Easing into it

Tuesday, June 5, 2012

Warm-up:
Take 15 minutes to work up to your 1 RM Squat clean and jerk (splitting is ok)

I put up 70#s. This was the first time for me to put heavy weight overhead with my wrist healed. It felt fine. Was still cautious of doing heavier than 70#s. I have a feeling I could break my C&J PR of 85#s. My technique has gotten waaaaay better since becoming a full time coach. Diso said he didn't have anything to correct today and that I move well. 

Workout:
“Christine”
3 rounds for time of:
Row 500 meters
12 Bodyweight Deadlifts (100#)
21 Box jumps Step Ups, 24 in.

My hip flexors were not happy. Probably from track night last night. During the row they def flared up. I was unsure if I would finish in the 15 minute cut off. So I'm glad. When I called time, I had that yummy heady feeling. 

Monday, June 4, 2012


Endurance Training 

Warm Up: 60 yard Suicides

Short Interval

Tabata Run

Remember Tabata is 8 rounds of 20 seconds of Effort, followed by 10 seconds of Rest.  If possible, use a treadmill hill at a 12% grade for the sprints.  Run 0-30 seconds slower than your 5k pace per mile, do not change the speed.  This is a pacing drill!

I ran about 525 meters, which is in line with my current 200m/400m pace. 

Thursday, May 31st, 2012

Warmup:
Back Squat 8-8-5-5 reps

Start around 60% of your 1 rep max and end around 80%.  So if your 1RM is 100 lbs, do 60 lbs for 8 reps and work up to 80 lbs for 5 reps.  Rest no more than 2 minutes between sets.

95-100-105-115

Complete as many rounds as possible in 20 minutes of:
5 Chest to bar Pull-ups
5 Ring dips
15 Squats

My Score: 11 + 4C2B

I want to be unscared

The wall walks are a hand stand against the wall, back facing out so you can get that hollow position, and you lift one hand and smack your chest. They're really difficult. Really, the dips killed me. The last round, I was doing one at a time. The hollow rocks are never pleasant, but they went quick. During round 2, I couldn't get a solid handstand; I fell times, all because of my arms collapsing underneath me. Your arms fail if you're not in a solid hollow position; if you are, then your weight is being evenly distributed and supported by your core, not just your arms. Does that makes sense?

In the second set of wall walks in the third round, I finally figured this out and I was able to do 17 straight.

I really liked the WOD. My arms and shoulders are gonna be sore tomorrow. Yippee!

Love letters to Dr. Izumi Tabata

"Test 3"

Tabata Squat

Max reps of Muscle-ups in 4 minutes

The Tabata interval is 20 seconds of work followed by 10 seconds of rest for 8 intervals. Tabata score is the least number of reps performed in any of the eight intervals. Begin time for muscle-ups immediately after the last 10 second rest interval. Test score equals Tabata score multiplied by number of muscle-ups completed.

My score:

Super stoked about my Tabata squat performance. Rounds 1 & 2 clocked in 20 squats. Rounds 3 & 4 did 19 squats. By round 5 I was really tired, and did 17. Round 6 got back up to 18 squats. And rounds 7 & 8 I really had to really fight for 17 squats. I remember there was 7 seconds left on the clock in the 8th round, I was at rep 12 and I knew I had to go hard to get to 17... and I did, and it was painful. 

The last time I did Tabata squats, and used the traditional scoring method of your lowest rep, was in March. My score was 14, and I remember being quite proud of that then. So I'm really glad to see that I've improved in the past 5 months :)

I scaled the muscle up AMRAP to 4 banded dips/4 banded pull ups to equal 1 MU. My shoulder felt good, especially when my arm locked out on the rings supporting my weight, so that's a good sign.

For the warm up, there was 3-3-3 Deadlift. I started at 85#s, the first set of 3 being a "warm up." I slapped on 2-10# plates for 105, and that seemed easy. Added 2 more 10# plates for 125 and I did 5 reps and it felt effortless. Feeling "strong" in the moment, I decided to add 2-5# plates to equal 135#. I lifted the barbell and I didn't feel strained; I actually did 5 reps very quickly and could have done more, but knew I didn't have any more time before the start of the WOD. Take into account that my 1RM is 165# and my "go to" weight for high rep deadlift WODs is 105# (and usually I'm gassed at this weight), I'm quite happy that I have gotten stronger.

I have been diligent in the my efforts to attain double under SKILLZ :) Today, I chained together 11, and can consistently chain an average of 6 to 8 DUs with a short "recovery." While I have more work to get where I want to be, I know this improvement will greatly improve my times with WODs that have Double Unders in them. Yay! On average I spend about an extra 30 mins each time I'm in the box devoted to just working on my double unders. I know that I will have to start giving this type of attention to my pull-ups for me to see any gains in that arena.

If you're reading this, check out my new blog, Littlest Giant.  It is here that I will track my experience of acquiring my Level 1 Crossfit Certification, transitioning into applying the skills gained at my cert class by way of training, acquiring my CF Kids cert and hopefully one day "make" LITTLE GIANTS in my own box. So go to www.littlestgiant.com, bookmark it or "follow me" and share in the adventure :)

I have yellow fever

"ADAMBROWN"

Two rounds for time of:

295/185 pound Deadlift, 24 reps

24 Box jumps, 24 inch box

24 Wallball shots, 20/16 pound ball

195/120 pound Bench press, 24 reps

24 Box jumps, 24 inch box

24 Wallball shots, 20/16 pound ball

145/100 pound Clean, 24 reps

My scale:

2x-

15 Deadlift @ 105#s

15 Box Jumps

15 Wallball 8#s

15 Ring dips w/ band

15 Box Jumps

15 Wallball

15 Cleans @ 65#s

The workout was tough. The easiest was the wall ball. The toughest was the cleans. 65#s is heavy for me. It was my 1RM PR just a month ago. The deadlifts kicked my ass. Not sure why. 105# is my usual weight, but for some reason it  felt really heavy. Maybe because I did them after the cleans, I don't know, but I had to break up the work into 3 sets of 5 each time. 

