I-YAN BAAAAAAAARRRR, I-YAN BAR.

Today.

Crossfit Ireland Mobility Workshop.

Another very bloody useful few hours spent with Will and Colm.
I was the only outsider there for the early shift, and will readily admit that I was more than a little bit surprised at the atmosphere when I walked in.
More like a sports club than a gym, I can kind of see where they come from with the whole community vibe. Gang of folks throwing a rugby ball around after a Workout and Transform pulling fat singles off the floor, made for an interesting panorama.

Anyhow got a run through a three basic tests which were eye openers to say the least. One for Overhead and shoulder mobility, one for glute and hamstrings and one for SQUAT!ting.

I had thought my hammers were ok, I thought wrong. Probably the worst hamstring flexibility there. Which is actually good cos it might explain some of my DL and Back Squat issues.

Anyhow we progressed to start learning how to do something about it. How to foam roll properly, which was unpleasantly pleasant followed by some exercises to improve shoulder mobility, front Rack position and hip mobility. Followed by a fly through static stretching. The lads were as helpful as ever, Will had a chat with me about some of by broken bits and what might help them.

I have taken a few things from this.
1) A systematic approach to mobility work, I like systems I can apply them properly.

2) A proper calf stretch for the car crash between my knees and my feet. Invaluable.

3) A free foam roller:).

Money well spent. Terribly useful hour and a half.
I would recommend anyone jump at the opportunity if it arises again.

On the way home I stopped into the gym to assault my ailing shins.

Todays Crossfit.ie WOD Arse over tit and scaled.

5 Rounds:
5x Clean And jerk 50Kg
400m Run

18:21

Meant to be Run first then clean but I was working from my screwed memory. Also meant to be 60kg, which I probably could have managed.
Tough one this. I like it because there are Cleans AND Jerks.

gavtron wrote: »

What did they recommend for stretching the calves actually? Would love something different to the ol' GAA "right over left, arse in the air" stretch...

Tough one to describe.

1) Find a wall.
2) Get real close to the wall
3) Push the balls of the foot & toes into the wall & try to push your heel towards the wall with your knee locked out.
4) With that locked in, try to push your hips towards the wall.

Should get a good stretch.

Also do the same but with bent knee instead of your knee locked out to get lower down in the calves.
I hope that makes sense.

Eh I hope so.



Thats what I meant.
PM sent too.

Eve

10,9,8...2,1
Power Clean 60kg
Box Jumps 18"

18:23

Wish I had something 24" to jump onto.
That thing is mentalsim

Amy
Heavily scaled.

5x Push Jerk 50kg
10x Inverted Rows
15x Box Jumps

11:49

Cos I can't skip with my gay shins,
I can't pull up with my gay weak back,
I probably should have done 60kg Jerks but I was pretty ****ed.

WTF have I gotten myself into.

WOD 1

7 rounds
7xOHS 40kg
7xInverted Rows (sub for pullups)
7xDumbell trusters w 10kg (sub for wall balls, poor one at that)

17:28

Not great, probably would have missed the cutoff.
The OHS's were killing me.
Maybe they were too heavy, maybe with bumpers I would have saved some time putting the bar down.

C&J Bleep test 55kg

4 min + 4 reps.

Similar problem putting the bar down, but I am happy I could do better.
Leave some in the tank and all.

Not delighted with that, not so much as last night, but it was hard work all the same, so its all good.

G86 wrote: »

Are you training out in crossfit now?

No.
I stopped by the other night to do the Tabata mashup and "Karen".


I'd like to but its still too awkward to get to on a regular basis, and if training for the Invitational has taught me anything, its that I still need to get a whole lot stronger. So after the invitational its back onto Linear progression with vengeance.

I have an idea of where I really want to get to regarding strength, and when I get there (or get close) I will start looking at my options a bit more.

Had no Idea what to do today.
Didn't want the WOD on CF.ie.

So I wandered into the Gym fairly late, bout 9:20pm.

Warm up.
Crossfit ireland barbell complex.

Still no bright ideas, so I did a couple of 20kg Hang Split Snatches.
Best lift ever.

20kgx5, 30kgx5
42.6kgx5
42.6kgx3x3

WOD

21-15-9
42.6Kg Thrusters
25kg Db KB Swings.

9:32

Thrusters were a bit heavy.
Killer.

The Crossfit Ireland Fitness invitational competition for fitness.

What a day. Hard, fun and a great workout.
I surprised myself, learned a lot and performed better than I expected.
Colm, Will and Tom have a great thing going out there and should be damn proud of their athletes and the day in general. Top way to spend a day.

