Tag: Sandbag

This afternoon it became sunny and fairly mild, so I decided to take my strongman sandbag out on the patio and get a dirty work WOD in.

Somehow, I slept well last night. I woke up early and once the trash men left, and I put away the trash can, I headed into the garage to get my squats done. I also got a dirty work WOD in late in the afternoon.

Today was the day I would log my thousandth street parking WOD. I wanted to do a partner WOD with Molly to celebrate it, but she wanted to do a sled WOD outside. We made it work.

There was one of the dirty work WODs that has intrigued me, so I wanted to give it a try today. I used the sled instead of running, but what intrigued me was the sandbag bear hug carries. It was easier with the strong man sandbag than the brute force one.

My girlfriend bought me a rogue strongman sandbag for my birthday. It’s the bright green one, so I can see it better, plus she knows I like bright colors.

We had a good bit of running around to do this morning. We had to return some stuff to a couple of stores then do our normal grocery shopping so we did that stuff as early as we could. I did a rough WOD and did a LOT of stuff yesterday so I was debating whether I wanted to do a WOD at all but in the end I decided to give tomorrow’s sandbag WOD a shot.

It’s not really a secret that I really, really enjoy sandbag workouts. They’re just fun to me. It’s almost something primal or something where I have always liked picking things up and throwing them around. It was a bit over a week ago when we were doing a sandbag WOD out on the patio, thankfully, when I noticed a lot of dust escaping. There’s usually a little as the gravel gets pulverized into sand but this was a lot.

After Molly got home we decided to do this week’s sandbag WOD outside on the patio. It was ground to overhead and push ups ladder. Simple enough and fit the bill for the sort of WOD that I wanted for today. Unfortunately I noticed a decent amount of dust. More than I have been noticing recently and then felt the loose stuff inside. In the middle of the WOD I unzipped the outer bag quick to take a peak in and confirmed what I thought was happening.

There’s more than one way to make a WOD more challenging. Lately I’ve been going for intensity but staying pretty much within my comfort zone for the WODs. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with that approach either. Today’s WOD was one with movements that are just always going to be at least somewhat slower for me due to my poor vision for one and the tight space we have to work with in our garage gym.

This week’s sandbag WOD was not really one that I was looking forward to in any way, shape or form. What it really comes down to is I thought it was a dumb one with dumb movements but I ended up deciding to give it a try. It was surprisingly not that bad for me considering two out of the 3 movements in it were movements I really have as close to zero interest in doing as possible.

I did Street parking’s weekly power and a sandbag WOD today. Since I’m feeling better from having COVID-19 I felt that I needed to make my girlfriend laugh I wore my male romper.

To set up the way today went with the lifting I got woken up once again last night just as I fell asleep so I laid there awake another hour or two. To top things off I woke up at 3:30 AM thinking it was 5:30 so I got up and have been awake since. I didn’t have nearly enough sleep last night and our weekly date night which included a couple of Joy’s slushies didn’t help me rest that much either.

Something I’ve wanted to do for a little while now is start using the heavier sandbag for WODS again. I did well with the rep one I had until the fillers kept opening and making a mess. it had gotten to the point where I had to reload them after every WOD. I had gotten a new Brute Force one for my birthday and we’d never had any problems with the smaller one of theirs that we’d had for a year or so.

This day was one of those days. I decided to get off my lazy ass and do a WOD. Enough of the excuses of being tired or hot or what ever else I could come up with. I’ve been wanting to do this week’s sandbag WOD but didn’t get around to it do to being so run down the past few days. The WOD consisted of 21 lungesters and then 21 sandbag power clean and toss over the box, rest a minute than 2 rounds of 15 of each.

I was thinking about passing on today’s WOD being tired an it being once again hot but I gave the single shoulder squats a shot and they didn’t feel too bad. The squats were one shoulder sandbag squats. They felt a little awkward with the weight being on one side but there was no reason not to do it or go with a heavier sandbag. The WOD was 3 rounds of row 750 meters and 50 single shoulder squats with the sandbag.

