Knees to Elbows? Knees to Chin?

WOD 11/29: As many rounds in 10min of:

• 3 hanging toes-to-bar
• 5 hanging knees to elbows (mine were actually more like knees to chin, basically)
• 7 dips

got 6 rounds, 7 dips and 3 toes-to-bar.

total: 21 toes-to-bar, 30 knees to chin, and 49 dips.

this was another workout i made up, and once again it worked me like crazy. i might be even worse than coach...ok. nah. :) either way, i was a pool of sweat again by the end of it. i shot out too fast and did 3 rounds within 3 minutes, lol. that set me up for only getting another 3 rounds and change in the remaining 7min. whee!

Globo Gym. AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHH.

WOD 11/28: "Elizabeth"

• hang power clean 115lbs x 21 reps
• elevated pushups (2.5ft) x 63
• hang power clean x 15
• elevated pushups x 45
• hang power clean x 9
• elevated pushups x 27

total: hang power clean x 45 reps & elevated pushups x 135

time to complete: ~16min.

yikes...i got my ars handed to me!!! everything was broken up from the start. for some reason the cleans felt really heavy and took a long time. not really sure why? perhaps it was my diet...or who knows. it could be so many variables. but whateva...i'm satisfied. i was a pool of sweat by the end of it. felt pukie knocking at the door as well, so i must have worked hard. :)

***i should make it a goal to be out of my globogym by the first of the year.***

Sneezing and Wheezing

11/26: rest day due to having a cold! agh!!!!

WOD 11/27: 5 rounds for time of: (still sort of 1/2 week)

• overhead squat 95lbs x 7 reps
• elevated pushups (2.5ft) x 20

total: oh squat 95lbs x 35 reps & elevated pushups x 100.

time to complete: 13min.

i made this workout up and was relatively pleased with the time...though at the time i wasn't. :) the last 2 rounds took me the longest, as i was breaking the oh squats and pushups up. i was def a mess of sweat, but all in all it felt good.

Tryptophan = Slacker?

WOD 11/21: "Helen" (modified & 1/2 week)

• hang snatch 55 lbs x 21 reps
• pullups (strict) x 12
• hang snatch x 18
• pullups x 12

total: snatch x 39 reps/pullups x 24.

unfortunately as usual the gym was busy and i got interrupted and couldn't finish (someone hopped on the rack while i was doing pullups). so i said to heck with it. to be honest i can't remember the time, but i *think* i was in the neighborhood of 10min when i stopped. i remember i was feeling a bit fatigued thru it, so it def wasn't anywhere near my best performance. you win some and you lose some - no biggie. :)

11/22: rest day (thanksgiving and the gym was only open until noon - stayed up late the night before so i said to heck with it and spent time w/the fam)

WOD 11/23: (1/2 week)

• 6 pullups (strict) x 10 sets
• 6 dips x 10 sets

alternated between pullups and dips (would do 6 pullups, then 6 dips, then 6 pullups, 6 dips, etc)

total: 60 pullups & 60 dips.

completed in *i think* 11-12min or so. for some reason i'm foggy on this time as well. yeesh. not sure why i can't seem to remember my times for the last week, lol. i do remember that i was having trouble w/the pullups towards the end. for whatever reasons i had to do singles for the last few sets. the dips, however, were unbroken and i had no trouble with them.

later on i ended up walking quite a bit (enough to include as a note). i don't know for sure, but i feel like i walked 3-5+ miles :) my friend and i wandered around the abandoned mental hospital in noho for a couple hours at ~9pm...it was a full moon so we could see w/o a flashlight, but that def added to the creepiness factor :) unfortunately we didn't see or hear any ghosts.

jeff remarked that the woods around the hospital were always almost dead silent, and this night was no exception. one would think that an owl might hoot or a coyote howl or what not, but nothing. not even the sound of wind blowing. so that in itself was quite odd. we also could not get a fire going for the life of us. this could have easily been explained away by the cold night or somewhat wet leaves and such (they were actually relatively dry!)...so who knows. :)

11/24: rest day from xfit...but split/stacked wood for an hour or so

11/25: skipped xfit (slacker :)) because i didn't get to bed until 4:30am and wokeup at 9am. also started to get a cold! agh! i did end up splitting/stacking wood again tho for ~1.5hrs - so at least i did something active.

