Fight Gone Bad 080329

FGB

Wall ball 10kg	23	20	18
SDHP 35kg	15	15	15
Step-ups 20"	20	20	19
Push press 35kg	12	12	12
Row	4.9	4.6	4

Total 214.5

I gamed this one slightly. I wasn't happy with my SDHP and push press last time so I set my goals of 15 and 12 and went until I had them and stopped. I got some breathing room out of it I guess, but mostly I had a number I wanted to get so I could live with myself, weak skinny shoulders or no.
Same with step-ups, but there was little time left after hitting 20.

Wallball felt good. I took care to warm up my squats better than last time, partly because my knees are still creaking from a week ago.
SDHP less back and shoulders, more legs. A lesson learned from last time.
Step-ups were OK. I'm getting a feel for the box and will be game to start jumping up and stepping down soon.
Push-press was still harder than I would have preferred, but I made sure I racked the weight properly and jumped it much harder so I would get my target reps.
The first row was a mistake, I'm sure I missed the beep and rowed for 2 minutes because my number was 9.8 and there was no way whatsoever I was going to get that on the last two rounds.

Felt a bit nauseous in the SDHPs and push presses.

25 KTE

Off to stand under a cool shower, which will probably evaporate before the water touches me.

Viking Helen 080327

3 rounds:
Row 50 strokes (500m?)
21 x 24kg dbell swings
12 pull-ups

16:38 Splits; 04:45, 5:30, 6:23


Rowing took about 2 minutes, which was about my 400m time, so it's a good approximation. I counted strokes as per Kempie's suggestion using data provided by TP (thanks guys) to guesstimate how many strokes it would take me to cover 500m.

D.bell swings were harder than usual and I struggled to get much hip into it. I tweaked my back the other day dismounting from piked HSPUs and I toyed with dropping the d.bell weight. I think something's a bit wrong there still, so maybe I should have.

Pull-ups were the usual. No improvement.

Overall I'm pleased with it. First time with 12 rep pull-ups

50 frog ab-mat situps.
A few sun salutes to stretch and a little handstand practise. I tried to get into the bent knee/further away from the wall handstand position GD says is better for HSPUs, but decided that when you're shaking from a workout is not a good time to be upside down and trying new things.

30 Muscle-ups 080324

Pack
30 Jumping muscle-ups - rings at ear height
8:39

30 ring pull-ups
30 ring dips
Both un-timed

Everything was sets of 5.

The jumping muscle-ups were very good! Not too much jump. I finished in a deep dip and pushed out strongly, except for one rep where the left ring shot out backwards. Probably owe the neighbours an apology for the language on that one.
If I could kip high enough I believe I could have gotten through the transition and made it up. But I can't (I tried) so it's all just idle boasting really.

Pull-ups were good.

Dips were strong for a start, but by 20 I was struggling and all but one of the last 10 were pure negatives.

Still a long way from even one full muscle-up, however I'm happy with this one.

Then
25 KTE
25 frog abmat situps
25 abmat situps

Still 2.5 DUs. And I'm counting the 0.5!

Fight Gone Bad - Lynette

My wife Lynette tried FGB

Wall ball 6kg	16	14	13
SDHP 20kg	15	15	17
Step ups 20"	17	15	14
Push press 20kg	13	12	12
Row	2.6	3.4	3.4

182.4

• 6kg wallball?, stupid scales don't weigh that low very well
• Wallball was wobbly.
• Push presses she was dipping too low.
• SDHP were really good, better than mine and we had the same coach, me. LOL
  

Very proud of her.

HSPU and L Pull-ups 080321

Pack
For time:
15 Handstand push-ups
1 L Pull-up
13 Handstand push-ups
3 L Pull-ups
11 Handstand push-ups
5 L Pull-ups
9 Handstand push-ups
7 L Pull-ups
7 Handstand push-ups
9 L Pull-ups
5 Handstand push-ups
11 L Pull-ups
3 Handstand push-ups
13 L Pull-ups
1 Handstand push-up
15 L Pull-ups

22:19
Splits; 0:42, 2:05, 0:19, 1:38, 0:38, 1:59, 1:14, 0:34, 2:40, 0:32, 2:02, 0:30, 2:52, 0:22, 4:02, 0:19

HSPU; Piked, feet on a 20" box
L Pull-ups; Supinated grip. L-pull-ups until the 11 rep round where I switched to tuck pull-ups. 15 rep round I was down to singles due to failure of the pull-up component rather than the abs, so switched back to 1 l-pull-up, 1 tuck pull-up.
Oh and L pull-ups were my usual "lower case h" sub for the "L". Hamstrings too tight.

