Working Out After A Holiday Sucks!

I absolutely hate getting back into the swing of things after having an interruption in my usual schedule. It's hard to wake up in the morning, your eating habits suffer, and it's just hard to get your "edge" back. Nonetheless, it's times like these when you need to seriously monitor what holiday goodies you're gorging on and also make a point not to let your fitness routine suffer too much. That being said, let's do a little recap...

Tuesday, 24 NOV 09

WOD: Four rounds for time of 50 walking lunges, 50 squats, 400m run

Any WOD that has me doing walking lunges is automatically going to be a painful one in the long run. I don't know if it is lack of strength in my knees, weak heads on my quads, both, or none of those reasons, but these really lay me out for days later. Combining those with squats is pretty much torture for me. I had extreme difficulty walking, going up and down stairs or inclines, and bending my legs for the next three days. And honestly, when I did the math, the work I had done was significant: a total of 200 lunges, 200 squats, and a mile run when it was all said and done -- almost the equivalent of half a "Murph". No wonder it was so hard! To top it off, I finished didn't just finish last -- it seemed to take forever to complete it. Really, it took me half as long to do this WOD as it did for me to complete "Murph", so perhaps mathematically I was right where I needed to be...? Who knows? The bottom line was I pushed through it and didn't fudge on any of the reps, and I lived to fight another day. And eat turkey two days later.

Posted time: 28:43

Monday, 30 NOV 09

Warm Up: "Centex Warm-Up"
Skill Work: Speed drills
WOD: AMRAP in 15 minutes of 5 dumbbell snatches/arm, 10 ring dips, 100m sprint

So the coaches have designed a new warm up for us to do upon arrival at the box to allow us to warm up on our own. They want us to do 2-3 rounds (as time allows) of the following, 15-20 reps/each:

20-30 sec Samson stretch (think Warrior III)
Overhead squats w/ PVC
Ab mat sit ups
Pull ups
Back extensions
Dips
20m inch worms
20m forward/backward bear crawls

This warm up isn't extremely difficult, but it is time consuming. I feel like it takes me as long to do the warm up as it does to do the WOD. I'd rather take a little less time on the warm up and see some time programmed in for stretching at the end of a WOD. I also don't like feeling ragged out by the time I'm starting a WOD, which after this warm up and skill work, some times I feel like I don't have my full amount of strength left for the WOD. I'm sure it just feels this way since it's new, but it just seems like the time at the gym is taking longer and longer some days. Not always a bad thing, though.

The speed drills were not my favorite. It was hopping around back and forth for 20-30 seconds on some dots going side to side, front to back, and diagonally. I'm just not a speedy girl. I can do these, but I'm no speed demon. Just seemed like time I'd rather spend working on my lifts or the WOD. Again, I know I need to do these things and work on these skills. Aren't the ones that annoy us the most the areas of weakness on which we need to focus, after all?

I used the 25# dumbbell for my one armed snatches. It seemed like a lot of weight to me, but I used 20# last time (although I can't believe I didn't blog about that one! Grrr!!) and was able to move the weight just fine. I will say that my shoulders were popping some and seemed weak, but I chalked that up to having too much time off for the holidays. The WOD to which I am referring when I used 20# was about a month ago, so I felt it was reasonable to increase my weight.

The ring dips were not working for me, so I decided up front to modify that and do regular dips off the boxes. I will say here that, next time I'm doing dips, I want to do them off the side of the tractor tire because I needed a wider base for my hands.

Overall, I surprised myself on how many rounds I was able to do. I know I need to build up to doing the dips from the rings, but this was an appropriate challenge for me today.

Posted rounds: 8 rounds completed, 8 of 10 dumbbell snatches completed in round 9

Tuesday, 01 DEC 09

Warm up: "Centex Warm Up"
Skill work: Turkish get-up, pistols, floor press
WOD: Five rounds of five 80% max squat cleans, 20 double-unders

One of our coaches at the gym is getting his kettlebell certification this weekend, and he was there to conduct our skill work today. He's a college kid, sports science major, who is an amazing athlete and always kind and positive. He walked us through the steps of the turkish get-ups, which was much easier than I thought. Given, when I tried it, I was only using a 15# dumbbell, but after a couple of reps my motions were fairly smooth for a beginner. I can see how this could be a real punisher for core as well as arms. You start off lying flat on your back with one arm holding the weight straight up in the air, elbow locked out. The other arm is extended straight out at the shoulder. First, you bend your leg that is on the same side of your body as the arm holding the weight, placing your foot to the floor. You start to lift your torso up on the extended arm, leaning over at an angle. Once you are secure, you slip your foot underneath you so that you can get up on that knee, with the other foot supporting you that was already on the floor. Carefully, you stand up, keeping that arm fully extended and locked out up above your head the entire time. To complete the turkish get-up, you go back down to the floor, just reversing the steps you used to get up. One trip up and one trip down is one rep. I know it may sound really complex, but it's really pretty simple. To watch video clips, you can go to the main CrossFit website.