How's it hangin?

11/19: rest day

WOD 11/20: hang power cleans (1/2 volume week)

• 95lbs x 7 reps
• 115 x 6
• 125 x 5
• 135 x 4
• 145 x 3
• 135 x 3
• 135 x 3

followed up with a bunch of normal pullups/l-pullups/tuck pullups and a bunch of knees to chest hanging from the smith bar. yay for 1/2 week. my body needs it. :)

Half and Half

"dumbbell nebula"

11/15: rest day

WOD 11/16: "Fran"

• thrusters 95lbs x 21 reps
• pullups x 21
• thrusters x 15
• pullups x 15
• thrusters x 9
• pullups x 9

total: thrusters 95lbs x 45 reps; pullups (strict) x 45 - time to complete: ~8min (pr).

this is a benchmark crossfit workout. i thought i had posted my last Fran time but i can't seem to find it. i'm pretty sure it was ~9min or so. so a pr...whoo! however, i remember thinking at the time that i could have done better. for some reason my lungs were giving up on me before my muscular endurance...ie...i was breathing HARD...asthma inducing hard. ah well, still content with the time.

man eventually i need to kip. i've been practicing swinging on every single workout and have practiced the kip as well. unfortunately i can only do it off the smith machine bar! which stinks, because to kip correctly you really need your hand to grip around the bar. with the smith machine, i am hanging onto (with 4 fingers...not even my thumb lol) the top of the flat bar. i'm sure once i find a place to kip and learn how to do it correctly my times will start falling. i often wonder what others' times would look like if they were doing strict pullups like i am!

WOD 11/17: "michael" (minus the sprints)

• 50 situps
• 50 lower back extensions
• 50 situps
• 50 back extensions
• 50 situps
• 50 back extensions

total: 150 situps; 150 lower back extensions - completed in: ~11min 30sec.

the cardio machines at the gym were way too busy to rotate the sprints in. that and i was being picky...i wanted space to do the sprints because they were going to be 4min a piece and i know i was going to be sweating/breathing hard etc. i just dont like having someone not even a foot away when i'm going all out sprinting (even tho it's just on the damn machines).

i'm ranting and it's been said a million times but really...a good majority of ppl just sit there and do moderately paced cardio for extended amounts of time. i remember the smith college gym i went to had a 30min time limit on the machines. it's sad but ppl really just hog the damn machines and hardly work up a sweat!

i'm in the minority of course, but i look at cardio machines as tools to be integrated into my workouts. duh! i'm doing crossfit. so most likely i'm going to want to use a machine for ~3min or so per round...and i might do in the range of 3-7 rounds per workout...if of course the workout even calls for sprints. so i would say in a given week i'm using a cardio machine for less than 30min total, lol. it can fluctuate of course. so get off the damn cardio machine and try an actual workout you cardio fools!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! and let me get my 30min a week. fools!!!!!!!!!!

WOD 11/18: weighted pullups / elevated pushups

10 rounds of:

• pullups + 55lbs x 3 reps
• elevated pushups (w/feet on 3ft bar) x ~15 reps (i'd guess this was the average, tho it was prolly a bit more...i didn't count...for once!!!)

total: pullups + 55lbs x 30 reps; elevated pushups x 150-175 reps

pullups were done with 55lbs dumbbell held between my feet. that got interesting because with the height of the smith machine, i have to elevate my legs in order to get full elbow lockout on the negative motion of the pullup. so in essence, a weighted pullup turns into a full body exercise. my abs/legs/hips are feeling it this morning. it might have been the "michael" from a couple days ago, but i really think it's my body saying what the hell did you do to me. lol. oh well...it's better this way!

but i will have to get off my ass and get a dip belt eventually. until then, my abs thank crossfit for the added benefit of holding a dumbbell between the feet. whoo!

Hulk Smash!

"In the heart of the strong shines a relentless ray of resolve...It cannot be stopped, it cannot be controlled, and it will not fail."