I was useless after the work out. My shoulder was really starting to hurt. I immediately iced it. 

It hurts when I...

-row

-Jump rope, esp DUs

-jerk

-overhead press

-open my car door from the inside

-swing my arms during box jump

and today, lifting my purse up onto my shoulder.

Things I do that surprise me that my shoulder doesn't hurt...

-Snatch

-clean

-dips

-pull ups

-deadlift

So today, I plan to see my chiropractor to get an adjustment and have him do the thing that he did last time to my shoulder. He cracked and popped it and it immediately relieved the pressure I felt was building in the area. I also plan to get a massage, time permitting. Friday I have a 9am appt. at Yosan with a post-grad student. I hope I heal quickly. I really don't want to be injured for my level 1 cert. That's 2 weeks away. I've got to really lay off of it until then. 

I'm so glad Heather loves Crossfit. She's dedicated. She goes to 6:30AM class. She texts me her accomplishments. I think it's awesome. 

A rant:

Asian aren't attracted to me. Seriously. There's all this conjecture that white guys are swoopin' in on all the Asian broads... well, it's because they have the balls to hit on us. Last Sunday, after the X games, Leah and I had dinner in K-town. The restaurant was filled with a mix of Orientals and their white friends feeling culinary adventurous. Not one slanty-eyed man would make eye contact with me. Now, there could be a myriad of reasons why (collectively) all the Asian men would not look at me, including that maybe they don't find me attractive, but this happens to me all the time. It's like I don't exist to my own race of men. Today, at Whole Foods, the checker was super hot so I flashed him a smile--- nothing reciprocated. 

I never really been attracted to Asian men until very recently. I did date an Dutch-Indonesian guy, but he looked straight Dutch. In high school, I liked a filipino guy, Erick, but again, I didn't exist to him. So I gave up on "them" because of their lack of interest in me- that was over 14 years ago. I went on to taste the rainbow of men.  I guess, I don't get it. Maybe I'm not approachable. Or could it be the way they are raised? Coddled by their mothers, but also conditioned to be stoic and reserved. Showing emotion is weak. When I think of Asian men, I hardly think them as emotionally deep. As if their capacity to express emotion is not necessary. It may seem bold of me to make such a broad statement about men of a certain region of the world, but I take into account the social mores of most Oriental cultures, where discipline and reserve is exalted as a sign of control and power over oneself... Conservatism is to be presented outwardly, while uninhibited behavior is for behind closed doors and away from prying eyes. I think this thought has a lot to do with how Asian men socialize... They are never controversial, or make waves... mostly agreeable, light hearted, good people. The same could be said of the women. I have never seen an Asian child acting up in public. My brother and I were angels said my mother. We mimic our family by being in control of our urges and emotions, even at a young age. Maybe Asians are more cautious. And this translates into not being aggressive when it comes to the male-female "dance."

Jan Bu and I had dinner a month ago. She had been in a long term relationship with a Filipino guy. After they broke up, she started to date men of other races and realized that each race had their own distinct flair, GAME you'd call it. She then came to the conclusion that Filipinos/Asians have NO GAME. They aren't bold or strong enough to make her notice. She felt she needed to chase them, pursue them because they weren't confident enough to pursue her. She wrote off Asian men. As harsh as that sounds, I totally know what she's talking about. I feel/felt the same way. It made me think about the "Americanization" of  women like myself and Jan, and the countless successful Asian women in our generation. We're not the same women that exist in our mother countries. Our ideals and romantic notions have morphed to include the bold fantasies that Western Social Media and pressed in our feminine minds. We'd like to have our men live up to those bold ideals, not blur into the background to the trail we're blazing for ourselves. As contemporary as our lives seem to be, I know that Americanized Asian women still have STRONG traditional family values, where the man leads. Men have gotten soft recently. What happened to courting, chivalry, and manners? We throw around terms like "dating" "seeing each other" "talking" "hooking up" "hanging out"... What does it all mean? We use those loose terms to avoid having to actually express what we truly want for fear of being rejected. Either you're on board or you're not, but people want to play in the gray area just in case they need to split or something better comes along. 

This rant has really morphed into something completely different. I have no idea where I'm going with this.

Johnson & Johnson

"Johnson"

Complete as many rounds as you can in 20 minutes of:

245 lb Deadlift, 9 reps (I did 105#)

8 Muscle ups (subbed Dips w/1" band)

155 lb Squat Clean, 9 reps (65#)

4 rounds + 5 deadlifts

I'm happy. The weight was heavy. The squat cleans were crazy. I don't think I had ever established a PR, but knowing that my PR on the power clean is 75#, I thought 65#s would be good weight to keep the intensity up, while still doing a heavy load. By round 3 rep 4, I was getting tired and was cleaning the bar then squatting, which takes more energy vs. just catching the bar in a squat position. After the 20 mins were up, I felt completely drained. I could have sat on the gym floor for an hour, but I knew Diso was wanting to get going with his day with his parents. 

While I was getting my Johnson on, the Crossfit 101 class was doing the 21-15-9 deadlift-squat-push up sandwiched between 200m run WOD... They all finished under 8mins, so for 12 mins they got to watch me suffer as I lifted heavy shit--- doing a WOD by yourself is a total mind fuck. I guess that's what I get for being a slacker and not making it to 8AM class. 

I think I'm going to spend most of the day napping.