503, Part Deux

I am not a very patient man. On 12-14-06, I started a typical DL workout. 225x1, 295x1, 360x1, 410x1. All smooth and easy. I said to myself, "Self, I wonder how far we can go today. Let's see!!" 454x1 no problem. 476x1, tough but solid. Oh, it's on now!! 24 lbs is nothing. I went to put 500lbs on the bar....and it wouldn't fit. My fat (as opposed to phat) bumper plates were taking up too much room! Well, I was motivated to get this done. I'm quite a handyman (NOT) so I got a bright idea. I duct taped weight on top of the plates already on the bar. I got psyched and went for the lift. The above picture accurately depicts what happened. The tape failed, plates fell everywhere....a total miss. Defeated, I put 437lbs on the bar and did 3 singles. I was disappointed but confident the 500 was right aroud the corner.

503, Part One

OK, before you guys starting thinking I'm totally full of myself, let me set the record straight. I am proud of this lift. I worked for it and earned it. However, I know exactly where this puts me in the world of lifting. I am now king shit of the little dust pile in my garage. I know several people who warmup with this weight. Heck Casey Burgener puts this overhead!!!!! (In fact, I'm not sure I even qualify on the Hoffman Standards.) I am simply posting the stuff that follows to show how I went about getting this goal. Maybe it will help someone reach a goal too. And I am doing it in a few parts because a)I'm a really slow typer and b) I'm waiting for a picture and trying to learn how to download video. So be patient. And just so you know, my little guy thinks I'm the strongest man in the world no matter what I lift, so there.

For the past couple of years my deadlift had stalled at around 442-449 lbs. (I have kilo plates mixed in so that's the reason for the weird numbers). On Nov. 1, 2006, I did a deadlift workout: 225x1, 275x1, 315x1, 361x1, 411x1. The last lift felt solid so I wanted to go heavier. I'm lazy so I didn't want to take weights off to add smaller plates, so I just put on two 10kg plates. 455x1, pretty solid. It felt good!!! I ended the workout there and put the weights away.

A while later, I said to myself, "Self, you aren't too far away from 500lbs. I'm gonna get that." So I wrote down a simple program I thought would help me get this goal (in conjunction with CrossFit workouts):

Day 1: 10x1 at 85% (387-390lbs), add 10lbs for next time if get 10 good reps.
Day 2: 5x225, 3x275, 3x320, 5x1 @ 365 (then 5x1 @ 387 on week 2, 410 week 3, 435 week 4)
Day 3: 225x1 for 10 sets, moving the weight fast, one pull every 30 seconds

That's it, along with some CrossFit workouts. Here are the notes from my training log:
11-1-06: DL 455 (new PR)
11-2-06: Military Press 5x5 (clean from floor): 5x95, 5x135, 5x145, 5x145, 5x157 (some leg)
11-3-06: 3 rounds of 100 squats, 5 muscle ups
11-4-06: DL 225x5, 275x5, 320x3, 368x1x5, with 2 min. rest, 1x6 HSPU
11-7-06: DL 225x1, 295x1, 345x1, 389x1 x10, 3 min rest approx. (later in day did 20 mins. of 5 pullups, 5 pushups, 5 squats, 5 situps--22 sets, 110 reps of each.)
11-8-06: 3 rounds of 95lb Snatch x 15/400m (13:57)
11-10-06: 135x5, 185x5, 207x5, 225x5, 242x5 pretty easy, finish with 225 lb DL, 10 singles, one pull every 30 secs.
11-12-06: 5x Max Pullups (21, 20, 20, 20, 20)/HSPU (5, 5, 5, 5, 5...I suck), then did DL 5x225, 3x275, 3x320, 5 singles at 369.
11-13-06: 7 rounds of 15 pullups/25 squats (20:36)
11-14-06: 10 x 168 lb keg lift overhead
11-15-06: DL 225x1, 295x1, 360x1, 404x1 x10 (2-3 min rest), later did 1-20 rep progression of 2 pood KB swings and a 3 mile run (yuck)
11-19-06: DL 5x225, 3x275, 3x320, five single at 390
11-20-06: Diane, then 15 muscle ups (broken sets)
11-21-06: 5 rounds of 25 squat/10 strict pullups/7 ring dips
11-22-06: DL 225x3, 295x1, 360x1, 415x1 x10, 3-5 mins rest approx., pullup ladder 1-9 reps
11-25-06: FS 135x3, 155x3, 185x3, 207x3, 223x3 + 1x15 pullups, 5 HSPU
11-28-06: 1200m run/9x95lb Thruster/9 pullups/ 800m run/15 Thruster/15 pullups/400m run/21 Thruster/21 pullups (20:05)
11-29-06: DL 225x5, 275x3, 320x3, 365x1, 409x1 x5
12-5-06: Murph (49:17)
12-10-06: DL 225x5, 275x3, 320x3, 382x1, 421x1 x5, then I helped my brother-in-law move (damn couch up three flights of stairs!!!!) and found a cool park in LA with rings and a great chin bar so did 5x10 pullups/5x10 dips/5x1 muscle ups.
12-11-06: 3x400m + Max pullups (20, 16, 13) (14:30)
12-12-06: 10 HSPU and 15 Muscle Ups

OK, I'll break here (hey wake up, damn it!!). As you can see I take a lot of days off (those are work days) and my workout schedule is quite irregular. I fit in workouts when I can. Check out Part Deux of this post soon. Out.

