Midline stability! It’s an important factor for all movement, not just running.  So what exactly is midline stability? How do we create awareness? How can we improve it?

After some Kelly Starrett mobilitywod ankle and hip mobilization and a number of POSE running drills, the participants where ready for todays CFE session.

The objective was to look at the fundamental stability problems that occur while running. Most runners can hold their form at a comfortable slow and steady pace.  To reveal midline stability problems, runners need to step outside their comfort zone to a level where fatigue starts to affect their form.   CFE participants performed 400m repeats @ 85-90% of their maximum capacity.

As the body starts to fatigue we see the fundamental problems start to occur.  You need to feel what is happening and be able to correct you form to stay efficient.  One of the first symptoms of fatigue is the feet getting heavy and the foot strike no longer being on the ball of the foot. Looking further up the chain can reveal a possible cause:

• Breaking at the hips: many runners break at the hips, especially when confronted with a hill.  If the hips are in flexion the running POSE is broken and the mechanic efficiency starts to break down.  Runner’s need to have strong butts (glutes) to maintain active hips and an upright running posture.
• Over extension:  The opposite of hip flexion is over extension of the hip, which can be seen in the over-arching of the back.   Over time this will affect the efficiency of a runner and can cause lower back pain.

Bracing through the midline and drawing the navel towards the spin can help flatten the back and create a stronger torso.  Gebrelassie (current Marathon world record holder with a 2:03:59 in 2008 Berlin, Germany) has a very strong and stable torso and his limbs seem to move effortlessly as he runs.

To load and challenge midline stability participants performed a number of Kettebell (KB) overhead presses (OHP). By extending the arms overhead, creating a long leaver with a load to challenge torso stability, the positioning of the ribcage over the hips can be tested.  Performing and OHP can help demonstrate the fundamental problems that occur with running form.  The OHP is a great exercise to allow us to make corrections and demonstrate a strong “hollow rock” position.  Points to make note of:

• Active hips, engage the glutes
• Draw navel towards the spine
• Active midline.  The distance between the bottom of the ribcage and the top of the hips should remain the same during the exercise.  A strong and stable midline will help maintain this posture.
• Shoulders pressed back and down, big chest!
• Encourage diaphragm breathing

These points holds for other movements including the front squat, thruster, presses, etc…  By improving strength and stability under heavy loads the running demand for midline stability will become easy in comparison.

Continuing with the midline stability theme participants also performed the CFE W.O.D:

3 Rounds
10 x KB Pood
50m Shuttle Run (up and back)
60sec Plank (tight torso and glutes)

Today’s CFE London session challenged London Crossfitters to complete a WOD of 6x 200m intervals on the 3minutes (run 200m, rest the remainder of the 3minutes, then repeat…hard and fast). After a dynamic warm-up and number of POSE running drills the athletes were eager to deliver their best 85-90% effort.

These intervals are designed to be less than two minutes in duration and involve moderate to high power anaerobic intensity outputs. Anaerobic activities have the capacity to dramatically improve power, speed, strength, and muscle mass. Anaerobic conditioning allows us to exert tremendous forces over a very brief time. Perhaps the aspect of anaerobic conditioning that bears greatest consideration is that anaerobic conditioning will not adversely affect aerobic capacity! In fact, properly structured, anaerobic activity can be used to develop a very high level of aerobic fitness without the muscle wasting that is consistent with high volume aerobic exercise!

Elite endurance athletes, like Ryan Hall, are currently training this way: Become A Faster Miler To Become A Faster Marathoner

A number of London Crossfitters showed some impressive results:

- Tom: fastest 200m of the session 00:33sec

- Rosie: most consistent with all 6 efforts between 00:35 – 00:39sec

- Session average for individual athletes ranged between 00:38sec and 00:42sec

A very challenging and rewarding session for all the Crossfitters that stepped outside the box to execute a major principle of Crossfit: consistent variance! Routine is the ENEMY!

Day 100: It’s done. Over. Finished!

There was an amazing atmosphere in the gym this afternoon as the last remaining 100 day’ers* ceremonially completed their final 100 burpees. We were joined by the incredibly sporting, Lauri, Simon, Colm, Cian and Phil for an all-out thrash against the clock.

(from left) Joe, Daniel, Naim, Steven, Lauri, Simon & Colm

(from left) Alex, Amelia, Cindy & Phil

I’m not quite sure how to sum up 100 days. We started this on Saturday January (!) 29th which seems like an age ago. It’s definitely been challenging physically, both in the performance of the movement and the consequences of over-use. More than that, it has been a true challenge mentally; over-coming boredom, dread and the general unpleasantness of doing the same thing again and again.

And it’s for this, more than anything, that I am incredibly proud of Alex, Amelia, Cindy, Joe, Daniel, Naim and Yuri for sticking it through to the bitter end. Watching these guys ‘guts’ it through the final 100 with the crowd cheering them on was nothing short of inspiring. And it sure made that first burger taste all the sweeter!

