December Friendly WODs

Welcome to the December Friendly WODs. This is a running blog style article documenting (most) of the workouts I do. I will be on the road on and off during this month, making it challenging to find any normal rhythm to training. Thank you to those of you who follow along, the accountability here goes a long way for me:

December 27

Location: CrossFit RPE, North Suburbs of Chicago

Training Program: SMTP Training Program 

Workouts:

10:00 emom of 1 muscle snatch + 1 snatch balance

95 for 4 rounds, 105 for 3 rounds, 115 for 3 rounds

5:00 AMRAP

Squat Snatches at 70% of 1 RM (135 lbs for me)

21 reps, no misses

4 rounds of 4:00 work 2:00 rest

15 cal echo bike

5 bar muscle ups

10 sandbag cleans to shoulder with control (100 lbs)

Max burpee bar muscle up in remaining time (I got 3 each round)

Visiting Chicago and Wisconsin this week, so I had to make sure and get a workout in with the guys. They’ve been following SMTP and I was happy to jump in to whatever they were doing. 

First two parts were pretty straightforward, and I modified the last one as you see written to pursue what I believe the intended time domains and stimulus were. Basically I wanted to have 1:00 remaining for burpee bar muscle ups each round- so I was going for consistency across the four rounds rather than max effort in round one and see what happens. Held the same RPMs throughout, all muscle up sets unbroken, consistent transitions and cadence on cleans all resulted in me finishing the buy-in for all four rounds within a five second range. Solid plan, execution, and training day. 

December 25

Location: CrossFit Charlotte

Training Program: “Get Out of the House” CrossFit Charlotte Workout

Workouts:

5 sets on the 5:00

500 meter row

11 Back Squats

11 Db Bench Press

Prescribed as bodyweight for the back squats and half body weight for the db bench, but also meant to be unbroken sets on both. Went with 155 lb squats and 45 lb dbs and it was perfect. I felt like a superhero through the first 3 sets, barely held on in the 4th set, and the 5th set was more or less surviving. 

Really love the concept of this though, most gyms are closed on Christmas day, but offering one class as an opportunity to get out of the house in the middle of day makes a lot of sense, and nearly two dozen people showed up- well done CrossFit Charlotte.

December 23

Location: CrossFit Charlotte

Training Program: BFriendly Programming

Workouts:

3 Rounds for Time

400 meter run

9-7-5 squat cleans (145-165-185)

Time cap 15:00, was shooting for around 12:00, finished just under 13:00. 

Pretty quick in and out of the gym today. Doesn’t need to be long or fancy, this certainly did the trick for me. Pick appropriate weights for your ability (these were about 65, 73, and 82 percent of my max squat clean for reference). I did a lift about every :30 on the last bar, but didn’t have any misses, right where I wanted to be.

December 22

Location: CrossFit Charlotte

Training Program: BFriendly Programming

Workouts:

Every 3:00 x 10 sets

15 cal row

10 box jump step downs

5 parallel bar dips

*shooting for 90 seconds per round

Somewhat limited time this morning, and I’ve been wanting to get some bodyweight dips into my training. It’s not a skill I’m very good at, and I don’t practice them nearly enough. The design of this allowed me to get an appropriate volume for me at the end of each working interval under some fatigue, but without muscular interference.

December 20

Location: CrossFit Charlotte

Training Program: BFriendly Programming

Workouts:

4 sets

:40 wall sit

6 reverse lunges per leg; 95 lbs

10 x 2 Squat Snatch

*2  sets each at 95, 115, 125, 135, 145

5 Rounds For Time

12 Kipping Pull Ups

12 Power Snatch (95 lbs)

Just getting some touches on a variety of things today. The wall sit into reverse lunge was a unique stimulus. Squat Snatch section was more technical, building to a moderate load without any time stress. The Metcon was harder than I anticipated and I just barely snuck under the 10:00 cap that I thought would be plenty. Another good day in the gym though.

December 19

Location: CrossFit Charlotte

Training Program: BFriendly Programming

Workouts:

5 x 8 Pause Bench Press

5 x 8 Pause Pendlay Row

*Pause for :01 on every rep for both with the bar in contact with the chest

3 Rounds for Time

30 Cal Ski

60 Cal C2 Bike

90 Drag Rope Single Under

Hadn’t gotten a workout in for five consecutive days, goal this week is to ease back into it. A little lifting and an aerobic pieces seemed appropriate for day one. Didn’t push the weights beyond what I could control at the tempo. Really happy with the consistency on the conditioning: basically took 2:00 per row, 4:00 per bike, unbroken single unders. Was hoping for around 21:00, finished in 21:23. 

