Month: September 2012

Getting Back on Track … uh on monday?

Isn’t that the good ol excuse? The weekend is here, I already screwed up. Let’s keep this party rolling. I keep telling myself and you all “you’ve only been eating not so great for a few days, a week maybe”. Well that week turns into two which WAM BAM turns into a month quickly. How does that happen so fast?!? Seriously Whole30, 21 day Sugar Detox, Paleo Challenges are short and feel like forever. But eating like crap feels short term and ends up being too long. It’s crazy how that works! I fall down too people, I’m not perfect. But I get back up!

Now I haven’t been weighing myself regularly because I’m getting over that scale addiction, and truly I was feeling good about me – physically and mentally. The past few days I have really felt poorly with my self image and I have felt and seen where I’m starting to expand/jiggle and I know exactly why, it’s not rocket science. And I’ve been in a mental fog as well. Some of that is emotional stress but I think a lot of it is junk fogging up my brain. Just eating poor dinners can really f*^! things up. Then add some poor weekends…And now it’s all catching up to me. So I gave in to that damn scale and weighed! Which is no real judgment I know, I’m stronger, I’m healthier… the scale doesn’t determine that at all, but I stepped on it anyways. And although I’m not in a super bad place, I’m not in a super great place about it either.

So I declare a Sugar Detox is much needed! The good folks at 21 Day Sugar Detox have a monthly start date and it starts Monday as will I. Who’s with me? ………. I think I hear crickets. I know it’s daunting people but you can do it! Only 21 days! That’s it. I hear you, “but you just said it feels like forever.” That I did, that I did but it’s mental. It’s still only 21 days. And now is perfect! Right before the holidays, then you can be strong to resist all the office/school/social function temptations! Let me know if you’re on board. The link is right there to the right! Let’s do this! 

Now that I’ve got that out of the way I will share my morning at the BOOM Box.

Skill/Strength: 4 x 6 Back Squat @ 80% of 1RM and Band Sprints
I felt pretty good with my Back Squat, maybe that extra weight I’m carrying is giving me a boost. Or maybe I’m just getting stronger! Hehehe. I ended up at 115lbs for the 4 sets. Coach had me work on bringing my hands in closer on the bar. I tend to have trouble with this because my shoulder flexibility isn’t great but this really helped my drive back up.

9/28/12 WOD

Band Sprint were short and sweet. This is where you take a band and put it around your waist. You have a partner that holds onto the band and anchors down creating a fair amount of resistance making you work for short sprints. We did 6 sprints each. Nothing super special about these. It’s work that’s for sure.

MetCon: Team WOD Death by Pull Ups x 2 … woohooo… yay… fun.. i love pull ups. Say It, Believe It right? Ah heck I want to love pull ups, I really do. Pull ups just don’t love me. So Death by… means do a rep on minute one, add a rep each minute, go until you can’t meet the reps required for that minute. Well by 2’s means just that, instead of adding ONE every minute you must add two. 2, 4, 6, 8, etc. TEAM means YAY I have someone to struggle with me and pull my weight! Hehe, only the first part is really true and hopefully the 2nd part is only because I am weak. My partner, Andrea, knows of my weakness. It did help that we got to split up the reps. When we got 5 reps each I slowed down bad. I’m pretty sure by 6 reps each, Andrea did 1 extra one for me. By 7 reps each, I’m pretty sure she did 2 extra reps to make up for me. And by 8 it was 3 but I ended up coming back to do 1 of them. We didn’t make it for 9 reps each and I wouldn’t have made it without her, so THANK YOU Andrea! Final round counted 16 total pullups, so 8 minutes. Can I get new arms now? Please? Pretty Please?

Well that’s it for this week. I’m already looking forward to 2013. Maybe then I can have a year of goodness. But I’ll take this weekend for sure right now. Texas is due for some cooler weather so the weekend should be good! Enjoy yourselves and BE AWESOME!