I need to work on my pistols (one-legged squats) to strengthen my quads and knees, but good grief -- these were hard! And to top it off, isolating the movement on one leg at a time made me realize just how weak those weak spots are for me. Needless to say, I was ready to move on. :)

The floor press really was harder than it looked. Basically, you are keeping your elbows pinned in as much as possible as you raise your dumbbell or kettlebell diagonally in the air above your body. Imagine yourself lying flat on your back, holding weight in both hands with your elbows bent at your sides. You would raise your right arm and shoulder until your arm is fully extended and your shoulder is completely up off the floor, reaching across your body. Bring it back down, repeat on the other side. It's one thing lifting the weight up -- it's another to bring it down! It takes a lot of control to keep good form here.

Now that we're all nice and tired, let's do our WOD! Haha... just kidding...

I have not done a WOD using any kind of lift in quite a while and only recently found my power clean max when I was just working on this and that at the gym. I started off doing the squat cleans with 75# and was really having to work to get it up. I think I would've been fine had I been able to simply power clean it, but adding the squat was what added difficulty for me. Also, as per usual, coming off the rack with the weight torqued my shoulders something fierce. I completely the first round with 75#, but when I came back for round two, I only rep'ed out two when I made the decision to back off the weight. I was just too much for me today, and I was getting emotional and frustrated. So I completed this WOD with 65#.

I will say, however, that my double-unders have improved a lot. I can now get up to 10 at a time. And even when it would've been easy to fudge these if I messed up before the last rep, I made a point to go back and get each individual double-under until I had done 20 true double-unders.

We didn't keep time on this; or at least, I was so frustrated with myself that I didn't want to know how long it took. I don't know if I finished last or not. That didn't really matter to me. I'm just proud of myself for maintaining form, getting good depth in my squats, getting every single double-under, and not quitting or crying when I really, reeeaallly wanted to. There's no crying in CrossFit!!!

House of Pain

Warm up: 400m run, various calisthenics, dumbbell snatches, practice hanging squat cleans with PVC
WOD: 5 rounds for time of 15 hanging squat cleans, 30 push ups

Did I mention that I'm a big, whiny baby? Did I also mention how badly my knees and shoulders have been hurting lately? I was in the house of pain today like I've never been before, and I promise I'm not telling you about it to complain. It just is what it is.

I've been really sucking it up lately with knee pain, and mentally I've really been fighting to complete the last two WODs. Tomorrow's WOD will likely be one of the hardest I've ever done, and then on Wednesday I "get to" run a 5K and then come back to the box for a few more exercises. We're supposed to be having a "Fran Friday" this week, and I'm planning on attending, but even as I sit here typing this, I can feel the swelling starting in my knees. It is just not looking good.

My coach started me off with 65# for the hanging squat cleans. This weight should not have been a problem for me -- I've worked with this much weight many times before. I simply could not get it up high enough to get underneath it, and even when I did attempt to get underneath it, I just couldn't get there fast enough. I tried and failed five or six times, then she moved me down to 55#, which is how I completed the WOD.

I was so frustrated. I really had to fight even to complete this with 55#. At one point I was so fired up and frustrated that I was willing myself not to cry. (Think Tom Hanks yelling, "There's no crying! There's no crying in baseball!") There is no crying in CrossFit, so get your butt moving, woman.

With each time I went down, my left knee felt like it had a needle hanging out of it that dug in a little deeper with each movement. Once I had stood the weight up and was dropping it down to get another rep, the movement of bringing the bar down made my shoulders feel like they were being ripped off, or at least stretched in opposite directions by some sadistic machine you think of in castle basements.

Most days, when I'm feeling stiff and in a little pain, it wears off after the first two rounds and I find my rhythm and can stick with it. I did finally find a rhythm, but each beat was marked with the staccato of shooting pain in my knees and shoulders. It just never gave way. This was the second WOD that I felt sure, during the first round, I would not be finishing.

The push ups were easy, and I tried to crank those out and make up time there. I wanted to finish under 30:00 again today, but honestly, I was surprised that I actually made it through this one. There was no wave of proud relief. Only frustration at what had happened with my body and how far I had allowed my mind to go in attempting to derail my workout. I've been beating myself up about it all day, and I just don't know what to do with it.

I can tell you this much -- if it hadn't been for my coach, today would've been short and painless for me. I would've packed up and walked out the door. She really put up with a butt load of my bellyaching and kept me moving, kept me up to get one more rep. Watching the other girls made me wonder how they were doing this without near as much anguish as me, but I was the second one to finish out of four, so I guess my results weren't that bad.

This week is going to be one of the toughest ever for me in CF. I've really got to take care of those knees and tell my inner demon to kiss off. I've got Fran at the end of the week, and I've got to git 'er dun.

Posted time: 28:40 with 55#