Suck it up, Buttercup

Every so often, the people who do Crossfit decide that doing 21-15-9 95/65# thrusters and pullups are too easy, and so they break it up by throwing a Painstorm into the mix. Now, you may be curious - What is a Painstorm? Well, a Painstorm is a particularly challenging workout (as if the everyday Crossfit WOD (Workout of the Day) were a walk in the park), and comprised of a significant number of movements/ multijoint combinations. There is a Painstorm Workout posted every month. Most Painstorms take 35-40 minutes at the very least to complete, or the skills listed are meant to be performed for 35-40 minutes, and that's probably how they're different from typical Crossfit workouts, which usually range from 4-35 minutes (on average).

Right now there are Painstorms hailing way back to May 2005 floating around in the Crossfit cyber arena, and they are labeled as Painstorm ___ (with Roman numerals dictating their place in the series). I managed to dig up a list of all the Painstorms up till November 2006 on the Internet, and here is the link:
http://z15.invisionfree.com/CrossFit/index.php?showtopic=641

I haven't done a Painstorm yet, although I think one looms ahead in the near future. I was looking through the list of Painstorms, however, and my eye fell on the last one:

Painstorm XIX (November 2006)
With a 70# bar how many rounds can you complete in 40 minutes of:
5 Deadlifts
5 Hang Power Cleans
5 Front Squats
5 Push Presses
5 Back Squats

Ouch.
I can already tell this will be pretty nasty, because I did a Crossfit workout that was similar in fashion just last week. Here it is:

WOD:
Continuous Rotation:
Deadlift
Clean
Front Squat
Push Press
Back Squat
Rx'd (Rx'd means Prescribed Load): 65 lbs
As many reps as possible in 20 min

No. of Reps completed: 38

This workout is slightly different from the Painstorm one in the sense that you don't get a chance to put the weight down once you've picked it up for the deadlift. From the deadlift you go straight into the clean, stand up and then do a front squat below parallel, dip and drive into a push press, lower the bar behind your head such that it rests on your traps, and go into a back squat below parallel. That's one repetition. So if you set the bar down in between movements it's an incomplete rep and a no-count.

The cleans are the sticking point. Cleans are an explosive movement, and so either you get the bar up or you don't (or you do, partway, and then it falls on you, which isn't a pretty sight). Not like you can lower yourself into it as you would a squat. I think I spent the most time dithering on the cleans.

One of the most interesting things about Crossfit is that a long time is devoted to the warm-up (or W/U), such that the W/U itself is essentially a protracted workout, but you can take as long as you need to complete it, since it's meant as a skill refresher/ builder. For instance, the W/U prior to the above WOD was as follows:

W/U:
Run 800 m
3 Rounds of:
10 Pushups
10 O-Bar (Olympic Bar = 45 lbs) Overhead Squats (OHS)
10 Pullups

Anyway, today's workout kicked ass. It was hard (as usual). Here it is, in case you're similarly inclined towards insanity, and want to give yourself a good hard kick in the seat of your pants:

070619 WOD
Row 500 m
30 Pullups
Row 500 m
30 Plyometric Jumps onto a 20" box
Row 500 m
30 Barbell Hang Power Snatches (if there's anything worse than cleans, it's snatches)
Row 500 m
30 Ring Push Ups
For Time

Following which you ought to be green in the face and foaming at the mouth if you've worked your socks off like you should have (the rows are hard efforts, not a lazy tug at the handle).

I love Crossfit, can you tell?

***
Risin' up, back on the street
Did my time, took my chances
Went the distance, now I'm back on my feet
Just a man and his will to survive

So many times, it happens too fast
You change your passion for glory
Don't lose your grip on the dreams of the past
You must fight just to keep them alive

It's the eye of the tiger, it's the cream of the fight
Risin' up to the challenge of our rival
And the last known survivor stalks his prey in the night
And he's watchin' us all in the eye of the tiger

Face to face, out in the heat
Hangin' tough, stayin' hungry
They stack the odds 'til we take to the street
For we kill with the skill to survive
***