Week in Review 2/10/2013

Monday

Planned rest day.

Tuesday

Unplanned rest day because my abs were still crazy sore from Anabelle at Saturday's competition.  When I say crazy sore, I mean crazy sore.  Sunday night I went to bed in a ton of pain... and mildly concerned that I had given myself rhabdo until I remembered that I'd had beets for lunch.  Note to self: we need to up the volume of sit-ups in my training so this never happens again.

Wednesday

Snatch balance: 35x3, 40x3, 45x3, 50x2(3f).  Coach B was late, so these seemed like a good idea to play with. 

Clean and Jerk: Worked up to 93lbs! (PR!)  I managed a 98lb clean after that, but couldn't jerk it.

Snatch deadlifts: 5x4 at 73lbs.

I can't really complain about any day where I hit a clean and jerk PR, but my abs were still scaring me at this point.  I felt like they had to be strained.

Thursday

Rest.  

By Thursday afternoon, my abs finally felt normal.

Friday

Snatch from the knees: 3x47lbs, 3x53lbs, 3x53lbs.

Cleans from the knees: 4 sets of 3 at 68 lbs.

Overhead squats: 5x2 at 83 lbs.  I probably should have done these a drop heavier, but they weren't easy.

WOD: 4 rounds of 1 minute on/30 seconds off of: strict pull-ups, strict handstand push-ups and ring dips. 27/2/34.  I was disappointed with the HSPU's.  I thought I could pull off one or two each round, but they just weren't there.  

Saturday

Backsquat: 5x2 at 118lbs.  118lbs is 96 percent of my two rep max, so I was pretty happy to get through five clean sets.  I did feel myself tipping forward a bit on the second reps, but not a lot.  

Hang Power Cleans: 12 minutes of 3 reps on the minute at 68lbs.  My first few sets were off, so I kept the weight fairly light.  I was thinking too much about keeping my weight back.  Once I fixed that, I started catching the bar higher and things felt pretty good.

Sunday

~3 mile fun run in the park.  It's still a bit snowy/icy, so I didn't want to sprint.

Deadlifts: 155x3, 165x3, 170x3, 175x3, 180x3, 185x3, 190x3 (PR!), 195x1, 200(f).  I went looking for my 3 rep max today, and found it.  I'm pretty happy with 190; it's only five pounds shy of my current one rep max.  I tried for a triple at 195, but after one lift, I knew I didn't have it in me.  It's possible that I wasted too much energy warming up.  It was pretty silly to go for a single at 200 at that point, but I did.  The bar didn't budge, but wow did the room spin when I released it!

-Gym Belle-

Week in Review 2/3/2013

Monday

Hotel Gym WOD FGB Style with row, 20lb dumbbell snatches, 12lb medball cleans, burpees and weighted situps with 10lb medball: 247

Cashout - 3 rounds NFR of 1 minute each of dumbbell benching at 40 lbs, mountain climbers and single unders

Tuesday

58 lb push presses from behind the neck.  I went from behind the neck because of my shoulder mobility issues.  It was awful.  It felt like moving the bar through wet cement with gravel in it.

3 rounds NFT of 10 42lb muscle snatches, 10 deadhang pull-ups.

Wednesday

Oly Practice:

Snatches: singles at 53, 58, 63, 68(f), 63, 63, 58, 58, 58 and 58

2 position cleans: 58x3 63x3 68x3 73x3

----

WOD: Amanda @ 53lbs and with red band assisted muscle ups: 13:40

Thursday

Rest

Friday

Rest

Saturday

Hail to the Queen Competition

“EVIL FRAN” At the start of the workout, every athlete must complete 3 burpees.  Then Fran with 3 burpees at the top of each minute. 45lbs/jumping pull-ups: 6:43

“ANNABEL” 50-40-30-20-10 single unders 50-40-30-20-10 sit ups 10-8-6-4-2 snatch at 35lbs: 8:22

“DYANNE” 6 min AMRAP 10 deadlifts at 95lbs, max rep hand release push-ups (score is total push-ups): 49

Overall 32/50.

Sunday

Endurance WOD:

8x sprints of the 102nd St. transverse (forgot my watch, so no scores - d'oh!)

Messing around at 5th Ave:

Snatches: 3x35lbs, 3x35lbx, 6 singles at 45lbs, 4 singles at 53lbs, 3 singles at 58lbs, 2 singles at 63lbs.  I was really trying to focus on form today.  I definitely didn't have it in me to go heavier.

Mini Diane (deads @ 155lbs but only 9-6-3 reps): 4:36

-Gym Belle-

PS - More commentary is coming, but right now I need to get ready to go cheer on the Ravens!  (So not something I ever thought I'd say.)

Not So Standardized Tests

I grew up ice skating and horseback riding.  Good form wasn't optional - it was everything.  Today as a CrossFitter, I'm still a bit of a form junkie.  It's important to me not just from an efficiency standpoint or a safety standpoint, but as an end in and of itself.  And I'd take someone telling me that my overhead squat, my deadlift, my push-up was flawless over the number one time on the leaderboard any day of the week.  

Don't get me wrong, I don't move perfectly.  Far from it.  I have mobility issues up the proverbial wazoo, and I fall apart as I fatigue like anybody else.  Sometimes it takes me a while to "get it."  And some days I straight up prioritize strength.  But I put serious effort into having the best form that I possibly can.  I don't cut corners.  And I'd rather DNF than worm a push-up.

So CrossFit competitions can be a little irksome.  Everyone means well.  The organizers develop standards and set range of motion requirements; the judges do their best.  Almost invariably, however, the judging is all over the map.  One competitor gets no-repped repeatedly for something nearly flawless, while another gets away with murder.  

As a coach and a friend and an athlete, my heart broke yesterday at the Hail to the Queen Competition to see some of our girls judged so harshly, while other competitors were permitted to skirt the requirements entirely.  (You could've caught a lot of fish with all those worms!)

I love CrossFit competitions.  I encourage people to do them.  They're fun, they bring everyone together, and they push us.  They punctuate our routine training with something a little bit special, and they teach us about ourselves.  But they're not always fair.  And yesterday that bugged me.

Then I remembered a conversation I had with one of our athletes when I was coaching a few weeks ago.  The WOD was 75 strict handstand push-ups, with 10 air squats at the top of each minute.  Only a few people at the gym could do this rx'd, and we offered lots of different ways to scale depending on the individual's particular weaknesses.  This athlete was distraught.  "What's the point?" he asked me.  "The scores will be meaningless because everyone's doing something different."  

The point is to improve yourself - to get stronger and fitter.  The point is to beat your previous score, or set a benchmark to beat next time.  Competing against the rest of the gym should absolutely motivate and inspire you - but it's not the point.  Very few of us will make it to the Games, or even Regionals.  We're not professional athletes.

This is what I had to remind myself of yesterday.  We would all have been working out anyway.  Going to the competition was fun, it got us out of our comfort zones and it made us work harder than we would have in a regular WOD.  That is why we compete.  

-Gym Belle-