[Ed Flood]

I know, it's madness. I'll have to look into purchasing some arse-proof squatting trousers.

I was displaced from my residence by a significant distance this morning. There were no buses for about 30 mins, I had a backpack full of stuff and it was insanely warm and sunny. I obviously had to run then. Got through about 5k in about 27-28 minutes on the road and my right hip got mad. I've been trying to land on the front of my foot while running but I revert to my old heel-stomping ways as soon as fatigue sets in. This is obviously not good for my weary carcass! Walked the rest of the way (I also overheated), which was about another 5k. I'm definitely gonna rest tomorrow!

[Ed Flood]

Rest(ish) day. 10min skipping practice, single unders are improving. I got a few double unders but I'm fairly green at this stuff. Also, a spot of lever practice- tuck levers front and back, a few attempts at elbow levers and a few HSPUs. Video evidence suggests that I'm a lot further away from the back lever than I thought but I care about this a little less than I do about global warming so it's no biggie. Shins are a bit sore after skipping on concrete and my hips are still buggered from saturday's running but not much pain apart from that.

[Ed Flood]

Righto. here's today's medicine:

Bench press
5-5-5-5-5
60-65-67.5(pr)-70(4)-67.5(4)

Didn't attempt the last rep at 70 as the 4th was rough. Tried the last one at 67.5 but got psyched and dropped it on the bars in the cage. 70, as it turns out, is a 1rm, 2rm, 3rm and 4rm as I've only been attempting sets of 5 for the last while.

Weighted chins
5-5-5
10-15-17.5(4)

Chin was about 1cm short of the bar on the 5th rep at 17.5. I'll get it next time

CF.com WOD,

Hang Power Snatch 1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1-1 reps

45-47.5-50-50-45-45-47.5-47.5-45-50

Dropped the weight a bit after pressing out a little on the 50s. I think it was better on the last one. These are a lot harder than regular power snatches, which means I may be doing something wrong in the "RUAHRRRRR YA FECKIN' AAAAHHHHH" stage of the lift (the triple extension). Methinks the arms might be bending too soon. I also had trouble dropping into even a partial squat. SO, with that in mind.....

Some tooling around with the empty bar was prescribed, trying to get comfortable with dropping into the overhead squat position, some drop snatches, hang squat snatches, overhead squats and whatnot. I only ended up on the floor once and my shoulders are still intact (just). The bloody bar went too far back and I didn't let go of it. I ended up throwing me carcass backward to bring it back to a position forward of my CofG so as to avoid yanking my arms off. Tabata tomorrow. Nice non-injurious Tabata.

[Ed Flood]

Yesterday:
Tabata wednesday.

Pullups:
13,7,7,6,6,5,5,5, Total:54 (+0)

Pushups:
21,12,9,7,6,6,6,6, Total: 73 (+4)

Situps:
12,13,12,11,10,10,10,10, Total 88 (+4)

Squats:
18,15,15,13,12,11,14,12, Total: 110 (+10)

Overall total: 325, 18 reps up on last wednesday.

Pullups are static but they improved last week so I'm only mildly disappointed. Also I have trouble with the timing as I need look at my watch to see the time, which loses a few seconds. I need to bully another human to do the timing for me. Situps are starting to be limited by the speed of the movement itself rather than muscular fatigue, Although I am getting a fairly serious dose of "the burn" as they allegedly call it. Not sure how I got 14 on squats after the 11. Maybe it's because I nearly hit failure on the first 12 (!) and that screwed with the following set. The pushups were a grind as always. I was staring at the previous week's tabata scores in my notebook as I was doing these. Definitely helped me to swear out another rep or two

[Davie]

if you are training at home and are near a computer why not try an online timer to do your tabata intervals for you?

[Ed Flood]

I'm in the gym in college so I think the only option is to get an mp3 file of me saying "GO" and "STOP" at the appropriate times over four minutes. I might do that this evening. Either that or get one of the instructors and give them a stopwatch but they might not appreciate that, after all, they've got swaggering to do!