Thank you also to everyone else who started the challenge and continued cheering folks on over the course of the 100 days.

So, what’s next? What can fill the void that the burpees will leave? I’m thinking of getting back to working on my strict pull-ups (one can never have enough of those), perhaps some handstand push-ups for good measure. Certainly I value (perhaps in hind-sight) the discipline of working on something so intently over an extended period of time. Fairly sure I will revisit the humble burpee at one point, too.

Oh yes, there’s still the matter of that elusive sub-5min 100…!

*Sadly (for us) Yuri couldn’t make it to the celebrations today. Neither could Colin, upon whose instruction we started all this…words will be had…

Day 99: Oooooooh yeeeaaaah! It’s nearly over! 25, 25, 25, 24 in the gym this morning. Looking forward to being done with this tomorrow. Not feeling particularly confident about a sub-5 min time – very unlikely in fact – but they will get done! Not sure what I’ll do with my evenings from tomorrow night…!

Day 98: Used this morning’s WOD to collect all 98 (+2) burpees for the day in a wholly self-serving, and single-minded manner. Guilty for inflicting this on others? No chance. That said, I will state categorically that I will not programme any burpees (WOD or skills/warm-up) for a month following the challenge. Fact.

Day 97: Sharkfarts…explain to me how I can be 97 days into this challenge, having completed my burpees every single day without fail, and yet I still nearly managed to forget to do them today (it now being 21:50)?!

Nuts…

21:51 – I shall now ‘liveblog’ my progress. I’ve already done 10 by this stage…

21:53 – 20 more down. Left shoulder aches. Lower back is very stiff from deadlifts and 150 32kg kettlebell swings yesterday. For some reason I have a stitch now. Haven’t had one of those since I was a child…

21:55 – 20 more. Puppy barking from the behind the bedroom door, clearly agitated that she isn’t part of the burpee fun. By comparison, I’m just plain old agitated.

21:58 – 20 more. Had to remove my ‘ninjas on unicycles‘ t-shirt after the first 10. Despairing at the hand shaped flat-spots on the landing carpet. I would say that a good 4,000+ burpees have left their toll…

22:01 – Another 20. Mulling over the idiocy that saw me programme 100 burpees as part of tomorrow morning’s WOD. Hope Harriet isn’t reading this…she don’t like no burpees. 7 to go…

22:03 – Last 7 done. Now I’m a sweaty mess. Shower then bed. Gotta be up at 04:30…

Day 96: Figured I could legitimately count the Texas Push-Up Test (1:08) as 10 burpees, given that’s what they kind of were. Really sucky burpees…

That left me a ‘mere’ 86 to do this evening. Deep Joy. 20, 20, 20, 13, 13.

Day 95: 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,15. Trying to keep myself fresh for the Texas Push-up Test, tomorrow morning…

Received this epic picture from 100 day-er, Amelia today:

Amelia doing burpees on Ben Nevis!

Go girl! Only 5 days to go!!!!!

Day 94: Same as yesterday…burpees and double-unders. 10,10,10,10,10,10,10,10,14

Day 93: One week to go! This time next week it will all be over…thank goodness!

Today, given the weather was so good, I took the burpees outside to the garden. Not feeling in the mood for extended sets I decided the break them into easy 10s again. But I needed something to do during the rest periods between sets…double-unders! Well, at least the very broken double-unders that I am capable of. Why not work on the most glaring of my skills gaps?!

So I did sets of 10 burpees followed by 10 double-unders, until the final set of 13 of each. My double-unders improved considerably over the extended session, too. Can’t quite string loads together, but can sustain a single-double-single rhythm fairly consistently now which is an enormous improvement for me.

Day 92: It is the evening (as I write this) and I am very happy ‘cos I did my burpees this morning in the gym. No late night burpees for me today. Marvellous. 30, 20, 20, 22.

Day 91: 30, 30, 31. Trying not to think about another week of 90+ burpees per day. Nearly there folks!

Day 90: Wow! Less than 10 days to go! Took the first five sets of 10 quite gently, and then went for two slightly faster sets of 20 to check  my pace. Not long now…

Day 89: Decided to push the breathing a little this evening. First set of 50 completely unbroken, no pauses and no problems at all. Second set of 39 had me breathing a little harder, but that just dictated a faster pace for the burpees. Pace is not super-fast, but is likely to be in the 3-4 seconds range. As long as I concentrate on the breathing (and trust in a single deep breath) everything seems to be going well.

