9/11 - quad killer(s)...

Another day at the box and it’s getting a little bit easier for me to breath so that’s a bonus.  As I mentioned yesterday I really started to feel my lats mid day – all those pull-ups (both up and down) finally catching up to me.  As we started the warm up jog I also noticed the soreness in my quads and  as we did the backwards running I really started to notice hammies, lots of stretching and mobility still required. 

Warm-up
150m run
Shuttle sprints using the parking space lines

run forward, 3 air squats, run backwards – for first 5 lines

run forward, 3 push-ups, run backwards – for next 5 lines

Run back to box (150m)
Partner facing plank/ hand slaps then backwards bear crawl to wall and forwards back – 3 times
Shoulder rotation

Pre-WOD
Tabata hollow-body holds
For the first few rounds of this I managed to keep my legs out straight and (first time) keep my arms straight over my head.  The rest of the rounds were a combination of this, arms by my sides and bent legs.  I could really feel my abs – they got a lot of use on Monday’s squat complex and definitely felt the hollow body holds.

WOD
8 min AMRAP
Every minute do 5 burpees
Then as many jumping pull-ups as possible
Score = number of jumping pull-ups
200

These were horrible.  On paper it doesn’t seem hard but having a full 40 seconds (or more) to do full range of motion jumping pull-ups is a killer.  For the first few rounds my quads were holding me back – they were screaming.  I think it had a lot to do with never fully getting a rest during the reps – when I’d land and straighten my arms (range of motion required) they’d be half bent and therefore still engaged and then they’d progress straight into a jump to do another rep so it was a constant muscle in use (in different ways).  After the 3 round or so they started to cooperate a bit more which was good otherwise I’m not sure I would have made it.  

 In the first round I did 30 reps but knew right then that I wouldn’t be able to sustain that number especially since they taxed me so much I only managed to do 20 in the next round.  I then aimed to be consistent at 25 reps each round done in sets of 5 – I made sure I got right into it after the burpees for 5 reps and then given that I had a good view of the clock made my rest between only 2-3 seconds.  It was a good pace and worked as I did 25 reps for each of the last 6 rounds and (just) made 200 reps.  The burpees were fine (and it definitely helped me to pace off of Kirst) – I can’t believe I just said that – 5 reps was doable and I think on average it took me about 20 seconds to finish them – as usual it was just about keeping a steady pace, right back to the ground after the jump.  Constant movement.

(Surprise) Post-WOD
Tabata bottom-to-bottom squats
Run 300m
As if that wasn’t taxing enough we had another tabata to do.  Bottom to bottom air squats.  Hah! This was funny.  My legs were already toast and now they had another 4 minutes of solid work to do.  They were shaking right from the start.  There were a few rounds where I really struggled to hold the bottom position and by the end I wasn’t even getting 10 reps per round.  It was pretty funny, especially when after the 8 rounds were up we were hit with the ‘surprise’ of having to do a 300m (untimed thankfully) run.  I had trouble getting my legs to even move at first but it was probably a good thing to run and get the blood moving a bit.

Mobility
Post WOD(s) Angie had to pay-off her bet with Jaimie for South Africa losing and do 70 burpees (7 point difference x 10 burpees per point).  We convinced her that since she was already doing 70 that she might as well do 100 and put her score on the board.  Since I had done it last week there was no way I was doing it again but I counted and cheered while she did.  Rockstar right there!
After that I rolled out my quads and stretched while Angie did 1000m on the rower (she never stops – and so glad she’s on my affiliate cup team!).  We had fun chatting and talking food (we are so ready to rock the wlc) which we noted makes the mobility go by so much faster so that’s motivating.  

WLC

WLC starts this weekend and many of us are already gearing up.  I’m pretty excited that Angie, Brenda and I are forming a little food sharing group.  We all tend to cook a lot on Sundays for the week and typically end up eating leftovers for most of it so we figured it’d be great to bring in a portion for each other on Tuesdays when we all WOD just for a bit of a change up.  I also think it’ll help me to up my game a bit at least for one meal a week knowing I’ll be sharing it with other people.  It should be tasty.