Beautiful Weekend.

The last half of this week has brought on some amazing weather and I've been taking full advantage of it.  On Wednesday, two friends and I went up Grouse mountain in the morning.  The sun was out for the first few hours, then some fog rolled in.  Overall it was a great day up the mountain.  The snow was hard packed, but we found some great powder in the Quicksilver terrain park.  Yesterday was sunny as well.  I spent almost the whole day outside with a buddy of mine.  In the morning we did some archery in the forest behind my house.  My friend owns a bow, so we made a make shift buttress out of styrofoam and carpet.  I still need a bit more practice before I can shoot accurately from a distance.  After that we hit the driving range to practice some golf.  Then we went on a bike ride around Stanley Park.  This was the longest ride I've taken on my new road bike, however it was only 25km.  After we got back from our ride, we went to the hobby shop near Capilano Mall and bought a remote controlled airplane.  It took a beating as my friend was learning to fly it.  Near the end of the battery life he started to get the hang of it.  The weather is supposed to hold up tomorrow.  I hope it does because I'm supposed to go on a long trail run.

L-Sit Madness

Had a fun little workout this morning.
Part one was 5 rounds of:
10 ring dips
10 good mornings
60 seconds rest

My dips were feeling a lot better than usual.  I hit the first two sets unbroken.  I got 8 reps on the third set, then the last two deteriorated more.  The second part of the workout was much more painful.

5 rounds of:
10 push press
30 seconds of L-sit
60 seconds rest

I chose to go with 115 lbs for the push press which felt good.  The later sets got a little tough, but I managed to hit all of them unbroken.  The L-sits on the other hand were horrible.  After the first round I was having a hard time holding it for longer than 10 seconds at a time.  I'm taking a day off tomorrow to go snowboarding, and I'm very much looking forward to it.

Trail Running and Squat Cleans

A few members of our gym have signed up for the tough mudder this year.  It is a 10 mile long obstacle course that is going to be set up in whistler.  To train for the event, we've started doing some supplemental endurance running.  We've chosen a trail run that is roughly 5km up by the Cleveland dam.  I ran it this Sunday, with a bit of a hangover, and managed to finish in 32 minutes.  I'll be taking that time down next time I run it for sure.  This morning I got a new personal record on my squat clean and jerk.  My previous best was 185lbs.  I was feeling fairly good today and managed to get 195lbs overhead.  The split jerk was fairly ugly though.  Next time I'm going to focus more on my technique rather than the weight.

Angie

Today our coach programmed Angie.  100 pull ups, 100 push ups, 100 sit ups, 100 squats.  You are not allowed to break up the rep scheme.  In other words, you must complete the 100 pull ups before moving onto the 100 push ups.  The only bad part of this workout for me was my push ups.  I finished the workout in 26:59 and about 10-15 minutes of that was the push ups.  I realize they are something I should be working on a lot.  After the gym, I decided to go take my motorcycle knowledge test at icbc.  I've been meaning to do it for a while, and one of our gym members pushed me to get it.  I hadn't studied for the test, but thought it would be easy enough to do the first time.  I failed with 75%.  There were a few questions that I should have answered correctly that I messed up.  I need 80% to pass, and I'm sure I'll get it tomorrow.

Open Recap

This years crossfit open was a big success for me.  I learned that I have improved a lot from last year.  In 2011 I finished around the 86th percentile in Canada West.  This year I finished 343rd out of 671 places.  That translates to the 51st percentile.  I wanted to finish in the top half, and very nearly achieved that goal.  I think if my shoulder to overhead and snatch were a bit better, then I would have scored higher on WOD's 12.2 and 12.3.  I've signed up to volunteer at the regionals which will be held at the end of April out at the Richmond Olympic facility.  The next thing I want to nail down is my diet.  I have been to lax recently.  More on this to come, perhaps an April Paleo challenge.

