My CrossFit Journal (Week 3)

My popeye arms (yes, plural) are back to normal. [Read about my swollen elbows from last week.]

Olive Oyl normal? Ha ha!!! I can workout regularly again! So I did, 5 days in a row in fact. WOA.

Day 1: Last Sunday’s workout was working with a ‘teammate’ and basically here’s the workout we did together.

1 set/round
30 Ring Dips Combined
150 Wall balls (while the other person held a plank – we didn’t EACH do 150, again it was combined)
30 Ring Dips Combined
150 Box Jumps (while the other person he
ld the “hollow hold” a difficult ab workout)
30 Ring Dips Combined

What the workout looked like:

______________________________________________

Day 2: Monday’s workout was as many sets as you could do in 15 minutes, but since there was only a few of us doing the 15 minute round and everyone else was doing 20, we decided to not stop. But first the warmup —oh brotha, we had to skip 300 times, do inchworms back and forth, then push ups, and after that lunges. Sweating before we even start!

AMRAP (As many reps as possible)
75 skips (can I tell you right now, that I used to be awesome at Double Dutch skipping as a kid, now I can barely skip 15 times in a row!)
5 dead lifts (T and I were teamed up so we used 75lbs)
75 skips
10 kettlebell swings (I used 8kg kettlebell)

I was annoyed with this workout because the skipping slowed me down. I had to stare at a spot on the wall and just concentrate on keeping everything timed perfectly. I can’t wait to be able to do double unders (swing the rope twice and jumping only once. BAM! Looks hard.), but at the moment when I try DU’s the rope smacks my butt pretty hard and stings lol.

What the workout looked like:

______________________________________________

Day 3: The warm up we ended up doing on Tuesday left me gasping for air and sweating like a guy. It was great. We even had the choice to run outside or do 40 mountain climbs. I wasn’t looking forward to the run outside, but my friend convinced me! I took photos of the warm up and our workout scale (apparently that’s the name of it, right?). I think I got it right. Either that or scale means the lower (‘easier’) workout.

I tweeted right as I drove to another gym to pick up my Boyf who was doing interval run training, and I tweeted this. I worked out so hard and so fast this night, I wanted to feel that PUSH again.

(Note: I did not barf. Just felt the need to lol)

Lots of laps in there, and we were givin’er too on the laps! Here was our scheduled workout:

I guess there was a second warmup too, since we had to do 100 three times of cross over skipping, or double unders—which is near impossible for me since the skipping rope keeps whipping my legs and butt, literally. It stings!

AMRAP (As many rounds as possible)
12 Pistols (basically squat with one leg – we didn’t go as low as the photo shows lol)
10 Burpees
8 Supine Pull-ups

What the workout looked like:

The workout was apparently only 12 minutes long, but you had to punch out as many rounds as you could. Since my supines were on the way-easy side this day, I was going super fast because I was almost standing up. Ugh. The trainer told me to do it this way til I got used to the technique, since we both didn’t want me to injure my elbows again and have them swell up. I ended up doing NEARLY five rounds, I finished my burpees just when the clocked beeped and we had to stop. Can I just say one thing? I freaking love burpees. I was speeding through those like no other. Loved it. The pistols however, left my legs weak at the end of the workout.

_____________________________________________

Day 4: Wednesday’s WOD (Workout of the day!) My ITB or whatever that ligament is called along the side of the kneecap gets easily irritated. Therefor I had to do a modified workout this day.I don’t remember a lot of the warmup, but I know we had to do planks in there

AMRAP in 12 minutes. Can I just say I’m kinda getting tired of pumping out as many reps as possible in a quick amount of time? I like counting down some days, lol maybe tomorrow will be different.
10 push ups
10 kettle bell front squats

I managed to do 7.5 rounds (meaning finished the push ups in time but not starting the squats.  I ended up using a 16kg kettlebell and nearly dropped the darn thing numerous times. It was a difficult one! Also starting to love push ups, probably because I can do them fast. But only fast on my knees.

What the workout looked like:

This is what everyone else was doing instead of my kettle bell squats. I forget what this was called:

Thanks google images! (Psst, check out her awesome abs)

_____________________________________________

Day 5: OH MY GOD. 5 work outs in 5 days. This was what I had originally planned. I’m not as sore, or as tired as I thought I would be. But my hands have taken a beating. Reminds me of the climbing days!

We did “death by pull ups”, which wasn’t hard as it actually sounded. Probably because I was told to stop due to the ripping on my hands. You start off with one whole minute to do 1 pull up, then wait til the clock hits 2mins, and you do 2 pullups. 3rd minute – 3 pullups. I made it to 12 minutes and I felt that I could keep going. Don’t think I’m a super strong chick who can just do pull ups on her own. I was using this elastic band type of thing where you put your foot in it and it takes off 50 or 70lbs off your weight, so it makes it incredibly easy.

I’m not sure I’ll be posting photos in the week, unless the wordy post gets to you and you’re not interested without a some photos. But let me know if you guys are interested in me updating these workouts to go with the photos. It took a lot of work these last three weeks to find the correct photos and post them.

Should I keep posting photos of CrossFit workouts?

Yes, I love knowing what exercises are what.

No, I can look them up if I’m that interested.

Doesn’t matter to me!

pollcode.com free polls

POLL EMBEDDED for those that read via google rss.

