Tag Archives: burpees

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The Day Before KALSU….

Two things stood in my way of attending Midnight Filthy Fifty. Sleep and a few Ketel One martinis. Heard there was an excellent turnout and we may make it next year. No CrossFit today, the only WOD will be eating. It’s an AMFAP. As many forkfuls as possible.

 

Happiness....

 

Friday is KALSU and today is dedicated to carb-loading. I have never attempted KALSU before however I hear it is quite rewarding. EMOM Burpees and Thrusters. How bad can it be? Probably this bad…..Looking forward to it. I am sure it will be spectacular.

Bodies Hit the Floor

 

What is KALSU you may ask? It incorporates two of the most notoriously puke-tastic CrossFit movements. Burpees and Thrusters. Still want to know more? EMOM, every minute on the minute, five burpees followed by as many thrusters as you can in the remaining minute. The goal? Besides not puking, passing out, pissing yourself…etc. Hit 100 thrusters. 95# for the dudes, 65# for the ladies, and the bar for those who are new to thrusters.

Who is KALSU? A true American badass, that’s who. Story: http://www.si.com/nfl/2014/09/04/name-wall-si-60-william-nack-bob-kalsu

KALSU

 

Plan of Attack:

Any thoughts about beating this WOD make about as much sense as the following image. Lace up, chalk up, man up and embrace the suck.

At Dawn...we ATTACK!

 

Five burpees followed by five thrusters is where I will start. That seems like a logical plan. Every three to five minutes do the five burpees and rest the remaining time. Also thinking about how to complete the burpee. The Taylor flop or stepping back one foot at a time. Whichever method that will conserve energy is preferred. Lots and lots of hamstring stretches. Tight hammys and burpees don’t go together. Shoulders and forearms will get smoked. It is what it is. Just. Keep. Moving.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Five Weeks In….

Sandwich Guy

 

We just finished our fifth week of Whole Life Challenge. We have only cheated a few times, and let’s face it, when Lobster Mac’n Cheese is on the menu, you order it, and then crush it as though you haven’t eaten in days. We had some dessert for Kylie’s birthday, because what’s a birthday without cake? Or in this case, two cinnamon brownies with vanilla ice cream, whipped cream, shaved chocolate and caramel sauce. Yes, it was awesome.

SG

All in all my energy level has been pretty good. I had the usual paleo flu the first week, however nothing ridiculous. I do know that i have to eat some rice or something once in a while. A full day or two without any carbs isn’t pretty. Grumpypants. Hit a few PR’s so far. Took two minutes off my Grace time and hit 285 back squat for ten reps. Previous had been 275 for 10. I have been running, scratch that, jogging on the weekends and that has been better. Five miles yesterday and three today. Knee is a little pissed at me, but let’s face it, i haven’t been kind to it. Back to PT next week where I am sure they will tell me to quit CrossFit and I’ll smile and nod.

Has anyone else tried Progenex Cookies and Cream yet? Big win. Mix some with ice and water in the blender and it is the same as a milkshake! Not, but it’s always good to hope. Remember that if you believe it, it must be true. They make the best tasting protein on the market and I think I have tried just about all of them. Maybe it was hydrolyzed and now it’s not or whatever the rumor is however I notice faster recovery times and results when I hit the awesome-sauce. Bottoms up.

progenex

Progenex Force is also a very solid pre-workout supplement. I used to swear by No-Xplode and I like Force better. It makes your face tingle so you know it’s good. I think the Beta Alanine is what gives you the pin prick fresh face feeling. Lactic acid blocking little dickens. I notice I don’t have the crash I used to get from other versions. This tends to last longer. Works great for a quick ten minute AMRAP or a longer run/jog/trudge march. Progenex: http://progenexusa.com/

force-pkg-mockup

 

What other goodies? Xendurance, PurePharma Vitamin packs, and FitAid. So basically, it looks like i just replaced booze and junk food with supplements. Whatevs. We go through this stuff just for the toys, the gear, and the awesome-sauce.

FitAid is a more paleo friendly version of KillCliff. The pre-workout/recovery/whenever you want one drink. Similar packaging with the taller slender can. Thank you Red Bull. It has all the joint friendly additives lick glucosamine, turmeric, magnesium, potassium, B vitamins, green tea. You know, all of the good stuff that we never get enough of according to the supplement companies. Link: https://www.drinkfitaid.com/

fitaid

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Filthy Fifty; The Day After

filthy_fifty

 

All I can say is wow…. I had never done the WOD before. Only heard the rumors. Hands down, toughest WOD ever. Even tougher than 14.5 which I am sure all of you remember. Squat cleans and burpees for days….Yes, that’s the one.

