CrossFit NYC: The Black Box

Allison_NYC,

Here is the definitive thread from the Message Boards on kipping pull-ups. Let me just say that the key points I took away were these: (1) I need to relearn multivariable calculus from scratch; (2)Eva T may be smartest woman ever to be featured on her own calendar; (3) Keith is very good at proof reading.

http://www.board.crossfit.com/showthread.php?t=5010&highlight=pull

Hey everyone,
if you've taken a class with me but haven't reviewed me yet, I'd sure appreciate it if you would now, since someone else is pulling up even with me. Just go to the link provided from the post "3 out of 5 ain't bad" from two days ago.
Thanks

i guess we cant review u twice then?

like if we took u in a group form and then took a private with u?

Wow, I need to take close to 3 weeks off more often... PR in FS tonight:

215x2
225x2
235x2
245(pr)
255(pr)
265(f)

Thanks to Brian D. and Chris G. for posting their reviews so quickly.
Sadly, Michelle, no.

Cindy or Mary?

I've been waiting for these since I learned how to kip. Too bad they came around when I have new holes in my hands.

What's better: less rounds of 15 pull-ups or more rounds of 5?

The pull-ups will be the limiting factor either way so I'm considering doing Mary. That way I can practice HSPUs and Pistols. I've only done 4 HSPUs in a row (one head to the ground the other about an inch off) Don't know how stong the pistols will be after tabata and FS but Mary is the only WOD with them as far as I know.

Thoughts?

...wow
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65KftGQ6bS8

Do Mary.

K

I agree - holes in hands = Mary.

Juan cool video. About the handstands, Brian taught me last night the importance of keeping everything tight and in alignment. So I believe her back was too arched, her legs were flailing and should have been tight sewn together like and weight should be balance more on fingertips, not whole palms!
Someone please correct me if I am wrong....Not to say I could do that all...

Nice, Justin!

The pug in that video is classic...just standing there right next to her while she does the OHS.

This AM:

Cindy - 18 rounds + 5 pull-ups + 10 push-ups (up from 17 +5 +7)

Pull-ups were done with limited swinging and more up-down bouncing in an effort to go faster (double tear on left ring finger at round 15). We'll see how my joints respond over the next few days.
Push-ups definitely improved (5/5 until penultimate round).
Squats didn't feel too hot.

Solid work, morning crew.

My instinct regarding the Cindy/Mary choice is the opposite. If your hands are messed up, you want to do the minimum amount of kipping. This would imply moving towards lower reps per round, so you can get away with using more of a dead-hang approach.

I also think there may be such a thing as over kipping. After a point, the extra momentum may not be worth the stress it puts on your hands. The greater your kip, the greater your hands need to rotate on the bar.

Ewen, nice, particularly your correct usage of "penultimate."

Last time, I did Cindy: 4 Rounds + 1 Pullup

Today:
5 Rounds + 5 Pullups + 10 Pushups + 12 Squats

The squats are my friends. The pushups are my bitter enemies.

Hari - good point - strict until one had to kip. I was looking at it from my POV where I think I would be able to finish fewer "Mary" cycles in 20 min than "Cindy". This would put the pull-ups a little further apart, offsetting the rep difference.

Of course that is just personal speculation (actually have ne'er done Mary) so I do not know if it's actually true.

Moon, Unless you do fewer than one-third the rounds of Mary, you will actually end up doing more pull-ups, which also means more time doing pull-ups.

A2
If you're having big problems with hand tears (and you're going to be a baby about it) don't do Mary b/c the pull up sets are 3 times more.

However, with sets of 15, it would be a fun opportunity for you to test out both styles of kip. Plus, you've been wanting to practice more HSPUs and pistols.

Also, for some reason, not that many people do Mary. Who else has done it aside from Kevin, Josh and me?

Sarena
The person in the video was actually doing more of a shuffle on her hands rather than a static handstand. When you're walking all around like that, everything often goes to sh*t. Total body tightness and fingertip balance are key for static handstands. I don't know if they also apply for handwalking. The back can be arched or hollow, but hollow is more physically demanding and arguably more aesthetically pleasing.

Mary is a harsh mistress, I fooled with her once (october I think) and got about 4 rounds. Without even doing full HSPU's or Pistols.

I'm trying to build back up to the obscene amounts of food I was cramming in before the holiday break. I've been sat at my desk forcing chicken sausages down and suppressing an urge to gag. (I lost three pounds over Christmas :( )

I also have a bag of almonds about half the size of my head. (Keith would be proud). Sadly, my colleagues keep trying to grab my nuts..

You could try drinking down some olive oil. There have been some people on the Performance Menu forums who mention getting extra fat down that way.

