What a week and a half it’s been. I got sick. Wife got sick. Baby got sick. Unfortunately I missed out on the last bit of Lucas’s visit….but fortunately I have the benefit of everyone else having been there! Also, I’m back on the Crossfit bandwagon. Thought I was going to die in Tuesday’s WOD, as it’s been about 3 months since I’ve gone, but it wasn’t so bad.

Kicked off the evening with 531 press work, with my newly reset weights. It felt pretty light in comparison to the previous cycle or two! As I was finishing, Ryan asked about how long I’ve been doing 531, what my results were like, etc. Then he suggested that I finish this cycle and then switch to Starting Strength. SS is widely popular, and I’d love to do that program….but it would take more time each session to do. Instead of doing one lift per session, as with 531, SS requires 3. And I’m already stretching what precious gym time I have.

Jiu jitsu class started off with a extended warm up/calisthenics session. The lesson of the day was the De La Riva pass that Lucas taught. We also covered a variant for if your opponent switches to the reverse De La Riva guard where you can go directly to mount and cross choke.

Class finished up with six 4 minute rounds of sparring. Highlights included me *almost* pulling off the half guard to taking the back on Roberto, a new purple belt. I also flubbed (yet again) the cross choke from mount with Zack. I have GOT to figure out what I’m doing wrong with that. Also hit the turtle guard to top side control roll three times, and didn’t get my back taken while doing so these times!

This past weekend was the IBJJF’s Chicago Open tournament….the event that we’ve been preping for for weeks. While I didn’t compete, I did go, along with Purple Belt Tim, Dumi, Brady, Dave, Short Josh, Seth, Bob the Monster and Marcos. It was a pretty entertaining weekend, and not just because of the tournament! We had some good matches, and some bad ones. Brady and Bob won their divisions, Seth got second and Dave got third.

Class last night focused on a half guard passing technique, one that several people had problems with in the tournament. I was paired up with Riley who was taking his first class with us.

The specific technique was passing when you don’t have the underhook. The proper way to do so is to switch your hip, so you’re facing away from your opponent, and overhook his arm/grab his belt. Then you can inch your trapped leg up into a vertical position and pop your knee out. Retreat and situp, with that freed knee in is crotch, weave the underhook, secure his other arm, press with your head and then focus on dropping your hip to the ground. And in all likelihood, your foot will pop free and you can establish side control.

We through in one variation, when if he’s death gripping your foot and you can’t get it out, you can go to double underhooks, switch the quarter guard, and then slide your free leg in between your trapped on and his torso. That gives you much more leverage to free it.

Rolled some with Ron after class too. We did the CFT for Crossfit yesterday, so I passed on doing any 531 strength work. I did add 13 pounds to my max, and crushed my old 1RM squat (190 on July 16 and 175 in Dec-2010) with 215. Only did 100 on the press and 225 for the deadlift, but a 25 pound improvement in the squat is very solid.

I was 95% of the way through the “Badger” workout on Tuesday:

3 rounds:

30 squat cleans
30 pullups
800m run

I was excited about this workout. The first with pullups since my “no more band” pledge. I had 20 pullups to go in the last round. Tired, but I was doing them in sets of 5. And then I tore some skin on my left palm. I stopped, taped both hands, re-chalked, and started up. Did 5 more and then had a pretty big callus tear on my right hand.

Uh, yeah. I guess I’ll go run now and “owe” the last 15 pullups another day. It’s healing, but it’ll be a bit before I can do pullups again. I continued Crossfit this week, taping it as necessary. On the plus side, my ribs are back to normal.

I skipped jiu jitsu on Wednesday, as I didn’t think that gripping a gi with a mostly-open wound would do my partners (or my hands) any favors.

However, by Saturday, I thought that it would be okay. I started off by doubling up on my 531 lifting, doing both presses and deadlifts. By the time open mat started, I was plenty warmed up.

