A burning fire

Since I missed the cut at regionals by one place I have had this great push in all my workouts and they have been great.  I have to hold back some because I don't want to get burned out since it is so early in the year and I am trying to stick to my plan to take it somewhat easy this Summer.  But I have had the time and desire to hit it hard so I have really been focusing on short power workouts.

Here is the end of this week workouts:

Wed:

Wendler Deadlift

5x230, 5x265, 14 x 300

9x3 waveload split jerks; rest 2:30 - 135, 160, 185, 145, 170, 195, 155, 180, 205

Thurs:

Squats with chains - 115lb + 60lb chains x 2 reps on min for 12 min

+

Close Grip Bench Press 6,4,2 - 205, 235, 265

+

3 Rounds of:

5 hang power cleans 135lb

10 burpees

15 CTB pullups

150m row

rest 6 min

Fri:

jog easy for 30 min

Sat Off

Sun:

Wendler Squats

3x215, 3x250, 12 x 280

split squats 6,6,6 rest 45sec - 60lb, 65,65

rest 1 hour

went to high school to push sled but it was locked up so did:

Hill sprints 20 sec; rest 3-4 min walk down x 6

Back to Training

I tried to get back to training last week after a week off from regionals and some debauchery.  I tried to do some squats and felt so weak and tight that I called it and just did a very light week thereafter.

This week I am back to training.  I am going to try to do a strength cycle, the Wendler, for the lower body lifts while I supplement with some gynmastics, hill sprints, short metcons, and longer recovery runs/rows/rides.  Im going to try this for 2-3 months and see it goes.  My schedule is going to be 2 on/1 off/ 2 on/ 2 off.  This will give me plenty of recovery days to see some strength improvements.  I will slowly add in some double days, then add an additional day.  My goal is to get stronger while maintaining good power and a good feeling in 5-10 min metcons.  But my ultimate goals is to enjoy the Summer and do workouts that are fun and eat some good food.  After this I will reassess and jump into a more regimented program while I build my aerobic system again and add volume.  Sounds like a plan for now!  This is what I have done early this week:

Sun:
Wendler Squats
3 x 200lb
3 x 235lb
3 + amrap (9 reps) x 265lb
+
Split Squats 3 x 8-10 reps rest 45sec bt legs - 45lb/h, 55lb. 55lb
+
3x3 weighted pullups @ 1131 - 60lb/65lb/70lb

Mon:
AM
A1. Bentover row @ 1031 x 6-8 rest 20 sec - 115lb/145lb/155/155
A2. Amrap (-3) ring pushups @ X122 rest 3 min x 4 - 17/15/12/10
+
75 burpee pullups for time = 7:41
+
3 x 15 GHD situps @ 2020 rest 90 sec
rest 6 hours
PM
jog for 5 min
+
45 sec hill sprint @ 80-90%
walk down 2:30
repeat x 6
+
jog for 5 min

Today is rest day, and tomorrow will be Wendler deadlifts and split jerk work.

Staying Fit!

After a couple weeks off of working out, eating a lot of Mexican food, and drinking plenty of beers, I'm ready to eat bees.  I have gained close to 10lb and can't stand how I feel.  It's time to get back into the swing of things. 

 I have thought a lot about what type of program I want to follow and need to ease back into it with things that are enjoyable for a while to keep me motivated for the long run.  After the competition all I wanted to do is some strength training since that is always my limiting factor.  I can't stand it and I want to just hammer home the strength.  I also made a million excuses about why that overhead squat killed me.  Seeing other scores in that workout from around the world made me realize something.  I would have been top ten in a lot of regions in that workout and I even would have been 1st in the South Central.  Thats tells me this workout killed everyone and even though I didn't feel my best in it, it is still a pretty darn good score.  I can only imagine what my score could have been had I felt good, which kills me to think about. 

 I realized that my fitness is great, and I need to accept that the people in my region just beat me that particular weekend.  I have to keep getting fitter and the strength will slowly come as it has been the last 2 years.  I can't just focus on strength, get fat and lose my fitness.  My fitness is my strong suit, and the strength takes time. So it's time to jump back into a program and continue with this lifelong growth.

Day 3 then Vacation

Day 3 I was pretty defeated from the day before but I wanted to finish strong and I knew that one of the top 4 guys needed to really mess up for me to catch one of them.  The first wod was "Amanada" which I felt good with, although my legs and back were very sore from the previous day.  This really affected me as I couldn't link together many squat snatches.  In practice I got 3:47, and the 3rd day of competition I got 4:45.  A whole minute slower and the top 4 guys all beat me, not by much but enough.  This took the life out of me and I just wanted to go into the last wod having fun and with one last hard push.  I was able to finish the workout hard and got 2nd place in that one.  This was a good way for me to finish but knew it wouldn't be enough.  I want to say that the top 4 guys deserve going to the Crossfit Games as they all had a fantastic weekend of workouts and simply beat me.

I have been thinking more about those overhead squats that killed me as I am reminded of them every day as it is still painful when I walk.  I will be thinking of those squats for a long time because something just was not right, I shouldn't be this sore.  I have thought more about it and talked to some people and I think I was wrong with what I said in a previous post that I was not used to that volume of squatting.  I do that volume all the time and have been doing it for close to 3 years now.  10 days prior I did 50 pullups and 50 overhead squats with the same weight in 2min and 45sec and with ease.  I was not even sore from it.  Something else went wrong during the competition because I do that volume all the time! The only thing I can think of is my fueling was off.  It's hard to get enough calories and fluids down during competition but it is a necessity as the volume, intensity, and anxiety is elevated for 3 days.  All I can think of is I did not have the proper fueling going into this.  I was fine on pullups, KBS, and DUs, then about 30-40 reps into OHS I lost it.  I had no energy left to fuel my legs and I was not recovering.  It was not my arms from the pullups, or back from the KBS or deads, it was all quads from the squats.  They filled with so much lactic acid that they just did not recover and broke my muscles down until they just did not fire anymore.  That's is why I believe I couldn't string any of the squats together and I'm still sore from it.  Obviously I'm frustrated with this but I have to learn from it and move on.  This is the last I will talk of this as there is nothing I can do about it except practice different refueling strategies and of course get stronger.

