Wednesday, April 30, 2014

2014-04-30 WOD

WARM
missed most of warmup, but caught up for:
400m run

MAIN
A. 3x10 Benchpress, 5-10# heavier than last week
warm: 1x10x45#, 1x10x75#
main: 3x10@125

B. 3x8-12 dips
2x8, 1x6, failed last couple reps

C. Deadlift 5x10, 5-10# heavier than last week
warm: 1x10@135#
main: 5x10@195 (maybe last set was 205? I forget)

D. Hang Clean + Clean. 8 sets, increasing if possible
95#, 105#, 115#, 125#, 135#, 145#, 155#, 165# (failed the full clean on the last one)

I added:

E. 3x3 C2B pullups

F. 3x2 MUNegatives (on rings)

And at lunch:

G. 4.9km run - 27min

Tuesday, April 29, 2014

2014-04-29 WOD

WARM
std warmup
400m run
5 pullups
10 pushups
15 air squats

MAIN

A. HSHolds for 10 min, alternating with partner
1x1min, 3x30sec

B. "Cindy" AMRAP 20min of
{
5 pullups
10 pushups
15 air squats
Total: 14 rounds, 10 reps (75 pullups, 145pushups, 210 squats)
Two rounds less than my PR, which I'm attributing to my lungs still being affected by this cold.

C. Hold kettlebell (26#) overhead, walk around building (~400m), one lap per arm

Monday, April 28, 2014

2014-04-28 WOD

Whew. Knocked out with a cold, I missed Friday & Saturday WODs, plus a 10k run I'd signed up for. Anyhow, back today, though not feeling 100%

WARM
std warmup
400m run


MAIN
A. Back Squat 5x10 @ 10# heavier than last week.
warm: 1x10 @ 45, 1x10 @ 95
main: 5x10 @ 145#

B. OH Press 3x10 @ 5# heavier than last week.
warm: 1x10 @ 45
main: 3x10 @ 75# (went to 85 last week but was told too heavy)

C. 3x300m row for time
1:05, 1:02, 1:03

D. skill work
3x3 strict pullups & L-sit pullups
2x3 strict ring pullups

Thursday, April 24, 2014

2014-04-24 WOD

Active recovery day

A. Round the world
5 rounds, 1minute per movement
{
plank hold
airdyne
kbs 35# (about 20/round)
stepups 24"
SU/DU (I did 45 seconds SU, 15 seconds DU)

B. mobility work

C. BarMU attempts
4, failed. Came close, but couldn't replicate yesterday's barMU.

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

2014-04-23 WOD

WARM
std warmup (which I was late for... again)

MAIN
A. Deadlift, 5x10 @ 50%+ add weight from last week
warm: 1x10 @ 135
main: 3x10 @ 175, 2x10 @ 195

B. Benchpress 3x10 @ 50%+ add weight from last week
warm: 1x10 @ 75
main: 2x10 @ 115, shoulder hurting a bit so went 1x10 @ 95# for last set

C 3x8 dips, 1 min b/t

D 2min row for cals
38

I added

E. 2x5 strict pullups

F. BarMU attempts
SUCCESS! BarMU on the 3rd try. FINALLY!
Now on to the rings!

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

2014-04-22 WOD

WARM
std warmup
2x
{
5 box jumps
5 wall ball
}

MAIN

A. "Kelly" - 5 rounds for time:
{
400m run
30 wallball 20#
30 box jumps 24"
}
time: 28:55

(+3:20 PR over my previous best of 32:15)

B. KB OH Press 35#
3x10/arm

I added:

C. BarMU attempts
3. all failed.

Monday, April 21, 2014

2014-04-21 WOD

WARM
std warmup
3 rounds
{
100m run
10 air squats
}

MAIN
A. Back Squat 4x10, 10# more than last week
warm: 8x45#
main: 4x10 @ 135#

B. OH Press, 3x10, 2-5 more than last week
warm: 10x45#
main: 2x10 @ 75#, 1x10 @ 85# (too heavy though, bad form)

C. CJ Clusters 1.1.1, 10s, 2min b/t, 4 sets
warm: 75#
main: 3x95#, 3x125, 3x145, 3x155

D. Pendlay rows, 3x8
3x8 @ 75#

I added:

E. 2xBarMU attempt (failed)

F. 3 x MU Negatives on rings

Sunday, April 20, 2014

2014-04-20 Run

Day off today, so just a moderate pace active recovery run.

