Repost: Crossfittin' at home

Originally posted on another blog I write anonymously, but re-posted here because I want this blog to represent my entire journey since starting CrossFit.

I had a terrible conversation with myself when my alarm went off this morning at 0500.

Morning Person Self: "Time to get up and go to CrossFit!"

Sleepy Self: "Uhhhhhh???"

MPS: "Up and at 'em! You paid for the whole month already, and you haven't gone yet this week!"

SS: "Can we make a deal? I'll wake up early and work out at home. Promise! Really, I promise I will reset the alarm for 0600."

MPS: "Well... OK."

SS: Zzzzzzzz

Needless to say I fell back asleep before resetting the alarm, and woke up at 7. Doh. But all was not lost! Because over the weekend I picked up this baby for Husband as a promotion present (yep, he made captain!):

Add one kitchen chair to assist with pullups, and I had the makings for a nice, quick, in-home Crossfit workout.

Complete as many rounds in 20 minutes as you can of:
5 Pull-ups
10 Push-ups
15 Squats

Outcome: 7 rounds, plus 5 pullups.

I'm still perfecting using the chair to assist myself on the pullups, but I think I'm getting the hang of it. I'm definitely doing a little mini-kip swing at the bottom to give myself some upward momentum. Since I was grunting and gasping and felt kind of nauseous at the end, I think it turned out to be a good workout. :-D

One more thing about the Iron Gym -- the advertising is definitely exaggerating when it says you can use it to hold your feet for situps. We tried that, and it does not work. But other than that, it's great! Husband even switched from one type of grip to another mid-air, and other than a very loud thump, the bar seemed to be just fine. Oh, and one other thing, if you're taller than 5'10' or so, your knees may touch the ground when you hang from the bar, which is not very helpful for trying to do pullups. Unless you have a very tall door, or freakishly short arms for your height. :-p

Repost: Embarassingly light weights

Originally posted on another blog I write anonymously, but re-posted here because I want this blog to represent my entire journey since starting CrossFit.

The reason I am posting is to admit something very sad. I used a 15 pound kettlebell for 1-armed swings, goblet squats and high pulls today, and 10 pound dumbbells for see-saw presses.

So sad.

But I know my body, and if I push too hard on a first day back to Crossfit after a break, I just get all fucked up and have to take a couple days off to recover. (I re-re-re-learned that lesson after going all out on a Saturday in mid-December, after which I couldn't walk right and had very bad tendinitis in my elbow for a week) So, I swallowed my pride, and went wimpy this morning. But check back with me at the end of the month, and I'm sure I'll be close to throwing around my favorite gray 30 pound kettlebell on some standard swings. Woot!

I don't even want to know how shitty I am with my pushups now... Ugh. Or running. My lungs were freakin' burning this AM!

But I was rewarded for my early wakeup by the presence of my favorite former-Marine trainer. That always makes me smile during a 6am workout. :) Plus he complimented me on my form for goblet squats! I just smiled in appreciation, and did not mention that I was only using a 15 pound bell. He'll never know!