Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Leap Day! Burpees Anyone?

Yeah.. no... me neither.

Well - maybe I'll do one burpee in celebration of not HAVING to do more than that on this Leap Day!!

Yesterday at yoga was nice because it's been a while since I was able to do a full class - plus I felt pretty strong although there were a few balance snafus. Strong on Astavakrasana and Warrior 3!

Last night I went on a nice 2.5 run up in the mountains - it was great but got COLD in the evening air, even though the sun was still shining. It was starting to set:

Gorgeous sunset over the lake!

Hey look it's me!
Afterwords I worked a bit on straightening higher to a more handstand type peacock - raising my feet to mostly straight from a supported planche - but realized I should probably be a bit more careful because my right wrist is starting to flare up. Might need to break from handstand attempts and balance poses... which is very sad. Throw in a whole bunch of pullups, chinups, L-sit chins, and other randomness and I felt great last night! Hopefully I can continue feeling this good (other than the wrist - maybe find a good brace for a while, also my shoulder is acting up a bit - need more yoga!)

Friday, February 24, 2012

Crossfit was Glorious!

I thoroughly enjoyed Crossfit today!

Mostly because it was outdoors, but it was also a fantastic set of movements. Due to limited kettlebells I ended up with a 35 lb'er - Shortly after that I wish I'd gotten a bit lighter!

We started off with a warmup doing sumo deadlift high-pulls, followed by running to the gate and back.

Here's a picture to help illustrate:

So starting back by those stairs on the parking garage, we did 10 sumo deadlift high-pulls, run to the gate, run back, 8, run, back, 6, run, back etc until done.

After that first warmup Dave (our crossfit trainer) explained our exercise and had us do 5 of each movement on each side. Starting at the bottom of the stairs (closer than before), you do 10 kettlebell squats holding the kettle bell each side (total 20 reps), then take your kettlebell up the stairs to the second level:
Here we move away from the stairs (so faster and/or slower people still have access!) and do 15 total kettlebell press ups, so 7 and 8 or 8 and 7 each side however you want to do that. Upon completion you again take your kettlebell to the top level for the final 3 movements of the set.


You can see way in the back where the stairs come up. At the top there near the stairs you combine the squat and press to do 5 kettle bell squat-presses on each size (total 10) then leave your kettlebell there and head to that wall that is between the middle and back light posts for wall burpees! I like wall burpees because it makes me feel like I'm doing parkour training. To do a wall burpee you drop back into the normal burpee start, back and down to a pushup, come up and jump over the wall and down to the pushup. Each time over the wall counts as one rep. After 5 times over the wall you run a lap around the upper level of the parking lot back to the stairs where you have finally completed your first set. Now we had 2 minutes until you start the next set. Total of four sets, goal is to try to be below 3 minutes per set! My first set was 3:55. Yikes. Sadly I have already forgotten my total time, but I DO think I improved a bit, and was able to pass people on the burpees and running, which made me feel good. After I finished my four rounds, I was able to rest for a bit allowing a few more people to finish their fourth round - but there were a few people who were a set behind. Dave asked who wanted to do a challenge and complete the last round with the final people. I decided to do it if I could use a lower weight, so I used somebody's 20 lb weight and went down to the bottom to start round 5.

Wow what a difference lighter weight makes! I was a LOT faster on that 5th round and finished it in 2:45... which was a nice feeling.

Four house after I STILL feel really good - although I'm starting to fatigue a little and my shoulders are being a bit wonky. Part of that is because we took the whole family out for a Costco shopping trip!

Just for fun here's one of those awesome mirror self-taken-raised-shirt-ab pics. I've almost got some abs yay!


Tomorrow we are going to a farm to pick up a quarter cow! We're excited to have a lot of grass fed beef in our house!!

Friday, February 17, 2012

Trail running and Friday Crossfit

Wednesday evening I decided I needed to go for a run, and decided to run some trails near my house.

Here's what I did:



Downhill running sure is nice if you want to make up the time for going UP the hills. Talk about SLOW!

Today in Crossfit was pretty mean. I was hoping to go outside because it is beautiful out there, but only one of the 7 other people was with me on that... so we had our trash kicked inside instead.

