After watching the affiliate team tryouts on Sunday, I have been supermotivated to push harder and go the extra mile, regardless of what my body is whining about. I will say that I refuse to ignore pain that is on the verge of injury -- I'm not that extreme. But taking breaks and stopping in the middle of an intense workout has got to stop. Today. Actually, yesterday.
It's been a long time since we did any of the named WODs, and I have to admit I was a little apprehensive about how this one would go today.
WOD: "Grace"
30 reps of squat clean and jerks, 85# Rx for women
I've really been trying to push myself to do everything as Rx'ed lately, so I was pumped to do that today. I really had to get my mind in the zone: I was trying to envision myself going through the movement, listening to my motivational, fast tempo, metal workout music. One thing about my class that is a mixed blessing is the level of intensity. On one hand, I love this group because they are awesome and supportive. No one makes you feel like you are too slow or aren't working hard enough. It's a very positive environment. On the other hand, sometimes I really need the loud, frenzied environment to help me play off the adrenaline rush. I need someone telling me to hurry and get back on that bar, or keep getting one more, or 3-2-1-GO! When I don't have that for a WOD like this, I feel heavy and slow. No good on a day when you're cashing in on your explosive power.
So I started off with 85#. I remember thinking to myself, "Geez, this feels sooo heavy!" Regardless, I did about five of them with the 85#, and let me tell ya, they weren't pretty. I really detest going down in weight during a WOD, but today was a day when I could tell that I would have to in order to complete this WOD with speed and intensity. So I did the rest at 75#, which felt much better. I still had to fight for it, and there were several times when I was as mentally tired as I was physically tired when I let my elbows point down, which dropped the bar down too low onto my chest. Thankfully my coach came over there and told me I had better get my elbows out. I just kept getting them one at a time, and for some reason, the number 30 didn't bother me so much. I was pooped at the end of the WOD, but not devastatingly so.
We went out and jogged a half mile when it was all said and done, and I hopped on the rower after that. I've been making a point to do some 500m sprints on the rower at the end of the day. Yesterday I logged 2:05, and today I dropped to 2:12 since I was already pretty smoked. On Monday I rowed 1150m in 5:00. Slowly but surely improvements will come.
Thank God tomorrow is a rest day!
Posted time: 10:15
Showing posts with label squat clean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label squat clean. Show all posts
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
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!!!
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!!!
Wednesday, October 14, 2009
Not Just A Game
Warm up: "5-4-3-2-1"
WOD: CrossFit Games -- 30 squat cleans to full press, for time
After having not worked out on Tuesday, today's WOD seemed like it would be pretty easy. My coach had been sick and cancelled class on Tuesday, which turned out to be a blessing for me. After finding my max deadlift, my back muscles needed another recovery day, so I felt good and strong going into the "game." However, I should've learned by now that the ones that look easy usually aren't.
The warm up went quickly. I mused to myself how funny it was that this was a mini-WOD in Elements that I actually found to be hard, and today it seemed to be a breeze. Given, I wasn't going for time today, but none of the moves really took it out of me. I felt like I had gotten stronger over the last couple of weeks, and I was proud of that.
Today's WOD was one of the workouts used one year in the CrossFit Games. Apparently, these are like the CF Olympics over a course of three days or so. WODs are chosen at random, and the athletes perform several of them every day. This was only one of the WODs performed on one of the days, and I can't recall which year's games from which this was taken. Either way, it looked easy enough, but it takes real stamina and focus to just keep going, something I'm working on each time I step foot in the box.
I thought I was using 55#, but my coach recorded my weight as 65#. Either way, the weight didn't feel heavy at all. I was powering through my hips nicely, getting under the bar and into a good deep squat, coming up, and then dip-driving the bar up overhead. Not difficult in and of itself, but put 30 of them together and it gets challenging.
I know I could've gone a lot faster, especially since the weight was more than manageable. Part of what made this a difficult WOD for me was the cardio capacity you need to be in constant motion and bearing weight. That, plus the unseasonal heat and humidity added to the environmental stressors and really made me breathe hard.
Something I'm noticing a lot these days is joints. How much they crackle, how sore they can be after workouts, how long it takes them to really get moving smoothly once I'm working through a WOD, etc. I think overall they will be strengthening, and I'm making efforts to be stretching and working on my flexibility through my joints, but in the back of my head, I wonder what kind of shape I'll be in by the time I'm, say, 50 years old. I live in gross fear of what my body will look like if/when something happens and I can no longer work out at the same level of intensity. All I can do now is eat well, rest enough, and stay active. I think that's as much as I can ask out of my body.
Overall, fun workout. Wish I had pushed harder to go faster, but the coach we had today did a great job yelling at us to keep moving and keep motivated. I really love this stuff. :)
Posted time: 11:30 with 65#
P.S. -- To see someone really pushing it at the CrossFit Games doing this very WOD, check out this video. It's simply amazing. Video courtesy of CrossFit and CrossFit Centex.
http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFitGames08_KallistaCJFinals.wmv
WOD: CrossFit Games -- 30 squat cleans to full press, for time
After having not worked out on Tuesday, today's WOD seemed like it would be pretty easy. My coach had been sick and cancelled class on Tuesday, which turned out to be a blessing for me. After finding my max deadlift, my back muscles needed another recovery day, so I felt good and strong going into the "game." However, I should've learned by now that the ones that look easy usually aren't.
The warm up went quickly. I mused to myself how funny it was that this was a mini-WOD in Elements that I actually found to be hard, and today it seemed to be a breeze. Given, I wasn't going for time today, but none of the moves really took it out of me. I felt like I had gotten stronger over the last couple of weeks, and I was proud of that.