Fight Gone Bad 080319

Wallball	24	19	15
SDHP 35kg	20	16	15
Box jump 20"	18	16	16
Push press 35kg	10	9	10
Row	3.8	3.8	3.6
	75.8	63.8	59.6

199.2

Box jumps were step-ups. I can jump onto the box, but only tried a few times and wasn't game to try it when I'm tired.
I very much doubt the number from the rower really means anything, but it was something to write down.
Push press is always bad.
SDHP should have used more hip

Better than last time, but not as much as I hoped, but then my box jumps were only onto the back step then.

25 KTE
25 abmat situps

Snatch 080315

Practised snatches with PVC and a 20kg bar.
I don't know how many I did. Lots.

Mostly:
Snatch
Stand
Get feet where they should be
3 OHS
3 snatches

I stopped when my shoulder started getting sore from the snatches I caught poorly.

My form is still pitiful.
I got a few of the first snatches to land with my feet in the correct position. Most I landed way wide being lazy instead of a good tight OHS.
Can't see me being a snatch specialist, in this life anyway.

Then
25 KTE
25 ab-mat sit-ups
25 frog ab-mat situps

I think I might be a bit over St Patricked.

St. Paddy's day

My second St Patrick's day since I've been playing Irish music.
Unfortunately this one fell on a week day, so there weren't the crowds there were last year and Lynette couldn't come with me. The former had its advantages, the latter wasn't so good. I don't have much time to be with her while we're playing, but it's nice to have here there and I know she likes the music.

As with last year we started out at my "home pub", The Bog, Manukau at 0900. That was pretty sparsely populated, only a few diehards coming in for the enormous breakfast they were serving. Playing were Warren, Lew and Helen (Paddy Mack), John and Sue and Robbie and Maggie. I think we were all pretty much waking up, nothing too startling anywhere and the Paddy Mackers were practising a few pieces for the next gig at the Irish Society. Lots of fun and the breakfast, that I used as a lunch was good. Eggs, bacon, baked beans, sausage, black pudding, mushrooms and toast. Not remotely Zone. I did resist the toast, except for a couple of chunks I used to mop up the baked bean sauce.

The band invited me to come with them to the Irish Society gig, which was a pleasant surprise, I thought that as it was a paid performance it would be just them. I only got slightly lost going there and helped carry mike stands and instruments up to the venue, an un-air-conditioned rugby clubroom. The day was hot by then and I was getting a bit sweaty, so the sacrificial T-shirt I wore under my green shirt was ditched having done its job. I'd never played at a paid performance before and it was really interesting, the different feeling from a Session. You're up in front of everyone and they're all looking at you. You can't just wander off to the loo when you need to or mess up your playing. Very educational. They served handles of Light Ice there and one of those went some way to combating the heat.

Then help with packing everything into the car and off to the next gig at The Bog, Parnell. I made a slight gaff and grabbed a fiddle case belonging to a member of the next band to play there. When it became apparent that Helen had hers I dashed back and returned it to its owner. Auckland traffic was Auckland traffic by that stage of the day, always fun. Not.

They hadn't miked us into the Pub's sound system, which was a shame. We were in the little stage area at the back of the pub and the noise from the crowd was pretty phenomenal. As we played, all hammering away as loudly as possible, people started noticing and they began listening. That grew and spread about half-way toward the door and we had people singing along and requesting songs. Lots of fun. If they'd piped us out the street we could have had even more people listening to us and probably attracted more people into the place.
Right at the end as we were packing up a scottish couple were taking photos and got me to pose for one. I gave them my email address and they sent it later that night.
That's what you see below, me as the posterboy for Guinness or "looking like a giant Leprechaun" as one of my workmates said when I circulated it there.

