[Franz29]

Benchmark 3: Angie
Date completed: 9/3/2008
As RX'd: Y
Result: 17:09
Previous completion date: 8/3/2008
Previous result: 20:43

Difference: -214s

Notes:
Holy Cr@p, I killed this workout today; I can't believe I knocked over 3 and a half minutes off my time. Pull-ups were greased right up to and over 50of them (in only 2 sets) which is a whole lot better than the first time when I was managing 15 or so per set. I am getting used to the bar in my attic, it's thinner than a normal bar so takes some grip adjustment, but now I am used to it I can get the kip working just fine. Alternated between wearing the Reebok gripmaster pads and plain chalk to spare the blisters. Thankfully they didn't rip too badly and even then not until the 90's. Push-ups were better too, guess it's all the extra burpees helping
Tough target to beat in a month, but those are the best kind; really give you something to push for.

I do feel like hurling right now though so i will do the urpees later.....

[Chet]

Brilliant mate - nice one

[Franz29]

Got the burpees done at Kickboxing (20 of 'em), along with 50 more push-ups, a load of star jumps and about 100 crunches My arms were like lead for a lot of it, especially holding the pads, but I was still in better shape than most of the class at the end. Oh well, shows what a mostly sedentary lifestyle will do and proves to me that it is something I want to avoid!

[Franz29]

Typical, the times I am not following the main site WOD and it has been strength, strength, strength and finally, strength. Oh well.

Taking a couple of days off from WODs to recover a bit. Still have sprints and plyos tonight, plus the burpee challenge so it's not total rest. I will be using the opportunity to work on some gymnastics skills too, hand-stands, L-sits and the like.

I downloaded the muscle up essay from PMenu the other day and it shows the type of MU I really want to nail (Here) so I will be starting to work on those too. I figure I can use the drills listed here and on the affiliate blog a few weeks ago to really hammer them out. Who knows, maybe a 50 day MU challenge will come up in the future

Anyway, next week I will start the MEBB phase of the routine, working a 3 on, 1 off, 2 on, 1 off schedule with Metcon on M/W/Sa and Strength Tu/Th. For the metcon I will do whatever the main site WOD was for the equivalent day the cycle before (so I can book equipment if required). Strength work I am thinking of a rotating system of;

Week 1 Tues: 3x5 Squat, 3x5 Bench Press, 3x5 Deadlift
Week 1 Thurs: 3x5 Squat, 3x5 Press, 3x5 Power Clean

Week 2 Tues: 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1 Squat, 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1 Bench, 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1 Deadlift
Week 2 Thurs: 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1 Squat, 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1 Press, 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1 Power Clean

Week 3 Tues: 10, 8, 5 Squat, 10, 8, 5 Bench Press, 10, 8, 5 Deadlift
Week 3 Thurs: 10, 8, 5 Squat, 10, 8, 5 Press, 10, 8, 5 Power Clean

Using the Starting Strength major lifts with a modified BFS rep scheme. Should give me a nice rounded workout and help see some strength gains.

Any thoughts or opinions are welcome on that.

EDITED: Going to drop the third rotation, the whole point is Max effort so this is redundant. I may drop the 3x5s in future too and stick with the 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1 scheme as recommended in the original PMenu article.

[Franz29]

90 minutes pickup American football with some footwork drills thrown in. Burpees done too.
Hamstring held up well, some grumbling but no real pain. Figure I was at about 75% speed for the most part. Hoping the next few days "light duty" will help it out before the cert next week.

[Franz29]

WOD: Linda
Date completed: 9/8/2008
As RX'd: N
Result: 19:29

Edited to add bodyweight of 79 kilos (rounded to 80 for exercises)

Notes:
Did a "Half-Linda" (10, 8, 6, 4, 2, 1) due to a couple of reasons; first was a lack of time in the gym, I had a conference call at 7:50 this morning with Australia so had to make sure I was back in time for that. Secondly was because of the start of the MEBB phase; with lifting tomorrow too, and mostly the same lifts as a matter of fact, I figured I would be better off not killing myself today and skewing the first lifts tomorrow. As it happens, even half-Linda is a bee-yatch, fun, but a bee-yatch none the less.

