Lucas and one of his friends having a discussion
Michelle and I at "the wedding"
Last week was a tough one. Four early mornings (either 530 or 6am wakeup) and full days all the way through til closing the zone at 730/8pm, as well as trying to get through my last true "hard week" before the Canadian champs. That on top of a few stressful things at work made me really happy that I reached Saturday afternoon relatively unscathed and with a few new PR's in my back pocket :)
I think that the forced break I've had from running is making me gain strength more easily, which makes sense - less time spent on low force high volume activity in favor of high force lower volume activity. Looking forward to next year's plan I will be mapping out sections during the year to focus on strength development with maintenance running so that I can maximize my gains. It's brutally hard to gain in all areas at once but if focused work is put in on one or two areas while others are maintained, one could reasonably expect better overall gains through the year... this is of course the idea behind periodization (i.e. the planned organization of training in a progressive manner aimed at developing peak performance during certain phases of the year) and more and more CrossFit athletes appear to be adopting this strategy as the focus on elite competitions increases.
Anyhow, that's probably a topic for another blog, so on to my update of my recent training.
Run in with Ronin
"Ronin" is one of the nicknames of our Crossfit prodigy, Lucas. His other names are Scoots (for his fondness of scooting his body around on a foam/pvc roller), little monkey (for his simian abilities), and my favorite, pumpkin (for his charming demeanor and orangey fur). As I've taken to naming workouts after people in our gym or experiences that I've had, it was only appropriate that I develop a nasty, heavy WOD in honor of Lucas.
Vital components of such a workout would have to be two of the most feared components of wods - heavy thrusters and muscle ups. Lucas excels in both strength work and gymnastics so this was a perfect fit. In most Crossfit workouts, the standard men's thruster weight is 95lb, occasionally going up to 115 or 135 for the heavier ones. I figured this wasn't heavy enough to challenge Lucas, so I made the thruster weight 155lb. Muscle ups are tough but usually most good CF male athletes can rattle off 3-5 in a row during a WOD. Again, this wasn't quite challenging enough and so I decided to have 7 muscle ups per round to test Lucas' ability (and everyone else's of course) to go unbroken. So the full workout ended up looking like this:
"Ronin"
4 rounds for time of:
7 thrusters at 155lb (115lb for the women)
7 muscle ups (14 chest to bar pullups for the women)
One of our best all round CF athletes, Tom, trains early in the day and gave the rest of us a benchmark time (15:58 or so) to chase in the evening. I was highly motivated for this workout and figured on around 12 minutes or hopefully better. I hit the workout in the 430 class alongside a real raw beast, Shane, who will probably be top 4 in our gym if he continues to develop his skills. The workout was tough to say the least, I got to a point several times where I just couldn't complete thrusters or muscle ups but managed to rest appropriately and finish with a decent time - 12:27 or so. My shoulders and legs were rubbished but I was happy with my performance. In competition circumstances I figure I could knock about a minute and a half off that time. Shane did really well finishing in 15 or 16 min.
Lucas popped in later, with all of us anticipating his destruction of his namesake wod. he came in tired and sore from a heavy session earlier that day but after about 45min of "scooting" he plucked up his chest and got into the workout. Set after set came unbroken as Lucas rested perfectly in between thrusters and muscle ups. Towards the end he had to break a bit but we urged him on to get sub 10 minutes. with a few muscle ups to go it looked like he would make it but just missed, finishing around 10:15. A tremendous effort and well worthy of the name Ronin.
I'm looking forward to seeing Lucas and the rest of our gang take on the best in Canada at the Canadian Championships. Lucas has got his training dialed in and is looking good in WODs (no pressure pumpkin if you're reading this!) and the rest of us are well prepped to compete strongly in Okotoks in about 10 days. Should be a great time.
Here's the rundown of the rest of the training I got in this past week:
Wed - "Ronin” – 4 rounds for time of: 7 thrusters (155), 7 muscle ups – 12:27
this wasn't quite fatiguing enough ( ;) ) so after a break of about 10 min I followed it up with some hard rowing - (W/R) – 2/1, 1/1, 2/1, 1/1, 2/1 (1:45ish), 4x 1/1 1:40ish
Thurs - my first venture back into running - very cautious, but felt good - Light run: 50m flat or downhill jog, 100m walk for 20min (10k pace)
Fri - 2 PR's today - first workout at PISE - Wts: snatch 3’s + 1 snatch balance: 30, 40, 50, 60kg. Snatch: 60kg (132lb) x 11 single reps. Deadlifts 3’s: 120, 130, 140, 150, 160, 170kg (374lb) PR really happy with this as I don't deadlift heavy very much!
2nd workout at CFZ - really tough metcon, meant to work on some key skills (handstand pushups - hspu; toes to bar - ttb; heavy kettlebell swings - kbs) and my second go at running at a moderate pace. This wod was named after Heather B's dog, who is a stunning and friendly beast - Tupper: 4 x 10hspu, 15 ttb, 20kbs (unbrkn, 2pd/70lb), 200m run: 18: 56 tough! first set of handstand pushups were strict and a full 10 reps - a PR by 1 rep, but I'll take it!!
Sat - rested, really tired Fri night and all Saturday
Sun - 1st workout at UVic, another personal record! - Wts – cl+j to dmax: 80kg, 90, 100, 105 PB C+J PR!, 85kg x 1 cl, 2 jerks x 5. Bench Press – 3’s 165, 185, 205, 215, 225 x 1 x 4. Back Squats – 3’s 185, 225, 245, 265, 275 x 1 x 4
GHD situps – 15, 12, 9, 6, 3 alternated with 20 du’s, good to test the calf, it feels really good so far :)
2nd workout - 1.5 hour mtb ride at Hartland, forgot my seat, so it was tough! Lots of little lizards scurrying around, all nicely colored and a very beautiful black and yellow garter snake, about 12-14" long. Pretty neat.
That's it for now, another more serious run workout tomorrow morning and a rowing/burpee metcon at the zone in the PM.
Cam
No comments:
Post a Comment