Deadlifts

Pulled the pin at 120kg.
I could have made the rep I bailed on from the video.
Then 20 x 60kg and called it quits.

Just very heavy, left hip and pelvis feel a bit hot, not too chuffed about that effort.

Because I want a back tuck

And according to this http://journal.crossfit.com/2010/09/carl1.tpl#featureArticleTitle a hang power clean and a fast knee to elbow are the components of one.
But not the way I do the HPC I think.

5RFT
10 x 40kg HPC
10 KTE

10:59
1 1:16
2 2:13
3 2:15
4 2:33
5 2:40

Forgot to video the HPC. I need to do that before I go heavier.

Squats

3 x 57.5kg
20 x 30kg

They're still not as solid as I need them to be, but they're good enough at that weight for me to be willing to move up a bit. It would be nice to be able to squat something I can't put overhead.

I still don't know:
If my feet are the right width.
If I should be toes out or straight ahead. The fact that I can't keep my right toes straight forward is worrying. I should be able to make a choice, not have it forced upon me. The Westfield toe position discussion thing isn't an issue for me right now.

Carry stuff back and forth

3RFT
Carry 4 sandbags of varying weight and 3 medicine balls, also varying, to the end of the drive.
Carry 4 sandbags of varying weight and 3 medicine balls, also varying, back from the end of the drive.
About 25 meters.
10 x 30kg GTOAH

24:21

Never done the carry heavy stuff thing, it make a mockery of even my attempts to "run".
GTOAH were a bit light, that was supposed to be a bit heavy and instead it was lack of puff that got me.

I was cheered on by, raced by and frequently interrogated by my infrequent workout partner.
I could catch her on the run back to get another sandbag in the first round, but she had me while carrying the bags. By round 3 I couldn't keep up with her unloaded.
And she had to rest because she was getting tired.
Then the cheering "Go Craig" started, interspersed with "Are you tired? Why are you tired?"

I'd like to pointy out missy, you were the one taking a rest!

Deadlifts

3 x 132.5kg PB
15 x 90kg

I haven't been mobilising my thoracic spine enough, I had to fight too hard to get it tight.
Bowed a bit under load. Not badly, just enough for me not to be happy with it.

But the lifts were pretty OK. No silly changing grip halfway through.
My head still isn't in it 100%, probably 60-70%. It's coming.

90kg for the high reps is much more realistic. That was a struggle but not a desperate one.

Modded Helen

3RFT
21 x 20" Rockets (http://media.crossfit.com/kids/1legboxjump.mov http://media.crossfit.com/kids/1legboxjump.wmv)
21 x 12kg T-handle swings (all the plates I had handy)
12 pull-ups

11:32

1 3:33
2 4:01
3 3:57

Calf is tight so I didn't want to run tonight.
Rockets were fun. I could easily use a higher box if I had one.
T-handle swings were the first use in anger. I still haven't made anything to stop the plates slipping up the handle so eyebrow height was it. Too light really because most of my plates don't quite fit over the pipe and I haven't finished sorting through them all to find the ones that will. I'll take a file to the flashing in the holes at some stage and fix the fit problem.
Pull-ups. Broken as I expected. Reps 5-8 in the 3rd round were magic, shoulders above the bar, nice and smooth. And reps 9-12 were even better, yeah right, back to jerkily hauling my chin over the bar and flopping back down. At least I had those perfect 4.

Overall lacked intensity and yet it was more than just ticking the box so I'm happy at this stage.

Back squats

Just up to 5s at 50kg, but I'm happier with what I'm seeing.
I've been hunching my thoracic spine over to support the bar so I dive for the ground head first, sort of. I didn't get toe h halcyon of Kstarr's head-up set-up but I kept my spine more in line an d that helped, a lot.
Knees still drifting in although at one point it almost looks as though I'm pushing them out too far for too long. Interesting to go too far for a change.

Some cautious increases in weight coming up at this rate.

Amped up cut-down Cindy

3RFT
"Run" 200m
2 Rounds of modified Puppies Cindy
3 dead-hang pull-ups
6 Push-ups with hand release
9 x 12kg dumbbell thrusters

19:23

Round
1 5:27
2 6:34
3 7:20

Runs weren't a disaster. Not the sprint the distance deserved of course. Left calf cramped on the last run home, telltale that I haven't been stretching it enough.

Pull-ups easy.
Push-ups rather good. I like the hand release thing. I don't launch into the next rep as quickly as I would like and that's not all bad as I use the time to set my shoulders and drive my hips up first, which really means I get a tight plank going.
Dbell thrusters. Oh my goodness! Not fun, not easy, broken as heck! Total character failure, I just couldn't power through them.
Definitely using them again. I like that I don't get to muscle them up with my right arm compensating for my left. I like that I don't need to use a weight heavy enough to hurt my back to have the movement really hit me hard.
Not keen on the bruised collar bones where I drop the weight though.

Deadlifts

Tripled 130kg which I'm claiming as a PB. I've done more when I was training full-on powerlifting but that was with questionable form.
Tossed up going heavier instead, but I don't know that I would have gotten much more than a single and I don't want to keep getting singles.

Then 20 x 80kg.
Much better then the 10-12 I was getting with 100kg. I think as a high rep set it should have been more like 90kg and 15ish reps, but that's hindsight that I'll try to remember for next time.

