Discontinued
I am discontinuing this blog. Since I am writing here more than my normal blog, I have merged them. Please head over to http://blog.elear.net and adjust your RSS feeds accordingly.
Saturday Suffering & Mental Gymnastics
This was a really busy weekend. I don’t even know where to start, really. I guess I’ll just start with Saturday morning…
We (Victoria and I) have never done a workout that was all kettle bell (that I can remember, anyway), so we decided to go to the free kettle bell class down at crossfit central. I have to say, I was pretty intimidated when I got there. It was the same feeling that I got when I went to the main pool at the Riata for the first time. It was the feeling of “I’m not even close to being attractive enough to allowed in here” and “I’m not even close to being fit enough to be allowed in here”. After being there for about five minutes, I realized that I was being silly because everyone was really nice! I also saw two people that I knew there that I had no idea were going (Andy and Sarah).
At any rate, the workout was challenging to say the least:
20 – 16 – 12 – 8 – 4 (60 total) of
- Sprawl to high pull
- Clean
- Step-up
We did this in groups of three. Each did the number of reps for that round, then you rotated until each had done that number at each station. You couldn’t move on until everyone finished their reps. Out time was 14:55. Not bad. I used a 1 pood kettle bell and I think the box was 2’, not sure though.
After we got home Saturday, Victoria had to go get some wedding business taken care of and I had to straighten up the house. When she got home, she had to leave pretty quickly to go hang out with her little brother. I then had to leave to go to the kung fu seminar given by Elder Master Smith.
This seminar was eye opening and transformative, to say the least, but it’s too much to go into here. I will post something else about this. I sat down and tried to write about it, but I think it was just too much information and I am still processing on some level.
I sent an invite out Saturday night to a few friends to come over and watch UFC 104. It was last minute and no one but Ryon came over. I am thinking we can have the next one here too, but, I’ll give everyone a bit more notice =). It was a fun night full of delicious paleo food and some pretty damn good fights.
Sunday was another day of kung fu seminars. The first was about utilizing internal martial arts for sparring and fighting. Fantastic ideas here and honestly, a lot that I had just never thought about. I will say that Master Smith used me as a demo puppet for a slow motion fighting demo. He had me pinned up against the column in the school with his fist on my solar plexus. I can honestly say that I saw my life flash before me. That is one powerful guy.
We had a quick lunch then came back for Master Joe’s seminar which dealt with controlling your states of attention. Again, I will write about this somewhere else, but there was quite a bit of eye opening information in during this talk. Master Joe also did basically two sessions of open focus during this session and well, that is just heaven. If you have never heard of open focus, I strongly recommend you check it out (here’s a link to get you started: http://openfocus.com/)
After getting home from these seminars we just had a relaxing evening and eventually went to sleep. I must have been really tired as the heavy rain this morning that everyone seems to be complaining about didn’t wake me up at all.
So so sore…
Preface: I am not whining. Just blogging =)
The last 2 works have really wrecked my arms. Doing simple things like picking something up off the floor or unloading the dishwasher and putting dishes on shelves is relatively painful. I know that this is all part and parcel for the type of working out that I do, so, I’m not mad or even irritated that I’m sore. Again, it’s expected.
Really, the point of this blog is to ask all of you, my friends, how you deal with your soreness when it’s particularly bad.
I have been taking time to stretch out my arms as well as using some IcyHot which feels nice, but, if I have them bent for a while, it’s really hard and somewhat painful to stretch them out again.
So, how do you deal with your soreness? Do you do anything for it? Do you just ignore it? I’d like to hear your thoughts.
More Improvements
Man, it’s been a LONG day. It started out with Master Joe’s meteor fist class in the morning followed by another hour of kung fu class where we reviewed the 4 spear forms. Then I had a very busy and brain destroying day at work. All the while, with pain and limited mobility in my arms due to soreness from Monday’s workout.
Tonight’s workout was our baseline workout, which I did on August 19th, 2009… just about 2 months ago. The only different was this time, we did it three horrible times. The workout (in case you are too lazy to click the link) was:
3x
- 500m row
- 40 squats
- 30 sit ups
- 20 push ups
- 10 pull ups
My times for each set were 5:00, 6:06, and 6:22.
What’s amazing to me about this workout and, well, crossfit in general is just the sheer amount of work you can make yourself do. As an example here, in 17:28, I was able to do:
- 1500m row
- 120 squats
- 90 sit ups
- 60 push ups
- 30 pull ups
Had you given me the workout in the above listing, I’d look at your and tell you that you are crazy. Breaking it down into manageable, yet still really challenging sets works really well. rec
I am really happy with my progress here. The first time I did the baseline workout, my time for one set was 5:40 and I was doing jumping pull ups. It’s great to see that I am doing something harder (pull ups with a resistance band, not jumping pull ups) and my time went down. It’s beautiful.
