Sunday September 13, 2008 - Partner/Team Fight Gone Bad

I didn't realize it but I guess the plan is to train for Fight Gone Bad (FGB) every Sunday until our fundraiser on September 28. Today was focused on endurance and I really liked it. Here the the scenario; partner up and you spend 6 minutes at an exercise of FGB working and counting reps as a team, one person working at a time. There is 1 minute rest between exercises.

So again the FGB exercises are:
Wall Ball (men 20#)
Sumo Dead High Pull (72-75# for men)
Box Jump 20 inches
Push Press (men 75#)
Row for Calories

I teamed up with Stuart again because her really pushed me last time and we had a blast pushing each other through FGB. We knew our strength was push press so we started there. Stuart is fighting through a shoulder injury and used 52# to start and we killed it. Together we had 231 total reps in the 6 minutes. I tried focusing on my form and I think the one thing I was not doing was pushing my core including my head forward with the bar in the top position. Other than that they felt good and I tried doing 15-25 reps intervals and then let Stuart go at it. We did not keep track of individual reps since it was easier to just keep a running total.

Rowing was not too bad and we ended up around 110 calories. Stuart and I both tend to kick it up a bit in the last minute or 30 seconds, which is awesome and helps us really work hard and demonstrate endurance. Wall balls is where I started to feel it but I was able to maintain at least 20 reps before switching with Stuart, not really sure what are total was there, maybe around 120-125. I really feel like I hit the wall with Sumo Dead High Pulls. I started doing sets of 15 then 10 then 5. The weight felt heavy. I tried to really use my hips and create that momentum. Box jumps are finally getting comfortable. I have taken a few coaching tips from Chriss to heart. I feel good jumping down and actually try to extend my hips while I jump off the box. I was able to knock out 20-25 reps pretty good. When it was all said and done Stuart and I had 781 reps, which to our surprise was 4th best. Some teams killed this, especially Karen and Mel, very impressive. Can't forget Mike and Lt. Col. Dan, beating them out by 1 rep!

I felt great about our total and loved that Stuart and I immediately started figuring out are weaknesses and "what ifs."

Jerry was taping the workout and I got a chance to watch it. I love that Jerry tapes workouts and I really try to focus in on my form when the camera is on me. I also learn a ton from watching other people. As I said before the Sumo Dead High Pulls were tough and even though I felt like I was really exploding my hips I wanted to study the movement some more. The video on the mainsite is awesome it really describes the bad tendencies of the movement and one I noticed with me and others is that you should not segment the movement into two separate exercises (deadlift, high pull). The way to avoid segmenting the motion is to drive the hips forward and shrug the kettlebell to where it becomes almost weightless than bend your elbows and finish the pull at the top. I think I was really forgetting the shrug. Jerry has been beating us up on the hip and shrug lately, especially with hang squat cleans and training those with the dynamex ball. I watched others on the video and there are a lot of different variations of the movement. I tend to start with the kettlebell behind me in between my legs so I can create that momentum up with my hips, others tend to start with it in front of them but I think that may cause me to round out. There were also a few others that started similar to me but created more of a swinging motion and did not touch the kettlebell down. I think I have the most efficient motion for me but it was interesting to study the motion of others. Bottom line: I know I need to focus on exploding my hips and shrugging so I don't segment the movement.