Showing posts with label certification. Show all posts
Showing posts with label certification. Show all posts

Monday, August 2, 2010

Clap, my ass!

Today's WOD involved the following.
4 rounds for time:
25 lunge steps
15 clapping push ups
150m run
Results: 15:01

Other times were more in the 11-13 minute range, so I wasn't that far off. But still significant enough for my 0830 ladies to comment on it. I think my time was affected by me doing the WOD alone between coaching the 0630 and 0830 classes. But it was mostly affected by how annoying I found the clapping pushups.

I put an "Rx" by my name on the board, but I'm not so sure I fully deserved it... My claps were more like "fling your hands towards each other and if they touch at all, it counts". There was definitely a lack of actual sound being produced by round 4.

This was my first attempt at clapping pushups, and I'm not sure I'll be too motivated to try them again anytime soon. Just very annoying. Reminded me of my days at CrossFit Philly doing pledge pushups and being super-annoyed by them. :)

We did some plank holds after class, which I enjoyed. I'd like to do those more. Some of the athletes aren't quite getting the GHD situp technique, so I'm hesitant to have them do that after class too often, but everybody (me included) always needs core work. Tomorrow I might hit them with handstand holds and wall sits, depending on what the WOD ends up being -- I'm coaching, but I still have to wait for the owner to post it later tonight.

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My friend Sara recently began training a fellow military wife just with the equipment she had available, and now Jenn has gone out and joined a local affiliate and is loving it! I had to share her latest "progress" post with you all, because I love her reflections on how CrossFit has had a positive impact on her day-to-day life.

That's one of the cornerstones of CrossFit that I think tends to be overlooked -- it's a general physical preparedness program that gets you ready for the known and unknowable challenges that life throws at you. It's not just firefighters carrying people out of burning buildings -- it's also yard work, putting a suitcase into an overhead bin, squatting to get laundry out of the dryer or carrying that huge sack of dog food on your shoulder.

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As promised a few days ago, in honor of kelsalynn signing up to attend a CF Level I cert, here's a collection of links about Level I cert experiences.
Also, I'll throw in a link to the Level I Training Guide, which is basically a bad-ass compendium of the best CF Journal articles on the basics of CrossFit. Love it. 

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When kd went to her cert, I finally took out my notes and wrote down my "I wish I knew this ahead of time" thoughts from my cert. No, I still haven't written down an account of my whole weekend, I'm sad to say. I think at this point it's been so long ago that I wouldn't have much insight, other than the following:

  • Brainstorm questions and write them down ahead of time; it's hard to think of them on the fly during the Q&A sessions. When you're reading the material, write questions on a separate page that you can reference during the Q&A sessions. On the drive home after my cert I remembered I wanted to ask about the importance of shoe choice. (All the Level 2 trainers wore "regular" athletic shoes, btw)
  • There is a short break after each of the small group sessions where you learn/practice the 9 foundational movements. Use that time to take notes on how your Level II instructor worked with your group, what cues they used, their progressions, and whatever struck you as awesome/helpful/whatever. I especially wished I had done this after doing the press series -- strict press, push press, push jerk. Chuck Carswell did an awesome job teaching the push jerk, and by the next day I couldn't remember the specifics. Same thing with Justin Berg teaching snatch.
  • Saturday PM or Sunday AM re-read your notes from the prior day to see if you have any questions for the wrap-up Q&A session on Sunday. When I re-read my notes on Monday I found some questions, but that wasn't as helpful as it would have been to find them before the cert ended. 
My final piece of advice is to practice your tabata squats prior to attending, just so you're legs are ready for the break out sessions. Even though I was CrossFitting 5-6 times a week leading up to my cert, I was still really sore after day 1's practice sessions, and even more so after day 2. I believe working on my tabatas helped me to be sore, but not immobilized. :)

Wednesday, March 10, 2010

PTP Day what?

Monday morning my regularly scheduled life was interrupted by some kind of stomach bug or food poisoning. EWWWWW.

No stomach pains or other "issues" on Tuesday, but I was just "blah" and husband was away for work stuff, so I ended up skipping that day too.

As of today everything is back to normal, except I feel funky due to eating toast and peanut butter while I was sick. I just couldn't really think of anything else to eat. Other than bananas and applesauce. I am thanking God I didn't throw up, because I hate throwing up.

