Bourne End Bridge

Workout of the Day

In the morning…

20 minute AMRAP:

5 Handstand Pushup

10 Atomic Situp (knees to chest)

15 Walking Lunge (ea)

In the evening…

For Time:

30 Muscle Ups

then

30 Ring Dips

Every broken set do 10 thick bar OH Squats (40 kg)

Incredible day. Off the charts good, in fact. I didn’t find anything heavy to lift, but I had so much fun doing this stuff instead that it didn’t matter much. I was up and out by 7:30 am, heading to the Bourne End Bridge just outside of town near the field from last night. The walking bridge that parallels the railroad crossing has high banisters on each side, making handstands doable without any danger. I used the length of the bridge for the walking lunges and just started my next round wherever I finished my 30^th step. Surprisingly, the handstands were no problem at all. Neither were the situps. The only real challenge in this WOD was the lunges, and those were really just because of how long they took. At no point during this workout was I significantly out of breath, reaching muscle failure, or losing focus. I finished 13 rounds plus 5 pushups, 10 situps, and 2 lunges, bringing my totals to 70, 140, and 197, respectively.

Afterwards I did a little bonus, ala the Butcher’s Lab in Copenhagen. 4 sets of pseudo iron crosses on the banisters, playing with L-sits and different leg positions while holding. This was really tough. The handrails were at my limit width wise, really forcing me to squeeze down and out to stay suspended. Great exercise though. I wanted to include a video clip, but blogger was being a bastard and I couldn't get the thing to load. Oh well.

After joining Colin to his sound studio for show and tell (he works as a audio mixer on motion pictures, TV, etc… so cool), I headed back to the bridge for the second part of my training day.30 muscle ups and 30 ring dips, with 10 thick grip overhead squats every time a set is broken (I found a huge log nearby that did the trick nicely). By this time my butt was starting to feel the lunges and my calves were feeling the hill from the night before. Whatever. This workout kicked ass. It was a perfect night, no one was around, and the exercises meshed seamlessly. I began by ripping off 10 muscle ups—feeling strong. The log was incredible, but it wasn’t centered weight so balancing was a challenge as I pitched forward and back trying to keep it steady. The second set of MU’s I got 5. The squats were actually better, but because it was so thick my forearms and hands were doing a lot of work. The third set of MU’s I only got 4. Just 3 on the fourth. Now the rest of my arms were feeling it on the squats. Keeping my balance front to back was getting tougher as my shoulders tightened up… technique was at a premium. I got 4 the fifth set and finished with 4 on the last. The clock was at 10:41 by this point. Strategically I had been taking my time between the squats and the muscle ups, trying to give my arms a chance to recover.

The ring dips were much easier—I got them in 3 sets: 13, 10, and 7. But the OH squats were murderous during this last stretch. I was squeezing for all I was worth trying to keep the thing from sinking onto my head or falling forward. My final time was 15:53, and while that’s not super fast, I couldn’t help but feel great afterwards.

I hung out for a little while afterwards and enjoyed the best hour of the day. Hoping to do something strength related in the morning and save up for a real tough endurance effort in the afternoon. Weather permitting, of course. Should be another good one, but I can’t imagine it will top today.