James can be reached at TwinFreaks CrossFit, where he is an owner and trainer. James coaches barbell lifting classes and CrossFit classes. Contact him by email at james@twinfreakscrossfit.com or by phone at 720-204-2631.

Friday, March 9, 2012

Fifth OLAP, 12-3 & Thoughts on the Open

Thursday is deadlift and bench day.  I wanted to do CrossFit Open workout 12-3 at 5:30 am as a warm up before lifting at 6:30, but there was an even number of people at 5:30, and I didn't want to ruin the flow.

At 6:30 I commenced lifting.  My works sets were:
Bench 6 x 3 x 205
Deadlift 6 x 3 x 320

Benching was uneventful.  I did my work on the bands and had no trouble.
Deadlifting, however, was horrible.  I was tired, and with lingering pain in my hamstrings, it seemed to take seconds to lock out each pull.  I had much more time under tension than usual, and I almost passed out a couple times.

I'm not worried about this yet.  It could just be a bad day, but if trouble persists I'll have to adjust training.  If I'm forced to I'll switch to either speed pulls, or deficit pulls off a couple mats.  Either one of these would allow me to train effectively with a hundred pounds less on the bar.  I know too that if a proficient squat is going up, the sumo deadlift can't be getting worse, so I'll make adjustments to keep squatting and back off on the pulling if I have to, and even a little technique work should give me a decent pull at the meet in May.


I came back Thursday night to try 12-3, AMRAP 18 15 box jumps 24", 12 push presses 115#, 9 toes-to-bar.  My idea was to do the jumps and presses, try one toes-to-bar and see how I felt.  As it was, the toes-to-bar didn't cause me any immediate pain, so I finished the round.  I didn't think I should do more pressing and risk the shoulder, and knowing that it was hard to do more box jumps.  I finished with 1 round and 1 box jump for a score of 37.

After the second Open workout, I was right in the middle of the field.  It's tempting for me to do 12-3 again and see what I can really do.  I thought about if for 15 minutes and decided not to be stupid.  Attempting to stay in the top half is not worth more down time if the shoulder does blow up.

What is the World's Fittest Man anyway if not a marketing gimmick?

The only reason I am not the word's fittest man, at least in my age group, is that I didn't copyright the phrase.  If I had, I would start determining who is the fittest by a 500 meter row.  Since there are a few people worldwide who can beat me there, I'd have to precede the row with 20 squats at  - let's see, 245 pounds.

James Open Workout 1 (the only one)
Squat 245 x 20
500 meter row

That should make me the worlds fittest man in my group, and if I had a bad day and finished second or third, that's still good enough for the Reebok shit, and I'd really like to meet and train with that other guy or two.

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