WOD 11/14: push press

• 95lbs x 10 reps
• 115 x 8
• 135 x 5
• 145 x 5
• 155 x 5
• 165 x 4
• 175 x 3
• 180 x 2

heck yeah!!! i am stoked! it's funny sometimes when pr's occur. it was a mental battle from the start. i almost wimped out of going to the gym all together, but i kept reminding myself to not be such a puss and get the hell in there. after all, WWHRD???

i weighed 169 this morning so 11lbs over my bodyweight...whoo smashed it!

all reps were done w/elbows to full lockout...the last rep of the 180 got a bit interesting to get lockout. it started to sway a bit but i did get it (mostly). my inflexible shoulders are my weakness. they disrupt the frontal plane...holding the weight above my head at 90 degrees is very difficult for me. however, i've been working on flexibility every single time i train, so i know it's getting better.

Meeting the Arch-Nemesis Head On

WOD 11/13: 7 rounds for time of:

• 95 pound Sumo-deadlift high-pull (sdlhp), 10 reps
• 10 Ring dips (mod'd to 30 elevated pushups (feet on 2-2.5ft bar on squat rack)

total: sdlhp 95lbs x 70 reps; elevated pushups x 210 reps

i sub'd elevated pushups for ring dips because, as usual, the gym is busy as hell so i had to consolidate the workout to the squat rack (whee).

time to complete: 25min. i haven't looked at others times yet but i have a feeling i was pretty slow in comparison. of course that is a complete guess. a few days ago i posted that sdlhp's were my arch-nemesis, and then they rear their ugly head yet again...this time with more weight and less reps...yay.

going into this my inner thighs and hip flexors were feeling slaughtered from the last time...so i was like...oh shit. shit. shit. shit. more sdlhp's. unfortunately my motivation wasn't there...suffice it to say. i haven't sweat that much in a long time. i had to put my shirt by the wood stove to dry it off...it was completely soaked. at about round 3, this turned into a mental battle. i seriously wanted to quit and i wasn't even halfway thru it. i pushed thru tho.

however i did discover the value of this terrible terrible terrible terrible terrible exercise. i think at about round 5 this hit me. but then again by round 3 i was so worked i didn't know which round i was on. i think it was 3...but it might have been 4. lol. the value? this builds great strength, power, explosiveness and drive from the hips, which is really where most of your power athletically should come from. this works it like WHOA.

"yes coach. i'm pretty sure i did spill my tea."

happy fun yay whee koosh ball. sweet.

Mary Mary Oh Quite Contrary Drinking Her Curds and Whey Protein Shake

WOD 11/9: "Mary":

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:

• 5 Handstand Push-ups
• 10 One legged squats alternating
• 15 Pull-ups

i scaled the hspu's because of the gym. ended up doing pushups with my feet on the smith machine bar at 2.5-3ft height. i also did strict pullups (so i made the pullups more difficult because most ppl kip).

got 7 rounds...(35 elevated pushups/70 pistols/105 pullups) pretty happy with that! i will work on doing hspu's w/more and more elevation (raising the smith bar up lol) in the future. i'm sure i can but i wasn't sure how i'd get my legs down off the bar that high w/o breaking my neck. :)

WOD 11/10:

• sdlhp 45lbs x 75 reps
• hang snatch 45lbs x 25 reps
• sdlhp x 50
• hang snatch x 25
• sdlhp x 35
• hang snatch x 25

total: 160 sdlhp (45lbs)/75 hang snatches (45lbs)...completed in: ~23min.

satisfied with the time but not ecstatic about it. sdlhp's are my arch-nemesis. tho as i'm finding out, anything in the fitness world that is representative of an arch-nemesis is usually something that makes me grow/adapt like no other...so cheers to them.

11/11: rest day

WOD 11/12:

Complete as many rounds as you can in twenty minutes of:

• 5 Handstand Push-ups
• 10 L Pull-ups
• 15 Steps, Walking Lunge

i once again scaled the hspu's to elevated pushups on the smith bar (2.5-3ft). i sub'd tuck pullups for l-pullups as i hit my legs on the smith machine bar (i know i know weak excuse). i also did the lunges in place, as opposed to walking. my gym just sucks! anyway.

completed 8 rounds + 5 elevated pushups + 6 tuck pullups.

total: 45 elevated pushups/86 tuck pullups/120 lunges.

note: my thighs/inner/outer/hams and hips are feeling lovely today. thanks crossfit!