Day 88: Very interesting indeed. Really focused on breathing tonight as an experiment. Went at a reasonably relaxed pace for the  burpees (perhaps 3 sec/burpee) but concentrated on a single deep breath per single (as per day 84). Worked amazingly well as a timing mechanism and a distraction. First three sets of 20 were very easy, so I went for a final set of 28 just to see if it would still work. A little more of a struggle but not bad at all. Promising…

Day 87: 10, 10, 10, 17, 10, 10, 10, 10. Shoulder feeling a bit better this evening after Andrew got his thumbs stuck into it.

Day 86: 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10, 10 & 6. Worked on breathing, landing flat footed out of the push-up, and trying to take it easy on my shoulder.

Day 85: Really sore neck and shoulder at the moment, the latter probably caused by burpee fatigue. I need to look after it for a couple of days and see if it heals up. Took today’s burpees quite gently with 15, 10, 15, 10, 10, 10, 8, and 7. Focused on breathing and keeping tight shoulders in the push-up.

Day 84: It took a Bank Holiday for me to finally spread my burpees out over the course of the day, or in this case: over the course of 30mins. Sets of 10 with a final 14 made things almost trivially relaxed.

I’ve started to think about my breathing during the movement, spurred on by conversation with Yuri and Jo yesterday. Part of the challenge of high reps of this movement is trying to keep a smooth, measured breathing rhythm to ones breathing. It gets all the harder at the top (and bottom) of the push-up, as keeping a rigid form requires holding your breath. So I now inhale as I move into the plank position, hold my breath through the push-up and exhale during the jump. I try and make sure that I take a single. deep breath as I drop down, rather than get into a shallow/rapid breathing pattern.

Happy, this also gives me something else to think about rather than a) this is boring, and b) this hurts. A good dissociative tactic like this could be just what I was looking for!

Day 83: I found myself in the gym this evening whiling away the hours between finishing work and meeting friends for dinner. Thought I would take the time to work some squats and presses. Ended up getting roped in to Sally’s warm-up for the 1730 class: 15-12-9 burpees and pull-ups (3:40). And thus I was able to count these 36 burpees towards this evening’s total. However I hadn’t factored in the massive Indian meal that I consumed as a post-workout meal (ahem…) Thus the 15, 15 and 17 felt awful. But they got done.

Was also fortunate to swap war stories with burpee veterans Jo and Yuri. Aside from the swollen triceps and pecs, it is the thousand yard stare of the man or woman with 84 burpees to do tomorrow, that sets us apart!

Day 82: 60 burpees courtesy of the CrossFit Games Open WOD this morning, followed by a luxurious 22 this evening. Joy!

Day 81: 30, 30, 21. Saving myself for the Open WOD tomorrow? After all, it’s only 60 burpees!

Day 80: 80 f#$&ing burpees? Only 20 more days to go, I suppose. Cracked out two sub-1:40 40s to knock this one on the head. Question for those of you still burpeeing: is the burning heat in my chest as I clear 40 consecutive burpees the same as the apocryphal ”fire in the belly’”? ‘Cos that’s what it feels like.

Day 79: 25, 25, 20, 9. And a gym move.

Day 78: It’s the weekend, and I have still left all my burpees to the end of the day? What is my problem?! 20, 20, 20, 18.

Day 77: I might take to smuggling more burpees into the morning warm-ups for the next, erm, month (!) to try and reduce to load at the end of the day! 25 as part of a burpee/kettlebell swing warm-up this morning. Happily I had forgotten about them until I stared this evening’s session, so it was a very pleasant surprise to know that I had ‘only’ 52 to do this evening. 10,10,10,10, and 12. All done.

Day 76: When will I learn not to leave these things until the end of the day? So tired after a long week (and anticipating tomorrow’s body weight WOD) I ran with 16 as a slow warm-up, followed by six sets of 10 with plenty of rest in between. Practically zero effort expended.

Day 75: 25,25,25. Managed to get a ‘stitch’ 10 burpees into my final 25. Blasted burpees have long stopped being fun…

Day 74: 14, 20, 20 & 20. Really need to dial my food quality in for the next month now. Recovery is going to be the aim of the game as the burpees head into the silly numbers.

Day 73: 30 burpee (3 sets of 10) during this morning’s sucky WOD. A pretty relaxed and easy, 24 and 20 to finish the evening with.

Day 72: Slow and steady 73 (for some reason) unbroken-ish. Worked the press-up portion primarily, making sure that I stayed in a plank/hollow body position throughout, kept knees off the floor and went chest-to-deck each time.

Day 71: Took heed of Colin’s advice from earlier and went for a sustained speed run today. Took the first 11 as a warm-up (probably not enough in retrospect) and then set the clock running. First set of 20 in 45 seconds which gave me 15 seconds resting time. Second set in 55 seconds, and the third set in 62 seconds (aargh). Total working time exactly the same as my day 60 score (oddly).

