Friday 081031

Rest Day

Burn the witches!

Thursday 081030

“Angie”

For time:
100 Pull-ups
100 Push-ups
100 Sit-ups
100 Squats

As RX’d…

25:17

Boom Baby!!!

And now let us take a day of rest. Amen.

My Better is Better than your Better

Inspirational music for convicted felons

Music by Saul Williams

Wednesday 081029

Shoulder press 1-1-1-1-1 reps
Push press 3-3-3-3-3 reps
Push Jerk 5-5-5-5-5 reps

CFWU + Shoulder Dislocates (Adding this permanently to my warm up routine)

SP 115F, 105, 105, 110, 115PR
PP 105, 115, 125PR, 135F, 125
PJ 115, 125, 115, 125, 125

Two PR’s… I’ll take it.

Garage Gym Pics

Here’s what we started with after emptying out two truckloads of junk. I’m not kidding, we had wood, garbage and things that had been in the loft of the garage since 1960, 40 years before I bought the house. I even found a license plate from Tippecanoe County from 1970.

The pole in the middle and the loft that it holds up was not there a few weeks ago. The garage had a pseudo loft in it before in the middle, basically making a 7′ ceiling. In order to do anything over head, I was going to have to get rid of that loft, build the one over the workbench for the things we can’t do without and pitch the rest of the junk. Pitching the junk wasn’t as hard as I thought it would be and even gave me a sense of relief. Amazing how much crap you can accumulate over the years, not to mention the dust, dirt and rodent nests. I still needed to make room for the boat, so rather than put it in the garage diagonally like we’ve done in the past, we made a space along the west wall. These first pictures are the trial run. Added a Oly weight set and some horse mats and you have the beginnings of a gym.

As you can see, the boat took up a lot of precious space. So after noticing an ad for warehouse space and making a few calls, I found some dirt cheap, secure indoor storage for the boat. To put it in perspective, a local marina wanted $400 to store the boat in a rack for the season (Oct-March), which meant I still had to do something with the trailer. The place I found was $50/month in a secure coded entry building that I could come and go as I pleased. So for about $150 less, I got the boat AND trailer out of the garage and freed up more space.

We then started adding more equipment, watching the local paper, eBay and the classifieds at my work. We were able to pick up stuff for penny’s on the dollar and even a few new items, like a squat rack and GHS/Back Ext bench. I found a full dumbbell set locally in really good shape for about 25% of what it would have cost me new and the racks were included! With the boat gone, we doubled our space and realized that had we not done that, we wouldn’t have had enough room. We put down a total of 16 4’x6′ mats giving us 384 sq ft of usable workout space. The plywood wall on the west wall is for doing stretches, hand stand push-ups and anything else that a flat vertical surface is needed for. The kids have been put to task to come up with a mural. I’m going to paint the plywood black and they get to do whatever they want from there. I’m betting it will turn into a graffiti wall of sorts, which is cool by me.

We still have a lot of work to do, and only have the rings set up temporarily until I can figure out a way to mount them to the rafters. Kevin came in about 30 minutes after I had them set up in their current location and IMMEDIATELY started monkeying around on them. Goes with the statement, “Build it and they will come.”

Tuesday 081028

Squat clean 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 reps

CFWU then 115, 135, 155F, 155PR, 165F, 165F, 165F, 165F, 155

I know that’s 9, but I was so pissed for not making the 165. I know I can do it, but it was a mind over matter thing. It was all a technique failure, I just can’t seem to get down into a squat fast enough to get under the bar. I WILL get this one.

Lots O’ Fun!

Trying for the 4th time to clean 165lbs

Police Story #37

Some of my online friends may not know this, but I used to be a cop, and is how I got introduced to CrossFit. I was going through some old writings of mine that I jotted down during my time as a LEO and decided to share some that made me chuckle. This one is my personal favorite.

All in a days work.

Working as a Police Officer has been one of the richest experiences of my adult life. Below is a recent true story that makes it all worth while. Remember, it’s all about the motto, “To Serve and Protect”.

While on uniform patrol in a marked unit, my partner and I were working an area known for drug activity. We placed our car at an intersection just a few houses down from a home known to have drug traffic and made ourselves visible to the residents who were camping out on the front porch. They were waiting for their customers who would drive by to make a quick exchange of product/cash. We were there to send a message; we know what you’re doing and we’re watching you. They weren’t very happy with us and we continued to exchange stares for nearly 15-20 minutes. We finally moved on, but only after passing slowly in front of them and gesturing with a friendly wave and acknowledgement.

