AMRAP, not Aflac!

Warm up: "5-4-3-2-1"
WOD: AMRAP in 20 min. of 10 kettlebell swings, 15 box jumps, 20 sit-ups.

When my coach told me to do the warm up and told me what she wanted me to do, I was totally peeved. During Elements that was a full WOD! And while I realize that the WODs for Elements are smaller than regular ones and are meant to be sample-sized portions of CrossFit, I was not pleased that I had to do all that work, on top of really sore muscles, and THEN get to the WOD. Oh well. I did the warm up at a nice, steady pace -- nothing too fast or too slow. The squats burned and I did jumping pull-ups, which sucked more than usual because of sore biceps and lats.

So, an "AMRAP" WOD simply means to perform As Many Rounds As Possible. Twenty minutes seems like a significant amount of time, which it really is, but during the actual WOD the time flies pretty quickly, despite what your body tells you.

I used a 25# dumbbell for my kettlebell swings. On the very first swing, I hit myself right on the money spot/crotch and had to take a second to regroup. I am quite thankful that KB swings are driven by momentum in the hips. That definitely helped me mentally.

I used the 29" (I think) box for box jumps -- it was the tallest one without adding more height to it. The first round by far felt the worst due to my pre-existing soreness. By the last couple of rounds, I was cranking through them pretty well, breaking them down into groups of five, resting for two or three seconds, and then continuing on.

The sit-ups were the easy part. I love using the Ab Mat -- it provides great lower back support that way you can really focus on engaging your abs and not worry about lower back strain.

One lady in the class was flying through the rounds and barely breaking a sweat, and the other lady was almost exactly my pace, if not a hair slower. The coolest thing about CF is that you are not in competition with others -- only yourself -- but by working out in groups, you motivate yourself to keep working at a certain pace. I didn't want the first lady to start "lapping" me, and I didn't want other lady to catch up to me. Great motivation technique for me. I was really having to take planned breaks after each activity for most of the rounds to push back nausea. I don't know if it's the coming off of being ill, having taken medication this morning, or just working hard that made me queasy, but I kept hold of my cookies. Yahoo!

Bottom line: I completed six full rounds and was 16 sit-ups away from completing my seventh when they called time. I really didn't think I'd make it past four or five, so I'm pretty happy about my first day with the group. We practiced handstands for a few minutes after we cooled off. Overall, it was a good workout.