CrossFit

Rest Day Ramblings

It’s my rest day but I wanted to chit chat via blog rambling to myself and to you the readers if I can hold your interest at all.

Simple Dinners!
I’m just guessing but I would think most people have the excuse of I don’t have time to do everything. Therefore the drive thru it is or even some microwavable turd of a dinner. I’m guilty of it too. I have 3 BOYS! I’m guilty less now more than ever but YES I am a guilty party. I’m tired, I’m over it, blah blah blah, Chif-fil-A here I come. Taco Bell it is. (NOTE: I still eat clean unless I testify otherwise but I force my kids to eat like crap sometimes cause I’m being lazy) And just last night I proved to myself that although the fast food can be fast and easy we all know it’s not healthy and it’s just not worth it!

Kids have practice at 6pm so they only have time to get a snack in them like Almond Butter and Apple Slices and then we don’t get home till 8:45ish. It is a circus in our house. But the past couple of nights I have been Johnny on the spot in getting nutritious, clean meals to my kids bellies. And it only takes a little advanced preparation and some random throwing crap good stuff together. On Sunday I made meatloaf for dinner. Instead of one loaf, I made 2. Voila instant protein for Monday night dinner. I didn’t have enough Mashed Cauliflower to go with it but I had zucchini and made Zucchini Latkes. This is quick and easy and gave my kids enough to fill them up. They each had a KIWI for dessert!

Last week I made meat sauce for zucchini pasta and had an overflow so I froze it up and used it for the kids dinner last night. I shredded up more fresh zucchini and sauteed it a bit in some coconut oil along with some salt, pepper and thyme. Added my heated meat sauce and BAM easy dinner. I didn’t have enough zucchini for Ernie and I but I had Kale! I heated up some pork fat in a pan, did a quick sautee of the kale. All the while I had leftover roasted chicken which I heated up in coconut oil along with mushrooms. Added my kale and BOOM a really yummy dinner for Ernie and I.

Yes it was all leftovers but it didn’t taste like leftovers. With some fresh foods added and the leftover food re-created it was all yummy. And took me 20 minutes to knock out each night. It also helps to be creative with spices!

Also know that if you have chicken to cook but don’t want to bake it FOREVER then just cut it up and sautee it. It cooks in a fraction of the time as baking it or grilling it does. Just don’t over cook it! Add some veggies on the side and you’ll be rockin and a rollin.

Just Do It ALREADY!
In addition to finding simple meals YOU need to start moving. I may scare some of y’all with all the CrossFit terms and the extra workouts but it’s not a scary world out there. I watch Chris Powell’s Extreme Makeover: Weightloss Edition, and if you’ve seen it you know how it goes. He picks a desperate truly OBESE person to help out over the course of a year. He has the same opening routine for them all. He puts them through a FIGHT or FLIGHT workout.

If you’ve never worked out then the stuff he puts them through will hurt. Hell it will hurt those that moderately work out. Picking up weights heavier than 10lbs is gonna hurt. But your body will do so much more than your brain will tell you that you can do. And he shows that person that they will live through it even if they think that they can not. He works with these people on their levels and helps them push through mental and physical barriers for 3 months. He is not always nice but deep down these people know they need the tough love. Then he leaves them to their own where they have to do it on their own for the rest of the year. He checks in on them but he doesn’t have that daily interaction. Some struggle more than others but they all learn and grow.

We all aren’t so morbidly obese as the folks on the show are and we don’t all have that person in our face, in our home and in our lives so we have to take it upon ourselves to do it. And for most of us even if we did have someone telling us what to do we probably wouldn’t listen. Hell so many people ask me HOW I DO IT, or WHY I DO IT and it appears I amp someone up but then I see them in the same ol’ routines or even worse. I can’t make anyone take it on. It takes YOU and only YOU to make the change. I didn’t start out without a support system. I was doing my best to eat right, get up and workout daily and there Ernie was stuffing his face with Sonic, Chic-Fil-A, Braums, etc. It sucked. I smelled all this yummy badness but had to persevere on my own for my own good. I was thinking about my future and my health. A few months later Ernie did come on board and blew my “GOOD HEALTH” out of the water with this Paleo nonsense! I then followed suit and we make a good PALEO team (for the most part).

It’s awesome if you have a support system but not everyone does so you have to make a support system for yourself. Plan rewards for yourself; make new friends with the same goals; write your own blog (wink wink), find a fitness forum; find an online buddy if you need to do so. JUST START DOING IT ALREADY. Don’t let that wedding or upcoming birthday party delay your start. Start now and deal with whatever upcoming social event when you get to it. It’s not going hurt you to start a path to good health.

