Something Beats Nothing Every Time

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.

My limp to the finish line looked a bit like this with some running (not a great day) and some arms (Lacking in the Crossfit world). I am workout number 28 today and I will review the whole thing this weekend.

It’s been a long and weird summer. I thought when I started my summer workout planning that I was going to try and go for some weight loss, get back to 230 where I was before my second back surgery. Then I got caught up with Body Beast and was lured by my addiction to the pump back into thinking that size matters above all. It’s not that I have been unhealthy but I do know that subconsciously I have been piling on the weight both on my frame and on the bar and kind of enjoying being a bit of a monster again. But it’s time for that to end, I am ungainly, my pants don’t fit any more and lumbering around in the gym coaching gymnastics I am frightening the small children. The all too famous R12 was supposed to cover me off for the summer and give me an HIIT workout pattern to make sure I stayed in cardio shape as well as including my Olympic lifts. I am not exactly sure where it went so pear shaped but I do know that by August I seem to have wandered severely off track. I think the problem is that having a framework is great, but if you are trying to coach yourself then you really need to nail down day by day what the workout will be so that you don’t have any decisions to make on the day that will be exposed to mood swings, apathy, laziness etc. That’s the secret to P90X etc, a daily no exceptions rule that you just do it. That’s why when you compare June and July with August it’s night and day, at least during the 30WOD workouts I was able to just do as I was told and if not, I always had a craving for something. Yesterday for example I wanted and really felt like I needed a good biceps and triceps workout. There are ring dips in Crossfit but try and find an isolated bicep workout… So I was happy to do arms like I used to do with Tony only heavier and faster.

Which brings me to what will happen after 30WOD is over. 60WOD? I did think about that, but I am finding that the workouts occasionally are short and my brain, after doing what it was told to do is very, and I mean VERY resistant to add more stuff. What I should do is take the 30 workouts, pick the 10 I liked best and worked best for me and add them to some pure Cardio (probably Insanity) 2 days a cycle. Weeks are becoming less and less relevant at this point and my workouts I think I will cut into blocks rather than adhere to a 7 day regimen. For example if I am planning to do 8-% workout density then maybe I need to work on an 8 day sched, 4 days on 1 off x2. My only glaring habit seems to be taking Fridays off and with coaching the cardio days can easily be T25 instead of full Insanity. I am just thinking here, don’t hold me to this. But, thinking about it with a 4 day split which is relatively normal in the workout world I would require the following:

1 Cardio Day
2 Heavy Days
1 Light Day (high reps or yoga type day once very 10 days)

The only issue I would run into would be potentially not doing the right body part splits however since most of the things I do are full body that is less relevant and if I make sure that I balance my efforts I would be able to do WODs I like and Oly lifts I want without sacrificing anything. My split would potentially look like this:

1. Heavy Oly
2. WOD
3. Cardio
4. WOD / Light Day
5. Off
6. Heavy Oly
7. WOD
8. Cardio
9. Light Oly / WOD
10 Off

What has initiated this? Well, not only is it the Biggest Loser at work starting but my weight when I got on the scale at work was scary. 274lbs. That is a full 40lbs over where I would like to be and while there is probably a good 8lbs of clothes, extra water etc for Day 1 in there, it’s still pretty bad.

So this time there will be weekly pictures, a daily regimen to follow and in 3 months a win for me! What is my goal? I want to be back under 235 lbs by end of year. There, I said it. 3 months roughly 39lbs is 13lbs a month or 3.25lbs a week. Totally doable given my current bloaty self. All it takes is a little hard work, right?