Trans-Continental Workout #4 + CrossFit Balance WOD

A couple days ago I hooked up again with my buddy Blair out in Belgium for the Trans-Continental Workout 4th installment.  I also was joined at Balance Gym by Steve (becoming a regular with the trans-con workouts), and my client and friend Matt (ball player at Princeton).  The workout was written as such:
with one minute rest between exercises do:
1 minute deadlifts (315#)
1 minute thursters (135#)
1 minute strict pull ups
1 minute push ups

This turned out to be pretty easy, as in, it was quick and pretty harmless.  I ended up suggesting to Blair to add to it, an I think he did a much better version of this workout.  He ended up doping three rounds with decreasing weight on the deadlifts and thrusters.  Either way, Steve and I did one round and I was relatively fine with that as I was going to be headed down to CrssFit Balance an hour later and doing a fun WOD there.

I got 15 reps of the deadlifts, 12 thrusters, 15 pull ups and 43 push ups.  I was pretty frustrated with the deadlifts; I felt so strong right off the blocks, and banged out 10 straight, but then released my grip.  I really didn't need to, but I just did out of habit.  The problem with this is that it is much more time consuming to get e heavy weight moving again after you stop.  So, while I am so sure I could have done a good amount more here, I screwed myself a bit by breaking them up so much.  The thrusters were tough, but I got a number I personally was pretty happy with, I think I need to work on my front squatting so much more, my stability is just off with them.  The pull ups and push ups felt great and I think I really maxed out with both of them.  All in all I finished with 85 total reps and think that 100 reps would be a good goal on this one.

An hour or so later I was down at CrossFit Balance with a couple people to play around on the great strength grid they have.  Here's the workout:
21 double unders
7 back squats (135#)
3/4 strength grid
21 sit ups
7 squat cleans (135#)
3/4 strength grid
21 wall ball
7 push jerks (135#)
3/4 strength grid

This took me a quick 7:15 (a little quicker of a WOD than I had wanted), but it was pretty tiring.  The strength grid was a on slower than when I did a workout on it a while back and I know that the heavy deadlifts, strict pull ups and a massive wound on my hand had something to do with this.  The rest of the workout was a breeze, I think that 135# was a bit light, maybe more reps would have been a pretty good idea with this one.

When all was said and done, I realized I was feeling a bit down all day (and I feel the ton of this post is not as "excited" as most of my posts).  I know now that it is because I just didn't DO enough.  The workouts were fine, but I think they were just too short, not heavy enough and ultimately, not challenging enough.  But then again, this is bound to happen every now and then.  I thought that these would be a lot tougher, and I was wrong.  Of course, this means I could have pushed myself to do them faster, and I think I did that for the second one (it was just not quite enough to really push my limits).

Oh well.  In other news, you'll notice the lack of video here.  Yet again I didn't think this one through.  I have video from both workouts but downloaded them to my work computer, erased them off the camera and scampered up to NY without either of them.  So, I will post them up next week.  I have a video from yesterdays workout, and I'll have some cool posts from this trip (I expect a good deal of outdoor adventures!).

Never Stop, GET FIT.

Josh Courage