Time to dust this thing off...

For the past several weeks, I have had a nagging reminder in my head..."you haven't written any blog posts....your experiment is failing!"  Well, I have finally gotten around to it.  This has been a busy, but fun-filled summer.  I've spent several weekends with friends and my love up north in Muskoka.  I got my boating licence, learned to drive a boat/sea-doo, waterskiied (for all of 3 seconds) and got a ridiculous tan!  I also managed to complete my remaining 2 modules for my FSA designation....now "all" I have left is those pesky 2 humongous exams!!!

The main thing though, that has been taking up the better part of the past 7 weeks has been a new experiment.  My personal CFE experiment has been put on hold.  While I still am super motivated to spread the CFE word to all who want to incorporate endurance training into their lives, I am working on something else for myself....I call it "getting as strong as I possibly can". I can't recall the exact inspiration that led me to that point, but 7 weeks ago, I committed to : squatting and benching twice a week, deadlifting (minimum of once, sometimes twice), pressing, powercleaning, pendlay rowing, chinning up and the occassional conditioning sessions.  I am loving it.  My biggest improvement has been in my back squat.  Its gone from 135x5x3 to 190x3x5.  I'm hoping to hit 200x3x5 next week.  Fingers crossed!

I"m thoroughly enjoying progressing each week and pushing past what I never thought was possible before by me.  Where this will take me, I don't know, but I'm excited to find out!

I'm also excited to start up with some Endurance coaching coming up this fall.  We all recall Jeremy who had a significant improvement in his technique and time for his mile time trial?  That could be you! :)

Thoughts for a "Dirty 30" WOD?

TI realized this week that in just under 4 months, I will be 3 decades old...30!  THIRTY! 3X10.  Wow.  When I was younger, all I wanted to be was older.  Now all I want to be is the age that I feel that I am (21...lol.)  In all seriousness, I wouldn't change my life at all (other than if I could have been an active child.  Despite my parents' best efforts, I could care less about physical activiity.)  I love my age and the knowledge and maturity (at times) that I have acquired.  October 22nd is my big day!  This just so happens to be a Saturday, so I can't think of a better way to end off my 30th year/begin my 31st than with a badass WOD at Element CrossFit.  I am now taking suggestions for a workout.  30 reps of 30 exercises?  30-22-10 of something(s)?  I know I will be doing my RXD Fran (finally did a pronated kipping pullup today, yay!), but I can push that to the Sunday or Monday.

This was a busy weekend. Element Open on Saturday as well as Legh's wedding.  Both awesome events! Thanks Stove for being an amazing date! :)

Great group of people there to cheer on the amazing athletes!

Today I was up early and at the gym by just after 9.  I say that is early becuase I didn't get to sleep until about 1:30.  So glad we got home safely because some asshole on the 401 nearly drove into Steve and I!  So scary!!!


WOD today was: Strict chin up work (still can't break 4-6 singles), Front Squat 95x5x5 , Bench Press 90x3x3
Metcon: 3 rounds of 10 pullups, 10 russian kb swings, 10 squat cleans.  Prior to the WOD I attempted some kipping pullups with overhand grip and I finally got a few!  Yay!  I used a thin black band for the WOD though, otherwise it would have taken me forever to complete.  I'm so glad I am progressing at least!  I used the 1.5p KB for the swings.  That was pretty much the break.  Russian swings are not that difficult for me.  85# for squat cleans.  I had been avoiding SC's for a long time because I suck at them.  Lately my M.O. is to do those things I suck at: pullups, skipping, front squats, HSPUS...list goes on.  But I hate things less when I do them more often and start to notice progress.  The SC's were challenging after those front squats and I find them difficult to rep out quickly.  It was 15:10 WOD.  Decent in my mind.

This week will be a short work week because Stove and I are taking Thursday off and Friday is Canada Day!  I'm going to try to jam all my strength and pullup work into the next 3 days and do some running and boydweight metcons while we are at the cottage.  Including standup paddleboarding...YAAAAAY! :)

Tomorrow...plan is to work on skipping/double unders, do "Annie" (last time I did it with DU attempts it took me something like 18 minutes...so embarassing!) and possibly a run WOD.  Now that school is out for the kiddies, I can go use the track to run on.  We will see...no promises :P

Holmes and Longwood ladies :) (so annoyed about my strap sticking out!)
 

Note: pay attention to how much the bar weighs!

I can't tell you how many times I have mis-counted my weights when lifting.  Thinking I was lifting either heavier or lighter than I thought I was.  The source of the problem is me not paying attention to the size of bar I am using.  Yesterday, my plan was to do the following: 1. do a short metcon which involved a few pullups so I could practice doing kipping pull/chin ups, then 2. do a running wod.  (I will address #2 shortly.)  I was thinking of doing the 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 pullup/sit up/100ft walking lunge WOD from Monday and I was advised against it.  Good call!  I did a mini version of it: AMRAP 10, 3 pullups, 10 situps, walking lunges.  I did 4+3+10.  I was pretty happy with that.

