Time Flies

It has definitely been a busy past few weeks!

Right after my last entry the sickness I mentioned hit me full force. Fever, Ear infection, shakes, weakness, sore throat, coughing.

Nasty. Then the ear infection caused a major cloggin in my noggin that even STILL hasn't fully gone away. The congestion is mostly gone, but there is still a slight lessening of hearing in my left ear. Very annoying.

Needless to say that cut my fitness pursuits significantly for a few days.

Running wise - I have started using Strava along with Runkeeper to track my running. One thing I really like about Strava is the 'segments' that they have, allowing for a little bit of friendly competition, and giving you goals to beat.

Kind of fun to hold 'CR's' (Course Records I think?) for a particular segment.

During the sickness I did not run as much as I wanted, but I did have a couple good ones.

Went on a nice run with the Davis County Group on the upper and lower Farmington Terrace Trails as well (These pics are on my instagram - yay!)

 

Beautiful Morning runs with that group - especially now that even with a 5:30 am start, you don't even need a headlamp!

After 2 weeks without BJJ I was very happy to get back to doing that - and even happier to see that when we started working on omoplata's  I wasn't completely lost and I was able to pick things up possibly faster than I had before! Yay!

Preparation for the physique contest in September is moving along - I'm still not sure what I want to change in my current routines to improve in certain areas like ab and arms definition...

Here's a torso progress picture from May 20th:

 

As you can see one of the major things that will happen before any competition is a spray tan and some other tanning lotions! If you know of any deals let me know!

I have added P90X Ab Ripper and plan to add a day of the Insanity Abs program into my weekly routine. 2 nights a week each program one time - should add a nice little hit to the abs. I haven't done those programs in QUITE some time - my first time doing Ab Ripper X the other night left me sore for longer than expected.

I love it!

On Saturday the Refuse2Quit guys (who I run with a lot, especially since one of them is my brother!) finished the Bryce 100 Mile race. I love the last line of the last paragraph before the video. (Which is awesome, you should watch it!)

We certainly have other friends and brothers who still need to run 100 miles. Time to make plans (Brent and Aaron).

HA! 100 miles is a REALLY long run. Like 24+ hours of running without really stopping!!

Maybe I'll do a 50 miler this year though... Who knows!?

Pain in My Spine

That's what happens when you aren't quite used to the rigors of BJJ, but you do 4 days of training anyway!

Needless to say - it was still awesome!

Monday was a normal Yoga and stretching day, with a few parallel grip L-sit pullups - which come into play for treating the spine as well actually... ANYWAY beyond that, nothing too amazing that day workout-wise.

Tuesday morning I got up early and did the 5 miles up and 5 miles back down the canyon with the Davis County Crew for a nice 10 miles.

Later Tuesday was my first BJJ for the week -we talked about Takedowns and unfortunately I'm going to need to review those because I definitely don't remember enough!

Wednesday morning I got up early (again!) and went in to work for BJJ. We worked on how to take your opponents back while they are in your guard. Good techniques, and I took pretty good notes so I can review them. Definitely helps me remember better! Like I've mentioned before - eventually I'll get those notes on here again. For now they are in a nice big draft on my dashboard.

Thursday morning I debated getting up to run with the Davis County Crew again, but I was starting to feel the lack of sleep and my back was beginning to hurt so I decided to sleep in. That was nice! In BJJ we had a female show up. Now we wouldn't really have a problem grappling with a girl, and really I think a girl is going to benefit from learning how to defend herself from some jerk on the street if  she gets to practice the techniques on a guy - BUT because we do BJJ at a corporate workplace, they have decided that if a girl wants to learn jujitsu she needs to have a female partner to practice with. SO, since there wasn't another girl there, we went over basic self defense moves instead of grappling stuff until she had to leave. We might have found some other girls, so hopefully we can get some to show up so that there isn't awkwardness.