But Stephanie I’m happy with myself just the way I am! I’m no expert but I find it rare that someone who says they “could/should” lose weight but don’t “care” because they are “happy” just the way they are lying to themselves and everyone else. Also those who aren’t in need of weight loss but are in need of good health saying they are slender already, I’ll be fine, but will you? You may be a kind caring soul with a happy heart but physically are you happy. So I’m talking to all walks of life from the anorexic to the overweight, to the addicts or to the uneducated. Being overweight (unless a real health concern like thyroid issues) is just as much a sickness as anorexia or even addiction to drugs and alcohol. If you saw a frail disappearing girl that’s starving herself to death you might judge her quicker than you would judge someone who is 50lbs overweight. WHY? I have no idea but our society tends to accept that someone who is overweight doesn’t have similar types of body issues as those are wasting away. People with addiction to food, or alcohol or whatever all are similar in some regard. Again I’m no Dr., nor do I claim to be. I just take in what I see, what I grew up with, what I learn and where I see our society going and take it all in. Yes I am making my own assessments but it doesn’t take a super genius to figure it out. We can see that kids are bigger than EVER and more and more people are diagnosed with disease and more and more pills are being shelled out to FIX all these “bad” things that are suddenly plaguing us. It’s the quick fix. It’s the drive through, the magic microwave, the boxed food with all those chemicals and then we top it off with a cocktail of prescription medications to lower all the bad things that are elevated! Are you kidding me people?

Do you break a sweat walking 100 yards? Does it hurt to get out of bed in the morning? Do you have constant health issues? Migraines, High Blood Pressure, Joint Pain, etc? I’m telling you it’s about food intake, exercise and proper sleep. You can still enjoy life. Eating clean isn’t a death sentence. Feeling GOOD is a future. Getting endorphins flowing from exercise is a new way to happiness – A way better happiness than from getting high off of eating really tasty “bad” food that in the end always leaves you down in the dumps.

No I don’t look like this girl, not even close. I don’t know with my age, shape, etc that I could ever look like her BUT I feel pretty awesome none the less! I’m healthier than I’ve ever been, STRONGER than I’ve ever been and I feel great 99% of the time. The other 1% is girly moments, really sore muscle moments and the occasional STREP THROAT infection that I hope never happens again!

Last Night’s Outdoor WOD
Whew, my ramble took it’s own path. So let me close with my evening fun from last night. DEATH by 10 METERS! The DEATH part sounds scary but the 10m well, it doesn’t sound harsh but it gets ya. I had my youngest help me out with the clock since he didn’t have practice last night. He’s a very encouraging kiddo and even though I’m sucking wind and wanting to pass out, he’s totally telling me I’m doing good and getting faster and just being the best. If you don’t know what Death BY anything means then I’m here to tell you. My apologies to those of you who know and have read it 89787687 times. You start your clock and run 10m for the first minute. On the next minute you run 10m x 2. The next minute 10m x 3 and so forth. You keep adding 10m each minute until you can not fit the amount in the 1 minute. So if you are on your 13th round but it takes you longer than 1 minute to complete your score would be 12. Because the last minute you completed was 12. And the 13th round was just bonus work. (You can do this with any movement like squats, burpees, push ups, pull ups, etc.)

It’s such a short distance and it does get old and little bit of dizzy inducing. But it’s not easy! I completed 14 rounds and was so close to 15 but just didn’t have anything in me. Including my not completed 15th round, I sprinted 1190m! It adds up fast.

After some rest and water, I ended up throwing the football around. It’s not intense work but I was still on my feet moving. It was a good evening!

Have you had enough of me already? Or did I spark a fire from within? Either way, I got some of what I feel/think out. I get lost in my own thoughts as you can probably tell just from reading. It’s hard to communicate it all at once but rather than go crazy every post I save it for ever couple of weeks/months. I’ll be back to the regular scheduled programming tomorrow. Have an AWESOME day!

Curse You Curtis P’s …

and 60 Plyo Push Ups and 30 Burpees! Ha! Walked into the Boom Box this morning to a new set up and it is Very Nice! New Rogue Rig right down the middle. It’s like Christmas at the Box.

Back on topic … so this morning on the whiteboard was Shoulder Mobility (much needed) and a chipper from hell (much need as well although I didn’t want to admit it)!

MetCon: 30 Curtis P’s (65lbs), 60 Plyo Push Ups and 30 Burpees. The last time I did Curtis P’s my knee was a little wonky and I did a modified version. Today however I was ready to do full on movement and boy did it HURT, PHYSICALLY and MENTALLY! It was a big struggle for me.

8/7/12 WOD

For those of you in need of a description here goes it: Power Clean the bar, Lunge forward with each leg holding bar in Front Rack position and then press bar overhead; rinse and repeat. Woooo those lunges are killer! I was happy to knock out 5, then 3’s and 2’s from there on out till 30. But wait there’s more! 60 Plyo Push Ups! So here’s the deal. I have a 35lb bumper plate in front of me. The 35lbs plate is probably 3-4 inches high. You start with one hand on plate and one hand on ground. You then push up and move hand on plate over to ground and hand on ground to plate for the next push up. Keep going to 60. After doing 30 presses, my body just didn’t want to do all those push ups. Today I literally wanted to cry. BUT WAIT…. THERE’S MORE! Burpees. By now Coach is encouraging me to finish under 20 minutes. I really wanted to quit at that point. There is no way I’m gonna hit that mark. I mentally fell apart. I felt every sore muscle and I let my mind focus on all the negative. I’ve never sucked so bad at doing burpees till today. Coach was really trying to get me to focus and although I finished I know I could have finished stronger and sub 20 minutes. I missed the mark though and finished 20:44. I’m having a hard time typing right NOW as a result of my shoulders being dead. I just want to lay down. Seriously! I’m thinking there may not be an Outdoor WOD tonight!