Final Open WOD Finished

After 5 weeks, the crossfit open competition is over for me.  I did the final workout this morning.  Last year I managed to get 78 reps.  I bested that effort this year with 96 reps.  I'm quite happy with my result.  Initially I thought I'd like to get somewhere around 100.  Then after seeing the scores posted before today, I started thinking that 90 was more realistic.  I'll have to wait until Monday to see where I ended up in the overall standings, but I think I'll be around the middle of the pack in Canada West, which pleases me.  After the workout, many of our gym members went for a delicious lunch at Earls to reward our hard work.  This open competition was a great success for me.  It showed me how much I have improved from last year (a lot).  I look forward to watching the regionals and games.

Open WOD 12.5

So 12.5 got announced yesterday evening.  It is a repeat of last years final open workout.  A 7 minute escalating Fran ladder.  The rep scheme is:  3 thrusters, 3 chest to bar pull ups, 6 thrusters, 6 CTB pull ups, 9 thrusters, 9 CTB pull ups etc.  The thruster weight for the guys is 100lbs, 5 pounds heavier than Fran.  Last year I managed to get 78 reps.  My initial goal for this year is 100 reps.  I think I should be able to do the round of 9 unbroken, and then I'll have to start breaking up the thrusters and pacing myself.  I did Fran for the first time late last year. It took me 5:56 and completely messed me up.  Thankfully this workout is quite different from Fran.  If you don't pace yourself a bit, you will burn out fast.  It's still going to hurt though.

Deadlift PR!

I had a good workout this morning. 5x2 back squat to kick it off.  Then 5 sets of 1 deadlift, working up to a one rep max.  I managed to lift 325lbs, beating out my old record by 5 pounds.  Next we did a bit of handstand push up work, which I desperately need.  Right now I can only do 3 or 4 in a row.  In November I could hit 6 straight.  I'm planning on putting in extra work to try and improve them.  To finish off the morning we did a 2000m row for time. It took me 7:31, another personal best.  It was a good morning, hopefully tomorrow will bring good news with the announcement of workout 12.5.

12.4 down, 1 more to go

The 4th open WOD went really well for me, as I predicted.  It was an AMRAP in 12 minutes of 150 wall balls, 90 double unders, and 30 muscle ups.  I knew this workout would heavily rely on my execution on the double unders.  If I could get through the 90 with at least 20 seconds to spare, I knew I could get at least 1 muscle up.  Many people don't have muscle ups, so if I could get one, I knew I'd place much higher in the rankings.  I did the workout yesterday morning.  I took the advice of my coach and went all out on the wall balls. I hit 40 on my first set, then continued doing sets of 10 with as little rest as possible in between sets.  I finished the wall balls around 8 minutes in and started on the double unders.  Thankfully I rocked it.  I hit a set of 46, and then a couple smaller sets to finish the 90.  I was left with two minutes to get as many muscle ups as I could muster.  The first one was much harder that I expected.  I into the dip position, then really had to fight it to get to full extension. I ended up getting 3 muscle ups, which puts me in the top half of western Canada.  Only one more workout to go.

Weekend In Kelowna

I took two days off this weekend to visit family in Kelowna.  I drove up with my mother on Saturday.  We spent most of our time at our Aunts place helping move lots of furniture around.  They were moving three bedrooms around because my Grandpa is sick and has a hard time going up and down stairs.  Both nights we had great dinners.  The first night, my Grandmother made a turkey along with stuffing, mashed potatoes, gravy and the works.  The second night we decided to order sushi, and we ordered a lot.  I ate way too much both nights, so I was very happy to get home today and hit the gym for an evening workout.  5 rounds of 6 rep front squat, followed by 12 pullups followed by 1 minute of rest.  I managed to do every round unbroken at 155lbs on the front squat.  The second part of the workout was a handstand pushup and running WOD.  Max hspu, 800m run, max hspu, 400m run, max hspu.  The handstand push up is something I greatly need to work on.  I'm hoping it doesn't show up in any of the open workouts.  I have a good feeling it wont.

