I promise this isn’t going to turn into a Crossfit blog! I’ll still be posting about running, healthy eating and locally interesting fitness and food related items. But I think while I’m participating in the On Ramp classes, I’ll post about twice a week about how it’s going.
Zach and I are going out of town this weekend to visit my family. It’s time to finalize the wedding budget, and get some quality family time in. I’m super excited!
Since I’m going to miss Saturday’s On Ramp class at Crossfit Thunder, I was able to join in on a full fledged WOD this morning. But first, let me tell you about the third On Ramp class.
The first thing we learned was some shoulder mobility work using lacrosse balls and PVC pipe. Let me tell you about the giant knots in my shoulders. That lacrosse ball hurt, and I know it’s going to take some time to get those knots worked out. Ouch.
After mobility, we learned the three shoulder to overhead presses:
– Press (or military press)
– Push press
– Push jerk
Then we worked on those a bit to get a 3 rep max (basically, you do three of one skill, adding weight between sets until you can get three anymore) — this ended up a bit rushed because we needed to get into our actual WOD, so I think I may try to work on this at the gym a bit if I get the chance.
The WOD was 2 rounds of tabata (20 seconds work/10 seconds rest for 8 rounds) — first with squats and next with push ups. Your score was your worst round. See what I mean about rossfit being like play time? SO fun. I got 12 squats and 7 push ups. It turns out that on squats, my first round ended up being my worst round — weird, huh? I did 12, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 13, 14! Push ups were a different story — I went downhill almost the whole time. I think I hit 7 on my 5th or 6th round and I vowed not to get a lower score than 7, so I was pushing pretty hard by the last round. This WOD could easily be done at home with a Gymboss interval timer or just a free tabata timer app on your phone (or just looking at a clock!). If you do it, post your score in the comments! It only takes 8 minutes 🙂
So the next On Ramp class is Saturday morning, and since I’ll be out of town, I arranged to do a make WOD this morning at 5:45. I almost skipped it — I didn’t get much sleep last night and I wasn’t feeling getting out of bed — but I told myself that I would hate myself if I didn’t go do it, and I’m so glad I forced myself!
As it turns out, Friday at Crossfit Thunder is Benchmark Friday! I love doing benchmark workouts, because it’s fun to see your score get better as time passes. Today’s workout was Cindy, which was I relieved to see because it included only skills I’m familiar with:
I was pretty nervous about working out with the ‘real’ athletes. You see, when I started this On Ramp class, I wasn’t sure I needed it to be honest. I’m pretty athletic and I’ve even participated in Crossfit-style workouts before, so I thought I might be bored — not so! The On Ramp class is totally worth it. I’ve learned so much in just three workouts, and stepping into the box today with athletic people who have been doing this for a while was intimidating!
After a quick warm up, we set up our stations. Another advantage to joining a real Crossfit box (the advantages are stacking up!) is that they have more than enough equipment to go around. At the Y Crossfit-style classes, we had to share a bar and wait for room on the pull up bar a lot of times, so it’s nice to have a station all to yourself. I was worried about pooping out on the pull ups, so I grabbed the thickest and next thickest band available. We were able to do one slow round of Cindy to see what band we needed/if we wanted to modify the push ups. I decided to use the thickest band to start and do the push ups on my knees. Coach Drew made it clear that it was more important to keep the standard of the skill rather than try to do it without a modification.
Once we started, I knew it wasn’t the pull ups I had to worry about. I was able to get those pretty well with the band. The push ups were going to be the problem here, and it turns out I was right. I decided early on to take my time on the push ups and make up time on the squats (my strongest skill). I also ended up adding a band around round 6 or 7, as it became harder to get my chin above the bar. I remembered Coach Drew’s advice: I want to improve, not protect my pride!
I ended up with a decent score:
…and the confidence that I can (sort of) hang with the real athletes at the box!
I will tell you, as I mentioned in my previous post about the On Ramp class, I’m not sure I can afford to become a full-fledged member of Crossfit Thunder, but after one week there, I can tell you that I’m much closer to trying to make it work. I’m having a lot of fun, and seeing a huge improvement in my strength and form already. 🙂
Kristy's Health Revolution 