Posture work I guess

3RFT
400m
25 kips as per Tucker's instruction or as close as I could get.
50 squats

18:39

Perhaps a bit of a wussy WOD. 25 kips isn't enough, I should have gone with my initial plan of 50. I thought that might be a bit too much for my shoulders given how little time I've spent on a bar lately. I think it still hit some bits that needed work.
Definitley a wussy time, mainly the run I'm afraid.

But I get a day with Dr. Romanov in  two day's time. I won't run any faster afterwards I know, but I will know how it's supposed to be done.

An experiment; Presses and step-ups

AMRAP 12
6 x 30kg press
12 each leg x 30kg step-ups to a 12" box

I lost count, 5 rounds and 3 presses? 4 rounds and 3 presses? 6 rounds seems unlikely.

I started out with 35kg and that lasted 1.5 rounds. The presses just bogged down too much.
First round was bar in the rack position, great for core strength, wrists couldn't handle it. Subsequent rounds had it on my back.

30 was doable.

Step-ups are something I've been working on to sort out my glute and hamstring recruitment in my left leg. I normally use a 20"ish step and thought 12" with weight might be interesting to try. It was.
About 4 reps were extremely painful as I levered my way up on  my quads, the rest I concentrated on opening my hips starting right from the bottom and they worked beautifully. I suspect I'll have sore adductors tomorrow. That would be good. Sore knees would not, but I guess they'll be there anyway.

Biltong

I thought I try a mid-week batch using a shortened version of the process I had such success with last time.

See modified steps below.

It was a failure.

The flavour of the vinegar didn't penetrate and the meat wound up being effectively cooked, a little like well done steak.

The experimental process was:

1. Salt the beef
   Salted at 1900.
2. Let it sit for a couple of hours.
   Until 2045
3. Wash the salt off with vinegar and worcester sauce.
   Still used the worcester sauce.
4. Apply the spices.
   Both coriander and black pepper.
5. Let it sit for a few hours.
   Didn't do this so I could get it in the dehydrator overnight.
   Until I come across some other factor that overrides the result of this experiment this, this step is going back in.
6. Cut it into strips.
   As written
7. Dry it in the dehydrator.
   I did not have time to do the two stage drying process so set the dehydrator on max and went to bed.
   Marking that as a serious fail right  now. Good thing it was a  smaller batch so I won't have to eat too much of the overcooked result.

So next time the two stage drying is back as is letting it rest after washing the salt off.

Deadlifts and Cindy

4RFT
6 x 80kg deadlift
3 pull-ups
6 ring push-ups, rings at top of the patella height.
9 squats

12:18

Nothing outstanding.
Pull-ups were disappointing after some useful kipping practise in the weekend. Oh well.

Run and snatch

5RFT
200m
6 x 35kg Hang Power Snatch
20 Air squats

18:19

If you squint it might be mistaken for gymnastics

I forgot to start the watch but it's irrelevant because although there was lots of sweating and puffing and some cursing, it was from fear rather than intensity.

Scaled on the fly when my planned manoeuvres proved beyond me.

3RNFT as it turned out
5 handstand kick-ups against the wall, touch butt to wall and then back down.
10 body rows, feet on a 12" box

I was hoping for at least partial straddle presses to handstands, but getting my butt against the wall was too scary for a start and I lack almost completely the core strength to stabilise my midline  while my feet come away from the wall.

After I finished and had been getting my butt against the wall reasonably comfortably I set myself up in that position and got calm, then drifted my feet out from the wall and back again about 9 times to prove I could do it. Didn't try for the straddle, which would probably have been easier, but anyhoo.


After:
Ice-cream makers, or more accurately wild thrashing around while hanging off a pull-up bar.

