Wednesday, January 9, 2013

1/8 - KB Swings and Sweat

Was still sauna like when I left work and headed to the box tonight but I was in a shit mood and feeling the need for a solid workout.   Best form of therapy ever is a good crossfit WOD.  I lose myself in that moment where the rest of life falls away and I am just fully present, pushing, struggling, working, releasing.  It was a good night.

When I arrived Brando was sitting outside the locked door to the box and as we chatted I heard my phone – it was Match, caught in traffic.  Uh-oh.  Those who know Match know that this is very unusual and with a bit of mix-up in communication, etc. he was going to be a bit late for class – and he was the coach.  Oops.  

Thankfully the spare key is at the desk in Revolution and he had me open things up and start the warm-up. 
There were only 6 of us so it was quite fun.  That being said – I do the warm-ups every day, I know what we go through but suddenly when needing to guide people through it I struggled with what to do.  I started to think too much about the movements in the WOD and how to warm up for them that it confused me more than anything.  That being said it really was fine.  A run (no surprise), leg swings (usual), some bear crawls (shoulders), some lunges (legs) and then Coach Match arrived – only 5 minutes late.  Never saw those 25 burpees get done though!  Haha.   

We proceeded through some more warm-ups with empty 8kg bars and my shoulders were hurting from that.  It was cute to hear Kara complaining about how heavy it was feeling because I felt the exact same way.  Uh-oh.

We were all big sweaty messes by this point too, it was H-O-T!

Strength
5 RM strict press

18-23-28-30.5-33(PR)-35.5(f)

Happy with this.  My previous 5RM PR was 28kg not too long ago and given that my shoulder feels better now than it did back then I was sure I’d get more than that.  I was happy with 30.5kg but it still felt fairly easy.  33kg definitely did not – the last rep was not at all pretty – my right arm pushed up first and dragged my left with it.  Still got it done though.  I figured I’d try 35.5kg for one rep to see if I could get it but didn’t come close.

WOD
21-15-9-15-21
Double-unders
KB swings (24/32kg)

7:12 Rx

This scared me a little.  There was a 10 minute cut-off and more than that, the KB weight was H-E-A-V-Y! I knew I could swing 24kg but hadn’t done it in ages and that was a lot of reps to get through in a fairly short time.  I strapped my hands up again like I had for t2b knowing that KB swings are also likely to make my hands tear especially since they were feeling sore already.  I did a few warm-up swings with the 20kg and then with the 24kg – needed a half swing to get the 24kg overhead while warming up too.  Then suddenly the clock was beeping and we were off.

The DU’s went fast in all rounds, I managed to do them all unbroken then stared down the KB.  Somehow, every time I picked it up I got it straight overhead for the first rep.  There were a few times that I popped with my hips so much that the KB actually went over my head.  It wasn’t pretty and I’d lose my rhythm but it felt good to know that even when tired I still had the power to do that.  I broke the rounds up as follows:

21: 11/10
15: 8/7
9: 5/4
15: 6/5/4
21: 6/5/5/5

This worked for me.  I would pick up the KB with a set number in my head and go for that.  I also tried to relax my grip as best I could as I could feel my forearms getting pumped – this worked a little bit but definitely still had bulging forearms at the end. It was good.

Felt like I smashed the WOD too.  When I saw the times for the other girls I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish at Rx weight but it wasn’t as bad as I thought it would be – was much harder in my head at least.  I think just breaking it down and minimizing rest breaks really helped me.  As did working between Jeremy and Anton as they both started out really strong and I felt like I was chasing them a bit.  Thankfully my DU’s kept me going strong throughout.

Mobility and Other Stuff

After the WOD I did some serious mobility on my quads again.  Really rolled them out from all angles especially my IT bands.  I did one leg then sat up and chatted with Sandy.  I made a comment that my legs felt weird because one was rolled out and the other wasn’t but that it was so painful I was avoiding the second one.  I eventually did it and am glad that I did.  It feels good afterward and they are loosening up a bit. 

Anton was also doing some damage control on his torn hands from the t2b and I told him to cut off the flappy skin on his hand and he joked – ‘want to do it for me?’ which I found funny given that I’d done the exact same thing for Cam last week, it really doesn’t bother me or disgust me in any way.  Well, funny thing was… he actually did need my help because of the wonky scissors and angle of cutting – he trusted me enough to do it too.   So, a bit of surgery done on another Crossfitter post WOD, the things we will do for each other.  Ha!  I think it’s all my time spent playing sports growing up and now this because I really don’t have issues with things like this – blisters or gashes or having a teammate stick their finger in your eye to get a bug out on the football field.  You just do what is necessary, no biggie.  We are all just human afterall, made up of the same stuff.

It was a really good day.  I needed the WOD and the heavy KB was actually good for me and helped me put some stuff in perspective that at the end of it all turned out to be not as bad as I’d made it up in my head.  Purged that negativity through sweat – at least somewhat.  Back at it tonight and hopefully it will be a bit easier given that it’s cooled down today to a high of (only) 27°C (funny that there is a ‘heatwave’ at my parents place and it’s ‘only’ -1°C)

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