What isn’t beautiful is that I still can’t straighten my arms. I don’t think it’ll be better tomorrow.
Step up… or jump, whatever.
Today’s workout was one of those where I have problems functioning afterwards. I had a hard time picking up my keys and then an even harder time getting the keys in the door when I got home. The workout was:
21 – 15 – 9
- Box jumps (I stepped up onto a very large box, bigger than 2”, I think)
- Hang squat cleans (65lbs, focused on form)
- Pull ups (used the blue band, focused on kipping)
My time was 11:25.
Nikki did a pretty cool warm up that I can’t remember the name of (feel free to comment, Nikki). I am really enjoying learning these Olympic style lifts. They are so much fun!
I can feel a really big improvement in my pull ups. I can imagine that a year from now, I won’t even need a band anymore! That’s just crazy to think about when a few months ago, I could barely do a kip. Now, I can get about 3 kipping pull ups in at a time. Crazy!
Bear complex (Friday Part II)
As I mentioned in my last post, a few of my friends did the “bear complex” WOD @ crossfit central yesterday. It looked like a lot of fun. Given the cardio nature of our workout this morning, I thought a little strength training wouldn’t hurt =).
The workout consists of five (5) rounds of the the following:
7 reps of…
- Power clean
- Front squat
- Push press
- Back Squat
- Push press
Given the lesson I took from my workout with just hang cleans, I decided to be a little modest on this one as I have no idea what my capacity is for a workout like this. With that in mind, I started with 65lbs on the bar. My 5 sets broke down like this:
- 65lbs
- 75lbs
- 85lbs
- 90lbs
- 95lbs
In the end, I think that I could have done more weight, but it was still pretty damn challenging to do all of that without putting the bar down for the 7 reps. I will look forward to not working too hard over the weekend.
Lots of Jump Rope
This morning’s workout was very similar to one I did a LONG time ago in Ryon’s Friday night class involving nothing but jump rope. The workout was:
- 4 minutes jump rope
- 1 minute rest
- 3 minutes jump rope
- 1 minute rest
- 2 minutes jump rope
- 1 minute rest
- 1 minutes jump rope
- 1 minute rest
- 30 seconds jump rope
- 1 minute rest
- 1 minutes jump rope
- 1 minute rest
- 2 minutes jump rope
- 1 minute rest
- 3 minutes jump rope
- 1 minute rest
- 4 minutes jump rope
I like this workout a lot. Since starting crossfit, I have paid more attention during repeat workouts to see if anything’s different. This time, I noticed a significant improvement in both my cardio during the workout AND my recovery time in between sets. All I can really remember last time from this workout was thinking I was going to die during and in between sets. This time, it wasn’t so bad.
Two of my friends did a workout yesterday at crossfit central that looked really run. I was thinking about trying it today in the garage as I have used my 2x @ Crossfit Cedar Park up for the week. If I do it today, I will post how it went.
Don’t leave me hangin’….
I got to crossfit yesterday at around 5pm to workout with Duan again. The workout was:
- 3, 3, 3, 3, 3 – Hang cleans
I was not nearly as strong on these as I thought I would be. I started my first set at 95lbs, which was really easy, then, stupidly jumped up to 135lbs. I tried to do one, then had to drop it down to 115. My weights for my five sets went like this:
- Set #1 – 95lbs
- Set #2 – 115lbs
- Set #3 – 135lbs
- Set #4 – 115lbs
- Set #5 – 115lbs
After my 3rd set, I tried to add more weight and it just wasn’t happening. I haven’t done tons of hang cleans since starting crossfit (or ever, for that matter), so I thought it’d be better to work on my form. The more I do these technical lifts, the more I see how important form is.
One interesting factor that I had never considered was the thickness of the bar. I never really paid any attention to this, but it was made really apparent to me yesterday. It seems that the bar that I was using was thicker (larger in diameter) than the bar that Duan was using. I tried the same weight on both bars (135lbs) and it seemed way easier on the thinner bar. Weird.
It’ll put hair on your chest…
… only if you’re a guy. If you’re a girl, it’ll, um… I don’t know …
Today was one of those “we have to do what??!?!” kind of workouts.
I finally felt rested from the weekend and really looking forward to crossfit today. Today’s WOD changed that. I was exhausted after this:
3x
- 15 “man-makers”* (25lb dumbbells)
- 50 squats (ass to ball tee-hee)
My time was 16:23.
I have talked on this blog before about how these workouts exercise your mind just as much as your body, muscles, and other systems. This workout was a real test of the old “I want to give up” reflex.