'Progress' post BJJ 02-07-13

Friday morning I got up for Yoga, it definitely helped with some of my spinal issues, and then I took some time on the climbing wall. Before climbing I went over to a pullup bar and tried to do Muscle ups, since I haven't practiced those for a while. I was able to get 5 done, but DANG it was a lot harder than it used to be. I need to practice those more! I don't think my back situation helped much either. Friday lunchtime we were planning on going to Fusion again to grapple with the same guys as last week, but the main contact with the 'in' at the gym was unable to break away from work, so we just had a normal style class at work. I was able to successfully defend against quite a few submissions from Mark AND Micah, but eventually lost every time. Still we stopped throughout and went over a few of my shortcomings, so that was really helpful. I have a lot of shortcomings!

Saturday morning we had planned our normal run - but there were some other scheduling occurrences that made the plans a bit goofy. Kakes got up and ran early with Alicia, then Matt and Craig and I met up at the base of the canyon and we showed Craig the "Winter Outdoor Treadmill" which we've been doing a lot of running on. We went up the 5 and back down - putting that 10 miles at close to the fastest (which very well could have been Tuesday's run) I've done that 10.
The rest of that day I tried hard to REST and stretch out - my back was hurting!

 Short vid of Craig running up from the bridge:

On the run Craig said, "Here's a tip for you... Don't do jujitsu after Tuesday next week!!" since we'll be running 30+ miles on THIS SATURDAY!!
So I'm going to try to go to BJJ to learn technique on Tues-Thurs, but skip the rolling/grappling practice at the end, since that's where the crunching and overextending happens. Also I DEFINITELY won't be going to Fusion on Friday!!

Tomorrow morning I'm meeting up with the Davis County Crew - but we are doing the Firebreak/BST from Farmington to Bountiful and back, so it should be a nice 11 miles. Hopefully the trail isn't too crappy and I can get farther than the last time I tried that this winter!

With my back, this morning it was hurting a lot - but then after Yoga today, I did more regular pullups, which I haven't been doing as regularly. My back is feeling much better and I wonder if I just need to get back to my former amount of pullups as a therapy along with the Yoga to maintain spinal health. We'll see!

Revenge of the Snow Ninja!

Revenge is probably a bit too strong a word to use...

Especially since that guy is SLOW. (At least I feel that way!)

But at least he doesn't have to worry about SNAKES in the winter!

So since the last post (and even before!) I've been fortunate to do some great stuff.

Since I signed up for the Buffalo Run 50k I wasn't too worried about training for it any more than I have been.

My older brother texted me one day saying "Hey, have you adopted a specific training plan for the 50K? :)"

I responded "Why yes, yes I have! It's called run when I can and do a lot of yoga and BJJ!!"

Then I googled "50K Training Plans" and the shortest one was 16 weeks, and had a LOT of miles. I looked at the calendar and realized it was just over 10 weeks to the Buffalo Run - and NOW it's only 9 weeks from Saturday!

So I decided to start running a bit more throughout the week and not just relying on my Saturday group runs for training. I started back on the 10th, with a 7.1 mile run along the icy/snowy Legacy Parkway. I definitely don't like running on flat paved trails now that I'm so used to other trails... I got a couple mean blisters as a result!


Also got some BJJ in that day - we worked on Escaping when somebody 'has your back'.
That afternoon a big storm hit and I spent a LOT of time over the next couple of days shoveling snow! Snow shoveling and some pullups were all the exercise I got that Friday - and that was plenty!

Saturday we had our brunch n' run - we ran from Kaysville along the BST up to the waterfall up Adam's Canyon. Lots of people out, we helped one person get out of the icy parking lot before the run, and two more after! All trucks who thought they were tough and wouldn't get stuck. Ha! 5.5 miles of pretty crazy snow and ice!

Monday Yoga was definitely needed but we learned that the Wednesday class was being canceled so they could focus on other wellness needs. Dang! I still have 2 times a week that is 2 times a week more than none! So I'm still happy.

Tuesday morning I woke up to run with a bunch of people from the internet. I'm part of a county trail runners group and they said they were meeting to run up Farmington Canyon which is currently very nicely packed down by snowmobiles and perfect for trail running. 7 people showed up, it was funny that 4 of us had run the Farmington Flag Rock run in July! I was the slowest finisher of that group and I was 11th then!
Five miles up, Five miles down - it's actually a very nice run. I was slow going up, so I only made it 4.75 up, a total of 9.52 miles with VERY cold temps and very pretty frosty lashes!