Today's WOD was one of the workouts used one year in the CrossFit Games. Apparently, these are like the CF Olympics over a course of three days or so. WODs are chosen at random, and the athletes perform several of them every day. This was only one of the WODs performed on one of the days, and I can't recall which year's games from which this was taken. Either way, it looked easy enough, but it takes real stamina and focus to just keep going, something I'm working on each time I step foot in the box.
I thought I was using 55#, but my coach recorded my weight as 65#. Either way, the weight didn't feel heavy at all. I was powering through my hips nicely, getting under the bar and into a good deep squat, coming up, and then dip-driving the bar up overhead. Not difficult in and of itself, but put 30 of them together and it gets challenging.
I know I could've gone a lot faster, especially since the weight was more than manageable. Part of what made this a difficult WOD for me was the cardio capacity you need to be in constant motion and bearing weight. That, plus the unseasonal heat and humidity added to the environmental stressors and really made me breathe hard.
Something I'm noticing a lot these days is joints. How much they crackle, how sore they can be after workouts, how long it takes them to really get moving smoothly once I'm working through a WOD, etc. I think overall they will be strengthening, and I'm making efforts to be stretching and working on my flexibility through my joints, but in the back of my head, I wonder what kind of shape I'll be in by the time I'm, say, 50 years old. I live in gross fear of what my body will look like if/when something happens and I can no longer work out at the same level of intensity. All I can do now is eat well, rest enough, and stay active. I think that's as much as I can ask out of my body.
Overall, fun workout. Wish I had pushed harder to go faster, but the coach we had today did a great job yelling at us to keep moving and keep motivated. I really love this stuff. :)
Posted time: 11:30 with 65#
P.S. -- To see someone really pushing it at the CrossFit Games doing this very WOD, check out this video. It's simply amazing. Video courtesy of CrossFit and CrossFit Centex.
http://media.crossfit.com/cf-video/CrossFitGames08_KallistaCJFinals.wmv
Monday, October 12, 2009
Belated Recap of Wednesday and Friday
As mentioned in the post for Monday, 12 OCT, I got a little behind in posting for Wednesday and Friday of last week. Due to circuit overload in my brain these days, I had to dig back on the CrossFit Centex blog to see what we had done and what my results were...
Wednesday
WOD: For time, 10 squat cleans, 50 KTE, 8 squat cleans, 40 KTE, 6 squat cleans, 30 KTE, 4 squat cleans, 20 KTE, 2 squat cleans, 10 KTE
I can't remember what weight I used for squat cleans -- perhaps 65#? Most likely. I FINALLY got the hang of KTE, or knees to elbows. I knew I had the core strength to do them. What it took was figuring out the kipping-style motion to rock back and get them up there. During the first round, I did 45 of them on the bar when Jodi told me to move down to the mat to finish doing the modified ones. From that point on, for the sake of time and efficiency, I did half on the bar, half modified. My wrists and shoulders were really sucking badly between doing the lifting and the hanging, and I'm hoping to avoid any kind of joint injury while still pushing through stiffness to increase strength and flexibility.
Posted time: Well, there was a small problem here. The timer wasn't working properly, and we didn't catch this until I'd completed my entire first round; coincidentally, it was the longest round, too. I did the rest of them in 12:48, but this WOD was probably closer to about 18:00 or so for me.
Friday
WOD: 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 power cleans
I just really like these lifts. I'm getting better at the mechanics; although, I will say that once I get up to the challenging heavier weights, I hit a sort of mental block about getting underneath the weight fast enough. But these are some of the most gratifying days when we're just lifting, adding more weight, seeing if we can keep on increasing in weight and pushing our limits. I love the mental focusing that is required on these lifts. Hit a personal record, too! Last time I maxed out at 80#, and I blew past that today. Hot damn! :)
Posted weight: 65-75-85-95(F)-95(F)-95-95(F)
Wednesday
WOD: For time, 10 squat cleans, 50 KTE, 8 squat cleans, 40 KTE, 6 squat cleans, 30 KTE, 4 squat cleans, 20 KTE, 2 squat cleans, 10 KTE
I can't remember what weight I used for squat cleans -- perhaps 65#? Most likely. I FINALLY got the hang of KTE, or knees to elbows. I knew I had the core strength to do them. What it took was figuring out the kipping-style motion to rock back and get them up there. During the first round, I did 45 of them on the bar when Jodi told me to move down to the mat to finish doing the modified ones. From that point on, for the sake of time and efficiency, I did half on the bar, half modified. My wrists and shoulders were really sucking badly between doing the lifting and the hanging, and I'm hoping to avoid any kind of joint injury while still pushing through stiffness to increase strength and flexibility.
Posted time: Well, there was a small problem here. The timer wasn't working properly, and we didn't catch this until I'd completed my entire first round; coincidentally, it was the longest round, too. I did the rest of them in 12:48, but this WOD was probably closer to about 18:00 or so for me.
Friday
WOD: 1-1-1-1-1-1-1 power cleans
I just really like these lifts. I'm getting better at the mechanics; although, I will say that once I get up to the challenging heavier weights, I hit a sort of mental block about getting underneath the weight fast enough. But these are some of the most gratifying days when we're just lifting, adding more weight, seeing if we can keep on increasing in weight and pushing our limits. I love the mental focusing that is required on these lifts. Hit a personal record, too! Last time I maxed out at 80#, and I blew past that today. Hot damn! :)
Posted weight: 65-75-85-95(F)-95(F)-95-95(F)
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