31/3

So, 16:59 was my time for Crossfit Open 14.5 with the women's weights. My goal was to be faster than half as fast as Froning (or the fastest time, rather), and he did 8:30ish, so that was barely! :P

I'm also finished, for now, with my bulgarian bags. They were quite hard to make and I'm still not happy about the end result, or sure that they won't fall apart or hurt someone in the long, or even short, run. But hey. Here's a breakdown of how much I invested into making them:

Two bulgarian bags (7.7kg & 11.7kg)
30min how2video
60min planning&localizing
50min getting zip ties
30min getting truck inner tube
15min getting&cutting straps
45min sewing straps
10min map2bauhaus (4 wood pellets)
70min ride2bauhaus
15min wait@bauhaus
75min cutting&filling etc
30min extra ride for zip ties
30min getting extra handles
150min min fixing handles (retried several times, was puzzled for quite some time...)

Finals: Cost 100kr, 460min (7hours, 40minutes)

And here's a picture:

The balls are wall balls which weigh 14 and 20 pounds respectively.

27/3

Today I'm making a prediction: today's murky head and catastrophic workout session means tomorrow, I'm getting sick. It's all the usual symptoms - me not being able to get into it ("tagga till"), not thinking clear, getting really tired when my pulse is over 70% of max, etc. I even dropped the barbell which sent me flying backwards and falling on my ass while doing the clean portion of a clean and jerk, simply because my head didn't realize I should probably hold on to the bar, and not, you know, not holding on to it. Wasn't about grip damage either as it was during warmup (40kg). So after squatting 60kg and barely managing I decided to fuck it and do some stabilization exercises mostly, because it just didn't feel safe or fun.

21/3

Today I did 14.4:

14 minute AMRAP:
60-calorie row
50 toes-to-bars
40 wall-ball shots, 20 / 14 lb.
30 cleans, 135 / 95 lb.
20 muscle-ups

I managed to do 20 cleans (female weight). What really sunk me was definitely the toes-to-bars, which I knew they would. I just cant seem to find the correct form with them and my shoulders hurt while I do them. Sometimes I did like 2-5 of them while kipping like a motherfucker, which hurt my shoulders more, and sometimes I did a couple of them really slow, so there would be no kipping at all, which hurts my grip and energy levels. I would probably be stopped at the muscle ups anyway since I wouldn't be able to reach there with enough time left to gather myself to pop out a couple of them. And even if I did pop them out, it would be costly for my shoulders since my form is sloppy like hell. So you know, back to training!

19/3

With the help of a spotter I managed 70kg on the bench yesterday. I wonder how it comes that usually when I do a personal best, it feels as if I could go ever higher because it felt so easy. I could swear I would be able to do more than 100kg on the back squat, yet stopped at 100 because it just felt silly at the time to go more than 10kg heavier than ones previous max. Yesterday I managed to fail on a squat for the first time, which was a long time coming, seeing how I've been afraid of that ever since I first took a barbell on my back. Since I did 100kg two weeks ago and felt quite safe, I thought I'd be able to do 90kg without a problem, which wasn't the case. But it probably was just a form thing, even though I was too shaken to jump on that horse (and poor wooden floor) again. Making it fall back felt quite safe, but I'm not sure what would happen if I fell forward. It's not like a have a rack either to fail on, not in the crossfit place, nor at friskis. Which is a shame. I haven't found any tips for failing without a rack on the internets, and only one video of a guy dropping the barbell forward by going under it and managing to not fall down while doing it. But shit, considering that was a regular back squat, I don't think I should strive for that with the wide stance, low bar lift. Yet this is almost what happened, and is also why I failed - me having too much of horizontal orientation. I didn't even manage to move an inch while down, but not because I tried to get up, but because I tried to roll the bar back so as to not fall forward. Sure, some powerlifting seem to almost good morning that shit and aren't super far away from their knees with the chin when doing so, but I don't know if that's strength or just putting out ones butt more in the other direction or what. I didn't manage to pull it off and probably should stand more erect next time.

Oh well. Back to plyometrics and the flags and handstands!

14/3

Today I did Crossfit Open 14.3 and ended up with 128 reps while using the designated weights for the female athletes. I think this is by far my superior result, seeing how I suck at kipping pullups and olympic lifts and overhead things and double unders, which all have been part of the opens this year. Box jumps and deadlifts I can do though, obviously. The first 10 I did unbroken, the next 15 I split 8/7, the 20 I did 5/5/5/5, and the last one I did like 5/5/3/2/3/2 or something along those lines. In the beginning I alternated between sumo deadlifts and regular ones, but then I got too tired to give a shit and did the regular ones since the setup seems to be easier to me. The back was what took me out eventually, although the lack of breath wasn't far behind. Pulse never got over 175bpm, which it hasn't for the whole week, even when running. When I'm fully rested it can be at 180-185 for almost ten minutes, so it just means I'm not performing at my best, and have been feeling quite shitty this week. It's the work practice thingy, and it's about the nazi attack in malmö, and it about lack of motivation after having quit crossfit, and thoughts about whether I should perhaps focus on other things training-wise, things that are more scary (due to having a lot of inversions and plyometrics, and risk  for injury) and are also much more frustrating to learn, but will perhaps give me more room for expression in the future, more joy, and knowledge of my body. This is really inspiring:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M1lgzY-RNSI&list=PLeNH7sZ1nnzburz9XjilQdBq1b6tw15RI

So we'll see about that. But first - plyometric month!

11/3

Since some claim that there is no carry-over from strength exercises to power-based ones (explosive) but the other-way around, I will try doing mostly explosive exercises this month and see what happens. This was today:


Six rounds of:
1. Wall Ball Plank Roll-outs/Plyo Plank Pushup-to-Plyo Pushup-to-Planks
2. Kettlebell Side Presses/Kettlebell Military Presses
3. T-Bar Full Contact Russian Twists/T-Bar Suplex Throw Squat-and-catch to T-Bar Overhead Squat to T-Bar Suplex Throw Squat, etc
4. Pullups/Toes-2-Bars
5. Goblet Pistol Squats/Pistol Squat Crunch Ups

First exercise 20sec on/20sec rest, second exercise 20sec on/20sec rest, etc. After having completed the fifth exercise, for the second round of fives do the alternate exercises. Third round do the original ones, etc.

8/3

Today I did the 14.2 Crossfit Open Workout with half the official weight for men (43kg, I did 20kg). I managed to do 71 reps. My overhead squats are really bad due to my being very tense in the lats, I've been told. I can't even take the 20kg barbell down on my back, and from there push it up into the overhead snatch position! And this was the warm-up in the Crossfit 360 Olympic Lifting Class (basic)! So there you go. And I started out with doing fives chest to bars, which in hindsight did more damage than good, because after one round my grip was totally finished and I had to do singles from there because I was too afraid to lose my grip on the bar and fall down!

7/3

Powerlifting is going good. Crossfit not as well, but hey. I did 132.5kg deadlift with the powerlifting technique, so that went pretty fast. And I did 67.5kg with the bench, and will probably do more soon. Only got a video of 120kg deadlift though, because my battery died.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R_zSEDZ-b2w&feature=youtu.be