WOD 12.3 Complete

I complete open WOD 12.3 this morning.  I watched a few videos on the games site and mobilitywod.com to get some tips for the workout.  Kelly Star advised everyone to make sure you warm up very well, so I spent about 1/2 hour warming up the three separate movements.  I mainly worked on getting my legs loose and practicing my box jumps.  I also stretched out my shoulders quite a bit and worked up to the 115lb push press.  After lifting a couple, I knew it would be the hardest part of the workout.  Once I felt warmed up enough I started.  The 18 minutes went by much quicker than I expected.  As I predicted, the push press was the hardest part of the workout.  I split the sets up into two sets of 6.  I was able to maintain this for the first 3 rounds, but around round 4 I started doing 6-3-3, then 3-3-3-3.   My score was 6 rounds even.  I'm not sure I could have done much better.  I was breathing very heavily throughout most of the WOD.  The only advice I'd have for anyone is not to spend any time in the rack position on the push press.  Either get it right back overhead when you bring it down, or drop it.  The few times I rested in the rack really tired me out.  I'm looking forward to a relaxing weekend in Kelowna and Wednesday when the next workout will be announced.

12.3 Looming

Open WOD 12.3 was announced yesterday at 5pm.  It is an 18 minute AMRAP of 15 box jumps, 12 push press at 115lbs and 9 toes to bar.  I'm not sure what part of this workout will be the hardest.  Initially I thought the push press would be the hardest for sure, but I'm not the greatest at box jumps either.  The toes to bar is a fairly small number and I don't think they will be a problem until later in the workout.  I'm going away to Kelowna this weekend with my Mom to visit my family, so I'll be doing the workout tomorrow morning rather than on Saturday with the rest of the gym.  I don't really have a target score because the workout is pretty long.  I just hope my legs recover from all the snowboarding I've been doing!

12.2 In the Books

I just completed the open WOD 12.2 snatch ladder this morning.  I said initially that I would like to get at least 40 reps.  I ended up getting 46.  I'm still not fully satisfied with the result though.  Once lifted the 135lb bar a couple of times, I realized it wasn't as bad as I thought.  My judge told me to try and hit a lift every 20 seconds.  I followed that advice and did pretty well.  I only missed one lift.  I still think if I didn't miss that lift, and I had pushed myself harder that I could have made it to 50 reps.  Afterwards I got a haircut. I'm thinking it will help for next weeks WOD.

Open WOD 12.2 Announced

I had a great day snowboarding up Grouse Mountain yesterday with my friend Jon.  It had snowed 13cm overnight and we got the second lift up the mountain.  There was almost nobody there, and every run was covered in fresh powder.  I had my camera with me, so I was a bit more cautious than usual.  After a few runs we hit the jib park.  We had to make our own tracks in order to get enough speed to hit the features.  I ended up doing my first rails and boxes.  They had a mini rainbow rail and a small kinked rail, both of which I rode.  I also tried boardsliding a box, which ended with me falling hard on my ass.  It was a really fun day, and my legs were really sore by the end of it.

Once I got how I looked up the next crossfit open WOD, as it had been released on the website.  It is a 10 minute timecap of:
30 snatch at 75lbs
30 snatch at 135lbs
30 snatch at 165lbs
AMRAP snatch at 210 lbs

I love doing snatch workouts, but I don't have a very heavy snatch.  My 1 rep max right now is 135.  I could probably hit 145, but the 30 reps at 135 is going to be a huge challenge.  I would like to hit 40 reps or higher.  I think that is a realistic goal for me.  We'll see how it goes on Saturday!

Burpees!

I completed the first of the crossfit open WOD's yesterday morning at Crossfit Lions.  Our coach did a great job of setting up the gym to run the different heats.  He put tables on top of our pullup cage to act as our burpee target.  This way we didn't have to look up at the target we were hitting, just jump with our arms in the air like a regular burpee.  This made the WOD much easier I think.  The workout was as many reps in 7 minutes of burpees.  I had one of our more experienced members judge me which helped a lot.  I started out very quickly.  He told me to slow down immediately to a pace that I could keep up.  I followed his advice and I think it worked.  Around 60 burpees in things really started to suck.  I thought that my lungs would go first, but it turned out my legs started to fail before I was running out of breath.  My goal was to get above 90.  I ended up scoring 101.  That places me at 325/851 in the Canada West region, a result that I am really happy with at the moment.  I'm sure standings will change after one or two more workouts.  My goal for the open is to finish in the top half of Canada West.  We'll see if I can make it happen.

