CrossFit
Strength
Exercise: Deadlift/lbs
Reps: 2-2-2-2-2
Metcon
Open WOD 12.2
10 Minute AMRAP
Men’s
75# Snatch 30 Reps
135# Snatch 30 Reps
165# Snatch 30 Reps
210# AMRAP
Women’s
45# Snatch 30 Reps
75# Snatch 30 Reps
100# Snatch 30 Reps
120# AMRAP
Scaled
35/55/75/90
I’m going to try to post something from my personal experiences with CrossFit once or twice a month or whenever I feel something significant occurred. I encourage you all to keep a journal of some sort and do the same.
Words with Dave…ha – take what you want from it or take nothing at all.
As most are aware, Kristen and I live a pretty hectic life right now. We wake up early for class, work our day jobs from 9-5 then hit the gym to run classes from 5:30-7:30. Oh and if I am lucky, I will have a practice or an individual session after class. Needless to say, my time is limited for me to get workouts in. I constantly think about improving technique on all of my lifts, getting stronger and crushing a metcon. However, I am simply unable to do this on most days. When I do have time to workout I usually go pretty hard, taking advantage of the time I have to myself, even if it is short. Friday I was able to hit a 20 minute AMRAP and Saturday I did the HERO WOD “Manion”. Travis Manion was a fellow wrestler and died overseas while serving as a Marine. He enlisted after graduating from the Naval Academy. I knew going in, the workout itself was going to be challenging, as most HERO wods are. It consisted of 7 Rounds for time Run 400M 29 Back Squats @135lbs. I didn’t bother to do the math before the workout just understanding that, hey, I’m gonna be doing a whole lot of fuckin squats! I will be brutally honest in saying that in my entire athletic and weightlifting career, I stayed away from squats. I regret that decision to this day and really regretted it while doing this WOD. The SQUAT, you name it, back, front, OH is a lift that I constantly work to get stronger at in order to make WODS like this more bearable. Attack your weaknesses! Anyway, Saturday September 15th, I set out to complete the WOD known by CrossFitters as “Manion”. I got through the first 400M relatively fast feeling pretty good about this workout. I got to my bar and there it was, a measly 135lbs. I don’t have a rack at home so I promised myself as soon as I got that bar on my back it would not touch the ground until after rep 29. I hadn’t even started sweating ye,t as it was beautiful outsid,e but the bar seemed to be crunching me up each time I hit the bottom making my gasps for air shorter and shorter requiring me to rest longer and longer with the bar on my back in between reps. I hit rep 29, behind the neck thrustered that shit over my head and put it down on my garage floor, trying not to make a sound, as Porter was sleeping in our sunroom and I felt bad if I woke him up. I thought to myself- man, maybe I’ll just do 3 rounds, and went for my 2nd 400M run. I got back and looked at the bar a little bit and decided lets get through this next set of 29. I got through it. During my 2nd round of Squats I noticed a group of young girls walk by my garage, clearly thinking, what the hell is wrong with this dude. I went on my 3rd run. At this point I found myself in a very vulnerable place, the squats were taking their toll on me, my run was slowing and I am just getting through this thing by the skin of my teeth. Mentally it was breaking me. To a point I hadn’t hit in a long, long time. My mind was saying that it was ok not to finish it and giving me pretty good reason to start to believe it. I got back 29 more squats one more run, 29 squats. I layed down. I am through 4 rounds. I don’t have to get up, I mean, who would know? I could just stop at 4 rounds and consider that a pretty good workout. This was when my mind started to work a little in the other direction. It started to say just get through one more round, take it one round at a time and it started to work. I got up ran my 400M clean and semi-jerked the bar to my back and resumed 29 squats. A semi-jerk is when you just get it high enough so the bar doesn’t scalp you as it travels over your head to the back rack position, fyi. 5 Rounds of 400M run and 29 Back Squats is a good workout – physically there probably is no benefit to go beyond this. Round 6 the young girls have circled the block 3 times seeming to catch me at my weakest points. As I am running my 6th 400 I think back to what this WOD is all about; A young man who risked his life for others and who would rather be doing what I was doing than to have died. I pick up the pace I finish round 6, I stop feeling sorry for myself and I finish round 7. I did not set a blistering pace. I finished it. I finished what I set out to do and to know that I was able to complete this workout when very early on, I had doubts, will give me the mental strength in many other things outside of workouts. I appreciated the tough workout and the mental strength that I gained from it. We have all been there – push through when you think you have nothing left, you just might surprise yourself of what you are capable of.
Travis Manion, here’s to you brother!