Cut the 10k a little short cause I had to get back for the kids egg hunt!

9.05k, 54:52, avg pace: 6:04min/km

Saturday, April 19, 2014

2014-04-19 WOD

WARM
std warmup
200m run
3x
{
8 wallball
5 pushups
}
Clean practice

MAIN
A. 100 pullups + 100 wallballs
12:28 split time (pullups), 20:31 total

Could definitely do this one faster if I hadnt done 50 C2B's yesterday.

B. Work to a heavy clean

Again, I did this one yesterday, but figured I'd repeat anyway. Did them all as CJs

3x95, 3x135, 2x155, 1x165, 1x175, dFail at 185

Friday, April 18, 2014

2014-04-18 WOD

WARM
std warmup
400m run
snatch practice
CJ's at light weight
2x5 strict pullups

MAIN

A. "Amanda" Scaled - Came in over lunch to do Amanda with Mike & Kirby, as this is one of the four Masters Qualifiers workouts that was named. It's a tough one, so I scaled both the weight, and the muscle-ups (substituting 2x the number of C2B pullups:

Amanda is normally: 9-7-5 of MUs and 135# Squat Snatches.

Amanda Scaled. For time:
{
18 C2B pullups
9 Squat Snatches 75#
14 C2B pullups
7 Squat Snatches 75#
10 C2B pullups
5 Squat Snatches 75#
time: 7:11

B. Work to a Heavy CJ
5x95, 5x135, 2x145, 1x155, 1x165, 2x175(fail)

C. BarMU attempts
5 of them. All failed. so. dang. close.

Thursday, April 17, 2014

2014-04-17 WOD

active recovery day

WARM
std warmup

MAIN
A. 20 min row
4240 m

I added:

B. BarMU attempts
3. all failed. but close!

C. MUNegatives
2x2

D. HSHold
1, 30s for balance

Wednesday, April 16, 2014

2014-04-16 WOD

WARM
std warmup
400m run

MAIN
A. 5x10 deadlift at 50-60%
warm: 1x10 @ 135#
main: 5x10 @ 165#

B. Super sets of 8 CGBenchpress at 50% & 8 dips (ring if possible)
warm: 1x8 @ 75, 4 ring dips
main: 3x (8 reps @ 95#, 8 ring dips (first set unbroken, sets 2,3 broken)

C. 4 rounds, each for time, with 2 min rest b/t
{
400m run
6 Hang Power Snatch @ 50-60% (I did 75#)
}
times: 1:55, 1:55, 1:54, 2:00

I added:

D. BarMU attempt
1 (Failed)

E. 3x2 MUNegatives

Tuesday, April 15, 2014

2014-04-15 WOD

WARM
std warmup
3 rounds
{
200m run
5 pushups
5 air squats
}

MAIN

A. EMOM 10
5 Push Press 95#

B. For time:
800m run
3 rounds
{
20 wallball (ub) 20#
15 pullups
10 HSPU/HRPU (I did 2/8 first two rounds, then 0/10 3rd round)
}
800m run

time: 18:30

Monday, April 14, 2014

2014-04-14 WOD

[Did BodPod weigh-in today. Will post stats later]

WARM
std warmup (missed some of it doing the bodpod)
200m run
10 pushups
10 situps

MAIN
A. Back Squat 5x10 @ 50%
95x10, 125x10, 125x10, 125x10, 125x10

B. OH Press 3x10 @ 50%
10@65, 10@65, 10@75

C. Hang Clean complex 2.2.2 starting at 50%, 20s between 2's, 2min bt sets
115*2.2.2, 125*2.2.2, 125*2.2.2

D. 3 min AMRAP pullups or C2B pullups:
C2B: 31

E. 3 min AMRAP situps
81

Saturday, April 12, 2014

2014-04-12 WOD

Big BBQ-day Partner WOD!

