Progress Post: BURPEES - Wednesday Sept 13, and WOD Sept 14

This isn't a named workout, but it's a good one for me to track because it has almost all my weakpoints. (I think the only one that's missing is toes to bar)
This is what it looked like:

Not crying, just holding up the wall for a moment

In preparation for my competition, I have been doing the Wall Balls to the 10ft line, and I recorded so I could retroactively no-rep myself when I inevitably miss the target or swing too low, or stop in the middle to cry.


I have always known that my burpees are a small disaster and take me way more time than they should (way more time than they take other people, and I get gassed SO FAST) so after class a coach and I had a chat about them.  She's a burpee pro, basically, and enjoys (!?) them, so was a perfect person to help.

I learned quite a few things!

First I'm going to start by sharing a video of the worst burpees of all time.  This was during round 2 of this workout and I kind of already felt like I was dying.  

This is a cut, I won't subject you to watching 30 burpees.  

Suffice to say they didn't get better as the workout went on.

What we talked about it obvious to me now - I'm jumping my feet back, lowering myself down (too slowly) and then jumping back in with my feet almost right at my hands.  So much wasted energy!  Not to mention I'm barely jumping.... no reps everywhere?  Ugh.  I think I'd actually cry if I just got no-repped repeatedly at my competition and the burpees went on and on forever.

This guy  (the video is on Vimeo so I can't insert it here) is wasting significantly less energy than me with that belly flop, which would be an absolute requirement, as he's doing 1000 of them.  Gross.

Note the partial (he catches himself but not lowers himself) belly flop vs my legs out, lower down, lift up, much slower method.

Watch, if you will, these two stars doing basically the opposite of my mess:

Fast down, legs apart, fast up, no pauses, no breaks, bang bang bang.  

Obviously they are not going to full extension, but this video is actually relevant as well because guess what' Thursday's workout was:

yayyyyyyyy.....

But actually, I was kind of excited to put my new advice to use.

My final time was 7:40ish (should have written that down) but I scaled the weight to 75lbs.  I actually could have gone heavier, I was worried I'd burn out on the push presses (which I may have had I gone heavier.)

The burpees look better, actually.  I do definitely lose my technique as I get more and more tired, and start slowly lowering myself down instead of just dropping down.  Something to work on, and also good evidence that I should keep recording my workouts.

"I love burpees, they are so fun, no seriously they are great" #dying #burpees #cry #atleastmyarmslookgood

A post shared by Danielle (@danielleisatthegym) on Sep 15, 2017 at 12:26pm PDT

Wednesday's Extra Work:
Accessory Lifting (back, abs, chest)

Thursday's Extra Work:

Toes to Bar: extra help, practice on form and actually put 2 together!  Yay!  Came away with some tricks to work on my technique and rhythm.

WallBalls: 10 min EMOM (10)

Skipping:  Terribly.  

Countdown

The competition is in 5 week.  That's... soon.  Very soon.

We had a training session last night to assess where we are at, and determine what to do to improve and get the rest of the way there.  I learned a TON (it's amazing what "there are going to be SO MANY people there to cheer for you guys" does for your coachability,) and I definitely have a ton of work to do.

1. Pullups:  These aren't awful.  I can do maybe 5 in a row (kipping of course) before I lose my form and start missing reps.  The most valuable thing 2 things I learned were some rhythm improvement, and to get off the damn bar when you lose it.  Totally, mind-blowingly obvious, right?  But kind of hard to remember when you miss a rep and just want to go for another one.
Training Plan Week 1 and 2 - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday 6 x 5 until I can do 7 x 5, then 8 x 5.  If I can improve my technique, I think I'll be able to get to 8 or 10 by the competition.  (Ambitious?  Yes.)

2. Toes to Bar:  These are honestly a disaster.  Get off the bar every time and do them individually was advice I didn't want to hear, but needed to.  That and I need to keep my back / lats engaged because I was losing all tension after each rep.  I want to string them together but they are a bit off from that still, what I really need to do is TTB one at a time, well, with proper technique, then try to string them together.
Training Plan Week 1 and 2  - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday 1 x 10s, then 2 x 10, and hopefully after that I can start doing them more consecutively.  

3. Lifting:  I need to video and review my lifts, give myself an honest assessment, then fix the issue and go back.  I know when I'm losing tension, I know when I'm half assing things, I
Training Plan Week 1 and 2  - Wednesday, Friday 5 x 5 cleans barbell cycling with 125lbs.  1 x 5 145lbs to practice technique.  

4. Accessory work:  This is on my own, but important because I have to work on strength in a few areas to be able to do the skills well.  
Training Plan Week 1 and 2  - Twice a week (likely Wednesday, Friday) 5x5 OHP,  5x5 bench, 10 x 5 dumbbell ohp, pushup progressions (5 x 10 moving up as I can) core / ab work, lunges (weight and rep scheme tbd), lat pulldowns, face-pulls

5. Cardio:  The advice was to sprint, and I'm going to go for what I have found will fit well into my other training (at the gym)
Training Plan Week 1 and 2  - Tuesday, Thursday, Saturday Aerobic power on the rower or assault bike 00:30 on 00:30 off, 10 rounds to start and move up from there with the goal of maintaining the same distance over all rounds.

This will take me to Sept 25 and 3 weeks out.  Eeek!