RangerUpbitch’s BodyBlog

This is done everyday when I arrive at the gym to get blood going through all my muscles and to help stretch out.  All reps are done at a slow pace with the exception of the 10 pullups which are kipping pullups.  Obviously i do not kip my weighted pullups.  If i have any residual soreness i stretch for a few minutes on that specific body part.  I’m in ridiculously good shape, so soreness doesn’t happen very often.  Soreness is usually only manifested with a little muscle tightness in the beginning part of my workouts.  Crossfit workout are highly randomized, and workouts are not repeated often, but hitting legs back to back happens more often than not.  Anyway here it is:

3 rounds of the following:

10 back extensions, 10 situps, 10 pullups, 10 dips, 10 45# overhead squats, 10 seconds each leg samson stretch.

Samson stretch is basically the lunge position with arms above head and fingers interlocked.

I usually add 5 45# weighted pullups to each set of pullups unless the workout of the day has pullups involved.

So today i did a workout posted on crossfit santacruz.  it went like this:

5 rounds of 15reps 75# kettlebell or dumbell swing and 30 double unders(jump rope).  Time 12:01

The workout wasn’t too bad and it was enough to smoke me pretty good.  I broke 2 of the swing sets into 7 and 8.  i was able to push through most of them.  I was surprised how smoked i was as a result of the double unders.  Those were only broken when i would mess up the rythm but i would start right back up.  I took a short rest in between each set which could have probably been eliminated or shortened.  I imagine that i could probably do this workout a minute or two faster if i was having a really good day.  Other than that it was another good workout for my kit bag.

Bodybuilding supplement workout:  Off-day

well yesterday was the easy day….what’s that saying "the only easy day was yesterday."  I think that comes from somewhere in the special operations world.  Actually i think it’s the Navy Seals.  Anyway here’s yesterday’s breakdown

7 x 7 reps  205# bench with 10 rep 135# warmup

5 sets of Superset of 10 reps 65# laying skull crushers and 50# dumbell tricep extension

4 sets of Superset of 10 reps 50# kettlebell windmills, 10 reps 50# kettlebell swings, 25 glute-ham-dev situps.  I forgot to time it.

The hardest part of the workout was the last 4 sets.  I didn’t take any breaks and i almost puked when i was done.

Alright Today was a smoker but easy day overall and it went as follows:

Superset of reps 21-15-9 each of 225# backsquat and ring(gymnastic rings) dips.  Time 4:30 

5 sets of Superset of  8reps 55# dumbells standing shoulder press, 10 reps 90# dumbells shrug, and 20reps 20# dumbells lateral raise.

5 sets of 8reps 15# dumbells bentover fly’s.  I really was trying to isolate the rear-delts and i could only get proper form with the light weight.  I found these to be extremely difficult, probably because i’ve never isolated such a small muscle, but I pride myself on good form and technique. 

Finished with 5 sets of Superset 25 situps and 25 back extensions.  No breaks but i forgot to time it.  Man my back is all cramped up.

Good day workin’ out overall.  We practically did 2 Crossfit WOD’s today.  whew…the NOOB’s on the Crossfit website crash after one.  HAH!  USED TO BE ME!

a’right so as usual i worked out and it sucked too.  I didn’t feel like working out.  One of my soldiers died yesterday and i just found out this morning.  We sent him back to the states because of injuries sustained here.  I had to hit the gym to let some of the anger out. 

 20 minute interval of the following:  9 pullups, 15 195# deadlift, and 21 70# pushpress.  i finished 7 rounds with a couple seconds to spare.  I was suckin’ kinda bad through the whole workout.  I have a hard time putting these intervals in the workout tracker because of how many reps and sets that are normally accomplished.  it takes forever and the sets that i input are not accurate as it is usually less reps per set and almost always more sets than entered.  it just takes too long to load in everything correctly.  I usually use 85# for air squats and 75# for situps and my body weight for pullup weight entries.  I am really tracking my volume of work, and if there’s a misunderstanding i’d be glad to explain.  Just PM me.  I think the weight i use for the body control exercises are conservative, but i’m consistent, so i can still use this data empirically to calculate any progress of my metabolic conditioning. 