Today's messing:

Front squat 5-5-5-5-5

60-65-67.5-70-67.5kg

Only ever done these once before and that was in sets of 1 up to 60kg. I seem to be shoving my elbows in towards each other at the bottom and having a little trouble keeping the torso upright. As is the case with everything, there's much room for improvement! Guess I won't be doing any heavy frans for quite some time!

Also, snatch, overhead squat and full-squat clean practice, alternating between just the bar and 40kg. Pleased with the squat cleans but still having trouble with dropping down when snatching. I'm landing with my feet both too wide and pointing out at too large an angle. I think the hand position is ok though. Patience, patience...

[Davie]

im sure ive seen a tabata mp3 on crossfit.com message board, will have a check for it

[Will Walshe]

I like the idea of using a gym instructor for something constructive.

[Ed Flood]

They're a strange bunch in that gym. I saw one of 'em powercleaning and generally doing useful stuff. However, when he's giving someone a programme it's all about the pink dumbbells and planks. This leads me to the conclusion that he's contributing to the destruction of the human race as these folks won't be ready to fight adequately when the aliens come for us. Tsk tsk.

[supercool sarah]

Ed Flood, on Jun 5 2008, 03:52 PM, said:

They're a strange bunch in that gym. I saw one of 'em powercleaning and generally doing useful stuff. However, when he's giving someone a programme it's all about the pink dumbbells and planks. This leads me to the conclusion that he's contributing to the destruction of the human race as these folks won't be ready to fight adequately when the aliens come for us. Tsk tsk.

Your gym has pink dumbells?! Hehe, that's really funny. What's wrong with planks?

[Ed Flood]

Errrr, it doesn't actually have pink 'bells! nothing wrong with planks either but when a gym instructor is prescribing them as the core (hur hur) of a fitness programme, you have to suspect his motives are centred on laziness more so than showing people how to be good at doing things in a physical fashion.

Anyhoo, today's WOD:

'drink 10 pints with an accomplice, leave the hostilery following last orders, encounter a female junkie on the street, call said junkie a "jezebel" and run like the wind. Post injuries to comments'

I got one slap. and ran about a kilometre. scary stuff!

Anyhoo, off to the Asias (not all of them, just the south-east one) tomorrow. may not post on a regular basis in the near future but wherever there's a wall (supported by at least three others and a roof) there will be handstand pushups. Wherever there is a floor, there will be pistols, and wherever there is someone to be wound up, there will be running, fast (and hopefully injury free!). farewell folks!

[Will Walshe]

Few ideas for while you're on the road:

http://www.board.cro...ead.php?t=21576

[Ed Flood]

Yesterday:
10 rounds for time of:
12 Burpees,
12 Pullups

31.33

Excuses:

Dodgy time because this was done hungover, jetlagged and in a non air conditioned hotel gym in bangkok. Bloody roasting and humid as hell. Thought I was going to die after the first 5 rounds. Folks looked confused and amused at the big pasty westerner trying to kill himself and making a sweaty mess of their carpeted gym floor.

[Ed Flood]

Don't have the log to hand but did a tabata on friday. No pullups owing to lack of a bar.
Pushups: 20, 13, 9,7,7,6,6,6 Total was 74 (+1)
situps: 13, 13, 13,12,12,11,11,11 minimum 11, total: 96 (+13)
squats: 19, 16,14,14,14,16,14,14 total: 118, +12

Had a beer and some food beforehand so I'm surprised the numbers were up. I forget the individual intervals. I'll have a look later. I'm scaling down heavily on operations here because of the lack of sleep, constant moving, insanely warm weather and the difficulty involved with getting 18 blocks a day (it ain't happening). It's odd. being in the zone felt normal, so eating "normally" seems like running a car on woodchips. I'll try something odd every few days, like 100 hspu for time and rest up for ages, that shouldn't lead to the insane dehydration typical of the 'nam. gotta find somewhere to hang me rings too. This war is hell on all of us!

