In a kind of weird anti-celebration I decided that for my final day of WODs I would do something that I have avoided the whole 39 days. I read an article the other day entitled “How To Suck At Crossfit” and one of the things that I feel must be very common was the notion of cherry picking workouts, or intentionally not going to the box on the days when you see there is a workout that you don’t like. I just googled the article and now find that it was probably plagiarised by someone. The basics are this:
1. Train for a marathon.
2. Cherry-pick your workouts.
3. Under-eat/don’t fuel properly.
4. Don’t give yourself time to recover.
5. Take your lifts personally.
6. Compare yourself to everyone else.
These are all things that I talk to my girls about at gymnastics and I have to say that I am guilty of a whole slew of these with the obvious exception of the marathon because I am not a COMPLETE IDIOT. The whole marathon as a goal for people on weightloss journeys is a whole other topic that makes me angry but that is an aside.
The point here is that I did, to a very small extent, avoid doing some of the things I didn’t want to this 30 workouts. I did not skip the Double Unders even though at the start I had never done more than 1 DU in a row and now I can chalk up 3 in a row to my name. Other than DU’s there were 2 other things that I would never do. Front Squats and Overhead Squats. Maybe it’s just how my shoulders and upper torso are built or currently function but I find the FS very very difficult, my arms are big enough that they interfere with my rack position (although I did read an article on how this is avoidable recently) and for OHS my shoulder and back flexibility are prohibitive. In fact, until today I had NEVER successfully done any OHS with my Olympic bar, it just didn’t feel possible. Whenever I tried, I would lose my balance, I would tip forware due to my lack of shoulder flexibility and I would not be able to go more than a couple of inches down (no joke!).
So, like I said, as a celebration for completing 30 WODs I thought I would finally train the things that I hate the most. So I took all the weight off the bar, and proceeded to do FS and OHS, 3 then 5 then 7 reps in groups of 5. By the end I had done 75 reps of each and at one point I had actually almost been able to get down to parallel with the OHS. The FS was not too bad, once my wrists were warm and flexible but the bar was not heavy enough to push down onto my deltoids. That is an easy fix, I can’t FS 135 yet but I bet if I put 95lbs up I would have that resting in rack just fine. I know that when I clean with any weight I do get a proper rack position, just that I can’t prevent myself from tipping when I squat. That tipping is fixed by better lower torso flexibility that enables you to get the weight over your heels even when you are in front with the bar. As I got warmer, the FS got a lot easier. As for the OHS, knowing a big part of the trick is the hand width I was still getting very painful cramping up my mid back from the arch that was developing under the strain. As my shoulder flexibility improved it was easier but even with the bar far behind me, I could feel that my lack of arch was really hindering me. That is the good news though since I now know that if I can work on that arch a little and get my mid back to move some, I should get better. I am not really sure what would happen with 95lbs up there, but since I can power snatch at least that much I know I can practice.
So there you have it, 30 WODs in 39 days. What is next I haven’t quite decided since I did the T25 Speed 1.0 workout with Shaun T the other day as my cardio workout and remembered how much I need that kind of work in my life. My last post addressed what I think I should do, and I think it’s appropriate that I don’t abandon the WODs.