Definitely worth doing every couple of days from here on in. There is a mental toughness aspect to keeping up the pace, for me at least. The muscles were’t really fatigued in a meaningful way, so it was all down to my willingness to “go there”  and put up with the burning in my chest. That said, I would only have had two more sets of 20 to complete to get to the end, so perhaps it is possible. I guess I’m going to have reply on being ahead of the clock at the 50-60 burpee mark, and hope I can hold on to the end.

And the good news is: we now officially have fewer burpees to complete between now and May 8th, than we have completed to date. Categorically over half-way now! Whoooooooooooooooop!

Day 70: Left it too late in the day (again…) Absolutely knackered after a week of 0500 starts and 2300 finishes. So went with 10,20,20,20 with the final set acting as a venting mechanism – freeing myself of the frustrations of the week.

31 burpees into tomorrow’s WOD marks half-way in the volume of burpees.

Day 69: Another post-homemade burger effort. Wanted to have one last go at keeping some pace up before the attempt at 70 unbroken tomorrow. Went for a set of 35, followed by another of 34. Good pace, but getting a little concerned with a few sloppy reps in the middle – knees touching the ground during the press-up, tut tut.

I may try the 70 pre-dinner in the sunlight tomorrow. Best laid plans, etc…

Day 68: Post dinner, post three-days-on-the-trot-up-at-0500. Feeling fragile but went for three fast sets of 20 followed by a not-rested-enough final eight. Kept up a good pace throughout although did start to feel a little heavy-legged towards the end. Only a couple of days before a non-stop 70…

And for those of you still plugging away each day…never quit!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cM5A1K6TxxM

Day 67: 10,10,10,10,10,10,7 whilst watching the US remake of the hit Danish show, The Killing. Surprisingly good (both the burpees and the show).

Day 66: Celebrated my birthday with 66 unbroken burpees. Slow, cake fuelled burpees.

Day 65: Another relay with Sharona. 10,20,20,15. Fairly painless, even after a big meal.

Day 64: Surprisingly easy/straightforward 64 (actually 65 – miscounted again) this evening. Decided to do a tag team/relay with Sharona.I did 10 for each of her 5s which gave us both a reasonable rest period (30 seconds-ish). Very smooth and comfortable throughout, which makes a change from the struggles of the last week.

Very inspiring to watch Sharona crank out proper push-ups for each of her 50 burpees today. This from someone who didn’t have any full push-ups at the start of her challenge. Whoop!

Day 63: Started off suspiciously well when I inadvertently programmed 13 mountain climber burpees as part of this morning’s 0630 warm-up. This left me ‘only 50′ for the rest of the day. Sadly the rest of the day involved a thumping headache, so I took them in short, gentle sets of 10.

Day 62: Had bold plans of properly prepared, pre-dinner burpee sprints today. That was at around 20:00. By 20:30 I had consumed four delicious hand-made burgers and had to shelve the pre-dinner plan. Which meant another 22:00 burpee appointment. Time being of the essence, I went for two sets of 31. Not fast, but not particularly slow either.

Day 61: Decided on sprints of 10 with around 20 seconds of rest between. Took the first two sets slowly as a warm-up and then hit the rest hard. Aimed for sub-30secs for each set of 10. Definitely felt the effect of the 50-odd squat snatches from the WOD this morning in my legs and yet the ring dips didn’t seem to effect me as much as I was expecting. Go figure!

Ho hum. 62 tomorrow.

Day 60: 60 unbroken burpees for time. Finished in 2:42 which is a lot slower than I wanted. Makes me wonder if I miscounted my Day 50 score…Probably didn’t help that I left this until after dinner (steak…mmmm), just felt a little sluggish and ‘gassed’ earlier than I would have liked. First 20 were ok. Feeling the strain on 30, unusually. Had a couple of seconds rest at 40 and plowed on until the end. Interestingly wasn’t feeling fatigued muscularly, which bodes well for the future.

Think I’ll do an unbroken set every 10 days to see how things are improving. Between now and 70 I think I’ll work on sprints of 20-30 with short rests.

First little bit of doubt about a sub-5min 100 crept in, though…

Day 59: 30 in the morning and 29 this evening. Think I’ll go for 60 unbroken tomorrow and see how I fare.

Brie – really sorry you can’t go on. Your health and well-being is more important, however. You have made a wise choice. Outstanding work on getting so far into the challenge as well! Whoop!

Day 58: 30 and 28. Turned into a race to finish between Sharona and I. Wish it hadn’t…feel ill now

Day 57: 20,20,17. Intermittent puppy wrestling.

Day 56: So much for good intentions…Left these way too late in the day, after a big dinner. Just felt slow and bloated. Knocked them out with a 25, 10, 10, 6, and 6. Last two 6′s were with a diamond hand placement in the push-ups. Would like to experiment a little more with this. Definitely adds some spice to the push-ups, but possibly at the cost of extra strain on the wrists.

Well, there’s always tomorrow.