400m, deadlifts, press

400m
21 x 60kg deadlifts
12 x 35kg press

400m

15 x 60kg deadlifts

9 x 35kg press

400m

9 x 60kg deadlifts

6 x 35kg press

14:20

When I picked up the 35kg my hands told me it was so light I should be doing curls with it, but my puny shoulders quickly told me my hands were lying b******s who didn't know what they were talking about

Somewhat related to Cindy

3RFT
5 x 50kg squats. Not box, not especially wide, just low bar squats.
3 rounds of:
    3 pull-ups
    6 ring push-ups. Ring height counted in units that have "ty" in the numbers so not going there.
    9 x 17kg dbell swings

15:23

Squats. Used my sawhorse/spotters as depth gauges. Not unhappy, but I want to do a lot better.
Pull-ups. One nearly decent kip amongst them.
Dbell swings. Lost the groove there. A few were spot on like in "the good ole dayz", nice and crisp. Most were sloppy. That's a much better weight for me for now. I don't have to be totally focussed to control the rep, so there's room for me to get puffed.

Biltong/Jerky. No, just biltong; I've been doing it all wrong!

Ignore all my previous recipes and testing. I just sampled the latest batch that finished drying this morning and I'm really struggling to restrain myself from going back and eating the lot.

The correct workflow is:

1. Salt the beef
   I've seen some recipes refer to applying baking powder too. In the past that just fizzed off when I marinaded it in vinegar, so I stopped doing it.
   I'll try it again.
2. Let it sit for a couple of hours.
   This draws out moisture and toughens the outside of the beef noticeably so that you get that characteristic biltong chewy outside and softer inside. I'm going to try letting one batch of salted beef sit overnight to see if that overdoes it, just so I know what I can do with the timing of the various sections for when my calendar is full.
   Nope, have to go eat some more, back soon.
   OK, stocked up for the rest of the typing.
3. Wash the salt off with vinegar and worcester sauce.
   I'm not sure about the sauce. Because the beef doesn't marinade in the liquid, I'm not sure I need to cut the vinegar flavour with the Worcester sauce any more.
   I'll tinker with that.
4. Apply the spices.
   I only use coriander and forgot the black pepper.
   More tinkering
5. Let it sit for a few hours.
   I'm really not sure this is necessary and it's the first thing I'm going to alter by removing it.
   If it isn't I'll save a lot of time.
6. Cut it into strips.
   Only because it dries better in the dehydrator. In a true biltong box I wouldn't do this.
   I might try some whole pieces again, the toughened meat shrinks a little too so my little dehydrator may cope better.
7. Dry it in the dehydrator.
   I can see a biltong box or Excalibur style dehydrator in my future here.
   Something I did a little differently was dry it on the highest setting for about 3 hours, then drop the heat down to, damnit, I can't remember, lower anyway, to finish the job overnight.
   This resulted in the biltong being less "cooked" and more dried, altogether more desirable.

Oh, result (because I didn't state it explicitly); Absolutely fantastically delicious biltong!

Playing a bit

3RFT
5 x 30kg hang power snatch
10 x rollouts
30 squats
9:something. Reset the watch afterwards

That would be good as a 5 rounder if I had a bit more time.

That may have been stupid

3RFT
5 x 30kg OHS
200m
6:24

Rather wussy really

The stupid bit?
I think I injured my elbow practising kipping afterwards. Off to get the ice pack.

Hey, at least I did something.

Box squats
3 x 10 x 30kg, 12" box.
Next time, pad the box to 14" and sit back more.

3RFT
10 x 30kg GTOH
10 shoot-throughs as per Tucker, only sloppier dammit.
12:19

Shoulders held up OK during the workout, although they contributed little to the push-ups, and swing back through the paralettes.
There was some good stuff amongst the bad. Very little intensity, just a steady plod through.

The long awaited pull-up bar post

Well I've been awaiting it, even if no-one else has.

Yesterday I "completed" my pull-up bars.
"Completed" because although they need some more work, they can be used for actual pullups, as established by me.
In the process I also established that:

1. My max. pull-ups is now about 4.
2. I've forgotten how to kip properly.
   I still can sort of, but I had them at one point where I was only giving a very minimal pull to get up to the bar on a playground swing structure
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   
   and chest-to bar seemed possible on a proper bar. Chest-to-bar is a distant goal again now.
3. I can't do ball-ups (I can't figure out how to link to Facebook posts directly, so just believe me that it's there somewhere)  even remotely.