[nickyhusky]

it's a hard life there I see...

[Ed Flood]

Hehe. I wasn't complaining mind. this place is ridiculously cool and completely insane. where else can you get a beer for E0.2 and feed two folks for less than E5 with plenty of drinks included!? Think I might stop giving excuses for dodgy times mind, what I do is what I'm able to do.

[Ed Flood]

Hmmm, another tabata from about a week and a half ago.
Pushups: 19,16,9,6,5,6,5,4 total: 70
situps: 14,14,15,13,12,12,12,11 total: 103
squats: 19,17,14,13,12,12,13,16 total 116

Back in Ireland now. gonna ease back into things. I've dropped a bunch of weight and possibly a fair bit of meat too. Definitely feeling a bit weaker now too. Hopefully it's just a bit of slack. I'm interested to see how I'll get on with me usual diet after spending the last three weeks on rice, noodles, beer and wine, some chicken, little beef and no nuts! I miss the 38 degree heat though!

[Ed Flood]

Yesterday:

shoulder press
1-1-1-1-1
50-52.5(f)-50-52.5-55 equals pr. not too shabby strange that i failed at 52 but ended up getting to 55. I think getting angry with the bar had something to do with it!

Push press:
3-3-3-3-3
52.5-55-57.5-60-62.5(1) pr's here because I don't think I've ever done heavy push presses before.

Push jerk
5-5-5-5-5

55(4)-55-57.5(2)-57.5(4+1)-55 I was knackered at this stage, repeatedly lost concentration, got very dizzy and nearly passed out! Dropped the 57.5 from overhead because it went too far forward. I was expecting a telling-off but none came. I was playing around with some kips between some of the sets to kill some time and the instructor started telling me I'd wreck me rotator cuff and ballistic loading of the shoulders is bad. I decided not to mention that the thousands of pullups I've done in the last 6 or so months didn't seem to break me arms off up to this point. I waffled at him until he went away. All weights cleaned from earth. This is a ridiculously lengthy workout.

[Chet]

Ed Flood, on Jul 2 2008, 01:01 PM, said:

I was playing around with some kips between some of the sets to kill some time and the instructor started telling me I'd wreck me rotator cuff and ballistic loading of the shoulders is bad. I decided not to mention that the thousands of pullups I've done in the last 6 or so months didn't seem to break me arms off up to this point. I waffled at him until he went away.

LOOOOOOL

That is actually very similar to what happened to Brew and I last time we worked out at my gym.

We'd just been lifting heavy things, and were then messing about with some kipping.

Brew will prob remember it better, but some punk came over and pretty much started having a go at us, telling us we would should stop doing that or we would 'snap a tendon' LOL

Neither of us really wanted to engage this fine gentleman in conversation, so we basically politely told him what we were up to with the kipping said something to the effect of "Cheers - but its cool, we'll be alright,", and that we knew wassup.

At which point he started to tell us that we didn't know what we were doing at all, and needed to listen to him because he'd "...done gymnastics all ma life". Lets just say I very much doubt that Any ounce of credibility he may have had was shredded at that stage, lol. He then went over to the cable machine, and started telling his friends very loudly that he'd set us straight - that we shouldn't kip straight after heavy stuff (??!??!)

Course we carried on, lol.

Conversations after that followed as thus:

Chet: "Neil..?"
Neil: "Yeah..?"
Chet: "Best not do Fran next week after all..."
Neil: "Why?"
Chet: "Might snap a tendon"
Neil: "Dont worry mate, I've done gymnastics all my life..."

Has made for a running joke ever since

(Ed - Apologies for the detour)

[Brew]

Ah...yes ....I remember it well.

Being told by jeff capes dwarfed fat cousin that we might snap a tendon if we kip.

If that guy could spell gymnastics I may have paid attention to what he was saying.

Nice session you have there Ed....watch out getting dizzy on the push jerks though you don't want the oly bar on your head..........either that or you'll snap a tendon