R8D20-22 – Resting Kind Of Feeling

Although I was scheduled to do a rest week, I had decided I wouldn’t. Seems like subconsciously I didn’t like that decision and kind of took it easy this week. By taking it easy I mean:

Thursday: Fountain of Youth Yoga with Tony
Friday: Killer Cage Abs with kids at gym (below)
Saturday: Off
Sunday: Fran (a disgrace) and Olympic lifting practice.

I had bought myself some real bumper plates last week and was dying to use them so yesterday I took my olympic bar up to the garage and set up my new bumper plates. I felt like a real pro with real plates I have to tell you, there is something vaguely emasculating about using those little 25lb plates. I did some strict pressing, deadlifts, snatch, clean and press and thrusters before launching into Fran. I am going to be deliberately vague here and say that Fran took me over 10 minutes to complete, partly because of my discomfort with the chin up bar in the garage and partly because apparently I suck.

Fran:
21-15-9

Thrusters with 95lbs
Chin ups

Killer Cage Abs:

4 suicides

on count:
in and out
switch bicycles
scissors
crunch hold

Full sit up
Full rainbow
vsnap no floor touch
Vsnap and pulse 4/8

R7D86 – Test Week Day 2 – Fit Test and Fran *light*

Shaq and his strained calf…

I was scheduled to do P90X Fit Test, Insanity Fit Test and a round of Fran. Unfortunately as I was getting to the end of the P90X Fit Test my calf brought me to a screeching halt. It is not as bad as last week, but only, I fear, because I let up immediately. I had managed to get through the P90X Fit Test (results to come) and was still feeling like I could have done the Insanity one energy wise. However, the calf was so painful that I just couldn’t do it. It was also hurting to do the full 95lb thruster so I opted to use my 45lb kettlebell instead and did a light Fran in around 6:30. I am a mixture of angry and frustrated, I know it has only been 10 days since I hurt the calf but at the same time I should be able to do jumping jacks for 2 minutes without it pulling again.

Firstbeat Athlete was not terribly impressed with my workout, but you should see the size of the HR and EPOC spike when I started to do Fran. It was a great workout, very short but very brutal. I will post my actual results later tonight when I get my papers from the basement.

For now, damn you calf!

 

Results:

P90X Fit Tests

Third P90X Fit Test

Resting Heart Rate   65 (-5)
Pull-Ups   23 (+7)
Vertical Leap Inches   18 (+0)
Push-Ups   80 (+30)
Toe-Touch+2″ (+0″)
Wall Squat (Seconds)   70 (-20)
Bicep Curls (Reps | Wt )   15@95lbs
Total Poundage   1425 (-325) Bad decision to go with 95lb barbell
In & Outs   65 (+15)

Heart Rate Maximizer

Immediately After   147
After 1 Minute Rest   129
After 2 Minutes Rest 118
After 3 Minutes Rest 106
After 4 Minutes Rest 95

Second P90X Fit Test

Resting Heart Rate   70 (+0)
Pull-Ups   16 (+9)
Vertical Leap Inches   18 (+5)
Push-Ups   50 (I got bored after 50…again)
Toe-Touch+2″ (+3″)
Wall Squat (Seconds)   90 (+30)
Bicep Curls (Reps | Wt )   25@70lbs (2x35lb db)
Total Poundage   875 (+75) (1750 total)
In & Outs   50 (+0)

Heart Rate Maximizer

Immediately After   150
After 1 Minute Rest   141
After 2 Minutes Rest 125
After 3 Minutes Rest 116
After 4 Minutes Rest 95


 

Round 4 Day 19 – WOD Fran (again!?)

So my last attempt at Fran was a bit of a failure. So much so that I didn’t even want to call it what it was supposed to be. According to the Crossfit site, Fran is as follows:

21 Thrusters 95lbs
21 Pull Ups
15 Thrusters 95lbs
15 Pull Ups
9 Thrusters 95lbs
9 Pull Ups

and the times that people proudly post for the workout are sub 4 minutes. I think that the last time I did this I was somewhere just over 10 minutes. Given that I didn’t rush through and was at the gym, I don’t think that really counts. This time however I just went through it without trying to hurt myself because I was using 35lb dumbbells instead of a barbell. That is mostly due to the fact that in my basement the ceiling isn’t quite high enough to lift the bar with the 45’s on it, or even I think the 25’s. Since I only have 35’s I was starting out with a 70lb weight. I shouldn’t have been worried however since after about 14 of the 21 Thrusters I had to change the weight for 25’s. It was mostly my balance that was the issue, not the strength. That made the whole thing a lot easier. Even so, I only managed an 8:35 for the whole thing which is a bit disappointing. I was hurting afterwards, so much so in fact that later during the evening I was still coughing up weird phlegmmy acid stuff that tasted like (I assume) battery acid. I almost drowned in my La-z-boy which led me to thinking that maybe I had done a little too much. My personal WOD then looked like this:

MetCon
Supposed to be row 2000m but since I don’t have a rowing machine I ran 1600m instead (1 mile)

WOD

21 Thrusters 70lbs (actually about 14 with 70 and 7 with 50)
21 Pull Ups
15 Thrusters 50lbs
15 Pull Ups
9 Thrusters 50lbs
9 Pull Ups

The whole workout including a short warmup took about 28.5 mins but I think it was the run that really did me in not Fran. For some reason, running messes up my breathing the first few times I do it. If I haven’t run in a while I get really bad indigestion (which I am a victim of anyway) and cough up the grossest stuff you have ever seen. After a few times it goes away, it’s all a bit of a mystery really.

Fran. I can see why people love it.

Round 4 Day 12 – I Hate Cindy (and a throwback to day 4)

So Day 9 was as promised, a version of Cindy however I only managed 15 minutes not the full 20. After 1 round I felt like I was going to die. I managed 13 rounds in the 15 minutes. It was odd though, I thought my chest would explode after 2 rounds but then I think my brain shut off to protect me from myself and suddenly there was 2 minutes to go. My heart rate hasn’t been that high in a VERY long time. I think I was over 160bpm for almost the whole thing!

I found a piece of paper this morning with my workout from Day 4 and realized that I had inadvertently done what I had interpreted as Fran. I was disappointed since this week I had it in my head that I was over Cindy and moving to Fran but now I have to find another partner.

FWIW these are the “real” versions of Cindy and Fran:

Cindy

AMRAP 20 minutes

5 pull-ups
10 Push Ups
15 Squats (Air Squats)

Fran

For time (I am not sure how they measure the required weights however)

21 thrusters
21 pull-ups
15 thrusters
15 pull-ups
9 thrusters
9 pull-ups

As I stated at the top, Cindy almost crushed me but surprised me at how high I could get my HR to go and also surprised me at how proud I was of myself even though I had only managed 15 minutes not the full 20.

I can tell, I am going to be inventing my own versions, naming them after people I detest and touting them as the “I once had and injury so I can’t do burpees” versions for the still tentative crowd.