Yeah... one guy ran in sub 10° weather in SHORTS! CRAZY!
Then later that day I learned about breaking closed guard in BJJ. Talk about fatigued legs during that lesson! I still was able to perform fairly well while sparring against Micah, but I of course didn't win!

Yesterday they did an ab/core class in place of Yoga, so I went to that. It is nice to do JUST ab work since I haven't focused specifically on abs in a long time - they've always been part of a more comprehensive workout. It wasn't too hard, but I'm definitely feeling the soreness, which is awesome!

This morning I had a few options for running. One was to start at 4 am and run 20 miles with the Wasatch Mountain Wranglers crew,  another was to run up Farmington Canyon again with the same group at 5:30 am, and the final option was to wake up whenever and run by myself.

I liked the 'wake up whenever' option best - I feel I need to increase the amount of sleep I've been getting! I got myself up at 6:35ish and was running on the BST/Firebreak from Freedom Hills to Rick's Creek before turning around. Made a measly (but difficult!) 3.34 miles before heading home to shower and come in to work. (The snake picture is from this morning)

Side note: As part of my 50k training and to keep in touch with other crazy runners - I joined fastrunningblog and you can see my running-specific blog here. As if I didn't have enough blogs! I actually have a few of my BJJ Training Notes-type entries typed up (but without Video links, and I like videos on that!) but I haven't decided what to do with them yet... I definitely won't be starting another separate blog for them, but I might put a tab or something on this blog for them... We'll see!

To the New Year!

Well 2012 slipped into 2013 pretty quickly!

And I'm so behind on blogging about all the fun stuff I've done since the day after Christmas!

However I'm just not in the mood to write about the last week... I mean I WANT to, but I can't get myself to do it! Getting over a nagging cold/flu/who-knows-what is making the lethargy quite pervasive!

I'm also super sore from an AWESOME Friday of Yoga, Climbing, Crossfit AND BJJ!

Maybe I'll put together a 2012 year in review and try to fit the runs and BJJ stuff that has happened.

For now - here's a post-crossfit/BJJ progress/tracking picture from Friday!

We have officially been Primal for over a year! I'm pretty happy with the results - I've put together a progression since back before primal that I'll share in my 2012 review!

Cindy and Clean and Press!

Started the morning off with a private yoga lesson...

Nobody else showed up to the class!

It felt really good and was nice after a crazy pre-holiday week.

I had to leave to attend to a family matter after that, so I was unable to climb. Probably all right because I tweaked my elbow and shoulder on my right arm... so a little rest would be good.

Since it was the last day of working this year - and I didn't want TOO MUCH rest - I decided I wanted to make it to the Crossfit class one last time.

Warmup:
Half Mile run (treadmill) - 3.5 minutes
20 KB Goblet Squats
10 KB Push Press each arm

Workout
1 Round of Cindy (5 pullups, 10 pushups, 15 bodyweight squats)
1 Clean and Press (I used 2 35lb Kettlebells because of the number of people there using the other bars and stuff)
1 Cindy
2 Clean and press
1 Cindy
3 Clean and press
... continued up to 10 reps Clean and Press with a Cindy at the start of each round.

at the 6th rep of the round of 7 clean and press - I had changed to an 80 lb curling bar for a few rounds - I pinched something in my lower back... OUCH! So for the remaining 3 sets I went back to the 2 kettle bells.

In the end I finished in 23:45 seconds - which was 2nd fastest overall.  My arm was twitching from my elbow up to my neck... and it hurt. Thankfully the majority of that pain went down pretty quick.

Unfortunately that back pain! YOW! Stiffens the whole spine up pretty quick!

Here's what I looked like after:

Not bad.

I'm not sure why but I've been taking progress shots like this in the locker room mirror for comparison lately... And while I'm quite happy with my progress...

It's just...

So weird.

Oh well!

View Benchmark

Seems like I haven't been taking my blogging responsibility very seriously.

Over a week since the last update? That's horrible!!

About a week ago I took another progress photo of my torso... If I have a 'main goal' right now it's to rip those abs to shreds so they finally look the way I want them to. They are SO close right now!
This was after last Thursday's BJJ!

The abs... Almost!

