Strongman WOD

Bench Press                       3/3/3+

Ring Handstand Push-Ups  3xME

Strict Toes to Bar               3xME

6 minute time cap - score is total chest-to-bar pull-ups

20 Strict Pull-Ups

30 Kipping/Butterfly Pull-Ups

AMRAP Chest-to-Bar Pull-Ups

Today I stole a WOD from Rob Orlando’s StrongmanWOD website the link is here http://strongmanwod.com/ .  On this site there are a lot of heavy weight circuits including tires, yokes, atlas stones, and just about everything heavy you could imagine.  This one was straightforward and only needed bodyweight.  It was a 6 minute time cap and you start by completing 20 strict pull-ups, then 30 kipping or butterfly pull-ups, then if you complete that you do as many chest-to-bar pull-ups in the remaining time.  This was a little bit of strategy and a whole lot of fatigue.  I tried to split my sets up in the earlier rounds so I would have something left for the chest- to-bars.  I did split the sets up but still didn’t have much to give during the chest-to-bar pull-ups.  I split the strict pull-ups into two quick sets of 10.  Then I hit 3 sets of 6 and 3 sets of four for the butterfly pull-ups I was hoping to get at least 5 chest to bar pull-ups and only got three.  I continued to plug away until the time was up.  My score was 23 chest to bar pull-ups.  I’m ok with that score but would have liked to have gotten 30.  So all in all during the six minutes I completed 73 pull-ups; 20 strict, 30 butterfly, and 23 chest-to-bars.  I’m looking forward to some active recovery at Sugarloaf Mountain tomorrow.

Little Bennett Hike

Today I met up with Scoob and we headed to Little Bennett Regional Park.  I never been there and it is so close by.  It has over 21 miles of trails and about 4,000 protected acres.  We just started hiking through the trails with nobody in sight.  The terrain was muddy from all the snow melt.  We walked across streams, flipped logs and boulders, climbed and swung from vines.  We spent the better part of the day just hiking and exploring uncharted territory. We hit a METCON of Muscle-Ups and burpees after about 7 plus miles of hiking.  This was not a fun metcon it quickly became a real struggle.  After looking back it was good to throw in a metcon towards the end of the hike when you’re not fresh and are a little tired.  If you can only perform when fresh and rested then what does that truly mean.  Overall we had hiked close to ten miles and did a little metcon.  I’m definitely going to revisit this place when it’s a little warmer outside.

Open WOD 14 3

Today I met up with Scoob and Greg and decided to hit Open workout 14.3.  I’m not signed up for the Open so it wasn’t being sent in but still wanted to try this WOD.  We loaded the truck up with the barbell and the incremental weights up to 315lbs.  I didn’t think there was any chance of getting to the round of 365 so I didn’t bring the extra weight.  For those of you who aren’t familiar with the workout it’s an 8 minute time cap with 10 deadlifts @135lbs 15 box jumps 15 deadlifts @185lbs 15 box jumps 20 deadlifts @225lbs 15 box jumps 25 deadlifts@275lbs 15 box jumps 30 deadlifts at 315lbs 15 box jumps and finish off with 365lb deadlift.  It is an 8 minute workout so you go as far as the clock will allow you to do.  Many good competitors got to the round of 315 and a very few made it to the round of 365.     

 I have been dealing with my knee injury and this was the first lower body movement I have done in close to four months.  So I knew my strength was going to be way down.  I also elected to do step-ups instead of box jumps to save my knee which would eat up some clock.  We took the weights down to the local sports park and had a tape measurer looking for a 24” platform.  We finally found an electrical box that was 25” perfect.  We set the barbell nearby and set up for the WOD.  Greg went first and ended up with 97 total reps then Scoob totaled 60 reps.  Last I was up and we had now moved the barbell a little further from the box since it was making large divots in the grass.  I got through the first two rounds pretty quickly under two minutes.  Then on to 20 reps at 225lbs I broke them in to three sets of five and then did two triples totaling 21 reps oops!  I got to 275 and this felt much heavier then it use too but I haven’t done any lifting in four months.  I had developed a pounding headache and the deadlifts were just making it so much worse.  I got a triple and then just did fast singles.  I wound up getting 14 reps at 275lbs when time ran out.  I got a total of 104 reps, not bad for four months of knee injuries.  I think if I had been able to do box jumps and shortened the distance from the box and the barbell I could have finished the fourth round and wound up somewhere in the 130 rep range.  Looking at the video I used all back and little to no legs.  This was probably me sub consciously protecting my knees and a slight pull in my right hamstring.  I’m surprised how well my lower back held up.   I pride myself usually on my deadlifting form and how much hip torque I can create but there was little to no movement from my hips today.  Not all of my reps ended up on film but close enough.  Here is the video