WARM
std warmup
400m run
10 pushups
10 air squats
5 thrusters 95#
5 pullups
5 box jumps
5 situps
5 ball slams

MAIN
Teams of 4. Everyone does run together, trading off medball. The each member does the rest of the movements, with partner 2 only going onto movement 1 after partner 1 moves onto the next movement, etc.

4 rounds for time:
{
400m run with 30# medball (100m with medball, 300m without)
15 box jumps 24"
15 thrusters 95#
15 situps
15 pullups
15 ball slams 30#
}
Time: 42:30

Friday, April 11, 2014

2014-04-11 WOD

Survived Birthday "Vestivities"

WARM
std warmup
2 rounds:
{
200m run
5 pushups
10 situps
}
clean & jerk drills

MAIN
(all of below while wearing 25# vest)

A. EMOM 10
{
3 Power Clean & push jerk 135#
}

B. 8 min AMRAP
{
8 front squat 95#
100m run
}
5 rounds + 8 reps

C. 8 min AMRAP
{
8 burpees
16 KBS 44#
}
4 rounds + 18 reps

Thursday, April 10, 2014

2014-04-10 WOD

Active recovery day

A. 20 min row (4300m)

I added:

B. 4x4 strict pullups

C. 3x2 MUNegatives

D. 3 Bar MU attempts (failed)

Wednesday, April 9, 2014

2014-04-09 WOD

WARM
std warmup
200m run

MAIN

A. Run:
200m
1 min rest
400m
2 min rest
600m
3 min rest
800m

times: 0:39, 1:21, 2:18, 3:00

B. 3x8-10 partner assist strict C2B Pullups

C. 5min DU practice

I added:

D: 4 BehindTheNeck pullups

E: 3x2 MUNegatives (on rings)

F: 3x HS Hold (for balance. ~30s each)

G. 2 BarMU attempt (failed)

Tuesday, April 8, 2014

2014-04-08 WOD

WARM
std warmup
400m run
3 rounds
{
10 pushups
10 kbs 35#
}

MAIN

A. 10 min EMOM
{
3 Hang Power Snatch 95#
}

B. 3 rounds, each for time, 4 min rest b/t
{
20 cal airdyne
15 box jumps 24"
10 burpees
5 C2B pullups
}

times: 2:29, 2:31, 2:35

Monday, April 7, 2014

2014 Crossfit Open Post-Mortem & Thoughts

Last week wrapped up the 2014 Crossfit Open. It was the 3rd one I participated in. As with those years, I thought it would be fun to crunch the numbers a bit and see how I did versus my plan, and how the Open itself is evolving. Most importantly, I wanted to see if I could glean any info about what I should work on for next year. (here are my summaries for 2013, 2012)

About the Open

f you are reading this, you probably already know about the Crossfit Open, and can skip to the next section. If you don't, some understanding of the basics would help. Here's an updated version of what I wrote last year:

It's a competition anyone can enter. 5 workouts over the course of 5 weeks. Workouts released Thursday at 5pm, and scores must be entered online by 5pm Monday. Scores can either be validated by a CF Affiliate, or submitted with a link to a YouTube video showing your performance. If it meets the documented standards, reviewers on the site will approve it as valid. Scores are ranked for each workout, and individual's scores for the whole event are a sum of their ranking (e.g. If you came in 1st, 2nd, 1st, 2nd, and 3rd, your score would be 9). The video submission thing opens the door to a lot of controversy and bickering, but it's fun in the sense that every once in a while there can be a Cinderella story of someone coming out of nowhere and kicking butt. 
Top 48 men and women in each region (there are 17 regions) go on to compete at regionals, and the top 3 men and women coming out of regionals go on to the games. There are also team categories and Masters categories for different age groups. Roughly 1% of entrants go to regionals, and 6% of those (0.06% of the total) go on to the Crossfit Games. For most of us, it's really just a chance to compete with our friends and gauge our progress.