Last Night’s Outdoor WOD
Jonas bailed on me yesterday. He has this dry cough and said he wasn’t feeling well… “Mom, Can I sit this one out?” Blah Blah Blah, Yes sit this one out son. Whatever! Hahah. This was prime opportunity for me to follow suit and sit this one out right along with him. But I pressed on! I took a warm up jog around the fields (approx 5 min), then headed over to basketball courts. I just pulled this WOD out of thin air and it ended up being good work. I started at one end of the courts and did 5 burpees, ran to the other end (I was estimating this was 25yds) and did 4 burpees. I ran back and forth till I was down to 1 burpee. Not a lot I know but from there I did 10, 9, 8, etc of Butterfly Sit Ups in the same pattern. When I got down to 1, I then finished with push ups starting at 6. All said and done I did 15 burpees, 55 Sit Ups, 21 Pushups and Ran 475 yds with a time of 7:55. Finished off with a short run back to my chair and I felt good! Woooo!

Like I just said there probably won’t be a 2nd workout today but ya never know. I’m a crazy one and I just might not be able to help myself. I enjoy working out but I’m ok with it. There are worse things I could be doing!

Anyhoo…. have a FAB TUESDAY! Challenge yourself to do something new, try a new food, run a little farther. Go outside your comfort zone! BE AWESOME!

I was a-RUNNIN’

And it wasn’t Forrest Gump style! I knew we were going to run before the WOD even got posted last night. I had a gut feeling about it! So we all show up this morning. Full parking lot for 5 a.m. which surprised me and NO COACH! ??!!**$$%%#@# He’s always there but not this morning! So after a few minutes of sitting in our cars we collectively got out and started warming up in the parking lot because we are good little worker bees like that! Some of us knew the WOD already and since we couldn’t get inside to do Dead Lifts for Skill/Strength we did our running portion for the MetCon. And it sucked! Coach did show up FINALLY! Heheh all jokes GRANT. We still like you ツ and I can’t complain because I run 2-5 minutes late regularly! And for the record he has never let us down at 5 a.m. He is there faithfully for us crazy 5 o’clockers.

So the runs were 3 rounds of 100m sprint, rest 30 sec, 200m sprint, rest 60sec, 400m sprint, rest 90 sec! Really? 400m sprint after a 100 and 200. I don’t think so. It was more of a sprint, half sprint, jog and then holy shit I have to sprint uphill jog. In my head I was sprinting but my body was dragging. By my 3rd 200, I was winded and had a side stitch. But on my 3rd 400 Coach ran with me and I focused on not being a loser and ran it better than my first 2. It was sucky to say the least.

We ran out of time for Dead Lifts but we had the option to stick around for the 6 am class and work in with them. Of course I stuck around. I typically lounge around there for a while post WODs daily. The goal was 5 RM. I’ve scanned through my pics and posts but couldn’t find an attempt at 5RM for Dead Lift so I have nothing to compare to. My 1 RM is 185 so I think busting out 5 at 175lbs is good progress. My right butt cheek was done so I didn’t try to go for heavier weight.

Sneaky pic I was unaware of! I’m in the middle of the pic near the wall. You can’t tell it’s me if you don’t know me. I’m a ninja!

Outdoor WOD
“Susan” Run 200m 10 squats 10 push ups 5 rounds. That’s what Jonas and I decided on Friday afternoon to kill time at football practice. There is a small, very small track near the fields we are at and I had Jonas time me run one lap to see if it was close to 200m. It wasn’t exact but it was close enough. After running the first 200 I was done!! But I couldn’t be a quitter. So I finished in 10:01! Really Really Bad Timing. But I keep telling myself that’s my second workout of the day. So it’s icing on the cake. And it’s not a grueling endurance workout just a short quick one to mix up the day. I figure it’s better than stuffing my face and sitting on my ass. Right?

Tonight will be another outdoor WOD. I’m not sure what to do exactly. I did plenty of running this morning and my right hammy and glute are pretty tender. So most likely it will involve push ups or something like burpees. YAY fun. Tune in tomorrow to see what we decided.

12 days to Europa. Getting excited to compete. Clean eating definitely has brought my spirits back up and I’m feeling good again. I hope y’all have a great afternoon. See ya tomorrow ツ All together now: BE AWESOME!

 

Jump Around, Jump Around!

It’s Friday – Jump Up, Jump up and Get Down! Ya that song has been stuck in my head all morning because we had some Jump testing today at the BOOM Box!

The dreaded Box Jump was one of the movements we were doing. I see people jump on these things like kangaroos but not me, I have FEAR. If you’ve kept up with me you know it. I is SCARED, stupid scared and I still haven’t figured out why. BUT TODAY, I finally got up on the 30″ Box!!!!! WOOOOOOOOOOO! WOOOOOOOO! That’s a big step for me. But add some 10lb plates and I’m out. I just couldn’t get it done. I’ll just take the 30″ jump and hold on to that for a while.

Our other JUMP test was for Broad Jump. I don’t think I’ve ever been tested for such and I’ve never TRIED for best broad jump so I had no idea where I’d end up. Well my first jump was weak and Coach showed me what I did which was try to jump straight as a board and that got me a whole lot of nowhere. I think I got 57″ on that jump. For my second try I bent my knees more and ended with at 60.5″ jump. I doubt that’s a GREAT but it’s a number that I can reference for future testing.

