Tag Archives: Crossfit

“Air Force Karen”

I wanted to get another workout in last week, so I had planned on doing something on Friday night (9/30/2011) when V taught elements. Suzanne had texted me earlier in the day asking if we’d want to do a WOD with her that night, so of course, I said sure. When we got to the box, someone who shall remain nameless bullied us into doing the posted workout. OUCH.

Air Force Karen: 150 wall balls for time, but with 4 burpies every minute.

Time: 10:53 (Rx’d with 20# med ball)

After that, I saw a little supplemental WOD that could have only been written by Trevor up on the board. It was:

4 RFT

  • 5 hang cleans @ 75#
  • 5 pull ups
  • 300m row

Suzanne and I did this one but didn’t time it. I did my hang cleans sort of slow and tried to work on my technique.

FGB and More Strength

Dave said that I should do FGB on Friday. I didn’t want to, but he said to, so I did it. I got to the box at 4pm and did it alone. Just me and the Tabata timer. I have to say that I am somewhat happy that I was alone b/c it was pretty pitiful. Yeah, yeah, I know that just the fact that I went and did it is great and all that, but boy did it kick my ass and leave me feeling just… worse than 17 minutes prior.

I started counting my reps on the first round. When it became apparent that no PRs were gonna happen (unless you count a PR for WORST), I kinda just said “fuck it, it’s gonna be horrible anyway”, stopped counting and tried to keep it together for the rest of the 15 minutes.

Bad attitude. I know.

I do know that I got at least 10 reps every minute, so my score was AT LEAST 150. I also know that I got around 20 push presses every time and about 15 cals on the C2 each time, so perhaps I’m closer to 200. At any rate, when all was said and done, I was feeling pretty down and in the dumps about how far I am from where I used to be. I laid around for about 10-15 minutes on the foam roller inflicting pain on various parts of myself, then, when I could see straight again, got in the car and went home.

<BitchFest>

I was pretty sad and discouraged for the rest of the night. It was another one of those “nothing is really working and why the fuck am I putting all this effort in etc” waa waa waaa, you get the idea. So, it’s been a pretty much “eat whatever I want” kind of weekend b/c what the point, right? I was talking with Mike T. a few days ago and he told me that all of the people he talks to that have a hard time dropping weight have issues with sleep. Ding ding ding. My sleep is pretty much crap.

I can’t shake the feeling that I am doing all of this for nothing. Taking a step forward and 3 back. So much effort for so little return. Is there something wrong with me? How is it possible that I put in all of this work, am pretty fucking careful about what I eat most of the time and make so little progress?!? ARGH!

It’d be WAY easier to just sit around and do nothing. Honestly.

</BitchFest>

I guess though, I do have to be a bit positive and say thank you to all of the people that don’t let me fall into the little well of self pity that I commonly default to. Mostly V, but also, my friends (who I should really call family) for constantly encouraging me to just keep going despite all of this and that one day, things will be better. For also reminding me to just have fun and let go of all of this shit that I stress about. Maybe one day I will be able to do that. I will keep trying, but I hope you all will keep helping me b/c clearly, if you were not encouraging me, I’d be doing a lot more TV/Computer/video game watching, and a lot less moving around.

So, sincerely, thank you. You are the best.

Moving on.

Saturday morning, we went to open gym. V did the workout and started in on the third strength WOD of the week. This time around it was:

  • 3×5 back squat: 300# – all good… felt pretty strong. Thanks to Fio and Chanse for spotting.
  • 3×5 bench press: 205# – felt heavy bit still doable.
  • 1×5 dead lift: 365# – again, felt heavy but still doable. I had to take a little bit more pause in between each rep to make sure that I was all set up and keeping really good form.

1000’s

Ewww.

I don’t know why I decided to “do some thousands” on the C2 yesterday, but that hurt. I didn’t go for max effort, just consistency. I ended up doing the following:

  • 1000m, ~4 min exactly, 3 min rest
  • 1000m, ~4 min exactly, 15 min rest… needed to take care of Brenna, she was fussy
  • 1000m, ~4 min exactly, 3 min rest
  • 1000m, ~4 min exactly, 3 min rest

After that, I decided to do the CFCP posted WOD with Victoria, scaled b/c I was shot from the rowing. The WOD was:

Every minute on the minute (adding 1 every minute), do a push up, into a squat clean, into a thruster.

