Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Chapel Hill CrossFit: CrossFit Open 2013 – A Recap from #41,045

by Fred Lybrand

“Dude, you’ll love it,” was Chad’s reply if I should really sign up. He was right. The last workout was close to the 6 mile Cooper River Bridge Run and 13.3 – 13.5 were in the middle of a crazy travel schedule – but I loved every minute of it.

Good:
  • I pushed myself to do some exercises Rx that I had struggled with in the past. My rep counts may have stunk on toes-to-bar and chest-to-bar pull-ups, but I was doing the right exercise, not scaling to knees-to-elbows or ring rows. Chris. L and Janet B. out of the 6 AM regulars also had similar accomplishments.
  • Got in all the workouts despite an injury. I’ve got some nagging mobility and movement issues – through Local I’ve gotten much better at addressing and managing things as they develop.
  • Managed everything despite some ridiculous travel between 13.3, 13.4 and 13.5.
  • It was fun. I loved the vibe in the gym when anyone was doing the workouts. Very good times.

Things to work on:
  • I’ve got no engine. Just kept burning out on these workouts! Felt humbled by the rep counts everyone else was putting up.
  • Continued work on certain movements – especially double-unders, toes-to-bar and anything else on the bar.
  • Getting to Local for the Friday Night Lights! The photos all looked fun – hopefully I can make it to one in 2014.
  • My final score was #41,045 out of an estimated 52,000 men (60 people per page * 870 pages of results) in the open division, putting me solidly in the bottom quartile at 79%. Nowhere to go but up.

13.1 – Burpees & Snatch Ladder / 17 minutes – 105 reps (5 @ 135 lbs)
“If they are all like this, I’m in trouble,” was my only thought watching Dave Castro announce 13.1 online. Throwing the chest of a 220 lb body to the floor then coming up for an overhead clap is a violent, exhausting and unpleasant activity. I’ve watched Brandon and Tancini’s step-up method, but don’t have the flexibility to do them. My best 50 burpee time was 4:30 and my 1RM on Snatch is 155 lbs. I knew I wouldn’t get 165 lbs, so there was an absolute cap on how many reps I could get in this and the real test was how quick would I get back to the bar at 135 lbs.
Highlights:
  • “I am doing burpees in a puddle of your sweat,” from Mike before I used my sweatshirt to mop that up.
  • Did this one on Friday – came in Saturday for a recovery-WoD and was very excited to see everyone’s scores. Mine wasn’t that bad. Very impressed with Uzoma’s 111.
  • The 6 am ladies do these graceful burpees with a back leg kick (Janet, Stephanie and Claudiacome to mind) before they hit the deck – it was impressive to see them keep that up through the whole workout.

Things to Improve:
  • Still slow on burpees.
  • Did the 75 lbs snatches as sets of 10 and 5; took too much rest in between.
  • I failed at least 3x at the 135 lb weight, but felt with better overall pacing I could’ve gotten at least 10, maybe 20 reps there.

13.2 – Deadlifts, Shoulder-to-Overheads & Box Jumps (Steps) / 10 minutes

I love this workout and am requesting we repeat it as part of my deal with Chad on writing this blog post. Light weight on DLs and S2Os, box jumps are another exercise where being tall doesn’t hurt. I’ve read all of the online comments about ACL injuries and have had knee issues in the past, so I always step off the box.

Good:
  • Reading the instructions counts for a lot – step-ups were crucial to pacing and scoring high and as we all talked through it at 6 AM, I was glad we were prepped.
  • Initial goal was to never lose my grip on the bar except if needed on the S20/Deadlift transition – mission accomplished.
  • Stepped off solidly from getting on top of the box and didn’t have to worry about my Achilles any.

Areas to Improve:
  • I whiffed a box jump which always takes a few seconds to recover from.
  • By going first at 6 AM we knew the potential of benefitting from the step-up, but didn’t have any evidence. I provided some of the evidence that trying to go all jumps was a bad idea!

13.3 – Wall Balls, DUs & MUs / 12 minutes – 161 reps (11 DUs)

Wall balls are fun – if I’m in a rhythm with a full squat bounce the weight is a low % of my bodyweight and it is a CF activity that doesn’t penalize height! I’m not very good at jumping rope and had missed the Double-Grace challenge, but I’d been working on DUs. I watched the  announcement at a hotel in LA and had my rope with me. Muscle-Ups aren’t in my portfolio yet, so again, there was an absolute cap on how much I could do, unfortunately I didn’t get close to that.

Good
  • This was one of the toughest workouts I’d done in a long time – got the taste of blood and it just wiped me out.
  • I got a few double-unders in a workout.

Things to improve:
  • Took way too long on the wall balls.
  • I was doing my DUs as Single-Single-Single-Double, which let me keep a rhythm, but takes a lot of time. Since this workout I’ve been focusing on just going straight into Double-Double and have gotten up to 5, but the overall speed of execution is a lot higher.
  • Getting good squat depth with the ball to allow a bounce back up out of the whole (thanks to Shea and Marston).

13.4 – Clean and Jerk + Toes-to-Bar Ascending Ladder / 8 minutes (34 reps)

I was *very* excited to see this workout. I’d been working on T2B and had finally figured out how to get a good swing on knees-to-elbows and do that last little toe kick up to the bar. Unfortunately, I’d pulled a groin muscle the Tuesday prior, which led to having to use a lot of shoulders on the clean and jerks. Shoulders got fatigued very fast and I wound up just hanging to the bar like a monkey while Sara, Brandon and Chris L. cheered me on. Spent two minutes trying to get two more T2B.

Good
  • Those were my first 16 toes to bar at Local.
  • Managed around an injury.
  • Thanks to Sara and Brandon for judging on a Thursday!

Things to work on
  • Work capacity! If I could’ve gotten back to the bar there were a lot more reps to be found.

13.5 – 4 Minute Frans (26 reps)

I’ve never done Fran Rx – the last time I did it was at Local and my time was in the 9 minute range doing ring rows. 100 lb thrusters are fine – I’m weak at pull-ups. At home I’ve been doing pull-up pyramids (6- 5-4-3-2-1), but I’d never even attempted a C2B pull-up. My plan was to get a good set of 15 thrusters, then pace myself to see how many I could get.

Good
  • 15 solid thrusters unbroken – still moving slow with my groin injury, these were unbroken at 45s.
  • 11 C2B pull-ups was great. The first 3 – 4 were easy. I missed two later on, but by pacing and not burning out I was able to get way more in that 3 minute time span than I thought I was going to.
  • Finished this on Thursday and then did the 10k Cooper River Bridge Run at a leisurely sub-10 minute pace the following Saturday.

Things to work on:
  • Getting to Local for the workout. Did this as a drop in and was the only one doing C2B, so it was tough to watch everybody else banging out reps.

Monday, May 13, 2013

CrossFit Chapel Hill: Functional Fitness that Gets Results!

By Chad Edwards
Your Chapel Hill, Durham Gym! At CrossFit Local we focus on developing and enhancing functional fitness through strength and conditioning. Each workout includes a warm-up, personalized instruction on skills and movements, strength work, and a blazing workout to condition you metabolically. Our unique fitness philosophy creates a gym that is personal and truly yours. CrossFit Local was voted one of the best gyms in Orange County and Chapel Hill/Carrboro. We have been a CrossFit affiliate since 2009, making us the oldest CrossFit in the Chapel Hill, Carrboro and Hillsborough area. We are located at 7401 Rex Road, Units 105-B and 106, Chapel Hill, NC 27516. Our gym has members from the entire Triangle including Carrboro, Cary, Chapel Hill, Durham, Hillsborough and Raleigh.