April 1, 2022

No April fools jokes this morning. Missed opportunity.

We had a good bike/run workout. HWPO has brought in swimming to the workout and we don’t have a place right now. We will incorporate it into the workout in the summer.

We substituted the swim for a 1 mile run on Minnekahda. Josh ran 5:50 and has the 5:37 record in his sights. Our mile run is on a big and steep hill so times are not accurate to what he could run a mile on flat track. It is slow going up but fast going down.

I was very happy to get back to the running today and felt fine. No strains or injuries. Of course a mile is not very far but my calf has presented problems on even a 400 m run. I think that the stretching has me where I can run again. I hope so because I do miss running.

Im headed out of town and the guys will continue while Im gone. I will incorporate more running into the workouts while Im gone and see if I can get some miles.

Also I missed yesterdays post so here is what we did yesterday. Power clean + Jerk. 5x 2+2 @150 lbs

My burpees were 15, 16, 16, 15, 16.

March 30, 2022

With the change in the HWPO app, the calendar is not synced to today. Hence, I accidentally jumped ahead a bunch and did a different workout. No worries, it was a good one.

March 29, 2022

Matt Lawson, Jody, Kyle, Alan, Rusty, Mathew

March 28, 2022

A great weekend with the workout crew in Venice, LA. It was the first, but not the last RRL fishing trip. While there we caught plenty of fish and had a great workout at Fort Jackson on the Mississippi River.

Back in the garage:

Today:

March 24, 2022

Great day at the RRL with more muscle ups than we have seen from our group in a while

Josh, Jose, Lucas, Card, Rusty, Alan, Michael, Steen

Started with Squat Snatch - I felt rusty and immobile today. 135 was challenging. Mobility in my left shoulder was not as good as it can be and also my mid back. Seems like the stretching should be helping but I seemed tight.

Then a strange workout from Fraser -

5 Muscle ups

10 shoulder to overhead w 135

15 cal on bike

x 3 rounds but rest 1 min after first round, 2 min after second round and 3 min after 3rd and then repeat the workout again with the same rest times

My first try was better than my second try even though all the movements felt a little better on the 2nd…just slower.

Today is the day we leave for the 1st annual RRL fishing trip. Headed to Louisiana for many guys first experience at something like this. It should be fun. 9 of us going including my dad. I have prizes for most, biggest, most sunburned and most likely to return

March 23, 2022

At 4:45 the rain woke me up. I usually get out of bed at 5:02 but I just got up this morning. I could use some extra stretching and probably a few minutes to see how we might customize today’s workout into something we can do in the rain.

It started with a good 20 min stretch and when I felt like I was ready, I moved to the first movement of the day. Clean and Jerk 5x3x2 @ 155

On round 3 I was pretty sure that today would be the day that the streak was broken. I started this garage gym in 2008 or 9, I cant remember. But ever since the first day, at least one person has come to workout with me. I have never been completely stood up. After the 3rd clean and jerk this morning I was pretty sure that today was the day, but I saw headlights and then Justin Arnold rounded the corner!

Justin hit his clean and jerks and I finished mine and then we moved to the next round of the workout which worked perfectly for only 2 of us in the rain.

10 Bench Press

10 Sandball Shoulder @ 120lbs

5 Bench Press

5 Sandball shoulder @ 120

Hit this every 5 minutes x 3 rounds

then

Bike

25 cal

Rest :30

10 cal

rest :30

10 cal

rest :30

10 cal

rest 2:00

do this x3

Great start to the day. Thank you Justin for saving me this morning!

March 21, 2022

Good group today. Robert, Kim, Card, Will Ensign, Jose, Gage, Josh, Rusty, Alan, Me

Front Squat, Back Squat, Snatch/Row emom followed by bar Muscle up/Devil press and then a 16 min core emom

I read the book Salt Fix yesterday and tried some things I learned. Instead of the 20 gr of carbs coming from Apple juice mixed w 10 gr protein powder I exchanged the apple juice for tailwind that has 330 gr sodium in it. I added a little salt on top of it. Mixed the protein powder in it and did not take Beta Alanine this morning. I felt pretty good and managed 6 bar muscle ups in a row. Maybe I felt a little stronger? I will see if the afternoon nap hits as hard today and I am also going to watch my calves to see if they are twitching as much.