I was planning to rest for 3 hours and do the run wod with Jeremy (2x1000m and 3 min rest.)  But the desire to do some heavier lifting was there and the desire to run was not.  Not sure why I don't want to run.  I'm getting a lot of joy out of helping people with their run technique, but doing it myself is secondary to working on my strength and CrossFit skills. 

So instead I decided to try some squat cleans.  I love power cleans, but squat cleans are relatively weak for me.  Probably because my front squats aren't great.  I asked Alex, "what bar should I use for squat cleans."  He said "the women's bar."  Cool, done.  So I did some squat cleans and felt pretty decent about it.  After that was done, I went to use the same bar for another overhead lift and realized it felt much heavier than 33#.  THAT's because it was 45#.  Its a good surprise to find out that your lifts were actually 12# more, but duh! LOL.

Jerem'y run technique is really improving.  I'm quite impressed how running 2 times a week with proper form can improve speed as much as it has so far.  It seems like the technique, skill work and other auxillary exercises (core work) he is doing is translating to other areas of CrossFit training.  That is such a positive thing!

Tonight I will bring 2 friends to ECF.  I love introducing friends to CrossFit!  One of the ladies is a hardcore marathoner....she runs about a 3 hour marathon and is really excited to try another form of training.  This should be fun!!!

One week until my 4-day long weekend!!!!!!!! :D:D:D

Don't drink and WOD!

That is this weekend's lesson people.  Yup, it seems like common sense, however, when you add alcohol to a wonderful group of female crossfitters,stupidity is bound to ensue....

I demo'd a 1p KB swing and over-swung it and it nearly went over backwards, so in an effort to not break my arms, I twisted and it landed behind me.  This strained my back in an odd way.  So yesterday (in addition to nursing a hangover), there was definitely no working out happening.

Today and yesterday were 2 more rest days than I intended on taking, but c'est la vie!  I will be preparing lots of healthy eats for the week in an attempt (yet again) to try and clean up my diet.  Why is it so hard in the summer?!?!  So much great food and drinks to enjoy during the very few weeks that we get great weather!  I'll be BBQ'ing some rainbow trout, cooking some chicken and later I will go over to my parents' to do the "chicken nuggets" and sweet potato fries I posted about the other day for father's day.  I hope my dad enjoys it!

Today I don't feel like doing anything...

I just adore this song....sometimes I just feel this way: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fLexgOxsZu0  This is how I felt with respect to training in general yesterday.  I didn't want to metcon, I didn't want to run.  But I did metcon: 10 deadlift 115#, 10 hand-release pushups, AMRAP 12.  I did 8+ rounds...the + was 1 deadlift.  I did half-ass it.  Not gonna lie.  I was done 5.5 or 6 rounds by 6 min, so I knew I could slack a bit.  I still had a good WOD (I'm quite sore today), but I didn't kill myself.  So I managed to maintain my lazy status.

This week's CFE WOD was another set of 200m sprints with shorter rest (90s instead of 120s.)  I decided that would happen on my second WOD of the week.  I went for a prowler sprint, reverse Tabata (10 sec on, 20 sec off.)  Small amount of work, probably should have done 16 rounds instead of 8 but at least it was something.  It was challenging too.  I know Jeremy thought so!  :)  Then again, he did 6 30 sec sprints before the Prowler.

Since I sort of slacked yesterday I will likely do 2 more run WODs this week...the 200m one and possibly the 30's (3 rounds of 30:30, 30:25...30:5 with 2 min rest.)  I'm planning on doing the ECF WOD today...LOVE me some cleans of any sort!

A few days ago, I attempted a recipe I found posted by PALEOdISH on Facebook.  Paleo "Chicken nuggets/fingers".  1 word....AMAZING!

Ingredients

- 4 chicken breasts- cut into strips or chunks (fingers or nuggets)
- 2 cups ground almond flour- to coat
- coconut or olive oil- for cooking (I prefer coconut oil)
- 2 eggs
- 1/2 lemon- juice squeezed and other 1/2 for garnish, squeeze on after
- 1/4 can coconut milk
- 2-3 tbsp curry powder
- 1 tbsp paprika and 1 tbsp cumin
Prep

- cut chicken breasts into strips or chunks, set aside
- in a dish, combine eggs, coconut milk and lemon juice and whisk thoroughly
- then combine almond flour and spices together and stir
-i n the meantime in a frying pan heat coconut or olive oil on medium to high heat
- next, take chicken stripes and dip in wet mixture
- then, roll and in dry mixture to cover completely (will have to get "dirty" and use your hands here)
- when ready, arrange chicken strips in frying pan and cook on both sides until golden brown
- drizzle with squeezed lemon juice and serve with grilled veggies
- enjoy! =)

I believe I will be making these for Mr. Brooks for dinner tonight.  I hope he enjoys them as much as I did!!!

