#puspress

Today was a pretty shit day so what better way to utilize all my emotions than with a whole lotta crossfit.  My good bud Tim met me early at the box so we could get a bit of work in before the class wods - a big thanks to him for both cheering me up and also working out with me on his 'rest' day.  Because it was his rest day we did Annie, ab-mat Annie - no heavy lifting... WOD #1 "Ab-mat Annie" 50-40-30-20-10 double unders ab-mat sit-ups 7:24 Tim beat me by 23(?) seconds but most of that was because I tripped a few more times than him on the first round of du's.  He was 6 sit-ups in before I started into the 50.  It was a lot of fun though - knowing we were both going hard pushed us each to go harder to keep up so that was good.  It helped me PR by almost a minute - 53 seconds faster than last time which I loved especially with tripping on the du's - I know I have more time to shave off this wod and it's also the first time I've used an ab-mat as well which seemed to make it harder - something about the full ab extension while gasping for air made it hurt that much more but it was good. My emotions started to really come through on the last two sets of sit-ups which was both good (getting them out) and bad (as I was struggling enough).  There were however moments where I was solely focused on the workout and my body and that was a sweet relief. WOD #2 front squats 3-3-3-1 40-50-60-65 I wanted to lift heavy stuff and since we'd done back squats on tuesday I went with front squats just for a bit of a change up.  Clearly I haven't done heavy front squats (or back squats either for that matter) in a while as I PRed by 20kg!  I was quite happy with this and didn't try for anything more as we had 45 reps of front squats in the WOD.  My front squat PR is now 5kg higher than my backsquat which means I need to do some heavy backsquat lifting when my legs are tired (from so many box jumps) Strength 3RM push press/jerk 20-30-40 I stopped at 40kg as it was the first time in 2 weeks that I'd lifted anything overhead and I felt a bit of strain in my shoulders.  No need to push it and set myself back even further.  Plus we had 45 more reps of push press coming up in the WOD. WOD #3 21-15-9 push press/jerk (30/45kg) front squat 8:36 Rx Was pretty happy with this overall since my shoulders were feeling mostly better.  The push presses were still really hard - to the point where I was in fact push jerking them by the end but I felt solid in the movement, really popping through the hips rather than trying to muscle it out though there were a few reps that I didn't completely lock out my arms and had to push the last bit - just after that I started to push jerk instead which helped a lot more.  The squats were pretty steady and felt really good - it probably had a lot to do with already having gone much heavier on them as well. AfterWOD (aka WOD #4) Tabata Cleans 3 reps every 20 seconds 2 reps every 10 seconds (max. reps last 30 seconds) This was a lot of fun though after the first 20 seconds it almost became 5 reps at the start of each 10 second as there wasn't much time to put the bar down after the two reps and then pick it up again for the 3.  I did feel really good in this movement - lots of focus on tightening my upper back so that I was smooth from the ground before exploding from the hang position.  I thought the weight would feel heavier toward the end but I didn't slow down at all in the reps - took about 8 seconds each round to do the 3 reps.  Nice change of format and "surprise" after WOD.  It's been a great week or so of change up programming including the warmp-ups (we did another 'team' portion of the warm-up again today too and it was amusing and functional). The bonus of now having 'extra' time on my hands - besides having to look for a job - I can do more strength training with Tim and Pete leading up to the Primal Throwdown which is in a month.  Focus on the positives.