Tag Archives: Open Gym

More Intervals

I went to open gym this morning and was on baby duty so that V could get an uninterrupted workout in. Brenna and I went up into the other room and I did the following:

  • 30s double-unders (46); rest ~3 min
  • 30s row (~180m); rest ~3 min
  • 30s squat clean & jerk @ 95#(6 or 7); rest ~3 min
  • 30s double-unders (35ish); rest ~3 min
  • 30s row (~180m); rest ~3 min
  • 30s squat clean & jerk @ 95# (~5); rest ~3 min
  • 30s row (~180m); rest ~3 min
  • 30s row (~180m); rest ~3 min

I felt really solid on the rowing. I was able to keep it between 1:30 and 1:40 (per 500m) on each set.

Weight: 223.75#

More WODs

Friday (1/14/2011) was all about snatching. The WOD was:

  • 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 – 3 {Muscle Snatch, Hang Squat Snatch, Full Squat Snatch}

The weights I used were 75#, 95#, 105#, 115#, and 135#. Then, we had 15 minutes to find out 1RM for snatch. I was able to meet my current PR of 155#, but failed repeatedly on 165#. Thing is, I pretty much muscle snatched that 155#, so I think I have the potential to do a lot more. The thing that scares me, honestly, is getting under that weight. I don’t think I have ever OHS more than #135.

Saturday (1/15/2011), Carson had some nastiness planned for us for open gym. It was a buddy workout and you could split it up however you wanted:

  • 1000m row
  • 150 squats
  • 150 sit ups
  • 150 push ups
  • 150 pull ups
  • 1200m row

Jody and I pulled this one off in 28:51. Mean, Carson… very mean.

It’s a bit over a week and I am starting to notice some changes in adhering to what Dave has told me to do for the “I Do The Impossible” challenge. I am down a notch on my belt, I am not as sore from WODs, and I am feeling pretty good.

Back At It

Lots has happened since the last post.

I went to open gym this morning and wasn’t sure if I would workout with the group or not. I ended up being in a group with the Goldbergs, Mike Tillman, and Sonny. It was a great reminder that CrossFit is customizable and modifiable for any fitness level, injury, etc. Nikki (I know I will regret saying this at some point) gave us a really easy WOD. Now, I say “easy” because I couldn’t Rx the KB swings. I am keeping it light due to my back still healing. We started off with a warm up, which really got me breathing hard. Being away SUCKS. After the warm up, we went outside and did some more stretching/sprints, then came in and broke up into teams of 5 to complete:

  • 3k row
  • 300 KB Swings
  • 300 push ups

Our team got it done in just under 13 minutes. After that WOD, we went outside and did some Tabata running and squats. Lastly, we came inside to do 5 minutes of fun which didn’t feel so great. Still thought, it was good to get back in there and move around.

In other news, I was finally able to finish the shelving in the closet in the baby’s room. Here are some pics:

Finished closet:

photo 1

I had to borrow Matt’s dremel tool as I needed to make my own notches to inset the hanger rod clips into these 16″ brackets. FYI, if you ever go to Lowes to look for this kind of shelving, understand the Rubbermaid makes 2 lines, HomeFree (for closets) and FastTrack (for pantries and what I bought). If you want like, accessories, hanger rods, etc, you need to get HomeFree, but then you are stuck with 12″ depth shelves. I wanted to get as much out of the closet as possible, so I bought 16″ depth shelves. Well, the brackets for the 16″ selves DO NOT have the extra notch needed to put the hanger rod clips in. COME ON.

So, talking to my dad about it, he thought a dremel could be used to cut the notches in myself. He was right and it worked just great. I added the zip ties for a little extra insurance that they don’t fall out:

photo 2

Lastly, it’s days like this that I wish I had a pickup. I got a call from Babies R Us that the crib has come in, but I am not sure if it will fit in my car. Also, we bought a new dining room table last night which came at a really great deal, but I can’t fit the box that has the tabletop in it in my car. Argh. I hate nothing more than asking people for help. I feel terrible asking people who have pickups to help me out, but I am lucky that I have nice friends that are willing to do it.

Open Gym

I have been exhausted lately. Just really fucking tapped out. I few months before I got married, I felt this same way. Tired, exhausted, dragging. Well, I have been super stressed and that feeling of tired death feels like it’s hung around my neck with every workout. A little dramatic? Maybe, but just trying to get the point across.