And the World Keeps Spinning

Day in and Day out, and we must keep moving. If you’ve kept up with me from the beginning you’ll know that I mostly ramble and whine on this thing I call a blog. Every now and then I get serious or actually try to be motivating. And sometimes I’m just sad. Yesterday Ernie lost his mother to cancer and it just breaks my heart. It blows. So today I am sad and my heart is heavy but I also found myself in better spirits today than I thought I would be. Because even though in the sadness I know we have to keep moving forward. If you told me a year and half ago after my mom left this world that I would have changed my whole way of living/eating/moving I would have laughed in your face. I always have had healthy life goals but not at the level I’m at now. And here I am, addicted to CrossFit, eating clean and living life. I’m not rainbows and roses everyday but that’s the goal. Life is short, we know this, so let’s make sure we make it fun. If you have kids, laugh with them, show them life at times must be serious but also show them you HAVE to have fun as well. If you don’t have kids and want new adventure then TAKE on adventure. Make some small or big change and enjoy your life. Set new goals. Be SOMEONE you never thought you’d be. Because at the end of the day the world keeps spinning with or without you.

 

For Ernie, because I love ya. (It’s not the heavy version cause I like this acoustic and this kid does a good job!)

Y’all know I’m wordy! And thank you all for sticking around to read about my little part of the world. I appreciate it, I really do. Enough about me being gushy and cheesy. I’ll move onto what the whiteboard had in store for us at the BOOM Box!

Skill/Strength: 3 x Max Strict Pull Ups and 3 x Max Ring Dips. Sigh, Huff and Puff and more Sighing. The PULL UP. This morning I went with the green band only. I know I’ve not put my best foot forward in getting this monster of a skill accomplished. I know. It’s me. So today instead of opting for that crutch of a blue band I left it there hanging right next to my green band. And I only could muster up 4 1/2 pull ups. Heheh YES I struggled for that half pull up but all I could get was halfway up! And I’m gonna own it. After that I could only manage 1. Try and try with all my might and I couldn’t bust out one more. Pull Up you have not won the war!

I’m a little stronger at the Ring Dips, not much but enough to tell a difference. I am however much weaker in the shoulders, old age perhaps? Or just a wussy tolerance to pain. Instead of using a band today, Coach had me use a bench for foot support. This was much more difficult than using a band and I’m pretty sure I only got 3 my first attempt, then 4 for the the 2nd and 3rd attempt. Anybody want to trade me shoulders? Anybody?

MetCon: 20 Hang Cleans (65lbs), 200m run, 15 Hang Cleans, 200m run, 10 Hang Cleans, 200m run, 5 Hang Cleans, 200m run. Today the HANG CLEAN didn’t beat me. Woohoo for that small victory. Besides not getting into a good rhythm for the first 20 I feel like I did pretty good at knocking the reps out. I didn’t put the bar down and I just kept chugging away. It’s always the running that kills me! The running! It’s been a while since I’ve had RX by my name. Time: 8:39

Make Thursday amazing. Hug someone’s neck; stare at the sky and appreiciate life; take a walk in the park. SMILE and be AWESOME.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/29638108@N06/5222803481/

I might be the Walking Dead

Or I felt like it this morning. I was running on little sleep, no energy and some tight/sore/fatigued muscles. There was this running thought that I couldn’t leave Andrea (Boom Box Buddy) hanging. And because of her, not me, I rolled out of bed with every ache and pain screaming at me to go back to bed! In the end the WORKOUT always wins and I always feel better so it’s not a bad thing. I just wish I could be more chipper at 4:30 in the A.M.

Skill/Strength: Kettlebell Split Lunges 3 x 10 Working UP to As Heavy As Possible. If you recall I was just recently introduced to the Split Lunge and it really hits your gluteus maximus so I’m scared for what tomorrow brings. This time around it wasn’t AS difficult because we had weight in our hand vs. weight on our shoulders but it still wasn’t easy!

Kettle Bell Split Squat – Wish this was me but it is not :/

I picked up the 1/2 Pood KBs and mentally said these are heavy. They aren’t really but I still opted to start out with 15lb dumbbells. Woooo a whole 3lbs lighter. I’m dumb sometimes. But it was an easier transition to the awkward KBs which I completed just fine. It was time for our 3rd set and I jumped up to 1 POOD (35lbs) in each hand and that was a shocker! They got heavy fast and my grip was hurting. I did 5 on each leg before I wussed out and went back to the 1/2 pood to finish it out. I was struggling BAD!

