12.5 results and future plans

12.5 . I got 105 reps which was a minor disappointment as I thought I would be in the low 120 range and if I just could've got back to the pull-up bar with 20-30s left that wouldn't have been a problem as the pull-ups were easy. My limiter was my breathing and my ability to quickly move through the higher rep thrusters due to breathing and leg fatigue.

After the 5 workouts I finished in 305th place in the Northeast region which is the deepest and most participated region in the world with 2400 men completing all 5 workouts and 3400 completing the first burpee workout. I had hoped for a better finish overall but I know I gave an honest effort and learned some things and have much more to work on and fine tune for a hopefully better showing next year.



Looking at things from the big picture my worst performance was easily 12.1 the 7 minute AMRAP burpees.  I only managed 103 reps and this put me in 929th after one workout. I came out trying for 18-19 burpees a minute which was definitely too fast a pace. I believed I could have maximized my score with approximately 16-17 per minute and gotten around 110-115. I couldn't keep a great pace in the middle portion of the workout. Regardless of how I paced it my engine was not there with the top competitors on this workout. Similarly in the last workout12.5, the first few minutes went smooth but the last 15 reps of thrusters I got took forever and left me knowing the strength and ability to do the work is there but my anaerobic threshold is poor compared to top competitors That is the thing that needs the most fixing right now if the goal is 2013 Open season, which is how I will eventually focus in.


However having said that, I can fix and sort that out at a later time.  Right now the last thing I want to do is work on my anaerobic threshold one year out form competition.  Right now my main desire is to lift heavy things and eat bloody red meat. So that is what I am going to do.  Right now and for the next few months I just want to get stronger overall and get more proficient at the Olympic lifts. I'll do some conditioning but the main focus is going to be doing what I enjoy right now and keeping the eye towards being my strongest and fittest one year from now.

I have no idea if it will be detrimental to my overall performance as a Crossfit athlete or not but I am going to finally get serious about putting on and keeping on some weight. It doesn't seem like it will help with workouts like 12.1 and 12.5 but I watched other, heavier and in my mind less strong pure engines do better on those workouts than I did. I guess it can't hurt to have a 300 lb bench for the burpee workout and a 400 lb squat for the thruster workout. Most importantly for me right now is that this is the way I want to train and whether it makes me a better Crossfit athlete or not I will enjoy it.

In order to help with the weight gain I am adding a few things to my diet that I haven't ate in a couple years since switching to a mostly Paleo diet. I'm going to add brown rice and quinoa as I will be significantly upping my carbohydrate intake and these are two gluten-free options that I have handled well in the past and should help with adding weight. I also will be adding Goat's milk as another way to increase my intake.


So in summary I have come to the conclusion that my engine needs to get better but I am essentially running in the other direction to lift heavy and gain some weight.



My current numbers and goals to accomplish by July 1.

bwt   183         ----  195-200
squat  325       ------  360
snatch 180          ----      200
clean and jerk      260  ------270
close grip bench   260---275

Squatting is the number one emphasis as I feel this will help with everything else in sport/Crossfit. The snatch PR is a power snatch and I am not even close to that in a full snatch, because of a past wrist injury, which is healed but still doesn't feel great in receiving position of snatch. I am going to not even worry about weight on the snatch until I am confident in form and that my wrist is ok to receive full squat snatches. The CJ PR is a huge outlier as it was done at the OPTahlon and was a pure adrenaline lift. I still haven't hit 250 in training so again the emphasis here is consistency not necessarily making a huge PR.
I won't be devoting any special training to the close grip bench but with increased body weight and occasional benching and dip work I'm hoping it goes up a bit.



The current plan will be based off of a Hatch Squat cycle and I will be low bar back squatting one day a week and high bar back squatting one day a week. Olympic lifts and their variants will be practiced the other days of the week.   I have an outline for the conditioning but that is going to be very loose for awhile and will be  my last concern and will be the first thing to go if I am feeling beat up, tired etc., I am looking forward to starting.