7/10 – Double PR Day and Strange Coincidences

Testing week continues – again a repeat of that which we did back in April.  I knew my scores going in (actually thought my pull-up score was 54) and thought they might be hard to beat but was ready to give it a go.

WOD

5 minute AMRAP

Muscle Ups pull-ups

66 (PR)

Then

Find your 1RM Strict Press (in 20 minutes)

20kg x 10 reps

30kg x 4 reps

35kg x 2 reps

then singles at:

36.5-38.5(f)-38(PR)

The last time I did this WOD I remember aiming for 5 pull-ups every 30 seconds – I threw that plan out the window last night and it surprisingly felt okay.  The first set I managed 7 reps and my shoulders felt (surprisingly) strong coming through on the down and letting me keep a solid kip.  My hands also didn’t hurt (at least until the last minute or so).  I did big(ger) sets throughout – mostly 5’s until I couldn’t keep at that any more then it was 4’s for a while before dropping to 3 and 2’s.  It felt good though.  I was about 30 or so reps in at the halfway mark and had reached (what I thought was) my old score (54) with 90 seconds remaining.  I then just tried to keep pushing on.  At the end of it all I was happy, still felt solid in my technique and though I realized after that I had two blisters on the fingers of my left hand (they didn’t rip thankfully) I felt good overall.  A lot of this can be attributed to the fact that I’m down 3kg (approx.) since the last time I did this WOD and I can tell – my ideal weight is about where I am now and it just makes a lot of this body weight stuff that much easier.

After smashing out the pull-ups and still feeling the effects of the HSPU’s on Monday I wasn’t sure how the strict press would go.  I recall from last time how just a 0.5kg increase floored me, I couldn’t get it to budge so I wasn’t sure there’d be any PR’s set.  Ali and I were partnered up again and also in the same rack position as the previous two times we’d done this WOD – though this time Coach Claire wasn’t there with us (and apologies to Sean who was a bit amusingly put off by us stealing that spot… he found it funny and also funny to just give us a hard time about it).  Tradition rules!  Ha.

Anyway, we started a bit heavier than previous and then worked up way faster than usual, I think I was nearing my PR with just under 10 minutes left (of 15 minute total working time).  I think Ali snuck 38.5 on the bar after the 36.5kg attempt (I didn’t want to think too hard about the math though I had a pretty good idea of the weight before I attempted the lift).  I barely moved it mostly because I was thinking of the weight rather that just getting aggressive with it so I re-racked the bar and let it go.  I did however go back to it and add on that 0.5kg that I couldn’t get the last time and got (albeit quite ugly) 38kg over my head and locked out.  That was enough for me.  No need to push it given I didn’t think I had that much more left anyway.  Definitely happy with the two PR’s on the day when I wasn’t expecting any.  Isn’t life funny?

Speaking of funny, or is it crazy…  I sometimes write down dreams if I remember them clearly and they seem to resonate (not sure why but just trust me on this – sometimes they’ve actually come to life in the past so anyway)… I was flipping through a notebook yesterday at came across a post-it note that I’d written down a dream I had on June 6^th (nice that I had it dated).  You can see the photo of it below – essentially it was a weirdly messed up competition WOD that had shoulder to overhead and toes to bar (on a swing set?).  I didn’t know the rep scheme, just couldn’t tell but did know that I didn’t finish it.  I read this again and then it struck me we did a WOD quite like this at Primal Throwdown – WOD #7.  That kind of freaked me out when I made the connection.  And to note – I didn’t finish this WOD either.  Strange.  But also another reason to make note/ listen to my dreams.  Weird.