Butts butts butts (and extra credit)

Before I start today, I’m am going to grace you all with a little of Crossfit lady ass. Check it:

Butt

More butt

Third butt's a charm

(All images taken from here.)

It’s well known that Crossfit will get your bootie in shape. I knew this going in with all the squats we’ve been doing. Admittedly, my gluteal muscles (ass) has been looking better and better since starting CF… but nothing that I have done, no amount of squats or hip-opening, could have prepared me for yesterday.

But first there was the workout.

Yesterday, we did 21-15-9 reps for time of:

- 115 pound Power clean (I replaced this with 26# kettlebell swings)
- 115 pound Thruster (ugh)

When I started my thrusters, I was doing 55 pounds. I mistook my Fran thrusters and thought I had loaded up 55 pounds, but in reality did Fran with 35. SO, after the first 21 reps, my trainer replaced my 55 pounds with 40 pounds of weight. This made the workout much more bearable (and my form more cemented), leaving me with a time of 10:44.  This was probably one of the hardest workouts for me, especially after trying to lift weights that were too heavy. My arms have been shaking all day and my shoulders are raw, even after chugging down some fish oil.

And then my trainer said, "You guys aren't done yet!"

After the workout, my trainer gathered the class around him and let us know there was “extra credit.” Extra credit is “optional” in the sense that if you don’t do it, you’ll be letting down yourself and others. His extra credit was pretty straightforward: do lunges for 200M, then sprint back to the gym. As he was talking, I thought to myself, “Alright, Rachel. Your arms are shot, but your legs are fine. This doesn’t sound so bad.” I ignored the groans around me as my class protested and exited the gym.

Lunges... is it just me or are this lady's legs ridiculously long?

As I tromped out of the parking lot and down the block, I realized why this exercise would be so painful. Every time my knee ground the asphalt and I forced myself back up, my thighs ached and begged me to stop. Want to know why Crossfit girls have such great asses? This. This kind of crazy stuff. By the time I finished lunging (which took about seven minutes), I “sprinted” back, which was more of like a weak waddle. Today, I am so full of butthurt that I take my time sitting down. I swear, if my ass isn’t fantastic after a year of Crossfit, there is something fundamentally wrong with my butt.

Goals.

Fran.

Fran is the best known CrossFit workout. The way my trainer put it, asking a CrossFitter’s Fran time is like asking how much one benches at a conventional gym.  It’s an ice breaker, a standard, a benchmark. It’s also a sprint. The exercise is:

Reps of 21-15-9
Thrusters (95#/65#)
Pull-ups

That’s it! That’s all you have to do. Pretty easy, right? This guy did it in under 2 minutes.

God. No. It isn’t easy as this guy proves (and doing it under 3:00 is supposed to be godlike). I finished at 6:14 using 35 pound weights and ring ups instead of Rx. Honestly, I feel like my time should have been longer given how others in my class and at the gym finished at 9+. What this suggests to me is that either I need to be going lower on my ring ups (entirely a possibility) or adding weight. When I go to the gym tomorrow, I’ll try and see if I can do an assisted pull-up.

This means that I can use a heavy rubber band to help me up.

Tomorrow, I’m bringing a college friend into the gym to try CrossFit for the first time. When I was hanging out with her earlier today, I tried to explain what CrossFit is and how it works. There was no way to explain it without sounding a little scary (which it is, don’t get me wrong) and undoable. I really feel like anyone can do CrossFit, you just have to be willing to swallow your ego a bit and scale down. Anyway, we’ll see how that goes.

Lady Gaga and Crossfit

I flipped a tire today.

I didn’t just flip a normal tire. This was a huge truck tire, and they had bigger—tractor tires—but I was satisfied with the hunk of rubber than came just under my nose. After running 400M, we flipped this tire 10x apiece. Oh warmups, I think I get just as much of a workout out of you as I do from anything else.