Open WOD #1

The first crossfit open workout was released yesterday at 5:00pm.  It is as many burpees as possible in seven minutes.  For the burpee to count, your hips and chest must touch the ground at the bottom, and you must jump and touch a target placed 6 inches above your maximum vertical reach.  I'm not sure how I feel about the jump at the top.  Our regular burpees in the gym just require our feet to come off the ground.  The number I'm setting in my head is 90.  I'd be happy with anything higher.  I'll be doing the workout this Saturday at 11am with the rest of our gym members.

Crossfit Open This Week!

It's finally here!  The first week of the crossfit open.  The first workout will be announced on wednesday and everyone will have one week to complete it and submit their scores.  I can't wait!  Our workout this morning wasn't too tough.  We started off with a 5x2 overhead squat.  I managed to get up to 145 pounds before we were stopped short to do the second part of our workout.  The second part of the class consisted of a tabata complex of five different exercises: ring push ups, kettlebell swings, dumbell front squats, pull ups, and front plank.  Tabata is where you do 20 seconds of work followed by ten seconds of rest.  This is done 8 times.  If you do the math, it comes out to 4 minutes per exercise.  We rested 3 minutes in between each tabata round.  The ring pushups weren't too bad, and the kettlebell swings went really well.  Front squats were by far the most painful of the rounds.  We had done lots of heavy deadlifts late last week, and my lower back was still feeling the effects.  This caused my lower back to flare up pretty bad during the front squats.  We were only holding 35lb dumbells, which wouldn't normally be too heavy, but because my back was so sore I was only able to get 4 or 5 reps per round near the end.  The pull ups and front plank weren't nearly as bad.  I'm looking forward to some stretching to hopefully loosen up my back.  Only two more sleeps until workout one is announced!

Friday Morning Chipper

I did a fun chipper at 8:00 am to start off my morning.

50 wall balls
40 hand release pushups
30 deadlifts (225 lbs)
20 hang squat cleans (135 lbs)
10 muscle ups

The WOD started off great.  I breezed through the wall balls without too much effort.  Then I hit the push ups.  Despite doing pushup workouts 3 days a week during my vacation in India, they still remain one of my worst exercises.  My muscles seem to get tired pretty fast, and don't recover too well.  After struggling through the 40, I got through the deadlifts doing 5 sets of 6 reps.  The last few sets started feeling really heavy and I was not looking forward to the hang cleans.  Picking up the 135 lb bar after doing 30 deadlifts at 225 was very deceiving.  It felt like picking up a bar with no weight on it.  After a few reps my body started feeling it.  4 sets of 5 and I was onto the muscle ups, which I slowly trudged through.  I finished the WOD in 22:00 and was pretty happy with the result.  The pushups and muscle ups were definitely the slow part.  Just a few more things to work on.

First Ride

This morning I did a nasty little workout at the gym.  5 rounds for time of: 5 manmakers, 10 chest to bar pull ups, and 15 box jumps.  I was exhausted afterwards, but still had enough energy to take my new bike for a spin with my friend Noah.  We rode from his place on 4th and Lonsdale, to Park Royal where I picked up a new helmet.  I was really impressed with how the bike rides.  It's my first time on a road bike, and man these things are fast.  They take little effort to maintain speed.  The top speed we hit was 40kmph and that was on flat ground.  I'm really excited for the summer when it will be warmer and I can head out for longer rides.

Got Me a Bike. Now Where's the Sun?

I have a few friends that own road bikes and are planning to ride a bunch this summer. They convinced me to pick one up for myself. I did a little bit of research, and after a few days of sifting through craigslist and pinkbike.com, I found a good looking bike out in Port Coquitlam. I brought my friend Noah along to help me check it out. The bike is a gary fisher ar super. It fit really well and was in good condition, so we packed it in my trunk and brought it home. I'm really excited to try it out. Now I just need some sun!

