Month: August 2012

it is what it is

Holy moly… After yesterdays fatigue on the good ol’ TRICEPS I thought they would be dead but they were not. It’s my chest and rotator cuffs (maybe) that are FRIED. Which in turn probably hindered me this morning at the BOOM Box.

Our scheduled programming was … drum roll please … CROSSFIT TOTAL! I recall sometime in my early days of CrossFit that I did this once. I could not find it written down or blogged anywhere. And I can’t recall for the life of me what I did. Today however was loud and clear. I had high hopes and left with disappointment then came to terms with it and hope that in 8 weeks when we do this again that I’ll have higher numbers.

8/31/12 WOD

For all my lovely readers who don’t know what CFT is then I’ll explain. You do 1 Rep Max of Back Squat, Press and Deadlift. You get 3 attempts at each movement to get the biggest lift. At the end you add up your lifts and voila, whatever number you have is your CrossFit Total.

With each movement we started out with a solid warm up at lighter weights. I have been struggling with Back Squat recently and decided to do my 1st attempt 135lbs which lower than my current PR. My 2nd attempt was at 145lbs (current PR) and I used a weight belt which was wonderful! I felt really good at 145lbs. So I jumped to 155 for my 3rd attempt. Got down to the bottom and gave everything I had to get up but couldn’t do it.

With Press I was feeling a 5lb PR was on it’s way and boy oh boy was I wrong. I didn’t eve get to my current PR which was really lame-o. I had trouble with getting my breathing timed right with the press. 65 seemed simple. 70 was HARD today.

We finish with Deadlift. Dude I’ve been stuck at 185 Deadlift for what seems like FOREVER! Today was going to be the day to break it. But NOOOOO! 195 was not budging. I guess my LIES to myself aren’t good enough yet. But they will be and I will finally move some weight DAMN IT!

With all of that said and explained, KNOW this isn’t a poor poor petri session. This is a I GET it and I MISSED it today but I’m NOT giving up or throwing in the towel or even settling for being subpar. Just gotta move on and work harder!

I will say I witnessed and have been reading FB posts of other BOOM Box ladies AND they are killing it! PR Factory at the BOOM! Even though I’m a little envious, I’m super proud of them all! Way to go LADIES, and MEN too if you are crushing it. I can tell you it’s truly amazing to see the progress in everyone and I hope to find some strength from that!

It’s the weekend y’all! Football and REST for us. Go ARLINGTON THUNDER! Yay for 3 DAY WEEKENDS! If you’re local…. BOOM BOX COMMUNITY WOD 9am MONDAY!!!!!! COME OUT and PLAY with US! and BE so AWESOME that it makes others sick!

Tricep Death Thursday

It was one of those mornings where I really debated going to the Box. I didn’t know the workout for the day, I was just sleepy and well more sleepy. It turned out to be one of those mornings where I was glad I didn’t give into my bed’s temptations, telling me to stay a while longer. My triceps however may not be so happy I made the choice to get my sleepy butt into the BOOM BOX!

 

 

 

Skill/Strength: Headstand work
Let’s roll back the clocks to my youth where you found out how magical it was to learn to do a headstand. You make yourself a little tripod, find your balance and get those legs in the air. I could headstand forever, I just wish I could handstand forever.

We worked on this for balance and the position of our hands. More specifically I learned the hand position is key to getting us better at Handstand Push Ups, which by the way I thought I was close to getting. I also learned that I’m am far far away from such things! We tried pushing up from our cute Headstands and well the floor didn’t move and I didn’t budge. Something to work on indeed!

8/30/12 WOD

MetCon: Team WOD 5 rounds: 1 minute of Max Reps Floor Press @65lbs, 1 min of Max Reps Bar Wipes, 30 sec switch then repeat for partner. So all in all we each did 5 rounds and kept a continuous count of our reps. The RX was 85lbs which I could physically do but barely, so we dropped to 65lbs so we could get some work in. The goal is Max Reps so I was ready to go or so I thought I was!

Floor Press

This is a short video demo of Bar Wipes aka as Floor Wipers. We didn’t tap the ground in the middle though.