Pretty happy with the lifts though; my first workout was Linda and the improvements are noticeable (I can actually clean the weight for a start!). The deadlifts were close to my 1RM when I started so they seemed pretty easy this morning which was nice. Bench felt odd, I can't believe it's been over 6 months since I did a real bench session; back in the day they were a staple of my workouts. Still, maintained my reps which was nice. Be interesting to see if they improve after a while on MEBB. Confident they will but time will tell.

Going to MEBB tomorrow then FGB Wednesday. Might do the 3K as a gentle workout on Thursday before football training then rest up Friday in prep for the Level 1 cert, or I may take Thursday as a rest day too. Going to see how I feel going into it.

[Franz29]

Workout: Squat 3z5, Bench 3x5, Deadlift 3x5
Results:
Squat: 5x20, 5x60, 5x100 (WU), 5x125, 5x120, 5x120(F)
Bench: 5x20, 5x40, 5x55 (WU), 5x85, 5x85, 5x85
Deadlift: 5x40, 5x70, 5x110 (WU), 5x135, 5x135, 5x135

Notes
Pre-workout warmup: OHS with 10kilo bar. Ankle mobility.

Not a good session. I went in with no plan on weights to use and winged it which wasn't the best thing. My legs were still dog tired from Linda yesterday and the sprinting on Sunday so maybe not the best representative workout but I am not going to use that as an excuse.

My squats were horrible, my form at 125 was all over the place so I dropped it down to 120 for the last two sets. Felt horrible and failed on the last rep of set 3. It did help loosen up the back after Linda though, so that was good.

Bench was fine, 85 kilos so 5 more than the Linda weight. The last set was starting to feel it but I probably could have gone up to 90 and been fine for the three sets.

Deads were probably a little light at 135, although again, the last set did feel it. I tried sticking with an overhand grip as opposed to alternating when it got heavy. I used the hook grip and boy did it hurt! Felt a lot better though; when I alternate grip I find the overhand side comes up first putting me at an imbalance, with the same side grip and hook it felt a lot more smooth. Guess I will have to keep working on it so I can hook up to my 1 RM. My back feels better today after lifting than it did yesterday so maybe FGB tomorrow won't be the back seizure waiting to happen I was dreading. Hey, I can hope can't I?

Going to work on a plan for the next sessions so the workout is more worthwhile. Normal logic states that the 5rm is about 75-80% of the 1 RM so I will work on that principle. Squats my 1RM was 135, Deadlift 172.5 and press was 77.5 so I will use those as the baseline. Bench and cleans are an unknown (I do know my cleans are terrible so some time working on form with a lighter bar may not be out of order here). To that end I believe I should start the squats at around 110, the deads at 138 (so they weren't too far out today at all actually) and the press at 62.5 (all 80% 1rm) and work up from there. Bench I will move up to 90 and see how I get on and cleans I may start at a lowly 40 and work on getting the motion correct.

Hopefully using these numbers I can maintain perfect form and make gains every workout until I smash my CFT next time.

As always, any thoughts and opinions are welcomed.

[chief]

For a "bad session" that's still good lifting Franz. I know how you feel about the squat form-so frustrating when you just cant get it right but on the other hand, freaking brilliant when you nail it at a heavy weight

As for a plan for you, you could follow some of Rippetoe's advice and start off 15% below your 5RM weight and then slowly add weight so you burst through any plateaus? You should read practical programming by rippetoe, very informative stuff.

[Franz29]

Good plan. I have SS but never got round to picking up PP. Think maybe I will order it this morning; I have a $50 voucher over at Amazon in the US so that should cover any shipping costs.

Using you suggestions, I will look at 70% 1RM as a start point seeing as I was looking at 80% initially (and works out to be 15% or so of the 5RM). Should be good for that and can make sure the form is spot on before increasing the weights. I guess all except the deadlifts for that seeing as I did all three sets at about 5rm with no issues. I think there I will go up to 140 and see how I fare.

Oh, did the burpees right after lifting too so still on track with the challenge.

[Franz29]

Re-read the PMenu PDF and have altered the plan slightly. Accordingly I edited the plan above to read;

EDITED: Going to drop the third rotation, the whole point is Max effort so this is redundant. I may drop the 3x5s in future too and stick with the 5, 3, 3, 1, 1, 1 scheme as recommended in the original PMenu article.

