Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the face

That's a common boxing maxim, and it's true for many situations. There is a financial tsunami sweeping through our banking institutions. The interesting fact about a tsunami is that it doesn’t do the most damage when the wave crashes inland. It's when it recedes that we see the devastation that has resulted. The collapse of the subprime mortgage business began some time ago and only now do we see the wreckage that has followed. There is a bright spot. Our Canadian financial institutions are strictly regulated and have escaped the disastrous results that have befallen the enormous investment banks in the US. Our holdings are largely intact although my mutual funds have taken a nosedive with the stock market plunge. Warren Buffet advises buying blue chip now because they are bargains, strengthening your portfolio.

What does this have to do with Crossfit? Plenty. Because I work for a Credit Union, our staff have been busy helping customers understand the impact to their portfolios and planning new products to give our customers greater choices. Resulting from that, this plucky Crossfitter and blogger has been compelled to be early to work and late to leave on the days when I head to the gym. Coupled with a busy home life doing renovations, I have done only two Crossfit WODs in the last two weeks. Meantime, I have continued to Zone diet and I have been going to the fitness centre in my building during my lunch to row 6000 metres for time. I feel I must do something to keep my fitness.

I got to test my plan yesterday during the "Elizabeth" workout at Crossfit Langley.

But before that, we worked on strength training with push presses - three repetitions for five rounds. I started light with the bar, and then working my way up from 95lbs to 145lbs for the last round. I was feeling the difficulty with my weights. While 135lbs isn't light, I can usually handle that easily. The gas in the tank just wasn't there. I realized that my first WOD after a layoff was like the first round in a routine. It's the worst one and it will get better. I also realized that rowing 6000 metres for time doesn't do diddly for strength training.

On to Elizabeth. Sweet, sweet Elizabeth.

21 - 15 - 9

Squat cleans

Ring Dips

I had some soul-searching to do. Rx weight was 135lbs and I knew it was too heavy. But I had a hard time letting go. I didn't want to go light because of my layoff - just suck it up and take longer. I opted to be sensible and choose 115lbs. That turned out to be very, very wise. Within 12 cleans I knew that it was going to be difficult. At 15 reps, I had to put the barbell down and shake my arms and breathe. My heart was pounding like a jackhammer and I could see stars at the edges of my vision. After a short rest, I picked the barbell up and did the remaining 6 reps in two sets. Over to the rings. These are not too bad although doing them strictly adds much time to the round. I had to break these up into sets of six to preserve decent form.

After the first round of 21, I was done. Absolutely fall down on the floor drooling ... done. I would pay someone, preferably someone in India who works for rupees, to do the rest for me. Seriously, I had money in my gym bag. With fear and fatigue rising, I went back to the barbell. I struggled and barely managed 5 cleans before I had to stop for breath. I remember this feeling. This was like my first weeks in Crossfit where I thought I was going to DIE and was asking myself why the hell I was doing this.

I chalked up because it helps. 5 more cleans, stars dancing around when I stood up. Who would have thought that 115lbs was so heavy? I stood there gasping for breath, feeling a strong urge to puke, the went back to the barbell. Rinse and repeat.

I thought the last round of 9 reps would be much better, with the surge of power I often feel when coming in for the homestretch. That eluded me today as I crash, bang, boomed my way to the last few cleans. My form was okay, but I couldn't muster the intensity. What a sad feeling. The last ring dips I forced myself to make them as best as I could, part from wish to honour the spirit of the routine and partly as punishment for allowing myself to get into such a state.

And then it was over. 13:58. I lay down on the mat and stared up at the ceiling fan. Sometimes I looked at the lights too. I have no idea how long I lay there but it wasn't long enough.

I remember reading the blogs of Sterling, Michelle and Leanna, all lamenting about how hard a layoff is when returning to the gym and how badly it sucks to suffer so much at stuff you could zip through weeks before. I add my voice to theirs. It sucks bad. Like a punch in the face.

See you Saturday.

Zoning and Moaning

Have you ever walked into your gym and felt as if you haven't worked out a day in your life? Your arms and legs are heavy, your butt is dragging the ground and everything feels heavy - even the plastic training weights? Yes, I am feeling that today.