I stretched a little bit, and Iron Mike walks in, eyeballs me, and starts walking over. Ugh. It’s purely a mental thing. He’s good. Both on a skill scale (4 stripes on his purple, so nearly a brown belt), and on a helpfulness scale.

We rolled for about 45 minutes. Some fast, mostly slow. His advice this morning was to relax even more. Apparently I’m too tense, so we slowed everything down. In our last roll I started to armlock from guard, he pulled his arm out, and I transitioned to an triangle choke. In my (mistaken) haste, I didn’t get the right angle on it, so I had to release and adjust…and while doing so, he escaped. I slowed down, and circled around to take his back.

So I’ve got one hook it, and he’s turtled up, and I’m attempting to get an arm around his neck…and he armlocks me. Never seen that done from that position. As is his custom, as soon as it’s apparent that he’s got it, he releases it and we continue. I give up on the choke, and switch to the power half, and get him rolled over and my other hook in. I wasn’t really able to do anything, his defense is extremely good. He wasn’t trying to escape, just prevent me from submitting him. I attempted the Rousimar armlock, but I neglected to secure his shoulder, so he turned into me and back to guard.

Physically, I felt like I had a pretty good week. Crossfit was going well, jiu jitsu was good, and I was feeling strong. So I decided that on Saturday I’d skip my normal 531 routine, and do the CFT, or “Crossfit Total” workout. Basically, finding my one rep max deadlift, squat, and press. One of my New Year’s goals was to improve my 1RM in each by 10%, and I added onto that goal by making my “official” Crossfit goal of the summer to have a CFT of 525. Last time I did the CFT was in December, and my total was 480 pounds.

I started off with a good warm up, doing each of the lifts a few times with moderate weight. I decided to start with the deadlift.

The deadlift is about as simple, direct, and unequivocal measures of strength there is. Load up a bar. Pick it up. I did one last warm up lift at 205. Then I did 225, which tied my previous best. That felt pretty good, so I opted to try 245 next. Got it 80% of the way up, but couldn’t complete it. I think on a good day I could. Dropped down 10 pounds to 235, and did that, though it was a little shaky. Even “only” doing 3 maximal, or near max lifts, really sucks it out of you.

Next up was the press. If the deadlift was the ultimate test of “pulling” strength, then the press is the ultimate test of “pushing” strength. I’ve also found that it’s the slowest to improve.

I started off with 90, and did that. Did 95, tying my old max. Did 100. Tried and failed 105. Again, I was about 80% of the way to completing that. There was a little girl at the drinking fountain next to my rack. She must of just finished up the kids jiu jitsu class. She watched me fail and gave me some nice encouragement: “You can do that, you were so close!” I rested for a bit, then tried and failed again. I decided to split the difference and dropped down to 103.5, and succeeded.

Last up was the back squat. I wrangled up Sexy Joe and Ryan to spot for me, since there’s no good way to fail or bail out of this lift. I knew that I was going to break my old 1RM, but I needed 186 to break 525 total. Did 175, tying my old max. And since I was in a crunch for time (since the Crossfit class was getting ready to start, and I was taking up their space), I went for broke and put 190 on the bar. And then lifted it. I felt fine doing it, I know I could do 195 or 200, and maybe 205 or 210.

So, a total 528.5. I got 10% more on my deadlift. And I was painfully close on the press (9%) and squat (8.5%). I’ll keep working on the 531 sequence, and I’m sure I’ll get those last two by the end of the year.

I changed into my gi, grabbed some water and took a few minutes breather. But then it was open mat time. Kicked things off with Purple Belt Tim. Went went slow and played around some. My back muscles felt pretty drained after all the lift, so it was pretty hard to keep any kind of posture going! After a while we switched up, and I rolled with Bacon a few times. Mostly on the defensive, but he only tapped me once. Tim was watching and gave me a thumbs up afterwards.

So, at this semi-mid-point of the year, life is good. I’m healthy. Lighter. Stronger. And I feel great. It’s time to start thinking about a new Crossfit goal.