Week Wrap Up | I turned 28

My B-Day Present From my Wife

Happy Father's Day to all the Dad's out there.  I'm especially grateful for my Dad and all he's done for me.  He's been a great example of many things and I hope to be able to be half the man he is.

This is always a fun time of the year for me.  My birthday and Father's day fall within the same week of each other each year.  It typically means a lot of fun and family time.  This week and especially this weekend did not disappoint.  Thank you to my wife for making this weekend so fun.  Thanks also to a few buddies at work for taking me out for sushi and surprising me with a "Hawaiian" pineapple upside-down cake.

Here's a look at what my workouts looked like this past week.

Monday: Legs

2x20 back squats - 185 lbs

3x8 clean and press - 155 lbs

3x6 front squats - 185 lbs

3x10 overhead squats - 135

3x10 box jumps - 24"

Tuesday: Jump Rope WOD - a spin off Workout 11.1 from the Crossfit Open

AMRAP in 15 minutes of:

30 double-unders

15 ground-to-overheads - 25 lbs dumbbells

I completed 6 total rounds + 30 double-unders

I also did:

3 supersets of 30 plate presses (45 lbs) and 10 double-unders

3 supersets of 15 ball crunches and 10 double-unders

I'm becoming more efficient at double-unders, but still have a long way to go.

Wednesday: "Fran" + Legs...again.  This was a pretty brutal day.

"Fran" - 21-15-9 of:

95 lb thrusters and pull-ups

I did a pretty legitimate "Fran" this time.  No jumping pull-ups until the last 3 reps.  I completed the WOD in 5:39

I also did:

2x10 back squats - 225 lbs

3x10 overhead squats - 135 lbs

Thursday: Normal/Traditional Day

3x10 flat bench press - 135, 185, 225 lbs

3x10 incline bench press - 135, 155, 185 lbs

3x10 Tri-shoulder complex at 25 lbs

3 sets of plate presses - 45 lbs

3 supersets of bungee lateral raises and plate presses (45 lbs)

Friday: Hiking

I did a short hike with our church's youth group.  We were in the mountains for about an hour and a half.

Saturday: 28th Birthday Workout

For time, 28 reps each of:

Burpees

Regular Push-ups

Thrusters - 25 lbs dumbbells

Crunches

Ground-to-overheads - 25 lbs dumbbells

Air Squats

Hanging cleans - 25 lbs dumbbells

Lunges

Wide Push-ups

Squat Jumps

High Decline Push-ups (feet resting on a four foot window sill)

Jumping Jacks

Narrow Push-ups

Ground to Ceiling Jumps (9 ft ceiling)

I completed the workout in 21:10.  This was a fun homebound WOD.

What a fun week.  As you can tell, I worked my legs pretty hard this week.  I think that I'm going to take it easy on them this coming week (with the exception of one day probably).  Thanks to friends and family, especially my wife, for making this Birthday/Father's day week so much fun for me.

Lesson Learned About Programming

One of the things that I'm trying to learn is how to better program my own workouts.  I learned a few lessons today about programming.  Here's my Cliff's notes:

1. Be sure to program ahead.  
This one sounds obvious, I know.  I generally have an idea each week of what I want to accomplish and how I want to work my body, but I don't do a good enough job of planning each workout far enough in advance.  I found myself finalizing my workout while in the middle of my warm-up at the gym today.  I feel like planning ahead for each workout would allow me to better prepare myself to perform them well.

2. Finding the balance between hard and easy is going to take some time.  
So one of my weaknesses that I'm trying to program around is first, that I'm not a good runner and my stamina is not the greatest.  When I do workouts, I don't have a problem lifting or pushing heavy weight, I have a problem sustaining strength throughout.  I've been trying to incorporate workouts that include push over a relatively extended period of time (as opposed to stuff like "Fran", which I love, but don't want to rely too much on WODs like that).  I like the CrossFit workouts that include running 400 meters and then doing other workouts in between, like "Nancy".  The second weakness that I'm working on is that I don't do well with movements that require simply moving body weight, like pull-ups.  The experience below will show that I have yet to find a balance between hard and easy while still focusing on my weaknesses.

Here's what happened at the gym today.
So today, as I'm debating what I'm going to do, my mind was jumping between two ideas.  The first was to do a "Four rounds for time of: Run 400 meters + something".  My initial thought was to run 400 meters, than do a round of "Cindy".  The other workout I was thinking about doing was "Death by Pull-Up", which is basically this: on a running clock, you do a set of pull-ups equal to the number of the minute that you're on.  First minute = 1 pull-up, second minute = 2 pull-ups...you get the idea.

I decided that I was going to do the "Four rounds of time of..." workout.  I decided on doing a round of Cindy in between each 400 meters.  I finished in about 15:21  (I needed to do a little bit of travel from where I was running to where I was performing "Cindy"), and I wasn't as gassed as I thought I'd be.  It was a good workout, and I broke a great sweat, but I didn't feel as gassed as I had hoped.  I realized that the workout didn't require quite as much push as I had hoped.  Because I felt a little underwhelmed by the workout, I decided that I'd do some sets of "Death by Pull-up".  I did eight minutes of it and then had to leave to get back to work.

Good lessons learned today and I'm appreciative of them as I work on personally programming my workouts.  The next time I decide to do a run + "Cindy" workout, I'm going to do a ladder of rounds of "Cindy" instead.  Run 400 + 1 round, then run 400 + 2 rounds, etc.  I'll let you know how that goes.

Anyone have tips for personal programming?