9/25/12 WOD

MetCon: 5 rounds of 12 Inch Worms in Place, 3 Deadlift (140lbs), 6 Bar Facing Burpees. It’s been a joke in our BOX about having a WOD with Inch Worms because for some reason INCH WORMS are disliked by a majority of the folks. I however don’t mind them really. Maybe because I have short limbs. I really don’t know for certain, but they don’t bother me so much. So it was kind of funny when I saw that this movement was in the WOD. I will say they are a pain in the ass after you’ve done about 40 or so! RX for the Deadlift was 185 (my 1RM) and Coach T(ravis) suggested 140lbs so I went with that. Besides letting burpees get into my head for rounds 3 and 4, this WOD was kind of good. At least I felt good in the IT HURTS REALLY BAD BUT I DID ALL KINDS OF WORK sense of things. And like I said I was dragging. I felt super WEAK the whole morning. I was sweating more than usual and could feel the fatigue in every inch of my body. I fought through and finished at 10:36.

So happy tomorrow is a REST DAY! I need it!!! I hope you all get in some good rest days as well. I’ve learned the HARD WAY, you must schedule some R&R or your body will quit on you! And you will lose in the end. When I say R&R I mean Rest and RECOVERY. You gotta moblilize and still move but not at an intense speed. Give some love to your muscles and joints! See you on Thursday unless something awesome and magical happens that I need to report on mañana! BEEEE AAWWEESSOOOMMEE!

Trying NOT to SUCK

Woooo Monday again. Yippee Skippy! I hope everyone had a pleasant weekend. It was hot in our part of the world. And we spent it all outside on Saturday for some foosball.

Before the kid’s football games, I made sure to hit up the BOOM Box, I’m sad I’ve been missing the OLY class but my baby boys come first. At least I can squeeze in the Community WOD and boy oh boy was it fun! I can rest assured that if my vehicle breaks down on me that I am capable of pushing it out of the way!

We started off with a typical warm up, then tested our Kettle Bell Skills. We did max KB swings for 90 seconds. We did American style swings and for me at 1 POOD I managed to get 42 swings in.

Annie Sakamoto doing what looks like 2 POOD. I am not that beastly. I only did half that!

We then moved outside and Coach got in his truck and told us we would get in teams of 2 and have 30 seconds to push his truck as far as possible. I was up first with Omar and we were killing it till we ran out of room. So Coach decided to set his truck up going uphill towards the exit of the warehouse complex we are in. It was kind of amazing most everyone got the same distance. No team was drastically over the top. After we went in teams of two we split up into teams of 5. We got a little further but we also hit a steeper part of the hill and that took a lot out of me for sure. I think both teams hit about the same spot. After that Coach rolled his truck back and said it was time to go all on your lonesome if you wanted.

Coach showin us how it’s done … with Briggs and Leigh on the back!

My partner, Omar, decided to give it a go and made it pretty far, so I decided HECK I should just give it a try and well la de da de I could move that truck! I don’t remember how far I made it because I was sucking wind but it felt good to know I could do it! All the peeps who showed up and gave it a try did really well – BOOM!

After all the Super Hero truck pushing we still had a MetCon to do! We had a 5 minute AMRAP of 5 Push Ups and 10 Air Squats. I managed through 12 rounds + 5 Push Ups + 1 Air Squat. Wasn’t the greatest as I slowed down a lot on Push Ups. I was beat and ready to go home!

This morning I was not ready for the BOOM though. I was tired. I ate poorly and I was super sore, not sure if it was the truck pushin or the 121 air squats from Saturday but I definitely was walking funny!

Skill/Strength: 4 x 8 of Back Squat @ 70% of 1RM then 4 x 6 of press moving up in weight each set. I ended up warming up to 105lbs for my Squat and completing my 4 sets of 8 at that weight. It wasn’t super hard but it was definitely taxing on the ol’ lower body. I felt good throughout though which is a NICE feeling overall. Typically something starts giving me grief but today I felt I focused.