Jody had what I thought was going to be a fun (aren’t they all before you start doing them?) WOD today. She called it “Tag Team Running Cindy”. You team up with someone and while one member is running a 400m, the other does as many rounds of “Cindy” as possible. She said to make it harder, you could run with a plate, to which I replied “I have to carry my fat ass 400m… I don’t need a plate thankyouvermuch”.

Anyway, I teamed up with Sonny and we got to work. All in all, we finished 17 rounds + 2 pull ups. Not great, not horrible. I did the best that I could given my current situation.

I have been feeling lots of “I used to”‘s lately which I will probably go into in an entirely different post, but today, I guess what’s important is that I went, I did something, and I didn’t quit even though I really wanted to.

Jody followed that WOD up with 5 minutes of fun to which I scored 102. That sucked.

Week Ending Workouts

Thursday 8/5/2010
I didn’t go to CFCP, but V thought it would be a good idea for me to do this one at home. It was 5 rounds  of:

  • 400m run
  • 21 burpees

This one took me down in 22:59.

The Good.

I can’t think of a single good thing that happened during this WOD. Maybe that I didn’t have to walk at all.

The Bad.

Pretty much everything. I was slow as hell on my runs and on the burpees. It was hot as fucking hell outside and really, I’m lucky I even finished this one.

Overall.

Terrible. Just terrible. My energy was gone about 5 minutes in.

About an hour later, I decided to go to the Free class at the new box with V to work on whatever. When I got there, Fio had them doing a WOD that I couldn’t really pass up… another 5 rounds of:

  • 7 Dead lifts @ 225#
  • 21 Double Unders

Although I was really trying for a better time, I finished this one in 9:05 .

The Good.

The dead lifts were cake. They got a bit more challenging in rounds 4 and 5, but they weren’t bad. I did 3 rounds unbroken, then took 1 break rounds 4 and 5.

The Bad.

Double unders… ah double unders… They are starting to get better. In the beginning, I was stringing 3-5 together, but as time went on and I got more tired, they started being 1-2 at a time.

Overall.

Eh. Really good on the deads, really bad on the DUs, so it’s sort of a wash.

 

Friday 8/6/2010 (Heavy Metal Night)

There was no WOD for this class. We started with the Burgner warm up, as usual, and then moved into working on just muscle snatch, then hang snatch. I got up to using about 135#, but quickly dropped it back down as I got fatigued very quickly.

 

Saturday 8/7/2010 (Open Gym)
Carson had us start open gym out with some “Bottom to Bottom Tabata” squats. This sucks every time. I got 100 on the dot.

After that, we split up into 6 teams for the WOD. Everyone had to row at least 500m for a total of 7k. When you weren’t rowing, you had to do 7 squats. The total number of squats was one score and the time to row the 7k was the other. I think between the bottom to bottom Tabata and the main WOD, I ended up doing somewhere around 350 squats.

Open Gym & Sampling

Yesterday, we went to open gym at our “CrossFit home”, CrossFit Cedar Park. Kelli put together a fun WOD for us. It wasn’t too difficult of a WOD, but it was still fun. We split up into teams of 3, then did 3 rounds of the following WOD:

15 push ups >> 15 sit ups >> 15 box jumps >> run 400m

Every member of the team had to complete each “station” before moving on. So, for example, everyone had to 15 push ups before you could move on to the sit ups, but you went one at a time. You could not start your next round until everyone was back from the run.

Our friend Rand came up from the depths of South Austin to work out with us. So, me, Victoria, and Rand finished up in something like 16:49.

The good.

Everything felt really good today. I feel like I was pushing as hard as I could on all of the movements.

The bad.

My only complaint would be that I should have run faster, but I went into “management” mode when it was time to run.

Overall.

I felt great during this WOD!

 

After the workout, we did another sampling for Perfectly Paleo. I love going to the CrossFit gyms and letting people taste our products. Even thought we knew almost everyone at this particular gym, it’s still fun to watch people enjoying the food that we make.

Fran & Open Gym

Fran, Fran, Fran… that word has been going around our Crossfit gym quite a bit for the last few weeks. Granted there’s a “Fran Challenge” going on right now, so, it’s on everyone’s mind.

Eight months into Crossfitting and I have yet to do Fran, until this passed Friday. I have seen people do it. I have seen videos on YouTube of it. I tried my best to coach V when she took on Fran for her 2nd time this past week… I’m not really a good coach as in, I am not very forceful with my instruction, but I tried.

