2/22 – (Jumping) Bar Muscle Ups

Just realized that I’ve been lagging on my blog lately – well – not that I’m lagging but more so that I missed posting about last Friday’s sports class.  I have all been training all this week and will catch up on those posts but I’m lacking a bit of fire lately in both my training and in updating my blog.  I realize this though (now) and am looking at ways to spice things up heading into the open.

I’ll have a separate post probably later on this feeling but I am in a great place, surrounded by amazing people who encourage and support and provide amazing coaching but the internal drive for me is lacking – I think because I need a focus, a goal(s) to work towards but right now I feel aimless and though I love training and crossfit I’m not pushing myself hard enough right now.  I do want to get better but am honestly doing nothing to get there – this WILL change.  More later…

Back to last Friday – I loved this…

WOD #1

EMOTM 10

10-15 second hanging L-sit hold

I had my hands all taped up and ready to go for this one.  It was fun with everyone in the class hanging from parts of the pull-up bars around the room.

Initially we spent a bit of time going through the variations of the L-sit – knees up, one leg out (alternating), both legs out with knees bent, both legs out.  We then went into the WOD.  It was good and also funny initially as part way through the first round Shasha asks outloud ‘who is holding their breath right now’… I have to admit, I was.  It was a good reminder that remembering to breath is important.  I did most of these with my legs out but with knees bent.  Still found it very challenging.

After this we went into practicing some bar muscle up progressions.  We started with chest to bar pull-ups and I have to say that with Coach Hayden’s cue the other week about keeping my feet tight together on the kip I can get way more height on my pull-ups now than I ever did before.   I can’t get much more than a chest to bar pull-up now so the rest of the progression was kind of lost on my until we got to the jumping transitions – basically you stand in front of the bar on a box and with your feet on the box still go through the movement of the kip and then jump up into the bar muscle up.  I couldn’t do these either but was trying.  I think it was more a fear thing as you’re pretty high up when you get on top of the pull-up bar. 

WOD #2

10-7-5-3

Bar muscle ups

Squat clean thrusters (42.5)

11-ish minutes (?) @35kg thrusters

I wasn’t sure what I was going to do for the WOD as the scaling was equal number chest to bar pull-ups and jumping bar muscle ups but I didn’t have the jumping bar muscle ups.  We were partnered up and so as Tara was getting ready to go I was playing around a bit more and got one, then another.  I managed jumping bar muscle ups and I was super excited.

When it was my turn to WOD I decided that I’d skip the chest to bar portion and just do the jumping muscle ups which were already challenging for me – the pull-ups would have destroyed my already aching hands.  I struggled a bit doing singles in the round of 10 and after about 3 reps Coach Tara came around and told me to just work to 5 and go on to thrusters.  The objective of this WOD was more skill work but also to get the work in. 

The squat clean thrusters were hard but do-able.  I scaled the weight as we’d had a pretty heavy week overall and I was definitely feeling tired.  Even so, 35kg wasn’t easy.  The first round we had to just thruster but after that we were allowed to do a squat clean thruster-jerk where we didn’t’ necessarily have to have one fluid movement from the squat overhead – this definitely helped though felt a little strange at first – it worked really well.

As I was on the round of 7 bar muscle ups I was thinking I’d just do 4 (then 3-2) for the WOD but Coach Tara again came around as I was starting and told me to do 5 again and to do 5 for each round of muscle ups and so I did.  And it was good.  In the end I was only 5 reps short of what the WOD called for and was happy to just have done any.  I was pretty much going from under the bar to locked out on top of it so I think that maybe next time I’ll be able to use a smaller box (I was on the 30” box).

It was another great Friday training session with well earned Nando’s afterward.  Thankfully Cam had an extra hoody in his car and was kind enough to pick up Nando’s to go so I could ride my bike straight home.  That was a bit of a challenge – moreso because I kept hitting all the green lights when I really needed a break to shake out my arms.  Heh.