I went with Lew, Warren, Helen and Tom to a restaurant across the road from the pub. I downed most of a jug of pineapple juice. Seriously dehydrated. Oh, on the "stage" at the pub I was perched on a stool in the corner and the whole time, wedged in by players and instruments and I couldn't reach the water jug and glasses. The Guinness helped, but I didn't want to use that as a re-hydrator, I was having enough trouble staying on time from tiredness.

So that was "what I did on St. Patrick's day".
Lots of fun, very hot and very tiring.

Tommy V 080312

Pack
15 Thrusters
24 Beginner's rope climbs
12 Thrusters
12 Beginner's rope climbs
9 Thrusters
6 Beginner's rope climbs

16:35

Splits were; 1:20, 6:11, 2:02, 3:08, 1:58, 1:42

50 abmat situps.

The thrusters were more a front squat and a push press. I couldn't move that weight fast enough to do a real thruster. But, the last time I did thrusters 30kg felt harder than 40kg did, so things are moving. I've done 40kg thrusters now, so I know what they feel like.
I did triple rope climbs because I'm sure that's what the ratio used to be, and because that means I covered roughly 15 feet of rope for each 3 climbs. And I figured I'm doing beginners rope climbs because that's all I'm set up for, not because I can't do the full version. Not that I've tried lately.

Bloody hell it's hard to hit the correct keys right now!

Walk 080311

Walk 4.5km

52 minutes.

I was quite pleased to see this, I needed a good walk to give everything a chance to line itself back up again. Too much time in front of the computer hasn't been helping either.

My ankle held up until the last km or so which is an improvement. Nice way to spend a fine evening.

Roses part 2

Lynette took some photos of the finished product


















The bear is dressed in Chiefs colours, a rugby team from the Waikato, where Lynette was born, raised and lived until I dragged her to Auckland.

And to show the scale.

Hang Cleans 080308

3 x 40kg
3 x 50kg
3 x 52.5kg old PB
3 x 55kg PB
3 x 57.5kg power-cleaned it, failed forward, got one, power-cleaned it, gave up
3 x 57.5kg PB
3 x 57.5kg

After
25 KTE

That's 2.5kg less than my all time best triple for a front squat. For someone who has huge problems with squatting, that's pretty cool

I've been bending over, squatting down, getting up, sitting in a squat measuring and marking out all day making more plyo-boxes and I thought my back would be too tired. It felt good though. Stable, not tight, and I don't have any twinges of sciatica

Cindy 080305

Pack:
AMRAP 20:
3 Pull-ups
6 Push-ups
9 Squats

19 rounds + 3 pull-ups
Splits; :42, :47, :51, :54, :55, :57, 1:04, 1:05, 1:09, 1:03, 1:06, 1:09, 1:07, 1:01, 1:11, 1:09, 1:02, :57, 1:04

Pull-ups; I rolled a towel up and duct taped it along the rafter. It helped enormously. My hands didn't tear or even wear very much and the lack of pain from the square edges meant I could concentrate on kipping, which is coming along thanks to some remarks by LauraR and TP. Next step is a hollow pool noodle split lengthwise, draped over a section of PVC and taped to the rafter. That should set me up nicely.
Push-ups; The slowest part and where I took my 5 or 6 v. short pauses. Good form (I think), just hard.
Squats; Found the groove in the last 3 or 4 rounds. Need more practise.

Overall lack of fitness and probably inexperience with driving myself to the limit were the problems. I didn't have to rest and I kept moving except for the pauses in the push-ups, but I just couldn't sustain the necessary pace for the 20 rounds I've set myself as a target before going Big Dawgs on this.

Still, it's a 2 round PB.

Linda 080303

Puppies

10, 8, 6, 4, 2
80kg deadlifts
Subbing ring push-ups for benches.
40kg cleans.

19:50; 4:45, 5:20, 4:02, 3:48, 1:50

I lost some time changing plates. It only occurred to me at the end to just leave the collars on and slip the 20kg plates on the ends. They weren't going to go anywhere. Even with muscle clamps fiddling with collars takes time. I at least worked out I could leave the 10kg plates on all through.

