacted my snatching. All of them are so fast under the bar and I've been trying to learn from them. Return to the hang wasn't nearly as bad as last week, but then again the bar was 10 pounds lighter today. I only tipped forward on my toes on one rep, so that's good. Progress!
Front rack reverse lunges were better than last week, except I thought I only had 2 sets today so I started a bit heavier then I originally intended. I looked at my notebook after the first set and saw it was THREE sets instead of two, oops. I ended up going to 140 and it wasn't too bad.
DB bench is getting better! I was happy to hit 7 for the first two sets. I'm becoming more confident with this.
Airdyne sprints were real rough today, I felt very pukey after the second and third set.
B. Front rack alternating reverse lunges, 3x10-12; 2:00 rest
C1. DB bench press (back to feet planted), 3x max @45/hand, 20x1; :60 rest
C2. Pendlay row, 3x2-3, 20x0; :60 rest
+
5:00 airdyne, increasing effort every :60 so that last :60 is hard
+
3 sets:
:45 airdyne @97%
5:15 walk rest or airdyne very easy
+
5:00 airdyne @Z1
A. complete
B. 125-135-140 (10)
C1. 7-7-6
C2. 145-155-165(2)
+
complete
+
complete
+
complete
Snatching was really solid today. My speed under the bar is definitely getting much faster, I think being around lifters like George, Alex and Austin has impacted my snatching. All of them are so fast under the bar and I've been trying to learn from them. Return to the hang wasn't nearly as bad as last week, but then again the bar was 10 pounds lighter today. I only tipped forward on my toes on one rep, so that's good. Progress!
Front rack reverse lunges were better than last week, except I thought I only had 2 sets today so I started a bit heavier then I originally intended. I looked at my notebook after the first set and saw it was THREE sets instead of two, oops. I ended up going to 140 and it wasn't too bad.
DB bench is getting better! I was happy to hit 7 for the first two sets. I'm becoming more confident with this.
Airdyne sprints were real rough today, I felt very pukey after the second and third set.
Tuesday, January 20, 2015
Battle of the Boxes
It has been a few days since the Battle of the Boxes competition, but I am still giddy with excitement over how much fun it was. It was such a good day and definitely my best competition experience so far. TIME FOR A RECAP!
Event 1: 8000k row (29th place)
We went into this one completely cold. We arrived at the gym around 8:00 and knew we had to finish rowing by 9:00. The rowers were set up in an aerobics room and there was a judge at each one, as soon as a rower opened up you just walked over and started rowing your portion. When we got to the gym there was already a long line of people waiting to row and we thought it was going to take awhile for us to even get to a rower, so we went ahead and got in line. WRONG. We waited about five minutes before we were able to start rowing. (Not that I'm complaining, as this is just one example of how this event was run extremely well). All of us rowed 1200 meters except for Wolfgang (he got to row the 2000, sorry buddy). I felt pretty terrible on this event, I wasn't warmed up at all. I was trying to hold it between a 2:03-2:05 and started sprinting with 200 meters left. I think I finished in 4:56 or somewhere along those lines. This was by far our worst finish but I was glad to get this one done early, it was a good warm up for the next event.
Event 2: Floater Stations
For our team, the stations were split up like this:
- Wall balls: Wolf/Demi (7th overall)
- Medball cleans over shoulder: Pat/Heather (10th)
- Sandbag squat cleans: me/Jeff (14th)
- Slamballs: Jeff/Demi (16th)
- Axle bar S2O: Wolf/Heather (15th)
- Double unders: me/Pat (9th)
Pat and I did the double unders right after the row was finished. We got 411 total, which is pretty good! The first minute flew by but the second minute seemed to drag on forever. Jeff and I did the sandbag squat cleans right after the "girls I used to know" workout and that was ROUGH. That hurt. My legs were still very tired from doing "Karen" and I knew the squat cleans were going to be tough. It's also very awkward to clean a sandbag, Jeff and I both hit ourselves in the face when we were warming up. He went first and got 22, I got 28. My lower back was also pretty blown up from these. Also, any time there is a floater workout there's an opportunity for that to be a cluster fuck. I was a little nervous about the stations since the last time we had to do a floater workout in a competition it wasn't organized at all. But this was completely different, we never had to wait longer than 5 minutes for a station. The judges kept things moving very quickly and I really appreciated that. Overall, we did really well on the stations!
