This was a really cool workout to do! I went a bit too fast in the first round and paid for it by having to slow down every round after.. my arms were burning afterwards!! The pushups were definitely the hardest. I only used 27.5kg on the power cleans. I wanted to do 30kg, but couldn’t get the right plates. So it was either 35kg or 27.5kg and I chose for easy. Was still tough!
My workout:
I was scared to do this one. I knew I was going to take a long time. I knew it was going to hurt. I knew it was not going to look pretty. I also knew there would be a group of people watching me whilst all of this. At CrossFit Lelystad they only have 1 rower with a working screen, so everyone doing the open had to take turns. I was second on the list and the funny thing is that even though I worried about me looking stupid in front of others beforehand.. during the workout you don’t even think about how you look or if people are watching. Only focus is on getting through the next rep. I started alright on the rower with about a 1000 cal per hour pace. Then came the thrusters and everything quickly went downhill from there. Thrusters are my worst enemy and 65 lbs feels heavy really fast. I had to break the reps in sets of 3 pretty much from the beginning. I kept a steady pace through the first round of 27 though. Going back on the rower is when it started to suck big time. I couldn’t get faster than a 750 cal per hour pace.. and even that took a lot of effort. Going back to the thrusters after.. pfff.. only people that have done this WOD can understand how much it hurts. How much you don’t want to pick up that bar at all, let alone 21 times. It felt like it took forever. But got back to the rower for 15 and managed to keep the 750 cal rate per hour. I think I really started to slow down during the 15 reps thrusters.. Taking longer breaks.. wanting to stop basically. The last 9 cal row was really slow…. I tried to keep it at 750, but think I got stuck around 600.. then back to the thrusters.. I managed 3 reps.. then 2.. then 1 and then.. I got a cramp!! In my foot!!! I was rolling down over the floor in agony with 3 reps to go. It was horrific! After wasting a minute stretching I got back up for 2 more reps on bare feet before the cramp hit me again.. and had to take another pauze before hitting the final rep. Final time 23 min and 19 seconds.
This is a workout that most women do between 10 and 15 minutes (elite athletes do it under 7 minutes!). My time is a joke compared to other Crossfitters. But I’m proud of it anyway! I wanted to quit so badly, I wanted to go slower so badly. But I kept going. And that’s all that matters to me.
My workout:
I did the squats with only 20kg and did the pull ups Rx. I don’t remember the timecap.. I think it was 9 minutes.. or maybe 12 minutes.. In any case.. I didn’t finish. I think I just finished my second round.. or almost finished my second round. Got stuck on the pull ups a bit.
Before this we did a couple of sets of 2 front squats at good effort (not max effort) with max sets of pull ups in between. I did 3 strict pull ups for 3 sets. Don’t remember the squat weights (I should really start writing down my weights immediately after!!).
My workout:
There was a 12 minute timecap and I only got to the round of sixes. I don’t remember how many reps I got into it.. I think I got stuck on the toes to bar. I scaled the ring dips with a band. Did the toes to bar proper so that is where I lost most of my time. Although the ring dips got really hard as well, even with the band.
Before the WOD we did bench press, but I don’t remember my weights. It sounds stupid, but I’m still struggling with the kg weights and knowing where I’m at. For the bench press they use a very different technique here. They want you to completely arch your back so that your chest comes up. It feels very uncomfortable. They say it’s to make sure you have your whole body under tension and it will allow you to lift more, but it also decreases your range of motion.. which feels a bit like cheating to me. Little things like this are educational and it definitely challenges me, but it also makes it harder to focus on going heavy as I need to focus on technique all over again.
It’s good, but also uncomfortable. Since CrossFit is about getting comfortable with the uncomfortable I can only embrace it :p.
Complete as many reps as possible in 8 minutes of:
3 handstand push-ups
3 cleans
6 handstand push-ups
3 cleans
9 handstand push-ups
3 cleans
12 handstand push-ups
6 cleans
15 handstand push-ups
6 cleans
18 handstand push-ups
6 cleans
21 handstand push-ups
9 cleans
Etc., adding 3 reps to the handstand push-up each round, and 3 reps to the clean every 3 rounds.
Men clean 185 lb.
Women clean 125 lb.
My workout:
Going in I knew this was going to be very tough. I was a bit nervous if I would get the handstand push ups. I usually only do strict handstand pushups and can only do them with at least 1 abmat and never from the ground. But, for this workout, kipping is allowed. I knew that I should be able to do it from the ground with a kip, but since I never really tried I was still a bit nervous. During the warmup I got a couple, which was a relief! Then the other obstacle was the clean.. my 1 rep max is 125 lbs! And the last time I attempted that weight I couldn’t get it up.. I didn’t attempt it during the warmup.. so it was going to be a surprise. Just before the workout started I tried another handstand pushup and failed!! Which made me extra nervous :p. But during the workout I managed to get the first 3 reps easily within the first minute. But then it was onto the clean.. I can’t squat clean properly so I kept trying to power clean it.. and failing.. until whoppa 1 rep! I kept trying for the remaining minutes, but that was all I had. 4 reps total. I was still happy with it :).
So.. after 15.3 I got pretty sick and had to stay in all week. I had a proper flu :(. First training I did after was my first muscle up training. I signed up for this online course, which is a 6 week training program to master the muscle up on the rings.
Copied from Facebook (where the training group lives).
I gave it a go today, but felt really weak. Couldn’t get any of the prescribed reps for anything except the prep, but not sure if I’m doing those right?
Pull ups I barely got 2 reps each set. I did negatives to get to 5. I realised afterwards that I didn’t use the prep right.. looking at the other videos I see that you should prep up and then from there immediately do the pull up.