Continue Reading

My CrossFit journal (Week 2)

Last Sunday was the start of week 2 (Day 5). Sunday CrossFit consisted of a warm up that left me thinking we were done the entire workout. My face was started to drip of sweat. TMI? I apologize. But it’s true. We ended up doing mountain climbs, push ups and some other stuff that I’d like to forget, haha.

Workout was SUPER amazing on this day.

3 rounds: 21, 15 and 9 the last round
SDLHP (Sumo Deadlift High Pull)
Supines (pull ups on rings)

Finish your 21 SDLHP’s then go and do 21 Supines, then back to SDLHP’s and do 15, then 15 supines, and so on. What it looks like:

Thanks google images!

(Jumping was not part of our SDLHP’s today.. only decent photo I could find). Incredible. My forearms are pumped like I just went climbing. Brings back some good memories :)

Monday‘s warm up was a workout on it’s own. We ended up skipping rope for 20 seconds on 10 seconds off, we did that twice in a row then headed to do sit ups of 20sec on 10sec off, next was the kettle ball swings. I only did 8kg’s since it was the lightest weight I could find. 20 seconds on of course, then 10 off – do twice. We had to do that whole round three times and our warm up was then done. Sweatin’ buckets. Our workout was basically set up into two sections, men and womens. The women all took turns doing back squats adding weight to the 45lb bar each time. Since I was brand new only starting last week, the trainer took me aside and told me I’ll only be working with him on technique and not adding any extra weight. Well by the end of it I had weight on it. I did 3 back squats of just the 45lb bar. Then he went to the men’s side to ‘coach’ (i don’t know?) them, then the women’s then back to me. I added on 5lbs to each side, so now up to a 55lb weight. It was very difficult! At the end of the hour I went up to my limit which was 65lbs in total. That’s all he pushes you to, your limit. That evening I went to bed and woke up around 6am to let my dog out to pee and my arms would not go straight. They were perma-bent. It felt as if my elbow would crack right off if I bent. It was pretty painful. In fact, even when I woke up for 8am my elbows looked very swollen. Funny how your body isn’t used to certain muscles being used.

Icing my elbow Tuesday evening.

What the back squat looks like:

Tuesday oh yes, I went in even when my elbows felt like busting off. 7 crossfit classes in 9 days means its safe to say I love it. However I was given a modified workout this day as I showed my trainer that my elbows were twice the size as they normally are. He just gave me a quick cardio workout that had me out of breath. SUPAFAST. He told me my elbows were probably swollen from Sunday’s workout with the supines and SDLHP.

8 rounds
Squats on medicine ball: 20 seconds on, 10 sec rest. Do it 8x FASTFASTFAST.
Next was sit ups. Shoulder blades back to the ground. He sat on my feet as they were lifting a bit. 20 seconds on, 10 second rest.

So my workout was basically done in 8 minutes or so. Well worth it. I iced my arms that evening and wrapped bandages on it.

Wednesday’s photos of swollen elbow and having it wrapped a wee bit too tight. It wasn’t painful at all. Just swollen and hard. I decided to take a few days off from working out. I didn’t go to CrossFit much last week and took 4 days off and went this morning. My elbows were back to normal on Thursday and Friday. SO STRANGE.

Now I’m off to cook some late night supper while my Boyfriend looks at installing some home automation systems in our apartment. I really dislike that our landlord came in twice into our apartment (in 6yrs) unannounced. Plus, we’re switching our internet provider this week and another stranger will be coming along. Hide those precious belongings!

Continue Reading

My CrossFit journal (Week 1)

The blog post is about my CrossFit on Day 3 and 4. View Day 1 and day 2.

Ah! There’s too much on the go! I need to blog on the weekends now, ha.

My 3rd beginner class was on Thursday. Again, I was the only one there so it was basically like a Personal Training sesh. I learned how to do a proper deadlift and work my technique with again, a PVC plastic weightless bar, until I worked my way up to the 15lb bar with some weights on it. I think it had 10lb’s on each side. Not too bad, as you were lifting it with your lower back, glutes and hamstrings. Not to worry Mom (and Boyfriend), he was watching me to make sure I didn’t do anything wrong so I don’t get hurt.

He set the timer for 20:00, and told me to finish my three rounds by then. I like this guy, he makes you work faster, and harder to get the workout done without taking a break. I wanted to stop so bad at the third round and I was feeeelin’ it.

This is what I did:

3 rounds
500meter row
21 jump box (literally, jump onto a box, and off the box. It’s not quite to my knees)
12 deadlifts at 35lbs

What they all look like:

Thanks google images!

Getting to 500 meters on the rowing machine was a pain in the you know what. Even in the first round! I always needed to take a breather before going to the jump box, because my breathing was compromised since I seriously never know how to breath correctly when doing cardio. He chatted to me about this after the fact and said it’d we’ll be working on my breathing since I’m only breathing in AND out of my mouth, and not breathing in through my nose, out through the mouth.

My first ‘regular’ class was Friday night at 6pm, straight after work. No time to get nervous, no time to pych mysefl out and freak out. I was a bit disappointed in my self with this class, as I felt I didn’t push myself hard enough. The workout consisted of:

5 rounds

10 knee to elbow (while hanging on the bar)
10 pushups
20 paralet jumps
10 kettle ball front squat at 8kg’s

What they all look like:

So my first week of CrossFit is over. So far — addicting. Maybe I’ll update this each Sunday. Hmm… still don’t know how to do this yet without bombarding my website with everything CrossFit related.

Continue Reading