Sectional WOD # 6

The last Sectional WOD is over.  I felt good in this one and had some good subsequent workouts over the weekend.  At the end of 6 weeks I placed 5th in the Region and 57th worldwide.  I'm fairly happy with these placements as I tried not to get too hung up on it.  I needed to stick with my game plan and continue training as I think I achieved that.  I got better throughout the 6 weeks and now I feel ready to dial it in for a month leading up to Regionals on June 3.  This is where it counts; I have to be top three at Regionals to move on.  I will have to find a way to make that happen.

Sectional WOD #5

I felt the best yet out of all the Sectional competition wods in this one.  One of the areas I wanted improvement on in 2011 was 20min workouts.  I hate them, as I think most "crossfitters" do because it is just 20 min of pain.  So I was nervous going into this one for this reason but also because I needed to test myself to see where I stand in these longer wods.  The only part that was reassuring to me was that all three movements I like.  During the entire workout I felt good and had a great push at the end, and afterward I recovered quickly.  My score turned out to be very good throughout the world as well, so I was definitely happy with this.  It was a big relief because this was a confidence booster and it shows that my training has improved my aerobic capacity over the course of this year.  One more Sectional WOD to go, then Regionals will be here before I know it.

Crossfit Southbay Open 11.4

The competition for WOD 11.4 at Crossfit Cadence was great.  I hit 154 reps which was 16th place worldwide so I was happy with that.  The food afterward was also fantastic.  More people in my gym are doing Paleo so there were some great and creative recipes that I munched on.  Check out our gym Paleo page for some of the recipes.  The best was the eggplant filled with ground walnuts and herbs.

Here is a vid one of our members, Angie, put together:

Sectional WOD #3

Here is the video of Sectional WOD #3.  Unfortunately my camera was full and it did not record, so my buddy Matt picked up his recorder about half way through and got it on film.  More unfortunate is the music he put on the video, I know I can choose pretty bad music but that is atrocious.


I wanted a few more reps on this but I had nothing left in my legs to squat or to power the bar overhead. I might have came out of the gates a little fast doing 11 reps in the first minute and I think about 24 in 2:45.  As you can see I was barely hanging on at the end.  But who knows what would have happened if I tried to pace, I could have failed at the same rep only with less time ending up with a lower score.  Sometimes when the muscles want to do turn off, they will do just that no matter how you slice it.  So even though I wanted a few more, I will take this performance for now!

Sectional WOD #2

The Sectional WOD #3 was announced and it's a little shorter in duration and involves more power.  I tend to like these ones more, but that may be because I just hate 15+ min ones.  We will see how I stack up when the rest of the world does this one.

Here is the Sectional WOD #2 video.  I fast forward in the middle because the video would be a little long otherwise.  All the reps were legit, especially since they were so slow, no cheating the standards here.  I have been working on quickness on box jumps since this workout.  Things like depth jumps and bounding over hurdles, these will get better.


Sectional wod #2 from joeywarren on Vimeo.

2011 Sectionals WOD #1

Here is the first Sectional wod.  My first attempt!



Glad thats over!!!

OPT Championship Series #3

I did my 3rd competition this weekend from OPT's blog.  It was a good one and I felt really good on everything except a couple areas I would have liked to push harder.  Here are the workouts and my results, and I am still waiting to see the final results of how I compared to the rest of the field.

WOD 1
3 sets of 15 OHS

WOD 2
2K row and AMRAP Double Unders in 10 minutes

WOD 3
50 CTB chin ups
50 push up burpees

Here are the videos:

OPT Championship Series #3 Wod #1 from Joseph Warren on Vimeo.

OPT championship series #3 WOD#2 from Joseph Warren on Vimeo.

OPT championship series #3 WOD #3 from Joseph Warren on Vimeo.