I realized pretty early on that 25lb dumbbells was not a great choice. Rx was 35lbs. Anyway, I guess what made it so hard is that the man-makers seem to take so long to do. When you look at the workout, you think “15’s not so bad”.
It seemed never ending.
Nevertheless, it was over in 16:23 and I feel more of a man for it.
*A man-maker is basically a burpee with weight and some added pain. This is a man-maker:
Sandbag’d
I know I said I didn’t have much in me last Friday, but today was worse. I got to sleep pretty early last night but woke up a lot. I have been really sore in the upper arms and shoulders so that makes moving in bed sort of painful. Enough to wake me up, anyway. In addition to that, it started raining really hard somewhere in the 2am-4am range. That woke me up too.
The morning class was really small this morning. Like, 3 people small. Me, Hugh, and Cindy were there. Despite the small turn out, we carried on and did the following workout:
AMRAP in 20 minutes:
- 10 {Burpees, Bicycles (10 both sides), Squats, Push ups}
I got 8 rounds in and about 5 burpees into my 9th when time ran out. Cindy and Hugh both got 9.
I felt done after the first round. My burpees really sucked. They were probably the worst burpees I have done to date, but well, they were the best that I had today, which is kind of sad. My shoulders burned pretty consistently through this workout as well. I think they are telling me to leave them alone for a little while. I think I will listen.
It makes me sad to see such a low turn out on Friday mornings. For the most part, the class is very similar to what Sifu Bren did when he was teaching, but it seems that people are scared off by a challenging workout.
I will be the first to admit that when I first started going to KF, I went to a Friday evening class (Sifu Ryon’s) and didn’t go back for weeks or months, I don’t really remember. I sort of had a “fuck that shit, why would anyone do that to themselves” attitude. Really, when I look back on it, I think I thought that Ryon was nuts, but in hindsight, clearly, I was wrong for having that attitude. The fact that I could not get through the workouts or that I was sore has nothing to do with the instructor.
I felt that I needed to workout outside of class to “be ready” for that class. That is completely and utterly wrong. Going to classes is HOW you “get ready” for a class like that. It’s ALWAYS going to be challenging. It’s ALWAYS going to be uncomfortable. It’s ALWAYS going to make you feel like a weak ass little baby, but you have to swallow your pride and understand that you are making yourself just a little better with each workout that you don’t “FV” (a popular crossfit term for “quitter”) on.
These workouts are flexing your will just as much, if not more, than your muscles. The will required to even begin a workout like this is more than the average person has. Most would look at a workout and quit before they start. Some have the will to start, but once they see how challenging it is, don’t have the will to keep going. It’s sad to me. Is that how you are in the rest of your life? Do you immediately give up when things get uncomfortable, things are hard, or even slightly challenging and require more than that standard bullshit effort that you quantify as “enough”?
I was talking with Cindy this morning about some ideas for her class to get some people to come back. I think the biggest problem is that people have this idea that Friday’s at the KF school are for elite levels of fitness and therefore, are inaccessible.
They are wrong.
It’s for ALL LEVELS, but you have to understand what you are getting into. You are getting into something that will expose your weaknesses, make you hurt, be challenging, but, in the long run, will make you better at everything you do.
Here are some ideas I had to help make the students a bit more comfortable:
- Write the workout on the board along with a few scaled down alternatives, sort of like beginner, intermediate, and advanced. This might give the person who’s will isn’t really that strong the feeling of accessibility to the class. “Well, I can’t really do THAT workout, but THAT one looks a bit easier.”
- Incorporate more KF related activities after the main workout. Perhaps the first part of the class is a crossfit/tabata/fighter style workout, but the second half is dedicated to some skill focus while we cool down i.e. kicks, punches, etc
- Talk to the students that show up other mornings and perhaps take an anonymous poll of why they stopped coming on Friday. Are they just not waking up? Do they think it’s too hard? Do they just flat out not like it? It may help to get a handle on this. Maybe the format needs to be tweaked based on that feedback.
That’s really all I can think of right now, but I think that’s a good place to start. It’s important to note that this is my opinion and in no way a reflection on Cindy. Her workouts are great, challenging, and fun as is the class environment. She does a great job of demoing the exercises, addresses any questions that the class has, and is very encouraging during workouts.
I think the above brings up another question, though. When is it appropriate to for an instructor to make a class “easier” for students when they have the option of pushing themselves as hard or little as they deem necessary? If you were to go up to your Calculus professor in college and say “this is too hard, can we tone it down a bit”, you probably wouldn’t like the answer he gave you. Why should it be any different for fitness? Do you go up to your “kickboxing” instructor and say “man, there were too many kicks in there… if you don’t tone it down, I’m not coming back next week”. No, you don’t
This is a hard one and I don’t really have a concrete answer. I’m curious to hear your thoughts.