crossfit

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!

NEVER FORGET

What a day to remember. We all have our memories of this day 11 years ago and I know we will Never Forget. It was such an emotional day in America. While I was not affected to the depths of others who lost loved ones and who were close to pure insanity that ensued my heart still was heavy. Pray, Pray and Pray some more is all I knew to do – Love my family and be grateful for what we had. I continue to do just that. I hope everyone does the same. I hope everyone REMEMBERS all of our HEROES not only from 9/11 but throughout history as well as our current and future HEROES. God Bless America!

9/11/12 WOD

Our BOOM Box WOD was one to honor 9/11 and to Never Forget. Time is set for 20:01 and we were to do 99 Weighted Overhead Lunges (35/45lbs) and 111 Pushups. If you finished under 20:01 AMRAP it out. At 20:01 we ran 1 mile as a team. I struggled a bit with the OH Lunges, I took them in 10s and 5s. I probably took too much time to rest as well but it starts to hurt! I got to the HR Push Ups and I faired better than I thought I would. I was actually doing those in 10’s and 5’s and I threw in 2’s and 3’s as well. I finished strong in sets of 5. I don’t even recall the time when I finished but it didn’t matter because I had to keep going until 20:01 was up. I ended up getting 56 reps of OH Lunges into my 2nd round. We took off as a team and ended as a team for our MILE run. Thank goodness one teammate, Andrea, has a glute that is slowing her down. Not thank goodness that she’s not 100% but that she had to keep a slower pace. And another teammate Travis was wearing a weight vest. I’m not sure how much it was but I know wearing it for the whole workout and then running with it was a PAIN in the booty! So he was slower than normal. We finished at 33:11!

In other NOT SO SOLEMN news
We were having jokes this morning since we all survived the WOD and I decided to share my personal top 5 of “YOU KNOW YOU’RE A CROSSFIT JUNKIE WHEN…” I know, I know it’s been done and there’s probably a ton of versions out there but whatever! Heheheh. Plus I’m only doing 5 instead of 10 so just humor me or let me try to humor you ツ

TOP 5 REASONS YOU KNOW YOU ARE A CROSSFIT JUNKIE

5. You make everyday tasks and chores a WOD i.e. Car wash WOD, Laundry WOD, Clean the Bathroom WOD

4. You realize you no longer shop for normal clothes and you only shop for CrossFit type shirts, shorts and accessories.

3. You find yourself picking your calluses mindlessly in your car, at your desk, well pretty much everywhere!

2. You realize you have a love/hate relationship with LACROSSE Balls. One is in my car, on my nightstand, at work, etc.

And the NUMBER ONE reason YOU KNOW YOU ARE A CROSSIFT JUNKIE (this one’s for you Kristen)

1. You practice your HOOK GRIP while driving!

 

I’m a dork I know but hopefully that’s why you ♥ me! Have a crazy, insane and AWESOME day! Yup you know it. Be the most AWESOMEREST!

 

Welcoming the COOLDOWN

The weather has been freakin AMAZEBALLS down here in Texas. Ya it’s still probably a little warm to everyone else but when you get out of the 100’s and into low 90’s high 80’s you’d think it was winter! That means our mornings are in the 50’s and 60’s. You can’t ask for better!

Saturday WOD
As most of you know we had a Community WOD at the BOOM BOX on Saturday. It was a filled with all sorts of fun. We started out with a contest of counting the weight on the barbell. We had a couple of rounds since only 3 people competed against each other at a time. They would be turned away from the barbell and Coach would load up the bar, 3, 2, 1 LOOK and be the first one to write the correct answer on the board. If you got the weight right but were not first you had to do 5 burpees. If you got the weight wrong you had to do 20 burpees. We went head to head till we had one winner. I made it to the final round winning 2 heats! I got panicked and rushed and got it wrong and ended up penalized with 20 burpees… BoooHoooo!

We then proceeded with a TEAM WOD. We had teams of 3 and 3 stations: Weighted Overhead Lunges, Chest to Bar Pull Ups (no assistance allowed) and Wall Balls. Well shitfire, I can’t do CTB Pull Ups so we’re screwed or so I thought. Turns out we don’t have to do all the stations which is great for me, but it sucks for whoever can do CTB because they have to double up on CTB. And I have to bust out the other movements to make up for my loser-ness. We did 3 rounds of the 3 minute stations and counted total reps. My legs are still dead from Wall Balls but we came in 1st place with 385 reps! Woooo Go us (Nick, Trenton and me)! ツ

9/10/12 WOD
Like I said my legs were still dead from the Wall Balls although I’m sure the Lunges have some factor in the achy legs too. Again with the weather it was so nice to get through our warm up and not be drenched in sweat!