It’s as easy as it looks

The workout today was called “Rahoi.” Many Crossfit exercises are named after fallen soldiers. Naming a workout after a soldier immortalizes them in a way, and it gives more meaning to the Crossfit community. The official notes on Rahoi are:

U.S. FBI Supervisory Special Agent Gregory J. Rahoi, 38, of Brookfield, Wisconsin, assigned to the Hostage Rescue Team, based in Quantico, Virginia, was killed on December 6, 2006, during a live-fire tactical training exercise at Fort A.P. Hill, near Bowling Green, Virginia. He is survived by his parents, Natalie and Richard, sister Teri, and fiancee Paula Paulk.

This exercise, unlike others, was not a race for time. Instead, we tried to complete as many rounds as possible within 12 minutes of:

24/20 inch Box Jump, 12 reps
95/65 pound Thruster, 9 reps
6 Bar-facing burpees

My adjusted workout was:

24/20 inch Box Jump, 12 reps Stacked two 45# weights plus a 25# weight to make a short box, maybe 15″. 
95/65 pound Thruster, 9 reps 35 Pound
6 Bar-facing Burpees

The nippled lady explains the movements, should you be interested.

So… this is a really tiring workout. The average rep was 3.5-4 (I, myself, did four reps, thank you). With three minutes left, I felt like I wasn’t going to finish. Then… Gaga happened.

Oh hi there Mother Monster

For those who don’t know me too well, allow me explain. Lady Gaga is the best, she is the coolest, she is the smartest, she is the sexiest, and she is my favorite, of all time, pop star. I fucking love Lady Gaga. And she loves me too.

Proof.

Anyway, “Edge of Glory” came onto the mix that the gym blares while we work out. My partner described it as a stumbling sloth turning into a machine. I knocked out that last rep like it was my first, finishing with two seconds on the clock. Moral of the story: more Lady Gaga at the gym please! I will work harder for her!

The Day the Warmup Killed the Workout

Since finishing foundations, I’ve found that Crossfit isn’t just the 5-30 minutes when doing the WOD. Indeed, there’s a great deal of warming up involved. For the 300, we ran 400M and rowed 300M. Today, we rowed 2000M before moving to the workout.

Bitch are you kidding me?

Rowing didn’t seem so bad, at first. I chugged along at a fairly consistent rate (under 2:40) for a fair amount of time (I held it for all 2000M). BUT! The thing about rowing is that it works out your whole body: it combines cardio with toning the legs, arms, torso, and stomach. About 1000M in, I finally felt Tuesday‘s and Sunday‘s workouts coming back to me. I hated it. My calves ached and my arms begged for mercy. After I finished (at 10:06), I felt dizzy when I stood up. I waddled to my water, feeling done today.

But this is Crossfit. No one gets out of it.

I’ll be honest: I stumbled through the workout after the row. My squats didn’t go low enough and my trainer reduced my weights from 55, to 45, to 35. We did rounds of 20, 15, 10, and 5 of front squats and toes-to-bars (exactly what they sound like, but I just tucked my knees to my chest while hanging as a modified workout). My final time was 9:24, which put me second to my partner for the first time since starting Crossfit.

Luckily I have tomorrow and Saturday off. I need a quick break.

 

The “300 Ways to Die” Workout, or “300″ for Short

“Children, gather round! No retreat, no surrender; that is Spartan lore. And by Spartan lore we will stand and fight… and die.” – King Leonidas

300 is not an easy workout. Apparently the actors who performed it 300 used Crossfit to train for the movie, and their hard work payed off. After kicking some Persian ass, the cast members shared their workout.

Look at all the sexy.

300 means:

25 Pull-ups
50 Deadlifts 135 lbs
50 Push-ups
50 Box Jump (24 in.)s
50 Floor Wipers
50 One Arm Kettlebell Clean and Presses
25 Pull-ups
10000 Tears

I made the mistake of checking the workout before leaving for Crossfit, leading to anxiety about failure all day. I want to be a success (success meaning finishing the workout and doing so in a reasonable amount of time). Lucky for me, because I’m new, my trainer scaled the WOD. Instead I did:

25 Pull-ups Ring Ups
50 Deadlifts 135 lbs 35lbs
50 Push-ups Push ups on knees
50 Box Jump (24 in.)s 20″ step-ups
50 Floor Wipers (35lbs)
50 One Arm Kettlebell Clean and Presses (18lbs)
25 Pull-ups Ring Ups
No tears

 I finished the work out in 21:35. While I’m proud of myself now, I came home feeling a little down after my runner’s high because my workout ended up being so far from the Rx. I felt sore and defeated. But you know what?

