Cheat Meal Continued

Cheat Meal

Pieces of the Puzzle

Mornings are my favourite time of day. I'm actually a morning person, if you can believe it. Who *is* these days? I have been for a long time and it's also been my habit to get my workout in first thing in the morning. That leaves me with a wonderful low-key feeling for the rest of the day. Besides, after a Crossfit workout, nothing in my day will be as hard as that. It's not the easiest thing to roll out of your comfortable house and head off to lift twelve thousand pounds. But you know what's cool? In my office I look to my right. I look to my left. I know for a FACT that I am stronger and faster than most of the people I worked with. While most people are exercising their distinctions in what channel to watch, WE are breathing fire. We're the cool kids.

Of course my favourites are on the menu this morning. The overhead squat challenges me because it asks for considerable shoulder flexibility. When I'm down low in the squat position sometimes I feel myself teetering forward a bit. It's barely noticeable  but to my inner balance I feel like the leaning tower of Pisa. No problem - just keep practicing. Now the front squat used to be something I did NOT like. "Tricky tricky" I thought.  I remember Mia stepping in front of me when I was learning this lift. "Do me a favour", she said. "Take a step back from the rack so the barbell lands on the mat when you lose control of it." That was good advice, as it turns out. I've had a few wrecks doing the front squat. Something funny happened along the way. I started to appreciate it's merits. It was cool because it was different than the back squat. Elbows up is such an important thing to learn and the key to driving that weight upward. Today something happened that made me smile all day. I was working with Coach Clarke on the front squat and we were loading plates for his set and deloading plates for mine. I knew my maximum was 185lb so we loaded to that and I gave it my best. My first attempt failed and I was a bit disappointed. Nothing like blowing a lift you have done before. But, I thought, it was my maximum so just chalk it up and move on. Coach suggested I try a weight belt. He also noticed that I took a breath during the upward push of my lift. That caused me to lose stability and the barbell came down to the floor. So I took his advice and strapped on the belt, inhaled a deep breath, held it, then went down for the squat. It was tough but I kept my posture and nerve and drove it up for two nice reps. Ah, that felt good. I knew I had learned something powerful that will help me with all my lifts. Then I noticed something else. In my focus to get good technique I didn't count the pounds on the bar. Instead of lifting my personal best of 185lb, I had actually lifted 205lbs! I didn't just sail through that lift, I drove by it with the car window down and knocked over it's mailbox with a baseball bat! I beat my personal best of TUESDAY by twenty pounds. Damn, I have felt good about that all day.

I always talk glowingly about the Oly lifts, but don't get me wrong here - I need the Met Con. I'm always glad (afterwards) to leave a swangel on the gym floor. It's my bread and butter of feeling fit and happy. I naively thought the walking lunges would be the rest exercise of the round. Ha. Was I ever wrong. I was begging for a pullup after a set of those. The pain! I was able to squeak out six rounds in ten minutes and then I lay on the rubber mats with that good old fashioned feeling of exhaustion and exhilaration.

OHS

3 X 75lb

3 X 95lb (failed on the last)

3 X 95lb

F Squat

2 X 135lb

2 X 185lb

2 X 205lb (fail)

2 X 205lb (with belt)

Bars and Bumpers

There's nothing more wonderful than a beautiful snatch. I say that without a trace of irony  but I did hear a few titters in the crowd. Stop that. This morning I was wondering what WOD the Coach had programmed. I knew that he attended Olympic lifting certification over the weekend and I figured there was a good chance we'd be practicing the moves today. But, you never know. Crossfit teaches us to train for tomorrow. What happens tomorrow? Exactly.

By the grin on his face I knew we would be doing some heavy lifting today. Sweet! I took off my squishy running shoes - won't be needing those - and put on my lifting shoes. It felt like coming home. I'm always glad to practice these lifts because they can be so challenging. Just when you think you've got it nailed, the body does something funky and it's all over the map again. There is the tendency to overthink the lift because there are many parts to it. I picture a chain, each link being a step in the lift. Deadlift the bar, keeping it close to the shins. Over the knees and into the crease where the thighs meet the trunk - arms straight! At that point, everything speeds up. Shrug the weight up so the bar is traveling up close to the body, jump under  it while rotating the wrists. Catch it in a power squat with the feet wide apart in the jumping position and having active shoulders. Rise and hold the weight there. It's a complicated move that looks beautiful when done correctly and feels even more wonderful when you get it. Love the snatch.