My plan is to relax for a while, eat what I want and workout when I want to.  I will get back on a program in a few weeks, but I do want to focus on some strength.  The heavy weights in the competition really took it's toll on my body and affected every subsequent workout.  So not only do I need to get stronger to perform better in those heavier wods, I need to get stronger so it doesn't break me down so much.  I'm planning on having more fun with my training and really just doing what I feel like for a while.

For now I'm going to enjoy my vacation down in Newport Beach.  It is beautiful here as I have totally been in relaxation mode going out for meals, having some beers, BBQ'ing, laying out in the sun, and riding cruisers around the beach.  I have a couple more days of this and I don't feel like going back to work as it has been a LONG time since I completely cleared my mind with no worries.  So I will go away from this blog for a while and when I feel like getting back to working out I will start updating this blog again.  I'm not sure if that will be a week or a month, but for now so long!

Day 2

The second day was pretty much a disaster for me.  I knew what I had to do to stay top 3 and I didn't execute.  I new if I had the lead going into day 3 that I would be able to hold on, and I knew if I fell behind it would be very difficult to catch up.  

The deadlift wod was going to be my toughest wod so I paced myself to try to finish strong.  That strong finish never came and I finished with deadlifting doubles and slow on box jumps.  Now the weather didn't help as I was jumping out of a puddle on top of soft sand, but everyone was in the same boat so that didn't really matter.  I finished 15th which I was fine with, I knew it would come down to the second wod of the day;  that was going to be the determining factor.

I started by flying through 35 pullups, then all tens with little rest, theses felt great as I had very little lactic build up.  The kettlebells I stayed with tens with short rest and this was just a grip killer which I pushed through.  It affected the double unders a little which is where everyone caught up to me.  Again it was challenging jumping on soft ground.  It came down to who could finish the overhead squats the fastest as we were all within 10 reps of eachother.  This is where I shit the bed and I believe I lost the competition here.  I knew I needed to beat one of those top 4 guys, and if I did in that workout looking back on it now, I would of qualified.  I can't quite figure out what happened as I probably won't ever understand.  I lost sleep over it that night because it just kept running through my mind.  It's not that I didn't push hard I just had no legs left.  There was so much much lactic acid build up the kept building with every set where sets of 5 became difficult.  My rests became longer and I was not recovering.  My quads were just about cramping afterward and they are one of the most sore things on my body, along with my back.  This is how I know I got destroyed by that movement.  I typcially don't get that sore and if I do it means I got broken down.  Funny how my back and quads are the most sore on my body, and squats and deadlifts were my worst movements all weekend.  Maybe need a little more practice.  It took me about 10 min to finish the overhead squats.  I got 11th place in that one and was pretty defeated.

For those of you that are competing in the future, I would try this full workout to get a feel for the OHS.  It's worth it to be a little sore to get a pacing strategy.  I'm not sure if I slowed down prior to the OHS if it would have made a difference.  I don't think so.  I think my legs were not prepped enough for that volume of squatting.  The amazing thing is my back held up which I was much more worried about after the deadlifts, I never expected to be that crushed by the squats where I just could not physically do it.  I will think about those OHS for a long time.

Day 1

The first day went exactly as planned; I knew I needed a big lead going into day 2 because that will be a tougher day for me.  For Wod #1 I wanted to try to get the hspu unbroken because I knew that would be the determining factor which I did and it was.  I knew there would probably be one or two other guys that would do them unbroken so I just ran ahead of the pack so they wouldn't be able to catch me.

The second Wod also went as planned. I hit 245lb in practice and just wanted to repeat it.  This would be a challenge because I was so nervous about shuffling the feet as they are VERY strict on standards, plus we had astroturf on top of sand which made for not good footing.  I was one of the last few to go in this workout all day so there were huge holes where the weights dropped which made the ground slant forward pulling you on your toes.  I knew it would be bad footing so I power cleaned each one, set my feet, then squat thrusted.  I almost lost it forward at about 215lb but luckily made it through it and got up to 245lb.  A lot of big guys lost it forward with the bad footing when they could have got a lot heavier, which made my score even better.

Another side note for all those competing in future regionals, be prepared for anything.  Just like I had to change my plan when I heard the footing was bad, they also changed the schedule on us.  After the first wod I knew I could hold some food down and I needed some calories so I ate more than normal before a wod.  Right after I downed some chicken, sweet potatoes, blueberries, a Lara Bar, and 3 spoonfuls of almond butter, they announced that they were going to start the next wod an hour early and try to beat the rain.  That means they were starting in 20 min, but luckily I was one of the last men to go so it gave me an extra 20 min to digest.  I warmed up and felt fine once I got out there but was nervous because I had about 1500 calories sitting in my tummy.  So even with these change of plans, day 1 went perfectly to plan.  Tomorrow will be a much more difficult day for me, so hopefully I feel great after a cold ice bath and a high protein meal.  I think tomorrow will be the DETERMINING DAY of the top 3, so I have to get after it and leave it all out there.

It's Go Time!

The fun starts tomorrow at 2pm.