That's right. Courage Wolf said "pussy."

Then again, I know why my workout was scaled. I’m so green that I didn’t know what a “box” was until a few days ago (slang for a Crossfit gym). I need to remember that while I used to be able to jump into sports head on and progress quickly, but now I’m older and chubbier. There’s no need to be so hard on myself.

I will get better at Crossfit.

 

Spaghetti Squash, Shoes, and Fucking Jackie

We focused on sumo lifts and medicine ball cleans for the last day of foundations. At this point, I’ve stopped feeling so sore right after workouts, which means I’m adapting. I think the coaches (Andre and Sung from Crossfit HD) could see that the three of us participating in the foundations class could handle a WOD, so they forced us were good coaches and encouraged us to complete “Jackie.”

Jackie is a bitch either way.

“The girls” in Crossfit is just a list of WODs that are used across gyms. Jackie consists of:

• A 1000M row
• 50 thrusts at 45#+
• 30 Pull ups

You’re expected to do these as quickly as possible (for time). 

Typing Before the Muscle Fatigue Sets In

They lie.

I am finding that I use my abs for everything. Want to get out of bed? Abs. Want to sit comfortably on the couch? Abs. Want to drag groceries up two flights of stairs? Abs, abs, abs. My core is absolutely fatigued, and tonight’s workout didn’t change that at all, despite doing zero focused ab work.

Today I did day 2 and 3 of the foundations class, which was largely arms-intensive. I kind of looked like this video, except more like this.

In all serious, it’s pretty cool that this chick who’s only thirteen is breaking world records via Crossfit. Good for her.

While learning presses and cleans, I found that my ab fatigue only worsened. Turns out, that’s a good sign; with every exercise you do in Crossfit, you need a strong core. The pain means it’s working… right?

My thoughts exactly.

I’m stoked for Sunday’s class–it’s the last day for foundations and I’m pumped. I am also ready for a two-day break; I broke down and took some ibuprofen today and I might do so again tomorrow–we’ll see how my itty bitty muscles are doing. It’s time to stop sucking.

 

Using Crossfit to Lose Weight is a Goddamned Mistake

That’s not true at all–actually Crossfit for weight loss and muscle-building is just about the best kind of workout there is. The problem, right now, is my bodily limitations. I started Crossfit yesterday.

Yeah, yeah, I know: Crossfit is a gradual progression. But I shouldn’t have trouble with stairs. Or squatting to go pee. I have been waddling around the apartment since yesterday feeling badass because I was able to do squat and crunch tabatas. This is all after foundations day 1.

I am not new to blogging; I did a stint over at Waist and Taste last year, but I’ve since decided to start a new blog because a) the readership of that blog are mainly looking for pointers on the 4 Hour Body, and b) because the URL is entirely too negative. So now I’m over here.

I eat primal/paleo now, which means I “eat like a caveman (or cavelady in my case)”. Instead of explaining the diet, I have this sweet infographic that lays out what paleo is and why it works. Eating healthily, sadly, is only a small part of being primal/paleo. In fact, if you do a quick search, you’ll find that there’s a cultish following to this idea of returning to our paleolithic roots. For example: did cavepeople have shampoo? sneakers? sunscreen? No. But the lifestyle, in my findings, needs to be tailored to the 21st-century and to the person trying it out.

Which brings me back to why I started Crossfit.

Crossfit is huge in the paleo community. Why? Because we use all of the movements in daily life and the short duration of the workouts are more akin to what a caveperson would have had to do. Plus, the workouts look totally sick.

My next session is tomorrow. Wish me luck.