Another Fran, another PR

Well, Thursday's workout was Fran. When I first learned this, I have to admit that my first reaction was fear. I mean, my lower back is feeling it from deadlifts on Monday, while my quads and pecs were really, really sore from Tabata Something else. I don't like the fact that my first response was to think about excuses for a poor performance, but it was. I then proceeded to chide myself, that everyone here have done the same workouts and experiencing the same thing. Fran in this context shouldn't be used to test you at your optimal rest/recovery, it should test how strong you are while you're doing the WOD's 5-6 times a week. So after telling myself that, I became less and less concerned with the aches and pains my body was experiencing.

I tried to make it to the 9am class, but I was a little too late, only Melissa was there. She mentioned how people have posted some good times, and I said I figured to get a new pr, like a sub 10. She responded with something like, "Oh I think you'll do much better then that." Her comment reminded me that I shouldn't look at Fran as something that will reveal how weak I am, but I should get excited because it demonstrates how strong I am. I'm still not used to thinking of myself as strong (at least in the upper body). When I was warming up at the 5pm class, Chriss commented, unprovoked, that he's noticed I've gotten a lot stronger, and thought I had a sub 9 Fran in me. Earlier this week, when Stacey got back from her six week work detail, she commented that I've gotten a lot faster; Chriss, coming back from an equally long work trip, comments that I've gotten a lot stronger. This is why I joined Crossfit. Well, not to be complimented, but to become faster, stronger, an elite athlete. Ok, so I'm starting to get into a more positive attitude in approaching Fran.

The First round of thrusters was tough, but I felt strong and I only put the bar down once, maybe twice. The pull ups were tough, but I felt like I pushed myself pretty hard. I decided to use the tape grips Crossfit Virtuosity talks about, and I think they did a great job of making it easier on my hands, allowing me to focus on my lats than my hands. Jerry talked about how he doesn't want to see phantom tags, but wanted to see actual contact with our neck/chin/chest with the bar. Although I didn't make contact a couple of times, he also commented if it's clear that your head is way above the bar, contact isn't necessarily needed. This standard really doesn't make it harder for me, it requires more lat strength, but it's the core that gives me difficulty.

The second and third rounds were brutal, and I started feeling light-headed, but I never really felt like I wanted to give up, unlike my first attempt at Fran. During my last round of thrusters, Jerry walked over and told me that I needed to take a deep breath and use that core tension to power the bar up. Unfortunately, I was gasping for air at the time, and holding a big breath of air was proving really difficult. Also, when I had only three more to go, Jerry was like, "Ok just knock out two." I don't know why, but whenever someone gives me a goal that is short of what is needed, I get a strong drive to prove them wrong. So, I responded by finishing up the three without lowering the bar. The last one was really ugly, basically the bar stopped about 3/4 of distance it needed to go, so I ended up strict pressing the bar up into active shoulder, and I imagine it wasn't pretty. The last nine pull ups were surprisingly difficult, I had to bang out the last two one at a time.

After I was done, I just simply collapsed. I tried to yell out time, but just couldn't, although I remember trying to make a T with my hands as I fell to the ground. Although I glimpsed the clock when I went down, it was just for a second. But I didn't care what the time was, I was just happy it was over. I also became a little worried because my hands went numb, like my wrists to my fingers felt like pins and needles. Eventually I got up and then realized I never really heard/knew my time. Mellisa, Matt, and Jack all said 10:5X, and that jarred my memory into 10:55. So after four months and ten days, I lowered my Fran time by 4:38. It's also funny to note that I forgot/was too tired to write up my time on the whiteboard. I mean, fran is the mother of all benchmarks. When two crossfitters meet for the first time, they never talk about their badger or murph time. Inevitably fran comes up within the first five minutes. Regardless, I forgot to post, but I definitely didn't forget the time.

Here's a graph of my Fran times, each one was done Rx'd so they are directly comparable:

This feels like a really big victory. I've been looking for quantifiable proof that coming in to CFOT all this time, eating strict zone for such a long time. Something that will show all of this work hasn't been in vain. This week has been fantastic with people's unprompted comments on how I've improved, and now this. As Jerry pointed out, my first fran was about 20 (19:43) min, my second was around 15 (15:33) min, and now it's around 10 (10:55) min. Can't wait for the next fran, since that's when I'll get my first 5 fran.