Event 3: Team Total
This was one of my favorite events of the day. I was so proud of our performance on this one. We decided the females would lift first, guys second. Heather, Demi and I were all nervous going into this event because we had certain numbers we wanted to hit and we didn't get a whole lot of time in the warm up area. I started off this event with a 125 power snatch. Heather power cleaned it, Demi and I slid 25# plates on, held the bar as Heather stepped back to shake out her arms, then she jerked 175. She racked it, Demi and I put 5# plates on, and she hit 185. She dropped the bar and Demi cleaned 195. I hit a 135 snatch, Heather hit a 195 jerk, then I hit an easy 145 power snatch to finish. Our communication during this event was great. We were running like a well-oiled machine. Every transition was smooth and I never felt stressed out. We were also the only team to power clean and then add weights on either side, I thought that was interesting. We were all extremely proud of our performance on this. At the 6:00 mark, we took the 45# plates off our bar and put them on the guys bar, then tagged them in. Wolf snatched 225, Jeff jerked 285, and Pat cleaned 255. Overall we got 3rd on the snatch (SWEET!!), 10th on the jerk, and 19th on the clean. VERY happy with this!
Event 4: Like a Girl I Used to Know
"Karen"- me/Pat
"Grace"- Demi/Heather
"Isabel"- Jeff/Wolf
Pat and I had a plan of splitting up the wall balls in sets of 20. My wall ball target was 8 feet (!!!!) and Pat's was 10. He went first and then we just swapped sets of 20. My reps were very fast since my target was so low and I really never felt tired. My dad was definitely getting less rest than I was since I was able to cycle through so quickly because of the low target. At 140, he asked me if I could do 30 reps so he could have a longer break and that was no problem. He took over at 170, did 15, then I finished the last 15 reps. We came away from the wall in second place. This was really fun, my breathing was great through the entire thing but my legs were shot after this event. Throwing to an 8 foot target made a HUGE difference, especially since I usually throw to 10 (thanks for making me do all those wall balls Stevo!). After we were done with Karen, Heather and Demi did Grace, then Wolf and Jeff finished with Isabel. We were 16th overall on this event.
Event 5: The Chipper
We were all looking forward to this event because we ran through it once in practice and it was really fun. This workout was very fast paced and "grid"-like, lots of sprinting and tagging in and out once cycle time slowed down. We each did 15 burpees (Heather did 20), Jeff finished them out and went right to box jumps. We split up the box jumps in sets of 20, then the rest of the movements were big sets until cycle time slowed down, then we tagged out. I did a set of 20 toes to bar and 15 HSPU. Originally we thought we might have a chance to make it to the rings but we ended up doing a lot more running than we planned. After we were finished with a set, we had to run to the other end of the gym, tag a white line, THEN run back to our team. This evened out the distance everyone had to travel. Unfortunately we did not make it to the pistols, we were 1 HSPU short. There were only 3 or 4 teams that even made it to the rings. I was really happy with our transitions on this, we were smart in picking who would start/end each station. I loved this one, I like the idea of sprinting out and going as fast as you can then sprinting back. We took 19th on this.
Event 6: Couplets
Pull ups/Thrusters: Wolf/Demi
Pull ups/Deadlifts: me/Jeff
Pull ups/Cleans: Heather/Pat
We were all dreading this event because it hurt so bad when we practiced it. Wolf and Demi started with the pull ups and thrusters, then tagged in me and Jeff. We actually did our portion much faster than we had done it in practice. I broke up the 30 pull ups 10/10/10, same with the deadlifts. The 20 pull ups were sets of 5, the 10 pull ups also sets of 5 (I think). I was able to easily butterfly all my pull ups and they felt GREAT. I also didn't feel terrible on the deadlifts, I don't know if it was the adrenaline or what, but I felt really good throughout this entire workout. Heather and Pat got through the 21 pull ups and cleans, then got 8 more pull ups before the time cap. We took 9th in this event, WHAT. This was our best finish and it was the one we were all dreading the most. This was a great way to end the day!
At the end of the day, team Cincinnati Strength ended up in 14th place out of 36 teams. We were very happy with this. There were a lot of great teams competing and we held our own throughout the entire day. Most of our finishes were in the top half (except the row). All of our transitions and strategies went according to plan and we went hard on every single workout. We pushed ourselves and supported each other during every event.
I need to give Lex Artis a shout out for putting on such a GREAT event. Everything ran on time, the judging was very fair throughout the whole day, the events were programmed EXTREMELY well, and we were always being kept informed about when heats were starting. Thank you for making my competition experience so stress-free and fun. I am definitely going to be looking for more of their events in the future.
Wolfgang, Demi, Heather, Dad, Jeff- thanks for being such an awesome team! I had so much fun with you guys and it was great getting to complete alongside all of you. Hopefully we can get this gang of jelly bags back together in the near future to do another competition.
