crossfit round-up & lessons

So let’s finish up with this crossfit thang right?

Thursday morning bright and early marked my final day of private fundamental training time with Coach Matt

In case you wanted to catch up you can read up on day 1 (overhead progression) day 2 (squat progression) day 3 (picking stuff up off the ground) and day 4 (the final two Olympic lifts – snatches & cleans)

I was secretly dreading Thursday because I really didn’t want private training to come to an end. It was A LOT to remember from 4 days of 1.5 hours of training – and I felt like I was making pretty decent progress with the crossfit ‘moves’ – in all honesty I was fearing my first group WOD which I had on the menu for Friday

Back to Thursday – Coach Matt and I met up at 6AM – there was a class starting at that time so we ran through a quick warm-up and then got into a huge review of everything that we had worked on over the past week

We ran through each of the lifts with the pvc pipe one more time, added on some weight, and then added on some more weight. We also ran through pull-ups, wall-balls, & kipping (which I will never be able to do ha ha)

I left Thursday in a rush because I had to catch the train to work – so we didn’t end the session with a WOD – I was wiped out physically & mentally though – after an hour and 15 minutes of lifting and review I was just spent -- back to the real world this week – I also felt a little foggy with thoughts of future trainer-less WOD fear

MY biggest challenges moving forward are going to be:

(1) remembering the proper set-up for each of the lifts – the wrong set-up can result in injury and I know that it’s easy to screw it up in group WODs because you don’t have the sole focus of the coach. Even if the clock is starting I need to remember to focus on the set-up and proper form for every move.

(2) Making sure the power comes from the legs into the shrug – this is a HUGE one for me – especially when it comes to the snatch and the clean. I thought I was good at them until we put more weight on the bar and it turns out I was compensating for less weight and not getting a good drive through my legs – this is going to be super important (which Matt kept stressing) when more weight was added

Also on a side note: I’ve always had a super weak upper-body and shoulder problems (ever since my good old college volleyball days) so I need to focus on proper form – not pushing myself too hard – to prevent injury and building leg & upper body strength so I can gain the confidence and physical ability to get to the numbers I have in my head as goals

(3) This is honestly the BIGGEST thing I’m going to have to remind myself every second of every day or every class that I participate in is that the only person I need to focus on is myself – I think participating in the group WODs are a good and a bad thing – the good is that you are surrounded by people with similar goals and who want to push each other – the bad is that I might find myself comparing myself to others

here’s a great article on 10 tips for getting starting with crossfit

Thursday morning I know I struggled through the session because I didn’t have enough fuel in my body so Friday morning I made sure to get up a little extra early and had an egg on a rice cake with some black coffee – I had about 25 minutes for this to digest before the class and I think it worked pretty well. This was good for the 6AM class – the 5AM class – oy I don’t know what in the world I’ll eat before that

I got to class early, all of the usual Friday clan were there – LOTS of men – like at least 10 men – and then there ended up being 2 other girls, plus me, and then another one of the box’s coaches who is a girl and does the AM classes – but doesn’t coach them

I immediately introduced myself to the coach for the AM – told him it was my first class and that I had just finished up fundamentals yesterday – he welcomed me and said to go ‘easy’ for my first month or so to make sure I maintained form & prevented injury

I stretched on my own – felt a little odd because everyone knew each other – and then we got to a group warm-up – some suicides, high knees, broad jumps, push-ups, sit-ups, butt kicks, etc – then did some pvc pipe stretching and got into Friday’s WOD

The next day’s  WOD is posted on The Rock’s website every night – and you can also opt in for email notification/delivery the night before as well

A video on working into unbroken pull-ups was included in the workout post

For the first part of the WOD it was unbroken pull-ups. I used a #4 green band – which I used a green & a red during training so I just went for it with the green only. I got 8 unbroken pull-ups with the green

The coach then went over every move before the workout and discussed form, set-up, etc. At first I put way to much weight on the bar – I set up with about 60lbs and couldn’t for the life of me get the cleans right – and I didn’t want to hurt myself – the coach suggested I go down weight so I ended up using 45lbs – which worked out fine. The SDHPs were pretty easy with the 45lbs but I was struggling with the cleans – the shoulder-to-overhead I could also go heavier if they weren’t part of the group WOD.

I finished the WOD in 6:05

Jotted it down in my notebook – and hurried out of the box to run home, re-fuel and get my butt to work

The last point above was a huge thing that I kept having to remind myself in Friday morning’s WOD. I was the ‘newbie’ it was my first class and I felt seriously SO out of my element. Even the tiny girl next to me was rockin’ it with heavier weight and I was honestly okay with 45lbs – but pretty sure I couldn’t have cleaned anything higher than that weight at that point

OBVIOUSLY this is okay – it was my first WOD – alone in a group – Coach Matt-less – but I could definitely see how moving forward and the possibility of not progressing with weight could become a bit of a downer. I need to consistently measure myself versus myself and not the tiny check next to me flipping around 65lbs – she’s probably been doing it for a couple of months now – and even if it was her first class – who cares.

Moving on – if I want to be successful in the WODs and grow I need to constantly remember that I am new and that although I’ve been lifting weights for some time now – it doesn’t meant that I will automatically be good at this!

Patience is key

And salad beasts like this one don’t hurt the cause either

tuna cakes on roasted broccoli with avocado & trader joe’s chipotle salsa

On that note – I’m off to Saturday AM Crossfit!

Here’s today’s WOD – wish me luck!

have a great weekend!

love to love you <3

-julie

cawfee tawk! when was the last time you did something you were scared of & not good at but you just kept trucking through?