Posts Tagged “Crossfit”

Every wonder why some people fail in their goals? Why some people are not happy with the progress in their lives?

During my physical transformation from the Fall of 2007 through the fall of 2008 I found it easy to achieve my goals and saw dramatic improvements in my health, strength, and fitness levels across the board. Sometime in the fall of 2008 I hit a plateau and the progress just stopped. For me I hit a wall that was the breakdown of my marriage in November of 2008. It was as if a freight train ran me over and I had no focus or drive to achieve my fitness goals, or any other goal in my life.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the mental aspect of sports, and sports psychology and the impact that can have on an athlete. As the world is descending upon my backyard for the 2010 Olympic Winter Games in 1 short month, I started thinking what these elite level world class athletes go through in order to maintain their mental game. Every person goes through personal issues in there lives. Whether it’s a failed marriage, a death in the family, abuse, or any other dramatic moment. But how do you get through it? How do you fight through the circumstance and keep your eye on your goals?

Enter community. Have you ever heard of someone go through a drastic change in there life, and be successful without the support and encouragement of friends and family? I have not, and if there is such a person, I have enormous amount of respect for you.

When I was going through my weight loss phase (One year can change your life) I had tremendous support and encouragement from almost everyone I was close too. Everyone from my family in the evenings and weekends, to my friend Sterling during my commute and my business day. Add to this support my ever growing family in the fitness and CrossFit world and I was surrounded with people that encouraged me to succeed. During the year of frustration that was 2009 I lost my mental edge. I became weak and didn’t have the strength to push through at times. My body suffered, my strength suffered, and I was no longer at the top. Hanging in there and having people to help you through these times are ever so important. Imagine the Olympic athlete being faced with a dramatic moment or a life changing experience and telling them to figure it out alone? I would put money on them no longer being on the Olympic team. Instead, surround them with loving family, coaches, teammates, like minded individuals to support them during the emotional time, and also give them the push they need to fortify their minds and allow them to stay at an elite level!

While I am no Olympic athlete, I have chosen to surround myself with others that have the same goals as myself. Get plugged into a community. Get to a local CrossFit affiliate or sports team, or whatever your sport of choice is. Find others that have the same interests and passion you do and befriend them!

Consider nutrition. Are you trying to eat better? Have you ever tried to stick to a pattern of eating (Zone/Paleo/Atkins/Whatever the hell you want) and then surrounded yourself with people that eat pub food 3-5 times a week? Surround yourself with like-minded individuals that will not only verbally support your goals, but also practically support your goals. What do I mean by this? Well imagine going out with someone for dinner and their appetizer of choice is chicken wings, and your idea of an appy while dining out is some green beans (Very good at Cactus club by the way) or a salad. While I LOVE Chicken wings, eating them regularly does not support my long-term choice for nutrition. Go out with people that will CONSISTENTLY not only support you, but also live a lifestyle that is in line with what you consider important. You will be amazed at how easy you can achieve your fitness and nutrition goals when surrounded by a community of like minded individuals.

You are in control of your life, and if you’re not happy in your situation. Change it.

The definition of insanity is continuing to do the same thing, over, and over again and expecting a different result

Remember: Choose Happiness

I didn’t get a great sleep last night and have been tired and groggy all morning, but knew going to the box would wake me up and get the blood flowing.  I was right!

Warmup
Tabata Rowing for Calories:  8 rounds.
9 Calories
9 Calories
9 Calories
9 Calories
9 Calories
8 Calories
8 Calories
7 Calories

Had the lactic acid build up nicely and took a few minutes to recover before attempting max pullups.  Just wasn’t feeling it today and didn’t post a great number.

Max Pullups:  20

Skills

Deadlift practice.  Jenika isn’t a big fan of using belts, she feels they are more for powerlifting and lifting without one will increase core strength.  This is now the second CF box i’ve been to that advocates lifting heavy without a belt.  Add that to the fact that at the games I didn’t see one picture of an athlete wearing a belt for the Heavy DL WOD, so there you go, my personal choice is to stop wearing one for the heavy lifts. If my numbers drop because of it, oh well.

WOD

1RM Deadlift

5,5,3,3,1,1,1

Maxed out with a new PR of 385.8

Even without a belt I was able to hit a PR by 2.8 pounds.  Old PR was 383  Very happy today

What’s your opinion on wearing belts?  Do you?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

Saturday WOD:

Mike and I went into CF Westside for the Saturday class and Jason was teaching it and put us through the CrossFit Triathalon.