Trying to lose weight with the zone

So I've been on the zone diet since mid May, so that's roughly two months now. At the time I started I weighed about 195-198 lbs. Since then, after strictly following the diet for two months (except for those weddings and that cake) I now weigh... 197.2 lbs. This is really frustrating, it's not like I've been half-assing this, I measure everything and make every meal and snack, and I don't cheat because I don't have anything in the house except the ingredients for my zone meals. Hell, I haven't even gone out to the bars since I went on the zone. I figured I wasn't losing weight because I was inactive with the torn rotator cuff, but I've been cross fitting for 2.5 weeks now and according to Jerry I should be seeing the weight fall off with this diet.

I've been doing the 5 block meal, 2 block snack since I'm 6'2" (and Jerry recommended it). Now I've dropped to the 4 meal, 2 snack, and I've definitely noticed a difference with regard to my sense of hunger. With the 5 block meal, I always felt a little stuffed after eating it. With the 4 block, I feel hungry again after 3 hours. I figure I'll give this 4 block plan a week, but after that if I don't see results I'm not sure what I should do.

Back in the day when I was lifting weights with a trainer I didn't really see any results until I started taking protein shakes. However, the result was gaining weight, and from what I understand in crossfit you first get ripped, then you go for muscle. I have no problem with this, I just want to start seeing some type of change. Has anyone else out there experienced something like this, sticking to the zone but not seeing any results?

Since Friday I've been weighing myself, so here's the results:

11-Jul	196.8
12-Jul	195
13-Jul	(forgot)
14-Jul	197
15-Jul	196.4
16-Jul	197.2

On another note here was the workout today:
2 rounds of 25 of each
jump lunge (30 lbs)
boxjumps
wallball
kb swings (did like 10 on the second set with the shoulder)
Jumping pullups
burpees (my triceps hate me)

did it in 31:25. I know that this should bother me, but I would be lying if I didn't say that I'm getting tired of being one of the last people to finish. I think it really is mental, and as I get used to crossfit I find more and better ways to push myself. Today I thought about how I always seem to have some energy after these workouts, how my inclination is to conserve. I then thought about how that is the wrong way to do this, how I need to have nothing, absolutely nothing, left in the tank by the time I finish. That helped some, and I have to admit, I haven't felt that worn out since I was on the wrestling team. I also need to keep realizing that they have a six week head start on me and I'm still getting the rust off with technique. Just have to keep positive, and focus on my improvements. Now if you excuse me, I have to go make a smoothie :)

Tried out Grindy

Did Grindy yesterday in 37:40.

3 sets of:
10 power clean push jerk (first was 135, other two were 115)
4 rounds per set of:
5 chin ups
10 push ups
15 air squats

The power clean push jerk (or whatever it's called) was very difficult for me, especially with 145 lbs. I thought I had injured my shoulder on some other exercise, but this was the exercise I hurt myself on. My technique still needs a lot of work, being only the second time I've ever tried it. Jerry was happy to see me go for 145 (it was the standard, right?), but after the first 10 I just didn't have enough strength to do it again. When I was working with 115 I was still having trouble getting under the bar for the second movement, and I felt my spine do some funny bending when I went under the bar to catch it. After that sensation, I thought it might have been a better idea to try lighter weight to get the technique right, but Chris convinced me otherwise.

The chin-ups were no problem, I feel like I've really improved my kip and have great form now.

Push ups are still the bane of my existence. I've always had a much stronger back and legs then chest, and push-ups were really slowing me down

Air squats were the easiest, even my very last set was done quickly and smoothly, got a lot of comments on it. Never thought I'd see the day were air squats were something I looked forward to, but that's what happened.

I was so tired I thought I had one more round left, when Chris reminded me I had already done one set of 145, and two sets of 115. At first I didn't believe him, but I was happy to be done so I caved pretty quick. I'm still a little unsure of how many sets I did, but if I was as exhausted as I was after doing two sets, (I foresaw the next set easily taking another 20 minutes) then I have a long way to go.

