07/27/2011

Daily Recap

My workout this morning with Ian was all about pulling motions, which placed the focus on the back muscles.  The bulk of the work occurred on the lap pull down machine.  He varied the positioning of my hands, the number of reps, how long I would hold the weight at the bottom of the pull, and the actual weight.  You could have almost considered it one big set of work. 

An example from one part of this big set of back work was how we began.  The first motion I performed was to do a wide grip lat pull down for 8 reps, then I moved my hands closer together and did 8 more reps of lat pull downs, and finished part one with 8 more reverse grip lat pull downs.  Immediately following this first part I did the exact same cycle except this time I had to l hold the weights at the bottom for 2 seconds.  Ian had me work through 3 or 4 more progressions each one different from the previous one. 

It’s hard for me to do Ian’s sessions justice because during his workouts I’m so focused on the actual work I don’t keep track of what we’ve done.  He believes in workouts which make the mind body connection, often times in his workouts I find myself saying I can’t do something because my brain tells me I can’t, then he pushes me past the mental block and I’m able to do it without a problem.  It’s almost like a defense mechanism, like my brain telling my body “don’t do that or you will die”.

After my workout with Ian I felt the urge to go to Crossfit, so I went to the 9:30 AM class.  I had to go to Crossfit today because when I read the Metcon portion of the workout the night before, that evil part of my brain started saying “you can’t do that”, “it’s too hard”, “go do something else”. 

I had to beat the devilish part of me to death precisely with the Metcon that he feared.

The WOD involved doing 5 sets of 1 rep of split jerks, followed by 3 rounds for time of 20 burpees and a 400 meter run.  A split jerk is another of the Olympic Lifts at Crossfit.

Today was the first time I’d done split jerks with weight. 

Video of a proper split jerk

Video of my 5^th 1 rep split jerk, note I lost balance according to Brian because I shot my back leg out too wide causing me to lose my balance, I’m lifting 155 lbs.

When it came time for the Metcon, Brian instructed everyone to scale the burpees to a level that can be done at a faster speed.  Having done a similar workout the previous day I knew doing 20 would slow me down too much, so I decided to do 15 burpees which was the next level down from the prescribed workout. 

After the first round of burpees and the 400 meter run, I felt like ass.  We were given 2 minutes of rest between rounds.  I was focused on calming my breathing down, and watched the clock as it ticked down to the start time of my second round.

Round two I did the burpees much faster than round 1, yet the run was awful, I felt like shit, and could barely get past a jog.  I tried picking my legs up faster, and take longer stride but I just couldn’t get them up.

When I got back into the gym and took my final rest before the last round, I was not looking forward to the burpees.  In fact if the gym had gotten blackout dark, I would have disappeared.  Watching that clock tick down to my start time was like watching a bullet come at my head in slow motion. 

The first five burpees were good, the next five sucked, and the final 5 was all guts no style.  In trying to finish my final run, it felt like I was running in sand, in fact halfway through the jog, I started to dry heave while moving.  If I had anything to puke up I’m sure I would have, you know it’s a good workout when you lose the bile from your stomach, I know I’m becoming a workout zealot.  I finished the Metcon in 14:45 which is for sure in the bottom third of everyone who went to Crossfit yesterday yet it wasn’t the lowest. 

After the two workouts I had today, a third one just didn’t seem smart.  I did end up spending some time today at the driving range hitting some golf balls, it’s the first time I’ve picked up a golf club in 10 years, it made me realize that I have to do more stretching and keep my body loose. 

Brian and I had brief discussion on working out too much, and how I am perhaps addicted to the mental challenge.  I am not sure if I’m addicted or if it’s just how focused I am on my target weight.  I know I will slow my pace down at some point, but I haven’t figured out where that point is, maybe I’ll figure it out soon, but as of today I’m sticking with what I know.