My Goals for 2014

My goals for 2014 were to (a) to compete in the Open and finish all 5 workouts, (b) improve over last year, and (c) to finish somewhere in the 50-60% range among all competitors that finished all 5 workouts. I hit both those goals, though the numbers vary a bit depending how you measure them.

Some Stats and My Ranking for 2014

Here's a summary of some results. In 2013, they added a 40-44 age group, so I've included it and also calculated where I would have ranked within that group to gauge progress. This year I fell within the 45-49 age group, so I've included that but with no basis of comparison to last year. For all numbers, I sampled only the NW region to make the numbers more managable. However, in the 45-49 group, the numbers got small enough that it got a little noisy, so I compared vs worldwide with that.

Number relevant to my goal is that in the bottom right: Of men in my age group that finished all 5 workouts, I beat 48.8% of them worldwide. If you include those that didn't finish, I beat roughly two thirds.

In terms of improvement: I improved in all categories, with the exception of one: If I compare vs Men's 40-44, my rank among those that completed all 5 workouts actually dropped. Upon closer examination, I believe this is in part due to the percentage of people that did not finish all 5 being higher this year. In other words, people bailed on 14.5, and thus the remaining field was harder to beat.

These graphs give a visual and show the general trending. In all of them, A = those that beat me, B = those that finished all 5 workouts but did NOT beat me, and C = those that did not finish. The top left graph shows a general improvement over time, where I went from being in the bottom 1% of finishers to 15%, to 22%. Keep in mind that this is as the vast majority of people are improving as well. The graph on the top right you can see how many more people did not finish all 5 workouts vs last year (red line), so while I improved, I didn't improve vs the average of the remaining field.


Some General Observations


  • I mostly liked the workouts this year. There was as good mix, and a couple of them (esp 14.5!) that were humbling and forced people to dig deep and push themselves.
  • Given that there are new crossfitters every year, I wasn't crazy about a couple of workouts starting with movements that limited people right out of the gate (DUs, C2B pullups). 
  • After doing this for almost 3 years now, more of the workouts were familiar. There were fewer of them that I came into with no idea how I'd do. I was able to look back at notes, come up with a plan, estimated finish time, etc.
  • As a result of the above, as well as busy life circumstances, this was the first open I didn't do all the workouts twice. I only did two of them twice (will discuss that below). The others were "one and done".
A key observation relevant to all competitors who care where they rank.
  • As the sport grows and the number of participants in the open grows, there is a general trend that your rank becomes increasingly dependent not on how well you do on all the workouts, but on the extent to which you don't do poorly on any single workout. As the leaderboard crowds, a poor showing on one wod can drop you dozens or hundreds of spots. The elite folk get this, but it's true across the board. I like this trend, as it rewards those that are overall well-rounded, but it's important to be aware of I think.


    Analysis of the WODs


    14.1: 

    10 min AMRAP of 30 DUs + 15 Ground-to-Overhead at 75#.

    This was one of the ones I redid, improving by about 5% over my first attempt. The graph below shows my 1st, 2nd attempt vs men overall. The graph on the right shows just my age group. You can kind of see the 'staircasing' with each round.



    First time I did snatches until those failed, then went to CJs. Second attempt I did CJs right from the start. The learning here was that my strategy should not have been based just on weight, but on weight as compared to my max. 75# being 65% my max snatch, but only 40% my CJ max, so clearly I was going to fatigue less quickly on those - even if CJ is a slower lift. In the graph on the right you can see I beat about 60% of participants, so I was ok with this result.