Today’s WOD (well technically Thursdays’ we did it early) was one that I knew I’d be slower at and knew was the perfect opportunity to try one with 100 pound sandbag. It was only an AMRAP of 5 sandbag over the shoulders and 20 unweighted step-ups. I knew going into it the step-ups were going to slow me down. That’s a visual thing. While I can become somewhat faster at them and have already improved I know I will always be limited by having to “feel” whether I have solid footing on the box.

I turned my 3 x 5 back squats into paused ones again today since it was only 200 pounds. I am hoping history for me repeats itself an as it did in the past the paused squats help me get stronger in the sticking point. Not using any bounce really seems to help me out of the hole. Another nice thing about the paused squats is the help remind me how to stay more up right and push my knees forward forward and out coming out of the bottom rather than my ass shooting up and trying to get me out of good position.

I Realized today during my WOD that I do like sandbag burden runs. I think they’re a great use of the sandbag for working out.

I didn’t sleep all that well last night. I fell asleep easily then less than an hour later I was awake. Eventually I grabbed my tablet and went downstairs. I guess it was midnight or 1:00. It was just a bit too warm in here and I’m in no way used to the summer like temperatures. Fire pit smoke didn’t help matters. This morning I was to do squats, bench press, good mornings and pull ups.

I woke up this morning feeling pretty good so I decided I would do my twenty rep front squats today and if I felt up to a WOD I’d to tomorrows. The front squats went really well for me at 140 pounds. Between the weight increasing and me obviously getting some practice in again my front rack position is greatly improving. Several years ago I managed to get the mobility to do front squats and hold a good front rack position with a full grip on the bar and that greatly improved my confidence in heavier weights and and just felt more stable in general.

I won’t deny it in anyway at all. My lifts this morning were all relatively heavy. They all felt soul crushingly heavy, squats at 245, strict presses at 125 and deadlifts at 275. I got through them, they all felt slow and grindy but my video shows they were all pretty fast and good form so I got through them. I think one of the bigger factors in everything feeling so heavy today was ding a WOD with 200 lunges and 100 push ups in it yesterday.

First things first I woke up this morning not feeling all that well rested. I felt like I slept well and don’t remember waking up at all last night. I just felt like I didn’t sleep enough. In spite of feeling tired and lazy today I did my lifting this morning and while I felt like my ass was dragging I got through everything. The back squats are starting to feel heavyish again as I’m up 240 pounds.

We were originally going to do this WOD yesterday together but Molly got home from work too late to do one so we waited until today. Going into the WOD I knew I would be at least slightly slower than I would typically be in a sandbag WOD using a different filling material than the sand I am used to and probably a slightly different weight. The sand had leaked so many times I surely lost some over time and didn’t keep reweighing it but I know the currently pea gravel filled one is 53 pounds.

I don’t even try to make it a secret that I just love using the sandbag and doing WODS with it. I find it to be a really versatile addition to our fitness stuff. It doesn’t take up much space and it’s easy to take outside and we plan on taking them to the park sometime. The one disappointment with the rep fitness one is the filler bags have on several occasions opened up and either made a bit of a mess on the garage door or dust in the face cutting a workout short.

My girlfriend came up with a great idea last night. Her idea was to do an EMOM with a heavier sandbag than usual. I’ve been using 50 pounds in WODS for a while and it’s a bit too light but I haven’t wanted to over do it and push it too hard with the second filler. Turns out with the second Filler it makes the total weight 90 pounds. I was originally going to do the EMOM with ground to overhead but that just wasn’t feeling quite right.

I’ve really enjoyed using the sandbag in WODS when it’s an option. I feel it’s very close to real life situations. Either way I’ve been using just the 50 pound filler in our brute for sand bag to practice with it and get used to it. This week I’ve done two WODS with both the 50 and 25 pound fillers and honestly it still felt pretty light to me. Of course it’s more draining than the 50 pounds but certainly a usable weight.

We started doing Street Parking WODS a month or so ago and noticed they had a sandbag WOD and sandbag options for lots of the daily ones. I thought that looked like a interesting new twist and I’ve been wanting a sandbag for a while. Picked up a Brute Force one that takes 25 to 75 pounds figuring it would work for both of us. The 50 has felt almost too light for me but I’ve stuck with it to practice.