Rainy Saturday made it a great day for some recovery work, as long as it didn’t involve my abs, haha! (see yesterday’s wod) Great playlist with Eminem, Bob Marley and Jack Johnson. By the end, I was down for the count. When I opened my eyes from a deep shava-asana, I realized the entire class left 10 minutes ago, lol!
21-15-9 rep rounds of
“L” sit (hold for seconds)
GHD Sit-ups
Knees to Elbows
Abmat “curl-ups”
Today’s class rocked! Great group of people, everyone cheering each other on. Really good crew! Learned a few new moves tonight, the “L” sit and GHD sit ups. Great support too from the other experienced cross fitters. My goodness, I have a feeling the “L” hold is where it’s at. As I’m struggling through the first 2 seconds, I realize that at this same time, Friday night, a month ago, I’m typically down 3 pitchers and 2 nachos at the local happy hour. Tonight, I’m praying for daylight after 2 seconds on the L-sits. Am I in a better place? Not sure yet, LOL! Anyways, although it’s my only 5th wod they just seem to just get better and better. I dug the warm-ups way more than expected. Flashed the ropes, but it was all downhill after. Got some good pointers on the OH lunges and the hang’n KTE’s. Rain was pounding hard on the gym roof, contributing to a fantastic Friday workout vibe! Sweet way to start the weekend!
Learned a little about foot strikes today and got some helpful feedback from Becca on the topic. I really enjoy reading the daily posts the gym places on the homepage; I get a lot of insight from them. Wanted to try out the running technique today, but I used the excuse that it was raining. Did some of those Bergemer drills again, and worked my technique on the rower. Hit the walls later. Started on the top rope, and failed a 5.10c and a 5.10b/c right off the bat. Went to arch and gassed out again on the orange 5.10a lead (same route from Tues). However, felt better after cleaning the green 5.9 arch and a “confidence booster” 5.8 white lead. Chose the 5.10 black (all tips) to end the workout, but couldn’t clean that one either. Still, such a fun workout. Headed home to enjoy the rain that we’re getting. Looking forward to my next wod this weekend.
Still recovering from the drunken chicken aka roving bear. Took it easy today. Bugener warmups, some stretching. Jumped rope for 30 minutes, and then rolled around on the foam stick for a while. Ahhhhh.
Yup, completely sore from the previous day’s roving bear wod. In fact, I got muscles that I didn’t even knew existed that are completely sore. Did some conditioning warm ups including saddle jump squats, 10m sprints and my newest weapon, the burgener warm-up – courtesy of Jonesy. I’m going to try to add the burgener to my daily routine regardless of workout. Anyways, back to the wall. All lead climbing tonight. I tried to top a 10c/d but failed at the crux. Attempted the orange 10a arch for the first time, made it, but not clean. Regardless, I did better than I thought I would and it was a sweet route. I followed it up by flashing the green 9.0. Overall, a great set and good times!
I was like a kid in a candy store today! I got to do a bunch of moves that I’ve been dying to learn. In fact, just about everything in class today, including the warm ups were brand new for me. I was stoked. OH Squats (keep the bar in a straight slot coming down), GHD Back extensions (think snake vertebrae movements), Abmats (butt on the ground, not the mat; butterflied legs). The wod was the roving bear, I used 20# dbs. Those things ended up weighing a ton halfway into the workout. The class was fantastic. Got great instruction and the vibe and encouragement from others was awesome. Established a baseline now. I’m going to do this one again on my own at some point. Given my experience with my first 4 wods, I’m sure I’ll be feeling it all over when I wake up tomorrow. In fact, starting to feel it now…
2/1/9 Sun
Rest Day
Hungover from my first ever Tabatas. Chest sore, hammys sore. Anyone know a good remedy?
Wow! What a gorgeous day outside today. Typical weather, 72 and sunny. Rode from my apt. which added 10 km to the round trip. Views of the Pacific Ocean at 2000 feet makes this one of my favorite rides. Rode the route clean, which I was stoked about, especially on two of the steep uphill tails. First time keeping track of time, distance and height. (a new habit from CF) Lots of shale on the track. Front tire felt a little squirrely and rear brakes are soft. Been meaning to check on those.
8 Tabata intervals, score the lowest number per round, 1 minute rest between rounds. So, I’ve been around for almost 2 weeks now, and have always heard whispers of the word Tabata, but figured I’d just run into it sooner or later. Today was sooner. LOL! Long story short; today’s Tabata workout is being chalked up as a “learning experience” for me. Class was awesome, coached by Michael. Super instruction on the form and technique, which really helps me a lot. Got some good work on the deadlifts (keep chest up) and KTE (first time, I need to remember to hang with my arms straight). Not really sure what I think about of the jumping pull ups; if they are supposed to be easier than normal pull-ups I don’t know what to make of my score of 2. Started out good, then hit my first wall at about the 3rd or 4th round of deadlifts. By the time I got to the chest presses, those seemed to last forever. 30# felt like 300# very quickly. Really faded on the pullups. Started at 7, but was all downhill from there. Was struggling just to match my low of 2. haha.
