So you know how yesterday, I was all, I don’t want to do [long list of things that would hurt]?  Well I got my wish!  Yesterday’s WOD was pretty much all upper-body stuff.  I liked it, a lot, even though my shoulders are ridiculously weak.

At our box, there are two evening sessions–one at 5:30, one at 6:30.  Jason and I go to the 6:30 one; we wouldn’t have time to get to the 5:30 one after work, and besides, that one is so crowded I think we’d continue going to the 6:30 even if we didn’t have to.  Anyway, you know it’s going to be a long, hard slog when you walk in at 6:25 and the 5:30 class is still working.  But things looked promising when we got there yesterday–there were a few people just kind of toodling around and maybe one or two still obviously working on the WOD, but it was a large class so it was pretty clear they’d had to go in multiple heats.

We got warmed up, Coach made fun of my retina-searing, highlighter-green tank top (go big or go home, I say), and he introduced the 2-part WOD to us.  To start with, 6 sets of strict presses, 5-5-3-3-1-1 reps.  Ideally, the last one would be our 1-rep max.  Then using our strict press max weight, we were to do a ladder down from 10 (even numbers only), push press/toes-to-bar, with a 6-minute time cap (“If you’re down around 2 minutes, you’re too light; if you can’t finish in 6 you’ve gone too heavy”).

I was paired up with Susannah, who is a little bit stronger than me and an awesome, awesome WOD partner.  She talked me into trying a 58# strict press more than once, which is good; the third attempt was successful, and I actually managed to get it up again for my second 1-rep set.  So that was my ladder weight. 

I think I’ll be able to start working on a true toes-to-bar soon.  Right now I have a decent kip for hanging knee raises; I can string them together and knock them out one after another, no problem.  My grip is a little weak still; I’m going to start ending each WOD just spending some time hanging on the bar (and working on banded pullups, if there’s any gas left in the tank).  Anyway, I banged out that ladder in 3:13.  I don’t know if it was the cool weather or the fact that I’d actually eaten a large lunch, but I had a fire under my ass and I was PUMPED.  It helped that Susannah was right there counting off all my reps (bless her).

After we were both finished with our ladder, Susannah was like, “Let’s find our one-rep push press max!”  Uhhhh, say wut?  But I didn’t want to piss on her fireworks, so I went along with it, and I’m really glad I did.  We put together an 83# bar, and wouldn’t you know, I got it on the third try.  And again on the fifth.  I’ve never maxed that out before, so automatic PR!  Love those.  And now I know what my weakness is with some of the overhead stuff–I’m hesitant to dip very low for push presses and jerks.  The two successful attempts I made a conscious effort to dip a little lower than I felt like I wanted to.  They were still really, really hard, but they went up and stayed there.  (Sometimes I wish wall balls would go up and stay there… “Oops, sorry coach, I lost my ball…”)  So today I’ve got sore shoulders and traps to go with my sore quads and butt, but I’ve grown to love that soreness.  It’s like an invisible badge that says “I work like mule so I can be strong like ox.” 

So yeah, it was a good WOD.  Makes me a little nervous for this evening, though.  We’ve had two low-cardio WODs in a row, and tomorrow is a holiday (and a rest day, for most of the box).  This bodes not well for tonight.