December 13

Location: CrossFit Alsancak; Izmir, Turkey

Training Program: BFriendly Original Metcon

Workouts:

4 Rounds

5 Power Snatch

15/12 cal c2 bike

10 Power Cleans

15/12 cal c2 bike

*Same weight for snatches and cleans; I used 60 kgs

Similarly to the gymnastics yesterday, I haven’t gotten much Olympic Lifting in, so I created a workout for today which allowed me to cycle moderate weights under increasing fatigue. Atamer and Oncu did this alongside me making for a fun and slightly competitive 15 or so minute workout. 

December 12

Location: CrossFit Alsancak; Izmir, Turkey

Training Program: Class Programming by Deniz Isik

Workouts:

Gymnastics practice before class:
3 sets for quality

12 toes to bar

8 handstand pushups

3 bar muscle ups

Haven’t done any gymnastics on this trip yet, took the chance to do so while I could with one of the coaches from the gym.

Class lifting

3-3-3 strict press

2-2-2 push press

1-1-1 push jerk

Did something similar in Charlotte the week before I left for Dubai. Lifting in kilos I wasn’t exactly sure how much I was lifting and ended up doing the heaviest push jerk about 15 lbs heavier than I did two weeks ago.

15:00 AMRAP

3 Push Press

5 Thrusters

7 Back Squats

9 Lateral Burpees Over Bar

*50 kg barbell

One of the more difficult and demanding CrossFit metcons I’ve done in a while. Felt like I held my own, but also wasn’t where I used to be with this- which is not surprising. 6 Rounds plus 2 Reps (failed the third push press right before time expired). It was the pressing that became more difficult for me towards the end of the working time. 

December 7

Location: Jumeirah Hotel, Dubai, UAE

Training Program: Kiefer Lammi Original Travel Programming

Workouts:

8 sets each rotating through three people:

5 strict pull ups

5 strict toes to bar

4 Rounds for quality and time

15 dumbbell hang power cleans

15 dumbbell bench press

15 V-Ups

15 cal ski erg

Later in the Day: 

Padel Tennis with some of the Spaniards from Training Culture. 

First time playing, very fun, steep learning curve. 

December 6

Location: Jumeirah Hotel, Dubai, UAE

Training Program: Saud, Spontaneous EMOM

Workouts:

10 rounds (20 minutes) as an EMOM

Odds: 200 meter row (techno gym rower, felt equivalent of 250 meters on a C2 erg)

Evens: 16 single arm thrusters (8 per arm, with something that is between a kettlebell and dumbbell, weight unknown) 

Wasn’t sure if I’d get a workout in today. Then I ran into Saud and he immediately asked if I wanted to workout. No plan, no idea what he had in mind… I just said yes. Conditionals will not always be optimal, training cycles and programs and gym availability may not always be either; but just saying yes and doing something when it would be easier to say no, or do nothing, can be as powerful as anything. 

December 4

Location: CrossFit Charlotte

Training Program: CrossFit.com Workout of the Day

Workouts:

7 Rounds

7 Deadlift

7 Hang Power Cleans

7 Front Squats

1:00 Rest

*I used 135 lbs

Last day in the U.S. for a couple weeks, training on the road is always interesting, but in general barbell cycling and gymnastics take the biggest hit. Saw this one on .com and thought it would be a great pre-travel day barbell cycling workout to get after. 

The prescribed weights were 155/105 lbs, but it felt to me like something you’d want to be doing primarily, if not exclusively, unbroken rounds of- and for me 135 lbs was going to be much more appropriate for that than 155 lbs. Great choice in the end, rounds ranged from forty seconds to a minute and I only broke once, which was a response to something I felt in my body not the mind giving in. 

December 1

Location: CrossFit Charlotte

Training Program: DFC Event Testing

Workouts:

Event 4: EMOM Enterprise

*Note that there are details of these workouts which are not known and therefore I’m making certain assumptions and decisions about what I either think is likely, or what is appropriate for me to be able to hopefully achieve a similar stimulus to the competing athletes next week.

On a 15:00 running clock, as an EMOM, for max front squats

1: 15 toes to bar

2: 12 cal echo bike

3: Max Front Squats (115 lbs

4: Rest

Front Squats by round: 15/15/12/13 = 55 total front squat reps

First two  rounds felt manageable. Things fell apart in round three, first on the toes to bar, then the bike felt a lot more difficult, and subsequently I didn’t pick the barbell up right away and got fewer reps than the 15 per round I was hoping for. Round four turned into survival, aka just get to the barbell without missing any of the mandatory buy in reps, and then see what I have left. 

All in all, solid workout, and I feel really good about what I can be looking for when the athletes in Dubai do this one in terms of who is likely to do well.