Lots of links, Friday's WOD, Saturday preview

I'll start with the links today. :)

This "burpee tag" warmup looks so fun! If we didn't have so much equipment blocking the edges of our area of mats, I would totally do this for a warmup. Maybe if we go to the track one of these day for sprints, this would be a good warmup to do on the football field.




20 tips for improving your squat, shared by CrossFit East Sacramento, originally from the "Squat Clinic" article of the CrossFit Journal.

I finally gave in and signed up for Twitter -- I'm ceewiss, since cwiss was already taken. I only did it because one of my friends won't sign up for Facebook and we are having a heck of a time staying in touch. Guess she won that standoff. :-p

Yesterday I cooked up some yummy veggies and beef in my CrockPot -- I posted about it on the CrossFit Camden Paleo Challenge blog. :)

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Today's scheduled WOD was "JT" -- handstand pushups, ring dips, pushups. With my (still) tweaky shoulder, I knew that was not a good idea. So I made up the workout from the 17th, with some modifications.

WOD:
20 cal row
20 wall ball shots (20lbs/14)
20 clapping push ups hip extensions
20 knees to elbows GHD situps
20 double unders
20 star jumps
20 pull ups
20 lunge steps (each leg)
20 slam balls

Results:  13:27

The only shoulder exercises I left in were wall balls, pullups and slam balls. I did a test K2E during my warmup, and it did not feel good, so those were out. The pushups I took out just to be on the safe side. I want to rest this as much as possible so I can get back to improving my skills for the cert in March.

I was feeling a little bit scared and wussy on the pullups -- those took me probably close to 1/2 my time. The double unders I did in 2 sets -- 9 and 11. That felt awesome. :)

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Tomorrow is gonna be interesting -- I'm running a 5K that is completely on a bridge. With a 6% grade. ZOMG. It's the Sidney Lanier Bridge, which goes over the Brunswick River and essentially connects Jekyll Island to the rest of the Golden Isles / Brunswick, GA. This bridge is super-pretty, and I love driving across it. It should be painful fun to run across -- and then back again.

 

 

Back in the saddle on Saturday

Back from my day off, and feeling good. :)

Since Husbeetle had to go in to work this morning, I went to the 9:30am workout at the gym. Normally on the weekends I do something with him in the afternoon, but he ran before going to work.

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WOD:

Complete the following exercises using a deck of cards. For aces, do double the number of the exercise you just completed.

• Spades = Squats
• Hearts = star jumps
• Diamonds = Push Ups
• Clubs = Sit Ups

This was pretty fun, we didn't do it for time, just did it as a group. I wanted to do all the pushups on my toes, but we got several diamonds in a row, and I had to drop to my knees or everybody would've had to wait for me to do them one at a time. The star jumps are freakin' killer! Those things make my quads burn. They're like a cruel variant of jump squats...

Should definitely add a deck of cards to my little "travel WOD" kit. I think Husbeetle would enjoy going all-out on this for time.

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Today was pretty memorable because after my warm up, I jumped on the bar to work on my kipping swing, and got my first kipping pullup! After that first one, I immediately did another just to see if I really could do it. Woot!

I'm so happy that I still had one more left in me for Husbeetle to catch on video this afternoon at the pullup bars outside his office. Here's the kind of poor quality video

It looks pretty sloppy, I don't achieve chin-over-bar in one fluid motion, but I yank it up!

I still haven't achieved "do a dead hang pullup". I'm making it my goal to do that by Christmas. I think one month of working my kips without the band, and working my dead hangs with the band, along with all the other WODs I'll be doing, should get me there.

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A few more thoughts on achieving goals...

I tend to build my goals up in my head, and make them into these monsters that only a Herculean effort could attain.

But the truth is, most of my goals follow naturally from very simple things, like getting my butt to the gym every day, and giving it my best.

When I completed my first sprint triathlon, which was a "big deal" goal for me, it was actually a huge let down. I guess I thought I would have some kind of epiphany just by swimming, biking and running in succession for 2 hours on a Sunday morning? I was also bummed to be there alone with no one to share the experience with.

Today when I kipped 3/4 of the way to the bar, and than "spasmed" myself up the last 1/4 (watch the video, you'll see what I mean :-p), I was totally stoked! And I was also totally stoked that everybody else seemed to just be doing their own thing, talking, warming up, whatever -- not even paying a bit of attention to me.

I enjoyed my little private triumph, giggled at how awkward it must've looked, and then jumped back up to try again. No fanfare needed.

I'm over having epiphanies, or getting attention, or whatever, for achieving my goals. It should just make you feel good inside, not let down.

I know I'm kind of contradicting myself by posting this, and saying "yay me, look at my video". But hey, it's my blog, and I am the embodiment of contradictions, so you'll just have to deal with it. :-p

PS - Sorry for the closeup of my boob at the end of the video! I guess that's what you get when you make my husband the camera man. :-p

Back squats and metcon

WOD:

Back squat -- 5-5-5-5-5 working sets

Metcon: 4 rounds for time

• 6 handstand push ups
• 8 power snatch (95lbs/65)
• 12 star jumps

Results:

Back squat: 55-65-70-75-80

Metcon: 13:09 (55lb power snatch)

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I took it easy on the back squats for two reasons. One, I haven't actually done that movement in a workout before. And two, it was sets of five. The method of holding the bar felt very awkward to me. I will be doing some research into proper form for that movement.

Side note: I would really like to take an Olympic lifting certification.

Metcon was kind of a grinder. The star jumps killed me, my quads were just giving out as I squatted down to do the next jump. Ack. I rested a little bit too much on the power snatches as well, even though I scaled the weight down a bit so I could get the heart racing with a faster pace.

But I hate to rush myself when I'm doing Oly movements. I don't like to just throw the bar around in a rush to get done, I feel like I'm gonna hurt my back and develop bad habits.

I applied a lot of what I learned my second night at Crossfit KoP, and I was once again glad I had the chance to train with Aimee there. A "tune-up" session, or sessions, with her is definitely on my Christmas list. Side note: It's fun to feel the bar fly up when you get all the little things right on an attempt. :)

Popped out a few pullups post-workout, but not a whole bunch because I was running out of time. Next week I need to get more squeezed in to prep for the Jackie re-test coming up in Nov.