Next up is the NPGL Pro Day in Boston then the CrossFit Open! Onward!
Event 1: 8000k row (29th place)
We went into this one completely cold. We arrived at the gym around 8:00 and knew we had to finish rowing by 9:00. The rowers were set up in an aerobics room and there was a judge at each one, as soon as a rower opened up you just walked over and started rowing your portion. When we got to the gym there was already a long line of people waiting to row and we thought it was going to take awhile for us to even get to a rower, so we went ahead and got in line. WRONG. We waited about five minutes before we were able to start rowing. (Not that I'm complaining, as this is just one example of how this event was run extremely well). All of us rowed 1200 meters except for Wolfgang (he got to row the 2000, sorry buddy). I felt pretty terrible on this event, I wasn't warmed up at all. I was trying to hold it between a 2:03-2:05 and started sprinting with 200 meters left. I think I finished in 4:56 or somewhere along those lines. This was by far our worst finish but I was glad to get this one done early, it was a good warm up for the next event.
 |
| Happy to be done with the row! |
For our team, the stations were split up like this:
- Wall balls: Wolf/Demi (7th overall)
- Medball cleans over shoulder: Pat/Heather (10th)
- Sandbag squat cleans: me/Jeff (14th)
- Slamballs: Jeff/Demi (16th)
- Axle bar S2O: Wolf/Heather (15th)
- Double unders: me/Pat (9th)
Pat and I did the double unders right after the row was finished. We got 411 total, which is pretty good! The first minute flew by but the second minute seemed to drag on forever. Jeff and I did the sandbag squat cleans right after the "girls I used to know" workout and that was ROUGH. That hurt. My legs were still very tired from doing "Karen" and I knew the squat cleans were going to be tough. It's also very awkward to clean a sandbag, Jeff and I both hit ourselves in the face when we were warming up. He went first and got 22, I got 28. My lower back was also pretty blown up from these. Also, any time there is a floater workout there's an opportunity for that to be a cluster fuck. I was a little nervous about the stations since the last time we had to do a floater workout in a competition it wasn't organized at all. But this was completely different, we never had to wait longer than 5 minutes for a station. The judges kept things moving very quickly and I really appreciated that. Overall, we did really well on the stations!
 |
| Double unders with this guy! |
 |
| Medball over shoulder |
 |
| Axle shoulder to overhead |
 |
This was one of my favorite events of the day. I was so proud of our performance on this one. We decided the females would lift first, guys second. Heather, Demi and I were all nervous going into this event because we had certain numbers we wanted to hit and we didn't get a whole lot of time in the warm up area. I started off this event with a 125 power snatch. Heather power cleaned it, Demi and I slid 25# plates on, held the bar as Heather stepped back to shake out her arms, then she jerked 175. She racked it, Demi and I put 5# plates on, and she hit 185. She dropped the bar and Demi cleaned 195. I hit a 135 snatch, Heather hit a 195 jerk, then I hit an easy 145 power snatch to finish. Our communication during this event was great. We were running like a well-oiled machine. Every transition was smooth and I never felt stressed out. We were also the only team to power clean and then add weights on either side, I thought that was interesting. We were all extremely proud of our performance on this. At the 6:00 mark, we took the 45# plates off our bar and put them on the guys bar, then tagged them in. Wolf snatched 225, Jeff jerked 285, and Pat cleaned 255. Overall we got 3rd on the snatch (SWEET!!), 10th on the jerk, and 19th on the clean. VERY happy with this!
 |
| Heather opening with an easy 175 jerk |
Event 4: Like a Girl I Used to Know
"Karen"- me/Pat
"Grace"- Demi/Heather
"Isabel"- Jeff/Wolf
Pat and I had a plan of splitting up the wall balls in sets of 20. My wall ball target was 8 feet (!!!!) and Pat's was 10. He went first and then we just swapped sets of 20. My reps were very fast since my target was so low and I really never felt tired. My dad was definitely getting less rest than I was since I was able to cycle through so quickly because of the low target. At 140, he asked me if I could do 30 reps so he could have a longer break and that was no problem. He took over at 170, did 15, then I finished the last 15 reps. We came away from the wall in second place. This was really fun, my breathing was great through the entire thing but my legs were shot after this event. Throwing to an 8 foot target made a HUGE difference, especially since I usually throw to 10 (thanks for making me do all those wall balls Stevo!). After we were done with Karen, Heather and Demi did Grace, then Wolf and Jeff finished with Isabel. We were 16th overall on this event.