Well i was going to go on a patrol today, but i got hooked in to finishing up the inventory.  Good thing…the patrol i was going on ended up nearly getting smoked by a big IED.  The only thing that saved them was some good equipment that I can’t really talk about.  Luckily the IED detonated after they passed.  It hit an iraqi truck.  And completely smoked the two dudes inside.  All my men are okay, but a little shaken up since they were really close.  Close call. 

Anyway the workout was a 20 minute interval of 5 hand-stand push-ups, 10 Lsit pullups, and 15 lunges.  I did 14 intervals total before time expired. 

I finished with 7 sets of squats of 7 reps of 225, 275, 275, 295, 295, 315, 315.  I wrapped up with 7 sets of 7 reps of 135# incline bench. 

 I’m glad I didn’t die or none of my soldiers died today.

Although it was a light day we managed to turn it into a smoker.  We combined the 30 muscleups for time and 150 wallballs for time into a nasty 6 round interval of 5 muscleups and 25 wallballs.  We finished in about 15 minutes but i didn’t accurately time the workout because i knew i’d be helping the others with the muscleups.  My most devoted workout partner, one of my soldiers Mark, has the strength to do the muscleups but lacks the technique for getting the muscleups down.  We modified the muscleup for him by making him jump into the transition of the muscle up and performing two dips from that point.  Any questions on muscleups reference the crossfit exercise link on their main page, plus they have tons of videos of muscleups.  Even though we kind of took our time we were smoked when we were finished.  Then we went inside the gym and finished with the bodybuilding portion of today’s workout.

 BB Workout today included a superset(i love supersets if  you haven’t noticed).  5 rounds of the following superset.  10 preacher curls a with 65# curl bar, 20 reps 20# dumbell preacher curls(10 each arm), and 10 shrugs with 80# dumbells.  Our biceps were on fire and shoulders fatigued.  We of course finished with some abs…3 sets of 25 laying leg-raises.  We threw each others legs on the down stroke for a little added resistance.  Those seemed almost too easy, but all in all a good work out day.

 I’m not big on the bodybuilding part of the workout, because i don’t really want to over develop the muscles involved in the isolation of small muscle groups.  I recently added the bodybuilding workout afterwards because it works some muscles that never get hit if you will, during the highly functional crossfit workouts.  I do it mainly to tone the soft spots and since they are really small areas the added mass and muscle density isn’t really affecting my crossfitting.  Mainly i do it for the added aesthetic results.  I think it’s kind of impossible to get the huge bodybuilding physiques of today while doing HIIT like Crossfit.  I have decent size that i’m very pleased with, and I don’t desire to get "huge".  I do it to tone out my natural shape and get more results similar to bodybuilders of the past.  I suppose the 60’s and early 70’s is what I really desire.  Well i digress until later.  Ranger out!

A’right so it goes like this:  20 minute interval.  As many rounds as possible of 5 pullups 10 pushups 15 squats.  So last year around the end of February I did this workout and smoked it.  I did 27 rounds which works out to about 45 seconds per round, but it really only takes me about 28-29 seconds to complete a round.  I was taking 15 seconds of rest before i would jump back on the pullup bar.  Last time i did this work out i did it with a 20# dumbell on the pullups and did the squats with a 45# barbell and got 22 rounds.  This was about 2 months ago.  I thought I about killed myself when i did the heavy cindy.  I kind of got an overuse injury on my hip flexor and my elbow from this so i’ll only do this once in a while.

Anyway TODAY I got 33 rounds.  A PERSONAL BEST!!!!  WOOHOO!!! I was able to get a consistentl 27-28 seconds per round with no rest besides turning around and jumping back on the pull up bar.  I believe it’s possible to get 34 rounds.  I had one witness, Mark Sosa my workout slave(lol), to this feat.  I wasted some time taking a couple breaths here and there and I was definitely on the verge of pukie.  Especially the last 3 rounds.  I finished with 1 second to spare.  I am SOOOO proud of this accomplishment. 

Anyway Coach Glassman told me about a young girl that did 37 rounds in 20 minutes and i was like no way that’s possible, but today i became a believer because of my own improvement.  A VERY well conditioned girl at a much lower weight could definitely complete these rounds faster than me and end up with possibly 38-39 rounds.  Simply amazing. 