WOT?

Whoever make that one up (DAVE) must have been pretty mad.

Anyway, I used 75# and made it thought 5 full rounds, the 4 of my 6th. I wasn’t really trying very hard, but still, that was terrible.

Tuesday CF WOD

2 days in. I am sore and right now, I feel like I could eat an entire small animal. Today’s posted CFCP WOD was:

3RFT

  • 7 weighted step ups (7 each leg)
  • 14 pull ups
  • 21 burpees

I used a sandbag for the step ups. I think the weight on it is 60#, but I am not sure. Also, I used a 22″ box.

Time: 14:24.

Kettle Bells, 11.5, Jacked Annie…

It’s been harder and harder to motivate myself to get into the gym this past week or so. By the time 430/5pm rolls around, my energy feels pretty much zapped. Thankfully, Nikki runs an 830am class over at 609, so I am going to try to get over into that one while I have energy in the morning.

Thursday, 4/21/2011

Ah, kettle bells. So much fun every time! This WOD was quick, but ouch, it had me breathing hard…

  • 1 Turkish Get Up
  • 5 kb snatches lt side
  • 1 Turkish Get Down
  • Repeat other side
  • 1 Turkish Get Up
  • 5 kb clean and jerks lt side
  • 1 Turkish Get Down
  • Repeat other side
  • 1 Turkish Get Up
  • 5 kb OH squats lt side
  • 1 Turkish Get Down
  • Repeat other side

Time: 3:34 with a 1.5 pood KB.

 

Friday, 4/22/2011

Ah, 11.5… this crap is almost over… can’t wait.

AMRAP(20)

  • 5 power clean @ 145#
  • 10 toes to bar
  • 15 wall ball @ 20#

I managed to squeak out 5 rounds + 15 reps. The toes to bar ate up most of my time as I am still learning the skill. Good times.

 

Wednesday, 4/27/2011

WOW, it felt much better to work out at 830am. I had energy and was able to be fully engaged (rather than “I am tired and want to go home”…). At this point, with the way life is @ home, I think that this time might work a lot better for me.

Before we got to the WOD, we did 25 strict ring pull ups. Not fun, but love that fact that we are building some strength.

“Jacked Up Annie”

50 – 40 – 30 – 20 – 10 {Double Unders / Jack knife sit ups @ 20#}

This took me 11:54. Not a great time, BUT, I did my first set of double unders unbroken!!! I have never done that many before, so that was a huge plus.

After the WOD we did some back squats. I had a hard time with these as my left elbow is hurting. I need to have it looked at… sigh. Don’t leave your 20’s kids. It’s no fun.

 

In other news, we are SO ready to have this baby! V’s due date was this past Saturday (4/23) and my parents only have a few more days here (leaving 4/30). I know that the little guy/girl will come when he/she is ready, but waiting like this has been the hardest part of the entire pregnancy. Hopefully, he/she will decide that they would like to come out and meet everyone sooner rather than later.

Snatches and HSPU

Well, it’s Thursday and I have only gotten one workout in this week so far. I was busy Monday, I got one in on Tuesday, and yesterday (Wednesday), I felt like I was going to fall asleep around 4:30pm.

Tuesday, 4/19/2011

7x

  • 12 snatches @ 95#
  • 6 hand stand push ups

Time: 23:08. This didn’t look so awful written on the board, but man, 7 rounds of this was nasty. 5 was a struggle. I have no idea how I gutted out 2 more rounds.  I quit several times during the WOD only to get right back to it to keep plugging along. I know that we always say that CrossFit makes you a better person. This is exactly why. It’s an allegory for life. When things get hard, do you quit? Even if you do “quit”, do you come back to it anyway? This is why I want my kids to do this. It will make them mentally strong.

I went the whole time without scaling, which I am proud of. I will say though, that if this were competition, none of my HSPU would have counted. I still need depth and ROM there.

