long time

It's been a while. I know. I've been busy with work and trying to get some workouts in. I've been slacking a little on my workouts, but just because I've been so pooped from work.

This past weekend, I did make my first big CrossFit purchase. I found a Concept2 model C rower for $400 on Craigslist. Normally they go for $600- $750 but this business that repairs and reconditions used exercise equipment got it from a retirement community somehow, checked it out and sold it on Craigslist. I had to go down to Tucson to get it. It would have been gone in 20 minutes if it was in the Phoenix area, but nobody must have wanted it bad enough to make the drive. I cleaned it up a little, oiled the chain and it was good to go! It's awesome.





On the 21st I did a 5k row in 21:16.

On the 22nd I did AMRAP 12:00 of:
500m row
10 pushups
15 situps
20 squats
and did 3 rounds + 160m

Today I did 5 rounds of:
50 ceiling touch jumps
40 squats
30 situps
20 pushups
(did not have pullup bar for 10 pullups)
in 27:57

Those aren't all the workouts since last post, but it's enough.

This weekend is our CrossFit level on Trainer certification class! We are so pumped! I am going to give my resume to some CrossFit gyms that are close and try to be a parttime/ weekend trainer. I need some experience to be able to have my own gym. It would be pretty scary to start with no CF gym experience. I've heard of people doing it, but I'm not sure it makes good business sense. If anything I could join a gym for a month or two and learn their business that way.

Pullups, snatches and wall balls

Monday was a busy day at work.  I saw about 22 patients since I took over our old PT's case load.  I was feeling pretty good, even for the larger amount of patients.  My goal for the next 2 weeks is to eat as clean/ Zone as I can before CrossFit certification on the 28th and 29th. 
My workout looked like this:
3 rounds for time:
30 squat snatches @ 45#
30 wall balls @ 16# (10.5 foot target)

Rx'd was 75# snatch and 20# medball.  I finished in 16:15 and looking at other peoples' times (19 - 21 minutes) I could have increased my snatch weight a little to add a couple minutes to my time.  Brand-X does a scaling system for CrossFit and I have traditionally been doing the "pack" scaling, but I think that I am ready to move up a level to "the porch".  This scale is sometimes available and sometimes not there.  If it's not there I'll just take some weight off the Rx'd weight and keep the Rx'd reps and sets.




Sunday I ran on the treadmill for 1 mile in 6:50, walked 1/4 mile, then got pumped up by some Rage Against the Machine and decided to run another 1/2 mile in around 3:20 or so.

I then did 7 sets of 1 rep, increasing to my 1 rep max on weight pullups. This is exactly what I looked like:


Well, I didn't look exactly like that, but the weights I did looked like this:
1.  5#
2.  10#
3.  15#
4.  20#
5.  25#
6.  30#
7.  37.5#

Annie

Now that I've instantly  made your day better after seeing that here's my workout from today:

"Annie"
35-25-20-15-10 reps for time of:
Double unders
Situps (unanchored)
Time: 6:40

Last time I did this on May 18th in 7:47 with anchored situps!

I then did a drop set of push press:
95# x 4
85# x 8
65# x 14

Couple of days behind

I've had a couple of days of workouts that I haven't posted yet.  Work is getting stressfully busy.  We have one Physical Therapist that is leaving (his last day was today) and I am taking over his case load.  We have another PT leaving next week.  We also have 2 PT techs leaving and one coming off of shoulder surgery.  Luckily we have a new PT starting Monday and another new one starting in a couple of weeks.  We have a new part time PT tech starting next week.  The problem is we don't have enough assistants to help keep everything moving smoothly.  Having 3 PT's an ATC and 4-5 techs works really well with the volume of patients that we see.  Now we have 3 PT's, an ATC and 1 full time tech, 2 part time techs and a tech that is doing Lymphedema treatments for 3-4 hours at a time.  It's a big difference that I don't think my boss sees or really acknowledges that it will be a problem.  Especially since I typically see 45 patients a week and assisting the other PTs as needed, and now will be seeing seeing 70 some patients a week for a while and not being able to lend a hand except for my patients.  It is so busy that my boss is paying for me to fly back early after my Crossfit Certification and pay me a bonus to work on a Monday.  Oh well, I'll get some good overtime and we'll make it work. 

On Tuesday I did "Lynne"
5 rounds of max weight bench press and max rep pullups.  You get as much rest between sets as you need.  I used 115 pounds for my bench.  I did the following compared to 7/24/09:
                            Bench                   Pullups
                 2010            2009      2010          2009
1               11                   6           9                9
2                9                    5           9                9
3                7                   4             6               8
4               6                    3             6               7
5                5                   1             6               6

I rested Wednesday.

Thursday I did Hero Workout "Coe" in pack scaling:
7 rounds of
10 x 65# thrusters
20 pushups

in 15:31
It was way harder than I thought it'd be.  I also had Olive Garden lasagna and a breadstick for a lunch from work.  It was crazy that it immediately made my stomach gurgle and yell at me.  I just felt like I didn't have anything in the tank.  I'd like to try that again after fueling myself properly.  No wonder people that eat like that all the time feel like crap. 

Squat, lunge, burpee, repeat!

Yesterday I was looking up a bunch of inspirational quotes.  I love a good quote to get me through a workout.  Sometimes you can find the perfect one that you can use as a mantra when you don't think you can go on.  I even found one that I think is tattoo worthy.  Get ready for it:

PAIN OF DISCIPLINE
OR
PAIN OF REGRET

How good is that?!

