everyday STRONGER...: 11/4 - Affiliate Cup Training

Sunday was another morning at the Albert Street Gym. This week rather than focus on strength we figured it’d be good to get a few team practices in before the Affiliate Cup which is in two weeks. We have a solid team – Vini, Nick, Angie and myself – in the intermediate division.

We all train a lot and this workout wasn’t as much about going heavy as it was about learning how to communicate and transition between movements in a team of four – harder than you might expect when your heart is racing and you’re lacking oxygen to the brain (at least it feels like it).

I got to program todays WOD. I tried to keep in light but with high reps so that we would have to switch on the fly and at times throw the game plan out the window.

Fridge WOD

Team WOD

200 DU’s

150 Russian Swings (16/16kg)*

100 over/unders with 10/20kg plates overhead*

100 chest to overhead (10/20kg) while two people plank*

~~150~~ 100 deadlifts (30/50kg)*

200 DU’s

*if any of the equipment (for each movement) touches the ground while working 10 air squat penalty on the spot for entire team

22:19

I just realized now that we didn’t do 150 deadlifts we did 100 which was probably because we were no longer paying attention and the two movements before had both been 100 reps. Hmmm. Interesting to note.

This turned out to be a good one. We were solid on the DU’s and just rotated through once someone tripped up. The hardest part really was counting though we’ll have judges at affiliate cup to do that for us anyway.

The KB swings (Russian) were good – we only had 16kg KB’s and they had the fat grip on them which was a little taxing but Vini started off with 30 reps and Angie followed with 20, Nick with 30 then myself with 20. Vini and Ang finished us off. Our communication was good – we kept the equipment off the ground (which is easy to forget when you’re in the middle of it) and also let each other know how many reps we were going for so that the transitions were fairly seemless.

We easily split into pairs for the next two movements – the over and unders were very taxing (mostly the holding the plates overhead) and definitely took a lot of time to get through. In the second half of the 100 we were probably only doing 7-8 reps maximum before switching off. It still worked though – even though we had more transitions we were quick in doing them and everyone was ready for them as we counted down the reps remaining before the switch. It was at this point that Tim came back to watch us and we all clearly noted how he was standing in the doorway eating donuts while we worked hard. Heh.

I figured we’d die on the chest to overhead as all of our arms were aching from holding the plates but these actually went quite well. We were solid in holding the plank so it was a function of the two pressing that determined when we switched. Angie and Nick did 4 sets of 10 between them then Vini and I did sets of 5 but still completed 40 reps. Angie and Nick finished us off and then we were on to the deadlifts. Again, communication was solid and we switched between us seamlessly and communicated on keeping the bar off the ground.

As we neared the end of the deadlifts those not lifting/ holding the other bar were ready to start the DU’s. It worked really well.

Our time was solid – it felt much longer than 22 minutes mainly due to the over/unders but for our first workout as a team it was solid. We will have (at least) one more practice round next weekend (with Nick and Vini programming) and then Affiliate Cup. I’m really looking forward to competing with these three.

Some photos from the morning…