6/1 – Sports Class

WOD #1

9-13 minute Virtuosity Session

3 rounds

5-10 HSPU (strict)

20 pistols

5-10 pull-ups (strict)

5 strict HSPU/20 pistols/3 strict pull-ups

This was a fun warm-up.  Coach Hayden explicitly told us if we finished before the 9 minute mark that he’d make us do burpees until everyone else had finished.  The goal was good form not to speed through.  I wasn’t sure about the strict HSPU’s as it’s been a while since I’ve done them but they worked.  I did sets of 5 unbroken down to 2 ab mats/ an abmat on a plate.  The pistols got easier as I got into it more and they started to flow as I bounced out of the bottom.  The strict pull-ups really hurt my shoulder even though I only did 3 reps each round.  Not the best idea.  Oops.

WOD #2

EMOM5

10 shoulder to overhead (40/60kg)

10 pull-ups

30kg (missed minutes 2 and 4)

This was tough and I was smart to drop the weight down from Rx.  Given that my abs still ached something fierce I struggled a lot.  It (surprisingly?) takes a ton of core strength/ activation to do both shoulder to overhead and pull-ups.  The rule was that if you didn’t finish the 20 reps in the minute then you’d miss a round and have to wait to the start of the next minute to go again.  As such I missed both the second and fourth minutes as it took me about 10-15 seconds over the minute to finish the reps.

WOD #3

5 rounds

250m row

5 backsquats

Bailed after 1 round and a 250m row

I went light on the backsquats (40kg I think) and still bailed after the row on the second round as I was hurting.  My abs were no longer working at all and rather than set myself back further by pushing I walked away.  I could barely even row so it was a good thing.  Instead while everyone finished up I worked on trying to stretch my abs a bit – this still hurt but also probably helped a little in the long run.  It sucked to walk away, I rarely ever do this but I also have learned over time that I need to listen to my body and not push beyond the sore/ tired to the hurt phase, it’s a fine line and a struggle to face sometimes but in this case I still feel like it was the right one.

5/31 – Baseline

WOD ‘Baseline

500m row

10 pull-ups

20 push-ups

30 sit-ups

40 squats

400m run

8:38 Rx

Spent Wednesday and half of Thursday stuck in bed sneezing and sniffling, a little coughing and a whole lot of body not wanting to be vertical.  Cam came home Wednesday night after training with chicken soup and I was up for about 30 minutes eating some of it and then I couldn’t stand being vertical anymore.  Back to lying down and more sleep.  My body clearly needed it.  What it didn’t need was to have that all follow ‘Annie’.  My abs were as sore as I can ever remember them being.  It hurt to breath, it hurt to sneeze and it actually even hurt to stand with proper posture – I couldn’t straighten them out let alone stretch them.  Agony.

So it was back to the box for baseline.  I needed to get moving again though wasn’t sure at all how I was going to manage the 30 sit-ups.  What I didn’t realize is that every other movement would also tax my abs.  It was going to hurt.

It wasn’t that long ago that I’d done ‘Baseline’ for the first time and it hurt way more than expected so I think maybe because I was expecting it this time it wasn’t so bad (except for that ab thing).  I was steady through most of it – solid row – about a 1:50ish pace through the 500m.  Two sets on the pull-ups and I think 10-5-5 on the push-ups.  The sit-ups were steady (and painful) then I did 20 squats, walked a bit closer to the door then finished them off before the run. I remember thinking when I saw 6:30(ish) on the clock that I’d be smashing my previous PR heading into the run with 2 minutes but as it turns out – I don’t run so fast after all that – I finished 2 seconds slower than my previous PR.  Given though the sickness and how my body was feeling I was quite happy with the progress. 

5/28 – “Annie”

WOD “Annie”

50-40-30-20-10

Double Unders

Sit-ups

7:28

First day back from vacation and it was a good little one to get going.  Knew from the way I was feeling that there wouldn’t be any records set but was looking forward to it anyway.  Brendan and I were beside each other and he really pushed me to go faster.  There was a bit of back and forth for the first couple of rounds then I snuck ahead by a few situps and went from there.  He definitely made it challenging knowing in my head I couldn’t stop to rest at all.  Finished almost one minute slower than my PR but was to be expected.

Followed it up with a bit of open gym.  Didn’t really have  a plan but was inspired by the OHS WOD at the regionals so worked on that.

Open Gym

Overhead Squats

Warmup

5x15kg

3x25kg

Working

5x3 @ 35kg

This felt solid. Not sure what my previous OHS PR was but this was probably close to it.  Haven’t done them in ages and it felt good.

5/22 – Crossfit CBD Melbourne

While in Melbourne Cam and I checked out a second crossfit box.  I knew from following Liz’s blog that Crossfit CBD had a pretty unique set up.  They are located on the rooftop of a building in the heart of Chinatown in Melbourne’s CBD (central business district).  We had to pre-register for their class which meant that we couldn’t make it Tuesday (full) and instead caught Wednesday’s session.  I think I’m thankful for that as Tuesday had 800m runs in it which meant also running down their 100 odd stairs (it’s kind of mean that they have signs on the way up that tell you ‘how many more to go’ – like you need the reminder… haha).

