With the announcement of the Open Sectionals workout #1 I have been faced with the first set of challenges. My concern was keeping my programing in order around these workouts and I feel as though I was able to do that this week. The only speed bump is my travel schedule and how I am going to feel tomorrow when I attempt the workout. But that aside, here is what I was able to do the rest of the week after Monday’s visit to CrossFit NYC and Tuesday’s run and playground fun:
Wednesday I hit a ghetto, Brooklyn YMCA with my brother and focused on preparing myself as much as possible for the Open WOD. I warmed up with 4 rounds of 50 double unders, messing up only once in all attempts. I then hit front squats in the packed, hot as hell weight room. There’s something about YMCA’s that get me lifting heavy weights, perhaps it’s the grungy-ness, perhaps it’s the people in there, not sure; but, either way I was able to get 310# with relative ease. I then grabbed a round of 10 strict pull ups and a few RDL’s and bent rows before joining my brother up in the crazy beat up rubber track to grab a metcon. I programmed out 4 rounds of 50 double unders, 20 push ups and 15 sit ups. The goal was to focus on stringing double unders together while my shoulders got more and more fatigued. I got this in 6:08 and was able to get all double unders easily unbroken. My confidence is WAY up with this movement, and I am very excited to attack this first workout tomorrow. I finished with a 1 minute AMRAP double unders and got 115 unbroken. Yup, ready to go! I then went to an absolutely incredible dinner with my brother (the picture on this post is of the ribs and kale I had!)
On Thursday I hopped n a bus down to DC to check out a location for a gym. It was a bit of a leap for me to choose to travel so much just to see a location, but in the end, the trip was well worth it (more on the location at some other time folks…). I felt the desire to try out the Open WOD and contacted Ori and my olf training partner big Dan to see if they wanted to give it a shot. In the end, I didn’t do it and I think that was the best choice. I felt sick, tired and a little beat up and I am sure that if I had tried a 10 minute AMRAP at that point I would have lost my Whole Foods late lunch on the gym floor! Instead I did this:
7 rounds of:
10 wall ball
10 pull ups
I got this in a solid 4:25 and besides the nausea it felt very good to get that burst of max-effort in. I then went out to a brutal dinner with Ori (took an hour and a half to finally get our food…good lord!). Woke up bright and early this morning, jumped on a bus to the metro station, a good breakfast and caught my bus out to NYC to grab lunch and then get on my flight back home to California. Oh boy!
On a different note, with the first reader’s poll up for a couple weeks I was extremely surprised to find that over half of you voted that you don’t really feel the need to have a spotter for squatting. While I don’t have one around me all the time, I find it so helpful to either have one, or to have a good cage to squat in. The support of knowing that you can fail at the bottom allows you to put so much more effort into each rep and when you do that, well, you get stronger! I think that there is still a hugely independent approach to lifting heavy weights out there and I hope these changes. People, if you don’t have secure pins when your squat or bench, find someone to spot you, it will be better. More on this next week! I’ll post up a new question today!
Finally, I want to start something on the blog to get a little more interaction with all my readers. Along with the poll, I will be posting up a follow-up question on the blog. Depending on the question I will be asking for specific submissions from readers and will be offering prizes out to winners. Look for that today or tomorrow!
Never Stop, GET FIT.
Josh Courage
Wednesday I hit a ghetto, Brooklyn YMCA with my brother and focused on preparing myself as much as possible for the Open WOD. I warmed up with 4 rounds of 50 double unders, messing up only once in all attempts. I then hit front squats in the packed, hot as hell weight room. There’s something about YMCA’s that get me lifting heavy weights, perhaps it’s the grungy-ness, perhaps it’s the people in there, not sure; but, either way I was able to get 310# with relative ease. I then grabbed a round of 10 strict pull ups and a few RDL’s and bent rows before joining my brother up in the crazy beat up rubber track to grab a metcon. I programmed out 4 rounds of 50 double unders, 20 push ups and 15 sit ups. The goal was to focus on stringing double unders together while my shoulders got more and more fatigued. I got this in 6:08 and was able to get all double unders easily unbroken. My confidence is WAY up with this movement, and I am very excited to attack this first workout tomorrow. I finished with a 1 minute AMRAP double unders and got 115 unbroken. Yup, ready to go! I then went to an absolutely incredible dinner with my brother (the picture on this post is of the ribs and kale I had!)
On Thursday I hopped n a bus down to DC to check out a location for a gym. It was a bit of a leap for me to choose to travel so much just to see a location, but in the end, the trip was well worth it (more on the location at some other time folks…). I felt the desire to try out the Open WOD and contacted Ori and my olf training partner big Dan to see if they wanted to give it a shot. In the end, I didn’t do it and I think that was the best choice. I felt sick, tired and a little beat up and I am sure that if I had tried a 10 minute AMRAP at that point I would have lost my Whole Foods late lunch on the gym floor! Instead I did this:
7 rounds of:
10 wall ball
10 pull ups
I got this in a solid 4:25 and besides the nausea it felt very good to get that burst of max-effort in. I then went out to a brutal dinner with Ori (took an hour and a half to finally get our food…good lord!). Woke up bright and early this morning, jumped on a bus to the metro station, a good breakfast and caught my bus out to NYC to grab lunch and then get on my flight back home to California. Oh boy!
On a different note, with the first reader’s poll up for a couple weeks I was extremely surprised to find that over half of you voted that you don’t really feel the need to have a spotter for squatting. While I don’t have one around me all the time, I find it so helpful to either have one, or to have a good cage to squat in. The support of knowing that you can fail at the bottom allows you to put so much more effort into each rep and when you do that, well, you get stronger! I think that there is still a hugely independent approach to lifting heavy weights out there and I hope these changes. People, if you don’t have secure pins when your squat or bench, find someone to spot you, it will be better. More on this next week! I’ll post up a new question today!
Finally, I want to start something on the blog to get a little more interaction with all my readers. Along with the poll, I will be posting up a follow-up question on the blog. Depending on the question I will be asking for specific submissions from readers and will be offering prizes out to winners. Look for that today or tomorrow!
Never Stop, GET FIT.
Josh Courage
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