Friday I finally made it back to Crossfit - since the crazy last-day-of-November weather was at almost 60 degrees, we took it outside and had a pretty tough workout.
Run 2 times around parking garage (about .5 miles)
10 Wall Jumps
20 Thrusters (Squat Press) 2 35lb kettlebells
30 Pushups
Repeat two more times - total of three rounds of wall jumps, thrusters and pushups
Run .5 miles

Add the warmup we did before, AND the Farmer Walk with the two 35 lb kettle bells to the workout area and back afterwards - that's a pretty good workout! My shoulders were completely fatigued.

View Benchmark
Saturday morning my brother picked me up early and we drove down to Draper to run the View Benchmark Trail. View Benchmark is a wee little peak, but still the tallest peak on what is commonly known as 'point of the mountain' that separates Salt Lake County from Utah County - aka Salt Lake from Provo. There are some great views North to Draper and South to Alpine from the top, and it's just under four miles from the trailhead to the top. Total of 7.9ish miles! We had me, my brother, Craig, his brother Brent (who I finished last years Half Pregnant Half Marathon with!), and Rachel, a running buddy of those guys. I was the last one up - by just a little, and the 3rd one down behind Craig and Matt. Pretty happy that I wasn't THAT far behind, although I want to not have to walk quite so much on some of the inclines! Gotta work some more mountain sprints!
Anyway the weather was fantastic for a run, although VERY strange to be running in 61 degree weather on December First!
Here are some pictures!

Brent, Rachel and Me in back reaching the top

Go me!

Utah Lake in the distance

Weird peak structure thing

Craig Climbed up with me

My brother and I

Great run! I'm looking forward to more fun Saturday morning runs and brunch which we are going to continue throughout the winter.

Kind of hard to continue our Tuesday night run and dinner when it gets dark before 5!

In BJJ yesterday I learned some mount escapes - I need these desperately as I'm always getting caught in mount when grappling. That's NOT a very good thing. At least I'm finally learning to not turn AWAY from the other guy...
-Basic Escape (Vid1) - Trap arm to chest, hook leg, pop hips (Bridge) roll them over - the video linked is a good overall explanation of why Mount is bad, and then the first basic escape. (Here is another video (Vid2) that goes over a few of these I learned)

-Someone hold down both arms in mount. This is when somebody is sitting on your chest and holding onto your wrists, common way for kids to try to control another kid. Slide one arm down to your hip, trap leg, bridge the hips-up and roll just like the basic escape.
-Wrap up one arm while being mounted. This is kind of shown in the Vid1 - instead of trapping the arm down, you wrap it up. He says it's 'slower' but it can still work in the right situation and is good to know. Thread arm up and around to wrap their arm up.  Trap leg, bridge-up and roll.
-Shrimp out with knee push- to guard. Remember to shrimp 3 times. Push on knee. Trap with bottom leg. Turn other side. Trap with bottom leg. Then go to guard.
-Shrimp escape when you can't do above - shrimp out by hooking or scooping their leg (Vid3) with your opposite leg (vid2 also explains both the hook and the scoop)
-Scoop under arms, Pop hips, swing foot up into armpit, grab wrist and roll them forward (possible leg/ankle lock finish) - this one works best for me I think... You can almost see it in this video (Vid4) but instead of a full backwards roll, it's more sideways since we only used one leg and armpit. I like the version in this video too!
-Push on their hips, pop hips, bring legs through to butterfly guard (near the end of Vid2)



I've mentioned before that the grappling after training specific moves is the most useful way to apply... even though I don't USUALLY get to the point where I can actually implement the move - but I ALMOST pulled off the mount to ankle lock escape part! Almost ha - nowhere near the ankle lock though! When I'm rolling with Micah, I usually lose very fast. Yesterday since it was just the two of us, I was reminded again and again to protect my arms... I got armbarred very quickly by Micah many many times. Actually last Thursday I was able to submit a very strong Kung Fu guy who has started to train with us - because I had people coaching me what to do - I was in a very bad position, he had my back but he was crossing his feet - I cross my feet over his and extend my chest WHAM leg submission. Hooray!

Today I had a private yoga lesson! Kind of sad when nobody else shows up, but nice for me because I can just tune out and flow. Nice and thorough Sun Salutation A and B and Crow practice!