I've been doing this for a while now and I'm still amazed at how the body has memory of its training. I make a small adjustment in how I am using my shoulders, train that a hundred times, and then it's part of my automatic repertoire. Adjustment by adjustment, we incrementally add skill to our lifts and they become smoother and easier. The benefit is being able add a few pounds each time you improve. If you're anything like me, it's a constant negotiation with myself to keep the weights heavy enough to be challenging yet light enough to keep excellent form. I have the urge to test myself - how much can I lift? It's a healthy ambition but must also be tempered with patience. I believe the heavier weights will come when I master the form that will allow me to lift heavier. And, my muscles need to adapt to this new thing I'm asking them to do. They sometimes protest.

I was so pleased with training the Clean & Jerk and the Snatch that I almost forgot I set a PR in the Front Squat. 185lbs for two reps. In a previous post, I wrote that I was feeling fear when I tried the squat clean because I had a confidence issue with jumping under a heavy weight. Practicing drops helped a lot. And Coach said, almost in passing, the route to feeling confident in the squat clean is to work on your front squat. That made a lot of sense to me. If I know that I can front squat 185lbs, then I know I'll be fine squat cleaning 135lbs. Elbows up!

We finished the morning with a quick Met Con routine of box jumps, pull-ups and sit-ups. It's not Crossfit without some fitness in there. Instead of feeling like this was a toss off, I got into it. I can do kipping pull-ups! Five months ago I felt like a fat kid jumping for a jelly doughnut trying to get to that bar. And missing. I was a sad panda. And now that's changed. Sterling wrote to me in those early days, encouraging me to keep pushing it. "I was once where you are!", he wrote. Man that meant a lot to me. Sticking with this has been completely worth it.

Clean & Jerk
105lb X 3
115lb X 3
135lb X 3

Power Snatch
75lb X 3
85lb X 3
85lb X 3

Front Squat
135lb X 2
165lb X 2
185lb X 2

Thrusters

Have you ever done something that was so damn hard that even after when you are finished you still want to kick it around? Let me set the scene: early morning at the Langley box and the morning shift arrives to see what the mission is. There's mist in the fields and the cold air feels good. I feel so much better than Tuesday and I'm up for anything - even running. Okay, I'm kidding. Running sucks. Coach Clarke grabs a marker and writes 'Thrusters' on the whiteboard. I've never done these before so I don't have the experience to be afraid. "Cool", I think. "I can get some practice in." Five sets of five reps sounds doable.

Here's a link to the exercise. After a 750m row to get the blood flowing, Coach and I set up the barbell with 135lb. We placed a medicine ball behind it to ensure we would get proper depth in the squat.

Strength training is tough. You should not walk away from it with a light sweat, slightly raised heartbeat and a pleasant story to tell around the dinner table. No. You should feel fear when you walk up to the barbell because you know it's going to ask everything you have - and then some. The first round, I did not feel this fear because I was blissfully ignorant of the thruster. But I had some clues because Coach went first and he was working hard. My first set splashed cold water in my face and woke me up. Even punched me in the guts. Holy crap it was heavy!

"The first set is the hardest", Coach remarked. Thank god.

We keep forging on, grunting and swearing through the sets and high-fiving through the rests. Partner workouts do make a difference. We find the groove and keep moving that weight up, time and again. The last couple of reps of each set are spectacularly hard. I'm almost locked out, so I stand there PUSHING with everything I have until I can fully extend my arms to lock out. For a microsecond I stand there, barbell overhead, feeling like Atlas holding the world, and then I drop that damn thing to the floor. It bounces nearly to my waist before settling down. That is the most satisfying feeling I experience in heavy lifting.

"Auf Wiedersehen motherfucker!"

I have now learned to fear thrusters. And that's good, because I'm not happy unless I'm testing my limits. Honestly, I can do without the pleasant dinnertime stories. I want the gut-wrenching, gag-inducing hard as nails workouts that will build me cannonball shoulders and a spine made of iron. There are dues to be paid for that.