The mindset on Fridays is that we have the weekend to recover... so lets do something ridiculously hard!

Not sure if this has a name, but here's what we did:

7 ring push ups
7 headcutters (40 lb kettlebell - I switched to a 30 after the 4th round!)
7 goblet squats (40 lb kettlebell (same switch...))
7 press ups (7 right, 7 left, same kettlebell)
7 sled pushes (carpet across the court 7 times - thankfully each cross was 1 so it wasn't across and back!)
7 burpees
7 v-ups

Repeat above for 7 rounds!

He added in a time limit of 40 minutes for the entire workout.

I didn't make it.

I had burpees, v-ups and pushups left... and I was really struggling at the end!

Friday, February 10, 2012

300 Workout at Crossfit and Peacock

Today at Crossfit was mean.

Especially because last night I decided I needed to do something for a workout... and decided to do a Wimpy Cindy. i.e. 5 rounds of Cindy not timed. I also doubled the last round so 10 pull-ups, 20 push-ups, and 30 air-squats. Felt great afterwards, but didn't realize what it would affect today!

Enter today's workout: 300 Workout
25 Pull-ups
50 Deadlifts
50 Push-ups
50 Box-Jumps
50 Dumbell Clean and Press
50 Wipe-the-Floors
25 Pull-ups

Warm up before was 10 of everything but the pullups along with 3 rounds of hollow-body rockers to remind us how to hold our core throughout all the exercises.


It took me a ridiculous 27 minutes to complete the workout. My shoulders and back and pecs were exhausted from last night! Still, it was an awesome workout and even my boss said "Um your chest looks huge" after I got back to my desk!

Last night I also took some progress pictures, but also took one of me in Peacock Pose! Next time I'll do it in better shorts... and with a better background! SORRY!

Peacock Pose! Yay!

And of course - though I started with "Crossfit was mean" - what that really means is - it was awesome!

Friday, February 3, 2012

Crossfit Feb 3 2012

Last week at Crossfit I pulled a muscle in my upper hamstring - so I still can't do full range of motion on a Squat.

I decided I needed to go today anyway so I can get into the habit and only skip if I HAVE to for a meeting or something.

Today's workout was called "Fight Gone Bad" - love that it's an MMA inspired and named by BJ Penn!

In FGB you move through five stations after a minute at each one. So a five-minute round of working followed by a one-minute break before repeating for 3 rounds: (like most MMA Fights!)
  1. Wall-ball: 20 pound ball, 10 ft target. (Reps) (I don't think we had a 20 pound ball)
  2. Sumo deadlift high-pull: 45 pound kettlebell (Reps)
  3. Box Jump: 20" box (Reps)
  4. Push-press: 2 35 pound dumbbells (Reps)
  5. Burpees (Reps) (Normally you do a Row (Calories))
The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of "rotate," the athlete moves to the next station immediately for good score. One point is given for each rep. (from Official Crossfit faq)

I finished with a 'score' of 211, which isn't a great score but I'm happy with it!

Before starting the class I demonstrated Peacock pose for one of my fellow Yoga-going coworkers, THEN I went down, changed and was able to get a really messy muscle up on some rings! Awesome!

Thursday, February 2, 2012

Pre and Post Primal Challenge Pics

We mentioned we were starting a 21 day primal Challenge on the 2nd of January.

That ended a week or so ago and we are continuing with a slightly relaxed Primal Lifestyle (relaxed compared to the 28 day challenge anyway!).

To document I decided to take a before and after of my torso to see what changes came about.

Before
 
After
21 days made a pretty good difference! The results are quite visible in my love-handle area - look at how that went down! And due to seasonal and family health issues along with other extended family drama - I didn't even work out as much as I wanted to in that 21 days, so the results here are mostly from diet-based changes. No grains, no sugar, lots of fat and protein! Fantastic!

Next stop - SIX PACK BABY!

I actually lost 6 pounds and want to gain it back - but I want to gain back muscle and keep shedding excess body fat, so it's time to step it up!

Hopefully I'll also get some pictures of the new balance poses I can do now - Flying Crow and Peacock! Next goal is Handstand  - I think Kakes is going to beat me to that one because she is amazing.