PTP Workout Four

Deadlift

• Warm up with some DLs at lighter weight
• Set 1: 5 reps @ 143#
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 5 reps (129#)

Press

• Warm up with some presses at lighter weight
• Set 1: 5 reps @ 53#
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 5 reps (48#)

The Maul

Behold, the maul. No, not the Mall – the Maul. The maul is the sledgehammer’s older 6′5″, 250# linebacker on steroids brother. I had to use the maul last week because I made an, “ahem”, miscalculation when I was repairing a building. Ok, several miscalculations.

I have about 35 chickens, which live in a coop that used to be an old garage. When I say old, I mean old, like circa 1940’s old. Anyway, between housing chickens and cars it also housed pigs. Pigs are totally evil animals, trust me on that one. They tore the sliding doors off the front of the building, pushed the walls out a bit, and actually tore the cement floor partially out. I have no idea how a pig tears up a cement floor when its only tool is its little pink snout, but they did. Pigs are fascists. Remember Animal Farm? Fascists.

So, one end of my chicken house has no wall. A few years ago when I moved the chicks in we slapped up a hastily cobbled together mishmash of 2×4’s and old plywood that was less than ideal. I’ve always wanted to put up a proper wall with windows and an extra door, so when I had a bit of spare time last week I rounded up some supplies and set to work. 

According to my calculations it was 86 inches from the top of the remaining wall to the ground. Long story short, my wall ended up being just short of 90″ due to math errors and the fact that I wanted to dig it into the ground a bit to discourage predators from digging under it. Well, that would have been fine and dandy, except I didn’t realize that two inches under the dirt was a layer of solid rock and cement. Guess the fascist pigs missed that section. Thanks a lot.

So, I had two options: take my framed up wall apart and shorten it, or dig the rocks out. 

I chose to dig. And dig. And gouge. And hammer. The cement was not a problem, it was old and rotten and crumbled under the shovel pretty easily. My dear old Grandpa, however, had decided to sink a bunch of giant rocks into the cement. Hitting them with the shovel didn’t even make a scratch so I lugged the maul over and started whacking. 

I whacked for about three hours. At about hour two the handle of the maul snapped in half. Great. So for the last two hours I whacked giant rocks with a maul that sported a jagged spike-like handle that bounced inches from my body every time I swung it. 

Did I mention I’m not all that bright?

Finally, FINALLY, I broke up enough rock to get the new wall wedged into place and I went and laid down for a long, long time.

So, the moral of this story is: measure twice, cut once and check for giant rocks.

Today’s workout:

Deadlift

• Warm up with some DLs at lighter weight
• Set 1: 5 reps @ 148#
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 5 reps (133#)

Press

• Warm up with some presses at lighter weight
• Set 1: 5 reps @ 55#
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 5 reps (50#)

PTP Workout 2

Deadlift

• Warm up with some DLs at lighter weight
• Set 1: 5 reps @ 143#
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 5 reps (129#)

Press

• Warm up with some presses at lighter weight
• Set 1: 5 reps @ 53#
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 5 reps (48#)

Amateur Internet Diagnosis-es

Yes, I know. I haven’t posted in a long, long time. 

It turns out I hurt my knee worse than I had originally thought. About four years ago I hurt one of them while I was running (damn cambered roads!) and the other while I was working outside. Based on my own internet medical diagnosis I’m pretty sure I have torn lateral collateral ligaments in each knee. They will heal a little bit, and then I’ll step wrong or get thrown in judo or land funny on a double under attempt and they either re-tear or become inflamed again. A logical, normal person would go to a real doctor and get this cleared up once and for all. However, I think we all know that I am far from normal or rational. 

1.) I do not like doctors. I only go to the doctor when I am literally about to go on life support, and even then I seriously consider just taking an extra Tylenol and hoping it will clear up/go away.

2.) I do not like our local hospital. People tend to go in and either not come out alive or they come out with MRSA, staph or something of that nature. This does not help with my doctor/hospital phobia.

3.) If my amateur internet medical diagnosis is correct I would have to have surgery on both knees. This is a problem because: a.) I hate doctors, doctors do surgery; b.) bad, bad hospital; c.) I need to work, and I need my knees to do this – even if they are not fully functional knees.

So, now that I’ve gone through all that – I think I’ll just take an extra Tylenol and hope it goes away.

Today I started CrossFit 603’s PTP Program:

Deadlift

• Warm up with some DLs at lighter weight
• Set 1: 60% of 1RM, 3-5 reps (138#)
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 3-5 reps (125#)

Press

• Warm up with some presses at lighter weight
• Set 1: 60% of 1RM, 3-5 reps (48#)
• Set 2: 90% of Set 1, 3-5 reps (43#)

Since I can’t do much with my bad knee I didn’t do the metcon portion. However, since I spent most of the day literally shoveling sh*t (we cleaned out our big cow barn) and building a windbreak, I didn’t sweat the metcon.

AMRAP Suckitude

WOD:

AMRAP 15 minutes of:

5 Thrusters
7 Hang Power Cleans
10 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls

10 rounds – 42#

It doesn’t look that bad, does it? Well, thrusters were involved, so I say its suckitude factor was high. But… there were also cleans involved, so its awesomeness factor was also high. As for the SDLHP, meh – I’m like Switzerland on them, completely neutral. I don’t hate them, but I don’t love them either.