Good Vibes and Self-Transforming Machine Elves

"i do see"

11/7: rest day

WOD 11/8: deadlifts

• 135lbs x 12 reps
• 185 x 7
• 225 x 6
• 275 x 3
• 295 x 3
• 315 x 3
• 325 x 2

for some reason 325 felt like a ton of bricks, so i decided not to go for the 3rd rep and called it a day. my 1 rep pr is 365, so i'm not sure why 325 felt so heavy. ah well..it happens. :)

so as a side note, some interestings things have been occurring lately. last night:

i may have saved someone's life.

i know that sounds dramatic. but here's what happened. i'm 3/4 way thru my normal warmup at the smith machine doing pullup/pushup combos. i see this kid come up to the smith machine next to me and he's loading on weights to do flat bench presses.

now typically i dont pay attention to anyone at the gym. my music blares away in my ears and i'm narrowly focused on what the hell i'm doing. but for some reason i was being directed by something from within to pay attention to this kid. i dont know why. he wasn't benching much weight at all...warming up i assume. looked like a typical stunna kid and in fact that was my first thought when i saw him, lol. so nothing out of the ordinary and typically i'd be going nuts warming up but instead i was stretching and casually keeping an eye on the kid.

next thing i know he puts a 45 on each side. i'm thinking he can do that. he looked maybe 140lbs soaking wet. my guess is 17-20 yrs old. he completes his set and i go back to swinging like a monkey off the smith machine bar.

i look back over and he's loading another 45 plate on each side. on a smith machine that is basically the equivalent of 195-200lbs. i'm looking at the kid's arms...they look like tooth picks. no visible muscle tone or anything. i'm sitting here thinking...uhm. if he benches this i will actually be impressed. he lets it off the safety pins and lowers it down all the way to his chest, which impressed me even more. i figured he would have the typical 6" rom like so many have, lol.

but the bar wasn't coming off his chest. in fact, once it planted itself there it didn't move. at all. now this is happening in a matter of seconds, mind you. i then see him try to wriggle out from underneath it, so now the bar is approaching his neck...all 200lbs. his face is completely red and he has the most horrified look. i'm thinking 200lbs on his neck and he will die. there was no one else around him and absolutely no one was paying attention except for me.

i sprint over and lift the 200lbs right off him and hook it on the pins. then i went back to what i was doing. he thanked me a couple times and that was that. as it happened, i remembered thinking: "there it is". a simple statement, but a statement reflective of knowing.

i felt empowered.

i had energy tingling all thru me and my mind was working at its peak height. perhaps that was my soul...or the right side of my brain...or perhaps chemicals being fired off left and right. whatever it was...

i am in love with that feeling.

prior to this happening, some weirdo at a stoplight was messing with me, lol. maybe he thought i was going too slow or what not. he basically pulled his car next to mine...he was in the left hand lane, me the right. he could have pulled his car up another 2 lengths to be behind the next person, but decided to stop right next to mine. so once again my intuitive voice said the dude is prolly nuts...just ignore him. and thats what i did. i eased my car forward a few inches and he did the exact same thing and stopped exactly as i stopped, lol. so i thought this is extremely odd. then when the left hand lane turned green, i see him speed off and honk his horn violently at the person ahead of him, lol. intuition wins again!

a few nights ago i was driving home and i saw a fox on george hannum rd. not 5 minutes later i'm on rt. 202 and i see another fox. odd?

a few nights ago i was at the gym and found a wallet and returned it, thinking this is the best and right thing to do. the next morning two different TO's came up to me at completely different times and told me how much they appreciated me and thanked me a bunch. my prior experiences with these two people weren't the best - in fact they both had acted condescendingly.

wednesday night (i think) i had gone to B&N to waste some time. i ended up reading a chapter out of Sex, Drugs Einstein, & Elves about dmt. awesome book btw. i sort of had an epiphany and had to reread this quote a bunch of times.

"Now do you see, now do you see?"

that about knocked me right off my rocker, because that is exactly what happened to me. along with the aztec/mayan type entity and fairy and what not and everything else. since then and even before then things have been happening. maybe it's that i'm coming back in tune with my right brain. maybe it's that i'm now 25 days alcohol free.

maybe it started again with that dream about b.

it couldn't get any more real than that.

either way, things are happening. things i can't easily explain away. i'm loving it.