Barn WOD March 18, 2014

         Today for the strength portion of the workout I started off with the bench press.  I got five reps at 220lbs which I feel good with since I used a pause at the bottom of every rep.  Had I just did touch and go reps I probably could of gotten around ten reps.  I’m guessing this has my max around 270 not as good as the Globo-Gym days.  Oh well, I guess that’s the small price to pay for not being a specialist anymore and spending more time developing my physical abilities in entirety.  Next I tried the heaviest weighted pull-up that I have done in quite some time with a 45 and 25lb plate totaling 70lbs.  I did three sets of three with this weight and it felt pretty good.  This got a litte tricky since the pull-up bar is about 8 feet from the ground and I couldn't just jump up there with an extra 70lbs.  After that I tested out the peg-board I had just built and installed.  It didn’t feel too great especially following the weighted pull-ups.  
         Next I moved on to the gymnastics part of the WOD.  I did a movement that I had never tried before tuck to a handstand.  I looked really horrible on this movement but it started getting a little better towards the end.  I will eventually outfit the upstairs of the barn with gymnastics mats so I can afford to roll over.  I then did three sets of bar muscle-ups and l-sits neither of these movements am I very good at.  For the three rounds of bar muscle-ups I got 6, 5, and 5 reps respectively.  Overall the workout felt good, I feel like I hit a lot of tough exercises.  The evening conditioning I opted out of because I had felt like my shoulder had taken a beating from the bench press, weighted pull-ups, bar muscle-ups, peg-board climb, and attempted tuck to handstands so I didn’t want to overload the joint.  I’ve attached the video of the workout below.  

GreatFalls Adventure

Here is a video from over the weekend out at Great Falls.  Just some creative fitness in a natural environment.

Gymnastics Wod 3 14 14

         Today I followed a structured gymnastics style workout rather than just picking a few random exercises and work on skill.  This Wod I found from Carl Paolis Gymnastics Wod website.  He has so much knowledge when it comes to gymnastics type movements and provides so many helpful technique and progression videos.  You can take a look at his website   http://gymnasticswod.com/ or look him up on Youtube.  I found a strength wod he posted a month ago which was four rounds for quality of 2 strict muscle-ups, 4 strict handstand push-ups, 6 strict pull-ups, 8 weighted pistols, and a 10 meter handstand walk.  I modified it a little bit since I can’t do pistols with my leg injury right now.  I decided to do four rounds of 3 strict muscle-ups, 6 strict handstand push-ups, and 9 strict pull-ups, and then a max effort handstand walk.  The workout was pretty straightforward but it was a nice change of pace focusing on quality rather than racing against a clock.  There wasn’t really anything worth noting during this part of the workout.  For my final set of strict pull-ups I decided to give it an all-out effort and wound up with 17.  Thought I should have gotten at least 20 but my upper body was already smoked.   After that I played with various transitions on the paralletes such as L-Sits to Handstands and crows to handstands.  I just recently started incorporating some gymnastics style training and I’m quickly beginning to notice the results plus this type of training is so much fun.  I think I’ll be hitting a hike slash climb at Great Falls tomorrow, hopefully I’ll get some footage.  Here is a video from today's training.

Barn WOD Video

Here is a video of a workout we did at the barn over the weekend, finally got around to editing the clips.  Take a look.
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Pinecliff Park Wod

Today I met up with Scoob, Greg, and Rob to hit a workout at Pinecliff Park right on the Monocacy River.  I loaded up the pickup truck with a bunch of equipment tire, sledge hammer, barbells, bumper plates, climbing rope, gravel-filled water jugs, and a kayak.  We looked around for a suitable place to do pull-ups but didn’t really find anywhere.  We brought the kayak to do a pull against the current with someone in the kayak the plan failed miserably.  So we then partnered up and switched between shoulder to overhead while the other partner does farmers walks or tire pulls.  Greg and I used 135lbs for the push presses and Rob and Scoob used 95lbs.  This couplet was a complete gasser and had us all trying to catch our breath.  The tires didn’t pull very smoothly on the asphalt so this was very taxing on the posterior chain.  We also came up with a truck push, deadlift, and sledgehammer swings.  The fourth person is steering and braking the truck as needed.  I was a little skeptical about doing a truck push with my leg injuries but they seemed to hold up alright.  My boy Scoob was in charge of getting the footage on the GoPro so he had it attached to his head for the majority of this workout.  Here’s the video check it out.

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Sugarloaf Mountain Hike

         Today was an awesome day with no reps, no weights, and no clocks to chase.  It’s just you and the mountain.  I had Scoob and Greg come with me to Sugarloaf.  We figured we would just hike, climb, boulder, and just have the mountain be our only obstacle.  We started with a hike slash climb about 800 feet up.  It got pretty interested here from the ice crusted snow and icy rocks.  We made it up and got an amazing view looking out on the horizon.  We played around with presses to handstands, handstand walks, boulder flips, and log carries.  It’s amazing how little I do these types of adventures but that is going to change.  It is amazing how much fun it is to use nature as your obstacle.  I got little clips from the day but somehow deleted the rock climbing we did which was the best part.  Oh well here’s the video take a look.

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Weekend Barn Workout

       Today was my first workout back at the barn and I had James, Scoob, and Greg join for a workout.  It was a lot of technique and working on some skills.  I had just gotten my first strict muscle-up the previous day.  I was pretty siked about that since I haven’t tried them strict in a long time.  I figured I’d give it a try and got five consecutive strict muscle-ups.  I also had been playing around with some of the moves from Prasara yoga such as crow press into a handstand.  We tried these from the parallettes and also did some rope climbing from my new rope.  I still can’t get a good foot hold and is making me crazy.  We also hit a pretty straightforward metcon consisting of a minute of floor presses and a minute of pull-ups rest and repeat two times for max reps.  Me and Greg did the floor presses @ 135 and James and Scoob used 95lbs.  My arms were fried from all the strict muscle-ups, parallette presses, and rope climbs.  Scoob finished with 133 reps, I finished with 127, Greg with 114, and James with 73 reps.  Planning for a little adventure up at Sugarloaf Mountain for a rest day.