Bench press fail

Had another disappointing experience on the bench last night. The coach at CE (Dyke) suggested I back off and do a set of 4 at a .5 to 1 lb over my last set of 4. That was 216 a few weeks ago. Naturally I told myself, "too light, I'll go heavier" and wrote 220 x 4 in my logbook. After deciding to try the same work set after a rest and wearing a shirt I backed that off to 217.5.** Well I only got 3 raw and managed a fairly easy 5 with the shirt. I decided to skip the leg workout as the strength component prior to the wod was enough to fatigue me. This made two workouts in a row where I haven't hit my planned work sets. (Last week I missed at (both) 248x2) It dawned on me as I pondered my aching delts and traps, that I hit pull up development after the morning wods. So I think I'll skip that stuff on bench days or do it last.

Today Chris was back in the house and we partnered up for strict presses. 5 doubles, last set was at 135. The metcon was an interesting 20 minute amrap of 14/10/6 OH lunge (65), ring rows (scaled), inverted burpees. One thing I don't think I'm too concerned with for now is HSPUs or derivatives. I lost count. Yesterday's wod was pretty fun. 5 rounds of 10/10 ring rows/pushups. (scaled from MUs, another thing not on my radar) 15 kb swings (32kg) and 50 SUs (scaled from DUs) all done at 1:1 work:rest. I shortened up my rest cycles by 30 seconds and was still able to hit each round pretty hard. Finished in 15:30. Monday was a mixture of fun & horror. First, a barbell complex of power clean, push press, hang squat clean done EMOM for 7 rounds. I went 4 @ 155 and 1 @ 165. Good weight, challenging but maybe a bit conservative. The squat clean was the limiting factor and needs to get addressed on my suck list. the metcon was pretty awful, 

3 rounds for time of:

25 ring rows (scaled from HSPUs), 

20 ball slams @ 20#

15 burpees

10 T2B, I just did kipping pikes. 

I have no idea how long it took me now because I didn't log it. 10? 12? An hour?

Post wod weigh in today, 230 lbs. Yikes, it has taken a long time to get here. I hope the next 10 come off faster.

**At CE, Dyke has gotten incredible results from his (drug-free) strength athletes by constantly incrementing the weight of every work set, even if only by a fraction. It works, it's what we do. You may not do it, so be it.   

Half week off.

Had a busy week. I needed to go out of town on family business Monday through Wednesday so the first workout I could hit was the Thursday morning wod. And it kicked my ass. First time doing Filthy Fifty which I scaled to 40 reps and 20 inch jumps, 14# wall balls and single unders. I did the back extensions on the GHD though. Got through it in 23:30.

Friday I hit the morning wod and CE in the evening. Great progress on the snatch from a hang position and a challenging metcon. Cardio only on Saturday & Sunday.

Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday I was in Houston with my sisters for a funeral. Tough trip supporting my oldest sister. Diet was pretty good but I had too much wine and scotch. I didn't suffer too badly in the wods so I must not have gone too far astray.

Friday's PL session was a mix of good and bad. My bench work was horrible but the squat work was very good.

Here I am banging out 405 for a fairly easy triple. Why video myself? Critique. Notice on rep # 2 my left knee deflects inward a bit coming out of the hole. On rep # 3 I have some weird oscillation of the bar on my left side. That kind of crap needs to be trained out if I'm going to keep going up and not get injured. I can also see I'm hitting depth ok but I'd like to be a little wider and just a bit deeper. 

I meant to update my starting benchmarks after completing Fran and forgot, so here they are.


Starting weight: 238

Fran

95# & ring rows

6:44 (PR!)

1 RM Squat

415 (PR!)

10k Row

44:07 (PR!)

1 RM Snatch

150 (PR!)

7 min AMRAP burpees

75

Game time.

Had my first weigh in with Judy today and it wasn't pretty. 239. F%@K@!

She cautioned that it may not be a 6lb fat gain, the sugar causes a lot of bloating so it may be a lot of water. We'll see. We talked a lot about the effects of eating crappy after having been fairly clean and also some strategies for getting past the impulse eating. It worked today and tonight. More on this later.

I took yesterday off entirely so I missed Fran. I'm planning on making that up on Saturday. This morning we worked up to a 1RM squat. Really, the 20 minutes available for this just isn't enough for me to be comfortable pushing the limit, so I warmed up with doubles and singles to the weights I hit last week for reps and took a single at 415. That made for a 5lb PR and I called it quits there. Saving everything I have available for the end of the challenge.   

The wod felt pretty horrible but not as bad as the other day:

5 rounds of
{
     10 T2B (or anything up on the bar)
     10 Power snatch (75/55)
     10 wall balls (20/14)
}

I only scaled the T2B, swing my legs up to (mostly) parallel. Finished in ~ 12 minutes. Not quite thoroughly shattered however, added a 2k cool down row at ~2:30 pace, pretty slow and some practice pulls up to 315. Not feeling any deadlift love yet.

I still need to take "before" pics and measure my neck, waist & hips. Height and weight are already determined. 

I've also added something to my 2013 To Do list. I've signed up for a goruck challenge, set for April 20 in Albany. Really looking forward to doing this with some of the ACF buddies.

Had a decent bench session tonight. Worked up to another triple, this week at 238. Rep 3 was pretty damn ugly but I got it. That computes to roughly a 262 1RM. 

Tomorrow is the 10k row, so I need to refuel and recharge.

Farewell 2012.

New Year's Eve. Well, I have made zero progress since my last post although I did hit some workouts and (over)ate like shit. Enough.

I'm starting the "new year" right now. I hit the 630 wod this morning and paid for my culinary indiscretions. The warm up made me feel horrible and it didn't get much better. Hang power cleans went ok, if not uninspiring. The metcon was a near disaster. 

