You know, at some point I will catch up and talk about Hawaii, post photos (including those from 14.1), etc. But right now it’s time to discuss my feelings about 14.2.
Crossfit Open 14.2 involves Overhead Squats and Chest-To-Bar pullups. It doesn’t matter what the workout is – it has rounds over time, some rests, etc. – because it doesn’t really matter to me.
Why? Today (interestingly enough!) I TRIED a squat move, and I even tried a pullup. Granted I was trying a front squat, but I still don’t have the action in my “posterior chain” to do a squat without holding onto a vertical. Coach Bill was working with me – our (A) today was actually supposed to be 5×5 front squats, I wound up doing 5×5 push presses (with the red KG bar, which is a PR for me), then 10 squats with Bill watching me and working with me on form. Yes, holding onto the vertical.
Coach Bill says that because I’ve mainly been a long distance runner for the past few years, my body and brain have “disconnected” with respect to some movements. When I get even somewhat low in a squat, my tail tucks under, and my body uses my quads to get me down there instead of my hamstrings/glutes. When he put his hand on my lower back to keep my butt “pushed out” when I was practicing, I literally had to climb myself hand-over-hand back up the vertical, because I didn’t have any “push” from that position. He explained that I just had to re-learn this movement.
It’s frustrating, because I thought I was FINALLY getting a LITTLE closer to being able to do a squat without holding on (it’s been five months, after all), but though now my knees are in the right place, my chest is up, I’m actually back on my heels and pushing “out” on my feet (the “tearing paper with your feet” thing that Coach Anthony talks about), I’m still not there yet. Feels like being back at square one – back months ago when hand-to-hand climbing up the vertical was my squat “way of life.”
We also had jumping pullups in the warmup, and because I was curious, I tried about 15 different ways to get a chest-to-bar pullup. I also tried toes-to-bar, because I was fairly certain one of the two would come up. Coach Bo was there, and he said no, that they wouldn’t get those into the Open until at best the 3rd week, because they’re harder and he guessed that HQ would want folks to be able to move on to at LEAST week three. He guessed box jumps, because last year, you could “do anything to get yourself over the box” which he demonstrated by putting one knee up, one elbow, then the other knee, etc. (Pretty hilarious.)
Anyway – so with 14.2 being Overhead Squats BEFORE you can get to Chest-To-Bar, I’m actually very philosophical, “easy” in my mind with being “out” of the Open. It would have been the same thing had the “floor to overhead” move from 14.1 been BEFORE the DoubleUnders – I knew that weight was physically beyond me, so I would have been “at peace” with not moving on/being out.
And yes, I am “out” of the Open. If you don’t log any number, you can’t move on to the next workout. Oh of COURSE you can MOVE ON to the next workout – anyone can “do the workout.” But you are locked off the leaderboard. This is sort of a bummer, in that NEXT year, it’d be nice to have a bit more than 30 (my double unders from 14.1), but hey, so it goes.
The thing that got me upset last week was that I’ve been practicing Double Unders for about a straight month (through GiveIt100.com) and would do one every now and again like unicorns – they’d pop up, but with no rhyme or reason as to WHY I would get one then and then not get them for weeks nad weeks. I was really afraid that I wouldn’t get even 1, even though I HAD had a few show up in the past. Sort of the “bad day” thing.
However, my “PR” for an Overhead Squat is to squat with a band – not even a bar. And I can’t get my butt below my knees, either. Just not (yet) possible without holding onto the vertical. As for the Chest-To-Bar pullups, who knows? One MIGHT visit me tomorrow at the workout, could happen, UNLIKELY but could happen. The thing is, that the Chest-To-Bar is AFTER the Overhead Squats. And those are a complete no-go.
I talked to Bo (we were talking about what 14.2 “might be”) and apparently how “we” do it is that everyone is paired up, so that you judge (and cheer) for someone, then they do it for you. So I’ll go tomorrow at my usual (9:00 a.m.) WOD, but I’m not quite sure what will happen. I’d love it if Coach Bill did 14.2 with us (he sometimes shows up to the 9:00 WOD), because he knows what I actually can’t do (especially after we discussed my Marine Corps injuries, etc. today when he was trying to help me with the squats and dips – that was another part of the WOD today – rings dips, so that’s the shoulder). Not sure that’ll happen, but I can wish!
