Went to the gym yesterday (Friday.) We started with 10-15 minutes of skill work of our choice. Some people worked on double unders, but I’m fairly proficient with them, so I worked on kipping pull ups. I felt like I had gotten to a good place with them a month/month and a half ago, but feel that that has slipped away a bit because of injuries and lots of sporadic periods where I haven’t been able to make it into the gym and maintain my strength/callouses/technique.
Worked on it independently for awhile, then our coach came over and worked with a group of about four of us on it. We did some drills to teach us how to swing, how to use our momentum, and how to propel yourself up in a continuous motion. I could already do kipping pull ups, but it was really nice to go through it step by step. And even though I can do them, they’re pretty hard, and I can only do a few in a row before I have to jump off the bar. I probably did 20 or so pull ups as well as a bunch of drills during our skill work session.
Next we did our WOD, which was 5 rounds of:
5 power cleans (RX was 95!! I did 63)
5 thrusters (same weight)
10 lateral burpees
This was one of those workouts that looks easier than it actually is. I didn’t think it was going to be a big deal, but once we started I was like, oh snap. Anyway, I was nervous about the power cleans because I realized that my back pain is triggered specifically by lifts that start from the ground. I’m OK when we’re doing overhead squats, front squats, etc, but when I pull from the ground (deadlifts, power cleans) I have a lot of pain. And now that I’m writing this I realize that snatches don’t bother me either, but it’s a much different lift. I think it’s just that power stance pulling from the ground position that bothers my back.
Anyway, I told my coach (finally – I had been wanting to talk to him about it forever but haven’t worked out in one of his classes in awhile), and he told me to just do hang cleans instead of power cleans, which I thought was brilliant.
Anyway, the hang cleans were OK. The thrusters were brutal. OMG they hurt. And then the burpees were just a slog. (lateral burpees are when you do one burpee then jump laterally over your bar and do another one, etc.) I can’t imagine trying to do this workout RX.
This took me 10:44, and by the time I was done, I was exhausted and shaking. Took me awhile to gain control of my arms, and afterwards while I was rolling out my coach gave me some suggestions for stretches that would help with my back pain. I tried them out but am not convinced that’s going to be enough. We shall see.
I did feel pretty good after this workout, though. Not much pain but I felt very challenged in a good way. I also feel like all the pull up work helped me a lot.
I rolled out again last night before I went to bed, and today (a day later) I have some soreness in my shoulders/lats/back/arms, etc. It all seems pretty par for the course, though, not scary painful.
One thing that is a little weird is how badly the callouses on my hands hurt today. I’ve never really had that before. When I woke up this morning and picked up my phone to see what time it was, my callouses felt like blisters. While I was doing dishes, it was really hard for me to grasp objects because of how badly it hurt for my callouses to touch things. Ick. I wonder if there are tiny blisters on my callouses? Not sure how it works.
The bar is pretty much my favorite thing but it’s brutal.