And the 43 days that follow…

Day 55: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1 with 10 seconds rest in between sets of burpees. Just over 4 minutes elapsed on the clock by the time I had finished. A nice little blast. Made sure I warmed up so that I could hit the first set hard. Kept to a relatively relaxed 3 seconds/burpee pace throughout.

Interestingly my recovery is noticeably improving. I tend to mentally measure the time it takes for the hard/exertion breathing to slow down to a more regular pace as an indicator of my personal powers of cardiovascular recovery. I noticed during tonights burpees that 10 seconds is plenty of time for my breathing to recover now. Good times!

Might start playing with push-up variations tomorrow.

Day 54: 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-5 for some reason. Mental arithmetic and burpees clearly don’t mix. Mixture of normal and puppy induced ‘close grip’ burpees. May experiment more with different push-ups variations as we go on. Planche push-up burpees, anyone?

Not sure anyone saw the video of the (mainly) bodyweight WOD posted on the mainsite yesterday morning. Have a look at the appalling burpee form on those (supposedly) top athletes. If you can bear it, stick around for the shoddy HSPUs as well…

http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/WOD110322_KinneyMichelle.mov

Day 53: Was mulling over ways to keep some variety in my daily burpees, and move away from my typical “sets of 10-ish” approach. So tonight I did 10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-1 with 20 seconds rest in between sets. Took almost exactly 5 mins to get through the 53. I suspect that 20 seconds is a little too long for the rest period (for me). May experiment with 10 sec rest for tomorrow’s action.

Day 52: 20 in the gym this morning, followed by 10 in the shower-room at work. Final 22 were were a hotch-potch of filmed efforts as I tried to get a better look at my lumbar curve and foot position in slow motion. Instead, I got a face full of puppy (again). At least this time I have footage to prove it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8rg2Qbe6SvE

From looking at my form I would say that my lumbar curve stays tight throughout the movement and I land “heels down” just before the jump as per the Stemler Standard. The main difference I can see from Andrew’s version is that I drop directly into a push-up (not a sprawl), rather than go hands and feet down first. Each to their own.

Day 51: I suppose it was a combination of having built up day 50 as a major milestone yesterday, coupled with running another great i-Course today, but I did not want to do my burpees today. Not. At. All. Think this is the first time in the whole challenge that the idea of skipping a day has entered my mind. I was (am still) tired and little achey.

So – to paraphrase Alex D in conversation with me this morning – if you feel like quitting, that is a good sign that you shouldn’t (Alex: that doesn’t actually make any sense…). So I gritted my teeth and sprinkled 4 sets of 10 and one set of 11 across the evening.

In the spirit of trying to drag others down, I reminded Sharona that she would be doing 80-odd burpees on her birthday in early May (she is a few days behind us). Then realised that I would be doing 90-odd that day. Felt worse.

Day 50: Woo hoo! Half way through the challenge (in terms of days). Celebrated with a properly warmed-up, unbroken 50. Clocked my time at 1:45 for the 50 (really should have videoed it to be sure!).

Form check: Strict push-ups, chest (sometimes cheek) to deck every rep with full jump to extension (hands overhead). No sprawling (which is a huge improvement for me), and my knees didn’t touch the ground for any of the reps. Jumped from flat feet (rather than toes) each time, but probably skipped through the “hands between feet on the ground”/step 1 of the movement, if I am to be critical.

Overall, very pleased with my performance. Think this is the first time that I have done 50 unbroken before, so was interested to see how it felt. Aside from the burning in my chest as I passed 30, “pretty good” is the answer. No injuries sustained (I took heed of my own warm-up advice with some squats and push-ups) and the shoulder feels good.

Little known fact: Although this is the halfway point in terms of days, the halfway point in terms of reps is 31 burpees into Day 71 (2,525 reps accumulated out of 5,050).

Day 49: 15×2 in the basement level, ‘gentleman’s shower room’ at work. 19 straight when I got home. Gearing up for a crack at 50 unbroken burpees tomorrow!

Noticed a few walking wounded, especially those dealing with shoulder pain. Unless I am already warmed up, I find that taking myfirst two “sets” slowly – essentially as push-ups with ‘some additional standing up’ – gets my shoulders loose enough to put more stress on. If I go diving in too fast, my right shoulder lights up and gets very sore.

Note to ‘future’ self: Don’t make this mistake tomorrow!

Day 48: Found myself in the gym this evening with Sally and the 1730, 1830 and 1930 classes. Managed to smuggle my 48 burpees in during the “interpretive dance” section of the WOD.

I notice that a few people have expressed confusion about the number of the days on the graphic in the sidebar. I generally try to update it the night before, but depending when I do so you are sometimes expose to tomorrow’s number early. Also I occasionally forget to update the number at all which means overexposure to yesterday’s number.

Confused? Welcome to my world!