Compliments of CF Santa Cruz:

1000M Row
10 Rnds Cindy
 5 Pullups
 10 Pushups
 15 Squats
800M Run

Time: 24:28 RX’d.   Mike was hot on my heels for most of the WOD and came in at 25:09.   Good times

Took 2 rest days on Sunday and Monday as i had done 6 days of WODS straight.  Looking forward to the upcomming week at Westside.

HSPU Helen

Day 3 at Westside and loving every minute of it.

7AM class went down like this:

Warmup:  (Loving the proper warmups!)

3 Rounds - No rest between stations or rounds.

1 Minute Rowing
1 Minute Ab Mat V-Situps
1 Minute Standing Lunges

Skills Practice:  Handstands and Handstand Pushups!

I’ve been working on this the last few months but have still struggled with it.  Jenika helped me with my form and hand and head placements and the HSPU will get better. 

WOD

HSPU Helen

3 Rounds
Run around block (I need to find out how many M this is, but it’s at least 400)
21 KB Swings 1.5 Pood
12 HSPU

First round I did 2 Ab Mats for the HSPU
Second round I did 3 Ab Mats for the HSPU
Third round I couldn’t even hold a HandStand and did inverted pushups off the box.

Time was 17 something…..

Looking forward to Saturday WOD with Jason.  Will be a good one!
SHOULDERS ARE FRIED!

Second day at CF WestSide and i’m really liking it so far.   Meet more members today, so far everyone is really nice and encouraging.  Just what you want to see at a CF Box!

Warmup

3 Rounds
Run around the block
5 pullups
10 pushups
10 dowel rotations

WOD

Back Squats  5,5,5,5,5

All weights in Kilos

5X95, 5X95, 5X95, 2X100, 5X95

Previous weights for this WOD was 205 and 215 lbs.  95 Kilos = 209 lbs so I was right in the middle of my previous lifts.  On my fourth round, 3rd lift I had to bail….Man it was nice to just drop the weight and not worry.  I totally bailed wrong, but will remember to roll it off my back next time instead of ducking under the bar as it falls.  LOL

Jenika gave some awesome instruction on the lift and i’ve already had my technique tweaked on the lift so that is really good!  Looking forward to more of her instruction.

Finished off with 50 24 kg Kettlebell weighted Ab Mat Situps

Every time you stop it’s a 5 burpee penalty.  

NO BURPEES FOR ME!  I refused to stop as I didn’t want to do any.

Well i’ve been itching lately to train with more CrossFiters and get plugged into a proper Box.  Training with Sterling has been and continues to be the best thing that’s ever happened to me as far as my fitness goes, but the grind of the Globo has gotten to me big time.  I crave the CF community and the experience that comes with training in a proper box.

My living situation remains in limbo with nothing certain of where i’m going to end up in a month or two, but one thing I do know is that i’m trying to organize my life and schedule a bit to allow me to get to classes at CF Westside.

Popped in this morning for the 7AM class and bought a 1 month membership and plan on hitting the box hard this month.  I asked Jenika to take my game to the next level and hopefully after a month i’ll be in a situation where I can make some more longer term decisions of where I’ll be training.

CF WestSidt WOD:   Warm up

3 Rounds
100 Skips
10 Dowel Rotations
10 Dowel OHS
10 Ab Mat Situps

Skills:   Deadlift technique

Partner WOD:

4 Rounds

1 Minute Row for Calories
1 Minute DeadLift 130#
1 Minute Pushups
1 Minute Rest

I can’t remember the girls name that I partnered up with, but give me a break, it was the first class with this crew, I will start to learn everyone’s names…I promise.

Partner Score:  397 Reps between the 2 of us.   Post WOD pullups divide by 10 = 39 pullups between the 2 of us.   We finished first so it was divide by 10, the other team had to divide by 5.

I enjoyed the experience allot.  You simply can’t compare CrossFit at a Globo, or on your own with the experience of a proper box.   Looking forward to more training in the next month.

So, as a result of joining CF WestSide I will officially be off .com programming for a while and will be following Jenikas Programming for now.  I may still do the occasional .com WOD, but they will be few and far between!

3,2,1  GO!