So, if you’re ever my Crossfit coach, and I ever just stop moving, best not to bark at me to keep going. (Even a nice bark, Coach Bo.) Because it means I’m trying to stay very, very quiet so I won’t throw up.
I’ve heard about this “work so hard I threw up” syndrome from various gals, but this was a first for me. Oh sure, I’ve worked out when I was sick, and that’s made me heave-ho, but I mean being totally 100% well and then doing a workout that makes ya wanna barf.
And now for a little non sequiter commercial break: A law client, who is a very “wears a business suit and tie, probably to bed”-kinda guy, contacted me yesterday to tell me that “a channel” had given some information to him about my past life. If I “didn’t want to hear about it or that weirded me out” then just to say the word, but of course, HELL NO, tell me! So HERE’s a link to the guy that I was . . . and speaking of getting a ‘roiling stomach,’ the thing that FREAKS ME OUT about this reference is: (1) I have a serious fascination with all things Teddy Roosevelt, and he was Secretary of State under Roosevelt, (2) I had mastoiditis when I was a tiny baby but all went fine, (3) I have family high up in the State Department, and that’s what I thought I’d be doing (or a spy) with my life, though it just didn’t happen to go that way, and (4) Harvard is actually built on land that came from my (Shepard-side) family. Enough of that freaky commercial break. Oh – no – one more thing – I have a super friendly “feeling” for Kevin Bacon (the actor). Hard to explain. My friend Theresa is actually his agent, and we were talking about this just last week when she was with him at an event in Tampa. I wonder if (dot dot dot) – Great-great-great-great-great-grandson, perhaps?
SO, back to Crossfit.
Yesterday’s WOD (which I did at 6:30pm with H) was:
Part A: 10 Min AMRAP
15 Sec Ring Support
30 Sec Squat Hold
Part B: For Time
1000M Row
75 Wall Ball
1000M Row
On Part A, I did the ring support with the blue band (not as easy as red but easier than green, purple, black – yeah, don’t ask, the only one I KNOW is black because I use that for pullups and it’s an 80 pound assist). I could have done this with the red band. What this involved (Rx) was getting yourself up off the floor between the rings, straight arms, hands gripping facing “palms forward” to lock the arms out, shoulders down. You could do “palms toward your legs” if you couldn’t get the arm lock “palms forward,” but the key was to have yourself perfectly straight, not hunched forward, shoulders down. I didn’t have a problem with this, and felt pretty good, actually. I could have done this with the red band. (Note re the band use: For the scaled, what you do is loop one end of the band on one ring to anchor it, put it over to the other ring, where your other palm holds it. Then you put one knee onto the band between the two rings. In the warm-up, we were doing dips this way. But in the WOD, you just held straight. So your one foot is off the ground, but your other knee is in/on the band.)
That 15 seconds was a TOTAL rest for me, because of course the other part was a squat hold. The THEORY was to squat just below knee level, and hold it. Ha ha ha.
I can either squat (yes, holding the vertical, but only with one hand now, to keep from tipping backwards – so sort of a “claw” not a real “hold”) where my thighbone is at like 45 degrees (so 1/2 way down to thighs horizontal/knee level), OR I can squat ALL the way down, but not in between. It’s a no-woman’s-land of squatting for me. So Coach Bo had me go to the full (“third world squat”) squat, and “bounce” from there for 30 seconds up “towards” where he wanted me to be. I could bounce up MAYBE an inch. The problem with that of course is that at the end of the 30 seconds, I had to just let go with my hand, fall backwards to my butt, roll to my side, and use the wall to get back up. There wass NO WAY for me to “stand up” from there.
I only ALMOST cried once. I feel so pathetic when I do this!!!! Luckily it was almost at the end of the squat, when Coach Bo came over and basically said “No, you’re not doing it high/hard enough” – so I rolled over, stood up, surreptitiously wiped my eyes facing the wall, and then did the hang, which I was rocking at.
I got 5 + 15 seconds.
On Part B, I tried to do everything Karen had said on the erg, and the BIGGEST difference was my straight body position. Coach Bo kept coming up to me though and telling me that I was STILL not getting the “full ride” off the back of the pull, so (like Karen had said), he said I had to really wait at LEAST a “beat” before pulling back. That said, I felt a LOT more “fresh” at the end of the 1000 meters (both times) than I usually do. I do know that I have to “push/pull harder” and get more “oomph” out of the forward part of the movement – but in reality, I was mainly concentrating on form. And, yeah, I gave as much as I had to give!