9/10/12 WOD

Skill/Strength: 3 Front Squats + 1 Push Press (15 minutes to get as heavy as possible)I know my MAX Push Press is 100lbs so that was at least my goal for the morning. We steadily worked our way up in weight and when I got to 85lbs I felt some tightness near my underarm in the Push Press, it was NOT comfortable but I still got the weight up overhead. I’m not sure if this is because my rotator cuffs are fried or what but when I jumped up to 95lbs I just wasn’t making the cut. I was ok with where I was at because I knew I had pain and I didn’t want to make it worse and at the end I just couldn’t get the weight up. Need MORE Mobility!

MetCon: 3 rounds of 3 GTOH @ 85lbs, 8 Pull Ups, 1min rest
I wasn’t sure about doing the GTOH with the quickness but I was convinced I could do so. It wasn’t so bad but I was so focused on my shoulders being dead that I wasn’t JERKING the bar efficiently. I got to the pull ups last and well we all know I’m slow at pull ups so that didn’t help me out either. I was all ready to get to the bar FAST and realized no one else was doing anything! I forgot about the 1 minute REST!!! It was nice to have the rest but I still struggled. By my last round of GTOH which I was Clean & Jerking by the way I failed on my 3rd attempt. I was like WTH?!?! Cleaned the bar focused and Jerked the Hell out it! Well that was EASY! Why didn’t I do that the whole time?!? Ha! I have no clue. Then I went on my merry way to struggle on pull ups! Time: 4:48 (NOT GOOD)

Enjoy your hopefully Beautiful MONDAY! It hasn’t been beat down drag ass like Mondays can be so it’s a good day! And remember BE AWESOME.

❤ THIS…CHECK IT OUT!  The SECRET SOCIETY OF AWESOME!

Happy Happy Joy Joy

At last it’s Friday! I went to bed last night feeling the hurt from the Bear Complex yesterday monrning. It’s an all body take down. I woke up feeling the hurt even more. I wasn’t sure all my limbs would make it out of bed but thankfully they did. I wanted nothing more but to crawl back into bed and hibernate.

As my story typically goes… YOU Know I got up and dragged my sore ass body into the BOOM Box. What awaited us was Muscle UP Work, Double Unders and Running that is if I can make it through the warm up, which involved Bear Crawls, which typically are fine in my book. My arms didn’t want to hold me up at all. Worst Bear Crawls EVER, then inch worms right after that?!? What a cruel cruel world! 😉

9/7/12 WOD

Skill Strength: Muscle Up Development
Let me first state, I can’t do a pull up, I surely can’t do a Muscle Up but working on technique never hurts. In my head I will pretend I am awesome at the MUs. So we work on lowered rings with bands and proceeded to learn and understand what our HIPS should be doing from a horizontal position… please hold your jokes for later. After a while of that we worked on being balled up and holding the position right before you would actually press up to a finished muscle up. Put it all together and you have the workings of a Muscle Up. And to top it off I found pics on the interwebs to illustrate, sorta, kinda!

You use a handy dandy band for assistance.

We were a little lower to the ground but you get the idea, bring hips up to rings.

Ball up and end like this.

MetCon: 15 Double Unders UNBROKEN, 200m Sprint
Well Well Well, Something I’m pretty sure I can do but ya just never know. I’ve clearly explained before that when I’m ever trying to get MAX DUs in a time frame, the shit hits the fan. My brain turns to mush when the clock starts counting down. Getting 15 DUs unbroken shouldn’t be a problem and thankfully it WAS NOT a problem. My biggest problem is that I’m a slow ass runner. I SUCK at running. I know I say I’m horrible at a lot of things and mostly that’s my disappointment in myself talking and you all get a dose of it DAILY but I know I’m getting better in the long run. When I say I SUCK at running, I really do. I’ve had progress and what not but I’m not a runner, mentally or physically and I don’t aspire to be EVER. If only I had some mental drive to run faster then maybe I would have been more successful on this MetCon. I did push on my last sprint so I broke that mental barrier for the morning but it’s hard to do. Time 4:39

Kid Front News
I had a big KID win last night by making sweet potato hash and topping it with spaghetti meat sauce. Justice gave it a 10 and compared to the zucchini noodles which was only given a 6. Still not bad but preferred the SWEET POTATO! And so EASY to make. No pics but I”ll give a quick breakdown: Cook you up some GRASSFED Ground Beef… season away, me I use: salt, pepper, cumin, garlic powder. Sometimes I add tomatoes, onion, real garlic, mushrooms, etc but we were in a hurry last night. Add beef to already warming up SUGAR FREE, ORGANIC PASTA SAUCE (I can’t recall the brand I use at this moment, but if you really want to know just comment below please, I’ll have it later today.) While that’s going on, peel and shred up however many sweet potatoes you need. Sautee in coconut oil or Bacon Fat till soft. Pour meat sauce on top of potato hash, Add a side salad. You’re done! I have no pictures because I was not planning on sharing, how rude of me! It was late, post football practice, kids starving, fuel was needed… NO TIME for blog ideas!