The finished bars are an adaptation of a design posted here http://board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=13753. They had to be:

• Free-stranding
• Able to be disassembled so that they could be moved if we moved.
• Tall enough that I could kip on them without touching the ground and ideally able to accommodate rings when I want to try muscle-ups.

This is them in almost their final incarnation.

From Pull-up_bar_2010

I discovered that the amount of flex in the uprights was enough to allow the diagonal braces to slide out from under the blocks pinning the in place, so I added some additional bracing that turned out to have an unexpected function

From Pull-up_bar_2010

when I get tired I can put my feet on these (currently) unpainted braces and rest for a bit.

Along the way I tried and rejected an alternate bracing system that would definitely have been better if I had the tools and technical ability to pull it off. I'm afraid that the process of manufacture was one of leaning just how to pull off the designs I wanted with the tools I had available which didn't let me work the precision I needed. Normally the angled braces would be bolted through the uprights and base plates at an angle with very long galvanised bolts and I found that despite importing a drill guide from the states I still couldn't drill straight enough holes for that length of bolt, so the system of pinning the braces under the blocks was used.

The timber I bought initially came from a hardware store that kept it in a shed. I rejected places that stored it outside because all of the timber was cracked and warped. The 4x4's I bought from there have warped horribly and I threw one of the uprights out because it was twisting so badly. I replaced it with a 4x4 bought from a local timber merchant too small to have undercover storage so I could see from the start whether it was going to warp once it weathered. That one's holding up well. Slightly twisted and starting to crack a little, but nothing like that first one.

The bar is pipe, 36mm OD. It's held from rotating by a bolt at each end through the 4x2 sitting on the outside of the uprights. Those also stop the pipe from pulling out as the structure rocks.

The whole thing works well. The bar is a little too high. I set it up to have clearance if I put a deck over the base plates as I suspect I will at some point. I should have just drilled two sets of holes through the uprights, but I had had so little success drilling straight holes with a spade bit I was relieved to have those two come out right. I'd gotten the hang of using the drill guide by then so I probably could have made it.

There is a lot of lateral movement. The metal fastenings are not going to let it go any place, but I will certainly add a top brace in the future. I didn't for a start because I wanted to leave room above the bar for bar muscle-ups and flips over the bar, but I'd rather have the structure solid. It will last longer that way.

The whole thing rocks back and forth as one unit if I swing wildly in my kip. As in the base plates lift of the ground like it's going to tip. It won't, it's too heavy to allow that. Largely that's inefficient kipping technique on my part. Properly done a kip is an oscillation about a vertical line through the bar, I've just forgotten how from lack of practise.

So I finally have a real pull-up bar.

And I must thank my lovely assistant at the painting stage.

From Pull-up_bar_2010

Child labour again. Thanks shorty fella.

Don't even mention it

Box squats.
Back to the bar and even put 2 x 10kg plates on the box, so probably 14".

Left knee is not happy. Tension and pain build up on the inside until about 4" above parallel and then it clicks and all is right, same on the way up. That's the best version. The worst sees it collapse as it clicks.

It's all about quad dominance still dammit. My right leg is fine, but the left hip rotates in and the hamstrings don't grab and the knee just goes all over.

 I noticed it walking up stairs, right leg fine, left leg limping jump up to get pas that clicking point. If  I concentrate I can get the left hip and knee to work correctly, but let my focus slip even a little and it's back to the habitual pattern. So I'm trying doing step-ups a few times during the day to get the awareness going. First day so I have no idea if this is going to work. I hope so, I'm sick of fixing one movement pattern and then finding that I've exposed a deficiency in another. I don't think a single major joint functions the way it's supposed to, I've been an assembly of poorly joint stability and incorrect muscle recruitment for decades. Why wasn't CrossFit around when I was in school to teach me how to move dammit.
 Or I wish I'd taken dance lessons like I wanted to.

This is the hand I have, I'll play with the cards I've been dealt. Enough grizzling.
If only it don't bloody hurt though! :-)