I didn’t expect the Floor Press to get me. I think I only managed 8 in the first minute so I had to pick up the pace with the Bar Wipes. After your minute is up with the Floor Press you hold the bar up and bring your legs up and around as if they are windshield wipers and just keep going back and forth till your minute is up. I don’t recall exactly how many reps I got between the 2 movements but it was 26 or 27. My teammate Andrea got under the bar and freaking KILLED it. She got like 15 reps in Floor Press and 16 or 17 bar wipes for a total of 32 or 33. Like I said I can’t remember, I should have taken a picture. Since I knew I was sucking at the Floor Press I had to pick up the pace with the Bar Wipes. Between the two of us we only got better or stayed the same. Maybe just off 1 or 2 reps. It was a fight but by my 5th round I did something like 14 Floor Press….. way better than my first round!!! Mentally I finally kicked it into high gear on a movement I am really weaker at. It felt good. We finished with a total of 307 reps. By the 5th round it was hard to hold the bar up for the Bar Wipes but we survived. My arms are JELLO and probably will fall off in my sleep!

Woooo for Thursday! It’s almost the weekend and I know that’s what we are all WORKIN FOR! Have a BEAUTIFUL DAY and BE CRAZY AWESOME!!!

I may have already posted this one, my memory fails me but none the less it still makes me smile!

Confidence… Where are you?

Last week we had that Power Clean WOD, it has left a bad taste in my mouth and I’m sad because I really enjoy Cleans. I can not find the confidence to drop under the damn bar. It’s truly frustrating. I understand the movement, at lighter weights I can do it but once I put any sort of weight on the bar I FAIL. I can muscle it all up but that’s not the point. Coach knows I can do it. I feel I CAN do it but when action is required I shut down. And I don’t do it on purpose! This morning was a much better showing than on Friday, but I still wasn’t in good form.

Skill/Strength: 4 x 200m sprints. Well shitfire… my hips burned on all of these runs which in reality was a 50m sprint and 50m run and 100m jog. I couldn’t keep up the pace today. Overall I just felt weak.

8/28/12 WOD

MetCon: 8 Rounds 3 Hang Cleans @ 85lbs, 3 Bar Facing Burpees
Like I said up front, Cleans are my kryptonite right now. I am still feeling the aftermath of last week and disappointing myself. I was determined to not have the same failures but I was slow to pick up the bar today and just lacked confidence. After a fail in the 3rd or 4th round, I finally got pissed off enough to just do the work. I wish I had gone into the WOD with that mindset. I know I should ALWAYS be ready to kill it but it took me a bit to wind up. With that said I can’t be upset with my time. By the way, HANG CLEANS not the same fun as POWER CLEANS. Time: 6:37

FOOD
I’ve been trying to be better prepared for the week food-wise. Granted it’s only the second day of school but I got dinner out pretty quickly last night because I had my skirt steak already marinating from Sunday, had a chicken defrosted and ready to roast and have ground beef and sirloin ready to go for this evening. It’s work but I’ve been trying to be efficient. Hopefully I can keep this up without getting burned out. Thankfully the kids are super helpful but again it’s only Day 2 of the school year. I did manage to get a picture of their lunches today. Yay for CLEAN eating!

Roasted Chicken, Cherry Tomatoes, Hard Boiled Egg, Carrots, Grapes, Berries, Peaches. I did realize a little too late that they needed some GREEN foods but I forgot. Sigh!

Have a super day. And you all know it, say it with me: BE AWESOME!

Monday and so much to Talk about!

Here in our little world it’s the first day of school! Yippee and Boohooo. It’s great for the kids to see all their friends and get back into a routine and it’s sad because they are growing up soooo fast! It’s part of it, I know, but sad.

And it’s also back on track for eating clean. Last week I declared it was take a break week and that is what I did. I ate clean most of the time during the week but the dinners and the weekend weren’t the best. But I figure I can give myself that little bit. So I’m back at it and with that said so are the kids. They all asked to pack Paleo lunches instead of buying the cafeteria lunch. I’m really proud of them to make such decisions. I should of course taken pics but I forget to do these things. They took hearty salads and yummy fruit bowls. Maybe tomorrow I’ll snap some pics!

