Herding the goats

Preparing for the Games means I have to evaluate myself objectively as a Crossfitter. How well do I perform across broad time and modal domains? I've been at this long enough to know What I'm Good At and What I Suck At. The difference now is that if I don't want to fall on my face in May, I have to program those exercises/workouts that I would least want to see come out of the hopper at the Qualifiers, those things that KStar and Boz at Crossfit San Fransisco would call my goats. Knowing that, I sat down with my workout log and compiled a proper list of Goats, and sure enough, I've got a fucking herd, and they're nasty little buggers.

My list of goats (in no particular order) looks like this:

• Metcons of 15 minutes or more
  
• High rep deadlifts and olympic lifts
  
• Muscular stamina in general
  
• Pressing exercises (Shoulder press, bench press, HSPU, pushups)
  
• Jerks and push presses (my dip-drive is a disaster, when things get heavy or hurried)
  
• Snatch
  
• Double unders
  
• Muscle-ups
  
• GHD situps (and regular situps aren't exactly a strength)
  
• Rowing beyond 2,000m (I've never done it, and it's because I know just how much it will hurt)
  
• Running 5K or more (ridiculous since I used to be a runner with a sub-5-minute mile, but my 5K is currently 24+)
  
• Burpees (just because they're burpees and they suck)

Quite a list there. I've got plenty of things to program, high rep DLs, presses, long runs and rows, Annie, Angie, Diane, Elizabeth, Grace. The list goes on. It's like a who's who of CF Girls. The problem is for some of these goats, I haven't a clue how to shepherd them in from the fields. Muscular stamina and cardiovascular endurance and even pressing strength can be developed through hard work, but I need some serious help with double unders, jerks, and muscle-ups. They need practice-practice-practice before I can even work to develop capacity. Those three skills are still on the front end of the technique-consistency-intensity recipe. Those goats need feeding, and they need it now, or I'm liable to be caught with my pants down in May.

This means that unlike the firebreathers getting ready for the Games by piling on PR after PR on major lifts and the Girls,
I need to be focused on the fundamentals. This means I get to stare down a goat every day. Today, the goal is building endurance for heavy deadlifts while maintaining proper form, using a density-training protocol. I went heavy last week and stopped just shy of matching two PRs, because my form was going to shit. My first weakness in the DL is one of inadequate spinal stability. That weakness affects my high-rep DLs, my olympic lifts, and is a mean, old goat ready to gore me and leave me injured if I don't keep an eye on it. As an added bonus, I get to play with double unders, too.

Warmup
Jump rope 2:00
Alt. single/DU 1:00 - 25 DUs
Max consecutive DUs - 4 (1:00 was not enough time for max test)
DUs (in sets of consecutive DUs) 1:00 - 16
Star-pattern squat sequence 35x2 each
TGU-windmill drill 35x3 each
RRs 35x8 (alternating)

Heavy stuff
Deadlift 135x5, 185x5, 5x (225, 230, 235, 240, 245, 250)*

* Density style - every two minutes on the minute until form goes soft.

Form went early on this one. Saturday's good mornings were still being felt (and how).

Metcon
20-14-8

70# DB swing**
plyo pushup (one hand on medicine ball - switch halfway)
C2bar pullups

9:50

** Subbed 30-21-12 55# DB swings to preserve my back.

Did an extra second set of pushups during the last round, because I wasn't happy with ROM. Missed four C2Bs and had to redo those.

Even more fun was discovering as I was finishing up my first round of plyo pushups that the old guy doing crunches on the cable machine (where my pullup bar is) had one more set to do. I quickly jumped on the temporarily free power rack to do my C2Bs. Unfortunately, I'd never done a C2B pullup on it, so when I pulled, my chest hit the bar as my head simultaneously struck the ceiling. I've got a lovely pimple in the middle of my forehead now. Classic.

Core work
Max toes to bar - 12 (PR is 17)
Rolling plank 5:00 (1:00 on front, right side, front, left side, front)

And yes, that was a brutal finisher.