Once we were about 2-3 houses beyond, I noticed a group of people congregating in the front yard of an unrelated house. We were well beyond the group, when I heard shouts of, “Hey!… Hey!” We went to the next intersection and turned around. When we approached the group we were met with some frantic folks pointing and yelling, “The back of that house is on fire!” Looking, we spotted an excessive amount of smoke pouring from the back of a house. Like a light switch our demeanor changed instantly. Mike called in to have Fire and EMS dispatched to our location. We exited our car and I began herding a small crowd which was now gathering in the yard while my partner went to assist some folks who were trying to open a window. I heard my partner ask, “Is there anyone inside?” A disheveled man responded in a shaky and frantic voice, “My grandma’s in there and she can’t get out!”

This is when the adrenalin really kicked in. My partner sprang to action, rounded the house to the back door. Smoke is now engulfing the entire rear portion of the structure. He grabbed the handle of the door, which he found to be locked, but cold, meaning the fire had not reached that part of the building. Bracing himself on the railing and with one quick blow of his boot he busted the door in and we entered as the choking smoke filled the air around us. I was right behind my partner as we entered just in time to see an 80-plus year old woman… buck naked… stepping out of the shower. While choking back the smoke and watering eyes, we asked if she was all right. The only thing she had to say was, “I was cookin my chicken!”

We later found out that she had placed some chicken in the oven, thinking she could take a shower before it was done. She was wrong and the city is paying to repair her rear door.

The rest of the night we smelled like a barbeque gone bad.

Deep Thoughts at Wal-Mart

I was trying to get into the parking lot of the local Wal-Mart. The fact that I was even near a Wal-Mart is astounding if you know me, because I HATE Wal-Mart. To me it symbolizes everything that is wrong with our society; “I want cheap crap and I want it from China.” But as is the case the 2-3 times a year I grace their checkout lines, it is for one lone reason that takes me there. They have something I can’t get anywhere else. In this case, it’s the new release from AC/DC. Now I’m not particularly an AC/DC fan. I don’t own any of their albums and never have. I have a few choice selections on my mp3 player, but that’s about it. I grew up in that early 80’s era and know the lyrics to a few of their more popular tunes of that time. So more than anything, the curiosity of what the album contents are has me seeking it out. Usually, I would just log into my Rhapsody account, use a few of my free download tracks for the month and decide if I want to buy select tracks but rarely a whole album. But since the music Nazis have signed an exclusive deal with W-M, here I am.

Now I said all that to explain why I’m even here, because like I said, I don’t like W-M. But here we are, trying to find a blasted parking space. It’s drizzling, it’s cold and I don’t want to be here any longer than possible. I can’t even get in the lot. Why? I wait for what seems like hours (but in actuality is probably two minutes) to find a woman is waiting for someone to back out of the second to the closest parking space instead of taking the 5 million spaces that are available just a few yards away. She gets her precious space and I go down the aisle about 50 yards or so where I have my choice of many different spaces with no one around. I jump out of my black, mid-life crisis sports car and hit the remote lock on my key faub to the familiar “chirp-chirp” of the alarm system. I have a brisk step because it’s a little chilly; right around 43° and it’s spitting a rain/sleet mixture. I catch up to the woman who caused my delay who has just finished unloading herself from her minivan. I say unloading; because that’s the nicest way I can describe what takes place, if you get my drift.

I get in the store and meander my way to my specific goal and remember a request from my wife to pick up a Charlie Brown movie (another story in itself). So around this colossal warehouse I roam looking for what will make my wife happy when I notice something. I seem to be the only healthy person in the place who doesn’t need an electric cart to do my shopping. It appears that the general population has exploded… and I don’t mean in numbers. Everybody puts on a few pounds as we get older and I’m no exception. I’ll be the first to admit, it gets harder to fight the furniture disease (my chest dropped to my drawers) but come on people, is the new body standard 400lbs?

I get out of the chinese crap distributor and begin to weave my way around cars, cars that are waiting for that precious sign of back up lights from someone already taking up the golden spaces close to the door. I shake my head and realize that there are so many things wrong with this picture it would take a book to fill them.

I get back to my car which is in about the middle of the lot, with several unoccupied spaces all around me and slip in out of the weather. It’s no wonder heart disease, clogged arteries, diabetes, back problems and even cancers of all kinds plague our population; we can’t even walk a few extra feet to our cars, let alone eat right and exercise.

Editorial Note: Black Ice by AC/DC is… well… a rehash of everything they’ve done since 1977. Move the guitar licks around, change a few of the words and… voila! New album.

Monday 081027

Rest Day

Performed as RX’d with no scaling back.

Sunday 081026

“Elizabeth”

21-15-9 reps of:
Clean 135 pounds
Ring dips

Did a puppy/pack version. #95 Cleans and Bench Dips.

Time 8:51

I set the rings up and was practicing them, but couldn’t get more than 3-4 out. Didn’t think I could do a full 21-15-9 and had no bar to do regualr dips, so bench dips were what I had to settle for.