Blog Hiatus

Visit the CFOT Mobility Lounge for insightful and witty pre-wod strategies.

Otherwise, I am hoping to focus more time and effort preparing for and doing the wods, and less time reminiscing and typing about them after the fact.

Really, how much do you want to hear from me anyway?

MarkD

Intervals

First of all, I am injured. I have a major strain of my TFL. If I turn my leg a certain way and put weight on it, I almost collapse. Feels like an electric shock running from my knee to my hip. So I have a lot of icing in my future. For a moment I thought I did something really bad, like a knee injury. And while a muscle strain is a pain to deal with, it is much better than a structural injury.

So the interval wod of d/u, hspu and ghd presented some problems. I focused on the hspu and was able to get 1 minute rounds of 30, 27, 27 and 22 = 106.

That was fun. Looking forward to another run at this when I am full strength.

Barbells for Boobs

A long chipper of 12 exercises. 30 minute time cap. Towards the end, my knee and hip failed and I could hardly even put weight on it. Not sure what it is.

cleans, etc

Clean x5 touch and go. I was able to get 155 fairly easily. 175 slipped from my grip after 3. Then again after 4. Hello grip, where were you today?

deadlift and burpee tabata. Not so hot for me. Scaled to 245 and by the end only could get 2 per round. A burst of 9 burpees at the end to salvage my pride, but not my score.

200m run and thruster intervals

If its Monday, it must be heavy lifting at CFOT. Today, work for 2 minutes, rest for 2.

Run 200m and for remainder, perform max thrusters.

Round - Weight - Reps - thoughts

1     155     5  Very heavy - did 2,2,1
2     135     7  Felt ok - did 4. But then was very winded and could only do another set of 3.
3     115    11 6 then 5
4       95    16  8, 5 and 3
5       75    21  all 21 baby. Slow and steady. Never dropped the bar.

The Mobility Lounge

Late one night, over a few bourbons - I thought up the CFOT Mobility Lounge. Initially, this little space is set up as a FB group here: The CFOT Mobility Lounge

I will try my best to load it up with relevant and timely mobility advice and videos to assist CFOT members as we attack our daily WODs. It is something I have been doing for myself anyway. And short of me doing better at CFOT, I like nothing better than to see everyone else doing better too.

Being 42+ with several recent surgeries means that by all rights I should not be any good at Crossfit. Working on my mobility is the only thing between me showing up ready to work, and me looking like this guy.

Happy stretching.

Snatch work and OHS metcon

12 minutes of work on sntach lifts. Unremarkable.

Metcon - 3 rounds 15 ohs (95), 30 KBS (53) and 60 double unders.
16:00.

rx was 115, but not for me.

Best news is that my double unders seemed to be coming around. Had 20+ twice after class. My toe is finally strong enough to give me the quick and higher jumps that I need. Things are looking up.

Rest. Ahhhhhh.

Side note. 1 beer only so far this week.

Deadlift ladder metcon

A down ladder of 20,15,10 of 225# deadlifs and dips. Then 10, 15 and 20 of box jumps and burpees. I tired out badly in the second half. Wish that I had more than 5 minutes of max output.

Thruster and heavy ass metcon

Part 1 - max thruster from the floor. 195 was good. 206 was on my shoulders but I could not stand up. Only 10 minutes, which was not quite enough.

Part 2 - 3 cleans, 6 fr sq, and 9 C2B pullups. 185#!!! 15 minute amrap. That was super heavy. I limped to 3 rounds plus 2 cleans.

Sat deadlifts x 3

Sat at 8am. Who am I? Anyway, it felt good to pull heavy from the floor before starting my day. deadlift x3 with 3 seconds between pulls. Not a try 3 rep max. But I pulled 345 x 3 anyway - so I was happy with that. 

Quick metcon afterwards of hang clean and box jumps. 3.5 minutes and out.

Muscle up madness

EMOM - "Every minute on the minute" for those who forget. Try to hit X muscle ups for 10 minutes. I tried 4. What was I thinking. Jerry did 5. I'm no Jerry. But I did at least attempt 4 each minute. Minute 1 I got all 4. From there out I was pretty much 3 yes, 1 no. In the end, I got 30 good ones, and 10 terribly painful misses.

2, 7 minute amraps next. Double unders, abmat, and wall ball, hr pushups. I got 4-5 rounds.

Back squat x 3 with chains - then Row test

Worked up to 225# x 3 plus 2 sets of chains. I think that is a PR, I should really know that.