In the wall balls, I used the corner of the short box to squat down to. I see so many people who don’t do wall balls the “way they are supposed to be done” (e.g., squatting below knee level). Now, granted, that’s always been me, too. But it’s just not right. So I’m trying to rectify that by using the box. This allows me to go down to 20″ (which is right at or a bit below my knee level, as my calf measures out to 21″) without fearing that I’m going to wind up on my ass.
75 is a LOT of wall balls. I did this with the 10 pound ball – yeah, fine, it’s the “lightest” one we have (all the other girls did 14), but again, I really wanted to work on form, PARTICULARLY as I’ve never really done a good squat for a wall ball. So that meant my routine went something like this:
Hoist ball to under my chin.
Squat down until butt grazes the box.
Stand up, using the momentum to launch the ball over the line.
Catch the ball with “scooped” arms (elbows pointing to the floor, if that makes sense).
Hoist ball to chin.
Repeat.
I know that you’re supposed to use the ball coming down off the wall to get you “back down to” the squat. But that dog don’t hunt for me. I actually got a routine going pretty well – I did them in sets of 10 until about 50, then sets of 5, though I never actually really “stopped,” I would just rest for a beat or two with the ball up to my chin. I felt fairly happy with that. I laughed because Joy and Claire of Girls Gone WOD, Joy hates rowing, Claire hates wall balls. So I messaged Joy I’d just done the “Joy and Claire’s worst workout” WOD :-)
This was followed by another 1000m row – I forgot to see what my first one was, but the second was 2:18, for a total time of 18:27.
Best part of the night? Oh, I’m SO SO EVIL. Coach Bo was wearing khaki board shorts, and squatted down to show what he meant for the Squat Hold (e.g., not all the way down, but below the knee), and in showing what he did NOT want us to do (“third world squat”) he SERIOUSLY ripped the shorts. I mean, the whole crotch gusset split. I was watching from the side but I just hope that he wasn’t Commando in those shorts!
It had been Farmer’s Market day (YAY!) and so I’d picked up some awesome fresh mussels & veggies. I made mussels in reisling, fresh spring garlic, and sun-dried tomatoes, and a salad of “picked that day” lettuce (H even commented on how fresh it was), avocado, and langostino tails with of course the standard homemade awesome dressing (mac nut oil, fresh garlic, glop of Dijon, coconut vinegar, Andy’s Rub seasoning). Tonight I’m making a pot roast using our new pressure cooker (so chuck roast AND bone-in lamb stew meat from the 1/2 lamb we got, plus fresh ox tails from the grass-fed guy at the Farmer’s Market).
SO TODAY, the WOD was:
Part A: Min AMRAP
3 Burpee
6 Deadlift 55KG
9 V-Up
Part B: Tabata
Pull Up
KBS 1P
Box Jump 20″
Overhead Squat 15KG
Part A wasn’t so bad, and I did it at Rx (yay!) – I did 4 rounds plus the burpees. I have to do the “very careful” burpees because of my shoulder, but I’m SO happy I am doing “real” burpees now. (WHO ever said “I’m happy to be doing burpees?” Yeah, no one, ever. But I do actually mean it). What that means, as the physio showed me, is I put my hands on the floor at my feet, walk my feet back to the “plank” position (one foot, then the other), then let myself down, elbows in/by my sides SLOWLY until I’m on the floor, then get up by doing a reverse “Downward Dog,” walk my feet in, stand, clap. Of course, it takes forever – I mean, I can do 3 when everyone else is doing like 10. But I feel great about it so I’m not really fussed about it.
I did the Deadlift at Rx, which was HEAVY. Not as heavy though as the one that was in the Open workout with Deadlifts, so I did know I could do it. I felt very accomplished (pat, pat on my back). For the V’ups, I just don’t have that move. So I did the scale on those – flat/face up, then knees in, sitting up, and back down. I can’t put my hands over my head either, because it strains my shoulder too much (have this issue with a number of moves in yoga, too – ones that look totally easy, like Balancing Stick – have to do them with my hands back). Anyway – I still count this as doing the workout “Rx” because I did “a version” of the V-Up and I DID do the burpees and the deadlifts Rx. (I used to do burpees against the wall, or against the desk, because I couldn’t put the strain on my shoulder.) Gotta figure out a way to “work on” the V-Up, and I’m afraid it’s going to just be starting with regular situps. Can’t even do a Tabata set of “regular” situps without having to grab behind my knees somewhere after the 2nd or 3rd one to get myself up.