Gracie Bows Out

11/5: took a rest day (WOD was 400m sprints x 4 reps...so i decided to heck with going all the way to chicopee for that and decided that my normal daily walking (~2.5-3.0 miles) was a good enough sub :))

WOD 11/6: back squats

• 135lbs x 10 reps
• 175 x 7
• 225 x 5
• 275 x 4
• 315 x 1
• 335 x 1
• 355 x 1 (fail)

incorporated a new thing into my warmup: doing a scaled version of the bear with 80lbs:

power clean->push jerk->back squat->split jerk

also worked on clap pullup quite a bit and busted a bunch out...so happy with that. finished up with somewhere ~45 clap pushups broken into 2 sets.

i screwed myself up mentally on this one. :) pushed 335 up from below parallel - damn near a2a i think..i was actually impressed w/myself but i def felt it going up. so i decided to throw 355 on and then waited way too long. started pushing it up and realized that it just wasn't happening so let it down on the safety bars. basically my brain beat my brawn on this one :) from doubting myself to jackasses on the smith machine and other squat rack distracting me to too many ppl in the gym...being not really sure that i wanted to push 355 up in front of ppl lol. last time i pushed it up...either 355 or 350...either one is my pr...i damn near pushed myself to blacking out...ie...stars and such. ;)

Snatching Wood

WOD 11/2: "Isabel" - power snatch 95lbs x 30 reps - time to complete: ~5min 30sec; followed up with 35 dips and work on clap pullup

was extremely happy with this workout! the snatch really takes a lot out of you (no pun intended ;)). i think that it is the pinnacle of athletic lifts. your entire body is functioning as one efficient unit to execute one rep. it certainly reminds you that training your body as one unit, as opposed to breaking it up with isolation movements, is the way to go.

11/3: rest day from crossfit, but stacked/split wood for 1.5 hrs or so

WOD 11/4: sort of a 2-a-day:

modified "Nasty Girls" workout:

• air squats x 35 reps
• strict pullups x 15 reps
• dips x 15 reps
• split jerk 135lbs x 7 reps
• squats x 35
• pullups x 15
• dips x 15
• split jerk 135lbs x 7
• squats x 35
• pullups x 15
• dips x 15
• split jerk 135lbs x 7

time to complete: ~14min.

i also stacked/split wood for ~1.5 hrs.

felt good about this one as well. it pushed me metabolically enough to my satisfaction. it's been an ongoing process to figure out how to modify/scale wod's enough to suit my needs metabolically.

it's sort of like:

too much weight -> progression of deterioration of form gets bad as an indicator -> taking too many breaks as an indicator ->scale weight

too much volume -> taking too many breaks as an indicator -> going way beyond lactic acid threshold as an indicator ->scale volume

if indicators are there for weight and volume, scale both.

this is the first step. the process of figuring out how to scale and how i respond physiologically and mentally is the second step.

Scaling and Feeling Bettering

10/30: rest day

WOD 10/31: overhead squats

• 95lbs x 5 reps
• 105 x 5
• 115 x 5
• 120 x 5
• 125 x 5

followed up with tuck pullups 5x5 (switched grips from supinated to pronated)

i felt satisfied at the end of this workout. i had been avoiding, for some unknown reason, oh squats for a while and im glad that i did them.

they really are a fantastic exercise...kicks the testosterone in like whoa.

WOD 11/1: "Diane"

• deadlift 185lbs x 21 reps;
• elevated pushups (feet on 2.5ft bar) x 21 reps;
• dl 185 x 15;
• elevated pushups x 15;
• dl 185 x 9;
• elevated pushups x 9

time to complete: ~6min 30sec

i scaled this one back because the last time i did it as rx'd it handed me a serious serious serious beatdown. plus i've been trying to get my nutrition down and my cns really does not need a rx'd diane decimation.

however, i was extremely happy with my performance. i'm employing the philosophy to not be so hard on myself. but the funny part is, i pretty much collapsed on the floor in front of the squat rack. i haven't done that in quite some time...such a great feeling. but i'm not so destroyed that i can't walk today...in fact i feel damn good and light on my feet. and i'm stoked about finding out what today's workout is. YES! i'm rediscovering the fun in fitness...:)