Fall Fitness Goals

[Baphomet3]

8th Installment of the FCC: Met-alocalypse NOW!!

Traditional agility drills and warm-ups along with a little clean and jerk action up to 205lbs.

Fiddled around with some 90lb sumo dead lift high pulls and 110lb pull downs.

Workout:

Modified Fran
21, 15, 9 for Time of:
45lb dumbbell thrusters (Rx'd 95lb barbell, but I have to turn my wrists at the bottom)
Pull-ups (I'm alternating grips, which is probably not standard, especially hammer grip)
9:40

5lbs light on the thruster, but stabilizing the individual dumbbells makes it a wash. Not a stellar time, but I was pretty pleased. Especially considering how I've been dragging ass for over a week now. Fucking dripping sweat, feeling sick, felt great. I'd like to try this again in a week or two and try to shave a minute or so off. My chest was starting to hurt/scare me on the pull-ups toward the end (strained that pectoral a few days ago). Took it pretty easy from then on. I'd like to rip one of these out around 7 min by Thanksgiving. A 7 min Fran and a 500lb dead lift. Happy fucking Holidays.

[Baphomet3]

9th Installment of the FFC: You 3rd-Rates are Fucked.

Warm-up:
Standard Agility Routine - extra emphasis on Double-Unders

Clean Complex (Front Squat, Push Jerk, Clean and Jerk x 1)
45
95
115
135
155 - Clean and Jerk only
185
215
235 - Ties PR*

*Felt heavy, but my technique nailed it. I've done this once before, but this one was fast and almost perfect. I wish I had it on video. I stuck the split jerk so hard that I literally never felt the weight in my arms after the initial push -- zero strain. No "press" or muscling at all. It's a violent mini-thruster -- just a burst to get the bar moving -- and then my ass is under it, deep, locked out. It feels like hitting the sweet spot on a juicy fastball, which is to say, you don't feel it at all . . . and the ball fucking soars 440'. I still have a few rough spots with my clean, but my jerk, and particularly my split jerk, are almost flawless.

Work-Out:
Back Squat
135 x 5
225 x 3
315 x 3
365 x 1
405 x 1
460 - Fail*

*But a great fail. Last Fail at this weight didn't even start the upward motion. This time I got nearly half way up. I'm VERY close to getting this, and relieved that durning my recent slump/injury/illness I haven't lost any progress. I had some bad outings there for a week or two and was starting to contemplate adjusting some goals and objectives. Relieved to be back on course and feeling 100%. Needed some rest and recovery. Pectoral injury may have been a blessing in disguise.

Dead Lift x 1
135
225
315
405
475 - Fail (same story as above - a very promising attempt.)

Snatch the Rack (dumbbell snatch x 1R, x1L)
60
80
100
120*

*Getting pretty consistent with a successful 120lb dumbbell snatch with both hands now. Wouldn't mind bumping into a saucy little 130 at the club some night. Just see what's up, ya know?

Long story longer, I'm serving notice that I'm back, I'm healthy, and I'm on-track to be in completely uncharted territory by Thanksgiving.

Love you,

Baph Diesel

[goDsnataS]

I finally got 300 strapless today.

[Baphomet3]

Good shit, man. Keep rippin' 'em off the ground. I'm going for 475 again on Thursday. It'll be my 5th attempt in 3 weeks.

Tonight I did the modified Fran again.
Of note:

1) In my warm-up, my jump rope really took off tonight. My best ever. Just flying through shit, smooth and quick. In video from my early agility drills, the jump rope looked slow and labored, awkward at times. I looked really heavy. Now, I feel light and fast, the rope whizzing around making noise, fluidly switiching from skips to cris-cross to double unders -- making progress.

2) Did Fran with 45 lb dumbbell thrusters again, and really killed the thrusters. Once again, the pull-ups killed me. I was half way through my round of 15 and already doing sets of 2 or 3. Really hurt my time. This is the best I've done with the thrusters. Did all 21 without stopping. Then, on the round of 15, I did 8, took a few breaths, and then did 7. I was getting kind of excited because I was only 5 min. in at that point, but then my ability to do pull-ups just vanished. It took me 4 attempts and almost 2 min. to get the final 9 pull-ups. Ouch.

3) Finished with an interval run. 1 mile split into 1/3rds of uphill trot (grade 10), flat jog, and flat sprint -- repeat.



Felt good overall. Going to attempt some chest work tomorrow for the first time since the injury. If things go well, I'm moving back into two-a-days next week and starting the cutting phase of my training a few days after that. Should peak right around T-giving.

[Baphomet3]

New Move: Happy Ending

Kip-up (how karate guys hop up to their feet from their back) to Squat Thrust (sprawl/half burpee)

Very difficult, athletic move. Sick conditioning work if you can do 4 sets of 5. Brutal.

[goDsnataS]

I actually do a lot of those. Kind of like this...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0K1dN8jeXLA

... without that jump between the deck squat and burpee. As soon as I'm standing I drop into the burpee. A very good warm up/agility drill.

[Baphomet3]

That's it almost exactly. As you describe, remove the jump and just go directly from the deck squat to the squat thrust as quickly and explosivly as possible.

In other news, I've hit a major plateau in my power lifting just as my O-lifting and Met-Con progress starts to take off. Might be over training a bit; might be that distance running and brutal Met-Cons aren't conducive to power lifting (fatigue), but for whatever reason, I'm now 0-6 at back squat attempts with 460. Yet, I broke my clean-and-jerk record for the second time this week tonight.

Hard to tell what's going on just yet. Plan to take it pretty easy this weekend and do some running. We'll give it a good shot again next week before opening the flood gates of panic.

[Ares]

Baph, If you're maxing out more than once a week, you're killing any hopes of breaking that plateau. Met-cons and running aren't what is hurting you. There's no such thing as overtrained, just under-recovered. It takes your body a while to recoop from maxing out, which is why most people do it every 4-6 weeks. Take some damn weight off the bar, do more reps, rest less in between sets, then come in on a Monday after an off/light weekend and kill a deadlift/backsquat/etc. If its a single lift max that gets your pants tight... train to lift it, don't lift it to train. Make sense? Give this a try and I guarantee you'll continue to set new PR's.

[Baphomet3]

Sounds wisdom.

I think it's pretty clear that I've taken my meat-head, how-much-can-you-bench mentality and merely widened it to functional power and o-lifting. It's a welcome change, but it's still over-specializing. I've been pushing myself to devote more time to metcon and enduance training in the past few weeks, and I think it's clear that I need to continue that trend and limit my CrossFit Total jerk-off session to once a week.

Success here has led to obsession, which has led to as many as 6 PR attempts a week, sometimes more, on 3 different lifts on a regular basis. I think I've become insecure about my progress and fear that a week off will equal a loss of hard-earned power.

P.S. Found some 130 and 140 lb. dumbbells at ORU today. I think I'm going to try to snatch the 130 tomorrow.

[ThePhantom]

This is impressive.