A Day of Rest

I’ve made a decision in the last week or so, I’m going to try and Crossfit this bitch out for the month of November, if I like the results I’m going to do the same in December.   If at the end of this month I get below 270 lbs then I’ll continue to Crossfit 3 days on 1 day off, otherwise I am moving back to a plan of using Crossfit to enhance my athleticism, yet push endurance cardio to lose this fucking gut.

After my workout Wednesday I was pretty much spent, so at the behest of Liz, I took a day of Thursday.  I took a whole day off meaning; I even decided to take a day off from work.    It was nice to do nothing; I have a hectic pace to my daily life, so alone time doing nothing was nice. 

I spent most of the day watching TV, playing scrabble on my Ipad, reading, and wondering why I wasn’t doing something more productive.  I also spent the day “pigging out”.  It’s quite interesting how that term changes with a change in lifestyle. 

Whereas in days past “pigging out” would mean eating Pizza, Chicken Wings, French Fries, Potatoes Chips, and Soda.  Thursday’s “pig out” involved eating more than usual volume of food, yet sticking to my regime of eating only fruit, veggies, and non-fried proteins. 

I think I ate enough beef jerky that day to shit a new born calf.

It wasn’t until about 1:00 PM that I started to feel normal.  Most of the morning was spent lying in bed trying to imagine what life would be like if I was born genetically thin.  I wonder what it’s like in the morning to wake up and not think about how my clothes might fit, what the scale might say, or wondering what I can do to lose more weight. 

It was a day of rest that I needed, but the part of my mind that is constantly thinking about my weight never seems to rest…

A Day of Skill

Friday morning started with an hour session with Liz.  I decided I needed to work on a couple of Olympic lifts which have not lived up to par during recent WoD’s.

The entire hour was spent focusing on Dead Lifts and Power Cleans.  The dead lift is a simple motion but doing it right is tough. 

When setting up I was getting my feet too far behind the bar, the ideal position is to get it over your feet, this way when you push your hips backwards your arms and shoulders will naturally be over the bar.  By moving the bar away from my shins I was putting my arms in an unnatural position, and thus starting the dead lift with a shoulder pull to get the bar aligned which was causing my back to stay rounded, as a result of this upper body pull to start, I wasn’t driving from my posterior chain.

I also learned that I was keeping my feet to close together, in order to get the proper grip with your hands outside of your legs, you can’t take a wide stance, but I think I was putting myself in a position which was too close together, causing me to move in a somewhat unnatural arc, instead of an open to close motion.

I also was told by Liz that I was starting with my hips too low, and then moving into the dead lift position, so I worked on lifting my ass a bit to get started in the right place. 

The big lesson I learned was how it should feel.   With Liz’s guidance I was able to find a good couple of reference points in how it should feel.  First I need to feel constant tension in my hamstrings until I reach the top, second before I start I should make sure I have the pressure in my heals by lifting my toes slightly, and third I am thinking more about moving the bar in a straight vertical line, and my hips moving perpendicular to the bar. 

Using the Olympic breathing technique is vital to the dead lift, because if you aren’t holding your breath through the motion your core just can’t stay tight enough to maintain a rigid base.

I don’t know if the above reference points mean anything, but it seemed to give me a nice place to start.

The power cleans did not go so well.  I think my traps, and triceps are genetically fused together.  I get the entire movement of the power clean, and even the idea that you have to get underneath the bar as quickly as possible, but my upper body is so tight, I can’t get it into the rack position.

In the photo below the top one is the correct one, hence labeled “good” and the bottom one labeled “bad” should say Louis.  It’s like there’s a wall that runs along the front of my body, and my elbows just can’t break through it.

In the end I walked away happy with what we had done, and feel more confident about both moves.

I’m so fucked…

Friday night at 8:05 PM I went to the Potomac Crossfit Website to check out the WoD for Saturday.  Here’s what I found:

A hero workout known as “Lumberjack”

“Lumberjack”
20 Deadlifts (275/185)
Run 400m
20 KB Swings (70/53)
Run 400m
20 Overhead Squats (115/80)
Run 400m
20 Burpees
Run 400m
20 Pull-ups
Run 400m
20 Box Jumps (24/20)
Run 400m
20 DB Squat Cleans (45/30)
Run 400m

It made me not want to go workout.  I think I went abck to the website six times to make sure it wasn’t a mistake.  I really thought about staying home, but wanting to try this 3 on 1 off, and not wanting to feel like a big pussy I went anyway.

I would be lying to you if I said that I didn’t give it anymore thought, but the rest of my night I spent wondering what weights I should do each move at, and how I should approach the entire WoD.  When I woke up this morning the first thing I thought about was the WoD.

It’s incredible how your mind can scale something which is difficult into something tantamount to understanding what goes on Sarah Palin’s head, solving world hunger, or figuring out what the hell Herman Cain is actually saying. 

When I got to Potomac Crossfit I had butterflies in my stomach.  It turned out that the weights by virtue of the number of people at the session and limited supply of equipment.  I scaled everything down and this is what I did:

“Lumberjack”
20 Dead lifts (225)
Run 400m
20 KB Swings (53)
Run 400m
20 Overhead Squats (95)
Run 400m
20 Burpees
Run 400m
20 Pull-ups
Run 400m
20 Box Jumps (20)
Run 400m
20 DB Squat Cleans (35)
Run 400m

My time was 31:42.  My run times caused me to be one of the last to finish. 

Did I ever mention how much I hate running? 

I don’t know if I can call what I did today running.  It was more like quick shuffling.  The first two rounds I did actually run.  The final two rounds I moved at a pace just faster than walking, it was enough just to keep my feet moving, my goal was not to walk at all during any of the “runs”. 

When I finished, I felt like such a bitch. 

Why had I been so scared to this WoD?

I wondered how much better I would have done had I begun it with a better attitude.  I was happy that I came to the WoD and did it, but I felt like a major bitch for being so scared of it the night before.