    14.2 

    3 minute rounds to finish 2 rounds of 10 OH squats (95#) and 10 C2B Pullups. If finishing under 3 minutes, rest till exactly 3 minutes, proceed to round 2, which is 12+12, then at 6 minutes, 14+14, etc, etc.


    I liked this one a lot. forced people to push hard. That said, I only made it past the first cut-off, but I love the format anyway. I told myself going in that if I didn't make 3 minutes, I'd do it again. I made the 3 minute market, but was MILES away from the 6 minute / 88 rep mark, so opted to not do a second time. Plus I beat about half the field in my age group, so I was happy with that.

    14.3

    8 min AMRAP of deadlifts and box jumps. Box jumps were all 15 at 24", but the deadlifts increased in reps & weight: 10 at 135#, 15 at 185#, 20 at 225#, 25 at 275#.


    I got kind of a bum rap on this one. We got through the first 55 reps and the clock died, so we had to rest a couple minutes and start again, but I felt like it cost me. I got 96 reps I got through to the 275# set and got 6 reps. Had I been fresher, maybe another 4 reps? Thing was that even single reps helped move you up the leaderboard a lot here, as you can see by the slope of the middle of the graph above.

    Unhappy, I went in 2 days later and did it again, but by the time I got to 225# I could tell I wasn't going to catch my last one. Ended up getting few reps fewer.

    Anyhow, the clock thing doesn't matter. These things happen. Ultimately I need to get a higher DL number so those 275# lifts aren't as painful (as that's 90%  of my max). 70% of the field beat me on this workout :-(

    14.4

    The Chipper: 14 min amrap of: 60 cal row, 50 T2B, 40 wallball 20#, 30 Cleans 135#, 20 Muscle-ups

     This was one where I came in with a plan, having looked up what it took me in the past to do the different movements. I had a goal of getting to 180 (as I'm unable to do Muscle-ups). I got 172 reps, but also got 5 no-reps, so had I gone a bit faster and not messed those up, I'd have made 180. I was happy with my performance on this one.


    Compared to the rest of the field, I did well on this one, beating 55% of folks in my age group that finished it.

    14.5 

    This one was brutal. 95# Thrusters and bar-facing burpees, in sets of 21/21, 18/18, 15/15... all the way down to 3/3, all for time. I felt for the newbies who had to finish it, some of them taking an hour or more.

    My goal was 20 minutes, and in the end I came in at 21:35. I'd just come off a week of travel and had been eating crappy and didn't feel my best. That's all my fault though. If there's a lesson here, it's that it doesn't take much to drop your performance (couple days of poor sleep, poor eating, etc). I wasn't about to do it again though!


     Graphs above have the scale on the left in seconds, so lower is better. I beat 43% of the field on this one, so not quite here I wanted to be. (Another note: I wore oly shoes for this one, which helped me not round out for the thrusters  - but they felt like bricks on my feet during the burpees. Really should have dry-run a couple rounds with/without).

    Post-Mortem On My Performance

    I give myself a passing grade. I hit my target of being in the 50-60% range for my age group. I was also pleased at being able to assess the wods and come up with a plan, which I think speaks to my CF knowledge after doing this a couple years.

    On the negative side, while I improved, there were places I didn't (deadlift/boxjump 14.3, for example). Several of the folk at my box that were in the same approximate rank as me last year, totally left me behind this year. Clearly there's still work to do. Diet has to be a big piece of that. Totally fell off the wagon just before the Open and it cost me.

    Goals for 2014-2015

    For next year's Open, in addition to my overall goals for 2014 (here), goal is to place in 40-50% range of people in my age group. I'll aim to not do the workouts twice unless I have a significantly different strategy or similar circumstances that would make a big difference.

    I'm assuming there'll be some more sophisticated movements next year. I was sure we'd see HSPU. Maybe next year? Maybe Bar-MUs.