Day 47: Managed to cut my pre-bed time burpees in half by stealthily dishing 20 out before the 0630 class this morning. Evening burpees were punctuated by a running game of “fetch”, instigated by the smaller of the two dogs. Despite being a mere 5 months old, she has quickly worked out that she gets all the attention in the world if she casually wanders into the “burpee zone” on the landing…Tonight’s remaining 27 were a staccato series of sprints, punctuated by the tossing of dog toys in every direction to buy myself a few precious seconds of space.

Just got back from reading Colin’s post on the challenge on his new blog. Definitely encourage you to pop over there and read what he has to say. Reading down through the comments, I am delighted to hear about some of the physical benefits that repeated exposure to one movement can bring. Sharona has just come bounding back into the room grinning from ear-to-ear about her first ever proper push-ups! I’m so chuffed for her!

Day 46: 20,10,10,6

Day 45: Three lots of 15, and good debate with Andrew about the burpees challenge (see comment below). Lots of learning for us for future challenges. Another 65 days to go…

Day 44: A surprisingly spritely 15, 15 and 14. Not sure I’ll be able to rely on getting these done before bedtime for much longer. May need to think about some further planning. Excellent post by CrossFit Londer, Brie on her blog here: http://handtomouthkitchen.wordpress.com/2011/03/13/on-burpees-and-balance/

Day 43: In the gym in front of the 1130 class (who were busy with their ring dips)

Day 42: Are burpees the answer to life, the universe and everything? Did my 42 and feel no more enlightened…

Day 41: Three lots of 10 and one of 11.

Day 40: Four lots of 10.

Day 39: Fast 20 and a slightly less fast 19 to follow. Trying to go easy on my right shoulder; still not quite right after the Great Bench Press Injury of ’09. Sucks that it should still be slightly weaker after nearly 2 years…

Day 38: 10, 10, 10, 8. Posts getting shorter!

Day 37: Fast 20. Leisurely 17.

Day 36: Two lots of 18 done quickly, but to the standard. Feet flat on the ground for every jump.

Day 35: 35 sandbag burpees. The less said about these the better. Experience was definitely marred by the presence of Stemler, heckling in the background.

Day 34: 8,9,8,9 in-between checking email when I got home this evening.

Day 33: Three sets of 11 with a small rest between. Feeling a little worn out from 50 pistols/50 dumbbell squat clean thrusters in class this morning.

Day 32: Smacked out four fast sets of 8. Felt pretty good.

Day 31: Completed burpees during this mornings kettlebell swing/burpee WOD. 78 burpees completed during the WOD, to be precise.

Day 30: Celebrated 30 burpees by completing them “Stemler style”. Liberating.

Day 29: 29 Burpees whilst nominally watching Fringe.

Day 28: Smuggled 7 sets of 4 burpees into this morning’s shuttle-run warm-up in the 0630/0730 classes. Sucked far less than it had any right to.

Day 27: Standard issue 28 burpees (unbroken) on the landing before bed

Day 26: Plodded through 26 burpees. Funnily enough, they seem easier when done faster. Dogs finally getting used to the sight of me bouncing around on the floor. Fewer unprovoked attacks recently.

Day 25: Cracked out a sub-50 second 25 on video!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GocW2INb4mQ

Day 24: Burpees done “Tabata style” during the 1930 class this evening.

Day 23: Urgh. Headaches and burpees don’t mix.

Day 22: Went for a ‘speed run’ today. 22 burpees in 42 seconds. Not sure I could keep it up for the other 78, though…

Day 21: 3×7 burpees snuck into this morning’s warm-up at the 0630 and 0730 classes. Would have been fine were it not for the jumping lunges that followed

Day 20: Officially 20% of the way through! Whoop!

Day 19: Fairly painless.

Day 18: Why did 18 burpees feel so hard today? Hello to North East Martial Arts who are hopping on the burpee bandwagon. Only 18 days behind us!

Day 17: Valentines day. Post-dinner burpees. Nothing romantic about them.

Day 16: Did 16 burpees in Greenwich Park. Mauled by pack of dogs. They were clearly upset that I still haven’t worked out how may burpees to do each day.

Is there a prize for burpees whilst being attacked by a pack of dogs?

Day 15: Did 15 burpees in the gym with the 1130 class after clearly being misinformed as to the correct number by Colin. Nuts. How many extra friggin’ burpees do I have to accumulate? Edit: None. It seems it was I who was misinformed.

Day 14: Done. Just don’t remember when. Probably during the 0630 class.

Day 13: Post-Glee burpees. Full of fake song choir vigour!

Day 12: Did my day 12 burpees twice, this morning. Once with the 0630 class (where Alex D, Adam, Jennie and Harriet are all taking the challenge), and again with the 0730 class with fellow challengers Amelia and Nadia. The lure of prizes is great!

