Sunday, February 20, 2011

Striving For Better Than My Best

I hate performing a task and knowing that I could've done better at it. However, I love it when I prove to myself that I can do better than my "best". These two statements basically sum up my approach to CrossFit and to life in general. Whether I'm relating as a friend, father, or husband, or in business when I'm training or coaching a client- or whether it's a competition WOD that you just want to put up a decent time for- I oftentimes sell myself short by settling for good enough. No more settling. I did a WOD last week on Monday which was this Feb STL indvidual competition WOD 2 at TNT of 21-15-9 Squat Cleans, Alt Stationary Lunges, Push Press. I went out of the gate like a psycho and ended up crashing. My final time was 10:38. After a nice relaxing weekend away with The Potts, The Browns, and The Wistroms at The Cliffs at LongCreek (Big Cedar Property) in Branson, we got back to springfield at around 3pm. Jenny wanted to take a 30min nap so I obliged and took Vin across the house to play music and watch MickeyMouse Clubhouse. 30 minutes later and it was time to roll...My mission: Knowing that I could do better than the 10:38 time I posted, I wanted to head up to CrossFit Springfield and to destroy the old time by any means necessary! So I did. After taking two very chill, relaxing days to hang with family and friends, I jumped into the car rolled over to CFS, hit a solid 5-10min warm-up, stretched it out for a few, and then busted it out- pacing all the way...and adding 1 extra lunge step in on the round of 15 just because I love lunges...OOOOOOR by accident. New PR for the WOD is now 8:54.

Friday, February 11, 2011

Clean It, Split Jerk It, Behind the Head Jerk It, Overhead Squat It

I was sore for days after my trainwreck date with "Karen" on Sunday. This week's training has gone well. The WODs I've done have been varied enough to keep me honest and I've pushed myself hard enough daily to keep fit but I've not yet gone back to full throttle since last Sunday's 150 Wallballs for time. After speaking with CrossFit SOMO owner and uber-stud crossfitter, Rodney Hamby this morning, I got the idea to put together a little strength complex for myself:
Clean (power or squat), Split Jerk, Lower to back, Behind the neck split jerk, Overhead Squat. 7 attempts. The great thing about this progression is that every step of the way, there were tons of technical flaws I got on videotape of myself performing the complex. I'm getting to review them, and hopefully continue to clean up my messes. I need to work on faster elbows, bigger hip extension, and more speed transitioning myself under the bar and into the recieving position. The dip/drive portion of my jerks were slow. In general, everything just needs to be more snappy. My progression was as follows (135lb Not videoed):

155lb...



199lb...

221lb...

232lb...

243lb...

254lb...

Sunday, February 6, 2011

Here's To You, "Karen"...

Vin turns 3 years old on the 10th, so to celebrate we threw him a party at CrossFit Springfield on Saturday. Tons of family and friends came out to run around the gym, throw play-dough everywhere, and dance to some sweet jams (one of Vin's bday presents was a bad-to-the-bone drum performance by a local drummer). We were extremely happy and thankful for such a great turnout! Vin had a blast. The kids had a blast. Mom and dad had a blast. It was pure awesomeness.


Speaking of awesomeness, I've been having a ton of fun training lately. I don't know what it is exactly but, compared to this time last year, I'm having way more fun. My diet has been solid overall but you can believe me when I tell you I've partaken in my fair share of weekend cheat days. I was way more strict leading up to the games season last year with both my diet and the programming I fed to myself. All work and no play. Recently, I've been trying to enjoy the fun in competing against myself, other athletes from our box, and the clock. Though I think it's made a positive difference in my performances, it certainly hasn't kept the WODs from beating the crap out of me :)

On Friday I practiced split jerks on our new platform fabricated by our resident handymen, Mr Wistrom & Mr Cochran (It's freakin' sweet- thank you fellas). Afterwards, I did a 10 min AMRAP with Grant of 3 Push Press or Jerk @ 185lb, 7 Kipping Pull Ups, and at the top of each minute, snatch 135lb. Did 10 Rds + 3 P.Press + 4 Kipping Pull Ups. GREAT workout. Every movement seemed to loom.

Today I did the CrossFit.com mainpage WOD, "Karen" (150 Wallballs for time, 20lb). Last summer was the last time I did this benchmark WOD. My time then was 6:35. When I woke up today and checked the mainpage to see "Karen" was the WOD, I cringed and immediately started trying to talk myself into a different workout. Having that reaction made me realize that "Karen" was exactly the workout I needed to do. I'm glad I did cuz I PR'd by over a minute with a time of 5:25 and managed to do 103 Wallballs unbroken- which I know for a fact I've never done before...and may never do again:


Wednesday, February 2, 2011

Brokeback Mountain Of Snow

After being cooped up inside the house for the past couple of days because of the snowpocalypse, it was nice to get out and about, coach a big noon crew WOD at CFS, and get some quality training in. I took yesterday off and did some yoga- or yoyo as Vin calls it. Also got to play with the family in the blizzard-like conditions, which was awesome. We put on 30 layers of any article of clothing we could find, went outside, and just tore up the frozen tundra like it was our JOB:




Then we drank hot chocolate...Then I shoveled the driveway like Jenny had just told me that it was my JOB. My back was so tight by the time I finished you'd have thought I had just done 1000 deadlifts for time.

Two days ago, on Monday, I did Bench Press 5 x 5 in the AM with Grant. I don't remember what I got up to but I do remember that it was terrible. I've been benching less over the past 6 weeks in order to stay flexible enough to be solid with my overhead lifts. It was very evident on Monday but I'm ok with that. Afterwards, I did 1 set of as many reps as possible of 25lb strict weighted pull ups and got 17. I then dropped the weight and did 33 more strict pull ups (not unbroken) at just bodyweight for a total of 50. In the afternoon around 4:30pm, I did 5 x 7 backsquat. On my last set, I did 309lb (was using kg plates) for 7 reps. At 5pm, Coach B and I finished up with a 21-15-9 WOD of SDHP @ 95lb & GHD sit ups. We played "rock, paper, scissors" to determine who got to choose who went first; I won, so, of course, I made Brian go first so I could have a time to shoot for. Llewellyn did 3:17 and I finished in 2:59...it's always nice to have a time to shoot for. Let that be incentive for you to shore up your "rock, paper, scissor" game. It comes in handy once in a while during a CrossFit WOD.

Today, thanks to Cap'n Koch giving me a lift to the box, I was able to do the CrossFit.com main page WOD of Overhead Squat 1-1-1-1-1-1-1. I PR'd with a OHS of 275lb:




I missed 285lb but decided to keep going with my behind-the-head split jerk just because the last time I did it I hit 285lb. I wanted to see if I could get more while I was warm. I'm glad I tried cuz I ended up PR'ing at 295lb:

With 5 minutes left til' noon I quickly scrambled my brain to think of a short met-con I could hit before having to coach the 12pm CFS group WOD. I decided on 5 minutes AMRAP of 5 overhead squats @ 135lb & 5 Hand release push ups. TOUGH workout but I loved it! 9 rounds + 4 OHS. A little over 1 month until sectionals begin! I'm eager to see what the programming looks like. Bring it, CrossFit HQ- cuz I'm gonna!