From the Gym to the Mountain: CrossFit Open 20.2

I really liked that 20.2 had weights and movements that I could do. I have no illusions about putting up a competitive score, but I like being able to strive at the Rx version of the workout rather than perhaps excelling at the scaled version. I'm pretty slow, so I'd rather have my score depend on weights and skill than speed.

20.2 was as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of 4 dumbbell thrusters, 6 toes to bar, and 24 double unders. When a workout has a lot of toes to bar, I usually scale to hanging knee raises, since I can't string toes to bar together very efficiently. But 6 is not that many to do at a time. And I'm finally at a point with my double unders that 24 isn't scary. I'd say, I'd probably be comfortable with sets of 30, even. Maybe 35. 50 still gets me nervous though.

The dumbbell thrusters were the only questionable part. It's only 4 reps, but women's Rx weight was two 35 pound dumbbells. I know that I have gotten that much weight overhead before, in a prior open, but a thruster is different from a jerk.

At the strategy class, I got a chance to try out the dumbbells and they were heavy. But I could lift them. Up above my head. So I was going to do my best at Rx and get a really good workout. One thing that they recommended for speed on the thrusters was to take the dumbbells to the shoulders with a kettlebell swing type movement, nice and smooth. Several of us taped the bars to protect our hands and help our grip during the toes to bar.

We were joined by a visitor here to do the open workout. I ended up pairing with her to take turns judging. She went first, scaled. She did run into a snag because none of the jump ropes were quite the right length for her (a fellow height-challenged person). But other than that, she rocked it, moving smoothly through the hanging knee raises (a real ab burner) and the thrusters (two 20 pound dumbbells was the scaled weight for women).

She also did a bang up job judging me, if I do say so myself. The hard part for me, as anticipated, was the thrusters. Those dumbbells got so heavy, and it was hard for me even to lift them onto my shoulders. I didn't want to pick them up because I knew how hard it would be. At one point, when they were overhead, my left wrist wobbled and collapsed a bit. But my toes to bar were steady singles and I managed to get through 8 sets of 24 unbroken double unders, so that's cool. My total for that attempt was 8 rounds and 24 reps (4 thrusters, 6 toes to bar, 14 double unders).

This workout was hard, but not so hard that I didn't want to try it again. I felt like I could get more rounds, 10 to be exact. That's an average of two minutes per round. Surely I could stick to that pace for a mere twenty minutes.

On Sunday, I first judged my friend, who also did scaled. She blasted through an amazing 23+ rounds, and I was in awe. I told her my goal for the workout and she agreed to nag me through it.

The major change that I made to my workout on Sunday versus Friday was in how I addressed the dumbbells. I am just not strong enough to swing those dumbbells right up to my shoulders. In the interest of keeping moving and not messing up my lower back, I switched to a two step technique. First, I deadlifted the dumbbells, then I did a hang clean to get them to my shoulders. Slower, but safer and more efficient for me. I also invested in some wrist wraps, because my left wrist was really sore from that bobble and I didn't want to lift those dumbbells overhead without some support.

And those changes made the difference. Or the fact that I'd done the workout once already and I almost always do better on a repeat. I got my 10 rounds with about 10 seconds to spare.