Guard your nuts with your life, bro.

I love olive oil on salad but it's surprising how more nauseous it is when you drink it from the bottle. I find holding your nose helps getting it down..

xua mai that is awesome. goign to try tonight with cindy to see how i do since i only did it once with strict pullups and i think i barely made 3 rounds. and it was bc u had done it that morning that I was encouraged to try it.

Even when you're walking in a handstand you want to remain in control, therefore squeezing the legs together is necessary. Arching the back also helps in the control, because you want to "overbalance" to an extent in order to walk forward. If you're walking backwards, you want to "underbalance" and keep the weight towards the palm of your hands.

Regarding kipping, for energy's sake, you only want to use enough power to get yourself chest to bar. If you use more than necessary you have to stop yourself at the top of the pull, which usually involves rotating your hands/regripping the bar. If your calluses and hands aren't up to snuff, you will tear.

Hari, Thanks for the link to that thread. It's a great one even though I didn't understand all of it.

Cindy or Mary: I agree that 15 pull-ups will suck but I won't be doing too many rounds because the HSPUs and pistols will take me much longer than 10 push-ups and 15 squats.
The swing vs dead hang isn't really the issue for me today because it's just touching the bar that hurts. Kipping up and down would probably be better because I'd be on it for less time than I would for the dead hangs. I could put on some new skin and then use tape.

I'm also considering doing false grip pull-ups on the rings to give my skin on my hands a break and work up to that MU.

I'm very confused and upset that my hands are causing me so much trouble. How long does it take to get strong hands? I'm doing everything suggested like filing them down and using lotion..

This is the first time I've heard guys complain about having their nuts grabbed.
ahah. Don't worry, I know. Inappropriate.. but I couldn't help myself.

AllisonNYC,

I would suggest that you do the false grip rows if hurts to even touch the bar. These WODs will show up again, but you don't want to reinjure yourself.
Unfortunely, I do not have any suggestions on how to take care of your hands beyond what you are already doing.

false grip Pull-ups not rows.. Get it straight RobZilla! ;)

Michelle aka Michnyc? How many pull-ups are you up to in a row? If it's about 5 then go with Cindy and try to get 5 in a row every time. You'll have enough time to recover during the push-ups and squats. It will be good practice.

If you do mary the HSPUs could make you tired and screw with your pull-ups. It also depends on how many pistols you can bang out.

Depends on what skills you want to focus on tonight. I say focus on the pull-ups since they're still new for you and practice HSPUs during your warm up or after the WOD. One thing at a time!

Jeff: I think Mike is taking on Mary too.

You could trying doing more supinated pull ups (aka chin ups) Allison. I find they put much less strain on my callouses.

As for my callouses I try and pick them and peel them off asap. If gives them more time to heal and the more dead skin that accumulates the more there is to get "pinched" and tear.

If anyone cares to see the difference between salted vs air dried tears which have partially healed, I'll be at the Box later or the early evening class.

"for" the early evening class

"Moon, Unless you do fewer than one-third the rounds of Mary, you will actually end up doing more pull-ups, which also means more time doing pull-ups."

Just a third? Never underestimate my lameness, my friend. Seriously though, I wasn't looking like the pure number, but the timings. For example in my case, pushups are the real cycle limiter for my Cindy numbers. This is because I can fly through the pullups and the squats, in comparison. So I find myself back doing cycles of pushups very quickly, this becomes very tiring...the machine slows down...

With Mary, I believe that HSPU's and 1-legged squats would take a fair amount of time for me (most?) to do. This would lengthen the entire cycle time, meaning more time to allow recovery for the tired/pained hands. Yes, at some point one is looking at doing 15 pullups, but once those are complete, it will be a while before they will come up again.

At the core of it, I'm saying (speculating out of my ass, really) that fatigue and recovery are not simple linear/additive functions. I've come to this tentative conclusion based on my experiences and in watching the Angie/Cindy debates on Murph but I'm open to explore.

Hey AllisonNYC! I feel your pain with busted hands. As a MLB catcher, I can take a real pounding on the palms! Take care of your hands like I do! Pee on them in the shower!

- Jorge

I've never felt like I was at risk of messing up my hands whenever I was using those neoprene grip squares. For anybody who has palm tear concerns, I'd suggest giving those a try. Let me know how that works out for you.

For comparisons purpose, here are my previous Mary scores:
5 rounds + (pre kip)
10 rounds + (after learning how to kip)
That might give you an idea of what rep volume of HSPUs and pull ups you'd be looking at.

!!!!!!!!!!!
WARNING: the following has nothing to do with Cindy, Mary, or kipping.
!!!!!!!!!!!