I picked up my lost jump rope afterwards and started messing around with some double unders and I hurt my knee. I’ve had bad knees all my life (runs in the family) and they tend to pop in and out sometimes. It felt like it was just out of place and I spent all morning trying to pop it back in. Usually center thrust kicks or round house kicks will make it snap, but no luck today. If anyone was watching out the windows of my apartment building this morning they were probably wondering why the strange girl in the parking lot was stopping intermittently and kicking thin air. Don’t worry, she was just off her meds.

Anyway, I had to go to the store and as I was wandering around with my shopping cart it popped back into place. I could literally hear it click. Weird, but oh did that feel good. (If anyone in Runnings was wondering why the girl by the stocking cap display suddenly stopped and said “Aaaaaahhh” and smiled contentedly, it’s not what you think.) It still hurts, so no judo tonight, but at least all my parts are back where they are supposed to be. For now.

Power Cleans

Power Clean 5 x 3

96#/101#/106#/106#/106#

I tried to really concentrate on form and on deadlifting to mid-thigh then exploding into the pull.

AMRAP Jerks

WOD:

AMRAP 15 minutes

5 Reps Locked Overhead (anyway possibile) 185 lbs (scaled to 81#)
10 Push Ups
15 GHD Back Extensions (subbed supermans)

8 rounds

The push-ups really slowed me down today. They were brutal after the push jerks and towards the end I was relegated to singles (but they were all strict.) Plus, you can pretty much only do supermans at one speed. If I would have had another bar I might have done good-mornings and got more rounds, but hey, I’m happy to just get a WOD in at this point.

I was out of fish oil for a while, and finally got some more today. I must admit, it really kills my appetite. When I was off it I ravenously craved sugar and ate pretty much constantly. After one mega dose this afternoon (about 3 grams) I’m not even hungry. Now, if I can just stay focused and drop some weight and get back in shape I’ll be a much happier girl.

Slammin’

Warmup: Double under practice. Still unsuccessful in achieving an actual double under. Wised up a little and actually wore shoes today.

WOD:
2 rounds of:

15 Thrusters (53#)
15 Ball Slams (12#)
15 Burpees
15 Box Jumps (19#)

Round 1: 5:05
Round 2: 5:10

RX’d was three rounds with no rest period. I wasn’t feeling so hot so I took a little break between rounds, and it still kicked my butt. The thrusters were unbroken the first round, and I had mucho trouble with the ball slams the first round. I was using a big Dynamax ball and because of the weird shape it bounced all over the place when I slammed it. I probably wasted quite a bit if time chasing the darn ball around. The second round I had trouble with the thrusters, but I stormed through the ball slams unbroken.

Cool down: Pull-up practice. Worked on my kip a little with the small red band. I did sets of 5 throughout the day also, just for fun. I think I probably ended up doing about 75 pull-ups total all day.

DL’s and DU’s

Deadlift 3 x 5

183# on all sets.

Still easing back into the workout routine. I was sore today, but not too so much I had to wonder how I was going to get dressed in the morning. Note to self: buy more shirts with buttons.

183# is a far cry from what I was doing a few months ago, but just enough today.

After the lifts I practiced my double unders for a while. I have the rope spin down, no problem, the spanner in the works is the timing of my jump. I’m just hitting the top of my feet with the rope on the second spin. Or worse, hitting the tips of my toes with the rope on the second spin – hoochie mama that hurts!

Respect

WOD:

AMRAP 10 minutes:

3 push-ups
5 pull-ups
7 weighted sit-ups

8 rounds + 3 push-ups

I probably could have easily gotten 10 rounds, but I had some starts and stops as I adjusted the WOD mid-stream. RX’d was 20 minutes, with 3 handstand push-ups and knees to elbows instead of sit-ups. However, I am definitely older and possibly a little bit wiser (debatable, I know) so I scaled this back. This is my first WOD in a while, and the memory of my disastrous 90 pull-up/90 dip workout is still fresh in my psyche. Actually, it’s seared into my psyche, and also seared into my lats and biceps. I subbed strict push-ups for the HSPU and 10# weighted sit-ups for the K2E. I started out intending to do K2E, but after three or four in the first round I could tell it was going to shred my hands.

I would rather be able to work out tomorrow than not be able to raise my arms above my head for five days. Being macho will only get you so far.

Here is a link to a great article by Tommy Kono titled “If I Had My Way.”

http://www.oldtimestrongman.com/kono_article.html

It’s about treating the gym with the respect a martial artist would treat a dojo (training hall.) As a martial artist I know the most important rule of the dojo: never, ever, ever step on the mats with your shoes. EVER! I remember seeing a parent step onto the mat to take a picture during a belt test once. He didn’t have to be told he made a mistake. Every single martial artist in the room – from the five year old white belts to the 9th Degree Grand Master – turned to stare in shock at his feet and gasp. You could hear the collective breath being sucked in in the room. NEVER step on the mat with your shoes! EVER!

When I started doing CrossFit with my friend Steve he had some nice Swain mats in his garage that we would do sit-ups and push-ups on. The first time I saw him walk across those with his shoes on I almost fainted. I’m not being overly dramatic when I say that either, it really and truly blew me away. He still has them at the box and even now I can’t bring myself to step on them. I’ll go around, thank you very much, even if it adds a few seconds to my WOD time. I also cringe when I see dusty shoe prints on them. Oh, the humanity!

Respect people! Respect the mat, respect the bar, respect the bumper plates, respect the training, respect yourself.