Moving onto Press was pretty nice as well. We were pressed for time and I felt the little bit of rush helped me at first. There was no time for thinking and I just did. The downside for limited time is that I don’t feel I rested enough for my last set. I failed at 65lbs which isn’t shocking because my max Press is 70lbs. So I dropped down to 60lbs and finished out.

9/24/12 WOD

MetCon: 12 minute AMRAP of 10 Box Jumps (20″) and 10 Regular Push Ups. This is where the SUCK came in and I tried not to SUCK but I couldn’t help it. Box Jumps! Argh. It’s been a while since we had the BOX Jump in our MetCon and it took a hold of me and beat me up. And then my Push Ups fell apart. It was so bad I had to drop to my knees to keep up any kind of form. Blah. I completed 9 rounds + 10 box jumps. Womp Womp! I still did work. I was spent. So it was a good work just a sad showing in my opinion.

There’s always tomorrow to redeem myself! Let’s just hope I do so!!! Until then! Be AWESOME!

TGIF!

We made it to Friday – WHOOHOOO! And I’m so ready for a beautiful weekend full of the Boom Box and kiddo football! Which by the way if you are local (DFW) then come on out to our 9 a.m. Community WOD at CrossFit Boom! It’s a big ol’ ball of fun (pssst… it’s free too)!

This morning’s WOD only had the MetCon so I knew it wasn’t going to be purty. I figured we’d do mobility which is exactly what we did and it was exactly what I needed. After yesterdays Negative Pull Up Hangs, Ring Dips and Power Cleans my upper body was spent. I blame mostly the pull up hangs. Those were brutal.

So our whiteboard agenda this morning was: 9 Shoulder to Overhead, 15 burpees, 6 STOH, 15 burpees, 3 STOH, 15 burpees. As Heavy As Possible and UNBROKEN! Penalties for putting bar down ended up being: Take 10lbs off bar, repeat set unbroken, add 400m run at end of workout. You had to complete an unbroken set before moving on.

9/21/12 WOD

So it was suggested I give it a go at 85lbs. Fair enough, that’s heavy for me! We could push press or push jerk or whatever we needed to do to get the weight up. I did a mix of push press and push jerk as well as muscling it up like a loonball. I warmed my up to 85lbs and was ready to go. I DID complete the set of 9 and struggled through burpees. I rested a lil bit longer than I probably should have but I really didn’t want to fail at 6 reps. And sure enough I don’t think it would have mattered. I struggled on the 3rd rep and just felt I couldn’t get 3 more in. I racked my bar, dropped to 75lbs and fought through 6 reps. I really slowed down with the burpees but came back strong to do my 3 reps. I felt pretty good on those and I didn’t rush through the burpees but I didn’t drag ass either. Time: 6:46, then run, booooo running. Fortunately I only dropped the bar once.

Food note: Been eating like crap, not all the time but been letting our busy days/sad days bring me down. I finally let the tired set in and I just didn’t want to put forth the effort to prepare foods and cook them. I’m back on it once I get some good food shopping in. Overall I don’t feel a negative effect so much in my workouts but I feel it in my waistline! How sucky is that?!? Work so hard at being good month after month, then 1 week of crap and bam you physically feel like poo. Hopefully it’s more a bloating thing than a bad weight gain.

Hope your Friday is FABULOUS! and be AWESOME!! Come to the Boom Box tomorrow!

Clean Clean Clean

Today is a much better day than two days ago. I’m not in a funk and I’m not being a crybaby so it’s a good day. Let’s hope it stays that way!

I was up and ready to go earlier than normal but even when I have extra time, I still manage to find a way to take up those extra minutes doing something else! Which of course then leaves me running out the door in a hurry to get to the BOOM Box.

Skill/Strength: 3x Max Kipping Pull ups and 3×10 Ring Dips
I no likey the Pull Ups and I can’t do them so Coach had me work on Negative Hangs. I am horrible at all things Pull Up related but I got some good hangs in and hopefully building that upper body strength. The cat in the picture above has better hangs than me though. We moved to the Ring Dips which I haven’t done in FOREVER but those are much better than Pull Ups. I did have to use a band because I’m not super beastly yet. Baby Steps!