What is it, dare you ask?

CrossFit_Filthy_50

Everything was fine until i got to wall balls and burpees. That is where the train left the tracks and i wondered why i pay money to do this stuff. I subbed step ups for box jumps and did ab-mat sit-ups instead, singles instead of DU’s, 150 of them.  All in all i was happy with the time of 40 minutes. I did much better at the lunges than I have in the past. Wall Balls and Burpees sucked the life from me and there wasn’t enough Kill Cliff to bring it back. No joke, those two probably took me fifteen minutes to complete.

If you haven’t done it, do it. If you have done it, do it again.  Definitely the toughest WOD, however very rewarding to complete as well!

Damn, hurt me so bad it affected my memory.  I thought I posted this already! Whoops. In any event, this has been my favorite WOD. It destroyed the 5k run that somebody posted for the previous week. Still not over that one….I will get over it soon I am sure.

 

 

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WOD: Cindy…we all know her and love her….

thecindyworkout

 

It is April, which means May is right around the corner, which also means Murph is coming. What’s the best way to prepare for Murph? By doing Cindy of course! Twenty rounds of Cindy sandwiched between mile runs. Your friends will be at BBQ’s, opening pool parties, you know, enjoying themselves while you and the rest of the CrossFit addicted horde will be running pulling and pushing. Yay.

In my mind this is what “Cindy” looks like. She can’t hurt you. The highest rep count is 15 and it’s squats. You do this all day every day. How can this possibly be hard. She wouldn’t hurt you. She’s little and innocent. You are going to crush this…in twenty minutes there is no reason why you logically can’t get at least 20 rounds. At least. No way you get less. It’s Cindy.

I wouldn't hurt you...

 

Here is a picture of you before Cindy.

Bullet proof coffee, Kill Cliff, exuding confidence and pissing excellence. You are a mixture of Froning, Ricky Bobby, and the Hulk. Nothing will stop you from destroying Cindy. She stands no chance. She will run and cower in the corner.

Games08JeremyPostRun_th

 

Chalked, taped, stretched, rolled, rowed, and assault biked. You are warm, limber, caffeinated and fueled. 3,2,1 GO! Jump on the bar, get your grip right and…what the hell? How is that person already on push ups? shoot. I better get going. Knock out the first round in less than a minute. You own it. This feeling continues, until about five or six rounds in. Time to Suck it up Buttercup. Dig deep.

The rubber mat feels cool against your face as you have now resorted to hand release push ups. Don’t fall into that trap. Keep pushing. When squatting all you see is your sweat imprint on the floor from the push ups. That’s weakness leaving the body. It’s a good thing. Another pool has formed on the floor between your feet. Damn, should have invested in that Rogue headband!

Hands are starting to tear but it doesn’t matter because you are over halfway there and while 20 rounds may be out of reach you are however on pace to PR. No stopping you now. Damn, she is still doing unbroken push ups. How? Isn’t she tired!! WTF.

Three minutes left and you need two full rounds. No problem. Does that person not feel pain? Jeez…they have been doing two rounds to my one round. How the hell do they do that? Can’t focus on them. Finished the second round and started the third…you Pr’d but have to keep going. TIME! Because you are a bad ass you finish the round and this happens:

Mommy…?

Mommy…?

The walls are vibrating. Can’t really catch your breath. You’ve never sweated this much….of course you have. You are a CrossFitter. We sweat a lot. Heartbeat is finally slowing down. Need water. Vision is back to normal. Whew. Thankfully that is over. The average person would have quit halfway through. You have done more in the past twenty minutes than most people will accomplish all day. The hardest part of your day is over. Time to EAT!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Mommy…?

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2014 CrossFit Open

Here we go Again!

Here we go Again!

Better late than never! i thought i had posted this last week!

It was here and then it was gone….The 2014 Open is over and thankfully we didn’t have 150 wall balls again!  Hard to believe the five weeks flew by so quickly. I thought this years’s WOD’s were great. The first two were challenging to say the least however they were scalable and doable for those who don’t have double unders or chest to bar pull ups. I didn’t get a chance to do 14.3 however a box jump is the quickest way to kill a dead lift WOD. Not all agree obviously, as folks from the box absolutely annihilated it. That’s you Luke Espe. We done. 14.4 was also great, I scaled it as well, however I completed all 200 reps and got a great workout. That is what it is all about. Don’t Rx if it will take an hour to complete it. Scale it so it is challenging and you wind up in the fetal position on the floor, looking for Mommy to give you an ice pop and make it all better. 14.5 was a great way to end the Open. No time cap. You. Had. To. Finish. It. Somebody scheduled burpees for Tuesday’s WOD. That wasn’t right.

