PR’s

I’m blaming my lack of recent blog posts on my ultra chaotic major life changes. And when I write “major” I mean “this is (more) mayjah” than David Beckham hanging on the beach sipping on Pepsi. But more about my life in due time.

I’m dropping in to jot down my recent PR’s established during “PR Week” at CrossFit Love. I’ve been consistently working on my four major lifts for only less than a year so, as Craig “The Z” Zielinski pointed out, these are probably not my true 1RM’s just yet. But, it’s good starting point and I won’t lie, I like that I’ve graduated into Rippetoe’s Strength Standards “Advanced” category.

Bodyweight: 108-110#
Squat: 155#
Deadlift: 205#
Press: 85#
Bench: 105# 110#

I was most disappointed in my squat but most pleased with my bench press. Such is life. Sometimes I can’t have it all (all at once.)

This vid, filmed by Ryan and me and compiled by Joe, has been posted elsewhere on the interwebs but here are my CF Love teammates (including Tweeps @deckerra, @polobear716, @laurenancona @JeanineDESQ, and @klhorn22) setting some PR’s:

I sat down with Joe and jotted down some goals to eventually accomplish. I’m not going to work on all of these at the same, that may be detrimental. For now, I’d like to focus on my developing just my strength. Call me naive but I think the stronger I am, the faster I’ll be able to move weight around. It takes a lot longer to develop strength than cardio, metcons, and technical skills like double unders, so it makes sense to focus in on strength now.

Getting Serious

We’re starting to get a little psycho serious with our scaling.  And by “psycho” “serious,” I mean busting out the Strength & Conditioning text book, pulling out Rippetoe’s “Strength Standards” chart, looking up 1RM charts, running calcs with an iPod calculator, and strategizing.  Psycho, no?

So, tonight’s WOD of:
Shoulder Press 3-3-3-3-3-3-3
was the perfect opportunity to test out scaling.

Theoretically, since I was completing sets of 3 reps, I could (should?) lift at 93% of my 1RM.  (For shoulder press, my 1RM is 75#.  Thus, 93% of 75# = 70#)  My goal was to lift 70# by set 4 and finish the WOD at 70#.  And since the purpose of tonight’s WOD was strength development, we made sure our rest between sets was capped to 2 minutes.

As it turns out, the scaling in relation to our 1RM was right on point!  Like, whoa.  What I like most is that there is a lot less guess-n-check going on.  EFFICIENCY, baby.  Looks like I might be busting out the ol’ calculator more often for powerlifting WODs.

Do you guys calculate your theoretical loads based on your 1RM’s?  What’s your strategy?