 |
| My team just LAUGHIN IT UP during Karen |
Event 5: The Chipper
We were all looking forward to this event because we ran through it once in practice and it was really fun. This workout was very fast paced and "grid"-like, lots of sprinting and tagging in and out once cycle time slowed down. We each did 15 burpees (Heather did 20), Jeff finished them out and went right to box jumps. We split up the box jumps in sets of 20, then the rest of the movements were big sets until cycle time slowed down, then we tagged out. I did a set of 20 toes to bar and 15 HSPU. Originally we thought we might have a chance to make it to the rings but we ended up doing a lot more running than we planned. After we were finished with a set, we had to run to the other end of the gym, tag a white line, THEN run back to our team. This evened out the distance everyone had to travel. Unfortunately we did not make it to the pistols, we were 1 HSPU short. There were only 3 or 4 teams that even made it to the rings. I was really happy with our transitions on this, we were smart in picking who would start/end each station. I loved this one, I like the idea of sprinting out and going as fast as you can then sprinting back. We took 19th on this.
 |
| Burpees to a plate |
 |
| Tag in |
Pull ups/Thrusters: Wolf/Demi
Pull ups/Deadlifts: me/Jeff
Pull ups/Cleans: Heather/Pat
We were all dreading this event because it hurt so bad when we practiced it. Wolf and Demi started with the pull ups and thrusters, then tagged in me and Jeff. We actually did our portion much faster than we had done it in practice. I broke up the 30 pull ups 10/10/10, same with the deadlifts. The 20 pull ups were sets of 5, the 10 pull ups also sets of 5 (I think). I was able to easily butterfly all my pull ups and they felt GREAT. I also didn't feel terrible on the deadlifts, I don't know if it was the adrenaline or what, but I felt really good throughout this entire workout. Heather and Pat got through the 21 pull ups and cleans, then got 8 more pull ups before the time cap. We took 9th in this event, WHAT. This was our best finish and it was the one we were all dreading the most. This was a great way to end the day!
 |
| Heavy thrusters |
Battle of the Boxes was hands down my best competition experience so far. Physically, it was the best I have ever felt, both during and between events. I was never beat up, I walked away from this competition feeling sore but fine. I am very happy with all the progress I have made, both mentally and physically. I can say I went 100% full effort on every event and I have no regrets. I finally feel like I am able to hold my own in a stacked competition.
I need to give Lex Artis a shout out for putting on such a GREAT event. Everything ran on time, the judging was very fair throughout the whole day, the events were programmed EXTREMELY well, and we were always being kept informed about when heats were starting. Thank you for making my competition experience so stress-free and fun. I am definitely going to be looking for more of their events in the future.
Wolfgang, Demi, Heather, Dad, Jeff- thanks for being such an awesome team! I had so much fun with you guys and it was great getting to complete alongside all of you. Hopefully we can get this gang of jelly bags back together in the near future to do another competition.
Next up is the NPGL Pro Day in Boston then the CrossFit Open! Onward!
 |
| The venue |
 |
| Is it time for Chipotle yet? |
 |
| Great day of competition with the best team! |
Sunday, January 18, 2015
1/15/2015
A. Squat snatch, build to quickly to 80-90% 1RM
B. Muscle ups, 1x max (-1) unbroken
+
For 12:00
1st: 10 burpees w/ jump to plate
2nd: 10 box jumps, 20
3rd: 6-10 alternating pistols
+
For max meters:
:90 row
A. 145 (150 Fx1)
B. 8
+
complete, 8 pistols each time
+
423 meters
Snatches felt easy today, I was able to work up to 145 pretty fast and every rep felt the same. I tried for 150 and fell forward but I didn't go for it again since I figured I would be working up to 135/145 at the competition.
Muscle ups were EASY, I bitched out on these big time. My PR is 8 in a row, and for a moment I thought I would be able to hit 9 but as I came down to kip after the 8th rep my arms suddenly felt very tired and I just thought "my arms hurt so I should stop" so I didn't even try for a 9th rep. As soon as I dropped off the rings, I was annoyed with myself. I think if I tried for the 9th muscle up I would have gotten it, but my arms were pretty tired after the 8th one so I just dropped off. WHY. I should have gone for it. Heather said the eighth rep looked exactly the same as the first rep. I was disappointed with myself for not going for a PR but I'm happy that I'm able to consistently hit bigger sets. I would like to try this again at some point and next time I won't be a lil bitch.
The EMOM was cool, breathing felt really good throughout the whole thing. I thought the programming said 6-8 pistols instead of 6-10, so I only did 8 each time. Dammit. I would have done 10 but I thought 8 was the max. Oops. I'm also trying to get better at doing pistols in my nanos instead of my lifters, they are still slow but definitely improving.