Sorry but one more kid note… Jonas took some baby spinach to school and had some friends inquire as to what it was, it’s seriously a sad day that kids don’t know what fruits and vegetables are out there. Shoot I know there’s a ton of adults who don’t know as it is but geesh, spinach people, spinach. One of his friends tasted it… it’s raw, no dressing, seasoning or anything and they thought it was LOVELY and couldn’t believe it came as is! Seriously, it blows my mind! And to go with that is a lovely 70’s Saturday Morning PSA that I hope y’all enjoy!

Hope y’all have a super duper weekend. Community WOD at the BOOM Box tomorrow if you want to come out and have some fun! Hopefully it’s still in the 60s at 9am! So no excuse of being too HOT! If you can’t BE AWESOME with us just make sure you are AWESOME in general.

BEAR of a Morning!

I felt really good this morning. Maybe because I slept flat on my back ALL night, or maybe because the Cowboys won and I didn’t go to sleep pissed off, or maybe just maybe it’s just a good day. Good energy, not as achy as normal. Who knows! I feel good and I like it!

I even woke up with ease this morning and was ready for the BOOM Box! Skill/Strength: 5 rounds 50yd sprints. I can do short distance sprints much better than 100 or 200 yd ones. Plus on flat ground vs. that damn hill makes the running all the better. Today we mostly focused on form. It appears I was sprinting like a loonball and Coach had me work on technique. Let me tell you it’s hard to actually THINK about how you run. All of sudden I feel like I’m in quicksand. My BRAIN is draining what little speed I thought I had. But by the end my technique was better, now I just need the speed!

MetCon: 2RM of the BEAR Complex
Our task this morning was to warm up and work up to a 2 rep max of the Bear Complex with a 30 minute time frame. 30 minutes sounds like forever, but we were teamed up on a bar to take turns and I’m sure to make sure we get SOME rest so that was nice! I know some of you are wondering what exactly is the BEAR Complex. You start off cleaning the bar, doing a front squat, push pressing over head, bringing bar down to back of shoulders, back squat, and push pressing back up overhead. That’s 1 REP. You’ll see the movements in the video below. You also hear her explain it’s 5 rounds of 7 sets. Our goal however was work up in weight and do at least 2 REPS.

We started off at 55lbs, EASY BREEZY. I squat cleaned to a thruster to a backsquat to a thruster really well at such a light weight and was able to do that up to 80lbs. It was at 85lbs that I had to slow it down. And it was at 90lbs where I grew a chicken wing and FAILED 3 times, womp womp! I got through 1 Rep fine, it was the 2nd rep and the last push press where I couldn’t get it up. My left arm/elbow would just fly out. It couldn’t hang with the bar. My left arm is FIRED! And on my last attempt I was so damn focused on getting that 2nd Push Press I totally FORGOT to Back Squat! Seriously? WOW Stephanie! Ah well, that Push Press didn’t happen anyways so what if I missed the Squat, whatever! Heheheh. I know that 90lbs is MINE. It just sucks I couldn’t string it together! I got you Bear Complex, I got you!

Also, I just want to let you know if you’re on the fence about OLY Shoes… GET THEM! I felt great in my squats. Good depth, stable and confident. You realize right off the bat how beneficial they are BUT it was TODAY that I really could tell a big difference. Maybe all this Feeling GOOD is me finally breaking into a new level mentally and physically…. cross your fingers this is TRUE and that it sticks ツ

In other news
So Paleo is the thing we do, we’ve been lacksidasical in the past two months, I know, but still we eat pretty clean and stick to Paleo pretty closely. Now Ernie is flipping the script and reading up on Carb Backloading! I don’t know if flipping the script is the right terminology, it’s just different!

Sounds too good to be true, eat clean, eat clean, eat clean, WORK OUT, then stuff your face with all sorts of good and bad carbs, then go back to eating clean until after your next workout. That’s the gist of it or that’s how my brain is taking it in. Thoughts? Anyone else doing this? PLEASE NOTE – I have yet to read/research/educate myself about it. Forgive me if I have it all wrong. I don’t even know if I do ENOUGH physical work to justify this type of program. Just throwin it out there to see if anyone has any comments, ideas, suggestions, testimonials, etc.

Tha, Tha, That’s ALL Folks for this Thursday edition of Drinking the CF KOOL-AID. Let me tell you… it’s still good! Be the most Awesome of AwEsOmE today!