Pretty sick that  much hat 209,000 people signed up for the Open this year. (http://games.crossfit.com/article/209585-rise-open) Multiply that by $20.00…and well somebody is happy. Cha Ching! Usual names in the top spots, no shock there. They are robots. Sick, sick robots who don’t stop. Great to see folks from CrossFit BWI and Syndicate excel and I know several people are headed to regionals, which means a lot of us will be going as well to cheer them on. It’s all about the community with CrossFit. It is a team sport and the home team always wins.

So, what did I learn from this year’s Open?

Burpee Bar Jump Overs:

Those are quite possibly worse then TGU’s. That was a huge achilles heel for me and why I didn’t do Rx. Need to work on those big time. So what did I talk about after our experience at The Capital Throwdown? Train like you are going to compete. Do everything to the standard. What this means is any time burps come up, do them over the bar. Might as well since they will come up again I am sure!

Double Unders:

I need to finally get these. Of course I have no idea why I don’t have them yet. I never practice them and always jump right to two to one or three to one anytime they come up. You know how that ends. I am really good and efficient at single unders and can rip off 100 unbroken without issue. Of course that also means I still don’t have double unders. This is the year!

Overhad Squats:

Need to work these more because they are hard….and they suck….a lot. Practice makes perfect.

Make the Reps Count:

Power Snatch doesn’t only mean snatch. it’s a good way saying shoulder to overhead as well. Saw a lot of people using this in the first WOD and I made them all snatches. That means I got less reps. Sometimes it’s not about the name, it’s about finding the best LEGAL way to get the most reps. Same here for step ups vs box jumps. Save the shins and step up on that puppy!

All in all it was a great open. I am happy I did it again this year and I’ll do it again next year!

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Back from Vacation and Back on Whole Life Challenge

We are back from our week long celebration of my brother in law’s wedding, and the ridiculous amount of eating and drinking that went along with the celebration. I think we did pretty well. We had a lot of fun and didn’t go too overboard. We did still work out while we were away. We are both back on the clean eating wagon and are both very thankful for it!

This week’s WOD’s were challenging after being away. I did set a PR on my front squat with 270 lbs which is nice.  I didn’t follow on my advice from “Cleans and Snatches”, https://crossfitrook.wordpress.com/2012/09/29/197/ yesterday though. I didn’t get under the bar and paid the price in regards to the amount of time it took to complete the WOD.

I did notice a difference this week when I ate something before the WOD. I ate hard boiled eggs, fruit, almonds…not all at once on the same day. It helped quite a bit and I noticed I had more energy.

Week’s WOD’s:

Monday:

PC 8×3 reps OTM (65%) 115lbs

then
3 sets
10 Pistols Alternating (use the video in continuing education to scale)
10 Pull Ups (Bands)
10 OH Squats 95/65

Tuesday:

5 sets
1 min AMRAP Db Push Press 40/30
1 min AMRAP Box Jumps 24/20
1 min AMRAP Burpees

204 total reps
Wednesday:

A1. Front Squat@30×1 3,2,1,1, 205. 225. 245. 270
A2. Strict Pull Ups 8-10 reps; add weight if necessary

then
B1. Kettlebell Swings 3 sets x 15 reps; rest 30 sec 2 pood
B2. GHD Sit Ups 15 reps x 3 sets; rest 30 sec

Thursday:

20 Ring Push Ups
10 Deadlfit 245
20 HSPU
10 Clean 155/105
20 Ring Dips
10 Snatch 95/65

Friday:

3 five minute sets for reps(including double unders)
Airdyne (cal) 45 sec
Slam Ball 45 sec
50 Double Unders
rest remaining time

then
Tabata Sit Ups

then
Tabata Kipping Pull Ups…

I’ll be taking Saturday off!

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Snatches, Burpees, and More Snatches.

Sometimes things finally click. I have not done well with snatches. I muscle everything up. Partly because I am strong enough to do so, and partially because I have a very hard time wrapping my mind around how jumping will help me lift the bar higher. As I was finishing my last round tonight, contemplating vomiting, someone said to me “Let your legs do some work. Let them catch the weight.”. All of a sudden it made a lot of sense and I started to let my legs catch the weight. I was able to do the last round unbroken. Burpees still sucked but that’s not big news. Burpees can suck it.

This shirt sums it up:

Today’s Fun Courtesy of CrossFit BWI. I like the “no rest” WOD’s which have been posted recently. Definitely feel the difference.

Power Snatch 5×3; rest 1 min between sets; use same weight; Heavy but fast worked up to three sets at 125 and two at 115

+
3 sets
15 Burpees
Row 400m
15 Hang Power Snatch 75/65

15:55 Rx

Good times!