I'm looking forward to BJJ tomorrow, and trying to fit in some Insanity or P90X ab workouts into my schedule more often... I really want to complete that six pack!

Box Jumps and Snatches

A blog entry with no pictures is lame. I need to start adding random internet pictures or stuff from Tumblr or Pinterest if I have no pictures I've taken!!

Random Internet Picture! Unfortunately this is NOT me. Awesome Pose! I want to do this!

Yesterday's post had no pictures. Blah!

Woke up to Rain and Snow early this morning as I headed out to make it to Friday morning Yoga.
I haven't done yoga all week! It took me longer to get into yoga because I was feeling sluggish from the lack of yoga this week, along with the pain in my head and jaw from BJJ yesterday. Yoga really provides a balance and a base to me both physically and mentally. I really like doing it continuously. It was just me, the teacher, and Matt in yoga this morning. Matt is the Kung Fu guy who clocked me in the head yesterday too! I think that's kind of funny. He's a way nice guy, so I'm glad I don't get mad at people about stuff like that.

I had a jolly good time climbing this morning after yoga. One of our maintenance guys is taking some high level climbing classes and has had to create some routes - so he graded and created some new routes and marked them on the wall. The hardest one is a 5.9... which isn't that hard really... I'm still not familiar with the grades - but it was fun to go up the different routes multiple times. my forearms are pumped, which I guess is kind of bad since I was supposed to be practicing my 'sagging' while climbing (arms stretched long - butt sagging down - uses a lot less energy in your arms and allows for a greater leg range of motion). Definitely fatigued my forearms!

Those sore arms sure made Crossfit a piece of cake!

See below for my actual workout - adding the challenge round

Warmup:
Repeat this first sequence 3 times:
-1 lap around gym
-10 Wall Balls (15 lb medicine ball)
-10 KB Deadlifts (40 lb kb)
-1 set stairs (about 40 stairs up and down)
1 set of dragon crawls (kind of like spiderman crawls but a bit harder) across the gym and back
Repeat this second sequence twice:
-14 one arm KB Swings (7 each arm)
-Waiter Walk (KB Straight above your head across the gym and back - each arm)
Finish with
10 Tuck Jumps
5 Burpees

That was a tiring warmup.

WOD:
(I elected to do the harder version and add a set of 50 at the top and bottom of the ladder, so mine looked like this)
50 KB Snatches, 10 Box Jumps (30-36" box)
40 KB Snatches, 20 Box Jumps
30 KB Snatches, 30 Box Jumps
20 KB Snatches, 40 Box Jumps
10 KB Snatches, 50 Box Jumps

I finished in 18:17ish - 3rd done. I'm fine with that!

THEN for an extra extra challenge (since adding a 50 set wasn't challenge enough - but that one was voluntary) we did walking lunges around the gym. It took me 72 lunges to get around the gym.

Like I often do lately, for fun I decided to do a couple muscle-ups after all that. I did 2 and decided that was plenty. Yay I can STILL do them even when REALLY fatigued!


After Crossfit the sweat always gets into my eyes and makes 'em look horrible, so I took a self-shot-locker room pic to show that AND because I knew I had to have at least one personal picture for this blog entry. I've NEVER done one of those locker-room self-pics before, ha!
Nice to see things continuing to improve - still so close on the abs... I'll get there!

Yeah... my eyes look awesome!

When I logged the workouts of today into Fitocracy I got over 2600 points! A ton of them came from Box Jumps. 1 set of 50 box jumps is worth more than an HOUR of Yoga. I think that is a bit weird... but it is nice to get lots of points.

Physical Meditation

Morning yoga is fantastic. It really improves my Fridays.

I tweaked my elbow just enough yesterday while seeing if a one-armed americana would work in BJJ, that I opted NOT to climb after yoga this morning... which is more than a little sad. I think I have mentioned before that combining the physical meditation of Yoga for an hour with an even more private physical meditation on a rock wall is one of the best ways to start any day. Positive, strong, amazing feelings and outlook lasting all day!

Another reason I didn't climb - is I'm Wolverine for my corporate Halloween party today, so I had some costume related stuff to do for that. Yay!

