Sometime it’s cool to run you through a workout that’s ultra hard because hopefully you can get a little bit of what I’m going through durning the workout and bring some of that intensity to your workouts. An especially tough CrossFit workout that I recently did was called “Small”. This workout was anything but small! The workout was 3 rounds of: rowing 1000m, 50 burpees, 50 24in box jumps, and run 1000m.
There were two of us doing this CrossFit workout and we only had one rowing machine, so I swapped the rowing and running (starting with running). This is the type of workout that I usually don’t warm up much for because of the lower intensity and longer duration. I started the clock and we were off! The first 1000 meter run was really the warm up and I could feel my ankles and legs getting loose while running down the cobblestone driveway. The first time through the burpees I made it to 30 before taking a little breather. I knew this was going to be a longer workout because the top athletes were doing the workout at around 40 minutes. My game plan was slow and steady; trying not to rest too much and just be consistent over the whole duration. The box jumps were 25, reset, and 25 more. Once I hit the rowing machine for the first time I quickly realized that pulling myself back to the catch position of the row was definitely going to be a problem.
One round done and the temp started to feel hotter than when we started due to the increasing humidity in the NY area. The sweat was flowing during the second round of running. For some reason the second round of most of my workouts seems to be the toughest and this was no different. The running was really no problem, but the burpees came in sets of 5 at a time which really slowed me down. While struggling through the second round of burpees I was actually looking forward to the box jumps, and they were a breeze once I got to them. The rowing was really more of the same feeling like I needed to improve my flexor strength.
Starting the final round of any workout aways feels good and this was no different. The run started off slow, but picked up speed as I burned through the 800 meters. The burpees were actually easier on this third set than the second. I did them in sets of 10-15 reps at a time, and before I knew it I was doing box jumps 10-15 at a time. I didn’t need to really rest between the box jumps, but it was more of resetting my foot positioning which only took a quick second. When I hit the final row my buddy was still on the machine so I had to wait for him to finish. This was cool because I got a breather, but sucked because it slowed me down. After resting for a couple of minutes while my friend finished up his set I got on the rower and put in 1000 hard meters to finish up the WOD called “Small”. I finished in 53 minutes which I wasn’t really happy with, but not being used to the heat or humidity I’ll take it.
