Ask the Coach: Toughest Workout You’ve Ever Toughed Out

Thursday, 9/17

September 16, 2015

Friday, 9/18

September 17, 2015

John, 1 sec_IMG2127

Hey CFDC coaches! What’s the toughest workout you’ve ever done?

Coach Jon:

Double Linda… Not 1-10, but 1-20. AKA the three bars of death. My lower back though… The thing that made it worse was the 1-mile run test beforehand… Goddam CrossFit.

Coach Sara:

No idea… But I know the toughest warm-up ever was 3 rounds of Steve O’s leg matrix.

Coach Lance:

“31 Heroes.”

The partner I was working with would finish all of the 155# thrusters; however he couldn’t complete a single rope climb. So every time I got back from a grueling, weighted 400m run in +90° weather, I would have 6 rope climbs waiting for me. To make things worse, I knew I had to finish them or else we would be stuck until the next time I got back.

I ended up doing over 25 rope climbs and had rope burns throughout much of my right thigh and ankle. I treated these burns for several weeks and they subsequently turned into scar tissue, and will always serve as a reminder of how rough that WOD was. All I could think about was how blessed I was to be suffering during this workout, while those individuals that did not return home, never could.

Coach Steve:

For me it’s a tie between Lullaby and 12 Days of Outlaw.

Coach Jessi:

Smackdown 2013– the prowler push. I wanted to walk away from that damn prowler so bad.

Followed by whatever the Open workout was that started with 150 wall balls where I no-repped 2/3 wall balls. It was soul-crushing.

Coach Leah:

Hands down… 7 mins max burpees.

Coach Ben:

14.5. Thrusters and Bar-facing Burpees. Pure evil, no clock to rescue you, no fun to be had. Just the rep scheme 21-18-15-12-9-6-3. That entire workout was just a constant mental battle to keep moving and a capacity challenge to see how long you could keep it just below the red line.

Then there was Team SuperFit DC. 12 or 15 min AMRAP of rowing for max calories following a KB Snatch Buy-in (which took like 45 seconds). So basically just rowing sprint intervals as Julia and I switched off for 11 minutes. Chris had crawled halfway under the rope to the competition floor and was yelling at us, wait, YELLING at us. I’ve never had an experience where the lactic acid burn didn’t leave my hamstrings for 10 minutes after we finished.

Late at night sometimes….I still hear the yelling.

Coach Paul:

I agree with Ben – 14.5 has been my toughest workout.

Thankfully Steve was my judge and towards the end I was still listening to him as he reminded me to get up after every burpee.

Coach Peter:

Either 7 min of burpees or 14.5. Paul and Ben accurately described how horrific 14.5 was.

7 minutes of burpees was a marathon of misery. My CNS was not right for the rest of the day – and it took me a good 45 minutes to stop shaking.

Coach Mark:

Anything, but anything, with handstand push ups. Don’t laugh. I hate you guys.

Coach Steph:

Back in 2009, when 85lbs overhead was insanely heavy for me and I had just gotten pull-ups not too long ago. A workout at Kalorama of S2OH and pull-ups, nothing crazy, I was the last to finish with everyone standing around to watch me grind through those last few S2OH at 85lbs.

A close second was the 2013 July 4 workout and Ben, Julia, Sara, Tom, Chris and I did the workout after the members left. Chris was kind enough to up the weight and reps AND partner with me, and towards the end I was crawling on the floor, literally crawling on all fours, to get to the HS holds.