Ohhh So much to cover.
Thursday, December 11 This was essentially my Thursday.
Skills test was 12 Ring dips, and ring dips are NOT my specialty, since I never train them. I've tried before and had only been able to do 2 at most, though I can rock out 3x5 at 40# or so on PB. I couldn't muscle up on rings either. But the fire was under my ass since it was tested and required. I steeled myself, thinking "I'm going to DO 12 ring dips. No ifs, ands, ors, buts, wahs, or woos about it". Got up in support, did 2. At my previous max. Started shaking a ton, but I managed to get it under control and back into support. Did 3 more, and started shaking a whole lot more. Went down , but then I slipped and fell out of it. I was still holding the rings though, and in a burst of mental EEEEEEEEYYYYYYYYYYYYYAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH i MUSCLED UP on the rings, something I've tried and failed many times before. After that, I did 2 more dips before finally falling. I was SUPER satisfied.
Broad jump was no problem, hit 9"7'
Friday, December 12Great day. Got to APEX around noon, and decided it was TIME to get back into my SS routine.
Started with 250m Sprint row @45s, was already warmed up a bit from jogging to the gym.
SquatDropped back a lot, wanted to form check.
2x5 x45
2x5 x95
1x4 x135
3x5 x165 - Felt great, form felt fine, was pretty easy, felt like I could have added 20# just fine.
Bench Press2x5 x 45
1x5 x95
3x5 x 135 - felt mostly solid, was a little wobbly I think from lack of practice. Keep at same weight next w/o.
Didn't get my DL in, though I did do a few PC's at 115 with Dudley (5 total)
Ring dips, pullups, etc. Was quite varied until around 3:30, where we stopped to prep for Ninja Warrior night.
Ninja WarriorHere was the really fun part.
5PM, qualifiers officially started. Did a 10 minute warmup or so, fairly basic.
After that, it was 5 rounds of qualification.
The First round was primarily a balance test. You had to stand on a punching bag and roll it over to step on a rail, where you had to railwalk about 25 ft or so before you had to get UP 3.5 ft onto a rail, balance some more, another step up onto a parallel bar, and finally to the mat.
The Second round was fun. Climb a ladder, swing on a rope to the big mat, then hobble on your hands across the parallel bars to a box, grab a ring(which were on either side of the high bar) and swing to the other ring, then cat a pillar.
In the third round, you had to grab a 20lb medicine ball, sprint across the spring floor, vault two 4 foot boxes, through a tubething on the ground, then over two 3 foot boxes, then sprint back around to place it on the pedestal. No dropping the ball (we were pretending it was a baby.
Fourth round, started where you crawl under the stage, over to whatever the gymnastics ladder thinggies are ( I think they are called stall bars) up 15 feet, over, down, but the FLOOR IS LAVA, so drop into a series of rail precisions, OVER the stage, cat to the bathroom, around a corner in shimmy, cattac over to a mat.
Fifth round was a sort of bonus round. Start at one end of the gym, up on a box, rope swing over to another, bounce off a tramp to the high bar, lache to the scaffolding, up around on top of the platform jump to a mat roll (wobbly), roll the mat over to the PBars, shimmy in halfcat across, over to a box, then precision another box... THEN... crazyness. There were these 2.5 foot long half foot wide pvc pipes with sandpaper at the top (for grip) that hung off the highbar... so they were wobbly. You had to grab a ring, reach up about 2 and ahalf feet to get onto it, get your other hand up there, then get to another one that was a little lower, then across to some thinner ones that were set perpendicular, across a ring, and cat the pillar. If you complete the course, you get 25s knocked off your total time.
Well, I made it all the way to the sandpaper rig, but something happened when I was going across, I put my arm over top of it, then I slipped and fell, and this happened to my arm
Slightly less on my other arm, but still there, I just couldnt do justice to BOTH in one picture, so I chose the worse looking one.
In any case, I had the lowest time out of NON instructors, (4th INCLUDING the instructors *like Ryan and Matt and Amos and Sat etc*) but I didn't really count for prizes since I sorta work there... so I was Kinda Sorta first
Then open gym for 2 hours
Saturday, December 12 (today)Qualifications were over, today was the real challenge. Only about 7 people were even able to complete the entire course, And though I messed up my first run, I'm proud to say I made it with 0 errors my second run in about 5:40. Lowest time was around 4:48, but I was more concerned with getting through it, so I took a big break in the middle.
The course included a stride mission, some vaults, some rail balancing, a rope swing, then a pipe scoot across the high bar (sorta like in real ninja warrior but with only 1 center rail instead of 2, much more balance is required), then jump to scaffolding, up, jump fairly far out to a pad, through the mat tube, through a LAVA canal (some stood up pads, no touching), tac over a 4 foot pad (which I messed up my first run because I was STUPID and tried to just jump over it, but I was too tired and clipped the edge) run over, do a few vaults, up to the stage, tramp to underbar, run, tac back over the 4 footer, climb UP 20ft Ibeam, then climb across about 50ft of slackline... brutal, absolutely brutal... over to the stall bars, down the stall bars, over a rail, up on the stage, run across to wallrun, up to a similar contraption as the end of the round 5 of qualifiers, across, over to the 6foot box, drop cat under a noodle onto the stage... then victory dance.
Awesome couple of days.
I think that's it. If it's not... I don't care. I'm toasted from 3 days of hard training. Game over, I'm going to sleep. Night
