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30 Muscle-ups

I’ve been craving some muscle-ups during quarantine after going over two months without doing any. I loaded a ladder and my rings in the truck this afternoon and headed over to a playground.

My head was smacking the bar when I set the rings up, got on them, and pressed out, so give me a break on some of the lockouts. I didn’t want a concussion so I made the best of the situation. 😉

Date Time for 30 Muscle-ups
Jan 31, 2019 6:55
Dec 19, 2019 5:55
May 16, 2020 4:48

I think my days of knocking a minute off my time are officially over.

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20.5

Finished 20.5 with a time of 18:57.

I’ll probably do 20.3 in a couple of weeks since I had to skip it.

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Heart Rate Variability (HRV)

Heart rate variability (HRV) is the physiological phenomenon of variation in the time interval between heartbeats.
Wikipedia

What does that mean? Our hearts don’t beat at regular intervals. There may be a heart beat 1 second after the previous beat, the next beat might be 1.2 seconds later, and another may be 0.75 seconds after. It varies and that variance changes all day long depending on what we’re doing, what we’re thinking, how we’re feeling, how much we eat, how hydrated we are, etc.

I learned about HRV five or six years ago and used the iOS app ithelete paired with a chest strap to track my HRV each morning. It was a pain in the ass and it was really tough to get any meaningful results. Fast forward to 2019 and I wear a WHOOP band, which automatically handles all of the HRV readings and data. It has become a very valuable tool for my exercise and recovery.

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If you’d like to learn more about HRV, I highly recommend the latest episode of the WHOOP podcast, Podcast No. 29: Heart Rate Variability (HRV), with Kristen Holmes and Emily Capodilupo. They did an amazing job explaining what HRV is, why it’s important, how it can be used, how WHOOP uses it, and strategies for improving your own HRV. I learned a ton from listening to this episode.

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Saturday Workouts

I’m dealing with a calf strain as well as babying my back after a couple of tweaks, so I’m exercising in the garage more than normal. I don’t usually put workouts on this site, but what I came up with today was fun, so I thought I’d share.

The first workout was a pyramid of single arm dumbbell shoulder presses. Start at 5# and do 5 reps on each arm. Add 5# each set, continuing to do 5 reps per arm. Repeat all the way up to 50#. Do a second set with the 50# dumbbell for each arm and then decrease by 5# each set back down to 5#. It ends up being 20 sets for 100 total reps on each arm.

The second workout I did was:

20-15-10-5

  • Burpees
  • Dumbbell Box Step Overs (24″, 35# DBs)

Give these a try and let me know what you think.

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WHOOP 3.0

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I’ve been wearing a WHOOP for almost four months and got the new 3.0 yesterday. The quality of everything is a huge improvement over the 2.0. If you want to track heart rate, sleep, and fitness activity (not steps) I highly recommend getting one.

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Parcourse Push-ups

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San Diego’s Balboa Park has an old fitness circuit. Look at that 1975 copyright! Of course I dropped and knocked out a set of 20.

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Cardio Triple Threat

So happy to have added the rower to my garage gym. I’m really enjoying 30-40 minute cardio sessions in the cold garage. Didn’t have the heat on long and I ended up ditching my hoodie, but it’s nice to warm things up a bit to get started.

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CrossFit Workout Ideas

I enjoy creating workouts, or what we call metcons, short for metabolic conditioning, in CrossFit. I’ve been programming our Sunday workouts for several years and I’d estimate over 75% of the metcons we do are original creations pulled from my list of ideas.

Here are some of the workouts I haven’t used yet. If you try any of them, let me know how they go.

7:00 AMRAP

  • 10 Chest to Bar Pull-ups
  • 5 Hang Squat Cleans (115/80#)
  • 5 Push Jerks (115/80#)

12-9-6-3

  • Thrusters (115/80#)
  • Bar Muscle-ups

30-20-10

  • Dumbbell Power Snatches (50/35#)
  • Toe to Bars
  • Pistol Squats

3 Rounds

  • 7 Squat Cleans (185/125#)
  • 14 Bar-facing Burpees

15:00 AMRAP

  • 30 Box Jumps (24/20″)
  • 20 Pull-ups
  • 10 Clean & Jerks (155/105#)

50-40-30-20-10

  • Wall Balls (20/10#, 10/9′)
  • Double Unders
  • Sit-ups

2-4-6-8-10

  • Bar Muscle-ups
  • Squat Snatch (95/65#)

10:00 AMRAP

  • EMOM – 25 DU
  • Burpee Box Jumps (24/20″)