ANYWAY, so for Part B, yeah, Wow. That sucked.
Pullups: I did these as jumping pullups in my corner, off plates. I can’t do the “swing forward” part, so I just hunker down (knees bent) ’til my arms are straight, then spring up using my knees to get my chin up and over the bar. I don’t like doing this. I would MUCH rather use the band, because I actually feel like I’m “doing” pullups. I probably should have done that this time, because on the “rest” in the Tabata I could have just stood on a box. I was thinking that we were going to have to do the Tabatas as 1 Pullup, 1 KBS, 1 BJ, 1 OHS and back, around and around (everyone did) until Bo explained that no, it was a full 8 round Tabata set of pullups (4 mins – standard), then the 10 second Tabata rest, then a full Tabata set of KBS, etc. Anyway – I got 60.
Kettlebell swings: Funniest part about this was EVERYONE (okay, except me, such the Virgo) was wandering around trying to find their kettlebells, spots, etc. when Bo shouted “3-2-1-GO”! I had my kettlebell sitting on a tall box right next to me. It really made me laugh. (Made Bo laugh more, mind you). This was supposed to be 1 pood (red), I did it at 0.75 pood (orange). I got 52. HOWEVER, somewhere around the 5th or so round, I realized I was about to puke. Of course, it was JUST as Coach Bo was looking at me. I didn’t start the next round. He “yelled” at me to get going, and I just sort of pointed to my eyes – because I was seeing stars – I probably should have pointed to my stomach. I was able to breathe, and then get going after, and didn’t actually throw up, but it was touch and go there. I got 52 reps.
Box Jumps: I had cavalierly set up the 2x25k + 1x5k in a stack to “do” jumps up to, because in my last post about Crossfit/box jumps, I had thought I could go a bit higher than just 2x25k. HOWEVER, I was right on the edge of losing my cookies, so I stepped up instead. I wasn’t the only one, though. I just didn’t look at Coach Bo at all during that round because he kept saying “ONLY step up if you can NOT do a jump at ALL.” I just pretended that he probably wasn’t looking at the back of my neck. I did 71 reps, stepping up.
Overhead Squats: Yeah, another nemesis move. I made Coach Bo show me for the umpteenth time how to do these (I keep thinking they are Thrusters). I thought I’d be able to do it with the swirly bar (10 pounds), but, yeah, nope. I did squat down to the lowest box, so at least the squat was good. I tried in the first round to do the 10 pound bar and I could only do one, and only about 1/2 way down to the box. It felt scary on my shoulder, the weight was not good, etc. I tried one more time on the 2nd round, no go, so during the rest I sprinted over to get a PVC pipe. I did the rest down to the low box, with the PVC pipe.
The thing that’s really weird is that when I do this move (I remember this from the Open workout that had them), the bar isn’t actually over my head. It’s almost more “behind” my head (almost “on” my head). I’m not sure if that’s because I’m doing what Coach Bo says and have a wide, “arms-all-the-way-straight” grip, or what. My freakin’ condor wing arms mean I am holding right at the end of the bar. But it’s not actually over my head – when I squat down, it’s up straight and I look like everyone else, but when I’m standing up, theirs is over their head, whereas mine is more behind or on top of mine. Could be a shoulder thing. I figure I will work out with Sera on this and she can help me when we get to the 1-Rep Maxs.
I couldn’t drive away from the box for a LONG TIME after, I really still felt sick. Went with M to Trader Joe’s to get stuff because we’re going to try our ideas on Paleo recipes. I had to sit in my car at the grocery store, then when I left her, sit AGAIN in the lot at United and at Whole Foods. I finally got a Perfect Bar and a cup of coffee at Whole Foods, just in case it wasn’t that I was beat to sh*t but that I was having low blood sugar ;-) I knew I was feeling better when I tweeted two postings that made me laugh….
“Why can’t we be more like the male lion, who just has to loll around and look pretty while the lady lions do Tabatas around him?” (Can’t you see the visual?!) and
“You know that feeling @ the end of an Ironman when you’re about to puke but happy? Yeah, I did that in Crossfit today, like 16 hours faster.”
(It should be “efficient” fitness not “functional” fitness LOL)
Once I got home, I realized there was NO WAY I could meet with a client as planned, so cancelled that until tomorrow. Hate to work on Saturday, but there wasn’t a chance in Hell. And that’s my check-in! Long, as usual, but so it goes!