Here I am last night messing with the claws and cigar... I will be wearing a shirt and possibly my leather jacket for the company costume parade!! I did consider just doing a tank top, but decided against it in the end. Since this is my fitness blog and I was just about to do pushups - you get the shirtless version.

Don't ever really smoke kids! It ain't good for ya! Rolled up Cardboard - not smoked - is fine

2 weeks ago Micah (BJJ Instructor) had back surgery to repair a couple of his lower vertebrae.  So Mark, basically the only guy other than me that's been going lately thought we should keep practicing, which is great. I mentioned LAST Thursday that it has been a while since I have just 'rolled' (practical practice - basically just start wrestling/grappling trying to sink submissions/chokes/etc.) and for some reason my brain was having a hard time wanting to. So I needed to. So the past few times we've done that at the end, stopping occasionally to discuss issues and problems and solutions - and it has been fantastic! Even better this week, Micah has come to watch and give tips. Yesterday (again 2 weeks out from back surgery) he got into it a bit more. Hearing tips while rolling is really a great way of learning.

I'm very pleased with the progress I am feeling with BJJ. I'm still WAY far from knowing what to do in many situations, and I pretty much always lose while rolling, but I'm excited in the direction!

Other than Yoga Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, and BJJ on Tuesdays and Thursdays - not much else has been going on fitness wise. I still do pull ups and push ups - L-sit Pullups and Chinups after Yoga and/or BJJ usually - but I just realized I haven't done a muscle-up in WAY too long! (like a week and a half or two weeks!) That's no good. Gotta keep that strong. With the bad weather I wonder how useful my pullup bars are... I should do something to winterize them a bit.

Another thing that is lacking in the past week - Trail Running!! Sure I ran almost 20 miles last Friday... but I miss the mountains!

11th Anniversary and another Backyard HIIT

Yesterday

Today I'll just toss in my Fitocracy workout of the day and add pictures and comments throughout! Woohoo for laziness!

WarlordBlade tracked a workout for 1,176 pts:

• L-Sit: (earlier in the day)
  • 15 sec (+10 pts)
  • 31 sec (+21 pts)
  • 15 sec (+10 pts)
  • These are L-sits off the ground using Push-up handles
• Other Dancing: Trying to make my 2 year old happy dancing to Youtube vids!
  • 0:10:00 || Moderate (+20 pts)
• Jump Squat (Toyotas):
  • 15 reps (+11 pts)
• Muscle-Up:
  • 6 reps (+193 pts) 6 in a row!! They are still a bit sloppy but I'm getting better!
• The next exercises were part of a HIIT workout in our backyard. Initially we thought there were going to be more people, but it just ended up being me, my beautiful wife, and my brother-in-law Ben.
• Warmup:
• Push-Up:
  • 10 reps (+15 pts)
• Body Weight Squat:
  • 20 reps (+13 pts)
• Step/Kick-Throughs: (On fours knees off the ground, shoot one leg through to the opposite side, lifting the opposite hand)
  • 20 reps (+6 pts) - I had a hip problem pop up while doing these that is still hurting... not sure where it came from!
• Jumping Jacks:
  • 50 jumping jacks (+15 pts)
• Running:
  • 0:06:36.5 || 1 mi || 6:33.3 min/mi (+144 pts)
  • http://runkeeper.com/user/warlordblade/activity/108466285
• WORKOUT - 1 minute at each exercise - continue after one run through if desired (I did some extra for pictures!)
• Body Weight Inverted Row (Let Me Ups):
  
  • 32 reps (+51 pts)
  • 20 reps (+32 pts)
• Jump Rope:
  
  
  • 0:01:00 (+5 pts) (167 rotations)
  • 0:01:00 (+5 pts) (30 more)
• Double Under Jump Rope:
  
  • 0:01:00 (+6 pts) (10 Double Unders)
• Pull-Up:
  • 20 reps (+119 pts)
• Chin-Up:
  
  • 10 reps (+63 pts)
• Box Jumps:
  
  • 21 jumps || 28 in (+84 pts)
  • 10 jumps || 28 in (+34 pts)
•   Kettlebell Headcutters: (Not in fitocracy so I did something close)
  
  • 35 lb x 15 reps (+50 pts)
  • 35 lb x 5 reps (+37 pts)
• Tire Flip:
  