WOD 1

1K row
30x 60Kg Jerks (70kg Rx'd)
150 Single under (50 Dbl Unders Rx'd)

13:12

Set off at a steady pace of a row. James "Lt" Phelan, my spotter for the workout told me to keep a steady pace and not gas myself.
I sort of fluctuated between 1:38/500 and 1:50/500 (briefly, before kicking my self back on) and was surprised when I stepped off the rower first, not overly gassed. Jerks went alright, I was shouting and they were raggy by the end. I eyeballed Colm during the last rep cos I sort of went walkabouts while locking it out. He seemed to think it was alright. I think it was the right decision to scale, given the fact that finishing in time was my own aim. Then I skipped 150 times. If I have one real disappointment its that I didn't get double unders before the day.
Incidentally accupuncture and some joint work worked a treat on my "shin splints".
Cutoff time was 15min. I could have done better, but I was stoked after it anyway. This was my best performance of the day.

WOD 2

5 Rounds
200m Run
3xPower Clean 70Kg
5x Ring Dips w/Blue Band (Ring Dips RX'd)

9:26


As I said mid WOD to Garvan Allan my spotter for this event, I hate running. And I do. **** running, its **** and it ****ed up my Cleans.
First run was good, Second was not so good, 3,4 & 5 were trots.
Cleans were ugly except for one sweet one in round 3 or 4. Funny thing was my warm ups were all nice......
Ring dips I have little to no exposure to. The band helped, made them a bit easy till the last round. Garvan was a legend.

WOD 3

This was a frickin Maneater.

10,9,8,.......3,2,1

Front Squats 60Kg
Burpee Pullups

Timed out at 15:00.
5 of 5 Front Squats and 1 burpee pullup
(Which I havent been credited with on the Website.)

First of all I think it was a decent decision to Scale, but I might have been able for 70kg, I will never know.
What I do know is that Burpee pullups are frickin murder. The FS felt solid, but I was utterly GASSED from the BP's. This had the effect of slowing my stronger movement down. James "Jimminy" Sutherland, a stand up dude if there ever was one, was my spotter here and he went on to CRUSH THIS WORKOUT LIKE IT WASN'T NO THANG.

Put simply, I got eaten alive by this WOD. It is bloody super and I will do it again.

Reflections

I had a chat with Hanley, Token and a few others about strength.
This whole day, and the process running up to it, has underlined something for me. If I could front squat 100 for reps, that last WOD would not have eaten me. If my bench was bigger I would have had a lot less hassle getting the ring dip. If I got 12kg more on my press the 70kg jerks would have been no thang. I need to get stronger.

This will light a fire under my ass.

I'm glad I did this, it was a big challenge and I would recommend it to anybody. Especially the few who read this and know they should have goddamn entered.

G86 wrote: »

Well done mister, fair play to ya, especially with the ring dips

Cheers.
As Colm said Only 17 weeks till the September invitational.
You better get training.

G86 wrote: »

Haha we'll see.......

.......You at the September Invitational.

And I didn't get to the end of WOD three.
I should have gotten further, but it was hell.

Whinge and piss.

Squat

20x2x5, 60x5, 80x5, 100x3, 110x2,
112.5x5 112.5x 2,3 112.5x2,3

Just sort of put the bar back and readjusted. More than enough to consider them failed sets.
I dunno, I spent the whole time trying to psyche myself up whilst subconsciously not.
More importantly, the reps were incredibly inconsistent.
If I focus on knees out I lift my back, if I maintain my back angle out of the hole my knees drift in. ****ing horrible and a confidence destroyer.
Onwards and upwards.

Bench

20x2x5, 40x5, 60x5, 70x3,
72.5x3x5

Grand. Lost strength but I havent benched in over a month.
Put the bar back between the penultimate and ultimate reps no spotters around. Would have been a good night for a metcon actually.

Deadllift

60x2x5, 100x5, 120x3,
130x5

Or rather 3,1,1.
Only a couple of seconds between 3 and 4. Then had a wee strop between 4 and 5. Aborted a pull and the when I actually pulled it I hitched it on the way up.
I am hating deadlifts. Again probably lost strength.

Now Eat.


And from now on I am thinking of not doing this programme.

Mon: Squat, Bench/Press, Chins.
Wed: Squat, Bench/Press, Deadlift
Fri: Squat, Bench/Press, Power Clean.

Although the order of pulls may change.
Obviously with linear progression.

Video killed the squat rack star.

Squat

20x2x5, 60x5, 80x5, 90x3,
100x3x5

I videoed a few sets, most of them really.
I see me lifting the chest when squatting therefore failing to maintain my back angle at the bottom. Really working at keeping the back solid and in extension.
I must have a proper look at them, but I'm sure I can get them better.

Bench

20x2x5, 50x5, 60x5, 70x3, 72.5x2
75x2x5, 75x4,1

No spotters, **** rep 4, rack it. Rest **** rep.
Nuff said Ron.