Boom Box
I woke up this morning feeling pretty good. But I knew FRAN was waiting for me at the box and I wasn’t ready for her. I had a week of eating like crap. I haven’t done Fran since January and I’m a big ol baby so ya, I wasn’t ready! I did a few warm up thrusters and that felt fine. Adding the weight was a little much for my right shoulder though. It’s just tender and achy and I decided I would go ahead with the 65lbs. Before I go further let me tell you about FRAN. It’s 21-15-9 of Thrusters and Pull Ups as fast as you can do it. So you do 21 thrusters, 21 pullups, 15 thrusters, 15 pullups, 9 thrusters and 9 pullups. Coach told us we should do 15 unbroken in the first round of thrusters. I managed to do this! Woohooo. I wasn’t sure if I would make it to 15 but I did and then the 6 after that weren’t so bad. Pull ups on the other hand were a pain in the ass. I struggled BAD. Got back to thrusters and did 7 and 8, they weren’t the prettiest but I got the job done. The 15 pull ups got super ugly. I was only managing one at a time. The shoulder was fatigued and I am a baby. Got through my 9 thrusters much better than the 15 rep round. I guess I got more rest in the pull ups. And of course I struggled even more with last round of pull ups. Time 9:48. Those darn pull ups. Argh. I did however PR. I’m not super proud of it because I know I should be better at pull ups by now 😦 But back on New Year’s Day I finished in 10:30. At least I’m getting better and not worse!

8/27/12 WOD

Saturday Community WOD
We had a straight up beat down at our Saturday Fun Day! It was a team WOD of 75 OHS (med ball), 400m run, 150 burpee box jumps, 400m run, 250 push ups, 400m runn, 300 sit ups. We had a good team strategy by breaking everything up into smaller sets per person. Our biggest struggle was the run. I am sad to say that I am one of the weaker links when it comes to running. We had to wait for the whole team to finish the run before we could start the next movements. Our team did really well and we pushed through to the end. We finished around 23 minutes and finished first! Woohooo. It was definitely work!

Oly Class
Class was all about the Split Jerk. Good thing it was from the rack because I was not ready for any type of Cleans after the hell I went through on Friday. I felt pretty good in regards to form and technique. I have some issues with locking my hips but overall I felt good about it. I worked up to 105lbs and failed at 115lbs. I believe I could get 115 but I think with being smoked from the 9am WOD and then working in the Oly class it was plain and simple I had nothing left to give. I’m glad I am putting in the time to the Oly class. Every bit helps!

Beautiful Blogger Award
I don’t get many awards but this weekend I was given a Beautiful Blogger Award by Andy over at Our Life in 3D! Thank you Andy. It is really nice to be acknowledged for my little blog. I mean after all, being told your AWESOME always makes you feel good! He received the same award because he too is a beautiful blogger! He shares his precious daughters with us and adventures of being a Dad. He also shares fun bits of randomness that we all can enjoy whether you’re a parent or not.

With this award I was given some things to do: A) Write ten interesting things about myself, B) Nominate other bloggers who I feel deserve this award, C) Let them know about the nomination!

A) First of all I don’t think I have 10 interesting things to tell you about myself. But I’ll try.
1. You all know this but I’m a mom of 3 boys. That in itself leads to an interesting life and lots of stories.

2. I once owned about a dozen snakes and about a dozen lizards. This was all before kids and it was a big daily chore to tend to all the critters.

3. I have raced in on 2 motocross races. One for a Mother’s day fun race and one that I actually entered like a ding dong head on a Yamaha 250. I didn’t come in last so that made me feel a little better but I was at the bottom. I’m glad I did it though.

4. I used to work at Starbucks and it’s been the best job I have ever had EVER and if I could make more money being a Barista I sooo would do that for a living.

