Clap, my ass!

Today's WOD involved the following.

4 rounds for time:
25 lunge steps
15 clapping push ups
150m run

Results: 15:01

Other times were more in the 11-13 minute range, so I wasn't that far off. But still significant enough for my 0830 ladies to comment on it. I think my time was affected by me doing the WOD alone between coaching the 0630 and 0830 classes. But it was mostly affected by how annoying I found the clapping pushups.

I put an "Rx" by my name on the board, but I'm not so sure I fully deserved it... My claps were more like "fling your hands towards each other and if they touch at all, it counts". There was definitely a lack of actual sound being produced by round 4.

This was my first attempt at clapping pushups, and I'm not sure I'll be too motivated to try them again anytime soon. Just very annoying. Reminded me of my days at CrossFit Philly doing pledge pushups and being super-annoyed by them. :)

We did some plank holds after class, which I enjoyed. I'd like to do those more. Some of the athletes aren't quite getting the GHD situp technique, so I'm hesitant to have them do that after class too often, but everybody (me included) always needs core work. Tomorrow I might hit them with handstand holds and wall sits, depending on what the WOD ends up being -- I'm coaching, but I still have to wait for the owner to post it later tonight.

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My friend Sara recently began training a fellow military wife just with the equipment she had available, and now Jenn has gone out and joined a local affiliate and is loving it! I had to share her latest "progress" post with you all, because I love her reflections on how CrossFit has had a positive impact on her day-to-day life.

That's one of the cornerstones of CrossFit that I think tends to be overlooked -- it's a general physical preparedness program that gets you ready for the known and unknowable challenges that life throws at you. It's not just firefighters carrying people out of burning buildings -- it's also yard work, putting a suitcase into an overhead bin, squatting to get laundry out of the dryer or carrying that huge sack of dog food on your shoulder.

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As promised a few days ago, in honor of kelsalynn signing up to attend a CF Level I cert, here's a collection of links about Level I cert experiences.

• CrossFit Journal: Level 1 Cert Experience
• kd
• Erin
• Sara
• Cindy

Also, I'll throw in a link to the Level I Training Guide, which is basically a bad-ass compendium of the best CF Journal articles on the basics of CrossFit. Love it. 

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When kd went to her cert, I finally took out my notes and wrote down my "I wish I knew this ahead of time" thoughts from my cert. No, I still haven't written down an account of my whole weekend, I'm sad to say. I think at this point it's been so long ago that I wouldn't have much insight, other than the following:

• Brainstorm questions and write them down ahead of time; it's hard to think of them on the fly during the Q&A sessions. When you're reading the material, write questions on a separate page that you can reference during the Q&A sessions. On the drive home after my cert I remembered I wanted to ask about the importance of shoe choice. (All the Level 2 trainers wore "regular" athletic shoes, btw)
• There is a short break after each of the small group sessions where you learn/practice the 9 foundational movements. Use that time to take notes on how your Level II instructor worked with your group, what cues they used, their progressions, and whatever struck you as awesome/helpful/whatever. I especially wished I had done this after doing the press series -- strict press, push press, push jerk. Chuck Carswell did an awesome job teaching the push jerk, and by the next day I couldn't remember the specifics. Same thing with Justin Berg teaching snatch.
• Saturday PM or Sunday AM re-read your notes from the prior day to see if you have any questions for the wrap-up Q&A session on Sunday. When I re-read my notes on Monday I found some questions, but that wasn't as helpful as it would have been to find them before the cert ended. 

My final piece of advice is to practice your tabata squats prior to attending, just so you're legs are ready for the break out sessions. Even though I was CrossFitting 5-6 times a week leading up to my cert, I was still really sore after day 1's practice sessions, and even more so after day 2. I believe working on my tabatas helped me to be sore, but not immobilized. :)