Niall's Blog

This update is a bit overdue, I've been pretty busy finishing up things before I left my job and planning a backpacking trip before I start my new one. Still been training though!

Friday 2010-02-05
Rest day.

Saturday 2010-02-06
WOD: 5 rounds of: 10 burpees, 5 deadlift @ 275. My time: 3:55. Deads start feeling pretty heavy!

Also went down to Catalyst Athletics in Sunnyvale for some Olympic lifting coaching. There were four of us in the group and we had an hour long session with Steve Pan. It was very useful coaching. We worked on snatch technique. The two big pointers I took away from it were a) holding that solid starting position in the initial stages of lift (e.g. a snatch-deadlift) and b) moving feet lightly, avoiding any "donkey kick". I will be going down for coaching on the clean & jerk soon.

Sunday 2010-02-07
Rest day. I really needed a break.

Monday 2010-02-08
Did some shoulder-strength/rehab type work. A bunch of Turkish get-ups at 1.5 pood, presses and behind-the-neck presses. The behind-the-neck presses seem to have a very therapeutic effect. Strangely my hand and wrist pain has decreased greatly - in addition to lessened shoulder pain - since working them. I do pretty light weight (65#).

Tuesday 2010-02-09
WOD: 3 rounds of: 3 Muscle Up, 5 SDHP @ 95#, alley sprint (100m uphill). my time: 6:09.
Went into this one thinking I'd get stuck on the muscle ups, but in fact I felt much stronger doing them and had no problems. Felt a lot easier to get through the transition point.

Wednesday 2010-02-10
WOD 5 rounds of: 10 box jumps, 7 deadlifts @ 185#, 5 hand-stand push ups (on parallettes). My time: 6:49.
HSPU were definitely the slowest part of this for me - its tough to do them for reps. The deadlifts did start to get tough toward the end. Box jumps were easy.

Thursday 2010-02-11
Rest day.

Friday 2010-02-12
More shoulder work - Turkish getups, behind-the-neck presses, etc.

Saturday 2010-02-13
Run 5k. My time: 26:30 (urban route - lots of stopping at lights etc).
-Rest-
3-3-3-3-3
Overhead Squat I did pretty well on the OHS: 125-135-140(f)-145-155. 155# for 3 reps is a PR!

Sunday 2010-02-14
Turkish get-ups, behind-the-neck presses, etc.

Monday 2010-02-15
WOD:
8x100m sprints, rest in between.
2x400m run, 2 mins rest in between.
1x800m run.
The alley sprints were hard. Very difficult to go all-out eight times like that.
- Rest -
Shoulder press 3-3-3-3-3.
I did: 115-125-135-140-145(f). I think 140# for 3 reps is not too bad.

Tuesday 2010-02-15

WOD:10 Rounds: 10 Kettlebell Swings 1.5 pood, 10 Pull-ups. My time: 9:11.

After about round 5, grip starts weakening. Final few KB swings took everything I had just to hold onto the damn thing!

3-3-3
Snatch Balance. Just went light with this, working speed. 65-75-95.

3-3-3
Bent Over Row. Still getting used to this exercise. 95-135-155.

Niall O'Higgins is an author, event organizer and software consultant. He wrote the book MongoDB and Python, published by O'Reilly. Events he organizes include We Have Tablets, the #1 Bay Area Tablet Computing Meet-up and PyWebSF. He also offers consulting services for Mobile, Tablet and Cloud Computing.

This week was a bit stressful and intense due to resigning from my job (a move I feel good about though - onto new and different things!), so it was great to have some solid training to help deal with that. I'm definitely pretty tired after all this! Tuesday 2010-01-26 WOD: Filthy 50s 50 Box jump, 24 inch box 50 Jumping pull-ups 50 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood Walking Lunge, 50 steps 50 Knees to elbows 50 Push press, 45 pounds 50 Back extensions 50 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball 50 Burpees 50 Double unders My time: 21:30. [caption id="attachment_811" align="aligncenter" width="500" caption="This overhead position is tough for me"][/caption] Wednesday 2010-01-27 I like the shoulder press because its a slow, controlled movement, but the faster overhead lifts can really hurt my shoulders due to flexibility issues. Its like some part of my shoulder is banging against something - which it probably is - and the resulting sudden pain when the heavy bar is flying up overhead causes me to drop the damn thing! So I end up having a shoulder press not much lower than my push press and push jerk, which sucks. Hoping I can address this over time, with practice. If anyone has successfully resolved this particular issue please let me know :-) 100 Double-Unders. I find these fairly easy, knocked them out in 46 seconds. - Rest - 1-1-1-1-1 Shoulder Press: 115# - 125# - 135# - 145# - 155# (fail) 3-3-3-3-3 Push Press: got up to 160# 5-5-5-5-5 Push Jerk: got up to 145#, dropped down to 115# to practice. shoulders hurt. Thursday 2010-01-28 Rest day Friday 2010-01-29 Couldn't make it to the gym for burpees + box jumps, so I modified it slightly at home. WOD: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 Burpees, 1.5pood kettlebell swing. This was pretty fun actually, the burpees and swings really make you breath! Saturday 2010-01-30 WOD: 1 Pood kettlebell snatches (left AND right), hand stand pushups (15-12-9). The HSPUs were the toughest part. We are working them on parallettes, which I like more than without because it saves my wrists, but it does make them harder. I could knock out a few with reps but after that I had to do them in singles. Interesting to contrast the HSPU with the Shoulder Press - roughly the same weight but so much more stabilization required for the HSPU - I guess humans have legs for a reason! - Rest - Open water swim in the San Francisco Bay again. This is so much fun - 48degF water followed by a good sit in the steam room. Truly great for recovery. Sunday 2010-01-31 WOD: 10 rounds of: 15 x Deadlift @ 135#, 15 pushups. My time: 15 minutes. I'm not sure what it was (maybe that I ran the WOD at 10pm) but I felt pretty weak toward the end. I had to break the deadlifts down to sets of 5. This one really makes your hamstrings scream. Monday 2010-02-01 Rest day. Tuesday 2010-02-02 WOD: Run a 5k. Much more than 5k and I start to get bored, but 5k is ok. Hamstrings were still sore from the 150 deadlifts on Sunday night! - Rest - Front Squat 5-3-3-2-1. Felt good with the squats, did 185#-205#-225#-245#-255#. Wednesday 2010-02-03 This was pretty tough - and fun! WOD: As Many Rounds As Possible in 3 Minutes 5 Kettlebell Swings 2 Pood 5 Push Press 95# 5 Pull-ups Kinda like Fight Gone Bad I suppose. First time doing the 2 pood swings, I found them easier than I expected, although toward the end my grip was very tired. My score: 3-4-3-3-3. It was OK, I slightly miss counted at one point, but I only would've gotten maybe one more round, so not a big difference. - Rest - 3-3-3 Power Cleans My numbers: 135#-155#-175#(F) Didn't have enough time to rest between sets since parking meter was running out, I blame that for failing on the 175# cleans! Thursday 2010-02-04 Feeling a bit wrecked at this stage. No WOD prescribed, so I did 75 reps of Over Head Squat @ 95 lbs. Not in a single set :-) I'm looking forward to resting tomorrow!

