back in the saddle

Saturday was a FANTASTIC day!! We did one of the all time funnest workouts ever, yes, that would be  the redneck fantasy workout of  Yoke walkin' car pushin' & tire flippin'!!  Pure fun! After playin' around a bit, and testing each one out, we did the course for time!  Before going into how I did, let me mention a couple things: 1. The yolk walkin' course is longer and 2. Although you can't see it, there is definitely more of an uphill on the car pushin', and I believe it might be a hair bit longer.
Believe me or not about the uphill and distance, fact of the matter is, I as well as everyone else, added a good 2 minutes to our previous times. Yoke walkin' I did with a 24kg kettlebell attached to each side.  Although the distance was longer, I think my time for that was still ok, probably a little over a minute.  Then came the car pushin'.  From the post to the last cone - first direction - not so bad, a bit long, but not terrible.   Then the other direction. This is where the shoe drops, and those very large hills, invisible to the naked eye, come out to play.  Car pushin' is where I spent the vast majority of my time.  I actually had to push the opposite way, with my butt on the car  for a while. OY! It really was a sleeper hill - you don't know it's there until it jumps out and grabs ya!  Tire flippin', I did the girl tire -2 up 2 back - not a huge issue.  Total time was 5:04.  Yep, just checked, at the old place, I finished in 3:02 - that is definitely a full 2 minutes added, not to mention, that I only had to do 2 tire flips each way this time instead of 3.  I'm telling ya - the level of difficulty was much higher on the car push!!  Either way - this workout still rocks!! 

Monday - Heavy Helen.  I LOVE this version of Helen. The weighty girls are so much better!
Heavy Helen is 200m run, 15 KB swings 24kg, and 9 pullups weighted (ok, for me in the bands, go figure!!)  3 rounds for time.  I did this using a mini and a red, probably should have gone a bit lighter, I just wasn't certain about my strength with the tail end of this cold and not having done pullups in a week.  The run was ok....my heel/plantar fascitis (my diagnosis) thingy was hurting a bit so I was running like a lopsided fool.  But I did it, then I powered through the swings - on these, I went to my happy place, so that I could just get through 15.  Then came the pullups. I did them in sets of 3 or 4.   I ended up finishing in 9:25, taking a minute off my last time.  So this was good - but I think I need to take some of the bands off for the pullups next time.

Today was Powercleans.  The uber frustrating powercleans.  I started slow on these, because form is always an issue.  I concentrated pretty hard on the "keep  your arms straight" part, trying to avoid the whole "you're pulling too early" thing that I usually hear.  I started at 75 - and heck if I didn't get a "pretty good"...huh?  really?? ok - so that was a light weight.  Next 95 lbs.  What did you say?? Do I need to clean my ears out? because that sure didn't sound like "too early"....Holy moly, what is this wave coming over me?? This fabulousness that says "by George, I think she's got it!!"???  I knew that feeling for a fleeting moment tonight.  Then we added weight, and I jumped right into 115.   Apparently my first one was ok - but it was heavier than I anticipated, and I acknowledged that weight.  That's when the weight beat me.  It got in my head and after several attempts, I managed to knock out 2 more really messy ugly ones.  Next round - went back down to 100 - these were good.  Then back up slowly - 105, I got in one decent one, the next two, I did some weird landing.  I think I need to start working these at 105 now.....since that seems to be where I lose form.   On the plus side, all of the 95 lbs Thrusters, Cleans and everything else I've been doing seem to have helped the form overall.  So that's good!!

ouch, ouch, fun, fun!!

Renegade Rows - 7 sets of 10, 3 count.    Sometimes, its a bit of a curse being a bit on the stronger side.  I looked at what I did previously on this, and basically muttered several not so nice words under my breath.  I had to do at least as well.  I did 20 lb, 25 lb, 12 kg kettlebell, 30 lb, I tried the 16kg kettlebell - failed miserably, it was actually rather humorous, then went and finished off with the 25 lb dumbbells.  After that, I did the remaining sets at 35 lbs.  In the end, it was the exact same weights as last time, just different order.

Deadlift - 15 sets of 3.  The main point of this was go as high as you can while still maintaining good form.  I started at 215, 225, 235, 245, 265 - did this one for 2 rounds, then went to 270, did that for 1 round, 2nd round...I did 2.  Why did I only do 2??  Well, I can't remember clearly exactly what happened, if it occurred on the up part or the down part of the lift. I think, I felt myself rounding over, and tried to fix it by pulling back....and that's when it happened.  One of the funkiest sensations ever.  I felt my back muscle pull......it wasn't painful, but it was bizarre.  That was it, I wasn't going to finish the last one of that set.  I needed to move around and make sure I didn't do anything really bad.  Nope, wiggling and moving was fine..I could foresee some back pain in my future though.    I dropped the weight and did the remainder at 235.  Afterwards we went to play in the park, messing around on the playground- the playgrounds are much better than the ones I grew up with!!  It was a fun, fun time!

I took Monday off - turns out, I probably did pull or strain my back muscles - Melissa said the mid back section was a bit of a knotted mess (not exactly her term...).    She worked miracles and today all is good - a tiny bit of stiffness, but about 95% back to feeling normal.
Today we did Functional focus - tire flippin' Yoke walkin, car pushin'.
What pray tell is Yoke walking?  Check out the pic of Patty up above. Yep, it's carrying around a bunch of hanging weight on your back.  The final "timed event" was Yoke walking, tire flipping (3 up, 3 back), and pushing Patty's jeep up and back.  I used the 24 kg kettlebells (53 lbs each), the 60 lb bar, and the chains which I think were around 15 lbs each.  So, I think my total weight was somewhere around 200 lbs. The hard part was the weights on the chains making you walk around like a drunken sailor.  After that, came 6 tire flips with the girl tire, then pushing Patty's car.  Pushing her car on the slight uphill grade made your thighs burn.  The downhill, was not so bad.  I finished with a time of 3:02...and some major oogly legs.