Angie

Still hobbling around after the stair sprints and back squats, but yesterday was the rest day, so today is Angie:

100, in order, of:
Pull ups
Pushups
Situps
Squats

27:07. Only 41 seconds faster than last April, but I will take that with the beating I have been giving my legs and arms. Still feel a little wobbly, but I am hoping the squats will help with some active recovery.

Pushups: 2850

Squat Cleans and Stair Sprints

Form work on Squat Cleans. Cleans are still a mystery, from the triple extension to the catch in rack position. Need lots of work on the exercise. I think the challenge after the pushups will be squats, so I have a good base of leg strength to start getting technical on my lifts. May also ask for a 24Kg kettlebell for Christmas and start with Turkish get ups.

Then did 3 X 10 flights of stairs (20 steps) at full sprint. Got 57 secs, 66, 67. Not bad and I certainly feel better about this than the sprint intervals I did last week. However, I feel really beat up today and will be taking a rest day. Having trouble with stairs as my quads are really sore. Time for some Vitamin I and rest.

Pushups: 2670

Squats and Waiter's Walk

Yesterday was a strange combo of light back squats and double waiters walk (weight held above head, active shoulders, arms extended, walk a prescribed distance and back).

50 back squats 135#
15 double Waiter's walk (2 24Kg kettlebells)

I, like most people at the gym, subbed 16kg bells, as this means that we only had to lift ~70# over head, rather than ~118# with the 24Kg. Finished in 14:56, which turned out to be a rather fast time for the night.

Pushups: 2571

Elizabeth and Interval Training

Well, looks like I am backing out of the pull up challenge. Without a bar at home, this became a game of getting to the gym just to do the pull ups and then having to do big sets to always catch up. Not interested.

Friday was sprint intervals, specifically 4 rounds of 400 then rest 2 minutes. I did this at B3, but on the street rather than at the track, since I wanted to actually do it with someone. Finished with 1:08, 1:17, 1:18, 1:23. 68 seconds would have been respectable, if I had been able to hold to that pace. Instead, I fell apart with an 83 second finish on the last set, not to mention knee pain. I really need to learn how to run better and then do a hell of a lot more of it.

Saturday was a rest day, although the pushups continued and Sunday was Elizabeth. The actual workout is 21-15-9 of:
135# squat cleans
Ring Dips

I subbed 95# power cleans and completed it in 6:30. I was happy with the time and the switch, as I don’t feel comfortable with the squat clean and, until I do, I am trying to avoid throwing around heavy weights. I hope that by the next time this comes around, I will have improved my clean technique to where I can do this with full squat cleans and 115#.

Pushups: 2451

More pushups and joining the 100 Day Pull up Challenge

Since my pullups obviously need work, I decided to join the Pull up challenge for as long as possible. Probably have issues keeping up on weekends, but I will do what I can. Since we are on Day 18 and I missed yesterday, I did 35. Also managed to bang out 125 pushups at lunch. After work, I will get out to brooklyn and do the 4X400 with 2 minutes rest in between. Looking for less than 70 seconds, preferably under 65 seconds. See how it goes.

Pushups: 2231

Fluffy Cloud Dance and DFL, AGAIN!

Did the amusingly named Fluffy Cloud Dance WoD at lunch:
AMRAP in 20 minutes of:
Squat
R pistol
Squat
L pistol
KB pushup
R renegade row
KB pushup
L renegade row
14 back extension (subbed for 7 supermans)

18 rounds, which put me squarely in dead last, despite having to sub assisted pistols and only 16kg bells. I am really doing poorly after the vacation. Will have to get my shit together this weekend, get started on running and drills and get back in shape.

Pushups: 1960

Too much bad food and Slacking

First WoD back to CF did its level best to break me.
10 Rounds of:
12 Burpees
12 pullups

29:06. One of the slowest Rx times at the box. Fought back vomit for the last 7 rounds. Just felt terrible. Hopefully, once I get my diet a little bit better and my body used to the beatings, I will get back in shape. Vacations are great, but definitely not good for fitness.

Today is a 5K, but I left my running shoes at home. Will have to remedy that somehow. Not really sure how yet.

Pushups: 1810

Back in the U.S. er.. A.

Back from Honduras, had a great time and am a newly certified Open Water Diver. Along the way, I managed to do the following:

10/9- three rounds of Erin in a respectable if slow time.

10/10- three rounds of:
10 30# DB thrusters
15 pushups
25 squats

10/11- three rounds of
70 second run at 10 min mile pace
21 30# DB swing
10 dead hang pullups

Then, the workouts died as I left the nice hotel in Tegucigalpa and headed for Roatan by way of La Ceiba. SCUBA kicked my ass, so I even missed whole days of pushups. However, I am back, relatively healthy and looking forward to getting back to it. Oh, and finally began setting plans for the next major trip next August to Peru!

