FitNotes

CrossFit Seattle's workout today is as many reps as possible deadlifting your body weight (depending on the person and experience); then run 1 mile.

My workout at home:

60 kg deadlifts, 21 reps. I stopped because my legs were shaking, my lower back was tightening up, and my reset time between reps was slowing. I could have squeezed out more but honestly it was freaking me out a bit, knowing I had to run a mile!

Then I ran four times around the track at Garfield High School two blocks from home: 8:16. Slow! Heavy legs.

Stunts are my favorite part of CrossFit. I ought to work harder (somehow - ?) to get a higher Fight Gone Bad score, but what really excites me is new one-off tricks like my recent "acquisition" of bar muscle-ups and hip-overs. Last Friday I added two more, a weighted pull-up with a 24-kg kettlebell attached to me, as well as a pistol on each leg with that same weight. We did the rest of the workout (a cool dumbbell complex) and then did a max push-ups test and I got 30. That was pretty good for being tired.

I am hoping to get a video this month on my 45th birthday doing consecutive alternating bar muscle-ups and hip-overs. Not 45 of 'em, though.

Today we did a max pull-ups test and I got 33 kipping, beating my old max of (I think) 27. I've lost nine pounds recently by eliminating all grains and almost all starches. I eat apples - is that a starch? Anyway, no bread, no rice, corn, etc., nothing with added sugar, none of my old staple of peanut butter and honey on toast, no ice cream... I eat a lot of meat, nuts, and fruit, and should eat more vegetables. But they require more planning and cooking and are not as fun in the summer as fruit!

I'm going to San Diego at the end of August as an assistant RKC staffer at the RKC Level 1 certification there. I'm totally psyched and if I don't hurt myself on my stunts I should be in great shape for that. Fingers crossed (and I will be careful!).

I had a great day yesterday that seemed to be full of successes.

New trainee Donna, in her second session, made huge progress on her deadlift technique. She's sticking with personal sessions for a while so I can tailor the sessions to her, which is going to be really fun.

Then I had a gymnastics-filled 4 PM class and it went great! I had gone to Dave's 7 AM class to see how he would progress people through L-sits and then into some tumbling, and I did it his way, mostly. We warmed up then stretched the hamstrings a lot, using partners, in order to facilitate the L-sits. We did a bunch of that, not holding for too long but doing reps.

Then in the tumbling section I came up with a couple of simple drills that seemed to help people go from forward rolls into handstand roll-outs without crashing down. First, during the forward roll I asked people to be sure to put the back of their head on the mat and then roll. If they flew into the roll without putting their head down, I was more afraid they would do the same thing out of the handstand and knock the breath out of themselves. Second, I added a second round of forward rolls that started in a sort of downward-dog position - hands on the mat with STRAIGHT arms; then bend the arms and tuck the chin, round the back and roll.

From there, when we went into the handstand roll-outs (spotting and cueing each other), people were able to lower themselves without crashing. Ten people and only one minor crash. I was very happy with this and everyone had fun.

During my hour break I had a personal success at doing my first bar muscle-up. Yay! Ryan saw me trying it and told me to throw my head forward to help get completely over the bar, and this worked right away. I did two of the bar muscle-ups and could not do any more the rest of the evening. Today my shoulders really feel worked! Can't wait to try those again when I'm fresh. Here's a really good video of bar muscle-ups. I couldn't quickly find one of a woman doing them. Mental note - bring a camera nex time!

And finally, last night at six I had a second session with a very enthusiastic guy who loves working out and is fun to teach. So, it was a great day.

I'm working on full cleans, from the ground, catching in a squat. Yesterday I did sets of three or four or five and worked up two or three kilos at a time to 57 kg - my body weight. By then I was tired. I did some good ones at 52, jumped greedily to 57, did one good one, and then failed repeatedly, even at lighter weights. I was done!

Today I worked up a lot faster to 50 kg, then spent 15 minutes doing broken sets of 3, and sitting down between sets. This went great. I feel like I should keep doing 50 a couple more times until it is boring, then do 52, 54, 56, 57, each on their own separate day. There is something about jumping up with your own weight on a bar and diving underneath it. Something prohibitive, it seems!

