nags of a similar ilk

I actually went to Velocity today. Having not gone in over a month, I wasn't foolish enough to go to Breanne's killer morning workout. I went at lunch and had the joy of a warmup and three rounds of

Inclined bench press
Weighted scales
Step ups
Underhand lat pull downs
One legged v-ups

The incline bench press was with more weight than I should have used.

The weighted scales I couldn't finish with any weight after burning out my hamstrings in the first set with weights too heavy.

The step ups were fine, though my knee was a little shaky with the 50 pounds of weight I was carrying at the time. The step ups were done without placing the moving foot on the platform, to make the top position even harder.

The lat pull downs were fine.

The one legged v-ups I did incorrectly, but didn't realize it until I was done with my third set.

Sigh.

I need to move. Stupid knee.

Velocity workout this morning was

40 thrusters
20 box jumps
10 50m runs
30 thrusters
30 box jumps
10 50m runs
20 thrusters
40 box jumps
10 50m runs

I ran out of time and didn't do the last 10 runs. I also miscounted on the last thrusters and box jumps, causing me to have to circle back to redo the last of thrusters, then cringe at the number of box jumps I needed to do.

This morning's velocity workout was three rounds of

75 box jumps
75 burpees
75 squats

but not how you think.

In groups of three people (which worked out well, as there were only three of us at the 7am class this morning), one person would rest while another person did twenty lunges. While the lunging person was counting to 20 lunges, the third person would do as many of the current exercise (box jumps, burpees or squats) as possible. When the lunger was done with 20 lunges, we all switched to the next exercise and continued the counting. The 75 of each exercise was cumulative for the three of us.

I have to admit to going more quickly or more slowly so as to minimize the exercises I didn't want to do, which was pretty much the burpees.

Yesterday's velocity was three rounds of:

Box jumps
Leg lift pushdowns
Med ball claps
V ups
Jump rope
Plyo pushups
Dead lifts to curl to press

The box jumps were normal. The leg lifts were done lying on a bench, with our legs extended straight out, our hands anchoring our upper bodies to the bench over our shoulders. We lifted our legs up to 90°, then lowered them back to parallel to the floor. When we lowered them, Damien pushed down and asked us to resist, very reminiscent of the ASA workouts.

The med ball claps were done with handled med balls. Standing in a wide stance, lowered position (but not a squat), we pulled the medballs from our sides into a clap in front of us.

The plyo pushups were done between the two lowest jump boxes set about a foot appart with a 12# medball on the floor between them. In a plank position, with our hands on the boxes, we pushed up into the air and landed with our hands on the med ball, then did a pushup. From the lowered pushup position, we pushed off hard, high enough that we could land with our hands back on the jump boxes. I was unable to do this pushup from my feet, and only barely managed from my knees.

The deadlift to curl to press was done with a barbell on the ground. We lifted it in a deadlift, then bent over and did a bent-over row with the bar. Straightening back up, we then curled the bar (using momentum, if needed) to get the bar to our shoulders. We then pressed the bar overhead. The return was shoulders, reverse curl, bend over, set the bar back down.

The 7 minutes of ultimate afterward was 3 on 2 and very short.

I left a client's office early this afternoon to make sure I made it to Velocity on time. I wasn't sure how bad traffic would be, and was pleasantly surprised to arrive early enough to change clothes and stretch slowly. Not having to drive in the fastest lane, but being able to cruise in the flow of the slower traffice helped me arrive calm, too.

To my surprise, there were 10 people in the class. I'm used to 4 maybe 6 tops, so the 10 people seemed a lot. I recognized a large number of the people, one of them being the tall Asian guy who rolled his eyes as I did at Friday's workout a week ago. There were a couple new people, including two women, a tall blonde and a short redhead, the latter being so wonderfully graceful I'm sure she has a dance background.

When a large number of people are in a class, instead of the small number of station, we have to do a workout-in-the-round where cones were placed in large oval and we did alternating body-weight exercises and aerobic work.

When I came out with my camera after a break during the class, both the coaches freaked out a little bit. One asked me why I had it out (to post pictures to my blog, der), the other asked how much free advertising Velocity receives from my blog (not much, but more than zero, all of my friends know about it!). Eventually, one asked if he wanted me to hold on to the camera during the workout. I didn't, but figured the other people might be a little freaked out if they thought I was taking pictures of them, so I relented.

The workout was

30s squat for speed
60s side slide to the right
30s hip pop (***)
60s carioca to the right
30s squat rotate
60s lateral skip to the right

About this time, my left knee started hurting, and I was hoping we'd go to the left some time soon. We didn't.

30s V-ups
60x lateral skip with crossovers to the right
30s alternating lunging backwards
60s running backward
30s hand walk around in a circle
60s side slide to the left

Yay! We're finally going to left! We also dropped down to less aerobic time.

30s lunge drops (drop into a low lunge, jump up and switch feet, dropping again)
60s carioca to the left
30s russian twists (I am built for these)
30s mountain climbers
30s run backwards
30s squats with jump
30s slide slide to the left again
30s reverse crunches (also known as hip lifts)
30s carioca again to the left
30s wide stance squats
30s skipping backwards
30s squats
30s running backwards

Phew!

I was sufficiently done at this point, but we still had another 10 minutes, so we all trudged over to the wall to pick up a med ball. We then did three rounds of 10 j-hawks, 2 rounds of 8 pushups with our med ball under one arm (so 4 sets total, for 32 pushups total), and only one round of plank hold for 30 seconds, left side plank hold for 30 seconds and right side plank hold for 30 seconds. That I was able to hold all planks for the full time gave me no small amount of personal satisfaction.

We did some unmemorable swissball work to continue the ab work before we were done.

During all of this, I noticed another class going on, with three relatively young men, most likely late high school, working out. I noticed they did a lot of technique drills, explosive work, a lot of sprinting, then some uninteresting weight lifting. The technique work was of interest to me. The class was the D2 class, which is normally taken by high school and college athletes during off-season to train for their sports. I have a credit with Velocity for a cancelled class I signed up for. I may have to sign up for a D2 class.