I did not sweat that much this morning. Certainly not like the summer time but I will sauna this afternoon.

Hopefully I can get the balance right.

March 18, 2022

Finished the week with Deadlifts and a 40 min EMOM

Deads

The EMOM was good. Had a good group: Lucas, Jody, Josh, Jose, Steen, Will Ensign, Card, Rusty, Mathew, Me, Alan.

The Squat Clean Dumbbell was supposed to be at 95. We don’t have a 95 lb db and Im not sure anyone can even do that. We do have a 75 and I managed to work my way up to that for a few rounds. Lucas did too with surprisingly good form. Looked really good. Mine probably didnt look very good

After the workout and to celebrate Moose’s return we went into the basement and had a Black Rifle Coffee Party. Good times

March 17, 2022

Another awesome morning.

Yesterday was a rainy day that coincided with a day of biking on the HWPO program. It worked out well as we were able to all stay inside and get the work done. It was about a 10 minute warm up of intervals on the bike followed by a 30 minute interval based upon our 20 min max ride. We went 1:00 at 100% of that max, 2:00 at 80% and 2:00 at 60% followed by :30 rest x 5

Today:

March 15, 2022

Great morning! Im missing my dog Moose as he is still at manners camp. We did have June and Ellie here today though. Great group with Josh, Steen, Rusty, Alan, Mathew, Me.

Morning weigh in at 184.6 down from 191. The tracking of the macros is working and I feel good.

Great stretching session last night before bed and I felt good this morning in the warm up stretch.

We got all this work done before 7 am

March 14, 2022

Trip to Montana, Trip to Auburn. Time away from this blog but no time away from training.

I also started a new plan to get down to fighting weight. I weighed in at 187 and have been as high as 191. I want to get down to 174.

While I like RP Strength and have had good success with it, I have also tried it many times and fallen off. I think it is too much tracking for me. I decided to try my friend Layne Norton’s app, Carbon. It is easy, provides Zone macro goals and allows bar code scanning. So far, I have remained in calorie deficit but hitting protein requirements. I am predicted to lose 1.5 pounds per week. Hopefully that will continue to work and Ill hit my goal

February 28, 2022

Great morning in the garage with Rusty, Kim, Michael Miller, Matt Lawson, Josh, Jose, Alan, Stephan, Wade, Card, Me

These 40 min EMOM are great workouts. I found the rowing to be the toughest today but I did do the Walking lunges with 35s instead of 50s.

Push/Pull sled finisher

February 23, 2022

Rainy day but the programming was good for it

Bench press felt pretty good after the arms back and up stretch.

We hit the MetCon and loved the 35 pound Devils Press! Way nicer than 50s.

February 22, 2022

Great day in the garage this morning. Strangely, it rarely rains between the hours of 4:30-7:30. Heavy rain hit last night and rained through the night but by 4:30 it broke and we were able to get the whole workout in rain free. It is strange how often this happens. It started raining as I was finishing at 7:30.

Romanian DL at 185

Snatch balance at 95, 115, 95

Metcon 2 at 185 dropping to 135 to try to get more T2B

No extra work today besides push/pull sled and stretching

Making significant progress on the sit cross leg head on floor which feel fantastic and strangely seems to have opened my hamstrings a bit.

Rusty, Justin, Mathew, Josh, Jose, Steen, Jody, Me, Matt Lawson + Ellie, June and Moose

February 15, 2022

Training feels good right now but I am not sure how my performance would be if I were to test it. I have not competed in a while and with Fraser’s HWPO program there is really not a way to keep track of everything or a leaderboard to compete on each workout. I really like the programming but I do miss the leaderboard from Bergerons program.

I have been staying relatively light on most weights and I do feel good and injury free. Id like to test some workouts and probably will with some open workouts even though I am not competing in the Open this year. Ill do some of the workouts as a test to see where I am.

