Over Head Squat

Thursday, June 30, 2016

24 Hour Fitness

6:00 AM

Warm Up

4 laps on track, foam roller, pass thoughs, halos

Over Head Squat

5x45#
5x45#
5x50#
5x55#
5x60#
4x65#
2x70#
2x75#

Walking Lunges

4 Rounds

50 Walking Lunges with 10# DB in each hand, walk 1 lap between rounds

Sumo Dead Lift

Wednesday, June 29, 2016

Coach Meriah

(11:00 AM) 7 of us including Val, Mike, Tim K, Tim P, Jeremy, Ravel and me

Warm Up

Run to the fence and back then dumbbell sequence

3 rounds of
5-10 push-ups
10 rows
10 jump land flat on feet
10 deadlift
10 hang squat clean into thruster
10 box step-ups

I used 10# dumbbells

On floor do tap and go scorpions, stretch forward left, right, center, and some downward dogs, up dogs.

Barbell warm-up

3 rounds of
5 Wide legged Good Mornings
5 Wide legged Back Squat
5 Sumo Dead Lift

Between rounds do hang from bar, then light kips, then bigger kips

I used a 45# bar.

Strength

Sumo Dead Lift
1x20 RM

I warmed up with 75#, then 95# and opted for 105# for the workout.  Most other guys used 135#-185#.

Metcon

15min AMRAP
100m Run
7 Burpee Box Jump Overs (20")
7 Hanging leg raises

This was the fitness standards, Rx was a 24" box and Toes to Bar.

I felt pretty smooth through 3 rounds and then the burpees started to catch up with me.  I ended up doing 5 Rounds + 8 reps, and could not get to the bar in time for the last round of kipping leg raises.  My kips were much smoother than usual.

Olympic Weightlifting

Wednesday, June 28, 2016

Coach Jonathan

Fit@Oracle - (1:30 PM) - 5 of us including Donna, Fabby, Sameer, Jeff and me

Warm Up

Foam rolling, dynamic stretches including lunge into high kick, lunge into twist, walking quad stretches, side lunge swing to opposite side.

Tabata DB Swings

8 rounds of 20 seconds on 10 seconds off - 20# DB swings.  I could have gone heavier, but 20# was a good warm up weight.  I was getting around 12 reps per round with good form

Metcon

4 rounds E3O3M
7 DB Deadlift
7 DB Hang Power Clean
7 DB Push Press

I used 25# and then swapped up to 30# for the last 3 rounds.  The weight felt light until the push presses, then it got tougher.  I was finishing in around 60 seconds per round with good form.

Mobility

Lacrosse ball into shoulders between spine and blade of scapula and then under scapula and then towards terres muscles.

With band stretch hamstring and then IT band.  Key is to keep leg straight.

24 Hour Fitness

Tuesday, June 28, 2016

24 Hour Fitness

(6:30 AM) by self

Just to get back in the swing of AM workouts again, I headed to 24 Hour Fitness.

Warm Up

4 laps around track, foam roller

Jump Rope

10 minutes of drills, double unders, speed steps.  Most unbroken double unders was 8.

Pull-ups

20 pull-ups in sets of 3, 2, then singles

Wall Walk Ups

Bear crawls, crab walks, then head stand, then 3X wall walk up and hold

40 minutes total, no post workout mobility

Lunges

Friday, June 24, 2016

Coach Ben

(11:00 AM) about 10 of us including Tim, Brandon, Val, Ashley, Tatum, John, and me

Warm Up

3 rounds of 150m Row and run to the grass and back.

Hip openers starting with runners lunge, pivoting forward/back and side/side, then with back knee floating elbow down and then torso opening, then twist and lower chest to ground.  Then rotations with knee folding over and reaching back.  We also extended front leg and did downward facing dogs.  Also did some cat/cow focusing on pelvic motion and then adding thoracic motion.

WOD

15min AMRAP of

50m Lunges
20 Push-ups
100m Run

I managed 2 full rounds and time was called when I was in the middle of the last 100m run.  This felt pretty good and I was really pleased with my lunge position (upright with hands behind head).

Back Squat

E3O3M 5x12 repetitions

I worked out with Tim and did 45#, 55#, 65#, 65# and 75#.  Tim got up to 105#.

Ben pointed out keeping pelvis neutral and mid-line stable.  When discussing low back barbell position, he feels it is less functional except for power lifters and football players.  High back position translates to more Olympic Weightlifting motions.