Pushups: 1585

Erin and leaving on a jet plane

Did a heavily modified Erin at the Box today:
30# dumbell split cleans, 15 reps
21 pullups, chest to bar

3 rounds: 14:20. Nothing special, but it was my fourth day of metcon and I am just plain tired. Also, I didn't want to get to sore for the trip tomorrow.

As I will be in Honduras until 10/21, I will be suspending blogging until my return. However, the pushup challenge continues and I will try to get as many workouts in as possible, including some running drills.

Pushups: 800

Brother of the Beast

Helped with teaching Elements last night, which, I have found, is great for giving me repeated instruction on the basics. I hope that I can make it for the olympic lifting section of the instruction, as that always needs work.

Before the class, I made up Brother of the Beast, which was Sunday's WoD. 5 rounds with 115# of:
15 Deadlifts
12 Hang Power Cleans
9 Front squats
6 Push Jerks

22:16. Happy with the time, as it beat out a couple of guys around my ability level, but, once again, my clean form sucked. The front squats got a lot better once I really locked in the rack position and was able to let my torso bear the load. Push Jerks are still messy, but part of that is the light weight for them. Deadlifts were easy, weight is too light to make a difference.

Pushups: 700

A Day at the Range and Barbara

Made up Barbara last night: With three minute intervals between each, complete five rounds of:

20 pullups

30 pushups

40 situps

50 squats

36:36 total time. Pullups were terrible and cost me most of that time. They were chest to bar, but mostly singles. I really need to work on that. Rest of it was comparatively easy.

Martin forwarded the shooting pics, so here they are.

This is a group shot, with Martin (bottom right), his wife Hope, Juan and me. Sadly, they wouldn't take the pic while we were armed.

The MP5.

Good times, been waiting for this for a lonnnnng time.

The results of full auto. Not particularly accurate, but a great time.

Hope with a convincing argument in favor of eliminating violence against women. Sometimes, they're just better at it.

At the end of the day, this is what you are left with. Oh yeah, that and a feeling just how awesome your day was.

Pushups: 600

Crossfit Baseline, Dinners and Fully Automatic Fun

Friday was a rest night, so I did five rounds of the baseline test:
500m row
40 squats
30 sit ups
20 pushups
10 chest to bar pull ups

35:06

Went wayyyy to hard on the first row and it screwed me. Felt nauseas and the fourth round was terrible at around 9 minutes long. Most people only do this as one round and use that to gauge improvement over time. I wanted to get some real rowing in and, as a bonus, do my 100 pushups for the day as part of the WoD.

Then on to the rest night dinner with over 20 CFNYC'ers. Had a great time at a Mexican place in Hell's Kitchen, celebrated Erica's B-day and generally had fun. Also got to talk to some of the Manhattan people that I don't normally see. Good times.

Saturday, I finally got the replacement computer running and had a 4 hour orgy of computer game playing. AAHHH, so good to play again. Then to Dan's for a good home-cooked French meal with a wonderful Chocolate Almond cake for dessert. Good food and better company.

Sunday was Crossfit goes to the gun range. Went with Martin, Hope (Martin's wife) and Juan and we rented a .22 pistol, 1911 .45 auto and, best of all, a silenced, fully automatic MP5 submachine gun. That was, quite possibly, the most awesome day of shooting I have ever had. Everyone had a great time and I will post photos when I get the opportunity.

Pushups: 420

Clean and Jerk Ladder

Yesterday was a (power) clean and jerk workout. Typical for a ladder, do one the first minute, two the next and so on until you can make the reps for that minute. Rx weight was 135, I used 85. Managed to pull 9 rounds +6 and my shoulder a little. Good times.

Pushup total: 100

POSE Cert, drills and 10,000 challenge

Officially registered for the run and endurance cert on Nov 8th and 9th. Looking forward to that and, in preparation, I bought a POSE book for triathletes and have finally gotten through the intro (100+ pages) and am into the drill section. Will start learning POSE so that, when I actually get to the cert, they can correct my form, rather than teaching it whole hog.

On the walk home last night, which, because I forgot a key ended up being about an hour of walking and 20 minutes of biking, I was considering the 100 day Burpee challenge. I failed out of it early on when I couldn't so much as walk for 10 days without pain. It is now day 80 and people have gotten much stronger and better at burpees, but are complaining of repetitive stress injury and lack of recovery. With the idea of using the constant working of an exercise, I modified the challenge and have developed a my own, using pushups.

So, today will be the first day of the 10,000 Pushup challenge. Rules are simple: Do 10K pushups in as few days as possible while avoiding injury. No limit or quota for each day. Just get them done. Pushups done as part of a WoD count and I will endeavor to keep a counter at the bottom of each post to track how many have been completed. Should be fun.

Pushups completed: 0