It was another different class model.  The warm-up was listed on the board and it was up to you to get it done when you got there.  I think you had 10 minutes or so to do it (from the start of class time).

Warm-up

2 rounds

45 double unders

30 walking lunges

15 push-ups

The we went through the WOD movements and started it off.

WOD

EMOM21

Cycle through

22 One arm KB Swings (11 each arm alternating Russian swings) (24/16kg)

11 Box Jumps (32/24”)

11 Ring Dips

Rx/Rx/Red Band

This was a fun one.  It was similar to a longer tabata as the movements took from 30-40 seconds to finish then you had a little rest and moved on.  I enjoyed the KB swings as we do this often enough at Southern and the box jumps were solid.  I managed to rebound most of them and it wasn’t until the last round that the cold weather caught up to me and I tweaked my calf a little.  It didn’t stop me however which in hindsight and painful walking the next two days was probably not a smart idea.

I scaled the ring dips quick significantly as these quite often screw up my shoulder.  I also think I kept the rings a bit further away from my sides as a way to compensate for my shoulder issues (I know, not the best idea but still).  I think it was for this reason that my biceps hurt so much afterward and not my triceps.  It was a great session though.  Fun to roll through with a new crowd of people on an outdoor roof in the heart of Melbourne during the working week.

As I mentioned, Crossfit CBD is on the roof of a building.  It’s half sheltered and half exposed and completely open to the elements.  It was a little bit wet and mostly cold when we were there though there was daylight creeping through the grey sky.  I can’t imagine the dedication it would take for some to get there for the early morning or late night classes when it’s dark in the middle of winter.  It adds to the atmosphere though and definitely makes you stronger. 

Some photos from Crossfit CBD.

And some drunken Birtday Handstands just for fun... at least these were against a wall unlike my attempt to handstand walk in the middle of the city street that was more like a crash and burn...

5/20-5/21 - Crossfit Victoria

Catching up…

The second half of May was a bit of a blur with a trip to Melbourne, Regionals action and Cam moving out.  Training took a bit of a backseat but it was necessary and was a good break to just indulge – in food – namely bacon and beer and too many carbs.  Good times.

There were however a few WODs during the trip.  Two visits to Crossfit Victoria It was great to get different coaching perspectives – sometimes even the same cues but with different words and to see how different boxes operate.

Cam and I attended to sessions at Crossfit Victoria and both were WODs that were more lifting focused than metcons.  As a group we warmed up and then on both occasions had a set period of time to go through some movements on our own in a bit of a rotation to get us ready for the WODs.

5/20 – Push Presses at Crossfit Victoria

I don’t remember in detail all the dynamic stretching that we did on this one but I do remember at the end of it all that we partnered up and for 1 minute had to be on all fours – knees could not touch the ground and in essentially what was a chaotic bear crawl we faced off with our partners and tried to slap their hands.  Every touch resulted in an immediate pushup penalty for our partner.  It was really hard not to laugh while doing this – I think it’d make a great addition to fun time Fridays. 

Pre-WOD was a 5 minute cycle of 10 Russian KB swings at a heavy weight (I think I picked 24kg as this was the only ‘heavy’ option once everyone else had grabbed theirs) followed by 30 seconds of our choice of active rest (box jumps, burpees, running on the spot, skipping).  The clock just ticked away.  It was good fun and a different approach. 

WOD

Push Press 5 x 2

I *think* I got up to 42.5 for a few rounds though I can’t quite remember as it’s been a while.  I do remember a new PR so that was exciting.  It was also good practice to not re-dip a la push jerk too.  I enjoyed it and it was fun partnering up with a couple of girls that I just met and seeing them push their limits too. 

5/21 – Backsquats and Burpees at Crossfit Victoria

It was a last minute decision to rush over and catch this class at noon.  Thankfully Cam’s cousin Christian lives a minute from the box so a quick change and a dash over and we were set.  Unfortunately though we arrived 2 minutes after the class had started and were taxed with the burpee penalty.  Now at Southern it’s a fair 3 burpees per minute but here we got the West Coast inflated amount of 25.  Ouch.  So off Cam and I went with our burpees.  I’m not sure if the Coach was serious when he threw them at us but was probably impressed that we got right to it.  We laughed.

Pre-WOD

5 or 10 minutes (can’t recall) of squat holds and leg swings and hip stretches – basically rotating through the movements that would get us limbered up to start squatting.

WOD

For 15 minutes (10 rounds)

Every 90 seconds complete one round of:

3 back squats (at approx. 5RM)

6 burpees

45kg

I partnered up with Laura on this one and she was going with 45kg.  Given that I hadn’t worked out much and was exhausted from the weekends escapades of excessive drinking and not sleeping, staying out til the sun (almost) came up and hours of endless walking through the days I was cool with this.  I knew it was light for me but a good time to focus on form.

I enjoyed this format.  The burpees were quick but also left your heart racing – or perhaps that was just because I was trying to race Cam on them each and every time – I would beat him off of the squats and he would catch me on the burpees.  I think I managed to finish just fractions in front of him until the last round where he *finally* realized it was a competition (it really wasn’t) and kicked my ass.  Ha!

Enjoyed our time here and met a lot of cool people that I’m happily going to keep in touch with.  It’s reasons like this that I love the Crossfit world, it truly is an international and welcoming community.