Monday, September 14, 2009

Barbells, barbells everywhere!!

Turkish Getups on Thursday. YAY!!! Much to Patty's chagrin, this is one of my favs. There's nothing cooler than a heavy barbell TGU!  All day, I visualized it - I was gonna do a 75 lb barbell TGU! It was gonna happen and it was gonna be pretty!  Before started, we embarked on a conversation weighing the difficulty levels of the TGU - kettlebell versus barbell.  I went with my beloved barbell.  I started light, at 45, then 55.  The at 65, the unthinkable happened,  I could not do the get up part of the TGU with the 65 lb barbell. What evil, dastardly plot is this???  I tried again -it just wasn't going to happen.  Off to Plan B - I threw the barbell aside and decided to try the 24kg kettlebell (aka 53 lbs).  It is completely different. Easier? perhaps. Harder? maybe.  Just different, amazingly different for basically the same move using just a different utensil.   For the last round, I stayed with the KB - obviously the barbell wasn't giving me the love that I had envisioned earlier in the day!  This time I did the 28kg, or 62 lb - it went ok - not fantastic, I failed at the very end of my last one. I am not sure which is harder, but, I must say - the KB is a heck of a lot scarier than the barbell TGU.  When you get to kettlebells that heavy - you're looking at a monster cannonball that can come down and smash into your face.  The good thing though, is that gives you a bit more incentive to hold that puppy high in the air! Overall, not quite what I had hoped, but I threw in some unexpected variety to mix it up, and was fairly successful at it.



Saturday we did Lynne - 5 rounds for max reps of bodyweight bench press, and pullups.  I wasn't sure how well I would do on these. 1. It was 7am.  2. I took a walk with the Captain the night before.....the walk was a bit long.  
For the bench, I did the same weight I've been doing with Lynne, 135.  Pullups, one red, one mini, kipping.  I cannot remember exactly what I did - I think the Bench averaged to 6 or 7 per round, and the pullups about 10.  I am doing some strange moves when it comes to my bench - my left shoulder is not staying on the bench and it's making me go all wonky.    I'm not certain what is causing that, but it's wrong, I know it - I can feel it.  However, I did end up doing better on this than I did last time, which shocked the heck outta me.



Today -High-intensity Stations
5 rounds of 1 minute each of:
Thrusters (95/65#)
Power cleans (95/65#)
Pull-to-Inverted Hang
YAY!! Only 65 lbs!!!  I can't tell you the last time I only did 65 lbs on something.  I was actually kind of looking forward to this one.  Although, in the pit of my stomach, I kind of had a sinking feeling that I would have to do this at 95 lbs.  I was hoping 65, but had a tiny inkling that 95 was going to be my fate.  Well, when it came down to it - it was a "95 is the Getting Stronger weight, but if you need to work on your metcon...."  CRAP! It was up to me.  Most people would think that would be a good thing...I'm not most people.  In general, I like knowing there's just no choice in the matter.  In reality, my options were to do the 65#'s - but I better do a heck of alot of them - or do the 95#, and see what that brings.  I went with the 95#'s.  Not sure if it was the easy way to go or not.  Here's kind of how it went.
Round 1 - Pull to inverted hang - I jumped and got 5 of them, then the power cleans, probably 7 or 8, and the remainder were Thrusters - to get to a final score of 17.
Round 2 - Michael wanted to switch rings - ok sure. I did one.......then tried about 3 more that ended up being knees to elbows. OK, one it is.  Powercleans, I wailed through - I believe I got in 9 or 10.  Then struggled through 5 or 6 thrusters for a total of 16.
Round 3 - Again -1 jump to inverted hang.  Yep,  one.  The rest I did about the same as round 2.  I scored this one at 15, but I forgot to add in my single JTIH...so in reality it was 16.  Not that it really matters.
Round 4 - I changed the box under the high rings.  This helped. I actually got in 3 of the pull-to-inverted-hangs.  The cleans brought me up to 11, so 8 of 'em.....and then 5 thrusters for a total of 16.
Round 5 - I got in 4 pull to inverted hang, 8 cleans (brought me to 12), and 5 thrusters.  Overall score - 81 or 82. Not spectacular - I should have been able to hit 90.  I agree with Patty - I gotta figure out how to dig a little deeper. 
However, today was definitely a sweat inducing doozy!!  It actually felt good to sweat that much...I think I'm nuts!! 
 

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