First WODs of 2013
I hope you all are having a great New Year so far. I also hope some of you have started to burn the calories for the Holidays. I’ve started again tonight, after a nice getaway in the mountains with the Mrs… good food, good wine, and 2.5 hours of snowshoeing to burn a few calories andexplore a snow-covered forest. Have you all found resolutions for 2013? I’ve made a few myself: do a muscle- up (ring or bar) by the end of the year, do at least 5 double unders in a row and, with luck, get my brown belt in Jiu. Oh, let’s not forget staying smoking-free! Every year, I set goals that are not that realistic. I figured I’d get small ones this year, then push further once they’re reached.
Tonight was a double session, and my last Wednesday, too. My new semester starts next week; instead of learning how to do butterfly pull-ups, I’ll be learning about finances in the Canadian Public Service. Not quite as entertaining, I know. We started the first class with a “creative” warmup. Instead of rowing or running in minus a lot weather, we did 20 burpees plus 2 rounds of 30 mountain climbers, 20 situps, 10 push-ups and 5 strict pull-ups. It gets the heart going, I can tell you that! I took note of it and if asked to do a warmup in jiu, that’s what they’ll get. The skill for tonight was OH Squat, 8-8-6-6. My form’s much better, and I’m squatting deeper; 9 times out of 10, they’re as standards describe them – crest of the hips going below the knees. I started lightly, with my 2 sets of 8 with only the 45lbs bar. The form might be good, but the strength is not proportionate to it. The first set of 6 was done at 55lbs, and the second set at 65lbs, which was my previous 1 max rep. I did 6. Woot! 🙂
The WOD was a nasty cardio thing that took a lot out of me… a whole lot more than I thought it would. 5 rounds for time: 10 toes to bar, 10 power snatches 75lbs and 10 wall ball shots 20lbs. By round number 3, I wanted to die – my heart was racing, I felt like throwing up and my breath was coming up short. To be honest, it felt just like when I was a heavy smoker and was training. I thought my cardio had improved, but this was a nasty dose of reality. I finished it in some 14 minutes, and the coach marked it as Rx. I could’ve taken it and shut up, but I took the high road and confessed that some of my toes to bar were not Rx: feet did not touch bar.
As our hands were scraped/bruised from the toes to bar, we went on with the second class, the skillz class: kipping/butterfly pull-ups and muscles-ups. A very uncomfortable hour, to say the least. My kipping keeps on improving. I had been told I did not explode from the hips enough, so I’m concentrating on that, and it’s paying off. I did 1 butterfly pull-up, too. You basically do a kipping pull-up, but at the top of the bar, you drop straight down instead of kipping back. I kinda get it, but my hands were too sore to actually try and string a few together. Muscle-ups are… still out of reach, but I’m improving. I can do the scaled down version, on my knees with rings, pretty well and I’ve managed to do a few jumping ones, too. The jumping ones are easier, I find. I can jump high enough to go almost straight into the raising part of a dip, so my triceps do most of the work. I’m pretty decent at dips, that helps.
I’ve also officially signed up for the paleo challenge. I thought it would be a 30 day challenge; turns out it’s 90 days. More on this in a later post. The challenge starts on January 14th and will end on April 13th.
Supplements
1 scoop (20g) Beyond Yourself Pre-WOD with 8oz water 20 min before training, 1 scoop (10g) Beyond Yourself AMRAP (BCAA) with 10oz water – during training, 1 scoop (28g) Dymatize ISO100 whey powder in 350ml milk – after training.
Road 2 Sparta(n) 