  • 100 lb x 22 reps (+52 pts)
  • 100 lb x 10 reps (+46 pts)
• KB Walking Lunges:
  • 35 lb x 32 reps (+89 pts)
• Burpee:
  • 11 reps (+24 pts)
• Finally due to my aching hip and knee (weird) I did some foam rolling and stretching - and will continue to do so!
• Foam Rolling:
  • 10:00 (+18 pts)
• Stretching:
  • 0:15:00 (+3 pts)

Great day off - I'm looking forward to another one tomorrow, we get to go swimming at my in-laws house! Then Saturday is CAHOOTS! Hopefully my hip and knee aren't bothering me by then. Strangely other than the kick-throughs, my hip didn't really bother me. My knee hurt a bit on the run but otherwise I felt great.

Crossfit Friday

Warmup!
20 Wall Runs (handstand against the wall, alternate hand to shoulder-touches)
20 Air Squats
20 Bicycles
20 Superman's
2 Stairs

Repeat!

WOD: Deck o' Cards

Clubs - Renegade Rows
Spades - Pushups
Diamonds - Deadlifts
Hearts - Weighted Russian Twists
Joker - Both team members do 25 burpees

My least favorite thing about Deck of Cards is that I don't have the exact number of reps that I did on which workout except for a few that I remember because they were not fun to do right in a row. 

Those burpees are always horribly timed! I got 3 rounds of high count (Jack (11) King (13) and Ace (15)) Renegade Rows and that was ROUGH. I started with 50# dumb bells because that is what my partner was using, then I dropped to 40, but after the 3rd or 4th round I dropped again to 30# and finished with that!

We used a 35# kettlebell for the Russian Twists and 135# for the deadlifts. I think that's like the 3rd time I've EVER done Deadlifts. I think my form is all right but I could use some more work.

Yesterday was ALMOST a rest day. I did pullups like normal, some ab work with L-sits and Full Ab Wheel Rollout practice - I'm getting closer to my full ab roll out goal!

Post Ragnar Crossfit and Running

Since Ragnar I've been running 4 times outside and one time in a Crossfit class, I've gone to Crossfit 2 times, and Yoga a few times. With all the fires running outside has been interesting, and HOT! Wow it has been a hot couple of weeks!

On Friday we had a crazy 3 person-team workout, where we split the workout amongst the team however we felt. The goal was to strategize so you get it done as fast as you can.
3 Mile run
100 Pull ups
200 Push ups
300 V-ups
400 KB Snatches

One of our team is a BEAST with weights and he hates running (although he did the Ragnar and loved that) so the team captain (awesome girl) and I split the run. I ran my 1.5 miles in a blistering 10:06... I was very happy with that! Then I did 80 KB snatches, thought for sure pullups and pushups wouldn't be a problem for me but DANG, that run wore. me. out! So I only ended up doing 10 pullups (at least for the time, I did about 20 more later) and 25 pushups, but I DID do 135 v-ups so I did make a good contribution to the team. We finished with a time of 24:36 (+/- 10ish seconds) the next team came in at 30 minutes. So our strategy worked out great. Have the two runners do the 3 miles in a decent time, and have the muscle man bust out the reps.

Today we did Fight Gone Bad again (last February was my first experience with this), modified with an extra minute and an extra workout! And my abs were still VERY sore from Friday's workout! This is why I normally only do Crossfit on Fridays. RECOVERY!
6 minute rounds (Each exercise AMRAP in 1 minute), 1 minute rest, repeated 3 times (This is the order I did it in):
Burpees
KB Snatch (45 lb KB)
Wall Ball (16 lb Ball)
Box Jumps (24" box)
Push Press (90 or 70 lb)
Crossfit Situps

I ended up with 244 total reps, although my partner who was counting for me was a bit more strict than I was on what counts as a rep... so I think I was more like 250-275 :) Still one of the lower numbers in the class, which doesn't make me very happy.

Oh well.

In the end it was still a very good workout that I'll feel in the morning for sure! And that's what REALLY matters, right?

I've taken some fun pictures of runs and climbing up on rocks and peacock pose that I'll find and put up here later. Right now I've got too much to do, so I'll hopefully do a picture-only post soon!

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!!

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!

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.