Q: Where have I been? A: Breaking my ribs!

I ran into a large man while playing in a men’s league a few weeks ago and fell onto my own elbow or the other dude’s knee. So I haven’t been able to work out much since.  When I’m not twisting and turning I’m mostly pain free at the moment, so I’m hoping to get back into the box this weekend.  Was definitely a bit of a bummer after picking up a real head of steam just before getting injured, but I’ve been eating cleanly since going down and am really pumped to get back to regular WODs in the next week or two.

Fixing the Squat

Holy crap am I inflexible.  Not that I didn’t know this, but I just had an epiphany about how bad things are.  This is both humbling and also kind of liberating.  It means I’m probably a lot stronger than I’m currently able to demonstrate, and that once I get this whole situation a bit more limber I’ll be able to perform at a much higher level.  I think part of my inflexibility has been camouflaged by the fact that I can still squat a fair amount notwithstanding my mobility issues.  But I didn’t realize quite how bad my squat posture was until I bought myself a Rogue War bar and was doing some overhead squats in the mirror.

Now, I’m glad my gym isn’t the sort of place that has mirrors on the walls, but sometimes in a large class it’d be nice to be able to monitor my own form when the instructors are busy with other clients.  As I’ve already talked about here before, I’ve got incredibly tight hamstrings and shoulders.  You can add hips/adductors/whatevers to the list (or maybe it’ll be quicker to make a list of muscle groups that aren’t actually inhibiting my CrossFitting).  I was watching this video from Jon Gilson’s amazing mic’d instructor series and realized that my torso is far from upright.  I also recognized the awful canted forward overhead squat form from lots of other folks in my classes. That sort of weird, bent forward, bird-like stance that results when people grip the PVC too wide and also aren’t flexible enough to execute a proper squat.  I’m thankfully not quite that bad, but I’m quite far away from being able to do a squat like the one EC does in the following video.  I’m going to start doing morning and evening stretches for squats and shoulder stuff in the hopes that I’ll be able to see some pretty big jumps in load-bearing capability by the time summer comes around.  For those of you that have issues with the overhead squat, or even just the normal squat (with my shitty posture I’m still able to front squat 245ish pounds, but I’m going to scale that back significantly until I can get my form dialed in), take a look at this video and see if you exhibit any of the signs of the “immature squat.”

Flexibility/Mobility Issues? Watch this space.

There are tons of great videos on the Crossfit Journal site ($).  I stumbled across this while looking for another Kelly Starrett video, but it promises to be worth bookmarking for future reference.  They’re doing a series called “Rebuilding Khalipa,” the premise of which is basically that Jason Khalipa (surprise 2008 Games winner) has big time flexibility & mobility issues that are preventing him from operating at peak capacity, and Kelly Starrett (of CrossFit San Francisco) is going to work with him to eliminate them.  As someone with severe flexibility issues in the hamstrings and shoulders, I can definitely sympathize.  This video series (only the first has been published) should be a great way to follow Khalipa’s attempt to work himself into top condition for the 2010 Games and also get some tips on how to overcome lurking flexibility issues.  As the lead-in to the series indicates, it’s kind of scary to realize that Khalipa probably has a lot of untapped potential that’s getting lost because of his mobility problems.

http://journal.crossfit.com/2010/03/rebuilding-khalipa-part-one.tpl

Double Under Instruction Video

My box doesn’t really do double unders. But I’ve been trying to do some work on them during warm-ups and/or when the rowers aren’t available and I have to jump rope. In typical fashion I bought two different ropes and started poking around for tips on how to maximize my double under efficiency.  This is a great video for those people who have yet to get their first double under, but it’s also a good technique reminder for folks that have gotten into bad habits:

020310 – Tabata Stuff

WOD

Tabata of air squats, push-ups, sit-ups (dumbbells on feet, not AbMat)

157, 69, 83 for a total of : 309.

I still haven’t completed a tabata air squat round and gotten to 160, which has been a goal I’ve been shooting for.  I was averaging 20+ squats per round until the 6th round and then bonked. Push-ups are still pretty weak, although today wasn’t a great benchmark day for either squats or push-ups after yesterday’s thrusters & ring push-ups workout.

010310 – Thrusters & ring push-ups

WOD

5 rounds for time of 10 95# thrusters & 15 ring push-ups:

Total time: 9:36

I don’t seem to have a post up for this, but I did this same workout in November and I’ve come a long way since then, even with sporadic workouts. At the end of November I scaled this workout on both the thrusters (85#) and the ring push-ups (first 2 sets on the rings, last 3 on floor) and completed it in 10:13. Woo me.

280210 – Globo Gym Workout

No WOD today after waking up late. I did 10 relaxed minutes on a bike, a lazy 1k row and then went through some barbell complex lifts at 95 lbs. I did a few sets of overhead squats at 95 lbs and then did a tabata workout on the bike.  I did 10 rounds of max effort at moderate resistance (20 seconds on, 10 seconds off) and then did another 1k row. I was originally planning on doing a 5k row but decided about 100m in that I wanted to do the 1k for time. 1k row time was 3:23.  Obviously not a benchmark of any sort b/c I wasn’t busting ass from the beginning, but I was happy with how much I had left on the last 500m after doing Fran & Elizabeth on back-to-back days.

270210 – Elizabeth

WOD

Elizabeth (21/15/9 of power cleans & ring dips)

So, this WOD apparently comes in many flavors.  I was under the impression we were doing squat cleans, and so I scaled to 115 (Rx’d is 135), but once we demo’d the movements and I looked around the room it became clear that we were doing power cleans. I probably could have done this at 135, but I was pretty beat after doing Fran the day before and just decided to take it easy.

Total time: 9:36 (scaled)

260210 – Fran (!!)

WOD

Fran (21/15/9 of 95# thrusters & pull-ups)

This was my first attempt at Fran, and I hadn’t yet done a WOD w/ 95# thrusters. Not a fantastic performance, I don’t think, but since I’m trying to judge my progress as if I began doing CrossFit in early January (I didn’t really start going with any real consistency until then; now I’m on my 4th week of 3-5 WODs/week with the occasional extra run, hike or row thrown in and I’m feeling fantastic & making tons of progress).

Total time: 6:46 Rx’d

230210 – Dumbbell AMRAP

WOD

AMRAP in 15 mins of: 20 walking lunges, 5 push press, 5 push jerk (#35 dumbbells)

This was supposed to go on for 20 minutes, but we had done some skill work earlier that left everybody toasted, so we pulled the plug on it after 15.  I completed just over 5 rounds.