Burpees!

I completed the first of the crossfit open WOD's yesterday morning at Crossfit Lions.  Our coach did a great job of setting up the gym to run the different heats.  He put tables on top of our pullup cage to act as our burpee target.  This way we didn't have to look up at the target we were hitting, just jump with our arms in the air like a regular burpee.  This made the WOD much easier I think.  The workout was as many reps in 7 minutes of burpees.  I had one of our more experienced members judge me which helped a lot.  I started out very quickly.  He told me to slow down immediately to a pace that I could keep up.  I followed his advice and I think it worked.  Around 60 burpees in things really started to suck.  I thought that my lungs would go first, but it turned out my legs started to fail before I was running out of breath.  My goal was to get above 90.  I ended up scoring 101.  That places me at 325/851 in the Canada West region, a result that I am really happy with at the moment.  I'm sure standings will change after one or two more workouts.  My goal for the open is to finish in the top half of Canada West.  We'll see if I can make it happen.

Open WOD #1

The first crossfit open workout was released yesterday at 5:00pm.  It is as many burpees as possible in seven minutes.  For the burpee to count, your hips and chest must touch the ground at the bottom, and you must jump and touch a target placed 6 inches above your maximum vertical reach.  I'm not sure how I feel about the jump at the top.  Our regular burpees in the gym just require our feet to come off the ground.  The number I'm setting in my head is 90.  I'd be happy with anything higher.  I'll be doing the workout this Saturday at 11am with the rest of our gym members.

Crossfit Open This Week!

It's finally here!  The first week of the crossfit open.  The first workout will be announced on wednesday and everyone will have one week to complete it and submit their scores.  I can't wait!  Our workout this morning wasn't too tough.  We started off with a 5x2 overhead squat.  I managed to get up to 145 pounds before we were stopped short to do the second part of our workout.  The second part of the class consisted of a tabata complex of five different exercises: ring push ups, kettlebell swings, dumbell front squats, pull ups, and front plank.  Tabata is where you do 20 seconds of work followed by ten seconds of rest.  This is done 8 times.  If you do the math, it comes out to 4 minutes per exercise.  We rested 3 minutes in between each tabata round.  The ring pushups weren't too bad, and the kettlebell swings went really well.  Front squats were by far the most painful of the rounds.  We had done lots of heavy deadlifts late last week, and my lower back was still feeling the effects.  This caused my lower back to flare up pretty bad during the front squats.  We were only holding 35lb dumbells, which wouldn't normally be too heavy, but because my back was so sore I was only able to get 4 or 5 reps per round near the end.  The pull ups and front plank weren't nearly as bad.  I'm looking forward to some stretching to hopefully loosen up my back.  Only two more sleeps until workout one is announced!

Friday Morning Chipper

I did a fun chipper at 8:00 am to start off my morning.

50 wall balls
40 hand release pushups
30 deadlifts (225 lbs)
20 hang squat cleans (135 lbs)
10 muscle ups

The WOD started off great.  I breezed through the wall balls without too much effort.  Then I hit the push ups.  Despite doing pushup workouts 3 days a week during my vacation in India, they still remain one of my worst exercises.  My muscles seem to get tired pretty fast, and don't recover too well.  After struggling through the 40, I got through the deadlifts doing 5 sets of 6 reps.  The last few sets started feeling really heavy and I was not looking forward to the hang cleans.  Picking up the 135 lb bar after doing 30 deadlifts at 225 was very deceiving.  It felt like picking up a bar with no weight on it.  After a few reps my body started feeling it.  4 sets of 5 and I was onto the muscle ups, which I slowly trudged through.  I finished the WOD in 22:00 and was pretty happy with the result.  The pushups and muscle ups were definitely the slow part.  Just a few more things to work on.

First Ride

This morning I did a nasty little workout at the gym.  5 rounds for time of: 5 manmakers, 10 chest to bar pull ups, and 15 box jumps.  I was exhausted afterwards, but still had enough energy to take my new bike for a spin with my friend Noah.  We rode from his place on 4th and Lonsdale, to Park Royal where I picked up a new helmet.  I was really impressed with how the bike rides.  It's my first time on a road bike, and man these things are fast.  They take little effort to maintain speed.  The top speed we hit was 40kmph and that was on flat ground.  I'm really excited for the summer when it will be warmer and I can head out for longer rides.

Got Me a Bike. Now Where's the Sun?

I have a few friends that own road bikes and are planning to ride a bunch this summer. They convinced me to pick one up for myself. I did a little bit of research, and after a few days of sifting through craigslist and pinkbike.com, I found a good looking bike out in Port Coquitlam. I brought my friend Noah along to help me check it out. The bike is a gary fisher ar super. It fit really well and was in good condition, so we packed it in my trunk and brought it home. I'm really excited to try it out. Now I just need some sun!

Something New

Today I tried a new exercise, the barbell Turkish get up. It's the same as a regular Turkish get up, accept instead of using a kettlebell or a dumbell, you use a barbell. The weight is challenging, but it's really about balance. It's really easy to lose it if the barbell starts tipping in either direction. I managed to get up to 75 lbs with my right arm. After that we did a fairly short WOD: 21-15-9 barbell lunges(95lbs) and push press (115lbs). My shoulders were completely done after this workout. I was planning on doing some strict press to gain more shoulder strength, but today's workout was definitely tough enough on the shoulders. Rest day tomorrow, then back at it on Friday!

Squat Snatch

I had a busy week last week. I had three assignments due at the end of the week and set up a website for my dad. I'm excited for reading break next week. It will give me time to fix some weaknesses before the crossfit open. Today we worked on squat snatch technique. It is one of my favorite lifts we do in the gym. After practising the "pull" part of the lift, we worked our way up to a 1 rep max lift. I managed to hit my old personal record of 135lbs. I was really happy with this since I haven't done much lifting since I came back from winter vacation. I attempted to lift 140lbs 3 times and failed. Next time I will get it for sure.

Open Registration Starts Today!

I'm pretty excited because registration for the 2012 crossfit open starts today. I participated in the open last year and it was tons of fun. I'm hoping to greatly improve on my placement last year. I believe I placed somewhere around 320th out of about 360 or 370 in western Canada. There are only 3 weeks until the first workout is announced and I've got a lot of work to do. I've started on the wendler strength program to try and increase my strict press. I think the press is one of my largest weaknesses at the moment. You can check out the games site at http://games.crossfit.com