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You know on Fight Club when Brad Pitt gives his "disciples" homework? At one point their homework is to go out, pick a fight with a stranger, and lose on purpose. I suppose this is to teach them wheat it feels like to lose, and and that life continues on after this loss. Well, I have officially picked a fight that I fully expect to lose. In the spirit of jumping headfirst into my body transformation I have signed up for my first Crossfit competition. Now, you may be thinking, "Well, that's not so bad! You will have time to prepare for it, and by the time it gets here you should be in great shape and ready for anything!" Yeah...the competition is this Saturday. Like, 4 days from now. Yes, I have signed up for the Pound for Pound 4 competition in Montgomery on May 12. It is part of the very well respected 2012 Garage Games series sponsored by Again Faster Fitness. Granted, I will be in the "intermediate" class, somewhere between beginner and advanced, but I expect to get destroyed by everyone in that class. My goal is to not finish in dead last place. If I can keep that from happening, then it will be a victory in my book. My wife is signed up to compete in the advanced female division. I expect her to win. I just expect me to finish not last. HERE is the website for the competition if you want to see what it is all about. Be sure to post on here and cheer my on Saturday. Hopefully Sarabeth won't have to drag my dead carcass back from Montgomery Saturday night.

Today's Workouts!

BARBELL GYMNASTICS
- 5x3 Clean & Jerk @ 75%, rest 60-80 secs between sets
    Notes: These are not touch and go reps. Reset before each rep

STRENGTH
- 1X20 Back Squat @ 50%
    Notes: This should be a maximal UNBROKEN set. This will give us a benchmark of sorts to use for large number single sets of squats in the future. You will see this exercise fairly frequently. 

CONDITIONING
1a) 4X3 Weighted Strict Pull Ups + Max Effort Kipping Pull Ups @ 20#/10# (women), rest 60 secs
    Notes: This should be one unbroken set. Do the 3 strict pull ups, then, without dropping off the bar, complete as many reps of kipping pull ups as you can. This is pretty much only accomplished with a weight vest. Its hard to do with a weight belt. 
1b) 4x400 meter Sprint, rest 60 secs
     Notes: These should be ALL OUT efforts. Pacing is NOT acceptable. Degradation of pace is acceptable. These workout should be completed as follows: 1a, rest, 1b, rest, 2a...etc.

*****MY RESULTS*****
Barbell Gymnastic
-I did the clean and jerks at 135#. This was calculated based on what I believe my 1RM to be- 185#. It was fairly stressing. With so little rest between the sets breathing became difficult and I really had to focus on each rep. I felt good during the work. I had Sarabeth video a few of my reps. I really need to work on getting under the weight and getting a deeper split.

STRENGTH
-I did not have any idea what weight to do the back squat at. So, I did it at 155#. I should have done at least 175, maybe 185#. Apparently this workout was supposed to be extremely difficult. At 155# it was mostly a breeze. Apparently this workout gets programmed quite a bit, so I will know next time.

CONDITIONING
- Oh, the conditioning workout. I actually thought I was going to die during this one. 400 meter sprints? Are you kidding me? I did not time my runs. My pull up reps were as follows: 17, 17, 20, 11. This was not including the initial 3 strict pull ups of each set. All of my runs were definitely under 2 minutes. The first was probably under 1:30. I would start hard on each, but after 150 meter or so I would fade quickly. I guess that's the point? I don't know, but it was bad. Glad its over with.

POST YOUR RESULTS!