8/3/12 WOD – Coach didn’t write the agenda for the day but he wrote our results at least!

NO MetCon today, SAY WHAT? Yup we worked on Gymnastics Skills. We were going to Bar Work along with working on Handstand Push Ups but ended up only working on HSPUs. Instead of our normal set up with putting a 25lb or 35lb bumper plate under and abmat we went for a BAND Contraption to hold us up so we could practice full depth. I think saying full depth for a HSPU is correct but if it’s not I hope you understand what I mean. If we have a plate under our abmat our range of motion is limited which is still helpful but today Coach set us up in something along the lines of the images below. It was definitely ODD at first but it made sense and I felt like I worked at it a little better.

Not having a MetCon you would think we wouldn’t bust out a drenched sweat but we did. It was a different kind of work today and a much needed break on the body!

Park WOD
I didn’t want to do this WOD at all. I just wanted to sit in my little camping chair and hang out and watch football practice but I said to myself suck it up buttercup and then made my NOW 13 year old kick it into high gear with me. Ok so not high gear but at least we were kicking it into gear.

We started with a run/jog around the fields we were at. I don’t estimate distance very well but it was about a 6-7 minute run. We then used the XFIT Global App on my phone to randomly choose a WOD. The app has a nice little “on the go” feature and you can set it to randomly give you WODs that requires no equipment, for the most part. So it popped up with 8 rounds of 30 second Handstand Hold and 10 Air Squats. In reality I should have finished this in about 4 minutes. But it took me a little over 5 minutes because I was sucking wind and holding a handstand proved to more taxing that I thought it would. And after the 3rd round I dropped to a 20 second handstand. So I should have finished way under 5 minutes. Ah well. Once we were done with that we decided or I decided we should run the perimeter of fields again. Jonas was not happy and after what seemed like 200 yds I was thinking it was a bad idea as well. Instead of keeping with the running we stopped and started lunging. I started counting but then lost track so just kept lunging to a point we both agreed on. After we lunged, we back peddled to another point, then jogged about 50 yds to a nicer part of field. At the point we did Broad Jump Burpees for about 40 yds and then walked it in the rest of the way. It wasn’t hardcore but it was good work. Hopefully we’ll get more work done this evening.

Hip Hip HOOOOooooray for Friday! I hope everyone has the best weekend ever. Play outside! (YES I KNOW IT’S HOT, so WHAT??!!!??) And of course BE AWESOME!!

Gettin’ It Done

After some consistency in my clean eating, getting a little more sleep and still gettin work done at the box I feel like my downward spiral of loserness is spiraling back up to awesomness. It’s not raining butterflies and glitter yet but I’m getting there.

With that said I almost didn’t get up for the BOOM Box this morning! Hahahah… I was so happy sleeping away. I still made it sure enough. 1 RM of Press was our Skill/Strength. I KNEW in my head I had a PR coming. And my head was an absolute LIAR. My brain sits on a throne of lies and my body fails me regularly! I still have the same Press and I was sad. My push press is 100lbs! I know I get to use my legs but still I was hoping for at least a 5lb baby PR! Just have to put more work in!

8/2/12 WOD

MetCon: 11.1 OPEN WOD – 10 min AMRAP of 30 Double Unders and 15 Ground To Overhead (45lbs)

Wooweee I was nervous for this workout. Starting out with Double Unders isn’t so bad. I can string em up pretty good, but I knew when my shoulders wore out it would be hard to keep it up. As for the 15 GTOH, I did Snatches. Some were muscled up and some were power snatches and I was slow my first round. I just wasn’t mentally in the right place. As time went on my DUs sucked, out of breath, losing focus, etc. But my Snatch got a little better because all I could think was GO H.A.M.! I don’t think I really went as hard as I probably should have but I was trying and I felt like I was moving fast and then I’d feel like I was in slow motion. My last set of DUs before time ran out were my best. Somehow my rope got a knot in it and I did my 30 DUs unbroken! Doing that on the last set was pretty amazeballs considering I was smoked. Maybe I just had that laser focus because time was running out. Score: 5 rounds + 30 + 7

Football conditioning for the kiddos disappeared the past 2 weeks but we are now into official practices. Like I’ve mentioned previously I’m going to add some workouts in during this time. I’m there for 2 1/2 hours so I might as well make it productive right?!? Not sure what I’ll do tonight but work will get done.

That’s all I got for ya today. Have a crazy fun day. Be awesome!!

Bbbllllaaaahhhhh!

I don’t know if it’s the heat or what but I just am out of it. I think life in general is just stressful and it takes a toll. I’m not going to bed when I should because of the Olympics, yes it’s a valid excuse! And I’m dragging in the morning. AND I really sucked at the BOOM BOX today.

Skill/Strength: Split Jerk
We worked on form and technique today with only pvc and the bar. Working on these things are never a bad thing. It really helps to go through the motions and really get the little things worked out. The tiniest movements are crucial to having a successful lift. Now I just need OLY shoes because Lift Big, Eat Big told me so (HINT, HINT, WINK, WINK)!

