Tuesday 1/10/12

Tuesday was a good day for me. I went into the workout knowing it was a lot of cardio, but I know that is something that is a weakness of mine. I went onto the website and was excited because I saw we were also doing cleans, which is a favorite lift of mine.

Strength WOD:
5x3x1 Cleans

I just learned how to do the full power clean from the ground and catch it in the full squat. Since college, I have always just done hang cleans and never dipped to catch the weight. Since starting CrossFit, I have focused a lot more on my form, and have seen a hug improvement in my strength. I started light and knocked out a set of 225 very easy. I then moved up to 245 and did my set of 3. The weight was still easy, but I noticed how sore my quads were from the 30 squats at 225 from the day before. I put on 275 and got it relatively easy which was my previous PR. I had it set in my mind that I would set a new PR today and had that mentality when I went to the gym. I then put a 10 on each side of the bar. My thoughts were that I was doing 285 for some reason (this is actually 295). I got a good clean in and set my new PR at 295 (still thinking it was 285). I then grabbed 2 more 10's and put it on the bar thinking I was now attempting 295 (I now had 315 on the bar). I got a good pull but was too tired to try and stand up. I was excited that I had a new clean PR at "285".

WOD:
3 Rounds
Row 500m
Run 400m

This workout was prescribed for 5 rounds, but Tiffany and I had to hurry up and get to the school for the basketball game. We decided to just do 3 rounds. Right after I dropped the bar on cleans I had to hurry over to the rower because I was running behind attempting 295 (315).

I began rowing as fast as I could. This is only the second time I used a rower so I have not quite figured it out yet. My philosophy was just to pull the thing as fast a possible. I maintained a 1:30 pace for the first 500m, which I felt pretty good about. My strokes per minute was 31 which I never really pay attention to. I go into the run and really felt the tightness in my legs. I kept moving through the workout and by the third time on the rower, Frankie helped me to work smarter not harder. He told me to pull hard but let it back slower. I felt like I was doing half the work. On the third row, I kept a 1:45 pack and was down to 27 strokes per minute. I still have some work to do, but he showed my something that could really help me in the future. I finished my last 200m in a sprint and finished the workout in 13:10. A little slower than I planned, but after the cleans I felt good about it.

We had to hurry up and get out of the gym so my stretching was minimal, but I was able to get about 5 minutes of active stretching in. I was pumped about my new PR and told our school resource office about it when we got to the game. It wasn't until I was talking to him that I realized how much of an idiot I was and that I was doing more weight than I thought. So my clean PR is now 295, up 20 pounds from the last time I did it 2 weeks ago.

This is a video of my 295 clean.