I've been thinking of going to the Crash-B's this year (http://www.crash-b.org/regist.htm) and was wondering if any other Black Boxers were interested. It's a 2,000 m indoor rowing race (World Championships, so to speak) that takes place in Boston every year (Feb 24th this year).

You don't have to be a beast on the erg (no qualifying times), just willing to suffer for 6-8 minutes, and maybe we could informally challenge (thrash? humiliate?) the folks at Crossfit Boston.

The uni-rower situation at the Box isn't ideal, but I'm sure we could fit in some specific training once in a while.

Any takers or questions e-mail me at ewenroth(at)nyc(dot)rr(dot)com

Wait...was that Jorge Posada from the NY Yankees?

yeah i think that makes sense allison. i can really only bang out 5 at a time at most so thats what i will go for and see how i do. i will work on hspus another time. thx

Crossfitting newbie here. Just started the Elements on Friday night. Wanted to make my first post and let you all know that the format at the box and online is inspiring and I'm looking forward to pushing and getting pushed by all of you in 2008

No Jack, its pretty clear that it isnt good ole Jorge... If the Yankees were crossfitters, don't you think they would have won a championship in this decade?? :)

WOW Justin get the Funny Foul Today! 3 wweks off and the FS and the wit are as sharp as ever! :-)

Moon, you raise two interesting ideas.

If, for the sake of argument, you can do, say, 15 rounds of Cindy, but only 4 rounds of Mary, how does the mean time between pull-up sets change?

To model the problem, assume you do 1 pull-up every 2 seconds, and assume your sets are unbroken (you rest between sets of exercises and/or during other exercises).

In Cindy, you will do 75 pull-ups, in 15 sets, with 1:10 between the end of one set and the beginning of the next. (Each round takes 1:20, and the pull-ups take 10 seconds of that time.)

In Mary, you will do 60 pull-ups in 4 rounds, with 4:30 between the end of one set of pull-ups and the beginning of the next. However, this is a bit misleading. Each set of pull-ups in Mary is really three sets of 5 pull-ups, so your time between each subset of 5-pull-ups in Mary is (0, 0, 4:30, 0, 0, 4:30, 0, 0, 4:30, 0, 0) which is an average of about 1:14, or about 4 seconds more than in Cindy.

Your second point is particularly interesting:

“At the core of it, I'm saying (speculating out of my ass, really) that fatigue and recovery are not simple linear/additive functions. I've come to this tentative conclusion based on my experiences and in watching the Angie/Cindy debates on Murph but I'm open to explore.”

I’ve long suspected that there is an optimal work/rest cycle, which no doubt varies from person to person (and is dependent on the type of work being done).

I am experimenting with a simple test: figuring out the fastest way for me to do 21 thrusters with 95 lbs. I quickly found out that using 5 30-second cycles (5,4,4,4,4) worked better for me than 3 50-second cycles (7,7,7) even though both were 2.5 minutes total. I've gotten similar results with dead lifts and handstand pushups.

Cindy:
11 rounds + 5 pullups + 10 pushups + lots of screaming

Bippity boppity BACON:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVKJpkq-wNo

OMFG WTF BACON CHOCOLATE CHIP COOKIES!!!!!111!!:

http://neverbashfulwithbutter.blogspot.com/2007/12/experiments-in-deliciousness-bacon.html

(I really am going to make these and bring them into the Box if people would like to try them.)

Allison - Did you know that Vosges has a Bacon Chocolate bar?

http://www.vosgeschocolate.com/product/bacon_exotic_candy_bar/exotic_candy_bars

Hey Court,

A belated congrats on making the Kettlebell to 10!

THE EAST COAST REPRESENT!!!!

Peace,

Mike

Hey everybody,

Great noon class today.

Cindy: 26 rds.

Plus, some great blood blisters.

Hari,

I think the model presented is still too simple for what we are trying to examine. To me it falls back to linear assumptions. To illustrate, I would like to post the results of our group's recent try at Barbara (5 rounds of 20 Pull-ups, 30 Push-ups, 40 Sit-ups, 50 Squats, 3 min rests between rounds):

Hari - 5:53, 5:34, 5:49, 5:56, 6:41
Kevin - 3:57, 5:29, 7:25, 8:27, 8:00
Paul S. - 3:42, 4:55, 5:24, 5:52, 5:55
Brendan - 2:16 2:19 2:47 3:02 3:15

If we squint a little to make Barbara resemble Cindy, it appears that rounds of the same exercise are taking increasing amounts of time. This means that the time between the pull-ups of Round 1 and Round 2 (except in your case, you bionic freak) and so on are being lengthened.