3 rounds of
{
    12 burpee box overs
    9 C2B
    7 Deadlift (315/225)  
}

The DLs should have been easy, instead I couldn't get 315 off the floor for one! I settled on 275 and scaled the C2Bs to ring rows, and box overs to climb overs but at least over a 24 inch box. Took me 12 minutes to finish and I was finished.

I do have one interesting thing to add for now. I got a pair of these for Christmas. They're 10lbs each and came from Ageless Strength

I've used them for a couple of hours now and I really like them. Most likely will post some video when I stop clonking my head.

I also wanted to post some information about my nutrition planning and the food journal my coach has me using. This is from this morning, after breakfast and before lunch. Some of this is scientific and some is an approximation. 

On the right side of today's entry you'll notice "2400 BMR". This was measured by my coach using a CO2 monitor/inspired air flow meter. I can post details another time. I researched the equipment and it is pretty damn accurate. Below that is "200 wod". This is an estimate I made today on the calorie expenditure for today's workout. Today I only did the wod, nothing extra, and the number is based on an estimated maximum of 400 kilocalories. From the sum of those values I decrement 500 to provide a dietary deficit. The balance becomes my food budget for the day.

I am following a plan that calls for 5 meals throughout the day and a 40/30/30 nutrient distribution. I plug my daily budget value into a spreadsheet formula I cooked based on values provided by my coach and I get the following 5 sets of values. I round these off to make meal preparation easier. The 1st value is the total in kilocalories for that meal and is followed by the protein/carbohydrate/fat subtotals. 

Meal 1 is breakfast, 2 is lunch, 3 is a mid-meal snack, 4 is dinner and 5 is a small snack taken an hour or two before bed. The goal is to never go more than 4 hours without eating. Foods are chosen from a list, loosely based on Paleo Diet for Athletes.

I try to weigh all my food, journal all my food choices, and, here's the hard part. Make entries for the unplanned stuff. Like cookies and that piece of cake. That part is harder than weighing and calculating. It just sucks. Which is the point I think. I've slacked some on the journal, but no more. This is all part of my 90 day challenge and beyond.

Another year is drawing to a close and it's time to focus on the upcoming one.  I have a couple of things planned for the new year and I'll use this post to start declaring some others.

My current weight is 232. I'm not happy about this as I've fought over this territory several times before. I'm still working with Judy Torel and I will definitely be continuing. My weight loss goal is to get to 12% body fat then re-evaluate. Judy calculated this at 209 lbs. I want to be at that weight or lower by May. To help get there I will continue to keep a food and exercise journal. I'll try to add interesting benchmarks here as often as I can.

I have committed to doing the Tough Mudder in May. I'll be ready. My two co-conspirators had better be as well! 

I've also entered the ACF/CCP 90 Day Challenge. 
     Benchmark WODs:

•     Fran(95/65)Scaled(55/35)
•     1 RM Snatch
•     7 minute AMRAP Burpees
•     10k Row
•     1 RM Squat

Some other 2013 Crossfit goals:

• Pull ups. I want them. I will have them.
• Rope skipping. I look like a spazz now. I will master this.
• Oly Lifts. Mine suck because I don't practice them. I respect these and I want better numbers. I will dedicate training time and improve them. I want my 1 RM numbers > my body weight for each lift.
• Current rowing PRs are 10k/46:55, 5k/22:10, 2k/8:06. Goals are; under 40/under 20/under 7:30. 
• Improve the quality and frequency of the mobility work I perform.

General fitness:

• 5 hours of cardio/week! 
• Hit certain areas daily as able that may be excluded in wods, accessory work, etc such as...
• triceps, abs, posterior chain.

Powerlifting:

• Please no injuries. Please.
• Bench Press. PR is currently 245 and am ready for at least 250. Goal is 300 for a single.
• Squat. PR is currently 410. Goal is 450 at a body weight < 210.
• Deadlift. PR is currently 440. Goal is 500 for a single, 455 for a triple and no hamstring injuries of any kind. Please.

Cycling:

• 20 minute average power > 240 watts.
• Sub 5 minute ascent of Lainhart Rd.
• 9 lap TT at NYS Campus < 60 minutes.

That ought to do it for now. If you were here and read this, please leave a comment. 

I need to get caught up here between workouts. To recap:

Last Thursday's kb amrap. I was smoked from the morning wod and I barely got 12 rounds in. 20kg for 5/5/5/5: R/L press,R/L snatch. Previously I got 13 + 10 and 13 + 16. Although I claimed to have gotten 15 rounds with Amir one night, I suspect that represents an off-by-one error.

Tuesday's strength session at Cutting Edge; I worked only on my bench as I got some impromptu coaching. I warmed up with:

95 x 5 x 2

115 x 5 x 1

135 x 5 x 1

Work sets:

144 x 3

163.5 x 3

185 x 5

Singles:

205

220

230 (PR)

240 - miss, blown bar path.

Worked on high arch, foot position closer to bar end of bench to support the arch, bend bar down/up during eccentric (down)/concentric (up) phases, lowering bar slowly to the solar plexus. 

This week we've been doing a sequence of wods with opposite gender partners. Today we 15 minutes to get to 1RMs of DL/Squat/O-head press (5 minutes each). Short version: get sweaty,partner up,grab plates and...it didn't go too bad. Ran out of time on the DL & squat, getting 365/345 with seconds left. So, bonus points for me for going 365 and not ripping anything and also, the squat felt super. Went very deep, no bounce and came up out of the hole quick and strong. Today makes me very optimistic for a 400lb+ squat very soon.

Tonight the kb amrap went better than it has in a while, 14 rounds + 5. No idea what day 4 of the throwdown is yet, not posted. As long as it doesn't have a run, I'm good.

Sumo is King

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).