WOD

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!!!

Tricep Death Thursday

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

 

 

 

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

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

8/30/12 WOD

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

Floor Press

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

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

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

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

Confidence… Where are you?

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

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

8/28/12 WOD

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

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

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

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

CrossFit-iversary–BOOM!

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

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

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

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

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

8/24/12 WOD

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

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

I WORK OUT!

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

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

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

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

Diamond Pushups

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

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