First Friday, Annie again

So I was very pressed for time so I couldn't do something sexy like DT, but I wanted to see how my DU skeelz are going, so I did Annie for the gym's first Friday.

Time was 9:24, with a PR of 46 DU's in a row. From what I can tell this is about a 100 second PR from the last time I did this, although I thought I did it again after last March.

I'm signed up for another competition, the Superfit competition, and it's in like two weeks. Unlike the Hopper, we'll find out what the workouts will be about 48 hours in advance. Again I'm scared of failure, scared that I won't be able to do anything. But I have to keep remembering how much fun I had at the last competition and the I'm getting stronger and faster, that I do this not to win but to test and motivate myself.

Last week's class

Well, with the beginning of the year no one showed up for class. It was squats, and the core group of people who attended have gone through two cycles of my class, and combine that with the lack of new people and it wasn't a big surprise. I worked on Pistols for a little while, I'm getting much, much closer to hitting my heel with my butt. Once I've mastered this movement I hope to add it to the mix of movements I teach, but we'll see what happens.

...The other day I saw someone rolling out their trap/rhomboid area, and I recognized it immediately as some one with a tight neck- tight scalenes. I introduced them to a great stretch for the neck, and after he worked on it the pain went away. When he was working on the other side of the neck, he gave me a funny look and asked, "what is it you do again?" I told him that I'm a patent examiner, that I look at circuits all day (like the one seen here).

"So you just do this for fun?"

I thought that was pretty funny.

A New Year

Well, I've been out of town for two weeks with a mother of a cold and was in Dallas/Home for Christmas, so it's been two weeks and I only worked out once (and got light-headed). Back in the Gym today and it felt great, except that I left the workout feeling I could have pushed myself harder. Really got to learn how to suck it up and just do it.

5 rounds
5 Push jerk (at 135#)
10 Box Jumps

Time was 4:29, but I need to get better at pushing myself through box jumps. For the first two sets I was all plyometric and just bouncing on and off perfectly, but then I hit a serious wall and was worried about it affecting my push jerk (I really want to not lean back with that exercise).

Hacked up a lung afterward, felt better after that.

Also posted some flyers for my class, listing what I'm doing for the month. Hope this helps, and thanks to Erin for the idea.

Sucess as a coach, again.

So we had a little in-house hopper challenge here at CFOT this past Saturday, and it was pretty cool. It is apparent that I really do need to get stronger, which I'm ok with because I'm def going in that direction. The first WOD had heavy thrusters at 135#, and in the warm up I couldn't get two in a row, so I scaled the weight back. I think it was a good call, because I still struggled with them anyway and got an ok time. But my performance isn't really what I want to talk about (although I felt like I should mention it). What I'd like to talk about is how I've helped a fellow CFer, Joe.

Joe was the one person that showed up this last Thursday where we worked on the clean. Joe was pulling the weight up with his arms, so I worked on getting him to feel the bar become weightless before pulling with his arms. Near the end we had a bit of a breakthrough, and both of us walked away happy.

Now fast forward to the hopper on Saturday. The last wod was a strength wod: 1 rep clean max. I only got up to 200#, 5#'s less then the PR I set earlier in the week. Meanwhile, Joe gets a 40 POUND PR OF 215!!! It really is starting to click for him, he's starting to jump the weight up instead of pulling the weight up, and it's really paying off. Now if only he knew that the student shouldn't surpass the teacher....

He had the biggest grin on his face, was totally stoked. It reminded me of the happiest day of my life, and I found myself smiling as well. It was definitely a coaches high, seeing someone I've worked with succeed beyond what they thought possible. I mean, ten bucks says Joe will now look forward to WOD's with cleans, whereas he used to dread them. It was very fulfilling to see that I could help some one as much as I have, and it is nice to be validated that I am in fact as good of a coach as I think I am. Seeing Joe that happy though was awesome, it looked like he felt like he could conquer the world, and that's what I want people to realize: if they're willing to work on their weaknesses, they can do anything they want

Getting stronger, class evolving.

So yesterday we found our one rep clean max, and I got up to 205#, a 10# PR. This was awesome, I'm starting to find that part of me that says, "this is going to be hard, but you're going to do it." And I did.

I have no squat in my clean, it is all power. This is something I need to work on to get even heavier weight. Of course, I need to work on my front squat for that as well.

The other day we worked on deadlift, and Mike Snyder of Crossfit Slayer helped me out bigtime. Honestly I am still just figuring out how to tighten up my core. With his help I made a lot of headway, I only got up to 295 and backed down to 275, but near the end I was looking "rock solid."

I am just beginning to figure out my core. I know I keep saying this, but that's because every time I reach a new level I realize how much I don't know/have to go. Now that I'm getting a solid deadlift though, I feel like I've made a major breakthrough.

Makes me want to grease the groove everyday now.

Concerning the class, there has been a decline in attendance. For the people that attend, a lot of progress has been made. Last week I got Maggie to do her first double under ever, even after she told me that it was impossible for her to do one. However, I'm now down to two, maybe one person showing up. Like I said, I think I'm putting out a quality product. People who've attended my class have had a lot of success, but because attendance is voluntary I'm completely at the mercy of whether people want to work on their squat/pull-up/clean or not.

Jerry and I are going to rethink this and see if this needs any retooling. Because of the holidays there hasn't been many new people, and people are enjoying the holidays over learning about the deadlift.

...The other day I saw someone doing dumb bell cleans and were pulling early with their arms. I just reacted and said, "Jump before you bend your arms." Short, simple, and sweet. And, more importantly, it worked.

Updated blog a bit

So I looked at my blog and realized a lot has changed since I last worked on the layout. Roughly three of my cf friends stopped blogging, so I dropped them from my link list. I've also added the paleo/primal blogs to my diet section, as well as KStar's mobility wod blog.

I think it kind of represents the changes I've gone through over the past year, with regards to learning about diet and mobility. This time last year I was just starting to realize how tight my hips were, and had changed so much people didn't recognize me, and was weighing about 23#s heavier then I am now (195#).

What a difference a year makes.

Paleo for reals now

So with Thanksgiving I was gone for basically a week, during which I only xfitted twice (got to do Randy: 7:23) and had very, very poor diet. I am a little sad to say that this put me in a bit of a funk in a time when I should be happy, but it's hard to stay paleo when you're living in a house that is very pro grains and dairy.

So it's the holiday season, and while everyone expects to get a little fatter my plan is to start losing some and really eat paleo. I eat very close to paleo, but I still have some sprinkles of cheese in my salad, stuff like that. Guess it's more primal really. Anyways, I found out that there's this company, Catalyst Meals, that makes paleo meals, lunch and dinner, for you. I ordered a weeks worth of lunches and dinners, and picked them up over at Trident Crossfit (currently their only drop off location) on Monday. I've already started the process in trying to get them to make Old Town a drop off location as well.

So far I've had two days worth of meals, and I'm quite happy with them. I'd say the biggest difference I've noticed is the portion size. They say they start with four blocks of protein and go from there. Although they aren't truly zone, they try to approximate it. They seem a bit smaller than what I'm used to, but it makes me wonder if I've been over eating. I measure out my food, I really do, but their meals just seem smaller. Although they are smaller, I still find them filling, but it really requires me to get my snacks in.

Will continue to update as this goes along.