Jes' CrossFit Blog: 5x5 Deload Week Fun

Final muscle up count yesterday.

I just finished the 5x5 strength program (blog post to come soon) last week and now I am suppose to take a week off from heavy lifting so I can start Wendler's 5/3/1 next Monday. The timing worked out perfectly since it's Thanksgiving week and my lifts started to stall. Because I took such a long time off from all Olympic lifts and muscle-ups (hand injury), I decided to use this week to work Oly lift technique, specifically exploding with the hips... and apparently max strict muscle-ups while I'm at the gym!

This is what happens during a strength cycle deload week when I have not done my favorite movements in a longgggggggggggg time:

Burgener warm-up high. Burgener warm-up everyday, multiple times a day. Need to fix hip power issues.
Oly lift disappointment when pre-injury 1RM is hard to hit again, possibly a mental issue. New flaws everywhere. It's like I forgot how to snatch. :(
Strong desire to front squat, and especially, overhead squat. Unfortunately, or fortunately, I still can't quite go heavy on overhead squats. Minor left hand issues still.
Max strict muscle-up mind games with myself. It started with cashing out with 5 muscle-ups post WOD, to doing 1 more muscle-up than yesterday, to 12min AMRAP muscle-ups while the next class does the WOD, to reaching 30 muscle-ups before someone in class finishes the WOD. Today, I actually want to time myself. Hehehe. I'm on a muscle-up high, too.

Note: The purpose of a deload week is to allow one's mind and body to rest and recover. Some people think I'm not taking any break, when I should be, but haha, I am so excited!!!

Media:

Since I started my blog, people have asked me to post a strict muscle-up video. I figured this would be a good time to post one. This is around rep 44 out of 50, filmed yesterday. Initially my goal was to do 1 more muscle-up than I did on Monday, 22 muscle-ups. However, that goal turned into, can I complete 30 muscle-ups before someone in the next class finishes the WOD. Then I realized I was only 12 muscle-ups away from doing double (42) the amount I did on Monday... and then you know, only 8 more to hit the pretty 50. For you detail-oriented, this was post-WOD and in the span of about an hour. In between muscle-ups, I was doing the full Burgener warm-up a bunch of times and working on power cleans.