CrossFit: Friday, May 30th, 2014

Friday night was my second group CrossFit class. After Tuesday's class, I actually decided to come back for more. It is still hard for me to walk in there, I still feel pretty awkward and out of shape compared to most, but as the people become more familiar and as I start to understand the structure of the session, I feel a little better. I know that the WOD at the end is always going to kick my butt, so I have decided that I just have to suck it up!

Friday's session:

Warm-Up:

Run, Bike or Row for 3 minutes
What I did: Row.

Snatch Warm-Up Led by Coach:

3 Position Refresher:

5 Snatch Deadlifts (bar)
5 Hang Power Snatches (bar)
5 Overhead Squats (bar)
5 Squat Snatches (bar)
What I did: Same. 

Stretching:
Hip Mobility Complex
Kicks
Arm Circles
T-Spine/Lat Smash
Individual Mobility
What I did: Same.

Performance (WOD):

A. Snatch - 15:00 to work up to a heavy single.

What I did: Coach Jen had me work mostly on the hang power snatches so I would get the technique down. I did this with the 15lb bar only, no weight. I definitely was better and smoother after the work. 

B. Teams of two, AMRAP (as many reps as possible) 15:00 leapfrog format:

10 Burpees

10 Power Snatches (men 75lb/women 55lb)

10 T2B (toes-to-bar)

10 Box Jumps (men 24"/women 20")

40 Double Unders (jump rope, rope is meant to pass 2x under feet w/ each jump)

The leapfrog format means that the first person in the team starts the first interval (in this case, burpees) and, once that interval is done, the second team member starts the next interval (power snatches, in this example). They tag team until the clock runs out, trying to get as many revolutions through the interval set as possible. 

What I did: Because I am really not up to the ability of the rest of the group, Coach Jen had me work on my own, so I would not have the stress of having a team member depending on me (I was pretty happy about that!). This is what I did:

10 Burpees

10 Power Snatches (15 lb bar only)

10 Leg Lifts (lie on your back on the ground, lift legs from floor to 90°)

10 "Box" jumps, two 45 lbs plates stacked (I'm not sure what the height is, but it's much lower than 20")

Some amount of single under jump rope before giving up and moving on. 

I made it through 2 revolutions of the interval set. On the second set I did do the 40 (single) jump rope exercise as I did get a little more efficient with the practice. For the third interval set I only made it through the burpees and power snatches. 

It is humbling how hard this is. When I first looked at the WOD, I thought, 'hm, doesn't look so horrible' (well, other than T2B, which I knew I wasn't going to be able to do). But I figured, what's 10 reps at a time, right? Ha! It is very, very hard not to take breaks between intervals. At my level, you're just going to have to, but the trick is to pick it back up before you really want to. So, you rest, you really wish you could rest more, but you get back to it before you really feel quite ready to. As you get better, you hopefully need fewer and shorter breaks until you don't need any at all. Of course, by then you're doing REAL T2B and double-unders and weight in your lifts and whatever, so it doesn't ever really get easy. 

I feel like I just have to keep my head down and keep plugging away at it. Just come to the workouts and my stamina and ability to do this will start to get better. I am thinking that I am not going to take a hard look at where I am with CrossFit until I've completed two full months of the group sessions. So, say, the beginning of August. In the meantime, I am planning on doing CrossFit on Mondays, Tuesdays and Fridays. Riding lessons on Wednesdays and Thursdays. Other riding (schooling, conditioning rides) Mondays or Fridays, Saturday and Sundays. I would also like to introduce a 30-minute run three times a week too, but I want to get the CrossFit consistency established first. 

One positive effect of CrossFit that I noticed: I had a private Dressage lesson on Thursday, which means the focus was on me and only me for the entire session. Ruby was especially stubborn and uncooperative this week in her flatwork, so it was a lot of work to get her unblocked and moving forward and not just evading my insistence that she be round. It was hard, hard work (and I mean physically hard, in addition to technically hard!) Anyway, not once during this session did I ask for a break. I was actually able to power through my exhaustion and gasping for breath and work through it. Normally I would have been telling my trainer, "okay, I need to walk for a minute now" here and there. Not sure if it is because of CrossFit, or just being generally more active these days, but I definitely noticed a difference in my ability to keep going.