9/27 - burpees and bumpers... rowing and running...

Coach Tim was back at it today and it was a good one right from the start.  The warmup was pretty much another WOD. 

Warm-up 
300m run
In pairs complete the following:
100 air squats
100 KB deadlifts
100 push-ups
100 BJ’s aka Box Jumps (get your mind out of the gutter people – HA!) 
8:43 (357 reps completed)

Tee-hee

I partnered with Glen and off we went.  We had to do all reps of one movement before going on to the next though we could break them up however we wanted.  I started with 25 air squats and we alternated from there at 25 each.  The deadlifts were pretty easy (we only had an 18kg KB) and again broke them down into sets of 25 each.  The push-ups were much harder, I knew I couldn’t do 25 though I did manage 20 on my first set and se we went from there alternating 20-20-20-20-10-10.  The box jumps we did in sets of 10 each and only got up to 57 reps completed before the 8 minute cut-off.  Still quite a solid effort and definitely got me warmed up.

I also really enjoyed it being a ‘team’ effort.  The primal pairs made me realize how fun it is to work with someone else to complete a large amount of work in whatever form so I hope we do a little more of this at Cooee either just in the warm-ups or even on some specific training days.  In a lot of ways it makes you work a bit harder if only to not let the other person down.

WOD
50 double-unders
10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1
Chest to overhead with bumper plate (10/20kg)
1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10
Burpee bumper jumps
50 double-unders

8:14 Rx

Pretty solid on this one though I stuffed up the first set of DU’s about 4 times right from the start.  I was getting only 5 or 6 reps and then tripping and having to start all over.  Talk about frustrating especially when I initially wondered if I could get 50 unbroken.  That fell apart pretty quick.

Coach Tim asked Shonelle and I when the next class went how best to motivate the workout – what the focus needed to be, etc. and really the only thing I could think of was ‘just keep moving’ and get through the grunt work as really that’s all it was.  Just keep moving.  I was glad that the shoulder to overhead was descending and the burpees were ascending as it would have been horrible trying to do 10 shoulder to overhead at the end, those were the tough part.  Managed to get a ridiculous huge and tender bruise on my knee from the burpees too – not sure why only one got the brunt of  it…

Ouch!

The final 50 DU’s went better than the first which isn’t surprising given how the first set went.  I bit off bit chunks and got going again pretty quickly after tripping up mostly because in a way I was racing Shonelle as we both had finished the work portion at about the same time.

After WOD

300m row

300m run

30 ab-mat sit-ups

3:43

I was in the first group to have a go at this (only 4 rowers) and was with three very tall boys.  I managed to keep pretty close to them on the row (within about 10 seconds) and then lost some time on the run mostly because it took me the first 150m to actually get my legs to work as they were supposed to.  That transition is always the worst especially with tight hamstrings.

Muscle-up School

2-2-1 reverse pull-up on rings

1:00 accumulated static hold on rings

Shonelle was really keen to do this and was the sole reason for me giving it a go.  It was day four in a row at the box and I have some hurting shoulders (handstands!) and really didn’t want to but I did.  We did some sets of slow lowering from a pull-up position on the ring focused on maintaining our false grip and turning out our shoulders at the bottom.  We then alternated on ring dip holds to accumulate a total of one minute.  I managed 20 seconds on the first set which was double of the day before (so happy!) and then followed that up with three more sets at 15 seconds each for a total of 1:05.  It was funny thinking about the days when I couldn’t even do a static hold and had Jack and Tim and Pete helping me to stay up there.  Progress!

Forgot to mention how sore I feel in the front of my shoulders from the reverse pull-ups and how tight I am in my chest from the static holds.  Progress?

Mobility

Glutes

Calves

Lots of tender spots in my glutes.  I was also talking to Coach Match about my tight hamstrings and how to mobilize then and he said that they’re tight because of my glutes and calves being tight.  My calves never feel tight but my massage therapist did mention that they felt tight to her.  When I started digging into the with the ball I realized quite quickly that there were definitely some tender points, especially when Match had me find a tight spot, put my resting leg over the one I was mobilizing and flex my bottom foot and quickly let go.  He laughed as I shouted in agony.  Wow.  Good movement right there.  I managed to suffer through this a bit more even though every time I flexed my foot I really didn’t want to relax it.

Playing

Handstand push-ups

One arm release handstands (trying to touch one arm to shoulder/side of body)

One hand handstands

Shonelle and I played around a bit and it was fun.  I had forgotten about Coach Match giving me the one arm release handstands to work on.  Need to remember this one.

WLC Day 14

Another good one with a really hearty and tasty dinner courtesy of Brenda – chicken and roasted vegetables – so yummy and perfect for a cold windy evening.  It feels more like autumn weather than spring at the moment.

Unrelated – anyone ever noticed just how long the song American Pie is by Don MacLean?  It took me from Leighton Beach all the way to my house to hear the entire thing – crazy.  Remind me to never use it as a song to do a set of any workout to.  Heh.