CrossFit Fun and Games – Follow-up

In yesterday’s post I told you that Julia and I were getting together on Saturday to practice for Wod 4 Paws. I promised that I would let you know how our first session went.

Let me begin by saying we sweat a lot and we laughed a lot. I also want to say that she is a saint for teaming up with a liability such as me.

When we arrived, we stretched and worked on mobility for a while. Then we briefly tried a few movements that we had never done before, like Dumbbell Snatches and Dumbbell Thrusters. It wasn’t pretty, but we’re able to pull them off.

Leap Frog was fun, though not fast. Julia is so small compared to me, I was afraid I was going to crush her. But she’s solid and tough. This one is in the bag.

Box Jumps. I froze up again on box jumps. Last week I was jumping twenty inches onto plates, but I have a mental block on twenty inches onto a plywood box. Why? Go figure. Julia is going to have to carry this one.

Lateral Jump Burpees over your partner holding a plank. It is a well established fact that this old man is not known for his jumping skills. I didn’t want to jump over Julia, for fear of missing my mark, or jumping too low and crushing her by stomping on her. But, by the grace of God, I was able to jump over her just fine and she never flinched. Conversely I was able to hold my plank while she performed the move.

Let’s discuss Cartwheels. We are both pathetic and we didn’t complete one cartwheel. There, I discussed it, now can we change the subject?

With Kettlebell Swings, Julia did superbly. She is like a metronome, she just keeps popping that weight from her hips to overhead with ease. Typically during workouts, I scale down to 35 pounds, after all, my real goal is fitness, but for this I have to swing 50% more weight, a 53 pounder. I was able to do it, but it took a lot more out of this tired body from the hips, to the wrists, the forearms to the shoulders. Ugh! I feel it.

Pistols were a disaster. Julia is able to pull off a couple, but I cannot unless I am anchored to a post, for balance, as well as support. We are still confused regarding what the event labels as PVC Partner Pistols, so we used our imaginations and it was very ugly.

Single Unders will be fine. I have been getting accustomed to my new rope and I am over my slump that I lamented about several weeks back. Today I was able to do 117 consecutive jumps in about one minute. Let’s hope I can pull that off in a couple weeks.

We never got to practice shouldering the Atlas Stone. They were all missing.

Then we decided to practice Power Cleans. Julia was handling 85 pounds with ease, and she only has to handle 75 in the WOD. Of course that is 15 reps at 75#, but I trust she can do it. I, on the other hand, am a disaster with this move. For some reason I am unable to put my hips into the bar, and I end up trying to pull the bar up with bent arms. Of course the bar never hits a point of weightlessness, so I never get under the bar. I was OK (not good) at 95 pounds, but when I loaded the bar to 115, which I need to be able to do in the competition, it was failure after painful failure.

If I can’t Clean, I certainly am not going to go far in the third WOD, pushing the bar from Shoulders to Overhead. Push Press and Jerk are as ugly as Cleans for me.

So there you have it, a recap of our first practice session. We are doing it again next Saturday. We have been strategizing about how to complement one another’s strengths and weaknesses throughout the competition, to ensure we maximize points, and don’t burn out. I haven’t ruled out bribing the judges, but I haven’t discussed it with Julia yet.

I’ll let you know how we do over the next week. If you’re doing WOD 4 Paws, how are you preparing? Share it in the comments, don’t worry, I won’t tell anyone.

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