27-21-15-9 reps for time of:
Row (calories)
Thrusters

Men use 95 lb.
Women use 65 lb.

In the course of June, we accidentally missed programming workout 15.5 as part of the June benchmarks! Luckily, Shane caught it so we won’t miss out on this gem of a workout. This will be the second of four times we’ll get to test this workout in 2016!
In 2015, CrossFit.com wrote an interesting analysis of The Open population and its performance in this workout.
You can read the article HERE.
Our favorite line, in describing the distribution of times across men and women, “Here’s the distribution of the Rx’d scores for men and women, 18-54 years old. Two smoothly-sloping mountains of suck.” (you can see the distribution in the chart pictured above). 
While this workout is a doozy, a little effort in pacing can make it a “pace and fly” effort rather than a “fly and die” type workout.
Here’s a little bit of advice if you’re looking for a plan: 

1. Row the first 27 calories EASY. What do we mean by easy? Like talking pace. You should feel a little guilty about how slow you are rowing. Obviously this is relative to the individual, so talking pace/easy pace for YOU.
2. Go for it on the thrusters. Know that if the barbell isn’t moving, no work is getting done. This is different than on the erg. As slow as you may row, work is still getting done. Put your efforts in getting those barbell-squat-to-overhead-movements-from-fitnes-hell out of the way as quickly as possible and sacrifice some time on the erg, where, at least you’re getting some work done.
3. Row in-between sets of thrusters at a pace that lets you get your breath back and lets you say, “I’m going to get off this erg and mess up some damn thrusters.” If you row at a pace between sets of thrusters that gets you off the erg saying, “Oh geez, how in the hell am I going to pick up that bar, I’ll stand here, get some chalk, look at the clock, and stare at the barbell” – you rowed too fast. Unfortunately, you can’t abort if this happens, you’ll have to see it through. Good news is that any way you go after it, you’re fitter than when you started. 

Have fun!

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