[Franz29]

I am beat this morning. Heavy sparring session at Krav Maga last night was the last thing I needed, especially against the P3 guys (I am a lowly P1 ). There are three P3's and I always get partnered with them to make pairs; it's because the teacher knows I will hit them back but still they know more "dirty tricks" than me I guess it's good prep for my P2 grading in a few weeks but I ache this morning.

Skipped FGB. I was going to do it, but thought there is a better than average chance we will be doing it for real at the cert and didn't want to compromise any performance by wearing myself out beforehand. Instead I did a made up WO;
400m
21 burpees w/pull-up
400m
15 burpees w/pull-up
400m
9 burpees w/pull-up

It was going to be for time but I forgot to stop the stopwatch so I have no idea! D'oh.

Still, a "fun" little workout. The sprints really kill the legs before the burpees and the pull-ups just add to the misery. It is always intersting doing pull-ups on non-standard equipment though. I was using the swing set in the park which is obviously a lot thicker than a regular bar. Alters the whole dynamic of the pull, the forearms are more engaged for a start which can make the later pulls harder because these smaller muscles are fatigued much quicker. Having said that, what could be more functional? Who knows what obstacles we may encounter in the real world, so if we are only conditioned to pull-up on a standard 2 inch bar, we are screwed

I am counting these burpees towards my daily count although I have Kickboxing tonight so even more running, push-ups, crunches and burpees to look forward to. Damn it, I just want to kick and hit things!!!!

[Franz29]

Weekend at the Cert which was a great time (won't bore you with the details, just read around the other posts from guys who went). Couple of really taxing workouts that might not have been quite so taxing if we hadn't had the day working on technique. Who would have thought PVC pipe work would be so fatiguing?

Thinking I might take the day off from the WOD (the WOD yesterday was thrusters/burpees 30/20/10) and have a play with muscle ups. Got three in a row yesterday which is really good for me when I usually stick on the first transition. Managed 5 in total (set of 1, set of 3, set of 1) so now I just have to make sure I keep up the practise anbd don't lose it again.

Back to the MEBB routine tomorrow.

Good to be home, although sleep yesterday was hard to come by, I was just too jacked up from Manchester. Thanks to everyone up there, especially the nice people that supplied me with hot, strong tea. Nothing better for motivation

[Franz29]

Burpees done, although there is something less satisfying when there are no guests in the room below to complain about the banging noise

Did 10 minutes MU work, starting in the seated position to nail the dead hang. Back to having trouble again (I can get one then stall again, but it's still better than the none I was doing) so I am wondering if the thicker rings at CFM made a difference somehow. The rings there were wrapped in tape and I found my grip more stable. Going to run down to B&Q this week and pick up some pvc tape to wrap it in and see how I get on. I am figuring on 10 minutes per day working on these suckers using the progression from PMenu until I have them, then going to move on to getting my free standing hand-stand.

That is something I took from the cert, spend time each workout working on something you are weak on. You can use it as the warm-up and/or warm down and will go a long way to rouding out your fitness.

[Franz29]

Back to the old grind

Took a little different approach to the ME work today. I was going to go 5, 3, 1, 1, 1 but had a rethink while in the gym. It's supposed to me max effort so I wanted to quantify it a little so what I did was load up my 5 rep amount and bang those out. I then added a set weight and tried for another 5. If that was doable I repeated until I could only get three. I then halved the weight I added until I could do just 1, then used that weight until I failed. This does mean my 1 rep max is a little lower than the CFT due to extra fatigue but as I get stronger that will be exceeded.

Rest period between wrok sets: 120 seconds

Anyway, the numbers;
Squat: 5x60, 5x80 (WU), 5x100, 5x110, 5x120, 3x125, 1x130, 1x130, F
Bench: 5x40, 4x60 (WU), 5x80, 5x90, 3x95, 3x97.5, 1x100, 1x100, F
Deadlift: 5x60, 5x100 (WU), 5x120, 5x140, 3x150, 3x160, 1x165, 1x165, 1x165, F

Used the hook grip until 160 then went to alternate hand. My grip isn't srtong enough for that on a regular grip but I am working on using it until I physically can't hold on before switching to hook/alternate. Should mean the grip gets stronger as the lifts go up too.