Row test. 500m row, rest 90 sec and row 500m. Terrible. I had 1:47 and then 1:53. So I slipped a little. I know I was slipping, but the pain built up and got worse and worse. I did not feel right again for another hour, so I think I gave it my all.

Clean, Jerk and DT

I taken to doing the full Rx workouts again, despite the lingering foot swelling and pain. Clearly it can hold up so long as I can take it. And the theory is that each day it will get a little better.

But I have to retrain myself a little. Part 1 of the wod was max clean and jerk. While my cleans were good, I was not getting under the bar for the jerks. Mentally, I am not ready for the split jerk again, but there is no reason that I should be doing push presses. Bottom line, is that I cleaned 195# easily - which was comforting - but I had a crappy attempt to get it overhead and did not lock it out.

DT - I went Rx - which starts off tough and becomes very tough. The cleans really get me. Especially getting the bar from the shoulders back down. My grip strength failed and I could not get to many reps in a row. At 15 minutes I had 4 rounds in plus the deadlifts and felt that was a good place to end. Looking back I should have finished, but I was mentally done.

Gymnanstics

EMOM - max hspu / alternate with max strict pullups for 6 cycles. I got 65 and 49. Had 25 hspu in round 2. I was going for 30 or 31. No dice. Maybe I should have tried it in round 1. Ruined me for the rest of the time.

metcon - d/u, air squats, and hr pushups good rehab after Sat's race. Dont I look horrible!

The 5Ton / 5k

Yesterday was the 5Ton / 5k in Columbia, MD.  It is a crossfit competition event that combines running with lifting. You know you are going to run 5k and lift 5 tons, but you do not know the rep scheme, movements,  or rounds until the day of.

Here is the rep scheme they announced:

That seemed different than last year when they went with lighter weights and higher reps. This was harder and the winning times were 20% slower than last year. 

So why did I enter. Right here – My Frankenfoot: 

Just 10 weeks ago I had elective surgery to repair this old thing. I had broken it years back, and my body responded by growing a bone spur and severely limiting the flexibility of my toe joint - to nil. It affected the way I walked, ran, jumped, and hurt – a lot. Nowadays they fix this by peeling your foot open like a banana, shaving off the extra bone, and inserting two titanium screws in the foot to pull the last foot bone backwards away from the toe – in order to create some space and restore some flexibility.

But recovery has been slow. I started on crutches, then a walking boot, then a hospital boot, and ice, lots of ice. After 4 weeks it was much better, but since then improvements have been slow and incremental. I would say that I am now better than pre-surgery with regards to pain and flexibility, but not much. Another 6 months and I should be almost as good as new. (Just in time for the CF Open? )

Of course my doctor, or any rational care provider would not think competing in the 5 ton 5k was a wise idea. That assumes I asked him, which I did not. But he told me at my last visit that my toe was safe and I could not damage it – it was all a matter of backing off when it hurt. A month back, I decided that this event would be a great way to test that theory and push it to the complete limit. And while it hurt a good bit on the running, it did not fail, break or otherwise.

So  while my time was slower than molasses, I learned a few things.

 1 – I am a slow runner anyway, and the pain and swelling in my foot is not helping. So I need to start adding some mile loops.

2 – My conditioning/stamina on longer workouts is the pits. 5 minutes or less and my power compares well with anyone. After than, I am the slow, old guy. In this workout, the first round of lifits punched me in the face and I never recovered. I was doing well on the cleans until rep 9 when I lost my grip and dropped the bar. There I was 20 seconds in, gassed and I realized that this was going to be a long day. So First Friday's now  = long wods for me.

3 – I have at least some mental toughness. I was considering DNF’ing a couple of times early on. I was not enjoying it at all. I could have said my toe hurt too much and no one would have cared. But I just kept going and at the end actually cranked out that final lifts unbroken for a brief moment of glory. Never quit, just focus on the moment and keep going.

4 – Competing outside of your friendly CF box is good for you.  Have someone else count and judge for you. It is better. It is also good to meet others. I had nice chats with Christy Phillips, Steve Dumaine, and the coaches at CF Diesel. No surprise, they are great people. Christy is flat out amazing, but that is obvious. 

5  - I love my Crossfit Oldtown crew. I competed in the last heat, so I missed this group shot - as did Erin and Laura. Laura, Erin and Nicole hung around to cheer for me, and I loved that support.

6 – I look forward to doing this again. Cause my time was atrocious, and I have no choice but to redeem myself.