Crushed in the Water

Workout of the Day

WOD 1 – in the morning…

Snatch Balance Technique

3, 3, 3, 3, 3

WOD 2 – in the afternoon…

20 minute AMRAP:

50 meter butterfly

15 thrusters (95#)

WOD 3 – in the evening…

Floor Press 5, 5, 5, 5, 5

GHD Raise 15, 15, 15

Ring Dips 20, 20, 20

Had to flip the script a little today due to pool availability. Brian Nabeta opened up Arden Hills’ doors to Travis and I, but it had to be an afternoon timeslot. So, in the spirit of constant variation, I switched my strength session to the evening and did conditioning in the afternoon. Did I say conditioning? What I meant to say was that I switched my world-class beatdown session to the afternoon. Cuz that’s what this swim WOD was. 20 minutes of steel toe boots to the gut. Compassionately, Brian only filmed the first 5 minutes of the carnage, so what you get on the video clip is just a taste of how bad it really was. Knowing that butterfly is a taxing stroke no matter what the interval, it shouldn’t be hard to imagine that doing it alongside thrusters felt like a perfect storm of pain. Neither exercise allows you much opportunity to breath so you’re constantly out of air, and they require oppositional movements at the shoulder joint—creating a Fran-like spasm in your upper body. Brian did his best to coach me through my technical woes towards the end, but it was a losing proposition. Fatigue just ruins that stroke and I was running on empty. Big thanks for his efforts though. I finished 6 rounds plus 7 thrusters.

Doing the strength session in the evening was a cool change of pace. Definitely don’t think I prefer it this way (I’d hate to have to squat after a hard conditioning WOD earlier in the day) but I can see the value in doing it every now and then. I pressed decent—5 x 5 at 225# with a dead stop between all repetitions—and the GHD raises felt amazing. This is fast becoming my favorite assistance exercise for the posterior chain. Try doing them while externally rotating your hips. 2 reasons here: first, it’ll relieve a bit of that painful pressure on your quads (if you’ve been there you know what I mean), and second, it’ll turn on your glutes and make this more than just a hamstring exercise.

All for now, check the video from the pool below.