The OHS squat I felt really good and was surprised how easy my body weight (180lb) felt on this until the last rep.  I shortened it up just a tad.  It was close and I didn't know if it would count as my score but I was hoping until James emailed me and said it killed him, but he couldn't count that last rep.  I knew this might be the case so after I did the 180lb I did 155lb fairly easy and do not do my thrid attempt to conserve energy.  This might come back to haunt me becasue I think I could have done 165 or 175lb and would have been ahead of a lot of people in the competition.  I think my same mistake happened to a lot of other people, this was poor strategy, lesson learned...

The row and double unders- I felt awesome during the row but the thrid 500m I fell off a little and wish I pushed harder there to get closer to a 6:45.  I was just so nervous I would not be able to do any double unders afterward becasue I know how hard they get and they are not my best thing.  I still pushed hard and double unders went about how I expected.  My goal was 200 and looking at the rest of the field, it looks like that is a really good number, so I guess I paced  myself pretty well.

Pull up/burpees- I wanted to move a little quicker on pullups but still felt strong and fast.  Burpees were surprisingly slower and harder than I thought.  I knew they would be hard but I thought it wouldnt get hard until about 25 or 30 and I thought from there I would just be able to push through it.  It felt hard and slow the entire time.  I think 30-40 reps is my comfort range on each so need to up that number.  Still Im fairly happy with the result though.

"broken"

Every once in a while you find yourself broken down.  While this is discouraging it is a good time to reflect and grow.  It humbles you and brings you back down to earth.  We all can relate to this, if it is in every day life, work, family, or friends.  We have to know our limits so we can protect ourselves from injury and we know where we need work in order to progress.  Everything you do takes progression and you must take the first step with a goal in mind and a path determined of how to achieve that.  Most greatness happens when the journey is enjoyable, not just the outcome.  Sometimes during a workout when Im in extreme pain, I try to smile because I know its supposed to be fun!  

Today I did a workout called "unbroken".  It broke me down.  Here is a video of me getting my ass handed to me.  I had to cut the video short because I had to take too much rest before completing the workout.  Even though pushing the limits is great to improve your fitness, and what I try to get all my clients to do, sometimes I need to know my limits or I will fail miserably.  Its one of the hardest things to do in crossfit, figuring out how to pace yourself.  When do you push through the pain, and when do you breath?  Today I failed.  It was on 20th rep of the last set, I just couldnt do another one.  I was at 5:20 at that time, I waited 1 min tried again and failed at 18 reps.  I rested a while again and finally completed 20 unbroken pullups.  This was 9 min later for a total time of 14:25.  I was 1 rep away from 5:20, and failed because I didnt know my limits and 9 min later I finished my last set. Enjoy watching me get "broken".

The workout was:

20 unbroken pullups

500m row

20 unbroken pullups

500m row

20 unbroken pullups

"unbroken" from Joseph Warren on Vimeo.

Just completed another competition. Everytime I feel better and more prepared for any workout that comes my way. Here is the last workout in a 4 part event. The workout was:

50 walking lunges
20 clean & jerk 135lb
30 ring dips
25 ball wall toss
30 GHD situps
30 KB swing 53 lbs
75 double unders w jump rope

My time:8:40

OPT Championship series #2 WOD #4 from Joseph Warren on Vimeo.

Max Pullups

Max Pullups- 52 reps from Joseph Warren on Vimeo.

Full extension and chin breaks vertical plane of bar

Crossfit Games 2009 Finished!!!

So the Games are over!!!  I'm ambivalent about the results.  I felt great, all my training paid off as ran 7k very hard and recovered an hour later to have a PR on deadlift (405lb), then continued on with two more workouts, my energy was great, and most important I had no injuries and no cramping muscles which was prevalent with some of the athletes after the grueling day of workouts.  I feel good about my performance although I hoped that I would have placed higher than 55th overall at the end of the day.  I was frustrated because my strategy going into some of the events probably didn't turn out to be the best and I had a few slip ups that did not allow me to place higher than I did.  There was a lot of controversy with some of the events and if they were a true test of fitness or just a skill, but I am ok with them because I had plenty of opportunity to do well and show what I've got.  I feel good about it all because I am nowhere near my peak!