Now I'll probably get sick and take months to get back to here again.

Fran 9x5 version

Because sometimes you just have to do Fran

9RFT
5 x 20kg thrusters
5 pull-ups

13:21

But I'm pretty sure that that was 10 rounds. The problem is using the lap timer on the watch I bought in America to count rounds. The controls are all in American and I get confused translating.

Let's see
Round Time Total_time
1 1:36 1:36
2 :23 2 That's right forgot to press the lap button until into the 2nd round
3 1:13 3:14
4 1:38 4:53
5 1:46 6:39
6 1:29 8:09
7 1:56 10:05
8 1:30 11:36
9 1:41 13:17
10 :04 13:21

Right got it now 9th round I should have pressed stop instead of lap.
Pretty sucky time for Fran and I don't care, it was fun.

Tried to sit back hard and drive my knees out in the front squats to stay upright and get my hips into it. Did OK.
It started raining lightly just as I started so time was lost drying the pull-up bar. If I'd stopped completely and got a towel instead of wiping my hands on my clothes I probably would have lost less time. Pull-ups were a bit blah, grip problems (rain) and just out of practise.

Anyway, it's a data point. Now I hope to see that drop and turn into the 5 x 9 then the true 21-15-9 prescription

Squats

5 or so x 50kg
20 x 20kg

Decided I wasn't getting anywhere beating myself up trying to rush the weights, so backed off and worked with 40 and 50kg and tried to get a decent groove.

I see elements of something that can work for me I hope.

Which is not what I said last week, then I was going to just shove some weight on the bar and go for it.

There's something I'm missing. Probably just "do more squats". :-)

Deadlifts

Made it to 2 x 130kg this week
130kg x 2
100 x 9
Lost my grip on the 2nd rep and that lost my rather precarious focus.
Failed in the head more than anything, which is pretty much my problem really.

Still, it's one more rep than last week.

This "high-rep" set is proving troublesome. Time to drop that back and get an honest 15-20 reps

Something borrowed

I came up with this on my own, honest, just Jeff came up with it earlier and his version was simpler to set up.

5RFT
10 x 25kg GTOHA (Ground To OverHead Anyhow)
2 x length of the driveway and back, both hands touch the ground at the end lines, body behind the line. About 25 meters-ish.

10:04

My version had ring push-ups after the GTOHA which would have meant moving the motorbike out of the shed and back again.
GTOHA were mostly power-cleans and push-jerks, with some degree of press in many of them.

Skorpion Quadlines

My Skorpion Quadlines arrived yesterday.

Opened up all the way they fit if I wear round toed shoes like my KSwiss Samba lookalikes.

You'll notice there's no video of me gleefully zipping up and down the driveway on them. that's because
a) It was raining
b) I can barely stand up in them.

The bearings in them are amazingly smooth, flick a wheel and it runs for nearly 10 seconds, so there's no resistance to any slight imbalance in weight distribution to hold them steady. As a result my feet wobble back and forth just like they did when I first got onboard a pair of skates. I thought the bearings on my rollerblades were pretty good, these are amazing.
These things are going to be fast! And as I'm not that good a skater, that could be a problem.

They're very well made. All plastic, but plastic for lightness and not at all flimsy.

I went looking for some in the U.S at stores that were supposed to stock them, but couldn't find them. Then when I was looking around for them when I got back home I found references to them being a kiwi invention. And they are.
So I got in touch with the owner of the company based in Hamilton and he got me a pair from a small batch he was bringing in.

They're much more stable than roller blades, turn like quads, don't get blocked by small stones and cracks like quads would and put you closer to the ground than quadlines would. And you can wear your ordinary shoes to the skate path, carry these in a backpack and not have to lug booted skates around.

Very very impressed. I hope I can learn to use them!
Mission bay and the track at Botany as soon as the weather (and time I guess) allows. Anyone know any other places to skate around Auckland?

@#%*^%$ Squats again

2 x 3 x 60kg
20 x 30kg

Knees all over the place.
I think that's what's bugging me the most, that I can't keep my knees out.
The funny thing is that with the work I've been doing with Kelly's stretches, especially today, it's now my right hip that won't rotate around to let me sit into eh squat. I mean it always was, but before my left hip was so bad that it was the problem and now it's improved to the point where the right one is a nuisance.

But that means that the technique works, so if I can sort them both out I may have chance at getting this thing to work.

Lots of bad language on the video tonight.

Character failure

3RFT
200m
10 pull-ups
15 x 12kg dumbbell presses]

14:35

After the first round the lack of character manifested initially in the form of breaks from Pose technique practice which quickly became stopping to walk. It must have been during one of those episodes of head-hanging shame that Lynette and Allan drove past me, because when I eventually made it back to the driveway, they were parking the van.
Pull-ups were broken to plan and got better as I went through. 5 and 5 in the last round, 4,4,2 for the first two. Hands held up well.
Dumbbell presses deteriorated after the first round two. I didn't expect that, but wasn't surprised. OK with it.

Coughing madly now so I just have been exerting myself a little.

Deadlifts

Got up to 130kg for a single.

Not at all tidy. If things don't get a bit smarter than that I won't be lifting any more than that for a bit.

Had to use an alternating grip instead of hooking. The left thumb is just not getting better and it takes too much off my concentration to get past it.
Couldn't set my back tight, very frustrating.