Deadlifts

Suck ass
60x2x5, 100x5, 120x3
130x1,1,2,1

All over the place. Got two reps on video.
Bad stuff, back is rounding and I'm not sure what I can do.
Its like I just can't set my back at all. But the setup needs work too.
On review I also need to grow a pair and push myself to do reps.

1 Arm DB Rows

30kgx20 Each arm.

I might add a few more reps, weight and a set or so on these.
But didn't want to charge in.

Gonna use vids a bit more.
Maybe put up a few, get the lads at CFI to have a look.

Squat

20x2x5, 60x5, 80x5, 90x3, 100x2
105x3x5

Was trying to fix things, but I'm not sure that it wasn't worse.
Work sets felt heavy, bar drifted forward on most reps, sometimes significantly enough to bring my weight onto my toes and cause me to lift my chest. Videos don't look great, But I reckon the barpath is probably the reason my progress crashed. I'm even powing a bit into the bottom on later sets.

Press

20x2x5, 30x5, 40x5, 50x3, 52.5x2
53.5x5,5,4 Fail.

Actually fairly stormed through these, just ran out of gas on the last rep.
No biggie, will get it next time.
Done instead of bench due to the presence of bench press man, a bloke who only ever does cardio, Bench and LPD. Badly. Sufficiently badly for me to have concerns as to the sensibility of training in with him.

Chins

4,3,2,2

Added an extra set, as I will do next week.
I will review the scheme when I get 5x5.

Vidja from Saturday:

Sangre wrote: »

First thing that struck me, apart from what you pointed out, was you were shuffling a lot between reps and re-adjusting your stance. I'd find that very off-putting. Imo you should have your stance half set just before you unrack and then finalised before you first rep. I find keeping my feet solid throughout a set really me concentrate on other issues of form. The only adjusting I like to do is to set my chest/elbows after every rep.

Yeah, cheers.
I am aware of this and I'm not happy about it. Its a consequence of a few things and something I am working on. Trust me, its a lot better than it used to be.

How'd today go you ask?

Squat

20x3x5, 60x5, 90x3, 100x2
105x3x5

I was Tired, hungry and in a bad mood.
And some fellow was using the only pair of 2.5kg plates, so I had to stick.
Really focused on keeping the traps engaged to keep the back tight. I.e. keeping my head back. Legs were stiff as fudge, hip was giving me guff and my knee feels funny. Got one vid, but the gym floor has all been rearranged and has killed my angle at the rack.

Bench

20x2x5, 40x5, 60x5, 70x3, 75x2,
77.5x3x2, 77.5x4,1

So I dragged my tired angry ass over to the bench and proceeded to smoke the warmups and go after the work sets like they said **** about me Ma. Ran out of steam a bit on the last reps and as there was nobody worth asking to spot (and I amn't back in PR country yet) I put the bar back for a couple of secs and reset.

Too tired to deadlift so:

Power Clean

20x2x3, 30x3, 40x3, 60x3, 70x2, 75x1
77.5x3x5 PR

Although the last rep was so ****ty it could be considered a miss.
Not pretty, but tough.

Bent over 1 arm rows

Right 35kgx25
Left 35kgx22,3

Done fast.
Just avoiding failure there.

Last Night.

Squat

20x3x5, 60x5, 90x5, 102.5x3, 107.5x2
110x3x5.

Better and worse. The previous night I had spent about 30min with a tennis ball trapped between the front of my hip and the floor. Really ground anything I could find in the psoas area. As a result my squat felt a lot less tight, but still not right. Lost concentration on one or two squats so had to grind it back up but I made all the reps so all is good.

Press

20x2x5, 30x5, 40x5, 50x3, 53x2
53.8x3x5

Meant to be 54 but my whole microloading set up isn't quite right yet.
Grand. Got easier as it went on.

Deadlift

60x2x5, 100x5, 110x3,
120x5

Probably pussed out, but after missing a workout and missing reps the previous one, I think this need work. Not much else to say.


C'MON IRELAND!

Crime and Punishment.

Squat

20x3x5, 60x5, 95x5, 105x3, 110x2
115x3x5 PR

Shoulders are pretty cut up. Big welts on the back of the shoulders in particular. Shiny and angry. Took the guts of 45min with all the warming up and psyching up I had to do. And they were hard, probably harder than they should have been. One rep took a big plunge I lost focus and nearly did an Oly squat with a low bar....and one was probably high.
Hopefully this was down to how frickin tired I was beforehand. Falling asleep on the dart and on the couch when I got home. I might try to stick here for the next session see if I can't hammer them.

Press

20x2x5, 30x5, 40x5, 50x3, 53.5x2
55x3x5

Not much to say, pushed them up, brought them down.

Chins

3,3,2,2,1

Pretty bad there.
I'm putting it down to how inexplicably tired I was.
Probably should have pushed the 4th on the first set.

Gluttony PR: 1 litre of Chocolate milk PWO.