One caveat i must add is that i went on a patrol and some crazy stuff was going down around us and we weren’t really gettin’ crap for updates but the amount of close air support in the area as well as observation planes  was an indicator of how crazy it was getting.  It was on the news and apparently 19 insurgents and Iraqi police ended up dead according to the news.  Well we were on call for the station and well i don’t know if you know what it’s like to have to be just a couple minutes from getting into a crazy fire fight our hearts were going like crazy.  Adrenaline was through the roof.  Well we got back and got the order to stand down to a ready alert status, so took the time to go use some of this pinned up aggression\adrenaline in the gym.  I had no fear pushing right through any of the fatigue in the workout.  I was amazed at what my body is capable of doing.  SHOCKED really.  At least i know when it’s time to make some heads roll and shoot and maneuver, my training and fitness is among the elite…just an observation.  I don’t know too many other people than can do that many rounds of Cindy, nor have I personally met any of them.  My workout partner Mark also had a personal best too of 26 or 27 rounds.  I had a hard time keeping track of his rounds too, but that was a huge improvement over his last time too.  I think his highest before was 21 or 22.  Simply astounding what this Crossfit stuff can do for you.  I drank the Koolaid and i’m COMPLETELY addicted, but I’m a true believer because my faith was tested and I believe it passed with flying colors.  Ranger Out!

Well yesterday was the filthy fifty.  it’s an absolutely grueling workout.  it’s 50 reps each of wallball throws #20 med ball, 45# pushpress, 40# kettlebell swings, double unders(jump rope), lunges, up/downs w/pushup, pullups, back extensions, box jumps 27" box for a grand total of 500 repetitions.  Taking as few breaks as possible.  My fastest time ever is 18:30.  I barely broke 23:00 minutes yesterday.  Didn’t feel great, but i finished with still an incredibly fast time. 

Today was a superset of 225# deadlifts and air squats.  It goes 10 deads, 100 squats, 10 deads, 50 squats, 10 deads, 25 squats, and 10 deads.  I finished in 6:55.  I smoked through it.  I felt great even though i ate like shyte at lunchtime with pizza.  I beat my workout partner by over a minute.  The last super set we did was 4 rounds of 50# dumbells shoulder-press x 8 reps, 20# dumbells arm raises to the front x20 reps, and 80# dumbells shrugs x 10 reps.  This superset was not done as fast as possible as was the first.  We took our time for maximum hypertrophy.  We finished with 80 straight-legged anchored situps and i finished in 1:15.  Good stuff.  Long patrol tomorrow.  Hopefully i have time for the gym.  Ranger OUT!

Well today i got a little ridiculous in the gym. I started with a crazy interval. it was 20 reps of full squat cleans(SC) 20 reps of Sumo-deadlift Highpulls(SDHP) and 20 reps of box jumps 27" box(BJ’s) then 15 SC’s, 15 SDHP’s, 20BJ’s then 10 SC’s, 10 SDHP’s, 20 BJ’s, then 5 SC’s, 5 SDHP’s and 20 BJ’s.  The workout was faster then ten minutes but i forgot to start my watch timer.  It was a smoker.  Then I did a bunch of sets of tricep extensions (laying and standing), then I did some curls for the girls.  Hammer plate curls and alternating dumbell curls.  I finished with 3 sets of 50 situps.  The workout took longer than expected overall.  The initial interval went by very fast and I was surprised I did all the extra stuff after.  It felt like I was on crack.  Right now i’m only supplementing halodrol liquigels and whey mixed with some muscle milk.  I was tired all day, but I was energized to kill the gym.  Good day in the gym.  Ranger out.

Lynne is a superset of bodyweight benchpress and pullup.

 My current body weight is 151 pounds. 

I did heavy Lynne.  I used 185#’s for the bench and weighted pull-ups w\20# dumbells.  I took about 3 minute breaks in between sets. 

I followed up the workout with an interval of situps and backextensions.  The workout seemed easy, but I left the gym not really smoked.  I have a bad habit of pushing too hard or doing too much and getting over-use injuries in the gym.  I have to pull myself away from the gym even though I feel I haven’t done enough.  I figure out the volume of weight I threw around and I did more than enough for one day.