THAT was HARD!

So today I went for my first class at the new gym.

Here's a picture of what it looks like:

I love the fact i is air conditioned and much closer to my house. It's much more organized and girly too (it's a girls only Crossfit), which I love! :)

We also have stationary bikes where we can do our warm ups, and a big field where we can run on on the back, but we haven't gone on it because of the heat this week.

So here is what we had to do:

Strength: weighted planks
Conditioning:
1-10
Db thrusters, burpees
2-20
Medball twists
In between each round jumprope 100singles


This was waaay harder than I thought. I felt nauseous afterwards because I was so tired. But it nothing that a Gatorade couldn't fix. 


Total calories lost: 488!

Jumping, Jumping

Wow! Talk about cardio! Here is what we had to do:

Strength: supine row 3×10
Conditioning 5 rds
1 min jumpsquat
1 min burpees
1 min Situps
1 min jumprope
1 min rest

That was so much jumping... That 1 min rest was very much needed indeed. I was proud with myself though because I was able to complete a consistent 7 - 8 burpees each minute, rather than just 5 :p

Not much to say, besides, it was a great workout as always :)

Last One Again

It sucks to be last... especially when there are like 20 women in your Crossfit class. But that's okay because I know I gave it my best.

Here is what we had to do:

Strength: Bar rollers 4×7 (35lb) and weighted planks (10lb)
Conditioning:
Run 2 laps
150 jumprope singles
50 Situps
Run 2 laps
120 jumrope singles
40 Situps
Run 2 laps
90 jumprope singles
30 Situps
Run 2 laps
60 jumprope singles
20 Situps
Run 2 laps
30 jumprope singles
10 Situps
Run 2 laps


When I saw it, I honestly thought it was going to be easy. But  it was far from it. It wasn't the most difficult WOD we had, but it was as difficult as any other I have done. My feet kept on getting caught on the jump rope, so that set me back. Then I was having a hard time with the situps, which surprised me because I'm usually fine doing situps. 


I finished everything in 30 minutes. 


Lesson learned: Never underestimate a WOD!

Impossible?

When I saw this at my gym's website today, my jaw dropped:

Strength: back squat 4×5 (35lb, 55lb, 55lb, 55lb)
Conditioning: 
Run 3 laps Jumprope 
100 singles 
80 kettlebell swings (15lb kb)
60 Situps 
40 lunges (20 each leg) 
20 pullups 
10 burpees 
Jumprope 100 singles 
Run 3 laps 

I didn't think I could do it. It just seemed too difficult, too long and too crazy.

Well, guess what? I did it!!!! I was wearing a heart monitor from a watch my brother gave, ( which by the way, I will post about sometime soon) and my heart rate went up to 220. I was definitely going all the way to my limit, but I finished it, alive! A little dizzy, but alive :)

Ouch! That Was Hard!

I was so achy from yesterday that when I saw today's WOD on the board my heart sunk. I didn't even know what a couple of those exercises were and I knew for a fact I wouldn't be able to do a toe to bar.

Here is what I saw:

Strength: modified curly p’s 4×5 (10lb dbs)
Conditioning: 3rds
20 wallballs (10lbs)
20 upright row (15lb kb)
20 toes to bar
20 jump squats
20 DU or 40 singles
20 mt climbers (alt knee to elbow)

I didn't know what a modified curly or an upright row was. But after the instructor demonstrated the exercises, I felt more at ease. 

The modified curly p's were by far the hardest strength exercise I have had to do. Basically you hold the dbs on your shoulder and do 1 squat, 2 lunges and 1 push press, 4 times. It sounds easy, right? Well, it isn't... The weight of the dbs on your shoulder definitely take a toll. I used 15lbs dbs for the first round and I regretted it instantly. I then changed it to 10lb dbs. 

Then the Conditioning.... The most difficult were the wallballs... It gets REALLY tiring after a while. I had to do in sets of 10 then 5 towards the end. 

And of course, I couldn't do the toes to bars. The instructor told me to instead, lift my knees up, kind of like a crunch but without lifting your arms. I was like "I can't do that", and she said "Yes, you can!". And she was right... My hands hurt like hell but I was able to do all 20 of them, each time. I think I will get calluses after this. 

So yeah, it was a very difficult one, but all my back and shoulder pain from yesterday went away after I did the workout today. Ironic, huh?

I finished the workout in 16:30. 