Today after that I did yesterday's CrossFit Seattle workout: for 12 minutes, do as many rounds as possible of 5 broad jumps and 10 heavy kettlebell swings (24 kg). I did 14 rounds of this.

I love Dave's classes! On Saturday at 9 AM we worked on spotting each other (in many cases with two spotters) in working up to an assisted planche. We did this first on parallettes, doing a tuck and pressing the upper back as high as  possible. A spotter put a hand under the shins to help elevate just a bit more. No attempt to straighten the legs at this point.

Next, on parallettes using a rubberband hanging from the pull-up bar, a spotter helped lift the legs a bit while keeping a hand in front of the shoulders and encouraging the athlete to shift forward. Scary!

Finally back to the parallettes without the rubberband. Two spotters helped each person. One spotter held the shoulders and the other lifted the feet. The athlete was cued to press up, lock the elbows hard, tighten the stomach, shift forward, back, forward (with spotter help). This was fun to try. We worked in groups of three and circulated through being the athlete and being a spotter.

Next, we stood near the wall with only shoulders leaning on it, with a dumbbell in each hand. Tighten the stomach to approximate the hollow position, and lift the dumbbells (with straight arms) away from you to just under chest height. This simulates the planche position and makes the dumbbells feel impossibly heavy. With 15 pound ones, I could do the drill and hold it a few seconds. With 20 pound DBs, I could lift them barely high enough and could not hold. The strong guys were using pairs of 20-pound DBs if I recall correctly and they could hold them out for several seconds. This lift is hard on the elbows.

The final part of our workout was: for 10 minutes, how many sets of five chest to bar pull-ups can you do on the higher bar? This meant jumping onto the low bar (about 7'7" high), then shifting with one hand at a time or both hands at once to the higher bar, doing the five pull-ups, and coming back down the way you went up (or letting go and dropping from the high bar onto the floor). I love the stunt of getting onto the high bar even though I can only do it one hand at a time. It is demanding of nerve, strength, commitment, and skill, and is taxing on its own; let alone five explosive pull-ups and then come down. I felt good about being able to do this. I think I did eight rounds. Some of the guys did a lot more.

3 dumbbell snatches per side, 35 lbs
7 high-jump burpees
Run 100 meters (or what looked like 100 to me)
5 rounds

Time: 11:40

This was just a little too easy; next time, 45-lb dumbbells. Considering I was doing 1-arm barbell snatches, which is 45 pounds, that's definitely the weight I should have used. I was chicken I guess.

I mowed the lawn right after this, including slopes, which added to the over-all sense of having done push-ups.

Yesterday I had just enough time to work on pressing. I did some sets of three, up to 35, then did four singles at 39. Sometime early last year I had a 1RM press of 42. I'll be back to that soon and hope to get 45. "Hope" is sort of silly with things like strength or guitar playing; train or practice is a better strategy!

Today we did a barbell complex: clean, then three push-presses, three front squats, three thrusters. Take turns and add weight until you can't complete a complex. I got up to 45 kg without failing and it was time to quit. I think I could have done 50.

I did my sets of five at 40 kg, 60, 85,  and 100 kg. Wait, that's only four sets.... the set of 5 at 100 was a broken set and that was enough.

Then we did a team workout that involved running 800, 50 kettlebell snatches, and 100 kettlebell swings.

Surprisingly fun: chain push-ups from Fran Mason on Vimeo.

I tried this out the day after the gym got the chains, with the assistance of trainee Teague (aka "the Bad Influence") (kidding). Next day I had everyone in my 4 PM CrossFit class, who is able to do any push-ups, try push-ups in chains! They liked it, and some people continued practicing their push-ups after the chains were put back in their storage bucket, just for fun.

The way I did "Grace," at home on our stone patio, was like this: Power clean from ground, split jerk, no dropping the weights, 30 reps, 95 lbs. Time: 7:38.

I think this is the first time I've done Grace. It's fun lifting outside on a nice cool, pleasant spring afternoon! But kind of tedious carrying all the gear up from the basement and out the kitchen door and back down!