5. I had my own Graphic Design business, more of a freelance thing but I did a handful of jobs before my marriage fell apart. If only I had given it more time then maybe I’d still be doing my own thing. Hard to do though when you are trying to start over in life with 2 kids and one on the way.

6. I dream of taking my kiddos to hike Mt. Kilimanjaro. I saw an IMAX movie about it and saw that it’s a feasible hike for inexperienced hikers and for all ages.

That’s all I can come up with. I’m sure I have more interesting things about me but I don’t know what they are! Now for the folks I keep tabs on and you should too:

Wine to Weightlifting: It’s all about getting stronger with Jennifer. She’s taken on weightlifting and she loves it. She works hard, takes on different programs and kills them.

The Sexi Flexi: This girl probably has got this award more than once. And deservedly so… she shares her food porn, her adventures in life and work and her personal side as well. She’s embraces life and it shows.

CutlFit: I’m sure this blog has this as well but it’s all about sharing here and I check in daily, multiple times a day! It’s all about living life with CultFit. Enjoying it, laughing at it and taking time for the small stuff.

Whatup Chickenbutt: Check this chica out. She’s funny, sarcastic, honest and will tell you how it is! She shares her obsession with lifting heavy shit and proves that you won’t turn all “manly” with weightlifting. She leads a BUSY life and still manages to find the time to get strong.

CjackPlay: If you want food, fitness and fashion then head on over to this blog. She shares her results, recipes and fun hair, makeup, etc tips. Unlike me, you can be girly!

Check all these bloggers out. Tell them I said HI and follow them religiously like I do.

That’s Monday folks! Enjoy it and Be AWESOME!!!

Just read their shirts… They too live in AWESOMENESS!

CrossFit-iversary–BOOM!

Awww man, It’s been a year since I started drinking the Kool-Aid! It was at Europa last year that I was exposed to this insanity we call CrossFit in person, face to face with athletes competing. It was then that Ernie had already had his taste for only a week or two. It was then that I met Grant for the first time. It was then that I said I would give CrossFit a chance. August 23, 2011 was actually my first get my butt up outta bed at 4:30 am for my first 5 am workout! And I haven’t stopped since. I’ve been dedicated and determined! With the exception of sleeping in once, being sick for a week, and then one day recently being sickly I have not missed a beat. Ya I’ll give myself a GOLD STAR for that! I can’t pat myself on the back though for my performance on all of those days because some days I just didn’t bring it or sometimes I felt like dying but I have shown up day in an day out.

Thanks again Grant and all the BOOM Boxers for being there, being supportive and being good friends!

I seriously could write a lot about this past year and well I guess I pretty much have with this blog. I had only wished I had actually started blogging when I ACTUALLY started CrossFit but alas I did not. So let the tears of happiness dry out and let me get to the nitty gritty of this morning – it’s not pretty!

Skill/Strength: TABATA Strict Pull Ups and Push Ups. I still don’t have a pullup so I busted out the GREEN and BLUE band. Started off strong and I guess too strong because Coach had me let go of the blue band. I sucked with the green only so I went back to both. Next time I MUST start with GREEN only then get the blue band assistance if needed. I’m not complaining because I know this is a necessary EVIL. How is one to master pull ups if one is not trying harder? This grasshopper will learn. Either way, this morning PULLUPS were NO BUENO.

After the 8 rounds of Pull Ups we moved to 8 rounds of Hand Release Push Ups. Again you start off really strong and by the end you are wanting to CRY. TABATA is no joke. It will kick your ass, give you a break and KICK YOUR ASS some more. For those of you new to the term TABATA I can tell you that you do work for 20 seconds then rest for 10 seconds. You do this for 8 rounds which is 4 minutes. The idea behind it is that you’ll do more work in the 4 minutes this way than if you went “hardcore” for 4 minutes without a break. That’s all I know. Oh ya besides that it will KICK YOUR ASS.