Returning to Cindy/Mary - the fewer rounds taken by Mary might well offset the negatives of the pull-up increase. Doing 15 pullups with damaged hands might not seem so bad if one knows that they only have to do that 4 times, with long periods of recovery in between. While with Cindy, those hurt hands are going to have to return to the bar, over and over 15 times in the same 20 minutes.

[Kevin might be a bad datapoint (he did say he felt down) but his <2x increase in split time from first round to last shows that some kind of wind down happened (independent rests probably should be ignored in both cases for lack of data - we're still in rough model territory.) Describing his performance as having an average time of 6 min (looking at the extremes of first and last) doesn't really capture, in my mind, what happened. Had someone commanded him to take 6 minutes on that first round, those other numbers would likely be quite different - possibly even all under 6 mintues. And holding up Kevin's results here to extreme scrutiny doesn't help to explain anything with certainty for others because as you pointed out (and this little data set shows) these sorts of measures can vary from person to person.]

At one time I believe I had some established calc skillz that I could use to examine this in greater detail. However this ability seems to be absent from ready recollection from mind after so many years. Even worse, the search party I sent out to find these tools returned with the complete lyrics to "Gilligan's Island", some VRML code ideas, and what appears to be lint.

Awesome work Brendan! Great job everyone at the noon class.

Mary 7 rounds +5 HSPU+ 4 pistols.

Down over 3 rounds from last time. I shouldn't have gone all out on that Keith mini "FGB" warmup. I was smoked from that when I started Mary. Oh well.

Are we discussing which WOD is more likely to tear hands?

If so, let's take an exaggerated case of 100 pullups and 100 situps.
You can do them two ways:
1) 100 sets of alternating singles (1 pull up then 1 push up times 100)
2) 100 consecutive pull ups then 100 push ups (like Angie)
I think #1 is less likely to tear hands.
Cindy is more analagous to #1 and Mary is more analagous to #2.
Therefore Cindy is less likely to tear your hands.

Or are you talking about number of absolute pull ups? Time spent on bars? Round splits? I'm lost.

i seemed to have missed the math workshop that was offered in prep for today's wod.

Busy day at the office Moon? :-)

moon-u need to be working on ur costume.get busy.

will miss u guys tonight. tear it up. just not ur hands. have awful cold-THANKS GREG! going home to rest. will make it up tomorrow.

lame, still in work, likely to be here a while yet :(

Luckily most others have left so i've cranked up my speakers and put some tunes on.. :)

There's a class at 7.30 right?

yes, sam, there is a 7:30 class.

xuan mai, i know that bacon chocolate bar, i've even tried it. so good!

cindy: 17 + 5 pulls and 3 PUs. Then loaded and unloaded a 14' cube truck w/ about a ton of tv production gear solo. Kinda felt like walking up the stairs to the box was an adequate work out.

Brendan - 26 Rounds of Cindy + 1 Muscle-up

Awesome work!

Nice Kevin. You doing OK? Havent seen ya in a while! Holidays treat ya nice?

Brendan--cool dude!

Well done Brendan and anyone who did Mary -- Pistols and HSPU are a b*tch.

Cindy:
20 rounds + 5pull ups + 7 Push ups (PR)

Last time was May 07
16 rounds + 5 pull ups + 5 push ups

Cindy: 17 Rounds + 5 pull-ups + 10 pushups.

(Non-math people: Why is there a hyphen in "pull-ups" but not in "pushups?")

Moon,

You're probably right. My model is too simple. We need more variables and lots of non-linearity. I'm going to work on it.

(Although in the limit as t --> 0, it probably works okay as is. Too bad we don't have any 0 second WOD's.)

On the other hand, I'm working on a theory:

Cindy Rounds = a * Tabata Something Else Total + b

Where a = 0.05 and -1 < b < 1

Brendan,

Amazing numbers!

You should have Keith write you a note excusing you from having to go through any further PT work during your USMC training.

11 rounds
give or take.

Took on Mary today. Baby woke me up at 5am and didn't go back to bed until about 630am so i was super tired and moving in slow motion today.

4 rounds, 5 HSPU's and 10 pistols.
Last time I did Mary, I got her for 6 rounds.
I felt strong on HSPU's and kipping was better, not so much on the pistols. My left leg was a limp pistol.

I lost the battle, but not the war.
Did anyone else do Mary? curious about everyone else's results

I had a feeling i was doing too many pistols in todays workout. I looked at the video on the HQ site http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFit_MillerDoesMaryAt7000.wmv
turns out i was doing twice as many. I was doing 20 pistols, 10 each leg. in the video Rob does 10 pistols, 5 each leg. I did twice as many as rx'd! i would've done many more rounds than i did today! well, next time than i guess. At least i know i can do 10 pistols each leg.