Almost dumped the squat a few times; my shoulders are still tight from all the pulling around over the weekend so my "shelf" wasn't as developed as it normally is and the bard wanted to move on two occasions. Luckily got it in the rack or onto the pins without hurting myself.

Saw a guy doing 28kilo bent over DB rows. He was using straps to hold it which I found amusing. Kept thinking of classic Rip wearing straps to hit the head to make the point about them. I find the gym a constant source of amusement as I watch other people working out; of course I am under no illusions they feel the same about me when I kip, thruster or just plain die on the floor

[Franz29]

I feel terrible today. I physically crashed at Krav Maga last night - dizzyness, nausea and total lack of energy. I put it down to under-recovery but think I may have a virus because I had a fever last night and a pounding headache that just wouldn't quit. It's subsided now enough that I can work from home but I didn't feel up to the train ride up to London today.

Not going to train today as a consequence so I will push the metcon to tomorrow's planned rest day then do a 3 on cycle until the end of the week. I guess that is one benefit of the 3-1-2-1 routine, if I miss one of the 3 I can push it to a 2-1-3-1 schedule with minimal impact (constantly varied right?). Going to do Dale from the workouts for the fallen to make up for the hero of choice last cycle - it looks nasty. I will be subbing burpees for ball slams because I got kicked out the last time I did ball slams in the gym, but I figure the sub is worse than the RX so it's all good.

I was thinking about the metcon days. Right now I am trying to tie in with the mainsite WOD, which means I may be tempted to pick the ones I like and miss the rest (hasn't happened yet, but I know it could), so what I was thinking of doing was using my shiny new hopper deck and simply picking (or having my wife pick) a card the night before and using that. Keeps me honest throughout the test and ensures the results will be consistent.

[Chet]

Take it easy mate, let yourself recover

I like the new sig

[Davie]

take it easy mate, sounds like you need a rest

[Franz29]

Total rest day, went back to bed after work and didn't even get up for kickboxing (wireless laptops are a wonderful thing . Feeling a lot better now, plenty of rest and water so I should be good to go for the gym tomorrow. Not overly worried about missing the burpees for the day, I have a hundred () of them to do tomorrow as subs for Dale so they will be made up with a few to spare

Going to post up some pics and videos of Sunday at the cert. Quality isn't great because i have a crappy camera and there aren't that many because i was too busy "doing" rather than filming.

EDIT: OK scrap the uploading idea, not enough space on the host. I will try to host them elsewhere for you all to look at.

[Franz29]

Ugh, not a good workout today. Felt fine going in after yesterday but had to stop half way through. Just really weak and dizzy again.

So:

WOD: Dale
Run 500m
Row 400m
100 Push-ups
100 pull-ups
100 burpees
Row 500m
Run 400m

Posted: 9/11/08 (Hero of Choice)
Result: DNF

Notes
Did the run and the row with few problems, felt a little off the pace during the row but carried on. Had to break the push-ups into more sets than usual (first set was only 20) but again, got through it and started the pull-ups. Right away I felt terrible but pushed through to 50 of the beasts before I got really dizzy and nauseous again. Decided right there and then to call it a day. Had to hang on to the railing walking down the stairs, I would guess I looked like a really old man or someone about to hurl and pass-out (felt like it).

Interesting observation: Doing the push-ups first makes the pull-ups a LOT harder. Normally (Murph, Angie) you do the high rep pull-ups first. The new order added a whole new dynamic to the event, somethng I will repeat in future (not least because I really want to finish this WOD for the Fallen).

Still have two days burpees to do, but I will save those for training tonight. I should probably rest again, but I really don't fancy 70+ burpees tomorrow after the ME strength workout, that wipes me out on the best of days.

[Franz29]

Still not feeling right so I have decided to take the rest of the week off and start again afresh on Monday. Still going to do the burpees (the thought of 130 odd burpees Monday makes me feel even worse ) and will be doing some "active rest" (working on MU/Hand stands, but nothing on the order of a regular CrossFit workout.

I always know I am ill when I don't want to eat. I'm normally on 7 meals a day and still hungry between them so to be off the food is a little odd. Hopefully the rest will sort me out good and proper.