Today's workout was an AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) in 20 minutes of:
135# back squats x 7
35# dumbbell overhead lunges in right hand x 10 steps
7 burpees
35# dumbbell overhead lunges in left hand x 10 steps

I did 6 rounds and got all the way to 7 burpees in the 7th round!
The fittest woman in the world and woman champion of the 2010 Crossfit games, Kristin Clever did this exact workout and did 10 rounds + 7 squats! 

Here is a video of some other crossfitters doing the workout.

I cashed out with some press work:
10 shoulder press @ 65#
8 push press @ 85#
6 push jerk @ 95#
6 push press @ 85#

Tabata Fundamentals part 1 and 2

CrossFit has 9 fundamental movements: airsquats, front squats, overhead squats, shoulder press, push press, push jerk, deadlift, sumo deadlift high pull and medicine ball cleans.  These are the basic movements that you should learn when starting Crossfit training.  You also learn proper coaching and correction of these movements in a level 1 certification course. 

The WOD from 2 days ago used a Rower, which I did not want to substitute sumo deadlift high pulls for since our gym doesn't have one.  I decided to Tabata the 9 fundamentals in rounds of 6, meaning 20 seconds of exercise, followed by 10 seconds of rest 6 times through for each exercise. 

I started with backsquats with the 45# bar, rested for 3-4 minutes then did front squats with 45#, then shoulder press then medicine ball cleans.  I honestly felt like my legs were jell-o more in the middle of a workout than they have in the recent past.  This killed me.  My total reps were 233. 
I decided to only do these 4 exercises and come back the next day to finish. 

I think the "Tabata Fundamentals" would be a great workout but maybe 4 rounds of each 9 exercises would be more manageable. 

The next day, Friday, I completed the rest of the exercises Tabata'd at 6 rounds each.  Overhead squat, push press, push jerk, deadlift and sumo deadlift high pull, all done with a 45# bar.  My total reps were 342.

After completing these I noticed a couple of things:
1.  My shoulders (and upper body in general) are still weak and have less endurance compared to my lower body.  For example, on my first round of shoulder press I did 14 reps, then 8, 6, 5, 4, and 4.  That's a big drop.
2.   I need to keep working on my hip mobility.  It's hard for me to go much deeper than parallel in a squat, my hips just don't move any more.  It is also probably core stability, or lack there-of that is keeping me from getting low.
3.  SumoDeadlift High pulls are a much bigger metabolic demand (they gas the hell out of you) than any of the other exercises.  Then next hardest would be medicine ball cleans. 

Goals for the next month or so:
1.  Perform pressing exercises as a cash out to improve strength and endurance at least 2 times per week.
2.  Do hip mobility exercises daily, especially in warm up
3.  Work on core stability 2 times per week.

O-Lifts, pull-ups and double unders

The workout for the 4th was two fold:
First, perform one rep max squat snatch



and a one rep max clean and jerk



Followed by As Many Rounds as Possible (AMRAP) in 10 minutes of:
Cleans @ 43kg x 6
Pullups x 12
Double unders x 24
I did: 4 rounds plus 1 clean

My maxes:
Snatch: 100
C & J: 120

To score you add the kilograms of the weight you maxed plus the reps of the WOD to get: 269

Double your pleasure

This workout had nothing to do with gum, unfortunately. 

Today's workout consisted of:
50 double unders
15 wall ball "two-fers" @ 16 lbs

A wall ball "two-fer" is when you throw the ball 10 feet up and do a real fast squat before you catch the ball again.  Wow! they were tough and took a lot of rythm that was really different than a regular wall ball. 

I did it in 11:44.
It was really tough and I haven't felt that drenched from a 12 minute workout in a long time.

Week's worth

I'm back.  It was a tough week.  I've been sleepy, burntout and ready for a little rest all week. 

Monday was a rest day, nice!
Tuesday I did "Roy"
5 rounds of:
155# deadlifts x 15
box jumps x 20
Pullups x 25
Time: 20:32

I loved doing this workout.  I figured out after the fact that I probably wasn't doing my box jumps to full extension at the top.  Meaning I didn't stand up straight.  I'll keep working at that next box jumps.
Another thing I found out was that using chalk on your hands is AWESOME!  It makes gripping the bar and pullups so much easier.  After 150 pullups and 75 deadlifts, I had no blisters.  Kelsa ended up going to REI and got some rock climbing chalk and a bag to hold it.  It's amazing stuff. 

Between then and today I didn't workout.  I basically just took 3/4 of a cycle off.  I was so tired and drained from work for some reason, I decided I needed a little recovery.  Saturday started the new cycle and I still needed a day off, especially since we were celebrating Kelsa's birthday.  (Cheesecake Factory!)

We decided to do a two a day.  This morning we did 4 rounds (6 prescribed) of 400 meter run and 25 burpees.  It was 89 degrees and 50% humidity and it sucked!!!!  It was also on a high school track, so the track surface plus the grass were making it even worse.  I wanted to do the 6 but the conditions were too gross.  It was the closest I had been to puking in a long time!

Time: 23:54
I was at my 100% max heart rate for a bit, that sucked.  I burned about 350 calories.

Workout two was 5 rounds of:
Cleans to thrusters @ 95# x 5
Chest to bar pullups x 10
Time: 9:39

This was a blast!!  My biceps felt on fire from the extra range of motion on the pullups.  I was also pumped about doing 95# clean thrusters.

I cashed out with max reps of 85# of:
Shoulder press x 3
Push press x 9
Push Jerk x 9

Shoulders = jell-o