CrossFit South Bay | Hermosa Beach, CA

So Saturday’s workout was tough- insanely tough. We had teams of two grind out 100 pullups, 200 pushups, 300 situps and 400 squats. Sounds hard enough, but it gets harder. Only one team member can work to accumulate counted reps. The team member that is not accumulating reps must be swinging a kettlebell. If the kettlebell stops swinging, the reps incurred during that time do not count. Each team member has a kettlebell. Both of the team’s kettlebells can not be touching the ground at the same time. This means that in order to switch from swinger to rep accumulator, swinger must hold the kettlebell until original rep accumulator picks up their kettlebell. We actually had to add a penalty for breaking this rule: 10 burpees for each member every time the rule is broken. I wanted to make it 20 burpees for each infraction, but a couple teams would be performing 100-160 burpees after the already 35-59 minute workout. Most teams genuinely forgot the rule and righted their wrong after one reminder. They only had to do 10 burpees.

Our crazy workout forced teams to strategize. For instance to get the best time, team members would agree to do 20 reps each and then switch. The strategy was a bit of a balancing act: too many reps per person would waste time by resting; too few would waste time in transition from accumulator to swinger.

Communication was extremely important. If an accumulator continued to perform reps while a swinger was resting, the reps did not count toward the total and had to be redone. If an accumulator was resting while the swinger continued in motion, more valuable energy was wasted. All but one of our 10 teams was co-ed, which made communication interesting. Quite a few teams got creative by resting the kettlebell on their foot while the accumulator was resting between reps.

The madness was a great prep for the affiliate cup. Not only did team members have to rely on each other to complete the WOD, they had to follow the rules. If this were an actual competition WOD, teams would get disqualified for disregarding requirements. If they did have a burpee penalty, they would probably add the time it takes to complete the burpees to the overall time to do the WOD. That is something I would change if I had to do it over again. Otherwise, finishing times would mean nothing. Rule breakers would finish faster and get no penalty in the overall competition. They would only suffer for a few minutes after the WOD while they completed burpees.

Saturday’s workout was long and grinding- a complete gut check. The intensity was gone after only a few minutes of starting. This was definitely not high-intensity Fran. As trainers we would do you a disservice if we did not throw a long one at you once in a while. A quote from Greg Glassman, founder of CF, has stuck with me since I fell in love with CF: we fail at the margins of our experience. Remember the 12 days of Christmas? That WOD was crazy long, but you did it. You got through it. This weekend you suffered and endured and finished. All of you were nothing short of amazing. Go back and read Slaughter’s post on Pain. What was harder about Saturday: the mental or the physical? Which pain was worse? Does anyone else find it amusing that a CF coach, named Slaughter, wrote a post on pain?

We even had two visitors this weekend that endured the suffering. They were so excited about CF after the workout; and said they loved it. Both did an outstanding job and pushed through pain until the end.

I am so impressed with every one of your efforts. You put heart into your WOD – hell, it took heart to finish the damn thing. You guys rock!

WOD 2/1/2010

Front Squat 1RM

AMRAP 15
400M Run
12 Deadlifts
12 Knees to Elbows

Optional:
Clean & Jerk 1-1-1-1-1
Snatch 1-1-1-1-1
Toes to Bar 10 unbroken x 3