This morning I was feeling yesterday's ground to overhead (clean and press) moves at 95#. When I looked up the workout of the day, I was less then thrilled to see a 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 thruster workout. I did think that doing 55 thrusters at 65# did seem manageable, but there were two other elements of the workout as well, star jumps (feet together, crouch down and bring your arms in front of you, and then jump up moving your arms and legs out forming a "star" in the air) and seated Russian twists (v-sit and tap weight on each side of you). So basically, you start by performing one of each movement, then 2, then 3, so on and so forth until 10.
I got to the gym a little early since I now change out of my work clothes at the gym due to someone in my office complaining to my boss about me changing at the office. WTH? Anyway, I noticed trainer was doing the workout before class started. The clock said 20:38 and a few minutes later, she collapsed on the floor. I should have guessed something was up with a workout titled "the pain train." I looked to the big white board and saw two terrifying things 1) 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 and back down (WHAT!?) and 2) 30 minute cut off (again, WHAT!?). Oh man, its one thing going up a ladder, but coming back down is sooo rough. Instead of 55 of everything, we were doing 100. I immediately told myself I was not going to time out, and instead I was going to finish around 27 minutes. Trainer finished around 24 minutes or so, and she is ridiculously fit, even just having come out of hernia surgery, so I figure 27 minutes for me is fair.
We warmed up our overhead muscles with kettlebell swings and handstands, and I realized I really like doing handstands against walls. They felt solid and strong, and when I had good balance I tried to stay in a hold for as long as possible. One awesome handstand hold (probably would have been a PR) was ruined by my shirt flying up and landing on my face. Even though upside-down with hands outstretched overhead is probably the best my stomach could possibly look, I'm just not comfortable with all that white flesh being exposed for the gym. Maybe one day, but today was not the day.
Into the workout we went, and I was super shocked when I got to my round of 5 to see the clock say 3 minutes something. That was the moment I knew that I would be finishing the workout, and had a really good shot at finishing it at my 27 minute goal. Round 5 must have been the magical tipping point, because 6-7-8-9-10-9-8-7 all SUCKED. I was spent. The Russian twists were killing me, my jumps were not even close to stars, but my thrusters still felt strong, even though I didn't perform the 9-10-9-8 rounds unbroken. I just kept going. I was oddly motivated by the steam rising off the bald head of the guy across from me. I finished in 26:15 and was very happy with that.
100 star jumps today, 72 yesterday, I won't be surprised if the workout for tomorrow is 200 star jumps! Good thing no one that creates the workouts reads this, or my suggestion might be taken seriously.
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