I am not sure where to "restart" with my PTP, because I am leaving Friday AM to go out of town for the weekend. The one bad thing about working on deadlifts is that you can't really do it "on the go"...

I have a trainer's meeting tonight -- I could arrive early for that and get my deadlifting in them... we shall see...

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Since I was feeling unsure about how to continue my PTP program, I went ahead and attended the 0830 WOD at my box. It was a tabata day. We did bottom-to-bottom squats, pushups, double unders and situps.

Squats: 18-15-13-11-8-7-7-6
Pushups: 10-8-7-6-5-5-5-5
Double unders: 9-9-7-6-9-9-10-7
Situps: 15-14-12-11-11-11-10-10

My only "victory" today was the double unders. Everything else was crappy.

For squats, I think I just wasn't focusing? Instead of moving through the pain and cramping, I just let it cripple me and stop me from moving. Good practice for my cert (holy crap it's in 10 days!). Hoping I can get 3-4 more practice sessions of bottom-to-bottom before then.

And what the heck was up with my situps? Total crap. Pushups were passable.

In any case, I'm just glad my ass was back in the gym. I was feeling very de-motivated yesterday, and it worried me.

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This video is freaking cool. I love Oly lifting. It was posted by Ultimate CrossFit.



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If this could be my dad too, I would be sooooooooo happy and thankful. Unfortunately he has no interest in quitting smoking. And it's not even like he is married to someone who smokes and that's what's stopping him. It's the other way around -- my mom has had to put boundaries on where he's allowed to smoke to try to protect herself. No more smoking in the house at all (he used to smoke in his office), no more smoking in the car when she's riding with him.

*sigh* I hate that he smokes, and that he has watched both of his parents (smokers) and one brother (smoker) die of cancer, and he is currently watching another sister (smoker) fight cancer. How does that not get through to you? And the man is obsessive about taking vitamins for prostate health, because prostate cancer runs in the family -- but why can't he come to terms with the fact that quitting smoking is the single most powerful preventative measure that he could take? So frustrating.

OK, sorry, I was just gonna post the link, but then I had to rant. This is something the really, really bothers me. I don't want to watch my nieces and nephews, or my own children if/when I have them, watch their grandfather die of cancer like I had to watch my grandfather die of cancer. It is fucking horrible.

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I've finished my first re-read of the Level I cert "manual". If you're curious, here's the link. It's basically a compendium of many of the early issues of the CrossFit journal, the Level II study materials (points of performance and fault correction for 9 foundational movements) and a few articles about rhabdo/safety. It's excellent in my opinion! What a great resource. The early version that one of our coaches sent me did not include everything, so today I will do my first read-through on the new additions, and then I'll be ready for a final re-read of it all next week sometime.

One note on content though -- there is a section on Zone. That is not my thing, so I hope there aren't too many questions on that. I should really make it a point to memorize the carb-fat-protein percentages though, just in case... With my crazy history of disordered eating, the last thing I need to do is weigh and measure. I'm in the food quality camp all the way baby. :)

I am good at taking tests, and the exam at the end of the certification seminar will only be 50 questions, but I am really nervous! Maybe it's just because I haven't taken a test in so long. I also wish there were some practice questions to try out so I could get a feel for the testing format. I will report back here afterwards, and hopefully that will help others who might be nervous. :)

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I have been thinking a lot about where I go after my Level I... I read an "affiliate snapshot" on the affiliate blog (which of course I can't find now...), and the interviewee talked about sticking with the basics. There are so many different "extra" certifications that sound really interesting. Endurance, rowing, Olympic weightlifting, kettlebells, gymnastics, mobility. While it would be amazing to be able to bring specialized knowledge back to my home affiliate, what I really need to focus on is just becoming a coach. Figuring out my own style, learning to manage a class efficiently, finding that sweet spot between correction and encouragement, learning how to get the very best out of each athlete in my class.

It's basically what Glassman talks about in his Virtuosity article.

So with that in mind, the only additional training I'm even considering is the Coaches Prep Course or the Level II Course. I'm intrigued by the prep course, but I'd like to see how the Level I testing shakes out, and how that will impact Level II stuff before I invest any more money.

And of course I'm going to be busy enough with doing the ISSA personal trainer course as well as a few aquatics courses locally. Those two are mainly meant to give me a better chance of getting a paying job at either the local rec center or the base gym, though I'd love to just do CrossFit.