Four P’s and an Old Goat

Yeah, I know, that’s a ridiculous title for a blogpost.  But it got you to read it, so it can’t be all bad, eh?

I want to write about our CrossFit goats. We all have them. I happen to have a herd of them. But thanks to patience, practice, persistance and perseverance (the Four P’s), I now have one less than I did when I awoke this morning.

Up until August 2012, I never realized I was “Single-Under Deficient”. But there is a simple test that can be utilized to diagnose this malady. Hand the patient a rope and take careful note of the obvious lack of coordination between the wrists, hands and feet. Severe cases of SUD result in red welts appearing on calves and forearms, profuse sweating and incoherent speech.

The good news is that SUD is curable, but the cure often leads to Double-Under Deficiency, which I assume is also curable.

Let’s go back to August. When I started CrossFit, I was just getting over a summer of suffering with Plantar Faciatis. That is a painful situation that I wouldn’t wish on my worst enemy. So with extremely painful feet, getting exposed to Box Jumps, 400m Runs and Jumping Rope was not the sweetest introduction to CrossFit.

So here I am, a guy with sore feet, weak ankles, no cardio fitness and no experience, trying to jump rope. I had so many issues to overcome, besides a lack of timing and coordination. And it seemed that every WOD between Labor Day and New Year Day had rope jumping in the mix.

This was one of my most frustrating movements in the WODs. I would struggle to get off two or three jumps before tripping. By the time I counted off 20 Singles, all my friends were starting their third round of the AMRAP. So I did what every guy would do, I searched for YouTube videos on rope jumping. Of course, all I found were amazing jumpers. Then I started looking for kids jumping and there I found help. I found a few videos somewhere between learning to walk and ride a bike, that focused on the elementary aspects of jumping rope.

Also, because I’m a guy, I knew I needed my own custom-made jump rope. There is nothing that get’s a man excited like buying gear for a sport or activity. Seriously, I was having enough difficulty without the additional variable of grabbing a different size rope every time I tried to jump. So I ordered a custom rope, that was longer and heavier than the ones in the gym. I worked with that rope for a month and I struggled with it’s weight and length. So I ordered a second rope, with a slightly lighter gauge cable and a sweet length of 9 feet, 7 inches.

With a proper rope, all that was missing were the Four P’s. So after WOD’s I would grab my rope and see if I could knock out ten jumps before tripping. Then twenty, twenty-five, etc. A seemingly unattainable goal has been to break fifty consecutive jumps. Saturday I went to open gym and did nothing but jump. After struggling, I seemed to get into a groove and I exceeded my previous high of 42 jumps by 7, one shy of the elusive 50.

Today’s Warm-up had 40 Single-unders and I didn’t stop at 40, I kept going. I felt like there was a rhythm developing and I got to 57 in the first round. In the second round I hit 62 (coincidentally, my age).  It has taken nine freaking months to do this move that a grade-schooler can do blind-folded. I knew when I was done that this goat had died. I had sacrificed it to the CrossFit god.

Just curious: how many of you thought I was the Old Goat when you read the title? Shame on you!

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