Ow, my hand hurts!

I finally did it....I've been a CrossFit-ter for over a year and I finally ripped my hand during a WOD. Can't say I am glad it happened....its pretty painful!!!  The WOD was:

7 rounds for time of:

5 handstand pushups

10 toes to bar

10 hang power snatch (55#)

I've been able to do HSPU's in my WOD's, with plates under my head since I can't quite get the full range of motion.  Getting there though.  I"ve never even attempted TTB, since I figured my legs were way too long and heavy to be able to do them.  After the regionals this weekend, I saw how people did them and I was able to do the same.  Anyway, I had a few good TTB's in a row on round 4 then I notices these "holes" in my hand.  I quickly wrapped it up and kept going, but I switched to GHD situps since I wasn't even able to do knees to elbows.  The wod was approximately 26 min.  Way longer than I like my metcons, but it was also extremely hot in the gym.  Good workout all-in-all.  Side note:  I'm glad I have two arms and hands because showering and washing my hair with essentially one hand was pretty challenging this AM!

I did my run WOD this morning...I think I'll be doing a total of 3 this week.  I'll do my Tempo/Time Trial on Sunday.  This am was: 10x200m, 2 min rest.  It was tough but good.  I'm way weaker over mid-distance.  Which is why my 5km time, 10km and 21.1km time don't correlate well.  I need to address that by doing longer intervals (which was Tuesday's workout.)  AM runs are easier because it wasn't so hot...but still very humid!

I'm off to the NKOTBSB concert tonight with my mom and a few friends.  I saw NKOTB last June and it was awesome!  Such a great way to remember how I felt when I was 7 :)

Foot and hip re-setting, chin-ups, squats and 800's....Day #3 of the Experiment

Today was my first CFE WOD.  I will get to that in a bit....

First of all, my second toe on my right foot was STILL bugging me since Sunday.  I am not shy about getting things looked at quickly when it could potentially hinder future performance.  So luckily at Element CrossFit, there is a Chiro who works there and workouts out there.  Thank goodness Adam was free to check my foot out.  (Check him out on Twitter.)  He manipulated my foot a bit, which hurt in some places and really showed how tight my PF was.  I had done some lacrosse ball rolling this AM at work, but clearly I needed to do more.  He also got my right hip back in place (by yanking it...I had to hold on to the table for dear life! LOL).  Felt so good!  Thanks Adam for helping me out :)

Next I went to work on my chin-ups.  I started back in the beginning of May working on getting my strict, unassisted chin-ups (well, technically I started a few months ago but quit for a while), using an blog post from Alex Cibiri.  You can find it here. Last week I got my first single strict chin-up, yay!  Now I gotta string together multiples, but I'm still working on my last band.  It doesn't give much resistance, so its quite challenging.  It took me 3 attempts to get 10 sets of 2, but I finally completed it today.  On to 3's on Friday! :)  Then I started doing assisted dips (same protocol as the chin-ups), but my shoulder was bugging me so I had to stop.  Then did 5x3 of 120# back squat....weak, but movin' back up.  I've done 170x5 before, so I know the potential is there.

On to the WOD....I meet Jeremy twice a week for the "Element Endurance" program.  12 weeks of endurance programming, consistent with the CFE philosophy, emphasizing proper form.  This is week 4.  He has improved so much in his technique and running ability already, I can't wait to see how he does after 12 weeks!  I decided to do the WOD with him.  3x800m with 3 min rest.  We both used digital metronomes set at 190 bpm.  I think that was the perfect cadence for me.  Next time we do that workout we will try to increase it a bit.  It was smokin' hot out, so it made the workout more challenging.   I managed to maintain my pace for each of the 3 rounds, 4:19 for each 800m. Not great, but not horrible.

Next WOD (gonna TRY to get to ECF at 5:30AM on Thursday and do it before work) is a 1 mile time trial (I think.  I will see what the CFE website posts over the next couple of days.  I know that's what Jeremy will be doing on Saturday!)

Tomorrow I will be meeting with another ECF-r to do a run analysis and teach the gravity-based running technique.  So glad people are wanting to work on this skill and get better at running!  I am available for one-on-one sessions to do run analyses, teach proper form and build training programs (to integrate with a regular CF program.)  Please let me know if you have any questions about any of this and I'd be happy to chat with you.

In closing, here is a great pic of Jeremy and I doing the "couch stretch" (thanks Kelly Starrett at Mobility WOD!)

P.S....every time  hear the following song, I can't help but think about Stove's suggestion for this being the next theme song for the next round of Tim Horton's "Roll up the rim to win" contest: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UhQz-0QVmQ0