It's been 2 weeks since I tore my right hamstring while deadlifting. The bruise is fading and the swelling and tightness is greatly diminished. After the injury I continued to train but babied the leg quite a bit. What I found pleasantly surprising is that I could squat decently even on day 1 after the injury. Swinging kettlebells has been a bit dodgy though, as well as anything that causes my leg to straighten fully. So this morning when I looked at the WOD I felt some hesitancy as we were scheduled to work up to a 2RM on the DL.
After the warmup (500m row/spidermans/inchworms), Chris W and I partnered up as usual. The idea was to take a few minutes to warm up the movement, then the balance of the time to hit 3 sets of heavy doubles. If I was uninjured I would have targeted 345/365 but I had no idea what to aim for and try not to tear this again. I decided to follow Chris as I guessed he'd be a bit under where I'd normally be. We pulled 135 and 225 for warm ups, then began adding weight. Doubles at 255 & 275 felt like nothing. Work sets at 295/305 also felt very light and that's where I packed it in.
The next part of the WOD was a 6 minute amrap of 3 hang cleans/9 kb swings. I would have preferred to use the prescribed 32kg kb, but I couldn't find one so I used a 24kg. Prescribed weight on the cleans was 155 but I went light at 115 and that was heavy enough by my last 2 or 3 sets. I finished with 6 full + 10 and I definitely should have pushed harder with the selected weights or sucked it up and gone heavier.
Last set was 3 minutes in plank position on the rings which felt pretty good. (60/60/30/30).
While Chris was pulling I watched from the front and side as he tried to assimilate the coaching from Dean. First, I think Dean is great and I liked what he had to say and second, I think Chris was doing a good job putting the input into practice. In light of all the above, I think most people, maybe everyone, should spend some time learning to pull from a sumo stance. The plus side is that it is easier (I believe anyways, and it certainly is for me) to get the back more erect. This is more efficient and safer. Everyone I see pulling conventionally (although I do need to pay attention to the more seasoned lifters) has a deficit where their hips rise several inches before their shoulders do. Often the lifter's back comes close to parallel before the bar begins moving. Some video work and self-review would likely help here as well.
For me, the sumo stance is King during the DL and squat and anyone in Crossfit aspiring to lift 1.5x body weight or more should give it some attention in favor of the conventional stance.
For reference, here are 2 images of Julia Ladewski. These are screencaps from a video on YouTube (Ultra-wide deadlift 225x5).
Monday 6/25.
Missed out on 3 days of perfect riding weather doing prep work for a home improvement project. Strangely enough I felt like shit over the weekend, following feeling like shit on Thursday and barely surviving kettlebell class.
I was hoping to feel better today but it wasn't great and I didn't have much energy. Bummed too because I went to bed at 1030. My arms and shoulders still feel beat up from last week, but I managed to squat snatch 135 x 1 x 3.
During the AMRAP part of the WOD I dropped down to 95 for power snatches but only got 6 to 7 reps/minute.
Upper body felt pretty sore afterward but it passed quickly. Skipping Monday night spin to work on the house and sleep.
Hopefully I'll have some energy post-WOD tomorrow to bench or do some lower body work. The weather is supposed to suck so it seems unlikely I'll be hitting the campus in the evening.
Jim and I took a nice ride yesterday and enjoyed some of the best weather we've had this year. There was quite a bit of wind but it was sunny and mild. We were both a bit sore and tired going into it so we poked along easy and only did about 32 miles. Saturday I rode over at the campus before hitting the gym to work shoulders for a little while. I'd planned on riding < 90 minutes and keeping the effort hard. The warm up felt crappy, no power, no speed and sore legs. On lap 5 I started pushing harder up the climb, all out of the saddle, 10 - 15 pedal strokes at a time. After that my power came up and speed increased steadily. I managed to finish out the workout with an avg speed of 17.1, which while not impressive was the best I've delivered in a while.
WODs
Monday 6-18. Overhead squats! EMOM (20) x 3. This was fantastic. Partnered with John, went with 75#. Got the lockout dialed, got the depth dialed dropping onto a medicine ball.
Tuesday. Ring rows, row hard for 20s, jump rope. Meh.
Wednesday. Burgener warm up. Work up to 3 tough sets of 1x hang squat snatch, 3 x OHS. For 6 minutes, EMOM, 2 x 90% front squat from the floor racks. 3 x 50 unbroken wall balls. This is how it went down. Partnered with Chris Williams on 1 and 2. For the FSs we picked up a 3rd guy. Started at 65# and went up by 5s, ended with last 2 sets at 85 & 90. PR. Worked up to 2 sets at 155# in the front squat. Front rack position getting better.
Creatine. Been using this pre- and post-workout. No verdict yet but I am cautiously optimistic.
Weight loss. Slow.
Interesting week so far. The weather has been cold and rainy so I'm not getting much extra time on the bike. Last Sunday Jim and I rode ~32 miles and had to wait for an icy T-storm to pass. Luckily we were still in the lot because there was a bunch of hail as well. I've still felt very slow on the bike with no real power. Towards the end of the last ride my upper back was hurting a bit too.