8/24/12 WOD

MetCon: Oh ya there was still a MetCon, I was already ready to go home! 5 rounds of 15 Power Cleans in ONE minute followed by ONE minute Rest. RX 95lbs, MY weight 85lbs then dropped to 75lbs. SIGH. I warmed up, worked my way up to 85lbs, did 3 reps, it felt good. I knew 95 would hurt and I probably wouldn’t get 15 reps in one minute. So 85 lbs for me. I almost forgot to mention that if you FAIL and don’t get the 15 reps you get to run 800m. I did not want to fail! Well as life would have it, I busted out 5 reps fairly ok and then it went downhill from there. I can’t recall 100% but I think I got 9 or 10. That’s ONE 800m run waiting for me. Coach asked me if I got this at the 85lbs. I assured him I did. I got to the bar and did 5 again and although I was a little better in the next 5 it ended up only being 10 AGAIN! I was not a happy camper. I wanted it so bad to get the damn bar up and I just FAILED! So Coach had me drop to 75lbs. So finally I get my 15 reps within the minute. WOOHOOO. I’m good, so far I only owe 1 mile in running. UNTIL I FAILED at the next TWO rounds :/ I got 13 and 11 for those last two rounds. I just sucked. That’s all there is to it. I changed out of my OLY shoes, put my runnin shoes on and said see y’all tomorrow, ha, 2 MILES! I hate running as many of you know. I didn’t even time myself. I did the penalty work and that’s all I can say for myself. Big disappointment after my DIG DEEP, STEP IT UP, TRAIN ISN’T STOPPING talk. Let’s just say there was a cow on the tracks, the train took a break. It’ll pick back up!

It’s the WEEKEND! If you’re in Arlington come on out to the BOOM Box tomorrow, Saturday, 8/25, at 9 am! Come play with us at the Community WOD. It’s always fun! If you’re not in Arlington the FIND a box that does FREE FUN SATURDAYS! or just go the park and play! Have an INSANE weekend. Enjoy LIFE! BE AWESOME!

I WORK OUT!

Dude I don’t even listen to that song by LMFAO but you hear it, EVERYWHERE and that one little line “I WORK OUT” gets stuck in my brain and never leaves!

Before I recap today’s BOOMerific morning, I just want to say that the SPLIT SQUAT with 75lbs that we did on Tuesday has rendered my gluteus maximus dead! I get just as sore or even worse on other body parts but the split squat got me good. And coming in to the Box this morning with all that soreness I wasn’t sure I would be able to hang. Fortunately after warming up you kind of forget the pain you are in ツ

Skill/Strength: 5 x 1 Front Squat @ 90% of 1RM. That brought me to 120 for my weight. We gradually worked up to that weight and overall I did alright. I tend to lean forward to much before I come back up but I seriously do NOT feel it. I can feel it in a back squat but not in the front squats. I still did them and they got easier as I got closer to the 5th rep which is a good thing right?

We had an added PUSH UP bonus – Diamond Pushups. Aww man, I know what these are but I have never done them at the box or done them strict. I’ve always gone with the girly knees on the ground version. So today we had to do 50! in a row! I underestimated the suck that comes with them. Gave coach a good laugh though and I didn’t do them with my knees on the ground. It took me a while but I got them completed. I know my triceps will hate me in the morning!

Diamond Pushups

MetCon: 5 rounds of Broad Jump (1:30) followed by Air Squats (1:00)
With this we had to Broad Jump about 10 m lengths for 1:30. As soon as that time was up we moved straight into Air Squats. We counted our Broad Jump lengths and kept on counting with the Squats. After the first round of Squats, getting back to Broad Jumps was a sad sight to see. It was like we were jumping out of quick sand! The next rounds weren’t as bad because we were prepared but it was still taxing on the whole lower body! Total Reps: 182 – I think I could have got 200 but we were in the parking lot and I took up some valuable seconds moving out of the way so I wouldn’t get run over by the incoming 6 am class. I felt good. I hope I stay near the top of the overall group today but I never know what the rest of the kick ass peoples will bring. This week though I feel like I’m not getting crushed by everyone else. I’m keeping up and it does feel really good!

Gotta Go H.A.M.! Push Harder, Work Harder. Y’all have an AMAZING Thursday. And you know what you gotta do … BE AWESOME!