MetCon: 10 rounds of 12 lunges, 6 burpees
1. My legs are smoked from sprints and Death by Front Squats
2. I’m tired
3. The burpees were not the normal, fall to ground, get up, jump up and clap hands over head. Instead it was fall to ground, get up and jump up on bumper plate. I didn’t think this was any big deal but for some reason I let it get to me mentally.
4. I sucked
5. Time 9:59, Thank goodness I made it under 10 minutes.

That’s it in a nutshell. I hate being Debbie Downer but it’s how I feel today. I can fake it till I make it and I think I am doing JUST that by getting my butt up at 4:30 am! I just need to feel less blah. I’m thinking it’s just a phase, because I recall a few months ago I was sounding pretty much the same. Then I started feeling super awesome and now I’m back to not feeling as super. SIGH! I’m hoping you faithful readers stick with me and don’t get burned out on my crybaby self.

Keep your heads up (yes that’s for me) and keep on keepin’ on. BE AWESOME!

(NOTE: I’ve made a similar statement before but I figure I need to make it every now and then so you all don’t think I’m a more of a loonball than I already am. Yes these are petty things I whine about compared to what goes on in the whole universe and I know I’m fortunate that I have good health and a great family, job, etc. I am not ungrateful for the things I am blessed with. In turn I know we all have these feelings when living under our own rocks. I just express them openly. Please know this is an outlet and inside peek to my life. Hopefully relatable to some as well. Heheh maybe more than a peek sometimes. And you don’t really want to know what goes on in my world. Maybe some of you do, but I’m not here to share all my stories!)

Mondays Suck but the OLYMPICS make it better!

First of all, I think we all should get paid vacation so we can focus on the OLYMPICS… it’s not like it’s every year. We should support our country as a whole ツ I don’t care about doing work, I care more about watching the USA compete even in sports that I know nothing about! I get goosebumps every time I hear some wonderful back story or see the pride on an athlete’s face whether they are on the podium or had a good performance clearing the path for a medal finish. The work, the blood, the tears…. EVERYTHING they put into making the Olympics their time to shine. It’s FANFREAKINGTASTIC!!!!

I was never much into weightlifting but since starting CrossFit and the fact that Olympic Lifts are part of it, I made a point to watch weightlifting. So far I’ve only watched the 48 kilo class and those tiny women are STRONG and make it look easy! It blows my mind. I’m really new to it all and I’m sure that’s the norm if you’ve been training your whole life for such things but it still blows my mind!!

I know, enough already, you’re not a sports writer or anything of the sort. I’m just a blogger, half ass one at that so I’ll move on to what I do regularly bore you with my daily crap! So the eating got a little better over the weekend and this week is going to be 100% back on track. I have 3 weeks till Europa and I need to be at my best. Europa is a Fitness Expo and they are hosting a CrossFit Competition that me and several other Boom Boxers signed up for as an intermediate team. Why oh why would we do such a thing? Mostly for fun! Secondly because this is where I first saw CrossFit in person a year ago. I totally wanted to be these people. I wanted to compete. I wanted to participate. Little did I know HOW HARD THIS SHIT REALLY IS and how hard it STILL is! But we signed up anyways. Win, Lose, FAIL… it will be fun. I just hope we are more on the winning end! So ya, this is why I need to clean up what I eat ASAP! And that process has begun.

GREEN SMOOTHIES
This is a work in progress that I admittedly did not want to be involved in. Ernie was determined to make a Kale Smoothie yesterday and although the flavor wasn’t bad, the thickness and chewability factor was horrid. He drank ate his smoothie and didn’t go for round 2.

This morning we failed at defrosting pork belly, SIGH, what will I have to eat now? Well a wild hair of an idea popped up and I said I’ll make me a green smoothie now! Why not? We have the stuff so I googled Paleo Smoothies and clicked around till I found one that sounded good to try. This smoothie called for a half frozen banana, spinach, cocoa powder, coconut oil, almond butter, cinnamon, almond milk and some ice. I started blending it all up, looked like a green/brown cup of nasty and tasted it… WHOAAAA too much cocoa powder, it’s unsweetened so it’s a really strong taste! Something was off – I FORGOT THE BANANA! DOH! So I threw half of a frozen banana into the food processor, added my green/brown concoction back in and gave it a whirl. This was much better in flavor but still too much cocoa. I know better next time and hopefully will have a better flavor profile. (YES ERNIE I DRANK IT ALL!)

WOD
I seriously considered sleeping in this morning. I just wasn’t feeling but I knew I had to shake my funk off and get to the BOOM BOX. I wasn’t the only sleeping in! I was the ONLY one there for the first 10 minutes. One other person showed up and that was it to our 5 am class. Not sure if folks are on vacation or just being slackers. But I definitely felt better about myself for just showing up!

Skill/Strength: 10 – 40yd sprints. I don’t really consider this skill or strength but only cause I’m a big baby and don’t like running. Although I’d rather sprint than run a damn mile. It is what it is. We didn’t really time anything out, just worked on form and form. I wish I was a better runner but I really don’t enjoy practicing the actual act of running. I’m screwed!

