Reef, Beef and Beards

ATTACK OF THE GOATS

Going to start a new section to the blog.  We all have them and we all work to fix them. Probably the best things in CrossFit is that first moment when “we get it”…whatever “it” may be.

Getting fit is cool. But mastering, or at the very least managing to get a few good reps, of a skill that once seemed impossible is the ducks nuts. I mean a giant set of feathered clangers, if you will.

I recently sent a pretty big list through to Tim.  After we talk it through I will post it here…and we all can have a laugh.

Toes to Bar

One of my goats has been toes to bar.  Not so much getting my toes to the bar, but to do it with the kip in an efficient manner. A real kip and not one that looks like an electrocuted fruit bat swinging on the bar.

That horrible swing with no control. Reps only can go as fast as the swing and last until the grip pops.

One of the best guys I have seen to T2B is Matty Abs. Under control, fast and done in big bunches.

A week ago I had a horror WOD that included of 3 rounds of 20 T2B.  First set I muscled and “swung” through.  The next 2 sets were awful and took me the best part of 4 days to complete.

So naturally, I stewed on it for a week.

Then yesterday we had 50 T2B in a Chipper…oh fuckski (that is Russian for “fuck” ).  So in front of the class Tim puts me on the spot to practice said vile movement…rep 1 = shit, rep 2 = kip, rep 3= kip, rep 4 =kip….hey WTF is happening?  I quickly did 5 and got off the bar before I ran out of good reps.

It was later I realised the warm up bar work Tim had us do had really set up my controlled kip. He has a particluar warm up we do to get our shoulders mobile.  The pass through component set up this breakthrough.

During the WOD I got 20 great reps out before it went to crap.  But I am now on my way.  Now I know what a good rep feels like and now I can slowly build these suckers up.

Tim has given me a strategy for practicing them now to really dial them in.  So hopefully in a few weeks these won’t be Goats, rather just a god awful movement.

It was amazing what it did to the METCON time. I was dreading it. Instead I finished in 17:26…instead of the 25-30 I was expecting before the WOD.

The Silver Back Gorilla in it’s natural habitat

Dead Goat: Handstand Pushup Kip

Here is one buried goat…more of a mosquito.  But I couldn’t really get the kip going consistently on HSPUs.

Well no more.  Ripped through 25 HSPUs last night.  The kip is working.  Thanks Tim.

Now it is time to dial in the virtuosity…and hopefully meet hot chicks with tatts while doing them.