Deadlifts: Hard. About right. I had hoped to do 100kg, but I'm not ready for that yet.
Ring push-ups: Too easy. I should have had my feet elevated or subbed something harder. Sorry Kempie, you recommended ring dips and after the other day I couldn't see me making many whole reps. I should have given it a try.
Cleans: A few power cleans in there, but mostly squat cleans. My legs were fried early in the high rep sets, so my deadlifts had a lot of leg in them. Perfect.
I'm getting more confidence getting under the bar. Even though it was a relatively light weight, with help I should get the technique. No point in getting coaching if I won't get under the bar.

A bit pooped!

Roses

I really need to get this posted.

I had some fun trying out a technique I discovered for making rose buds from polymer clay.
My wife is an unconventional woman, she's not into flowers at all, she can't see the point of having dying vegetation around and saying it looks nice. While that's saved me a fortune at florists over the years, thanks dear, it does limit my options for quicky presents.

Polymer clay roses don't die, so I figured her usual objection to flowers might not stand.

So I made a bunch of roses one evening and came up with two ways to present them.
The technique is really simple.

1. Condition some red clay
2. Roll it out into a long skinny log. Several about 3mm in diameter in my case.
   Don't worry about getting the logs even throughout their length. Slight variations work for you later.
3. With your fingers, squish the logs flat. Slight variations in width work for you later again.
4. I cut bits of florists wire and doubled about 5mm of one end back on itself to give the clay something to hang onto.
   I happened to have florists wire around for armatures for fingers and it's green, I'm making flowers, works for me.
5. Wrap the log around the doubled back bit of the florists wire and cut it off when the diameter is about right.
6. Squish the bottom of the roesbud onto the wire to make it a rosebud shape.
7. Set it aside and repeat until you've used up all of your red clay logs.
8. Bake and you're done.
   

The traditional dozen roses
A little green clay mixed with translucent and rolled thin in the pasta machine to imitate that waxy paper flowers get wrapped in.









And a vase for the rest.
The vase was going to be gold clay swirled through translucent, just for fun, but my wife's favourite colour is blue, so I marbled the translucent gold mix through some blue and made a little vase.
It's all finished in the photo, but I was looking for some little magnets I had to drop into the bottom of the vase to stabilise it when it was on a metal surface like her PC at work.
Eventually I bought some more off Trade-me and the thing clicks snugly onto a metal surface, but only enough to make it resistant to casual knocks. Just what I wanted.









A little polymer clay makes a LOT of roses


And Lynette liked them, so that was good.

Angie 080301

Pick 'n mix Pack
50 Pull-ups - because I can't do them.
50 Push-ups - because I'm still in a great deal of pain from ring-dips.
75 Sit-ups - because they're easy. Hah! See below.
75 Squats

29:03 Pull-ups 10:23 forgot to carry the watch out for the rest and it was a loong way back to the shed (all of 10 feet) to get it for the other splits. Next time I'll just wear the darned thing.

That wasn't pretty, but, it wasn't as bad as I have been doing, especially considering the volume.

Pull-ups: Better than I expected. Sets of 5 and I only had 3 "re-dos" I think. I tore another patch of skin. By a rough estimation 3 more patches and I'll have done all of the wear points for this exercise.
Push-ups: Extremely painful. Sets of 10 then 5. Only 2 "re-dos". The rest were all legal, if slow. The pleasant surprise of the day.
Sit-ups; The wolf-in-sheep's clothing. Kipping is an ab exercise. Push-ups are an ab exercise. I have proof. Excruciatingly slow and just straight out hard. Every single one was a ground-out effort. Ab-mat, feet un-anchored.
Squats; Easy? Easier anyway. I couldn't get my groove which irritated me, but I didn't struggle on these beyond sucking air.

29 is too slow. I wanted 18-25 to be happy that I'd picked the correct scaling. I lost a bit of time taping my finger before doing push-ups with an open wound, but 4 minutes? Maybe.

I'm on the board for Angie anyway, so I have a reference point.