7/30/12 WOD

MetCon: Death by Front Squats – 65lbs. I know I’ve explained the whole Death By more than once but I gotta be fair to any new readers. When you do Death By anything it means you perform the movement you are assigned or the movement you choose on the minute, adding one rep for each minute. Soooooo you start clock, do 1 rep then rest till the start of the next minute. When that minute arrives you do 2 reps. Rest till the start of the next minute then do 3 reps. You keep doing this until you can not complete the amount of reps in the minute. With that said, I completed 11 rounds. I went for the 12th minute but I felt a tightening pain in my back/lat/somewhere in that region and it just hurt. I didn’t want to continue. It didn’t hurt when I “cleaned” the bar just when I would go from standing to squatting. Even if it didn’t hurt I probably wouldn’t have made it past 12. Regardless, including the 5 I completed in the 12th round, I did 71 Front Squats at 65lbs in less than 12 minutes. I was a hot sweaty mess. It was good work! I did some mobility afterwards and the back/shoulder/whatever is much better.

I hope tomorrow doesn’t involve running!!!! It’s only Monday. I’ve put my big girl panties on. Let’s do this! Commit to something good for YOU this week. It doesn’t have to be major but it surely can be ツ Make a goal this week. Eat clean, work out, walk, lay off the booze, meditate, read a book. Just commit to better mind and health. And let me know if you need MOTIVATION! I just wanna help! I want to help YOU, whoever YOU may be… crazy stalker, an old friend, complete stranger, etc. I know I sound CRAZY but I’m not really….uhhhhh depending I suppose on your definition of crazy, hehehe. Ah well. Ask for help if you need it… ENJOY your day! See you all tomorrow! Be AWESOME!

 

Yes I’m a GIRLBABY … sometimes!

This week has been full of wah wah wah, I know! I think I’m allowed to have a pity party every now and then. And I feel very deja vu about that intro. I’ve probably said something very similar in past posts! At least I’m admitting my faults at the same time and not just sitting here say WHY is this happening to me? And I thank you for putting up with me even if that means you aren’t reading my crybaby petty complaining. I still have people that show me the love and encouragement on the Facebook! And for that I THANK YOU!

As this week comes to a closing I can re-iterate that my eating is tons better than last week. Although my body parts still feel inflamed, the pain is subsiding. Clean eating does a body GOOD, I PROMISE! And although I’m dragging ass at the box I’m still putting forth max efforts. We have a competition coming up in 3 weeks that I am excited about. Well some days I’m more excited than others because some days I’m just nervous thinking about it. It will be fun at least and hopefully we suck less than others! Hahaha! So my goal for the next three weeks is GO HARD or STAY HOME! And I plan to go Paleo 100% if possible – maybe 95% for all you literal peeps just because we aren’t cave folks and I sure as hell ain’t hunting down anything. I typically stick to a 85-90% clean eating range so 100% isn’t a major leap but it’s a leap! And I’m just talking food here. I’m not talking about giving up the beauty of modern times, technology, etc. I’m referring to eating clean, pasture raised, grass fed, chemical free REAL FOODS!

So now I’ve made my declaration I hope most importantly to not let myself down because I want to be better for me but also for all you that read along regularly. I am human, I do make mistakes, I do go off the grid but it’s all about accountability, right? So pray I will be successful. It’s not easy, I will never say it’s easy because life likes to throw you curveballs!

Moving on to today’s WHITEBOARD.

7/27/12 WOD

Skill/Strength: 3 rounds of 10 for Pistols (one legged squats) and Banded Push Ups
Good news! I finally did Pistols on the ground! I did however use a 15lb plate for counter balance and I could only do them on my right leg but hell ya I was happy. My left leg is sad and gimpy and I was having troubles on the box and on the ground. There’s a painful point in the bending of my knee that hurts like a mofo. Once my IT Band crosses the inflammed bursa sack I’m fine. But it’s the whole OH SHIT IT’S GONNA HURT point that I try to avoid. So Coach is having me do Pistols “backwards” if you will on my left leg. I start out sitting on a med ball. Left leg is flat on ground with heel against the ball and right leg is being held straight out. From there I attempt to stand up. This still hurts but not near as bad as squatting down. I managed to get reps in this way and with more mobility work, eating clean and what now I hope to remedy this whole IT Band issue!

This is how a pistol SHOULD look like.

This is kind of how I did them but with a bumper plate instead of weird KB
looking thing.

I way underestimated Banded Push Ups. My silly self thought a Green Band would be fine! Hell to the NO, I did maybe 5 and Coach gave me a blue band. Still not easy but do-able.

MetCon: 10 Rounds of TEAM 40yd KettleBell Suicides and 80yd sprint
We had teams of 2. The goal was run suicides while carrying KBs. Cones were set up every 10yds for 40yds. If you don’t know what suicides are you are lucky. You run down to first cone, run back to start, run down to second cone then back to start, etc. You may see people doing this at a basketball court or on a football field. It’s a butt whoopin no matter how you do it. Carrying an extra 35lbs well that’s plain ol SILLY and a butt whoopin! I felt gung ho and ready to GO H.A.M. but after the 2nd cone I wanted to just go HOME. I struggled. There is no good way to carry a KB and run, not one good way at all. That’s 200yds carrying a KB and then 80yds sprinting (hahahha, I could not sprint at all) times 5! I apologized to my teammate for sucking. He was going strong and would keep us a little closer to the team we were racing against but I kept slowing us down. Time: 17:40

This weekend will be ALL REST weekend and getting my ass in gear for better eating. I hope you have a Fantabulous Friday and Kick Ass weekend. Enjoy life! I demand it! And everyone with me in chorus: BE AWESOME!

