I've been on a strict zone for about seventeen weeks now, with the exception of the two week vacay and four weekends with weddings. Actually, after the first two weeks I've allowed myself one cheat meal on Saturday night, for when I go out. I haven't thought much about this cheat meal, after all, it helps me stay on the zone for the rest of the week. Then I decided to analyze my weight.
I've been weighing myself pretty much every morning before breakfast for the past couple of weeks, and I've taken the average weight for each day of the week: As you can see, my weight goes down each day, only to go back up on Sunday. Seems like that one night of zone-free living results in a roughly three pound increase. Now I highly doubt I eat three pounds of food, and I'm sure there are a lot of other factors involved, but it makes me want to try to have another full strict week and see how my weight responds.
This is just an experiment, but I'm looking forward to seeing the results. So far I've been pretty happy with my progress, can't wait to see where I will be in another six months or so.
Check out the video at 1:30 for a demonstration on how to do crossover push ups, Danny's form is perfect.
Have to admit, I thought about making this a rest day. Then I saw the WOD, and I knew I had to show up. WOD:
50 Abmat Situps
5 rounds 8 pullups 8 crossover pushups
Run 800 meters
40 Abmat Situps
4 rounds 8 pullups 8 crossover pushups
Run 800 meters
3 rounds 8 pullups 8 crossover pushups
My time was 39:00 even. I have mixed feelings about my performance, and will address each exercise independently.
Pullups: I started off trying Danny's kip, and after watching the video I have a loooong way to go, but I feel like I am getting there and I'll have it figured out soon. After a couple tries though, I went back to the normal kip. Using the standard kip, pullups are actually pretty easy now; they just hurt my hands. I mean, I probably spent like 4 min just trying to get a comfortable grip. I don't have a torn callus, but that area of my hand is very tender, and gripping the bar just hurts. Are pull-ups supposed to kill your hands, or is there some type of hand maintenance I'm missing? I shave my calluses, perhaps my hand just hasn't recovered from those brutal tears I got a few weeks ago.
Ab-mat: My speed is getting better now that my technique is better, the last thirty was unbroken, and for me that was a big deal. I'm starting to realize how weak my abs are with regards to endurance. I keep finding myself sitting or standing without engaging my abs at all. It's something I've always had trouble with this, but I hope xfit will help me out in this department.
Crossover Pushups: Never done these before, and they are tough, just like regular pushups. My technique wasn't very good, my strength just isn't there. However, I do feel like it's getting better. It seemed like after doing 15 pushups I couldn't do more than two at a time. Now i feel like it's 20.
800 m Run: This was a tricky one. I by myself most of the time, so it was difficult for me to really push. Near the end, however, Brenda came up from behind and reminded me that I should really push myself.
Mental: I feel like the first part of this wod I was approaching as an oppertunity to work on my technique, trying to be like Danny and all ;), but this also made be a little slower. To be perfectly honest with myself I think I went in thinking this was going to be difficult, and that made it so. The second half of the wod things got a lot better. I just started telling myself to suck it up and do it, and things started to pick up from there. I don't know why I can't bring this to the table more often, but when I do it is a great feeling. Hopefully now that I'm more aware of it I'll be able to push myself farther and harder. Unlike most crossfitters (at least the vocal ones) I'm not a competitive person in the sense of trying to beat other people, so I need to find my motivation eleswhere. I think I've got a couple of ideas/experiences to draw upon, we'll see how this works out.
So all in all: my technique is improving but still has a way to go, my endurance seems to be picking up a little as well, and I need to get a better mental gameplan.
Well, today was team FGB: six min at each station, teammates can trade off at any time but may not work out at the same time:
6 min wall ball 6 min KB high pulls 6 min boxjumps 6 min push press 6 min row
Stacy was my partner, and I think Jerry summed it up when he asked, "How'd you get so lucky?" ...I would like to say that I did help out with the row, so we made a good team: I'm good at row, and she's good at everything else. Seriously though, Stacy was ridiculously awesome. I know she'd disagree, but we weren't team Adam/Stacy, it was team Stacy/adam. I think this picture sums up the whole experience, it was her show and I just showed up to watch. For pretty much the entire time she would do 25 reps and then I'd do 15 reps. Her performance was inspiring, especially because to her it was no big deal.
Funny note: Tommy and I were the only men at today's 5pm class, it's great to see that crossfit knows no gender boundries. Friday was a barbell work day, and I'm starting to discover that this is the type of workout that I really like. I believe one reason why I struggle with the WOD's is my technique has a way to go. My pull ups are far from the effortless kip that Danny uses (although I'm starting to get there), I use too much energy/muscle in the negative motion of a push-up (one reason why they slow me down), and I just learned that I move too far forward/up with my ab-mat situps, so that I use other muscles after my abs finish engaging.
However, I seem get barbell work. I think it is because I am a visual thinker. It's extremely easy for me to visualise the movement of the bar and the body positions needed to move the bar in the proper way. Not saying I'm perfect, just saying that I intuitively understand a hang clean more than a pull-up.
Since my technique is relatively better I'm able to have better workouts, and it feels good. Here's the WOD:
Record your 5 highest rounds You may do as many as you want Round only counts if you don't put the bar down
3X Mod DL 3X Hang power clean 3X Push jerk 3X Front squat
my top 5 scores went as follows: 95, 125, 135, 145, 150
I think what helped me most was my attitude, I thought it was going to be easy, and that made it easy. Well, not easy per se, but doable. My first attempt with the 150 was pretty brutal, deadlift was fine but trying to shrug the weight was not happening. I waited and rested, and the second attempt was much more doable, although I was surprized with the difficulty of the front squat. I can't wait until I become as strong as people like Danny and Chriss; I've got a 60 lb advantage over Danny yet he almost strict pressed 185, amazing.
Since the 9/11 workout is on a Thursday the latest class is 7:30. I normally wake up at around 10, but I tried setting my alarm at the early hour of 6:30. Well, I slept through my alarm and woke up around 1 pm today, guess the 93 workout really wore me out. Alright time to get to work.
For time: 93 box jumps 93 ring dips 93 medicine ball squat cleans with 20# ball All told it took me 54:48.
This was my third attempt at ring dips, so I did jumping ring dips to try to work on my form.I partitioned it up to reps of 15, but the kid class was coming in so on my 66th ring dip I switched over and just finished out the box jumps. After that Jerry had us move to the black room and finish up. We did 2 push ups for every ring dip we had left, so that was 54 for me. after that it was the squat cleans. The squat cleans took up a lot of time because I'm having problems with the deadlift aspect of the movement. I kept doing back extensions and front squats since I'm having problems figuring out where to keep my hips. I can't wait to get my endurance up.
After reading Harold's blog I started to think about my diet. I've been on a strict 4-4-2-4-2 plan for 3.5 weeks now and have noticed quiet a bit of difference with how I look, albeit I weigh the same. No question that I am getting into better shape, but I I am hungry every day. My energy levels are fine, but because I take Concerta I wonder if this is a good indicator. I think the 5-5-2-5-2 meal plan might actually be appropriate, and it might help with my weakness in my strength endurance. I think I'll talk to Jerry about doing the 5 block plan again and go from there. ...I'm basically writing this to remind me to talk to Jerry about moving back up to the 5 bock meals.