Hit the strict press at 135, 145, 155. Snatch and squat snatch was 95 and felt smooth. Could have done 115 pretty easily I think. Knee work is paying off

Today:

Good group this morning…Josh, Jose, Justin, Jimmy, Rusty, Card, Alan, Me

February 14, 2022

Felt great to be back in the Garage this morning!

Robert, Kim, Alan, Rusty, Josh, Jose, Matt Lawson and JODY all back with me.

Starting to ramp up the weight again. Feeling good. I based my 1RM dead off 315 which is light but just being careful and laying down a good base. Snatch Balance was at 115 and Metcon was at 115 as well. I was moving well with the 115 squat snatches today. Knee work is definitely helping.

Finished the day with 4x push/pull on the sled with 6 plates.

February 13, 2022

I have been out of town on a trip with my wife and 2 other couples. We went to BVI and stayed on a sailboat. It was a fantastic trip and offered a good amount of time to do the 10,000 pushup challenge.

I finished this years challenge in 10 days. I could have just done 1000/day for 10 days but I started out lower and made up some numbers on the boat. I did 2001 on the last day to finish.

Expecting to be sore, I wasn’t. That made me very happy that I could do 2000 pushups and not be even a little sore. I think the key to this was doing 20 on the minute for 94 minutes. The small sets with rest made a big difference.

Now it is time to get back into the garage and back to Frasers program. Looking forward to it

January 20

Today is a special day. It is my 26th anniversary with my beautiful wife, Cynthia. I am so grateful and thankful for her and the life we have created. Marrying her was the best decision I ever made in my life.

Today:

I felt a little something strange in my lower back on Sunday while sit-in on the couch of all things. Since then I have been careful with it. It only bothers me in movements where I lean forward. The Cross leg forward lean doesn't seem to make it very happy so I have been careful with that one. For that reason, I decided to go a good bit lighter today than Rx.

3x2 @ 245 rather than 295

cleans @ 135

Row felt good for the most part. Held a 1:38-1:45 on the EMOM and 2:10 on the 4 min sections.

Did not do the Metcon

Accessory work complete

January 19, 2022

137 days ago I started the Mat Fraser HWPO program. I really like the programming but the thing I don’t like about it is that I am no longer using Beyondthewhiteboard to keep track of my progress. Ill have to do it here which is good for anyone interested in what we are doing I guess.

This is a reload week so the workouts are still hard, but less reps and less time. Today, there was a warm up on the bike. We had to use an Assault Bike because that is what we have. It is designed for a spin bike.

At the beginning of the program we did a 20 minute max ride. We got our average calories for a 20 minute time. Today’s workout is based off that time. So the 110% is 10% higher than the wattage I could hold for 20 minutes. The 80% is off that 20 minute test as well.

I held 500+ for the 110% and 300+ for the 80%. The first round of 3 sets was the hardest as the lactic acid flowed into the bloodstream but the second was a little easier and the third easier to hold the same Watts.

Finished with Plate holds :45 x 3 then Forearm curls at 15lbs each 3x20

Good group this morning.

People: Josh, Jose, Kyle, Justin, Card, Rusty, Steen

Dogs: Moose, June, Ellie

March 27, 2021

The CrossFit Open has had my attention lately and I have neglected to post here.

The workouts have been interesting and good tests, in my opinion. At the end of the 3 I am feeling good about all the results except 21.3 and 21.4. 21.1 and 21.2 were completed twice and both times I did much better on the second time.

I am considering doing 21.3 and 4 again but Im not sure it will be necessary. The top 10% move on to the next round. There are 6700 people in my division so the top 670 move on. I expect to be in the top 50 after this result. I may just take this weekend to recover and get set to be at my best when the next round starts. That entails some celebration which just might include some ice cream and extra sleep.

I hope that your CrossFit Open has been going well. If you are not in this competition I hope that you have your own event or milestone you are preparing for. GO get it!

Here are the Podcasts that I have done on the Open

Week 1

Week 2

Week 3