MetCon: 3 Power Cleans As Heavy As Possible on the minute for 10 minutes. I love CLEANS! And last night ESPN2 aired the CrossFit Games 2012 Men’s Clean Ladder. It was impressive to say the least and I feel that watching them gave me some confidence back with this lift. It wasn’t too long ago that I was struggling. Below is Neal Maddox killing it at 365lbs. Clearly this isn’t a Power Clean but it’s inspiring.

So Coach suggested starting with 70% of our max and I’m pretty sure at one point I had the ugliest clean at 100lbs so I warmed my way up to 75lbs. I was feeling really good at that weight so I went up to 85lbs. And even that felt good but I wasn’t sure how that would feel halfway through. I did 2 minutes at 85lbs and Coach added 10lbs. I was like OK, I got this I’m feeling good and BAM I didn’t have it. I got mental and wasn’t trying to be at all. I actually got really pissed off. I managed to get through 1 minute with some ugly ass work but I was struggling. But I wasn’t a pissed off this is going to get done mad, I was a I wanted to cry mad because I know I can clean this weight. By the 5th minute I dropped to 90lbs and WAM BAM Thank you MA’AM I could get that weight up. Why 5 measly pounds kills me I don’t know. But I was happy to feel good at 90lbs. Baby steps!

Have a superb Thursday. And of course BE AWESOME!

NOT so Easy!

Especially when life decides to be real and painful. The title of today’s blog was supposed to be NICE but NOT so Easy. As it turns out it’s not so NICE either. Let me just say my heart is sad today. I know that here on this blog I share my silly little journey in fitness with CrossFit and Paleo but today I ask for prayer. Prayers are needed as part of my family has to deal with hard times. These hard times do nothing but re-engage all my sadness that I still have for my Mom. Geesh it sucks. And then I feel oh so selfish because that’s all I now think about – how much I need/want my mom still and I can’t have her. When really I should be focused on the ones hurting more than me. I’m not good at sharing hurting feelings and real sadness. So I sit here and ask for peace and comfort as we wait and see. Thank you.

I debated if I wanted to blog about my workout and I wasn’t going at first but in order to just get my mind somewhere else I decided I would recap the BOOM morning. So here goes it:

Skill/Strength: Handstand Shoulder Touches
I had NO clue what this meant, then Coach showed us. Get into a Handstand, with wall support and then proceed to try and touch your shoulder with your hand. Say what?!? Haha, I know it sounds insane. The idea is to shift all your weight to one side, I suppose to build strenght, balance? With Coach holding my feet, I could manage to get a few but without support I’m not so ready. The goal was to go for 5 minutes, 30 sec on, 30 sec off, going back and forth from left to right side. Well since I was unable to be proficient at the movement I got scaled to rocking back and forth on hands. I don’t really ever try to walk on my hands so this movement was weird and hard to get used to. By the last round I think I had a good feel for it but I still wasn’t great.

9/18/12 WOD

MetCon: 5 x 10yd sprint, 3 x 20yd sprint, 2 x 40yd sprint. Then TABATA of Pushups, Superman Rocks and Hollow Rocks. That wasn’t the original plan, TABATA but Coach gave us the change up. The T-WORD, TABATA! booooo! The Sprints were a nice change of pace, compared to the RUNS we call SPRINTS, hehehe, so yes *coughgrantcough* this was a much needed lighter day. Now back to TABATA. 20 seconds on 10 seconds off for 8 rounds. Your score is the lowest rep count that you get. We only counted Push Ups and woooo they hurt. So I started off what seemed strong with 13 but I dwindled fast. Kept my last rounds at 7 Push Ups so my score is 7. We didn’t count the Superman Rocks or Hollow Rocks and thank goodness because I lost count fast.

There you have it. Another craptastic day. Here’s to REALLY hoping that this week gets a little better. My apologies for the lame-O writing. Be AWESOME!