It was a really shitty looking day, very cloudy and little sun. Amazing how amber lenses can change your entire perspective.
Off the bike I've had some great WODs. With Dean Leber's help today I managed to get a good front rack position and was able to front squat for real for the first time. The last 2 days have really tired me out though and I need extra sleep and better recovery. Going to try hitting the rack at 10 and also going to pick up some creatine monohydrate and try supplementing my post-workout shakes with it. Maybe it will help lighten my mood as well.
I really enjoyed this morning's WOD.
1. Push Press, 4 x 6
2. 10 rounds for time
5 handstand push ups, scaled to a. get upside down, b. 8 hand-release push ups
10 American KB swings (24kg)
I held back just a bit on the push presses as I want to have good shoulders for tomorrow's bench session.
I've met with Jim R. and Chris D twice and really had great workouts.
Week 1: 5x5 @180, finishing with board presses and db presses.
Week 2: 5x3 @185, finishing with floor presses (?) and tricep ext/rows.
I need to write down the content of the works sets! Jim is working up a schedule to build towards some big singles. I'm looking to top out over 250 at the end of the next couple of cycles and hit 300 in the early fall.
I went over 300# doing triples and doubles in the back squat last Thursday and felt very good. I could use more depth and I should set up the GoPro to analyze my depth and posture coming out of the hole. Based on how I felt after a good warm up and topping out at 335, I think a 1 rep max around 400 is possible.
All continues to go well with the diet. last Friday's check in with Judy went like this, down a total of 10 lbs, but lean muscle mass is up 10 lbs. So I've shed 20 lbs of fat.
Last Friday I met with Judy for a 2/3 week weigh-in. The final number was actually a net loss of 7 lbs, with an increase in lean muscle mass of ~2.5 lbs. I'll take that. One of the important topics we talked about at this meeting was pre-/during and post- workout nutrition. The plan is to not alter the 2400 cal/5 meal per day template, but feed each workout. At the moment I don't have a strict plan for pre-workout fueling, but for workouts lasting longer than 90 minutes I will shoot for around 300 calories per hour (total food & drink), plus 30 ounces of water** (water/energy drink) and 600 mg of sodium. I'll post more here about the products once I've picked them up and tried them. for post-workout, I'll either make my own or use a commercial product. For post-cycling I may pick up a container of Accelerade or Endurox, but for WODs, lifting, etc I've been experimenting with Myoplex and a shake made from water, almond milk, ON whey protein and fruit. Time will tell if I feel strong from one workout to the next.
The eating plan continues to be easy to follow although sometimes still hard to get all my calories in. I also continue to be relatively free from the desire to go out to the kitchen and binge.
I inadvertently got 2 heavy deadlift sessions on successive days. Yesterday's WOD had 5x2 heavies between a warmup and the AMRAP and I'd already worked a few sets of speed pulls into 3 singles on Monday before going to spin. Still, after going easy for a few I pulled 385 on the last set and missed rep 2.
Today I finished a 3-3-3 set of push jerks with 2 shaky reps at 175 and missed #3. Something to look forward to ;)
Tomorrow ought to be very interesting. Jim R invited me to join he and Chris D at his garage to start bench press sessions.
I finished up with OnRamp last Friday and my impressions were really positive. I like the workout structure. I like most of the content. I'll save any commentary on philosophical differences for later after I have some time logged.
I signed up for 3 months on Monday and am looking forward to seeing what I can do. I hit the 7 am WODs on Tuesday and Wednesday then Viv's kettlebell class tonight. So many thoughts.
Some early positive reactions.
I've spoken to several coaches now and I feel really good about having so many sources of information right there. I know I'm going to have questions about fitting in WODs/extras into a week, especially around cycling, and it'll be great to have other ideas rather than coming up with all that on my own.
There is an emerging focus to include powerlifting techniques into the Crossfit gyms. Since that is already familiar to me and something I like doing it should provide some enjoyable stimulus. I also I'm excited to learn and work on the olympic lifts. Had a great time on Tuesday with the split jerk.
There's a really good energy in the place with a bunch of faces I already know.
The paleo diet focus coincides nicely with Judy's input.
Some self examination:
My core is really weak. My aerobic power is only ok, not as good as it was, but I feel like I'm improving. I'm really going to need to be serious about recovery work because I was very stiff and sore this morning and I know I can do something about that.
I should keep a list of things I really suck at and work up a schedule to spend extra time on those.
My strength is off in the snatch and C&P. Presumably detraining effect. Maybe I'll do some low reps with bigger bells and see what happens.
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Other business.
Paleo eating plan is going well. Daily weight bounces a bit, but I'm down ~13lbs
in 2 weeks. That's not the whole story though. I feel pretty damn good. I think I'm drinking too much coffee, but the fatigue is largely gone (may be from working out too...) and I haven't felt dizzy/spacey. Blood sugar? I dont know but I'm obviously to keep on doing the same thing.
Jim and I finally got out for a 25 miler on Sunday. The weather was great and I felt pretty decent. Fat, but decent. I'll have to make a decision soon about the MDD ride in August.