We have a BIG Open “leaderboard” on the wall – and Karen was saying that given their numbers, we might field a team (or two!) to the Regionals. I asked her if my score was weighing them down (that would REALLY suck) and she said as she understood it, an individual can’t “hurt” you, so no. The scores are all in the 300s and high 200s. The one before my 30 is 125 ;-)
Anyway – so now (on Twitter) my “cast of characters” is saying I’m “not out” of the Open and chastising me for what I said last week. The difference is, this time I AM out (physically) – so I’m not particularly upset about it. I was SO upset last week, now, I’m just philosophical. I did something I was not ready to do, I was upset about it BECAUSE I knew it was a silly thing to have done at this stage in the game. With so many of the moves not actually possible for me (as I detailed in the previous blog), I did something outside mY ‘better judgment’ because I felt peer pressure. I wasn’t upset that “I might get a zero,” I was upset I had set myself up. I “knew better” than to be in this position.
So I’ll go tomorrow, and we’ll see what happens! Obviously, I’ll judge first if that’s how they do it – then I’ll just do a workout as much as I can. But I also won’t do something that is not possible, or where I might REALLY hurt myself, just to “see if I can.” If the chest-to-bar pullups were first, I might imagine getting SOMETHING on the board, because that MIGHT be physically possible (once upon a time, I could do pullups, 30 years ago). But OHS? Nope!
And so it goes! ;-)
OH AND – caught up (almost!) with Amazing Race last night – learnings:
1. TAKE THE METRO IF YOU CAN. Man, folks really wasted time trying to get cabs. They were in China – good to know ;-)
2. If someone is trying to tell you how long something is going to take you, GET CLEAR on what they are saying. The Cowboys went from first to last because they thought someone was saying something was “5 minutes” away when he was saying it was “FIFTY minutes” – and by car!
3. Don’t just run into anyone on the street and try to get them to help you. I think that was a huge learning – folks kept trying to just “ask anyone” and “just anyone” didn’t speak English. I would generally say to start with a hotel, or even a shopkeeper.
4. KEEP TRACK OF YOUR BAG! I had to turn it off right as one of the teams realized that the gal – who had been ASKED if she “had the bag” of the guy – and she SAID YES – had left it behind. AWFUL! I don’t know what’s going to happen – wish I could sneak in some more minutes but not possible right now (did watch the 14.2 competition on YouTube though… :-) )
5. At one point, the twins were neck-and-neck with the country singers for last place. They ran up to the road block, and it was obvious that teams were getting out of the (ferris wheel) cars and going on their way to the next clue. The country singers got into a car where the team was obviously “on their way” (successful). The twins just jumped into the first one that opened. Now, this could have gone badly – in other words, the clue could have been something you had to TAKE WITH YOU, in which case the country singers would have been out of luck and would have had to have waited for an entire (SLOW SLOW SLOW) round of the wheel to jump into another car. However, presuming that the clue was “stuck to” the car (as it was), getting into one that a successful team was leaving jumped them in front of the twins, who had to get into another car to find that clue (and were ultimately eliminated).
CROSSFIT:
1. Push Press – did this with the red bar today. We had to do 5x5s (as I mentioned above) – the red bar was HEAVY but I did it. Not sure I could go up – MAYBE, but not much.
2. Left my (climbing) rope outside! Upset! We had a ton of rain while I was gone, sure hope that it will dry out and not rot. Grrrr!
3. Squat – need to think “sway back” or “duck back” to engage glutes/hamstrings. It’s not what it will ultimately be, but exaggerate it for now, to get brain/body to work together.
4. Dip – did with the green and the red band. Not sure why I’m doing worse – used to just do it with the green band (on the stationary parallel bars, not the rings). Also wasn’t really able to extend all the way down and up – somehow losing strength there. If it’s not one thing it’s the other ;-)