I'm going to have to ice my palms tonight :)

Early Bird

I was impressed with myself this morning. Against all odds, I got myself out of bed at 5am, ate a bagel and a banana, drank some coffee, lots of water and went to my crossfit class at 6am. I was ready to not be able to finish the workout, since I was tired, achy and not used to working out this early in the morning. But I was ready to try my best. I went for the 400m warmup run and it actually felt nice outside, much nicer than it usually feels when I go at 9am or 4pm. So I definitely liked that about the morning. My shins were still hurting though, but I finished the run anyway. And then I proceeded to do the workout, which by the way, I finished!

Conditioning10 burpees
15 KB SDHP (15lbs kb)
25 Jump Squats
50 jumping pullups*
75 wall ball (10lb)
200 jump rope singles
400m Run w/ 10lb plate

I was able to finish the burpees way faster than usual, and I think it's because my form was wrong the last times. I finished the whole workout, even though I could not do the last 400m with straight running. I had to walk a couple of times. But I finished it, and it felt great!!

My whole body is very achy now, especially my thighs, arms and chest. I guess it's working :)

Ache, Aches, Aches

I planned on going to crossfit on Sunday at 9am, but Sunday morning came, and it was a bit rainy outside as well as a bit chilly. As I was reluctantly getting out of my cozy, comfy bed, my husband pulled me back into bed with him and I couldn't really resist cudling and falling back asleep. So that's what I did. It's a good thing I did though because I feel like I needed that extra day to recover. My legs were not happy with the running I did on Saturday evening.

So today I went to the 4pm class. Here's what we had to do:

Strength: bench press 4×7 (35lbs then 3x 45lbs)
Conditioning:Run 600m
50 Situps
21 overhead squats (15lbs bar)
30 Barhops
21 pushups
50 tactical lunges (15lbs kb)
21 overhead squats (15lbs bar)
30 Barhops
21 pushups
50 D.U. (125 single jumps ropes)
Run 600m

I coulnd't run the last 600m straight. I had to walk a couple of times. But I felt like I did very well overall. My instructor told me at the end I did very well and she was impressed. Yay!

This evening I had to ice my shins and knees as they were feeling quite achy, especially because I knew I would have to go back to work out early morning the next morning, and didn't want to be in a lot of pain. The ice worked a little bit, but I'm going to look into an ice bath as well sleeves for my calves.

Anniversary Burpees

Wednesday was my wedding anniversary and I kept wondering if I should go work out or just stay home and relax before going out to dinner with my hubby. I ended up deciding to go work out, as well as clean the apartment in the morning and organize my closet all afternoon, hence staying on my feet all day. Go figure! Here is what we had to do at the box:

Strength: shoulder press 4×5 (15lb + 45lb + 35lb + 35lb)
Conditioning: 10 rounds
10 lunges
10 burpees
20 jumprope singles (10 du)

LOL - I'm one of them ;)

For the first time in my Crossfit life (which hasn't been that long), I had to severely scale down the work out by my own decision and not the instructor's, and that feeling really sucks. I officially hate burpees! For the life of me, I can NOT do it quickly enough or more than 5 without falling to the ground losing strenght on my arms and legs. I read somewhere that Crossfit athletes can do 10 -15 burpees every 30 seconds. Seriously? If I can do 5 burpees in 30 seconds, I'm lucky.

So, now that I have very well described my relationship with burpees, you will understand why after the fourth round, I was only doing 5 burpees instead of 10. Even then I was the last one to finish. Took me about 26 minutes. I had been able to do 10 rounds of 10 burpees before, but they were combined with only one other exercise. Plus I have been sore and I even comptemplated not going to crossfit that day, because I hadn't had a rest day since Saturday, and I definitely felt it on my body. But I went anyway and I'm very happy I did. You never great the things you did. You only regret the things you didn't do. :)

The good news is, I did great with my jumprope singles! I think it's just about finding the right kind of rope and the right size. Instead of waiting until the last minute to grab a rope for the exercise, I went to look for one before the workout and made sure I measured them around my neck and tried them. The result was great performance! :)

The lunges were alright...difficult but not impossible. I may have skipped one or two in some rounds, but they sure kicked my butt. I have some bruises on my knees, which I'm sure came from them.
It was a good week overall. I pushed myself to work out four days in a row, which might not have been the greatest decision since I'm still sore to this day and have bruises on my knees, but I'm sure in the long run it will only do me good. That is another reason why I didn't go running this evening. My knees were still sore and so were my legs, so I decided to take two days of rest instead of just one. Plus it is raining.
I am hoping to go running tomorrow night though. My first 20 minutes!!! I just hope I can do it :)

Bottom line is, I am happy I went to the box on Wednesday, and after taking a nice shower afterwards and getting all dressed up, I enjoyed a very nice anniversary dinner with my husband, having two glasses of delicious wine and great italian food, guilt free!

