A Mother of a Workout

Today's Crossfit workout was unbelievably hard. Only two people did the full workout without scaling it and I wasn't one of those people, but I was happy with how I did. It was the deadlifts that got me, I had to scale the weight back from 315 to 235 after about 5 reps at 315. First we worked our way up to our deadlift max. I easily hit a new personnel best of 345. I could have gone higher but I saw the workout ahead and decided to save my strength. Today's WOD 1000 Meter Row 10 deadlifts 315 10 Chest to Bar Pullups 10 deadlifts 315 10 Chest to Bar Pullups 50 Jump Rope Double Unders 50 Butterfly Situps 50 Jump Rope Double Unders 50 Butterfly Situps 30 Kettle Bell Swings 53Lbs 30 Lunges 30 Kettle Bell Swings 53Lbs 30 Lunges Finished in a little over 26 min Tonights plan Judo after work then sleep until Monday.

Recent Updates

I haven’t posted on this site in quite a while, partially because I am lazy, partially because I am busy but mostly because for some reason blogspot does not work well from where I work anymore. I will probably need to find a new posting site soon. In any event, here are some recent updates. April I competed in the NY Open and won my division. Truth be told I didn’t fight very well but it was nice to get my first tournament victory at Brown belt out of the way. I am starting to get more comfortable at Brown and look forward to more competitions. May May, as usual was a “take it easy” month for me. I always have a lot going on in May. We have my wife’s birthday, Mother’s Day, our usually Memorial Day BBQ and there is always one other thing that pops up. That means every weekend in the month is booked and at least one or two days during the week is spent getting ready for whatever is going on that weekend. So instead of stressing about getting my training in I use May as a rest and recover from the tuff training I did to get ready for the NY Open. I still train, I just take it easy and go when I can. Jun There is an In House tournament that is being hosted by JW on Jun 16th. I am happy to say we have a bunch of guys that are planning on competing. I believe we have 3 or 4 White belts, 2 or 3 Blue belts and 1 or 2 Brown belts that plan on going. I am a big believer in In House tournaments, especially for White and Blue belts. This In House will be especially good for a few reasons: 1) Very fairly priced, $30 for preregistered, $40 day of 2) Very high level of competition 3) Safe friendly atmosphere with fair judging I can guarantee that at every rank the competition will be better than any standard Grapplers Quest or NAGA, the tournament will be run much better, it will finish at a reasonable time and it will cost less than half as much. Jul – Aug My summertime focus will turn toward getting ready for the fall Judo season. I still haven’t competed as a Judo Black belt yet so I figure it is time to take the new belt for a test run. I have been competing against Black belts for quite a while so that is nothing new but I know competing AS a Black belt will have some added pressure. A big part of getting ready is going to be conditioning. My Judo skills are not yet high enough to win on technique alone. I need to win on technique and SUPERIOR conditioning. Conditioning Goals for the Summer Legs Legs Legs – It has become painfully obvious that my leg power, specifically my squatting power is ridiculously week. So this summer is project legs. I don’t plan on turning into a quadzilla as functionality is as important if not more important than raw power. However I do think powerful legs can be a huge advantage in grappling, especially Judo so I need to find the right balance between power and functionality. Goals for Sep Oct Nov Compete in at least 3 Judo tournaments

Age and Experience vs Youth and Exuberance

Today’s WOD was a killer.

100 meter sprint
10 burpees
10 Chin ups

10 Rounds!!!!

I checked the times of the other class I saw that all but 4 people scaled the WOD. Scaling this WOD meant jumping off a box into each chin up. The 4 guys that didn’t scale the WOD put up times in the low 20s. The coach told us our goal should be under 30 min. I knew under 20 was not in the cards, but I thought I could shoot for something in the mid 20 min range. Then I thought, “wait a min, only 4 guys did it without scaling and they put up incredible times so that means they were in incredible shape, maybe I should scale it too? Nah, F it! let’s see if I can do it without scaling.”

So there were 5 people in the class, me, a young skinny ripped guy, a girl, a new guy and another guy around my age. The ripped guy and I were the only ones planning on doing the WOD without scaling. Everyone else set up their boxes for the jump chin-ups right from the start.

Round 1
Right out of the gate Team Ripped Guy took off like a bat out of hell into the sprint, Team Hot Chick also started strong but not a full on sprint, Team Other Guy and Team New Guy held the middle of the pack and Team Old Guy (me) slowly took up the rear. I was the last one to finish the sprint and the last to finish the burpees.

Round 3
Team Ripped guy was still going strong, Team Hot Chick was starting to struggle with the chin-ups, Team Other Guy was holding his own but falling back, Team New Guy was doing his best and Team Old Guy was trudging along at an even pace but already starting to suck some wind.

Round 5
Team Ripped Guy is starting to rest between exercises and showing signs of struggle with the chin-ups, Team Hot Chick is mentally forcing herself through each chin-up one at a time, Team Other Guy has slowed his pace dramatically but was still going, Team New guy was still doing his best and Team Old Guy was getting the feeling of wanting to throw-up. Time was somewhere in the 13 min range.

Round 7
Team Ripped Guy was no longer able to do the chin-ups without scaling them. When I saw him scaling it gave me a huge boost of energy and the motivation to keep going.

Round 8
Team Old Guy pulls neck and neck with Team Ripped Guy who is still scaling the chin-ups.

Round 10
Team Ripped Guy finished in 22:50 but scaled rounds 7-10. Team Old Guy finished with a time of 24:03 (technically still in the low 20s) and was the only person in the class that didn’t scale the WOD!

Score one for Team Old Guy! Now rest and recover before BJJ tonight.

2/21/12 WOD

Today's crossfit WOD was pretty good, not ridiculously hard but very challenging. What made it post worthy is I did it "unborken" WOD. Normally I pace myself, slow and steady through the working taking rests at appropriate times so I can keep up a good pace. Today I decide to go balls out, no rest between sets, exercises or rounds. I also decided NOT to pace myself, I just hit the workout at a sprinters pace and ignored my mind screaming at me to slow down. It felt good to really open up.

wod

3 Rounds of

5 Pullups
10 Hand release pushups
15 2 handed overhead kettle bell swings
20 Burpees
25 Double unders

Surprisingly it was the burpees that killed me.

Old Man

I went out to JWs last night for some good hard training and as usually I was not disappointed. I did all three classes kettle bells, no gi and gi. Doing all three classes back to back is a tuff challenge physically but an even tuffer challenge mentally. By the time I left I was completely drained but it felt great.

It's nice to know I still have enough gas in the tank for a long haul training session.

WOD

Posting on this site have been few and far between, but today's CrossFit workout was posting worthy.

21 Deadlifts (225 lbs)
21 Hand Stand Pushups
25 Overhead Power Snatches (75lbs)

15 Deadlifts (225 lbs)
15 Hand Stand Pushups
25 Overhead Power Snatches (75lbs)

9 Deadlifts (225 lbs)
9 Hand Stand Pushups
25 Overhead Power Snatches (75lbs)

Puke (optional)

Lots of Changes

There have been lots of changes over the last couple of months and I have kept very very busy. I will probably move to a once a month update on this site so here is my update for this month. For more frequent random thoughts check out my posts at www.osagame.net/blog

Updates
Judo promotion to Black Belt - Check
BJJ promotion to Brown Belt - Check

Next on the list

Judo - Focus on grip fighting and footsweeps
BJJ - Focus on no gi bottom game
Fitness - Crossfit 3 - 5 times per week