July 13 - ORM day

Today's WOD was a pure strength workout. The goal today was to find our one rep max (ORM) on 3 different exercises: Back Squat, Shoulder Press, and Dead Lift.

I managed the following weights in each exercise:

Back Squat: 115 * 5, 165, 185, 205, 215 (ORM)

Shoulder Press: 65 * 5, 85, 90 (ORM)

Dead Lift: 185 * 5, 205, 235, 255, 265 (ORM)

I don't mind (regular) back squats. Once I learned how to do them (some 20+ years ago), they were one of my favorites. But oddly enough, we don't do a whole lot of them in these crossfit workouts. It had been a while since we did them and on the whole, I'm pretty happy with the weights I was able to correctly lift. I could probably have gone a little heavier, but I could feel my form slipping, so I figured that I had better stop and move on to the next exercise.

The shoulder presses were a pretty big disappointment, but I guess there is no real surprise there. I know that my shoulders are probably the weakest muscle group in my body. Luckily (I guess you can say that), a lot of crossfit workouts utilize the shoulders and I *am* getting stronger. I didn't realize how much I was using at least a little bit of a bounce in my knees to get the weight up though. These were done pretty strictly without the leg assist and I really struggled with them. I guess I just have to build from here.

Then there were the dead lifts. This is the one exercise that we do that I feel like my body was made to do. I am ... how do you say .... "vertically challenged." In other words, I'm short. And I have a nice, low center of gravity (it's one of the reasons I do fairly well in judo/jujitsu). So dead lifts, for me, are a guaranteed mood booster. Today's ORM was by far one of my best performances in the dead lift ever! Again, I probably could have pushed my body a bit further and lifted a slightly higher weight (I failed at 275, but I might have been able to do 270), but my form was starting to slip and I really didn't want to risk injury. There are a lot of ways you can get hurt with the dead lift. But I was still SUPER STOKED to knock out the 265# lift.

And sure, I'm going to be super sore tomorrow from all of this, but at least I have an emotional high to carry me through the pain.

We finished with 5 pistols on each side (band assisted) and 35 knees to elbows. When we can do 50 with ease it's time to start weighting these. And I guess we're going to have to try the toes to bar again soon. My hands are not looking forward to that though. They're torn up enough as it is.