Needless to say, watching all of these people do it, and seeing the videos that I have seen caused quite a bit of anxiety for me as it became clear that I would have to do this on Friday.

If you read my last post, you know that I had some neck issues from sleeping all weird at the beginning of the week. Thankfully, those were resolved. By the time I got to class on Friday, all that was left was some upper back soreness from the night of 100 cleans.

So, here’s Fran (2/5/2010):

  • 21 – 15 – 9 {Thrusters (95lb), Pull ups}

That’s it… 45 reps of both. Simple, right? WRONG. This was probably the most uncomfortable 7 minutes and 51 seconds (that’s right, 7:51 Rx’d), that I have spent in my time doing Crossfit type workouts.

All I could think of during the entire time was that I could not catch my breath. It seemed like “air” was always about 5 steps ahead of me. Honestly, it was miserable. I had Nikki, Jody, Wladi, and others shouting at me to keep moving, get on the thrusters, get on the pull ups but “air” became all I could think about. I think I actually saw spots and colors during the 21’s. I definitely felt light headed and had to take a few seconds to get back on it.

Honestly, I have never felt anything like that in my life. My guess, is that using opposing muscle groups as this workout calls for, basically means that every cell in your body is screaming for oxygen at the same time.

All in all, I am happy with my time and that I was able to do it Rx’d as well. Hopefully next time won’t be for a while and I will shave some time off.

Yesterday (2/6/2010), V and I went to open gym. The workout that Nikki came up with for us was rough:

5x

  • 400m run
  • 7 thrusters (115lb, Rx was 135lb, but that was too much)
  • 15 burpees

This one felt never ending. In fact, all of the 5 rounders feel never ending. I got a good feeling of accomplishment from this one as I was able to do each of the thruster sets unbroken. I did OK on the runs too. I didn’t really take too many walking breaks.

My time was  27:01.

Week of Rowing

Both of my paid workouts this week had 5 rounds of 500m rowing. Eh. My whole body hurts… it hurt already, then last night, I was the only one to show up for class, so Dave & Wladi made me do this:

5x

  • 500m row
  • 10 back squats (185lbs)

This took me 19:37. I was really trying to beat out my friend Ryan who did this in 17 and change… I was doing really well too until I hit my 4th round. By that time, my legs were all but shot and I couldn’t do more than 2-3 squats at a time. Still, I am happy to have finished in under 20.

This morning for open gym we did 2 WODs, both with a partner, both 3 sets each, both for time. The first was:

3 rounds (taking turns)

  • 5 push ups
  • 7 squats (used a 25lb dumbbell and did it like a goblet squat)
  • 9 burpees

The second one was also 3 rounds (taking turns)

  • 200m run
  • 7 wall balls (14lb)
  • 9 SDHP (25lb kettlebell)

I didn’t track the times that me and V got on these. I am really proud of her for doing good full push ups on everything during these workouts. Sure, it took a little longer, but that’s the only place the strength will come from. Plus it gave me rest which I really needed today. I am so damn sore from yesterday that everything today just felt absolutely awful. I am not kidding. Victoria even pointed out to Dave that I looked really miserable while running. And I was. I hear Dave did a little impression of me… I’d love to see that =)

Pass the Pukie. Wait. Nevermind.

I woke up this morning not really feeling so bad. A little sore, but not so bad. That all went to shit as soon as this workout started. I, like most people, probably have a very love-hate relationship with the Tabata method of training. It’s great because it’s quick, compact, effective, and exhausting. It just absolutely sucks because you are sucking wind the entire time and your muscles just scream for rest, but they can’t have it.

Today’s open gym workout was:

Tabata{

  • Squat
  • Push up
  • Box Jump
  • Sit up
  • Sprint

}

My numbers kind of sucked today. As soon the the workout started the energy left my body. Here’s how my sets turned out:

1

2

3

4

5

6

7

8

Total

Squat

21

19

16

16

15

16

14

16

133

Push up

18

12

8

6

5

6

4

5

64

Box Jump

4

3

0

6

2

6

5

5

31

Sit up

10

10

9

8

7

7

7

8

66

Sprint

OK

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

Suck

You can see that my numbers aren’t as good as they are normally. Particularly, you can see the big fat “0” in the third round of the box jumps. That’s where I had to stop or I would have puked.

At any rate, I finished and now will be relaxing (cleaning the house, changing air filters, hanging shelves, cooking, designing shirts, and planning a wedding) for the rest of the day.