I developed a cold last Thursday and decided to take a rest day on Saturday instead of Crossfit. That was probably a wise choice as I could hardly breathe without sneezing and I was a bit woozy. The end result is that it's been four days since I've been to the gym. To make matters worse, I took a 'holiday' from the Zone over the weekend. Burgers, hot dogs, cola, pumpkin pie, and at least a half dozen double-doubles from Tim Hortons. It was glorious. Every now and then I need to relax the restrictions and remind myself why I do things like the Zone. It tastes delicious but then I feel awful afterwards - tired, sluggish and not strong.

Today we did a three-round complex to warm up the body, using progressively heavier weights. The complex was made up of Olympic moves like deadlifting and snatching and it got me breathing deeply. The heart of the WOD was three rounds of five squats. I warmed up with 135lb and then jacked it up to 180lb for a set of five. After that round I added 10lbs and stayed there for the other two rounds. That was about all my legs were interested in lifting for me today so I console myself with the fact that I squatted 2785lbs this morning. Yay me!

The final part to this WOD was a fast three rounds of 12 pullups and 7 box jumps. Just right.

That was an nice way to break into a banner week of fitness and to celebrate I am strict Zoning again. I am starting to feel a bit more energetic. I hope it doesn't take all week to get back to where I was. Ah the price we pay!

Big Bada Boom

Four rounds looks like cake. But the devil is in the details and it's all about maintaining clean form while working as quickly as you are able. Four rounds begins to look like a trip across the North Sea with no land in sight.

Should I pick which exercise was the hardest and which was the rest? I'm afraid I can't. There was no rest and each one was hard. My shoulders were sore and protesting from Monday's one-hundred bench presses. And squatting down for the cleans, jumping up for the boxes and driving back in the rower ensured that my legs were filled with molten lava during this WOD. Once again I had to go to the "place" in my head when it gets tough. It's not a place of smiles and rainbows. This place is full of Vikings in battered horned helmets landing their longship on a conquered shore. This rower breathes fire.

Workout of the Day

4 Rounds for time:
15 - DB hanging cleans 35x2/25x2db
25 - Box jumps
500m row

19 minutes, 31 seconds

My fellow trainees did wonderfully and the extra speakers in the Langley box really kicks it into high gear. I'm diggin' the satellite radio.

Prison Break

I went to the 6:30 PM class on Monday night for this WOD. Normally I attend Tuesday and Thursday mornings, but my quarterly performance review was first thing Tuesday and I thought it best to show up on time. My boss is punctual. The effect of this, however, is that I knew what Coach Clarke had programmed for the day. I like my morning workout because I prefer not knowing in advance what I’m going to do. I like to show up, my gear bag packed with both running and weight lifting shoes, and tackle whatever lies ahead. In this case, I knew for hours that I would be doing bench presses and pull-ups for one hundred reps. That gave me a serious case of the butterflies.

I decided to Rx this weight and see how it would go. I knew from experience that 135lb was light for max bench-pressing, but doing 100 reps will take the starch out of your gym shorts pretty quickly. I promised myself that no matter how long it took, I was going to hang in there and finish what I started. I chalked up and did some presses with the bar to get my shoulders warmed up. I love the feeling of the barbell. It’s not easy to explain that to someone whom the iron bug hasn’t bitten, but I know that you Gentle Reader can appreciate what I mean. It’s perfect.

There is that tense moment when it’s time to turn on the clock. All eyes watch as Coach walks over to it.

“Everyone ready?”

Gulp. “Yeah, ready!”

And with that, it’s on. I pump out ten smooth bench presses. Without a break, I do ten pull-ups and then reward myself by marking the two sets on the whiteboard. Little things like that begin to mean a lot. Two more rounds go by and my train is pulling into the station a little slower each time. The exercise I feared the most – the pull-ups – are in fact the easier of the two. I was worried about tearing calluses and brought my sport tape but my hands are holding up. By the fourth round, I have to rest midway through the presses and shake out my arms. Luc wrote in his blog that failure is abrupt. Absolutely! Four clean presses and then failure on the fifth. Just like that. I learned to listen for the warning sign. Just a little wobble in my right shoulder and I knew the next rep would fail. I stopped, shook my arms out, and then pumped out a few more. My tactic is dead simple. Work to ten reps no matter what before moving to the other exercise. Ten rounds of ten reps. Easy to remember when you’re head is in delirium.

By the seventh round, I am pressing in groups of three, or even two reps. Each time a small break to shake out the arms is all I need to press out a couple more. It’s very tough going. Psychologically, the bar can defeat you if you focus too much on its weight. I instead focus on my goal – pressing it up! My hands hurt now and the pull-ups are uncomfortable. What is most unpleasant is that my back still hurts from the WOD on Saturday and as I drop to the bottom of each pullup, it stretches my lats until I feel exquisite pain from it. Hauling myself up (with a kip) actually feels better.

