CrossFit KoP visit

I checked out CrossFit KoP tonight, and it rocked. Why the heck couldn't they open before I moved away? It would have been a 5 minute drive from my house. Or it would've been a perfect stop on the way home from work. Gah!

Oh well, at least if I ever move back, I'll know there's a terrific gym to workout at. Plus I can hit them up when visiting Husbeetle's family, though it's kind of a pain in the ass to drive there from his mom's house.

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WOD:

10-9-8-7-6-5-4-3-2-1

Clean and Jerks (75#/115#)

KB Swings (scale according to level)

Pull-ups

Results: 24:14; 65# C&Js, 16kg (35#) KB, medium band pullups

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Really felt my cardio deficiencies on this workout. I need to just push myself more, but then my form suffers alot when I try to push through and not rest. I am at a loss... My strength is increasing much faster than my cardio-vascular fitness. Bah.

The main coach at KoP, Aimee, rocked this. We did about 10 minutes of coaching on the C&J movement between the warm-up and the WOD. Awesome. Got some truly welcome feedback on my C&J form.

First, I was not fully extending my hips before catching the bar. Need to work on the deadlift-shrug portion, and make sure I have the whole range of motion in my hips before I bring the elbows around to rack the bar. Also, my head is not neutral. I tend to tilt my head really far back. Odd, huh? Guess that explains why I have a sore neck pretty often. Definitely two things I can work on and improve. That's why I did 65# and not 75# as Rx'd. Stayed lighter to really focus on form. And according to Aimee and her assistants, I did improve as the workout progressed, so I'm really happy with that.

Overall it felt great, and I'm so relieved to have gotten a great workout in while on vacation. We'll see if I can squeeze in another 6:30pm class the day after tomorrow. It all depends on when I travel, and what time I get back to the area. I'm making an extra-special side trip tomorrow. :)

Quickie WOD

Friday ended up being a rest day as well, I know, boo to me, but I did do a quick workout on Saturday.

For warm-up I did a 10-12 minute run.

WOD: As many rounds as you can in 20 minutes:

10 Push-ups

15 Squats

20 Sit-ups

Results: Completed 8 rounds, plus some pushups.

This was really an easy day. Not exactly what I need to be doing to get my Jackie time down next month when we repeat. Plus I took off Sunday, and I'm not seeing a good chance of doing anything today. Eeek. I'm at least going to try to do some sit-ups and push-ups, maybe 10-10 for 10 minutes or something like that. Gah. Going on vacation really F's things up...

Fall break WOD list

Gonna use this post to link to workouts I find online that I can do while I'm away on my "fall break".

Crossfit Champions

• Squats, push-ups, pull-ups
• Variety, can accomodate most w/ vaca equipment
• Pull-ups, push ups, swimmers, sit-ups
• Filthy 50, can do most
• AMRAP thrusters, pullups
• Lunges, KB swings, push-ups

"Vacay" Fran -- 21-15-9 of thrusters and jumping pullups

TBD...

Some oly lifts, yay!

"Oly" is slang for "Olympic" -- I picked that up somewhere in my perusal of Crossfit blogs the past week. I like. :)

WOD:

AMRAP 8min of:

• 5 Clean and Jerk (135 lbs/95)
• 7 ring dips

3 min rest

AMRAP 4min of:

• 5 hang power cleans (135lbs/95)
• 7 handstand push ups

Results: 3 rounds (85lbs; bench and box for dips) and 1 3/4 (85lbs, ankles over bar for HSPU)

**AMRAP stands for "as many rounds as possible".

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Wow, this workout was deceptive... I thought I would be throwing the bar up a lot faster than I did, after my first 5 C&Js I was sooooo out of breath, damn! And I was just barely able to get up the HPCs, after the jump my feet were sooo wide. It almost would've been easier to catch in a squat.

But it felt good, I'd like to do this one again sometime. And I'm happy that I learned another way to modify HSPUs. Put a bar on a squat rack, hook your feet over and hang upside down, and try to get as vertical as you can. I was really just bending my elbows a bit and then locking back out, but it's a start. I think at this point I'm going to be as excited about getting a true HSPU as I am about getting a true dead hang pullup.

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This is my last workout in the gym for a while, I'm leaving today on my trip up north. I'm going to do my best to keep working out while I'm on the road, but I do find it challenging to "program" for myself. I think if I was ever a coach or affiliate owner, I would offer "vacation programming" packages to my clients as part of their regular monthly fee. This month I paid for the whole thing, not knowing how long I'd be gone. It would just be nice to still feel like I was getting my $$$$'s worth. And given a set of equipment available, it seems to me they could come up with 5-7 workouts for me to do easily. They are the experts!

I'm taking along my 12lb dumbbells for DB hang squat cleans, thrusters, push presses, front squats, DB swings. I can borrow a broom here or there to keep working on my form for OHS and snatch. And then I've got my in-the-doorway pullup bar that I can use for jumping pullups and maybe some work on negatives. My big focus will be pushups, I'm so damn weak on those. I had worked on them a while back, and got better, but now I'm sucking again. Gotta put some time and effort into that, 2 weeks is enough time to make some decent improvements.