Overhead Squats

Thursday, June 23, 2016

Coach Meriah

(11:00 AM) about 11 of us including Sam, Reva, Brandon, Ben, John and me

Warm Up

800m run followed by dead ball plops, granny tosses, plops, side tosses right, side tosses left, overhead tosses and slams

Sexy Squats (Good morning pivoting into back squat), Overhead Press, Overhead Squats

Strength

Romanian Deadlifts

5x2
Every 3 minutes on the 3 minutes

Romanian Deadlifts are an accessory exercise with the butt kept higher and pushed back more.  Legs have a slight bend and flare out as the weight is lowered.

I worked out with Brandon and did 135#, 185#, 185#, 205#, 205#

WOD

4 rounds of

15 Overhead Squats
12 Ball Slams
9 Push ups

Fitness was 75#, <25#, regular push-ups
Rx was 95#, 25#, ring push-ups

As I continue to struggle with my OH Squats, I opted to do the workout at 35#.  I used 10# for the slam ball and did ring push-ups.  I finished in 9:28 with a pretty steady effort.  After the first round I broke the squats into 9/6.  I could do unbroken ball slams.  For push-ups I went 5/4, 5/4, 4/3/2, and 3/3/3

Finished with mobility, squat against wall.

Bench Press

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Oracle Gym

(1:00 PM)

1000m Row

50 double under (a lot of singles, best unbroken was 5)

Dips

8@60# assist
8@50# assist
8@40# assist
6@30# assist
4@20# assist
3@10# assist
3 unassisted

7 x 3 T2B

6x Candlestick to Pancake

Bench Press

5@45#
5@95#
5@115#
5@135#
3@155#
2@175#

Jump Rope - 100 Speed Steps (85 seconds, need 60 seconds for 100 club)

Dead Lift

Friday, June 17, 2016

Oracle Gym

(12:00 PM)

Row 1000m, including some pick drills

12 Strict Pull-ups - 2, 2 then singles

Dead Lift

5x135#
5x155#
5x185#
2x225#
2x225#
2x225#

Overhead work including head stand, hand stand kick-up attempts, wall walk-ups, L shape with feet against wall and head pushed through arms

Core Work including 3 rounds of 10 crunches & 10 bicycle crunches, hollow body holds, Supermans and plank

Jump rope, drill, double unders.  I did a between 50 and 60 double unders including a run of 10.

Jump Rope

Thursday, June 16, 2016

Oracle Gym

(11:50 AM)

Warm Up

1000m Row - 4:39, quality, not speed, Bear crawl forwards/backwards, Crab walk forwards/backwards, tried to kick into a handstand a few times, did a few wall walk ups.  I did some double under work and got a new PR of 14 reps unbroken.  I was able to do this twice while accumulating a little over 50 DU before starting the workout.

Metcon

Hyperfit USA June, 14, 2016

4 rounds for time of

50 Double Unders
25 Abmat Sit-ups
10 HSPU

I scaled this to

4 rounds

100 jump rope
25 sit-ups
20 push-ups

The jump rope felt pretty good.  The middle two rounds were unbroken.  The sit-ups were OK, I broke them up 15/10, 10/10/5, 10/10/5 and 13/7/5.  My push ups are still week.  I went 5/5/4/3/3 on the first round, but by the last round it was 3/3/3/2/2/2/1/1/1/1/1.  Overall, I finished in 15:25.

Then I did some foam rolling and another 50 DU.  It was much harder to do them after the workout and the most I got unbroken was 5.

Olympic Weightlifting Class (5)

Tuesday, June 15, 2016

Coach Jonathon

(1:30 PM) 7 of us including Jen, Donna, Fabby, Jeff, Stefan, Sameer and me

Warm Up

Pass throughs, foam rolling, Burgener warm up with PVC (shrug, high pull, muscle snatch, 50% drop, full drop)

Dumbbell Snatch

4 Rounds of 10 Reps (5 each arm) for quality

This felt pretty good, I used 35#, 40#, 45# and 50# for the 4 rounds and then did a couple of reps with a 55# DB as well.  I still don't feel comfortable landing in a squat even with a light weight.  All of the snatches were power snatches.

Metcon

10 minute AMRAP of 10 Dumbbell Push Presses (35#) and 10 Pike Sit-ups.