Yup, It’s Definitely A Monday

I’m feeling it on all fronts today and I’ll not bore you with it all. Instead I’ll tell you how proud I am of some of my BOOM BOX Buddies for competing this weekend at the Texas Barbell Massacre at GSX CrossFit in Fort Worth. Way to go Triston, Sherry, Kenny and Josh! Y’all did great and I hope y’all had fun!

So let’s get on with it and tell you how the BOOM Box went this morning.

Skill/Strength: Frankenstein Squat Heavy 3
I’ve never done this before and although I had a good idea of what it would be I wasn’t prepared for how awkward it would be. It’s a Front Squat with your arms extended in front of you instead of your hands being on the bar.

If you struggle with bending forward on your Front Squat then this is good work. I feared adding weight because with the bar only at a whopping 35lbs it gets your throat pretty good. I still feel like my esophagus is bent. I ended up working up to 105lbs and hitting 3 reps. We were out of time but I feel that I could have at least got to 115lbs. But not too sure, that 105 got heavy pretty quick.

9/17/12 WOD

MetCon: 2 rounds of 50 KB Swings (1 Pood), 30 Burpees, Red Gate Sprint, Rest 2 minutes
I felt pretty good on the first round of KB Swings and Burpees. Ok I lied, I felt pretty good only on the KB Swings. Managed to do those unbroken and pretty much sucked at burpees. I then further sucked on my run. The RED GATE sprint is abouta 1000m hellish run, maybe 1200m, not too sure. And again for me, not so much a SPRINT. I have no clue when I took off for my run but I fared better than I normally do on longer runs. I had a little mantra of “I’m a runner, I’m a runner” going on. I’m not a runner though and it was hard to lie to myself but I survived. I returned at 11:30. By Round 2 I was just a sad pathetic loser. I let every thought that popped up in my head slow me down. By the time I got to the run, I was done! I had mentally given up. My runner mantra was lost on the side of the road somewhere. I came back with a finished time of 27: 54. Booooooo! Tomorrow I come back with a vengeance, hahaha, errrr, I hope!

I hope everyone had a great weekend. And I truly wish your Monday is way better than mine! I’m trying here to be AWESOME but I may need some of you to pick up my slack! Thanks!

Fab Friday

The weather has really cooled down around here, chilly for girl babies, i.e. ME and it’s great. One of my kiddos told me today was Fab Friday. They get a little bit shorter classes for the day and an extended RECESS, that is if you’ve been a good student all week! How fun is that? Can we do that in our grown up world please? It’s also FAB because today was Crazy Sock Day at their school and don’t you know I have a ton of socks that they were able to get crazy with. I love that one of my kids picked a BACON sock to wear on one leg and mulit colors on the other leg. I say leg, because they are knee socks and well knee on me and leg on him! I clearly ♥ my kiddos and their fun spirits!

Anyhow it was also not so bad of a day at the good ol’ BOOM Box! Kinda Fab there as well. I’ve said FAB so much I feel like it’s the word of the day from Pee Wee’s Playhouse… AAAAHHHHHHHHHHH!

Skill/Strength: 3 RM of Press
So I’ve been stuck at 70lb 1RM of Press for what could be FOREVER although not really, just in my head. And today was 3RM. I warmed up a bit at 35lbs then jumped up to 55lbs. Jumped to 65lbs and my lower body snuck right on in and I did a push press! YIKES, not good. Rest, Lacrosse Ball and Repeat. I’ve developed some sort of tightness/pain, whatever you want to call it, somewhere along my lat/shoulder, and well it hurts.

I roll it out with a lacrosse ball and wooowweee it sucks. I went back to my 65lb bar waiting for me and got 3 reps in but a little wonky on the last one. I didn’t have a left arm Chicken Wing today but a right arm weaksauce instead. I moved right on up to 70lbs, got 1 rep and wouldn’t you know it the damn Push Press showed up for rep 2. ARGH. I put the bar down, took a lil break and finally showed up to knock out the 70lbs. It was a little better than 65lb reps! I take that as another win 3RM at my 1RM weight, FAB! AHHHHHH!