Slow rollin’

Still in depression mode. Eating better but not 100% yet. I can feel it holding me down. I’m getting there but it’s a SLOW process right now.

I made some sweet potato noodles last night and low and behold they were different types of sweet potatoes! Made for a nice plate (of which I didn’t not take a picture of) but I recommend mixing it if even by accident. The different textures of a white fleshed sweet potato and a regular ol’ orangey one made the slightest difference and it was all for the good. Pretty – Check; Interesting – Check; Tasty – Check! As far as food and cooking go I’m back on track. It’s the snacking on stuff like chips (leftover from vacation) that is ruining me. Plus the fact that I’m still recovering from food overload last week. It takes a while to clean your system and if you’re not completely eating clean it’s not going to happen any faster :/ I’m trying. It’s hard. I just want to sleep and eat junk.

This vicious cycle is ruining my WODs at the BOOM BOX or at least that’s what I’m telling myself!!!! I mean I did PR twice last week but that was before it all the badness could build up and shut me down.

7/26/12 WOD

Skill/Strength: BAR WORK! ARGH! DOUBLE ARGH! I chose to work on Toes To Bar because I can do them but I need to do them better. I think I got absolutely NOWHERE in the whole doing them better department.

MetCon: 4 rounds – Complete at least 10 Thrusters in 30 seconds AS HEAVY AS POSSIBLE, 1 minute Plank, 1 minute REST (add weight time). So the goal was to start off at a lighter weight and work your way up to as heavy as possible with the Thrusters. I know I can do 65lb Thrusters but can I do 10 in 30 seconds?

Annie Sakamoto showing how Thrusters get done!

I struggle with this movement and to think once upon a time in a land far far away I thought Thrusters were my favorite movement. In reality THEY SUCK! But in my opinion they are probably the best OVERALL barbell movement for your body, bang for your buck movement. They STILL SUCK. I started with 55lbs and I struggled. I did 5 real quick then slowed waaayyyy down for the other 5. My knee, my shoulder, everything – ALL HURT, ACHED, ETC. Went to plank position when the 30 seconds was up and felt okay. Quads started burning halfway through plank but I was fine for the most part.

Good solid PLANK! NOTE: back is straight. Some people hinge at hips and their butt is way up in air and some people let their hips sag – Both will help you get nowhere!

So I moved up to 60lbs during our REST period and was ready to go kinda sorta. Got the 10 knocked out with 2 seconds to spare – whew that was too close! The next plank was horrible. I couldn’t control my breathing, I was hurting and my shoulders were spent. 1 minute turned into FOREVER! On the 3rd round I decided to stay with 60lbs. I don’t think Coach was over the moon with that decision but I was feeling WEAK! I still got my 10 reps and I was a little better with the PLANK. On the 4th round I stepped it up to 65lbs. Just like the first round I did 5 reps with the quickness and then BAM slowed down, I finished right on the button. The 4th plank was the worst. I dropped to a knee for about 5 seconds I think and was trying to go from elbow to elbow to relieve my shoulders. It was horrible. Our score was our heaviest round completed. I know I won’t be sitting at the top of the board today but I am learning to deal with my weaknesses and not let them get to my head. One day they will be my strengths! That’s what I keep telling myself at least! Hahaha.

I’m super sleepy and it’s all because the past two evenings I can’t get to sleep. I typically don’t have a problem with sleep. My head hits the pillow and I’m OUT but the past two nights I’ve been tired but my brain won’t shut off. Again I’m attributing this to poor eating. Hopefully that’s all it is and hopefully I’ll get back to good sleep. One more official workout for the week. If I’m feeling spunky I may try to do something over the weekend but right now lazy lazy lazy is all that is in my brain.

I’m trying to be awesome but having a hard time. So please be EXTRA AWESOME to make up for what I am lacking! Have a better than mediocre Thursday!!!

I’m here. Not willingly but I am here.

It’s true I have PVD: POST VACATION DEPRESSION. I have no will to do much of anything other than go through the boring routine known as my life! How’s that for dramatic?!? Hahahah. I seriously just wish I could have stayed on Maui. But reality is I can not. Now I just gotta get out of my funk and move on. Over a week and no blogging it’s kind of bittersweet. I have a lot of workouts to report on, not one good bit of clean eating and I could recap vacation but don’t want to bore y’all with too much. As always I write off the cuff, no planning or outlines so who knows what you’ll get today!

Maui Recap
I did manage to get an ALOHA in on two Sundays ago and pretty much we were non stop the whole time. Ernie and I were good little workers and hit up Lahaina CrossFit a total of 5 times! It was 1 Rep Max week for them and out of 4 different movements on our last day I PR’d on Push Press! 100lb PUSH PRESS!!! So stoked to hit triple digits.

Doing some CASH OUT Tire Flips at Lahaina CrossFit!

As for the rest of the time, we went ocean rafting with Ocean Riders. We took a ride around the island of Lanai which is about 8 miles from Maui. Total distance around Lanai is about 68 miles. It took up the whole day and we hit up 3 snorkel spots. This was cool for us because we hit up snorkel spots we had never seen before. I only managed to see a sea turtle, some eels and of course lots of fish. One family saw a 3-4ft gray reef shark; Ernie and Jonas saw a lobster; Jonas saw sting rays and we all saw a variety of eels as well. If you’ve never rafted on the ocean it’s something you should do. It’s fun, crazy, and gets your heart pumping.