Christmas Came Early at CFSC

This has been good training/coaching week for me. First, I went down to Camp Pendleton with Sarge. That place is awesome. As we drove in, Sarge was pointing out the hills (more like mountains!!) he runs. Then we drove by the obstacle course and the big sandpits used for fighting and grappling. Everywhere I looked, there were pullup bars. Best of all, I got to get a sweet workout in with a couple hard charging Marines who love CrossFit. These guys were awesome. They have a nice little workout area I call "The Patch"(me not very original). Pullup bars, a BIG tire, wall ball stations, heavy logs, a perfect tree for rings and enough room to run wild. We did pullups, parallette pushups, rope pulls, wall ball, slam ball, muscle ups.....Good stuff. I will definitely be back!!!! What a great atmosphere.

Every coach has had that one group that really got after it in the weight room. Coachability, attitude, athleticism and intensity combined for superior results. At Indiana University, I had a very special group of pole vaulters I will always remember with great fondness. Whether it was ET doing 50 one legged squats each leg, DE doing 100 explosive reps of 225lb cleans at 155 bodyweight, IC doing 50 reps of chins (and 100 dips and 100 chins in 10 minutes!!!), AP's beautiful full squat cleans (and potty mouth :)) or JW smoking 315 (or 320?) at 190 lbs. This list goes on and on. These kids were incredible and were an absolute joy to coach. They kept me on my toes because I had to constantly find new ways to challenge them. I think we all remember the year-end "special workout". Good memories....

Well, those kids have graduated and gone on to start careers and families. One of them (JW) is a coach. He asked if one of his athletes, who was in town for the holidays, could get a workout in with me. I said sure, though I was a little worried I might disappoint. This 19 year old kid (JC) drove 1.5 hours to get to my place. He walked into my garage, ignored all the kids toys and other clutter, went to the platform and got ready to go. We did this: 5 sets of clean, FS, PP, BS, PP X5 with 40kg. (His cleans were fast, hips and elbows moving, speed on the bar. He has a good coach!!) Then 10x2 or 1 on cleans (power and hang) up to 90kg. Great form, full extension with quick hands and feet. And he used a hook grip without me saying anything (good coach). Then it was off to the park. 5 rounds of 5 HSPU, 5+5 Pistols, 10 pullups. JC smoked through this. Next I showed JC how to do a muscle up. He hit it on his first try and then got a double. Very nice. We finished with 20 slamball, 20 medball abs and 10 stand ups. I hope it was worth 3 hours of drive time because I had a great time. JC is a great, humble kid. He loves to lift and he is very coachable. He asked a ton of questions and talked about competing and athletics. He would have fit in nicely with our group (best compliment I can give). It's nice to see the tradition continues. Thanks JW and JC...my garage is always open for you guys.

I must have been inspired by JC. In the late afternoon, I went out to do a deadlift workout. I have been doing deadlifts regularly to hit a goal: 500 lbs. Yeah, nothing earth-shattering but just something I wanted to do. The plan was to do 10x1 at 433. But 433 was too easy. All I had to do was add 35 lbs to each side....I got the video camera, gave myself a pep talk and went to work. I wouldn't be writing this if I'd missed. 503 lbs. I was very happy and proud to hit my goal. I will put up the program, time frame and thoughts that led to me making this lift in my next post. And I'll try to get the video up. So, as you can see, Christmas was celebrated a little early in my world. Thanks to everyone one giving me these special times!!!!

People read my Blog?

I was perusing my blog (yup...bored), and I noticed some people had actually responded to my posts. Pretty cool. Thanks Rip and CrossFit King for the thoughts and comments. Now if I could only get Josh Everett to stop spamming my site.....

MURPH

A few CrossFit SurfCity members had time to get together last week. We've all been going pretty hard on workouts on our own, so it was good to get a small group together for a workout. We decided to go BIG: MURPH. Every CrossFitter knows the origins of MURPH and the hero this workout was named after. The workout has taken on mythical status, and rightfully so. A good friend of mine who was in the Teams knew Lt. Murphy. This really brought home to our group the enormity of Lt. Murphy's sacrifice and the undeniable quality of this soldier's character.

We went hard, we did our best, we suffered through and hopefully we honored the spirit Lt. Murphy intended for this workout. Thank you, Lt. Murphy--a great American.

SR: 49:17
JM: 52:40
ES: 1:05
BM: 1:02