I got 5 rounds + 9 reps.  After the second round, I was breaking up the presses into sets of 5.  The DB were a little awkward to drop back to the shoulders and were not real comfortable to clean either.

Finished with mobility.  Thorasic foam rolling and shoulder blades over foam roller with hands extended overhead under barbell.

Back Squat

Monday, June 13, 2016

Oracle Gym

12:30 PM

Warm Up

1000m Row, focus on technique

Back Squat

5x45#
5x95#
5x135#
4x155#

Front Squat

5x45#
5x65#
5x95#
4x105#

Overhead Squat

5x0#
4x45#
4x45#
4x45#

These felt much better than usual.  I think the wall squats are paying off

Finished with jump rope, drills and double unders.  I got back to my record of 8 and was doing OK getting to 3 unbroken quite often.

Gymnastics

I love attending birthdays with my kids at the Apex Simms Street Center and may even try to get some of my friends to rent the pace at $95/hour a couple of times/month.

This time I didn't have much of a plan, but again found myself with a parent who had a gymnastics background.

After warming up with animal crawls and wrist stretches, I got to work on forward rolls, forward rolls to standing, hand stand holds against wall, free standing head stands, cartwheels attempts and pullover attempts.

I was pleasantly surprised the Carl Paoli's gymnastics comments paid off on the hand stand kick ups.  I set up my extended body length took a good lunge and pivoted up successfully several times and could hold it OK when I was fresh.  I even did a wall walk up to belly against wall.

The cartwheels were unfortunately much worse.  I have not done the foot/hand placement drills and the gymnastics adult stressed keeping the body in a plane and being smooth.  I was not successful.

I felt good about my rolls and head stand hold.  I am nowhere close to a pullover and could not tuck my feet well enough to even skin the cat.

Smooth Rowing

This past Saturday, I had the opportunity to attend a Smooth Rowing Seminar hosted at Alpine CrossFit (Robby) in Wheat Ridge.  Aaron Varcasio has built a rowing background into coaching, rower maintenance and rowing technique seminars.  7 of us attending, including Scott from MBS, Angela, and 2 couples.

We covered a lot of material in 2 hours, including terminology, technique, drills, and maintenance of rowing machines.

Terminology

Rowing Phases:  Catch, Drive, Finish, Recovery
Drag Factor:  Should be set to 124
Damper setting should be around 5-6 for men, higher for calories, lower for sprint

Coaching Queues

Quick arms, should touch and go handle off of sternum
Allow heels to lift during catch, up to 1 thumb's distance, want shins to be parallel
Reach forward during recovery phase
Extend legs and then pivot back during pull
Reach and then bend knees during recovery
Keep chin up
Keep knees in
Squeeze shoulder blades at finish

Drills

Pick Drills - Arms only, Arms and Pivot Back (Back stays straight), Arms and Back and 50% legs

Pause Drills - Pause at Finish, Arms Extended, Back pivoted forward, 50% of legs into recovery

We also played with stroke rate (between 22-30 strokes/minute) and pressure (25% to 75%).  Most folks will be more successful in a distance spring with higher strokes/minute.

Timed test:

500m for time

2:01 at beginning of clinic
1:56 at end of clinic (Aaron's record is 1:25)

Finally Aaron recommended getting out on the water with Rocky Mountain Rowing or Boulder Community Rowing.

All in all, I would definitely recommend the seminar which was priced at $64.  The touch and go off sternum and knowing it is OK to lift heels at recovery was worth the price of admission.  I am sure everybody took something different away from the workshop.

Wall Street Decathlon

The Wall Street Decathlon raises money for pediatric cancer research and treatment and is inspired by NFL scouting combines and Olympic Decathlon.

The 10 events are

400m Run (average 1:00.4)
Football Throw (average 44 yards), 3 attempts
Pull-ups (average 16), strict
40 yard dash (average 5.08), 2 attempts
Dips (average 37)
500m Row (average 1:30.3)
Vertical Jump (average 29 in), 2 attempts
20 yard shuttle sprint (average 4.59)
Bench Press (average 17 reps), 175#
800m Run (average 2:37.2)

https://thedecathlon.org/average_decathlete

Sounds like a pretty cool challenge since I have been doing CrossFit for the past year.  Very easy to set up and I may have to give it a whirl.