Day 11: Done! Glad to see the interest growing in the challenge with brave folks jumping in now before it’s too late! Well done Jennie and Sharona who both dashed out 55 burpees yesterday to buy-in. Also, international “hello” to James Roberts in Sweden who was drawn here by the allure of burpees!

Day 10: Finally a meaningful number! Was joined Alex D, Grant and Adam in a post-Diane 10 burpees this morning.

Day 9: Nine burpees in the front hall of home. Liberatingly clothed. Puppy thought it was highly amusing to strike me on the head with a stray paw each time I got to the bottom of the push-up position. This is why we don’t use puppies as a coaching cue…

Day 8: Eight burpees during the rest break of today’s CrossFit London Coaching Academy. Criticised by Andrew for not lifting arms high enough overhead. Hurumph.

Day 7: Smuggled seven burpees into the warm-up for this morning’s WOD. Actually did 20 in total. Do I get to bank all these extra reps?

Day 6: Had to pop into the gym to complete a couple of errands today, so thought I would mix things up. Six burpees? Still a little on the boring side…nothing much happening yet. How to spice it up…hmm…how about doing Fran first, THEN do the burpees? Conclusion: doing burpees after Fran sucks.

Day 5: Five burpees in the gym under the watchful eye of Andrew. Burpees completed to the Stemler Standard, but fully clothed.

Day 4: Took the burpee show on-the-road today. In Ellis Bingham in Covent Garden buying some running shoes. FOR RUNNING. Asked the nice clerk if it would be ok if I did some burpees in his shop. Not knowing what burpees were, he agreed –  perhaps he thought the sale of the RUNNING shoes was contingent on it? I asked if he would take a photo, whilst I burpee’d. He took my phone, but must have just stood there aghast, as there were no photos at the end of four immaculate burpees. In the end his more capable colleague took over, but not before I had to redo my four burpees. In full biking gear. As opposed to practically naked…

Day 3: Three burpees in the lounge. Puppy jumped on my head during the third push-up. I will need to consult Andrew’s movement standard to see whether this still counts as a legitimate rep.

Day 2: Two burpees on the rug in the bedroom. Narrowly missed face-planting into hitherto unseen pool of puppy wee…

Day 1: Ceremonial first (50) burpees in the gym during the Saturday classes. I did the burpee sprints twice, in two separate classes. Total 100 burpees for the day. Am I finished now?

A lively evening began with some mysterious mobility drills, otherwise known as the boring poo that used to be passed off on women in “legs bums and tums” classes, but with the added twist of some post isometric relaxation, and reciprocal inhibition… wow…. God how boring.

Anyway it was a cheap trick to get a whole group of people to do this to each other without first arranging to meet on a lonely hearts internet site., or buy each other dinner…….

followed by a  lovely stretch for your bum…..(I did have  a great photo to illustrate this , but I was told that “April wouldnt thank you for that!”)

Anyway, we followed this by 30 clean and jerks

A (power) clean and jerk, looks like this

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ahm6cAGOUk

followed by weighted chins (or negatives) which Kate makes look like this.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sQ3pn4j-hrA

That Kate: she gives  ”Good Face”

Good Job. Well done to Darryl and Adam for blasting through at the rx’d weight of 60kg, and an “almost there” to Kirsty and Kate for their 37.5/35kg effort ( target 40kg!!)

Yes…we’re tinkering with the timetable again to see if we can squeeze out a few more classes.

Firstly, Sundays:

From next week there will be one extra WOD class in the morning and one extra Gymnastics Foundations in the afternoon. The full schedule will run as follows:

0900 CrossFit London Beginners

1030 CrossFit London WOD

1130 CrossFit London WOD (new!)

1230 Gymnastics Foundations

1400 Gymnastics Intermediate

1530 Gymnastics Foundations (new!)

Secondly, Gymnastics Personal Training:

We are delighted to announce that Amelia will now be offering one-to-one coaching for adult gymnastics under our personal training services. Check the PT schedule on the booking system for details on her available time slots.

Finally, more morning classes:

We have also opened up 0730 sessions on Monday, Wednesday and Friday as a wee experiment.

It’s a bish bash bosh post today…

Warm up for this morning was Samson stretch and Burgener warm-up drills.

The strength component was deadlift 5-5-5-5-5. I’m hanging around the 5 rep range for January as I’m looking to clean up some technique on movements that can breakdown on lower reps and heavier weights. As your friendly neighbourhood technique stalwart, expect lots more nit-picking for the rest of the month.

The met-con made sense of the warm-up. Four rounds of 15 hang power snatches and 30 sit ups. There were few smiles for the camera this morning. Funny that. Go TEAM!

I’ve got no love for the “sumo deadlift high pull”. Sure, it’s a got a long and unwieldy name, but doesn’t back this up with a level of “suckiness” that one would expect from such an impressive sounding title.