Niall O'Higgins is an author, event organizer and software consultant. He wrote the book MongoDB and Python, published by O'Reilly. Events he organizes include We Have Tablets, the #1 Bay Area Tablet Computing Meet-up and PyWebSF. He also offers consulting services for Mobile, Tablet and Cloud Computing.

Another week, another bunch of training. After last week's CrossFit Sectionals NorCal Training Log 2010 #1, this one was a bit better. Mainly because I got over my cold. However, some stuff was really tough. [caption id="attachment_728" align="aligncenter" width="604" caption="SF Bay Swim 2010-01-16"][/caption] Here's what I did: Monday 2010-01-11 WOD: 30 muscle-ups for time. I could only manage to do eight - which was a disappointment since I could do 30 back in September. I really feel like my upper body strength has taken a hit over the past 2 months. So that sucked. After a rest, we did a 5x5 Back Squat, where I was a bit happier; 165 - 185 - 205 - 225 - 245, good, deep ROM throughout. Being a bit miffed by poor muscle-up performance, I finished off with a bunch of slow, deep ring dips. Hoping that some weighted pull-ups and dips will bring back muscle-ups soon. Tuesday 2010-01-12 WOD: Run a 5k. This was fine, raining a bit and our route through SF's Pacific Heights is very hilly. My time was respectable enough, 26:40. After that I took a rest and worked a 5x3 Power Clean. My max power clean previously was 195lbs, and I was disappointed to only be able to hit 3x175lbs this time. I was having odd sharp pains and spasms in my elbows and shoulders after each rep which I think were from the muscle ups on Monday. So I decided to leave it at that, which was a good idea I figure. Wednesday 2010-01-13 WOD: 3 rounds for time of: 50 double unders, 50 push-ups. My time was 6:46 which wasn't too bad. The push-ups were really what slowed me down. I feel like I used to be a lot faster at push-ups. I guess I just need to do like a 100 every morning when I get up. After a rest, I did a Power Snatch to 5xOver Head Squat progression. I found that my elbows and shoulders were still sore from the muscle-ups and so I had to take some breaks in between each set for the spasms to die down. I made it up to 125lbs Power Snatch followed by 5xOHS, which was respectable enough. Thursday 2010-01-14 Rest day Friday 2010-01-15 WOD: Fairly long lifting session, 5x5 in Back Squat, Shoulder Press and Deadlift. Squat was reasonable I hit 260lbs x 5. Shoulder Press was a bit disappointing, I could only manage 4 reps at 125lbs, where as 2 months ago I was comfortably enough pressing 135lbs for 5 reps. So that sucked. For the Deadlift I started at 275lbs and hit 335lbs for 3 reps, but the bar just wasn't coming up after that, possibly because I ripped a callous at 325lbs which was pretty distracting. Overall not a bad session but definitely not at my strongest at this point. Saturday 2010-01-16 WOD: Swimming in SF bay! Thats where the photo above is from. This was pretty awesome - I actually ended up doing something like a mini-triathlon since I cycled 8 miles (to and from gym) ran 1.5 miles (from gym to bay) and swam for 10 minutes. Felt great, bloody cold though, looking forward to more swimming there in the future. 52F water is great substitute for an ice bath! Sunday 2010-01-17 WOD: 5x5 dead hang pull-ups / weighted pull-ups @ 1 pood. 5x5 Ring dips. Like I said above I think my upper body strength needs some work so I thought this would be a good one. Definitely didn't feel as strong with this resistance as I have in the past, so I think I'll need to do this kind of WOD a fair bit more over the next few weeks. Monday 2010-01-18 Rest day.

Niall O'Higgins is an author, event organizer and software consultant. He wrote the book MongoDB and Python, published by O'Reilly. Events he organizes include We Have Tablets, the #1 Bay Area Tablet Computing Meet-up and PyWebSF. He also offers consulting services for Mobile, Tablet and Cloud Computing.