During the last round, it happens. I just can’t lift that weight up and it hovers there above me looking more and more like an anvil from a Saturday morning cartoon. Slowly it wins over me and it sinks to my chest as I fight to keep it from crashing into me. I’m pinned there like a butterfly. I can’t lift it up off me so I roll it down to my waist and then sit up. I gently take it off and place it on the mat. Bastard. I finish my last set of pull-ups, also broken into sets of five, and walk over to the whiteboard and write my time of 24:27. Booya!

Giving Back

Workout of the Day

21-15-12-9-6-3-6-9-12-15-21
B sqaut 95/65lbs
Pullups
Push press 95/65lbs
weighted situps 25/20lb
With a partner complete the above work only 1 person working @ a time. Finish the one movement before you move to the next.

I like ladders. I think it's mentally refreshing to break the work up in a fun game like this. We partnered up for this blaster and Bryan was looking like he needed someone to work with so I walked over and introduced myself. It turns out that he has been coming to Crossfit for a couple of months in one of the other classes during the day. Judging from his expression, I guessed that he could use a little moral support today for this daunting ladder.

We divided the work evenly, with me taking the extra reps for the ladder down and he taking them for the ladder up. We tested the weights at first and he opted to use the bar with training plates to allow him to finish all 60 reps and I went for Rx. And so it began.

For me, this was an easy morning, gliding through the squats, presses and pullups. I've crossed the abyss and I have built a core of stamina and strength that I know will carry me through tough WODs. But Bryan hasn't done that yet and he was fighting with every ounce of his will, and then some to get through this. How I recognized the look on his face and the laboured breathing from my own first few months. I kept supporting him, encouraging his efforts and helping him through it. At the same time, I pushed him as hard as he could go - probably harder than he thought he could. But that was the favour that people in the gym did for me when I started and it helped me tremendously. And he didn't back down an inch.

We worked through it, together, every last round and every last rep - each one quality and deserved. And in the end, during the last set of situps, I told him "It's the last set - savour it Bryan!" and he laughed hard as we finished. It was an hour well spent.

Row, Row, Row

I had missed the Met Con workouts a little bit as Oly lifting became more of a focus for me. You do what you love I think. Well today it was back in the saddle for a serious blaster at metabolic conditioning. I confess I was a bit worried because although I keep up with my workouts, I only visit the box three times a week and keeping myself conditioned between workouts is tough. I've added rowing to my lunch hour since it's so easy to head downstairs for that but it's too early to reap the benefits of that work yet. So when we started today's WOD it was with that old-time feeling of Do or Die. Dying being the metaphorical death caused by rowing. Does anyone else picture themselves aboard a slave ship rowing to save your life? Am I the only one? My mind goes funny places during Crossfit.

I work out in the morning and before that I make sure I eat a good zone breakfast of oatmeal, cottage cheese and nuts. This can be a double edged sword. If it works out fine, then I have plenty of fuel in the tank. If its too close to the WOD, it becomes an oatmeal anchor in my belly which threatens to introduce me to Mr. Pukie. I have running to thank for that. But today I was happily surprised to find I had tons of energy and "gung ho". Our mission was simple - row 400 metres, lunge 8 steps, and box jump 8 times, for a total of eight rounds. Everything looks so wonderfully achievable on paper.

We got into it and by the third round I knew I was going to have a great WOD. I was keeping my rowing pace at just over 2:10 which is a good speed for me and I was still breathing well. The lunges were okay and I found that if I just committed to doing eight in a row, the pain was tolerable. By number eight I had to shake my legs out before box jumping. Last Saturday, I spent some time jumping the tall box from a seated position. Because of the confidence I gained from that, the little boxes today were a piece of cake. I kept my pace for the seven rounds and gave 'er guns during the last. In my mind, I was rowing furiously, driving incredible power with my legs, then taking moon-walk strides for the lunges. From the outside I'm sure it looked like a man walking through molasses. No matter, I Rx'd this WOD in 21:35.

Rowing

I'm doing some off-day rowing in the corporate fitness centre in an effort to blow through a fat loss plateau and also build some cardio endurance. This post will be a note for times.

Sept. 29     6446 metres/ 30 minutes (Metallica - Death Magnetic)