So last night I went on a mission to find the longest exercise name (EVER), but with the following critical condition: it must suck.

Enter: (The) Dumbbell Burpee Squat Clean Thruster

32 letters of pure, unadulterated, soul sucking misery. Perfect.

Dumbbell Burpee Squat Clean Thruster

To celebrate we (by which I mean “they”) had a short warm-up partner WOD of:

Three rounds:

• 10 DBSCT (whooop!)
• 10 Ankles joined, pat-a-cake, sit-ups

Pat-a-cake sit-ups with Temi and Ben

We moved on to some snatch technique work, aiming to really work the squat snatch with the following drills:

• 3x Squat grip deadlift
• 2x Hang power snatch + overhead squat
• 1x Squat snatch

Vincent

And to round off an action-packed session a wee snatch/overhead squat based WOD to finish:

• 1-2-3-4-5-6-7-8-9-10 Hang snatch
• 10-9-87-6-5-4-3-2-1 Overhead squat
• 15 bar hops in between rounds

Rosie "gets air"

A a side note, it’s been a while since I last ran an evening session so haven’t seen a few folks in some time. I was genuinely delighted and hugely proud of the progress that everyone has been making. Some of the snatch technique has come on a long, long way since I last saw it. Really impressive!

Today was a good day to try out the new sandbags what I made yesterday (innit?)

Sunday’s morning’s class were treated to a variety of sandbag related moves as a warm up/for my personal amusement. We squatted, cleaned and pressed, and even ran around loading and unloading them. Fun times.

My personal favourite warm-up: "Sandbag hat or Sandbag beard"

We also had a pop at three tries for max duration handstand holds (against the wall). Tran and Rita dominated this one. Again.

And then to the WOD, a prickly combination of sumo deadlift high pulls and push-jerks. Who thought THAT up?

The WOD with no name

• Sumo deadlift high pull x1
• Push-jerk x1

Add one rep to each exercise each round. As many rounds as possible in 15 minutes.

Christian, Rita & Kieran

I feel that is the sign of a good Sunday morning WOD, if people feel compelled to take a little ‘rest’ afterwards…

Stephanie

Rita and Kieran

We also had a terrific crop of beginners coming through for our 1100 Sunday Beginners class. We are delighted to welcome Gemma and Milly to CrossFit London. And congratulations to Gideon, Selim, Brie and Sabrina who all graduated to the main classes today – woo hoo!

On a side note: I thought I did very well to not confuse (much) Sophie, Sophia and Stephanie today.

More photo’s on the CrossFit London Flickr page, here.

Today’s WOD is one of those that I feel a little uncomfortable about even writing up on the board. The give-away is usually when I write the exercises, but not the rep/round scheme.

I even tried the age-old tactic of doing “fun-stuff” at the start of the session as a way of softening the blow…

So we did some push-up practise, mucking around with hand positions, before heading to the frog stand and other planche progressions.

But I could only put off the pain for so long…

Sorry

5 rounds for time

• 50 Sumo deadlift high-pulls
• 21 Ring dips

Perhaps the faces tell a tale…

Sophie (NOT Stephanie)

Kieran

Rita

Mark

Harriet

According to Harriet, this was worse than riding a very unruly horse. Which doesn’t sound like a lot of fun, all things considered.

On the plus side, I have lots of pictures of sumo deadlift high-pulls now…anyone?

Pictures of sumo deadlift high-pulls and more can be found on the CrossFit London Flickr page, here.

Thought I’d revisit a WOD from the past today.

Perhaps that shows a lack of imagination…

No matter. It seemed to do the trick.

Rehab

Three rounds

• 5x box jumps
• 5x left armed kettlebell swings
• 5x right armed kettlebell swings
• 5x left armed kettlebell snatches
• 5x right armed kettlebell snatches
• 10x squats

You keep me hangin’ on

Team workout for two people: as many partner assisted pull-ups as possible in 10 minutes

• Max partner one assisted pull-ups
• Team push-ups equal to the number of pull-ups by partner one
• Max partner two assisted pull-ups
• Team push-ups equal to the number of pull-ups by partner two

Anna and Sharona work as a team

Bootylicious/Mercy

A team workout for two people: max deadlifted weight by the pair in 10 minutes

• 7x partner one deadlifts, followed by 7 partner one burpees
• 7x partner two deadlifts, followed by 7 partner two burpees

Yuri and Marcus deadlift, while Efe prepares to burpee

Urgh.

We also welcomed another new group of beginners to CrossFit London today. Veterans Celine and Gerard graduated to the main classes, whilst Tran and Sabrina kicked off their journey with squats. Lots of squats!

Aaron, Tran, Celine and Sabrina get stuck into mini-Cindy

And we welcomed Aaron back to the Blackboard Gym after an extended absence. Great to have you back again, Aaron!