"When You Try Your Best But You Can't Succeed"

Yep... that line from Coldplay's song "Fix you" has been playing on my head over and over. Why? Well, I'll tell you why... because a little over 4 weeks ago, I didn't think I would still practically look the same and weight the same today. But I do.

It started with the work out today. It was hot out and I had a head ache. Luckily the headache kind of went away during our warm up, but the work out overall wasn't that great. I mean, it was good in the sense I burned lots of calories, but my performance sucked, especially doing jump ropes.

Here is what we had to do:

Strength: back squat 4×5 (60lb weight)
Conditioning: 4 rounds
Jumprope 100 singles
Run 200m
10 pullups
10 burpees
10 thrusters (10lb kbs)

I was fine doing the back squat. No problem there. 

But then came the workout. I was the worst there and was about 1 round behind all the other girls. I just couldn't do the full 100 Jumprope singles. My feet kept on getting caught on the rope and the most I did was 70 until I gave up and went running. On the last round, when everyone was done, I decided to do a 400m run instead of Jumprope then run, to make up for my inability to do 100 Jumprope singles. It was difficult but I did it. I didn't even check to see how long it took me to finish all 4 rounds. Felt like an eternity. My heat rate watch told me I had burned 800 calories and it sure felt like it.

After that I decided to go on the fat measuring scale. Last week it had told me I was at 155.6lbs and I had gone down to 25% body fat. Well, today it told me I gone up to 158lbs and 26.5 body fat! I think my muscle was up by 2% but I don't remember. I was too focused on the fat part. I mean, I don't mind not losing weight as long as I'm losing fat and ever since I started this thing, I had only gone down on the fat percentage, so this certainly made me feel horrible about myself. 

So right now I feel unmotivated and tired. I'm not about to give up, but I lost all hope to lose 30lbs by the end of Summer which was my initial goal. I don't know what to do anymore. I feel like maybe I should up my calorie intake even more but I'm afraid that if I do that, it will backfire.... 

It's funny how a couple of years ago, all I had to do was eat little and I lost a lot of weight. Now I'm practically kicking my butt every other day, drinking at least 2 liters of water per day and watching my calories, and NOTHING happens. This sucks.

PS: I have been doing Crossfit for officially a month now...even though it doesn't look like it :/

2 Weeks of Crossfit

Today completed my 2nd official work out week with crossfit. I have noticed slight improvement in some areas. For instance, the warm ups have been feeling easier. I remember when I first started, I couldn't do 20 mountain climbers in a row. And today I did it fine. I know it's not a lot, but it's some progress.

So here's what we had to do today:

Strength:
3x max floor wipers


Conditioning:
3 min wallball
Rest 1 min
3 min pull-ups
Rest 1 min
3 min airsquats
Rest 1 min
3 min kettlebell
Rest 1 min
3 min jumprope

For the floor wipers, I was able to only do 5 at a time.

For the conditioning, I knew I wouldn't be able to do every single workout for 3 minutes without stopping, and that's what happened.

For the wallballs, I used a 10lb ball and boy, was it hard. My arms started feeling week and so did my legs. My neck was also hurting from looking up. I think I was able to do about 15 without stopping. But I don't know how many there are in 3 minutes. All I know is that I had to stop a couple of times and shake it out.

Then came the pull-ups. Oh, my, goodness. Not even with the thickest band there I was able to do two in a row. I was pulling myself up but my chin was going past the bar. My leg was also getting weak from tryng to push down the band. I know I did my best because I could barely feel my arms afterwords.

Air aquats were definitely the easiest. Of course after a while my butt and thighs were getting tired, but nothing compared to what I felt with the other ones.

My kettlebells weren't the greatest, because my arms were so tired from the pull-ups. But I did as many as I could for those 3 minutes.

Finally we did jump ropes. I was able to do about 30 - 40 before the rope got stuck under my feet, and then I had to restart. I'm not sure if it happened because my legs kept getting tired or if I was just being clumsy. It was definitely better than my last attempt on Sunday though.

So that concluded my work out. It felt more strenuous on my muscles then the one yesterday, which felt more strenuous on my breathing. Yesterday was definitely more of a cardio then a strenght I think. But I'm far from a fitness expert so I could be wrong :)

I'm just happy I completed my 2nd week doing crossfit!!! Can't wait until next Sunday!