Love letters to Dr. Izumi Tabata

"Test 3"

Tabata Squat

Max reps of Muscle-ups in 4 minutes

The Tabata interval is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest for 8 intervals. Tabata score is the least number of reps performed in any of the eight intervals. Begin time for muscle-ups immediately after the last 10 second rest interval. Test score equals Tabata score multiplied by number of muscle-ups completed.

My score:

Super stoked about my Tabata squat performance. Rounds 1 & 2 clocked in 20 squats. Rounds 3 & 4 did 19 squats. By round 5 I was really tired, and did 17. Round 6 got back up to 18 squats. And rounds 7 & 8 I really had to really fight for 17 squats. I remember there was 7 seconds left on the clock in the 8th round, I was at rep 12 and I knew I had to go hard to get to 17... and I did, and it was painful. 

The last time I did Tabata squats, and used the traditional scoring method of your lowest rep, was in March. My score was 14, and I remember being quite proud of that then. So I'm really glad to see that I've improved in the past 5 months :)

I scaled the muscle up AMRAP to 4 banded dips/4 banded pull ups to equal 1 MU. My shoulder felt good, especially when my arm locked out on the rings supporting my weight, so that's a good sign.

For the warm up, there was 3-3-3 Deadlift. I started at 85#s, the first set of 3 being a "warm up." I slapped on 2-10# plates for 105, and that seemed easy. Added 2 more 10# plates for 125 and I did 5 reps and it felt effortless. Feeling "strong" in the moment, I decided to add 2-5# plates to equal 135#. I lifted the barbell and I didn't feel strained; I actually did 5 reps very quickly and could have done more, but knew I didn't have any more time before the start of the WOD. Take into account that my 1RM is 165# and my "go to" weight for high rep deadlift WODs is 105# (and usually I'm gassed at this weight), I'm quite happy that I have gotten stronger.

I have been diligent in the my efforts to attain double under SKILLZ :) Today, I chained together 11, and can consistently chain an average of 6 to 8 DUs with a short "recovery." While I have more work to get where I want to be, I know this improvement will greatly improve my times with WODs that have Double Unders in them. Yay! On average I spend about an extra 30 mins each time I'm in the box devoted to just working on my double unders. I know that I will have to start giving this type of attention to my pull-ups for me to see any gains in that arena.

If you're reading this, check out my new blog, Littlest Giant.  It is here that I will track my experience of acquiring my Level 1 Crossfit Certification, transitioning into applying the skills gained at my cert class by way of training, acquiring my CF Kids cert and hopefully one day "make" LITTLE GIANTS in my own box. So go to www.littlestgiant.com, bookmark it or "follow me" and share in the adventure :)