Couraj Apparel

Couraj apparel was displaying their wares at the box today and while I usually wouldn't be interested, the logo really struck me as inspired.  Lion:  Courageous, powerful, free, driven.  Indian Chief:  Wise, respected, warrior, leader.  Star:  Purpose, dreams, goals.

It reminded me of why I started this CrossFit journey and how my star has shifted in the skies.  My goal is to have General Physical Preparedness for whatever adventure comes my way.  I also want to add gymnastics skills to my bag of tricks.

I was reminded of one of the early articles on CrossFit and am forced to re-evaluate my dedication to nutrition improvement.

Last tidbit is the 10 aspects of fitness:

1. Cardiovascular/Respiratory Endurance
2. Stamina
3. Strength
4. Flexibility
5. Power
6. Speed
7. Coordination
8. Agility
9. Balance
10. Accuracy

2016 Regional Event 7

Friday, June 10, 2016

Coach Ben

(11:00 AM) about 15 of us including Val, Mandy, Anke, Steve B, Reval, Ketsin, Tall John,  Kaylie, and me

Warm Up

Run to traffic light and back (a little over a half mile).  Bear crawl forwards/backwards, crab walk forwards/backwards, ape walk left/right, duck walk.  10 air squats, 10 quad stretch coming up on toes (2 sets).  Hang from rig for 30 seconds, kip swings 30 seconds 10 ring rows or pull-ups (I did 3 strict pull-ups and finished with ring rows.)

Bar warm up - 10 strict presses, 10 sexy squats, 10 front presses, 10 push presses, 10 front presses, 10 thrusters

Workout of the Day

2016 Regional Event 7

Fitness
For time:
21 thrusters
3 lay to stand rope climbs
15 thrusters
2 lay to stand rope climbs
9 thrusters
1 lay to stand rope climb

Men use 65 lb.
Women use 45 lb.

Rx
For time:
21 thrusters
3 legless rope climbs
15 thrusters
2 legless rope climbs
9 thrusters
1 legless rope climb

Men use 95 lb.
Women use 65 lb.

For technique we discussed bent legs to make lay to stand easier and legs on box to make them harder.  We also discussed body kip legless rope climbs and running man legless rope climbs.  I could get hand over hand twice before losing grip strength.

I did the fitness workout in 6:06.  First round was 13/8, second round was 7/6/3, third round was 6/3.  I could do the raise and lower continuously but had trouble maintaining a good plank and correspondingly good intensity.

It is hard to believe games athletes were knocking this out in a little over 2 minutes.

Finished with finger stretches one at a time, then palms forward and lean forward, palms backwards and lean forwards, lean backwards cross leg over opposite thigh and sit down.

Wall Ball Shots

Wednesday, June 8, 2016

24 Hour Fitness

(6:30 AM)

Warm Up

Walk a lap on track, jog 4 laps, walk a lap.  Shoulder circles.

Wall Ball Shots

10 rounds of 15 reps (12# wall ball to 10') with 80% recovery between rounds

Walked a couple of laps for cool down

Olympic Weightlifting Class (4)

Tuesday, June 7, 2016

Coach Jonathon

(1:30 PM) 6 of us including Jen, Fabby, Donna, Jeff, and me

Warm Up

Foam roller for about 5 minutes before class starts

10 Minute AMRAP of 15 wall squats, 10 jack knives (tuck ups), and 5 burpees.  I got 3 rounds + 25 reps.

DB Swings

3 rounds for quality of

10 DB squat (45#)
10 Russian DB swings (45#)
0:45 side plank hold each side

This was pretty good until the last round, when I was dropping my side planks every 10-15 seconds.

DB Hang Power Cleans

Every 90 seconds for 6 rounds

8 DB Hang Power Cleans
16 Chops (8 each side)

I started with the 45# DB for 4 rounds, after missing a rep on the 3rd round and only doing 7 cleans on the 4th round, I dropped to 35#.

I did the chops with a 15# DB which was on the lighter side, but I was cycling through at a much better cadence than I was with the Hang Power Cleans.

Finished with mobility, pigeon stretch, couch stretch, clock stretch

5K Row

Wednesday, June 1, 2016

Oracle Gym

(11:40 AM)

5K Row - 24:08, 280 calories

Jump Rope practice for 15 minutes.  Got 12 double unders, PR!

50 foot bear crawl, 1 wall walk up and down