8/12 – Backsquats, Partner WOD and Extra Work

Back at it tonight after a stellar day of rest on Sunday.  Completely chill and necessary though my shoulders were still screaming (even after a massage on Saturday afternoon – wow).

WOD

Backsquats

6 x 6reps @ 70% (+10kg for those doing the comp training – 5kg more from last week)

Warm-up – 10x20kg, 6x40kg, 6x60kg

6x6 @ 66kg (that’s a lot of 6’s)

Then

In Partners

6min AMRAP

10 Kettlebell Swings 32/20kg

7 Burpees

9 + 13 (9 full rounds plus 10KB swings and 3 burpees)

Tonights class included our backsquats which meant a bit of an easier night overall in terms of timing of things.  The downside however (not a huge deal really) was that I was working alone – Ali got stuck at work and because of the number of squat racks in the gym there was ample space to not have to partner with anyone.  It also meant that I didn’t have anyone to spot me when I was getting tired (and my form paid the price a bit for it).

I was working at 82.5% of my 1RM – and 6kg more than the big boys that were beside me – I felt both badass and tired all in one.  But still managed to get through it all.  I could have used with a partner mostly for the motivation to just push through the reps and to spot me/ be close enough if I needed them.  We were working on doing a set every 3 minutes which at this point is on the lower end of rest time for what I’m doing (not an issue but…).  What it meant was that I would feel solid and strong and go slow for the first 4 reps but then it would suddenly feel really hard and I’d try and rush the last two – bouncing out of the bottom and then dropping my chest and leading up with my butt – not good form.  After the last set I asked Coach Scotty why I was doing this/ what I had to focus on to stop as today was the first time I’ve done this in all the sets we’ve done up to this point.  He said that I was probably pushing my butt back too much from the start and trying to rush the rep.  I likely wasn’t staying tight throughout and activating my glutes (relying more on my hamstrings).  He watched my last set which really helped – as did knowing that it was the last one.  I really focused on going slow and keeping upright right from the start and it worked.  I also really felt the last few in my glutes – a lot.  Guess it was working.    Probably a combo of the items above plus just being fatigued overall.  Glad the number of reps per set decreases through the rest of the week.

The partner WOD was a ton of fun.  I think I was initially partnered with Dan (coaches paired us up) but when it came time for the WOD I was with George.  We worked really well together and both pushed harder because of each other – not wanting to let the other down.  We only had  few seconds to try and figure out our game plan and though we didn’t get it fully defined we both were thinking along the same lines and it worked really well.  He started with 5Kb swings and then I finished them up and then he did all 7 burpees – round 1.  And we continued to alternate from there meaning I started the next round of KB swings then he finished them and I did the burpees and we just kept at it.  Our communication was solid (always a necessity in partner WODs) – brief stating of the rep we were on and switching off seamlessly. 

The numbers worked well.  It was easy and made sense to split the 10KB swings up (even though 20kg isn’t feeling too heavy for me anymore) – George noted that he was pretty much done by the end and I mostly agreed.  The 7 burpees are just enough to hurt but not enough to break them up.  That nasty number of 7 reps.  Heh.

We lost count – thinking initially that we had finished 7 rounds plus a bit but then realized it was actually 9 when Dan and Cam put up their score of 8+ rounds (we were just ahead of them).  I loved it.  Couldn’t have picked a better partner myself and pushed really hard because of it.

Adding the SEX WOD work here because there really wasn’t much more today…

Monday's Extra

1) SXF WOD

Back Squat

6x6rep @70% (+5kg's to last week) – 10kg overall

6x6 @66kg (see above)

Partner WOD

6min AMRAP

10 Kettlebell Swings 32/20kg

7 Burpees

9 + 13 (see above)

2) EMOM for 10mins perform 'x' Handstand Push-ups
* 'x' = a number you can hold across all 10sets 

5-5-5-5-4-4-3-3-3-4 all Rx

3) SXF Yoga Class or 60mins mobility & stretching

60 minutes mobility

Followed up with WOD with HSPU’s EMOM for 10 minutes.  Did this with George and Chris (who did 10 strict for the full 10 minutes – awesome!).  I started optimistically with 5 reps.  My first ever sports class we did this exact WOD at the start.  My numbers from that day back in January (5-5-5-5-4-3-3-3-3-3) are fairly similar with the biggest difference being that tonight I was Rx-ing them – back in January I was using an abmat still.  My kip also felt strong tonight better than before though because I’m  fully tucking now I need to ensure that my  hands aren’t too close to the wall (which they were a few times causing me to just fall off the wall in the tucked position).  I also realized that I’ll always have a mat under my head even while doing them strict as there were a few (too many actually) times that I dropped down hard onto my head because of fatigue in my shoulders.  Still hung on though and was happy to squeeze out that extra rep in the last set.  Totally tired and sore little muscles in my shoulders (also from Saturday’s dips) from this one.

Wasn’t going to stay for yoga though it felt so good last week – it was too late being at 7:30 (getting home by 9).  Instead I did about 45 minutes of solid mobility.  Some on my shoulders, a little on my hamstrings then the majority on my hip flexors.  Started with a solid 5 minutes or so on each side rolling on the lacrosse ball (mostly stayed there until it was about to make me cry).  Followed this up with another 5 minute on each side of pigeon pose.  Walked around a little after that and it was a weird sensation – basically I spent 10 minutes barely moving lying on the ground and then felt like I’d been run over.  Good times.  Lastly I did some solid child’s pose.  Not sure how long I was in this but it was good mostly because Sacha came over at one point and pushed down on my sacrum for a bit and helped me deepen the pose (which is something I was really craving last week in the yoga class).  She then did another set of her HSPU’s then came back and did it again.  Seriously amazing.  Loved it (and her obviously).   So my hips are a lot more mobile and also feeling a bit odd as they haven’t been this open in several weeks now. 

Good night and happy it was over relatively early so that I could spend 2 hours skyping with my best friend – it is the little things!