Nancy

Today we did "Nancy".

5 rounds for time of:

• 400 meter run
• Overhead squat (OHS), 15 reps (95/65)

Results: 19:56, 30lbs on OHS

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In hindsight, I maybe could have gone 5lbs heavier on the OHS, up to 35. But I was wary because last time I did OHS in a workout, I tried to use the 45lb bar, and I went over backwards onto my ass at least 3 times, maybe 4. Not pretty. So I worked up from the 15lb bar, and stopped when I felt like it was a good weight for 15 reps.

After the workout was finished I wanted to see how heavy I could go, so I worked up by 5lb increments doing 3-5 squats at each weight. When I hit 50 I felt like that was my upper limit, so next workout I plan to use the 45lb bar and master that weight before moving up any more. Good times.

My runs were kinda sucky. Blah.

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Me and two new chicks at the gym worked on hand stands after the cool down. I made a total ass out of myself slamming into the wall and falling onto my head twice. After that I stuck with working on a head stand, and lifting my legs up from there. I'm going to stick with that til I've mastered it, and then try again on the hand stand position. I'm starting from the very bottom on this skill, so it's good that I'm getting started. :) Hopefully all the strength that I'm gaining in my upper body and abs will help speed up my progress.

Still no "naked" pullups, I'm gonna give it another go tomorrow AM. I know I have at least one band-less kipping pullup in me, if I can do 96 with bands!

Crappy 5k, Jackie

Well, Saturday we did our run, and I can't believe how much I sucked. I am so bummed, and kind of embarrassed, but I will post my results just so I can have the satisfaction of improving...

Chip time: 30:46

Gun time: 32:12

Pace: 10:22 min/mile

My Nike+ has been telling me that I'm running a nearly 9 min/mile pace, but apparently it has been lying to me. I didn't think calibration was really necessary, but now I'm seeing the error of my ways. I will hit the track on base today or tomorrow and run exactly a mile so I can get the calibration set and know exactly how slow I still am.

I just wasn't focusing during the race. My stride was short and I felt choppy. Blah. Husbeetle rocked it with an overall pace of 8:10, and he finished under 2 hours. He makes me proud. :)

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WOD was "Jackie".

For time.

• 1000m row
• 50 thrusters (45/25)
• 30 pullups

Results: 14:21 (blue band on pullups)

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Can I just say that I feel like I totally missed the boat on this workout?

The row went well, I did the first 250m pretty fast, and then settled in at about a 2:20 pace, which is normal for me.

Maybe I didn't row fast enough, because it wasn't my legs that were wobbly during the thrusters, it was my arms. I did 20-10-10-10. The last 10 were a bitch. I'm glad I chose to do 25 pounds, or I would've had to slow down a lot on those, and I was going for a fast, intense workout.

Pullups... I intended to use the white/beige band, but when I got up on the bar, I couldn't even get up for one pullup. I got down, rested, tried again, same result. So I had to waste the time of putting the blue band in place. I should've had it set up as a backup, lesson learned.

By the time I finished all my dicking around getting the pullups done, the intensity was totally gone.

I really thought I should've felt this one all over, but my legs still feel almost fresh. My arms are brutalized, though. My hand made it through OK, just a little ripping of the scabs from last week, I was really happy about that.

I'm looking forward to repeating this WOD in a month, and seeing improvement. I think if I can get my rowing down around 2:10 pace, that would rock. And of course longer sets of the thrusters, maybe two sets of 25 if I can gut it out. 10-5-5-5-5 on pullups would be awesome. We shall see.

Crossfit cripple

Oh yes, that is me today.

I skipped yesterday because I was super sore. But then today I told myself, "Self, if you go and do the workout it will loosen you up, and you'll feel better."

Um, yeah, so not true.

My armpits hurt. I had no idea I had so many muscles in my armpit area. And my chest muscles hurt. Not to mention my scabbed over hands are now cracking open. Tuesday is still wreaking havoc on my body. Ack.

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WOD:

3 rounds for time

• 500m row
• 25 kettle bell swings (24k/16)
• 25 double unders (substitute 125 regular jump ropes)

Result: 20:48 (did regular jump ropes)

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Obviously this workout shows that I need to learn to do double-unders. Need to find some videos on learning that.

I felt like total ass swinging the kettlebell, and usually I really enjoy that movement. Maybe it was just a lot heavier than I've done in a while? Most likely. It felt like it was 50 pounds, and I thought it was just going to fly out of my hands. My form sucked, I couldn't get my hips to snap because my grip just felt so tenuous. Stopped to rest a lot. Definitely a workout to try again in a few weeks and see how I've improved.

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Tomorrow I'm running a 5k, and Husbeetle is running a half-marathon. He's such a sexy beast, and I love him for it. We'll do a 1/2 together sometime soon. :)