Bent-over rows almost feel easy after this. We loaded up to 135lb for a light set, then ramped up to 205lb for the fifth one. I like this exercise. Back work is difficult, like doing leg work, but it pays off in so many ways. And five reps is achievable when doing heavy sets. My mind can wrap around the idea that I only have to do it five times, and I'm sure I can do that. I'm watching my form in the mirror to make sure I'm keeping my back set and not using cheater movements to get the bar moving.

The last exercise is unique and one I've never seen before - Renegade Rows. I like that. Crossfitters are renegades. Essentially, assume the plank position holding a dumbbell in each hand. One at a time, row a dumbbell up and then down. Alternate sides. It's a fun movement and challenging depending on the weight selected. I opt to start with 40lb, then increase by 5lbs per set for 3 sets of 10 reps. After the heavy work sets of the thrusters and bent over rows, 50lb dumbbell rows is plenty heavy. My hands are sore from the knurling and I'm watching them carefully for tears.

I like pushing myself and today was an opportunity to do so. I discovered the keys to my performance a couple of years ago and it's positive peer support - teamwork. I always get the best workouts and results working with a partner and team. Working with my Coach is a treat, and he's so damned strong that it pushes me to extend my game even further.

I'm going to feel this tomorrow.

Thrusters

5 X 135lb
5 X 135lb
5 X 135lb
5 X 135lb
5 X 135lb

Bent Over Rows

5 X 135lb
5 X 185lb
5 X 195lb
5 X 195lb
5 X 205lb

Renegade Rows

10 X 40lb
10 X 45lb
10 X 50lb

Ladder

A quick question for you: What is the most important thing to help you through an early morning WOD?

a) set a good pace and stick to it

b) determination

c) coffee

The answer is coffee. In fact, for all questions, the answer is always coffee.

I completed this in 17:01 not Rx'd. Halfway into the second ladder I had to switch to knee pushups and do my pullup off a little box. I was having trouble jumping up to the bar, hanging on and then doing the pullup. I just didn't have it today.  Figures, as I ultimately took the day off sick with a stupid cold.

Oly. Oly. Oly.

Saturday was an awesome continuation of strength training. Coach programmed a heavy day of squat cleans and deadlifting to build on Thursday's Olympic lifting class. I was reading last night in Starting Strength that these two exercises are very beneficial to train together - one helping the other. And I relish the opportunity to practice squat cleans when I can. On my journey to a thousand squat cleans, I figure that I've done about 60 in the last week. 940 to go! Mike and I worked on technique, building up to our maximum weights and keeping the form as strict as we could. It's a difficult move. I've addressed my issue of pulling the bar too high, but now I'm jumping under the bar to soon - essentially sitting down. When I compensated for that, I jumped quite high and was airborne with the weight for several inches. Heh. That must have looked hilarious. Even so, there were a few that felt just right, as Goldilocks would say. It's funny to work on these because the more the brain gets involved, the worse it gets. Here's my depiction:

But that's also what makes it so great and worthwhile. If it was easy, I wouldn't be trying to damn hard to get it. I performed some light moves and then loaded 135lb for my work sets. This weight is heavy enough to keep me from muscling up the bar and light enough to allow me to keep my form. Just right. A few of these and I loaded two 10lb plates on for another attempt. Fail. I also read in Starting Strength that this is the nature of the clean. The addition of just 5 or 10 more pounds and the weight just won't rack. This is such an interesting sport.

Deadlifting was next and Mike decided to keep pace with the weight I was loading on the bar, based on my 295lb personal best.

1x4 50% - 150lb
1x4 70% - 210lb
1x4 70% - 210lb
1x4 80% - 255lb (Actually higher than 80%)

Bar over the shoelaces, I repeated to myself. Arms straight and back set. A reverse grip, and hoist! (I love this stuff) We both gave it our all and I was impressed with Mike's strength and determination. Partner workouts really help build the enthusiasm to do your best. The deadlift felt awesome and soon I'll be ready to challenge my PR. I think I deserve a weight belt.

Box jump drills after that. These were surprisingly fun and I read AGAIN in Starting Strength that the vertical jump is a good predictor of athletic performance. Hollie and I created a pancake stack of bumper plates on a box and challenged ourselves to keep jumping higher and higher as we added plates. At the other end of the gym, Mike was LEAPING atop the tallest box stacked with three plates. Impressive.

I left the gym with my mind and body refreshed and renewed from drinking at the Crossfit well.