If this were competition… those word make me think of something I saw recently. Web Smith (of SICFIT fame) recently posted a link to an article where a CrossFitter was quoting Blair Morrison. You can read the article for yourself, but boiled down, here are the main take home points:

  1. This dude is already burnt out on the CrossFit Open.
  2. It seems like some competitors are too.

In the quote from Blair Morrison, he says “Well… I am officially “Opened” out.”. He goes on to talk about why, but I have to say, somewhat reluctantly, that I agree with him.

I really don’t want to come off like I am complaining here. There is a really bright side to all of this in that I have been forced to work on some skills over the past weeks that I would likely otherwise brush off or leave for “another time” like heavy cleans, 24″ box jumps, etc.

It seemed like a great idea and something that would be lots of fun at first, but for me, it has been anything but. It’s been a pain in the ass to find times to get to the gym to do these workouts since they are not part of the regularly scheduled programming. It’s been stressful to think about how I am going to get my normal programming FOR HEALTH in so that I am not sore for and able to even attempt these WODs. I sort of miss the days when I could go to the gym, feel competitive if I wanted to, and really just have fun.

A few weeks ago, the term “Leader boarding” came out… where you check the leaderboard constantly to see where people are ranked. I can’t say that I suffer from this. In fact, I barely remember to submit my scores. If I am over this whole thing already, I can’t imagine what someone who has to check the scores every 5 minutes must feel like.

It’s almost over and then we can go back to our regularly scheduled programming. The worst part of all of this is that I actually feel bad for wishing that this were over with already so I could go back to “just working out” and having fun.

By the way, I realize that the second half of this post completely contradicts the first part. Mostly, I am feeling just burnt out on it and ranting…

This Week

I didn’t get to be nearly as active as I wanted to this week. I usually try to get 3-5 workouts in. Great if I can do 5, but this week, I only hit the minimum of 3. Oh well. I felt really tired this week like my energy has just been sucked out of me.

We (my company) recently moved all of our equipment into the new datacenter, so Jose, Anar, and myself have been spending a lot of time there to work on the servers and configure them. Hopefully, soon, we won’t have to go back there so much. I think being in that windowless, loud server room all day zaps my energy.

We are still waiting on little Baby G to make his/her appearance. I don’t know who wants it out more, me or her, but it would be an understatement that we are ready to not be a pregnant couple anymore.

Monday, 4/11/2011: Skipped. Exhausted. Went to visit my grandmother while V was out with Paula.

Tuesday, 4/12/2011

Back Squats: 10 – 8 – 6 – 4  – 2 – 1 – 6, then 20 @ 50% of 1 rep max

Weights: 220# – 240# – 270# – 290# – 300# – 310# – 220# – 175#

backsquats

I was pretty happy with this, but I was really sore for the rest of the week!

Wednesday, 4/13/2011

Dragged myself into the gym. I felt like it was a good day to face one of my fears, the 24″ box jump. The WOD was:

5 rounds:

  • 15 box jumps
  • 7 push jerk @ 155#
  • Rest 2 minutes

I have to say that I debated using 155#, but it turned out OK. I ended up getting faster on each round. My first round was the slowest b/c I messed up cleaning the weight, had to drop, then re-clean. After that round, though, I did all of the push jerks unbroken. The best part of it all is that now I can cycle my 24″ box jumps without fear! Added bonus, I beat the lunch class =)

boxjumppushjerk

Thursday, 4/14/2011: Had to go grocery shopping. No time.

Friday, 4/15/2011: Got to the gym, hung out with V for about 30 minutes then realized I could barely keep my eyes open. Looked at the weights and realized that this wasn’t happening. Sorry, Fio!

Saturday, 4/16/2011

WOD 11.4 for the CrossFit Open. Yay.

10 minute “AMRAP” (LOL, are you fucking kidding?!)

  • 60 bar facing burpees (have to jump over the bar after each burpee)
  • 30 overhead squats @ 120#
  • 10 muscle ups

I took the burpees at a moderate pace so as not to gas myself out. I knew wasn’t going to get to the muscle ups, so I just tried to get as much done as I could. I ended up with 84 reps total. If I could do it again, I would focus more on squat snatching the weight after I dropped. Still though, I am happy with this.

