CrossFit – FRAN

Friday, May 22, 2015

Coach Jared

(6AM) Laura, Esther, and me

CrossFit Warm-up

3 rounds of 10 reps of Samson Stretch (15-30 seconds), Overhead Squat with PVC (5-10 seconds), Sit-ups, Back-extensions, Pull-ups, Dips

This was a grueling 33 minute warm-up.  On overhead squats, I need to rotate my elbow pocket more.  For back-extensions, I tried out the Glute-Ham Developer (GHD).  The technique is to lower by dropping the neck first and then lowering each vertebrae in succession.  During the raise, start by extending the lower back and raising vertebrae successively until finally raising the neck.  I was doing good on pull-ups until I felt something stretch in my left shoulder during the second rep of the second round.  From there on, I was doing jumping pull-ups (for future reference, start with strict pull-ups, make sure shoulders are warm and then try kipping).  I did bar dips and need to focus on getting as low as possible to my maximum range of motion.

FRAN

(Time) 21-15-9, Thrusters 95#, Pull-ups

The box did this workout on Thursday May 14, and since then I had been interested in learning thrusters.  Today was dubbed Open Gym.  Laura did the “Murph Challenge” with the rain coming down pretty steady.  Esther did a WOD with wall balls, box jumps and double unders.  I chose Fran.

Thrusters are a coordinated squat and push press.  Starting with squat, keep the chest upright and rest the weight on your shoulders.  The push press is a slight dip and then popping the weight up overhead.  When doing a thruster, accelerate at the end of the squat to pop the weight up overhead.  I worked on technique with 45# and then 65#.

I had to scale Fran to thrusters 45# and jumping pull-ups.  I still struggled to get through the sets without shaking my arms out.  I got through the first 21 in about 3 minutes.  The round of 15 I was breaking up into sets of 5.  Even the round of 9, I had to shake my arms out once.  At the end, I finished in 7:10 and felt really good about the effort.

I ended by doing some banded stretches of my shoulders.