Sunday was another form-heavy day, as we worked our way through a slew of drills, exercises and progressions for the Olympic lifts.

Congrats especially to Joe, who hit a new PR in the C&J towards the end of class, as we began to load weight onto the bar. Armed with that psychological victory, I suspect he'll be piling another ten or twenty pounds in the next month.

Another addendum: 'congratulations' of sorts to me, as I've apparently now become a standard measure of weight. An o-bar with one 45# plate on either end is precisely as heavy as I am - a scant 135# - leading two people in attendance to begin using phrases like "Clean & Jerking one Josh." Which is fine, until someone actually does, inevitably, suggest that we use me as a weight one class when short on o-bars for a workout. Consider this a preemptive pass on that suggestion.

Tonight we returned to a CFNYC classic:

21-15-9
DB Thruster
Pullups
Burpees

Our times:

Josh: 35#, 10:04
Court: 35#, 12:07
Michael: 25#, 14:06

Following that, we hung rings, working our way through dips, pushups, one-arm-piked pushups (there's got to be a better name for this), and ring l-sits. Good stuff.

After a quick 800m run to warm up, we jumped right into today's WOD:

21-15 and 9 rep rounds of:
Left-arm Kettlebell snatch, 1.5 pood
Right-arm Kettlebell snatch, 1.5 pood
Pull-ups

Without kettlebells on hand, we subbed dumbbells, with Keith and Marshall braving the full 55# / 1.5 pood weight, and Scott and I (due to a dumbbell shortage) dropping down to 50#. Our times:

Keith 11:55
Scott 12:04
Josh 15:50
Marshall 18:29

After another 800m warmdown, Scott came up with the cockamamie idea of putting a treadmill on maximum speed and seeing how far any of us could go. By that point in the workout, we bailed before a quarter mile, though not without causing one of the other trainers in the gym to sing the theme song for The Six Million Dollar Man.

In my case, it was actually the second pass at the WOD, having taken to doing them in the morning regardless of whether we have class that evening. The experience left me limping home muttering, "I'm not Matt G., I'm not Matt G., I'm not Matt G. ..." Still I'd highly recommend it for any other masochists. If nothing else, it's a great excuse for whatever time pulled in class.

I can't believe I feel guilty about doing today's workout. We modified the prescribed workout to make it slightly easier for the sake of the new recruits and because of the limited workspace. The prescribed workout was "Tabata Something Else." Complete 32 intervals of 20 seconds of work followed by ten seconds of rest where the first 8 intervals are pull-ups, the second 8 are push-ups, the third 8 intervals are sit-ups, and finally, the last 8 intervals are squats. There is no rest between exercises. Post total reps from all 32 intervals to comments. Our version today was a little different. We added a minute rest between exercises and scored it in the traditional Tabata manner with the least number of reps done in a single 20 second effort. Basically we did "Tabata This!" without the rows. Still a scorcher by any normal standard but I am still feeling a little sad in retrospect for having taken those 3 extra minutes of rest.

Name / Sq/PlUp/PsUp/StUp / Total

Scott / 13/6/6/9 / 34
Keith / 16/4/6/8 / 34
Eric / 10/1/7/7 / 25
Bill / 1/4/7/8 / 20

Personally, I had PRs on the pullups and pushups. I have never been able to finish a full Tabata cycle of pushups without resorting to dropping to my knees or a cycle of pullups without getting down to one poor jumping pullup at the end. This just adds to the guilt I am feeling because, I wouldn't have achieved the PRs today if we hadn't taken those minute rests between the exercises. I had a strong kip going today (Thanks to Eva's awesome video lesson!!!!) and did 5 pullups every set, but on the last 3 or 4 sets I couldn't in good conscience count all 5 because the 3rd one would be a half pullup. I would rest and bang out 2 more good ones. The pushups started at 8 and dropped to 6. Squats started at 18 and dropped to 16. Situps started at 12 and dropped to 8. I find Tabatas are best done in groups. I always do better when there are other miserable people suffering around me. I seem to thrive in that environment.

"Fight Gone Bad!"

This is our famous �Fight Gone Bad� workout. It has been used extensively to prep fighters for the UFC. In this workout you move from each of five stations after a minute. This is a five-minute round from which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. We�ve used this in 3 and 5 round versions. Today is 3 rounds. The stations are:

Wall-ball � 20 pound ball, 10 ft target. (Reps)
Sumo deadlift high-pull 75 pounds (Reps)
Box Jump � 20� box (Reps)
Push-press 75 pounds (Reps)
Burpees - (Reps)

The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of �rotate�, the athlete/s must move to next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep.

Scores:

Josh 264
Keith 249
Marshall 213

Absolute brutality! This is a workout that instantly invokes Pukie's wrath. We were all very close to tossing our cookies on this one. The only thing that makes this workout enjoyable is watching the fear on the faces of other gym-goers as we do it.

I think Dan John has got the right idea when he says, "There are three kinds of strength training: Putting weight overhead; Picking it off the ground; and Carrying it for time or distance."

Today we kept it simple and did 21, 15, 9 reps of the following couplet: 185lb. Deadlift and 95lb. Overhead Squat. With two barbells Marshall and I took turns between the two exercises and finished at 12:15. However, the truth is that Marshall smoked me on this workout. He banged out each set and waited for me to get done before we switched. I was slowing everything down. Good thing he was there pushing me or I would have taken 20 minutes to do that workout.

Last time we got together we decided the 7am classes weren't working. So we decided to move both the Tuesday and Thursday classes to 7pm. So if you were there this morning...sorry. Come back tonight at 7pm.

Let's rock tonight!

Marshall and I decided to do yesterdays WOD because we had both skipped it.

For time 30, 25, 20, 15, 10, and 5 rep rounds of:
Virtual shoveling
Push-ups

With an Olympic bar holding only one plate (men use 45 pound plate, women use 25 pound plate), touch the plate on one side of the barrier then the other for one �rep�. Barrier is 24�.

45# plates on 45# bars.
Barrier was a little low...maybe 18-20".

I did it in 15:48, Marshall did it in 16:56. I don't know how passed him. I thought I was going to die. I can't imagine how bad my back will feel tomorrow.

So I guess I should tell you about our Sunday in the park. For those of you that missed it, it's too bad. I'll be feeling this one for a few more days! It was a great crew of seven people.

We warmed up with a set of Tabata squats followed immediately by a run (a/k/a "crippled shuffle").

Then we set up a chipper of run, pullups, dips, box jumps, handstand pushups, burpees, knees-to-elbows. Each one of us would be at a station until the runner finished the run. Then we would switch stations. We did the whole circuit 3 times with a short rest in between rounds.

It took about 31:35 for all three rounds. Fun stuff. We should do this more often.

So I guess I should tell you about our Sunday in the park. For those of you that missed it, it's too bad. I'll be feeling this one for a few more days! It was a great crew of seven people.

We warmed up with a set of Tabata squats followed immediately by a run (a/k/a "crippled shuffle").

Then we set up a chipper of run, pullups, dips, box jumps, handstand pushups, burpees, knees-to-elbows. Each one of us would be at a station until the runner finished the run. Then we would switch stations. We did the whole circuit 3 times with a short rest in between rounds.

It took about 31:35 for all three rounds. Fun stuff. We should do this more often.