Something New

Today I tried a new exercise, the barbell Turkish get up. It's the same as a regular Turkish get up, accept instead of using a kettlebell or a dumbell, you use a barbell. The weight is challenging, but it's really about balance. It's really easy to lose it if the barbell starts tipping in either direction. I managed to get up to 75 lbs with my right arm. After that we did a fairly short WOD: 21-15-9 barbell lunges(95lbs) and push press (115lbs). My shoulders were completely done after this workout. I was planning on doing some strict press to gain more shoulder strength, but today's workout was definitely tough enough on the shoulders. Rest day tomorrow, then back at it on Friday!

Squat Snatch

I had a busy week last week. I had three assignments due at the end of the week and set up a website for my dad. I'm excited for reading break next week. It will give me time to fix some weaknesses before the crossfit open. Today we worked on squat snatch technique. It is one of my favorite lifts we do in the gym. After practising the "pull" part of the lift, we worked our way up to a 1 rep max lift. I managed to hit my old personal record of 135lbs. I was really happy with this since I haven't done much lifting since I came back from winter vacation. I attempted to lift 140lbs 3 times and failed. Next time I will get it for sure.

Open Registration Starts Today!

I'm pretty excited because registration for the 2012 crossfit open starts today. I participated in the open last year and it was tons of fun. I'm hoping to greatly improve on my placement last year. I believe I placed somewhere around 320th out of about 360 or 370 in western Canada. There are only 3 weeks until the first workout is announced and I've got a lot of work to do. I've started on the wendler strength program to try and increase my strict press. I think the press is one of my largest weaknesses at the moment. You can check out the games site at http://games.crossfit.com

2 Personal Records!

I followed up an awesome weekend of snowboarding in whistler with a great Monday morning workout. I managed to hit two PR's today! First we worked up to our one rep max overhead squat. I managed to squat 175lbs. I felt like I could have gone a little bit higher, but I didn't have time. After that we did a 12 minute AMRAP of 4 handstand push ups, 8 pistols (1 legged squats), 12 overhead squats at 115lbs. I did very poorly in the AMRAP because my shoulders aren't very strong. This meant I would do one or two handstand push ups, then I would rest for 30 seconds. I was also doing assisted pistols by hanging on to part of the pull up cage to keep my balance. During the workout, I felt like I might be able to do some pistols unassisted. After the WOD had finished, I started trying to do some pistols without the cage. It took a few tries but eventually I got my first pistol! They still need some work though.

Soooo Sore

I hit the gym three days in a row for the first time in a long time. Monday we did 5 rounds of 400 meter row, 30 box jumps and 30 wall balls. My legs were a little bit sore on Tuesday, but I felt well enough to hit the workout. The workout consisted of a barbell complex. 5 deadlifts, 5 power cleans and 5 jerks. After 5 sets of the complex, we did a 12 minute AMRAP of 15 pull ups and 50 double-unders. Wednesday was more of a strength day. We did some bench press, back squat, and 5 excruciating sets of 300 meter rowing sprints. Today my whole body was sore, but in a good way. I'm hoping I will be loose by Saturday as I'm heading up whistler for some snowboarding.

Restart

After 5 weeks of no gym and bad diet, I feel like I'm starting from scratch again. Good news is my head cold seems to be gone. Yesterday I went down to Washington with my Mom, my cousin, and his girlfriend. We bought a bunch of tasty healthy food from Trader Joe's and did some unintentional shopping. I'm all set to kick the shitty diet and gear up for the crossfit open. Open registration starts in a week and the first workout gets announced on the 22nd of February. I can't wait!!!

Slow Start to 2012

After three weeks of super fatty food and being lazy in India, I was super excited to get home, start eating better, and hit the gym hard. Unfortunately my body had other plans. My first workout back was fairly easy, but I had barely done any leg work during my trip. My legs were way to sore to head back to the lions den for another 4 days. The next workout was roughly the same. My calves were too stiff to workout for another 3 days. This week I hoped to have my first full week back in the gym. Monday went well. It was a nice easy strength day. Hang power cleans, front squats, and good mornings. I was feeling great after. Unfortunately around noon I started to get that awful feeling that a head cold was about to hit. You know, the slightly scratchy throat. This morning my fears came true. I've got a pretty sore throat, low energy, and a runny nose. From experience I've found the best way to recover is to stay out of the gym and get rest. Unfortunately I'll have to wait a bit longer to get back into the full 5 day a week routine.