11.4

I spent the rest of the day working on things that needed to get done around the house. I hung a little shelf outside out back window for the cats to use when they go outside through the window cat door, I cleaned our shower, I weeded out flowerbeds, and lastly, I built an HDTV antenna on the cheap that works WAY better then the crappy one that I PAID for. Check it out:

Maker Workshop – DTV Antenna & Steadicam on MAKE: television from MAKE magazine on Vimeo.

“Cindy”

I was admittedly apprehensive about going to class last night, but sucked it up and dragged my ass there. It was actually kind of cool because one of the other guys who goes to the gym owns a media company and was taking video of a bunch of us working out. This will eventually be part of a commercial, I am told.

Anyway… if you don’t know what “Cindy” is, it’s a 20 minute AMRAP of:

  • 5 pull ups
  • 10 push ups
  • 15 air squats

According to my last blog about this (about 1.5 years ago), I got 15 rounds, which I am pretty sure isn’t right. I think I got 17 rounds, but whatever.

Last night, I got 18 + 4 pull ups. Here’s the math (geeky, I know):

  • 18 * 5 + 4 = 94 pull ups
  • 18 * 10 = 180 push ups
  • 18 * 15 =  270 squats

OUCH! That’s almost a MURPH (20 rounds)!!

The kicker is that the pull ups were almost all butterfly kipped which is a huge accomplishment for me. Kindel was there helping Fio to coach and she really helped me out. It’s interesting how different coaching styles can help or hinder you.

There are some coaches that I respond really well to. They tell me to do something and my inner dialog says “yes, I will do that”. There are some coaches that just get tuned out. I don’t do this on purpose or out of disrespect, it just happens.

Anyway, I am really happy with my results last night. Even though I didn’t make the board (or even come close), I think I put forth a really good effort. Plus, I am really sore today =)

CF Open WOD #2

I have to admit that this weekend, I was really struggling to figure out why on Earth I signed myself up for this thing. I was feeling pretty OK Saturday morning when I woke up. I knew that this WOD would be tough for me b/c of the 24″ box jumps. See, I NEVER jump that box. If that height is Rx’d for the day’s workout, I just step b/c I have always just thought that I would bust my ass.

Anyway, WOD 11.2 was a 15 minute AMRAP of:

  • 9 dead lifts @ 155#
  • 12 CF games style push ups
  • 15 box jumps @ 24″

I was in heat three and saw most of the guys getting in the 7 round range. I guess that I developed the expectation of getting in that range as well. Unfortunately, I didn’t even come close. I got 5 rounds plus 9 deads and 5 push ups. Meh.

I had to take the box jumps really slow and one at a time out of straight up fear that I was going to bush my shit open.

Here’s the part that I’ve been running through my head over and over. If I had done this WOD in class, I would have thought nothing of my score. For all intents and purposes, I got in a GREAT workout. Hell, it’s HUGE for me that I jumped every single time onto a box that is a height that I previously thought was no possible for me. I would have rang the bell!

Within the context of the CF games “sectionals” though, man, this threw me for a loop as I got one of the lowest scores in the box. I can see why certain people in the gym enjoy this. If you are good at it and kicking ass, it’s sort of nice to see how your rank COMPETATIVELY with everyone else that is doing this. For me, well, it’s a little different. I don’t really enjoy seeing how close to the bottom of the barrel I am. I was pretty bummed about this for most of the day even though I told myself that I wouldn’t do that, that it really doesn’t matter, and that I don’t care.

Victoria did a great job of putting it into context and adding some perspective which logically, I completely get, comprehend, and understand. I guess I just don’t truly believe it, otherwise I wouldn’t have felt so bad.

It’s funny, all I could think about was “great, way to bring the rest of the team down with a crap score”. Oh well.

I love this community, this sport, etc, but I am really starting to think that competing is really just not for me until I can figure out how to just suck it up, say I did the best I could, and let it go.