    Onward and upward to next year!

    2014-04-07 WOD

    WARM
    (missed initial part of warmup)
    3 rounds
    {
    10 situps
    10 air squats
    }
    snatch & oh squat drills

    MAIN
    A. All as part of one time:

    21-15-9
    {
    OH Squat 95# (I scaled to 75#), snatching 1st rep or after breaking
    T2B
    }

    5 min rest

    20-15-10
    {
    Front Rack lunge (75#)
    200m run (just one per round)
    }

    Total time: 18:25

    B. Partner assist behind the nech pullups
    3x8-10 (8,10,10)

    Sunday, April 6, 2014

    2014-04-06 Bridge to Brews run

    Fun event I signed up for last minute when a friend asked me to run it with him.

    10.13 Km,  58:17, 5:45min/km avg pace (slowed some by the crowds)

    Saturday, April 5, 2014

    2014-04-05 WOD

    WARM
    std warmup
    4 rounds of
    {
    5 air squats
    5 kbs 35#
    }
    snatch drills

    MAIN

    A. Work to a heavy snatch
    3x45, 3x65, 2x75, 2x85, 2x95, 2x115 (tied my PR), 2 failed attempts at 125.

    Should have attempted 120 rather than 125. Still pretty happy with matching my ORM. Didn't feel super heavy and given more time I could have PR'd

    B. "Isakaren" - combination of Isabelle and Karen. Isabelle scaled, normally 135#
    10 rounds for time:
    {
    15 wallball 20#
    3 Snatch 105 for first 2 rounds, then 95# for rest
    }
    time: 19:35

    Friday, April 4, 2014

    2014-04-04 WOD

    WARM
    std warmup
    3 minutes of
    {
    5 Russian KBS 35#
    5 wallball 14#
    } (did 6 rounds)
    400m run

    MAIN

    A. 8 min EMOM
    {
    4 Deadlift 75% ORM. Did 6 sets at 225#, last 2 sets at 245#
    }

    B. 20 min AMRAP
    {
    400m run
    20 pushups
    15 v-ups
    }
     6 rounds + 1 200m run

    I added
    C. MU Negatives
    4 MU Negatives on rings

    Thursday, April 3, 2014

    2014-04-03 WOD

    Active recovery day.

    Mobility work

    5k row

    handfull of ring pullups

    Wednesday, April 2, 2014

    2014-04-02 WOD

    WARM
    missed the initial bits of warmup
    3 min alternating sets of
    {
    10 wallball
    10 kbs
    }

    MAIN
    A. OH Squat skill work (45# bar only)

    B. 3x8 Pendlay rows
    warm: 8x45#, 5x95#
    main: 8x95#, 8x105, 8x105

    C. 3x8 strict pullups
    (first 2 sets unbroken, broke once on the 3rd)

    D. Establish a heavy bear complex and do 3 sets
    warm: 3 reps at 45#, 3 reps at 95#
    main: 1 set at 95#, 2 sets at 105#
    each round is:
    {
    1 squat clean thruster
    1 back squat
    1 OH press
    }

    I added:

    E. MU skill work
    2x3 ring pullups

    Tuesday, April 1, 2014

    2014-04-01 WOD

    Ha. April fools. Posted WOD was something super soft and easy, so we knew it was a joke. Then we came in and found this:

    WARM
    std warmup
    5 min DU practice

    MAIN
    With partner, do the following (we split the work 50/50, mostly in sets of 10, the row in 2 sets of 25 cal each)
    {
    100 wallball 20#  - Partner does Wall-sits while other works
    100 Russian KBS 53# - Partner does KB hold
    100 HR Pushups - Partner does plank or hollow-hold (I did hollow-holds)
    100 T2B - Partner does OH Plate Hold (we did 25# plate)
    100 Box jumps - alternating jumps w partner
    100 cal row - partner does single-unders or double-unders while other rows
    }
    time: 30:35