1/30/9 Fri 5:00
Santa Monica Stairs
Complete 2 rounds for time of: 33:02
Stairs 1-2-3
25 pushups
10 pullups
Hit every step the first time up, every other step the second time up, and every third step on the last. Always jogging down 1 step at a time. That’s 1 set. After completion of stairs, 25 pushups, followed by 10 pullups. Repeat.
LOL! When I originally decided to try this I was shooting for 3-5 rounds, but once I hit the 30 minute mark I realized how in over my head I was and called it a day at 2 rounds. Regarding the stairs alone, by the time I’m halfway through 3-steps my legs are on fire and I can barely breathe. Pull ups are another weak spot for me as well as I faded after 5 reps both times. May have to modify this, next time out. Anyways, it was nice to be outside at least.
Trying to do the wod on the home page of the site on my own, when not at the classes; but have been really hesitant due to not knowing the proper form (a very large percentage of these CF exercises are brand new for me), not having the right equipment, or just still completely sore from prior wods. Finally decided to stop making excuses and gave this one a shot. I didn’t have a spotter or medicine ball, and w/o any squatting experience, I approached it on a “safety first” basis. I enjoyed the workout, but when it was over I was a little disappointed that I wasn’t laying face down in my own pile of sweat, unlike every time when I do the wod with the class. Just being patient for now. Would probably be fair to give myself a CF learning curve of at least a month before I start diving in head first into the wods.
1/28/9 Wed 5:45
Recovery Day
What the …! Still sore! Not as much as the legs and lower back, but now my upper back and shoulders are dead. Jumped rope for 30 minutes, did some conditioning drills including a few full pistols (pr!) and jogged to the beach and back (3km)
1/27/9 Tue 6:30
Recovery Day
OMG! I was really feeling it all day and will probably still into tomorrow. Good thing Andy had us do pigeon poses before the dead lifts! Legs, sore. Lower back, sore. Chest, sore. Wasn’t good for too much of anything today. Spent about 20 minutes with some deep stretching. Leg cross over twists, upside down frog stretches and sitting bend overs. Played around on the wall a little with a short traverse. Tried to tackle some boulder problems, V0s and V1s but felt really weak on the rocks.
Complete 5 rounds for time of: 17:08
10 Deadlifts - 135#
10 Dips
200m run
...so I was on the fence about whether to come in tonight or stall until tomorrow. So stoked, I came in. This was my 3rd WOD and for the first time we used weights. Sweeet! I’ve been looking forward to learning any o-lift since signing up, so I was pretty excited. Andy coached the class, it was fantastic. The warm up was great. Learned some new moves, including wall squats and the scorpion. I had no idea what the scorpion was, so I let my imagination run with it. Turned out not to be as bad as anticipated, as I prepared for the worst. Andy gave the option of ring dips for the WOD. I thought about giving those a try, as I’ll try anything once. My dreams were instantly shattered as I realized I couldn’t even get up on the rings. Oh well, baby steps for now.
1/25/9 Sun
Rest Day
Legs are completely dead. But it’s so nice outside. Want to get up in the mountains for a bike ride, but can’t do it. Maybe a short run instead. McDonald’s is about a mile away and Big Mac’s are on sale, 2 for 3 bucks. Nope, legs aren’t having any of it. Score; Crossfit: 1, McDonald’s: 0
1/24/9 Sat 10:30
Yogahop
Feeling a little beat up from my first week at CF and my first two WOD. Haven’t done shava-asana for about 4 weeks, so my body will probably thank me for it. Couldn’t believe how packed class was. Both rooms overflowed. Playlist was great, a little Sergio Menedes/Black Eyed Peas mix. I think I’m getting a little stronger with the legs. CF? I wonder where I’ll be in a few months. Maybe warrior 3. Nice.
Complete 5 rounds for time of: 29:31
25 Wall ball shots
15 Pull-ups
25 Box Jumps
because of the size of class, i started with the pull-ups. Used purple rubber bands. Jonesy taught me the wall balls and box jumps. used the orange ball (14lbs?). I was excited to try wall balls, since having never done those. Man, they were a lot tougher than they look, but are probably my fave out of the three. Having some trouble working with the form of jumping back off the box. I surprised myself that I actually completed 5 rounds. The entire workout was such a blur and with so much going on, i hope i didn’t skip a couple rounds. haha. I really enjoyed this set.
Also, the warm up was very good too. I got some great instruction on the rower and the slow-mo push-ups and squats were something fun and new.
I felt so good after the workout. This was my second wod. I did one the other monday, which was also a really good one.
It was my first time with kettles and didn’t really get the hang of it initially. Dawn helped with the technique. By the end, the kettles were my favorite. I think I used 10 or 14kg. It was my first AMRAP ever so needless to say I got scrambled up at times moving from one exercise to the next and losing count and flipping the order.
I also really liked one of the warm up exercises we did, a windmill of some sort. I’m much weaker in the right. Tried to practice some more of those the next day, but shoulders were too sore from the wod. lol!