The row was terrible. I went out way too hot and started losing it about 45 seconds in. My legs were pretty fatigued at this point, probably from pistols and box jumps. That was a very long 90 seconds.
B. Muscle ups, 1x max (-1) unbroken
+
For 12:00
1st: 10 burpees w/ jump to plate
2nd: 10 box jumps, 20
3rd: 6-10 alternating pistols
+
For max meters:
:90 row
A. 145 (150 Fx1)
B. 8
+
complete, 8 pistols each time
+
423 meters
Snatches felt easy today, I was able to work up to 145 pretty fast and every rep felt the same. I tried for 150 and fell forward but I didn't go for it again since I figured I would be working up to 135/145 at the competition.
Muscle ups were EASY, I bitched out on these big time. My PR is 8 in a row, and for a moment I thought I would be able to hit 9 but as I came down to kip after the 8th rep my arms suddenly felt very tired and I just thought "my arms hurt so I should stop" so I didn't even try for a 9th rep. As soon as I dropped off the rings, I was annoyed with myself. I think if I tried for the 9th muscle up I would have gotten it, but my arms were pretty tired after the 8th one so I just dropped off. WHY. I should have gone for it. Heather said the eighth rep looked exactly the same as the first rep. I was disappointed with myself for not going for a PR but I'm happy that I'm able to consistently hit bigger sets. I would like to try this again at some point and next time I won't be a lil bitch.
The EMOM was cool, breathing felt really good throughout the whole thing. I thought the programming said 6-8 pistols instead of 6-10, so I only did 8 each time. Dammit. I would have done 10 but I thought 8 was the max. Oops. I'm also trying to get better at doing pistols in my nanos instead of my lifters, they are still slow but definitely improving.
The row was terrible. I went out way too hot and started losing it about 45 seconds in. My legs were pretty fatigued at this point, probably from pistols and box jumps. That was a very long 90 seconds.
Thursday, January 15, 2015
1/14/2015
AM
2 sets:
300m ski erg @90% aerobic
:60 rest
20 airdyne calories @90% aerobic
:60 rest
500m row @90% aerobic
:60 rest
20 airdyne calories @90% aerobic
:60 rest
:60 freestanding handstand hold attempts
PM
A. Split jerk clusters from blocks, 3x1.1.1 moderate/crisp, :10 between singles; 2:00 rest
+
3 sets for even times:
24 double unders
12 deadlifts, comp weight
12 pull ups
24 double unders
:90 rest
+
15:00 airdyne @Z1
AM
complete
PM
A. 175-185-190
+
1:15
1:21
1:10
+
complete
Another solid day of training. Split jerks felt really good today, all of them were nice and crisp except for one slight press out during the set of 185. Looking back, I probably should have started a bit lighter, after I finished the first set at 175 I looked at my notebook and realized it said "moderate" so I probably should have started around 165 but oh well. I felt like I wasn't punching underneath the bar as much as the last few weeks, not sure why. The weight felt light on my shoulders though so that's good.
The double under/pull up piece went really well, all double unders and deadlifts unbroken. Pull ups were unbroken for the first and third set, during the second set I came off the bar after 7 reps because I could feel my hands starting to tear. My cycle time on butterfly pull ups is definitely improving and they are getting less fatiguing.
Another good day in the books!
2 sets:
300m ski erg @90% aerobic
:60 rest
20 airdyne calories @90% aerobic
:60 rest
500m row @90% aerobic
:60 rest
20 airdyne calories @90% aerobic
:60 rest
:60 freestanding handstand hold attempts
PM
A. Split jerk clusters from blocks, 3x1.1.1 moderate/crisp, :10 between singles; 2:00 rest
+
3 sets for even times:
24 double unders
12 deadlifts, comp weight
12 pull ups
24 double unders
:90 rest
+
15:00 airdyne @Z1
AM
complete
PM
A. 175-185-190
+
1:15
1:21
1:10
+
complete
Another solid day of training. Split jerks felt really good today, all of them were nice and crisp except for one slight press out during the set of 185. Looking back, I probably should have started a bit lighter, after I finished the first set at 175 I looked at my notebook and realized it said "moderate" so I probably should have started around 165 but oh well. I felt like I wasn't punching underneath the bar as much as the last few weeks, not sure why. The weight felt light on my shoulders though so that's good.
The double under/pull up piece went really well, all double unders and deadlifts unbroken. Pull ups were unbroken for the first and third set, during the second set I came off the bar after 7 reps because I could feel my hands starting to tear. My cycle time on butterfly pull ups is definitely improving and they are getting less fatiguing.
Another good day in the books!
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