MetCon: 3 Rounds of 1 minute KettleBell Swings (1Pood), 1 minute Ring Rows, 1 minute Wall Balls (14lb ball), 1 minute REST
KB swings are my strength for this WOD so I knew I couldn’t fail with these and I didn’t. I did the whole minute UNBROKEN all three rounds. I wasn’t sure if I was going to make it on that last round! Ring Rows after KB swings was no walk in the park, my first round was weak but I stepped it up on rounds 2 and 3. Finally WALL BALLS, my kryptonite. Last Community WOD there was only 10lb balls left to use and those were delightful for as much as a wall ball can be delightful. Add 4lbs to a med ball and it’s not so delightful! I really dragged ass on those. I don’t think I ever managed to get more that 13 in one minute. Not a good showing at all. Overall I ended with 186 total reps. Hopefully that was a challenging mark for the rest of the day but I can only hope.

Have a FAB (AHHHHH!) Friday Folks! Make it an AWESOME weekend and make AWESOME contagious!!!

Double Tall Non-Fat Caramel Macchiato

That would be my middle name if A. I had money and B. it were paleo. I think once upon a time even though I still didn’t have money I was pretty regular on that exact drink. Heheh, I THINK, what am I saying?? I KNOW I was a Starbucks junky. I’m sure there’s some goofy chart out there that tells me what my personality is based on my Starbucks happy coffee. Now my caramel macchiato is just an every now and then kind of beverage. And this morning was one of those mornings. I was rushed to get out of the house, so nothing substantial for breakfast and I was really happy with my Overhead Squat at the BOOM BOX this morning. I’m sure you couldn’t tell at 5:30 but inside I was pretty stoked and feeling good about it. So I thought what better than to reward ME!

Skill/Strength: OHS 3 x 5, get heavy. Ahhh, me and the OHS. This incredibly awkward lift has had me going bonkers for some time. And today I actually felt like I was doing something right! HOORAY for small wins ツ As I worked up in weight my wrists were really taking a beating. I had warmed my way up to 75lbs.

For those of you new to the blog, this is not me. Just a nice pic of someone doing the OHS ツ

It was at 75lbs that I could still do the movement but my wrists were going fast. I wear Strength Wraps which do wonders but even the OHS is a hard one to defeat. It didn’t help that at some point in the week I bruised my left palm which made my grip feel weird. Since my wrists did hurt so bad, Coach suggested I narrow my grip and not have my hands so wide out on the bar. This isn’t NEW news but suggestions that get lost when it’s not an everyday thing. OH MY it helped tremendously at 85lbs! There’s still pain but it is much more tolerable. My last go at 90lbs wasn’t a walk in the park but I feel like I’ve come a long way with this lift. My 1RM is 90lbs and for me to do 5 reps at that weight makes me feel GREAT. I was much more stable, my wrists weren’t completely dying and I was getting depth. Maybe this isn’t my least favorite lift anymore!

9/13/12 WOD

MetCon: 4 rounds of 25 air squats, 400m sprint, BUY OUT 100 butterfly sit ups
RUNNNING! NOOOOO! Actually it’s supposed to be sprints but that’s laughable when you’re talking about me SPRINTING 400m. I can do 50/100 but past that I don’t have any SPRINT in me. I’m happy to just have a jog sometimes. But the work has to be done regardless. I flew through the first round of air squats knowing I wouldn’t be able to keep that speed after running the next rounds. And since I am not a sprinter per se, I used the run to think and work on running technique. Maybe that helps out in the long run, maybe not. I was right about slowing down on the air squats after running! It sucked but I just battled through the best I could. Round 2 was the worst for me in regards to resting/stopping. I shouldn’t have ever stopped doing squats, they are so easy to do, but I did. I finished the air squats and runs around the 12 minute mark. Yup that’s how bad I am at 400s! I blazed through 35 sit ups then had a big slow down. I then proceeded to do 5’s and 10’s the best I could. when I got to 75 I just focused on one at a time with no break and focused on moving at a slower pace with no pausing. Time 15:48

Have a relaxing and lovely day folks. Don’t forget to be AWESOME!