Family Pic during a peaceful part of the trip on Ocean Riders!

We also did a zipline tour at Piiholo Zipline. I really thought I’d be more “scared” of dangling over hundreds of feet but I wasn’t. It was beautiful and really fun. I had imagined a more adrenaline pumped adventure but instead of it was just very cool and laid back.

Jakob flying high!

We also hit up a few beaches with some good surf where the kids did body surfing and boogy board surfing as well. I attempted to body surf and after getting beat up those 2 times that I “caught” a wave I was out! This mama does not find getting beat up very fun! The kids though had a blast. I opted to hang out past the break and enjoyed the show! The water was beautiful at all our spots. Chilly at first but perfect once you acclimated.

If you’ve been to Maui then you know about the Road to Hana. We weren’t going to go because it’s a long, sometimes terrifying but beautiful drive but the kids remembered the natural pools and wanted to go swimming in them again. It was rainy the whole trip and we get to the pools only to find out that they are closed to swimming! WTH?!? Guess we should have done our homework. It’s a fabulous scenic drive none the less but we did have some scary moments and were rather disappointed that the pools were closed!

The beautiful pools that we COULD NOT swim in this year 😦

One of our only “chill” moments was the Luau we attended. I had not been to a luau since I was a kid so it was fun to see the excitement in everyone else’s faces. I forgot that luau’s can be fun and the fire dancing at the end was phenomenal!

Everyone’s favorite part of the Luau….well 2nd to the Fire Dancing!

Enough about my trip, I kept it short because I really could write a novel I think and I’m hoping highlights are better than dragging it out.

COMMUNITY BOOM WOD
We got home at 5 am this past Saturday and the crazy person that I am went to the BOOM BOX Community WOD and OLY class that follows. Yup I’m a little off my rocker. Boy did we do some work at the 9am WOD. It was guys vs. girls (teams of 5) and we did sled pulls and indian runs, wall ball leap frog something else I can’t recall and 500 KB swings! It ended up that it was tied 2-2 so the KB swings was the challenge to win. Turns out us ladies won! Go US!!

OLY Class
Right after Community WOD I have an OLY Class where we worked on Snatch Push Press and Overhead Squats (OHS). I suck at both but really put some effort out there and improved overall. Bonus is that I PR’d my OHS by 15lbs! I went from 75lb OHS to 90lb OHS! After my Push Press PR and my OHS PR I was feeling pretty good. I haven’t had much luck in that dept so it felt good knowing I’m improving.

7/23/12 WOD

7/23/12 WOD

After the workouts on Saturday I did nothing but sleep and eat poorly. This added to the week worth of vacation POOR eating, I knew I was in for it Monday Morning! And I was really in for it because it was 6 week test of CINDY! Six weeks ago I posted about weaksauce Cindy and that was after one weekend of bad eating, what will 9 days of bad eating get me?!?

Well I started off with the green band and completed 3 rounds of Pull Ups, by the fourth round Coach gave me a blue band to add to my green band. Pull Ups were much easier but I was still dragging ass! I completed 11 rounds + 5 pull ups (green band then green with blue). 6 weeks ago I completed 6 rounds +4 pullups (green band only). Although I managed more rounds I felt shorted because I ended up using more bands but ah well.

7/24/12 WOD

7/24/12 WOD

See I didn’t gibber jabber on too much. I was short and sweet and now about to be caught up for the week! This morning was one of those mornings that I knew I didn’t want to show up for at all. One mile run was part of the WOD and I didn’t want to do it. Sleep sounded so much better! Like a good little (well not so little) girl I unwillingly drug my butt up to the box. We worked on Back Squats adding 5lbs to our previous weight we worked on last. I’m up to 115lbs. 3 sets of 5 and although I could do the weight I always struggled on the last rep of each set! My IT band/knee bursae is/are so inflammed from eating poorly it’s sickening. It hurts so bad but I gotta push through. Been eating better for most of yesterday and all of today. It just takes time I know and I’m not going to beat myself up mentally over it. My body feels the effects just fine and it sucks!

MetCon: One Mile Run, then 3 minute AMRAP of Dead Lifts at 75lbs. So ya running, bleh! Slowest mile I’ve run in a very long time. 10:07! WTH. The guys are way faster and I was just left to my own devices of going SLOW! I didn’t even realize how slow my pace was until I got back inside. I had no time to cry about just do Dead Lifts. 75lbs isn’t so heavy so I knew I could get a good chunk in. I did 22 unbroken then broke down to sets of 10. All this poor eating has left me winded. I can’t breath. And I want to cry! In the end I completed 63 Dead Lifts. Here’s hoping that the rest of the whiteboard doesn’t blow me away. Well I know the run sucked but hopefully I made up for it in DLs!

So there ya have it. 9 day recap. Hopefully I told enough without you begging for more and in turn hopefully I didn’t bore the hell out of you. It’s Tuesday! SMILE! Maybe? Nah… I just want the ocean around me again and nice temps. Be awesome!