Dips I did 3-3-2-2, then realised I forgot to do the hands out at the top. I had never tried this before… and wow, hard! 1 good rep and that was it lol.
The false grip almost felt impossible. I will try to get chalk for next time, but really couldn’t hold it. I think the longest I got was 5 seconds.
Very frustrating and humbling first try. I think I probably need to stick with week 1 for the upcoming week to build up some strength before I try and catch up.
Deston Le Roux any feedback on form? Should I go lower in my dips? Thanks!
Deston Le RouxHey Tessa, thanks for posting. For the pulling prep, slow that guy down a little and pause at the top. Otherwise good. Pull ups look good too, but as you say, aim to start with the pulling prep Dips with RTO can be tough alright. Dips finishing position is good, but slow the descend down a little. Chalk will definitely help with the FG hang. Okay, you say session didn’t go as expected, looks like a good start to me. Let’s continue with week 2, but with a reduced focus on the transition, so aim for 5 of those, then move onto the conditioning and focus on the PU prep, PU, dips and FG. Don’t worry about hitting 5 reps, do as many as you can with strict form, but do perform the 5 sets.
On Monday I went in for the Open 15.3 workout. Which was bad timing, because I was up all night feeling seriously ill. All morning I was in bed feeling horrible. Very bad throath ache and headache.. I think I have a sinus infection.
I had no choice but to go though as this was the last day to be able to submit a score and I didn’t want a 0 score. So I thought I would just go in and see how far I’d come. Even if I had only 1 rep then at least I tried.
The 15.3 Rx workout is
14 minute AMRAP:
7 muscle ups
50 wall balls 14 lbs
100 double unders
So.. yea.. since I can’t do muscle ups it wasn’t possible to try the Rx. I did do a little bit of practice and trying out the muscle up to see if I could come close. I thought that if I felt I was close I would just try and get 1 in those 14 minutes. But in practice I really felt I am still far far away from getting one so was no use in trying. Especially because my stomach was hurting like never before from the rope climbs Saturday. Seriously, the muscle ache from that workout was insane!! My whole core felt like somebody stomped me in the stomach. My shoulders too. Just dead hanging from the rings already hurt and pulling up was agony.. so yea… no muscle up for me ;).
Instead I went for the scaled option:
Open 15.3 Scaled
14 minute AMRAP:
50 wall balls 10 lbs
200 single rope jumps
My workout:
I was unlucky because they didn’t have a 10lbs ball, so I had to do it with a 6kg (which is almost 14 lbs) ball. The singles were harder than I thought they would be! They feel so easy after focussing on double unders for so long.. but after the wall balls… hard to keep the breathing down! My feet started cramping a little bit as well during the jumps. In the end I completed two full round and 8 wallballs for a total of 508 reps. Which was the worst score of everyone… which I’m used to lol. But for someone who could hardly get out of bed all day feeling sick I was still quite happy.
My workout:
I was grouped together with a girl and a guy. We all used the same weight for bench press, which we set at 40kg. Before the workout started I tried one rope climb, because I had never tried legless before. And I almost made it to the top!! I seriously was one arm length away.. I tried to reach out, but then almost fell all the way down lol. But was quite happy with how far I came! In the workout I went up to half or 3/4 for the entire workout. Was pretty happy with that :).
My workout:
I started with an 8kg kettlebell, which was easy. Then did with a 12kg kettlebell, which was very hard hehe, but did manage reasonably fast reps with both arms. I didn’t try any heavier.
WOD
“Vrijdag de 13e”
5 rondes, ieder voor tijd
13 thrusters 30/20
13 kettlebell swings 24/16
13 box jump overs 20″
rust 1:2
My workout:
Keep in mind, the above weights are in kg’s now, and not lbs. Even though it makes much more sense I still struggle getting used to it haha. I did the thrusters with 15kg as they said it was supposed to be a superfast workout.. so should be able to do everything unbroken. I did do the kb swings with 16kg and used a 10 inch box. I scaled the box jump overs to 10 reps each round though. You were supposed to do one round and then take twice the time it took you to do that round as rest. My round times were as follows:
Today was my first WOD back in Holland :). I wanted to go on Monday, but he was fully booked! Yesterday I couldn’t, so today was the first possibility.
Strength
3 x 3 push press (3 sets at same weight – use warm up to find max weight manageable throughout 3 sets)
My workout:
I’m so confused using kg weights. I have no clue what my normal weights are in kg.. and I get confused when adding weight to, because things seem little weight, but it goes twice as fast as in lbs. Anyway, I was paired up with a girl that has shoulder problems and couldn’t go heavy so I wasn’t too motivated to go too heavy either. Vincent (the coach) had some pointers for my dip and push as well so was more focusing on technique than max weight. I did the three sets with 30kg.
WOD
15 min AMRAP of
3 burpees
6 knees to elbow
9 wall balls 6kg
My workout:
I tried to start slow because 15 minutes is reaaaaaallly long. I did start with everything unbroken.. but had to break up the last couple of rounds of kte and wall balls. I managed 7 full rounds + 4 reps. But I did do everything Rx and made sure to really touch my elbows with my knees every time.
It was fun to workout with my sister and Robert (they have both been going since a couple of months). I like this box a lot too. They do a lot of detailed warmup and stretch work which I think will benefit me a lot. It’s not as much fun ad CFM though, but that might change when I get to know more people and feel a bit more relaxed :).
Muscle Up Course
I have signed up today for a 6 week muscle up course. It’s an online course, but you get personal coaching. You have to send in videos and will get feedback and based on how you progress you will get adjusted training schedules. The goal is to have a strict muscle up on the rings after six weeks. The course starts next Monday. I will be able to hang my rings in the garden under a roof, which will allow me to train 4 times a week during my lunch break. Can’t wait!