A good day today

Got a PR for dead lift: 265 lbs

Then did this:

500m row (1:47)
40 wall balls
30 Kettlebells
20 Burpees
10 Chin-ups

1 round for time

My time was 10:42, but the thing that made my day is that I'm starting to get used to pushing myself. Since coming back, I've been having problems pushing myself when I hit that wall. It's not a lack of will, I think, but it just a sensation I'm not used to and couldn't figure out how to push myself.

Well, I was doing burpees, first going for sets of five, when suddenly I realized I was capable of doing more, that standing up and "resting" was when I felt the worst. When I was doing chip ups, after doing 5 I suddenly realized that I only had 5 more to go, and hammered them out quick. I feel like now I can start to really improve.

On a separate note, I think I might go from a 5-5-2-5-2 block schedule to a 4-4-2-4-2 block schedule. Jerry told me to go for the 5-2, but sometimes it's a little hard to finish a meal being it's so much food, although sometimes it's no problem polishing off a 5 block meal. On a related note, every time I talk to people about how much I should eat they're really surprised I'm 6'2". I'm not sure why, but people always think I'm shorter, like 5'10".

A really hard decision made today.

Exhausted, today's workout thankfully didn't have anything approximating squats. This is what was on the board:

800 m run
30 clean and press (95 lbs)
30 chin ups
800 m run
25 clean and press
25 chin ups
800 m run
20 clean and press
20 chin ups

This is what I ended up doing:

800 m
30 clean and press (20 lb dumbells)
30 chin ups
800 m
25 cleans (95 lbs)
12 chin ups
800 m
20 cleans
10 chin ups

I did it in 49:50

I really really really hate the fact that I had to stop the press element in the clean and press, but on three different reps I felt/herd my shoulder "click", which means there's still an impingement in my shoulder. Because of the muscle tear, when I move my arm above my head there's still a danger of something catching, thus the clicking. I know that it might not hurt at that moment, but I will feel it later. So I had to stop, and that took all of my will power.

Chin ups were also really, really hard. The last set I could only do them one or two at a time. Good news is I got my form back, I felt like my kip is really getting good. Bad news is that my forearms are my weak link. Like I did one or two straight pull-ups, so my lats (which are still sore) were strong enough, I just couldn't hold onto the bar. Thankfully, that will improve, and soon I'll be pounding out the chin-ups. Strangely, I'm looking forward to Friday, wonder what Jerry will have in store!

Battle of the sexes...

Well, today Jerry pitted the men against the women, and it was a close one, but the men of 5p pulled out a huge victory. Here's my contribution, at least what I can remember (it was a long 40 min):
1.5k row (6 pts)
80 sit-ups (2 pts)
40 burpees (2 pts)
1000m run (5 pts)
400m farmers walk with 45lb kettle bells (6 pts)
and did 3 more with help (9 pts?)

So that's 30 pts, glad the other guys were in better shape to get the win :)

I'd like to write a little more about crossfitting with a shoulder injury, but right now I've got to get back to work, gonna be a 11 hour work day today.

Gravy gone bad

So this morning was my first day back in crossfit. I was really looking forward to what Andrea had in store for me. It might have been shoulder friendly, but it was an ass-kicker:

3 Rounds of
30 Squat Cleans
30 Pull-ups
800m runs

So I started off with squat cleans, they were only 45 lbs so as to not test my shoulder too much, and after doing 20 she looked at me and asked, "Oh, your not doing it for time with the class?"

Apparently the workout wasn't just for me, but for the whole class too. So I decided to start over, and waited until everyone was ready. After another 30 squat cleans, I went over to the pull-up bar. Andrea told me to scale it back to 20 pull-ups to make sure my shoulder was ok, and I had no problem scaling it back.

Now I thought the 800m run would be the easiest part, since I've been on the treadmill a couple of times this week. I was sorely mistaken, that 800m was way longer than I thought it would be.

After 2 rounds in 32 minutes, I started doing squat cleans again, and Andrea told me that 2 rounds was fine for me. I responded with something like, "What's my time? Ok, everything now is just gravy." Well, after doing 20 more squat cleans, I decided that I had had enough of this "gravy". The gravy had gone bad, and I suddenly had a little taste of bile in my mouth.

I decided 2 rounds was enough.

I get back home at 8:30, and I feel like I've already conquered the day. maybe I should start working out in the morning? Alright, time to shower and head over to work.