Back in May I pulled a muscle in my back. It was honestly the most painful thing I've ever experienced. Seriously, that shit was painful. I cried just trying to get off of the floor.
I did it during CrossFit, while doing deadlifts for the second night in a row. I love deadlifts liek woah. They are my favorite lift. Sadly, my lower back has always had some issues, mostly due to old snowboarding injuries I never took care of. I was also pretty sore because the first night we did our 1 rep max. I SO stoked- I lifted 155lbs. Way more than I had thought I'd be able to do. I think I went into the lift not being cautious enough, and I honestly didn't even know how much weight was on the bar when I went for it (A DUMB MOVE!) and I ended up crying on the floor for 45 minutes. No joke.
My back is feeling way better now thanks to my AMAZING massage therapist, she is seriously a miracle worker. I've still been taking it easy though. I kept my deadlifts pretty light. I did 85lbs in a WOD a week or two ago and was pretty excited that it didn't hurt.
Last night we were supposed to do our 1RM again. I did a few reps at 55, a few at 85, 105... but when I got to 125 I got scared. I'd start the lift and just think about my back and how scared I was to hurt it again. It felt so heavy! The coach kept telling me that I needed to just do it, I know I can lift it. So finally, I did.
Was it hard? Not really. What held me back? My own damn brain.
So much of physical performance has to do with what's going on in your own head. We did a WOD a few weeks ago which was 100 burpees for time. After doing it I realized that I stopped and rested way more than I needed to. Why? Because it's how much I would have needed to rest about 6 months ago. My brain just hadn't caught up to where I should be at now.
So last night after my sort of disappointing/ sort of exciting deadlift experience (it was nice to know that I could lift 125 with no back pain, but I was sad to not up my 1RM) we did a reverse Annie. Double unders and abmat sit ups, sets of 10-20-30-40-50. The coaches are trying to get us to move up to double unders so now they are making us do 4x singles. I really focused on just pushing through and not stopping to rest like I normally would. If I stopped I would take 2 or 3 deep breaths and keep on truckin. I finished in 12:53, not long after everyone else. No significant resting.
It felt awesome. Even though the knuckles on my left hand are all bruised from smacking on the floor when I did situps haha. Battle wounds!
Wednesday, July 11, 2012
Tuesday, July 3, 2012
Where I'm at now..
I started CrossFit Elements on May 7th, and started regular WODs the next week. I've taken off 2 separate weeks due to a vacation and an injury. Here are the 1 rep maxes (unless otherwise stated) and times I've gotten so far.
May- July 2012
Back Squat- 125lbs
Shoulder Press- 50 lbs
Deadlift- 155 lbs
Front Squat- 75 lbs (3 reps)
Thruster- 75 lbs
Clean- 45 lbs
Snatch- 25 lbs (working on my form before adding weight!)
100 Burpees- 14:06
Baseline- 8:56 (pushups on knees, jumping pull ups)
Cindy- 10 Rounds (jumping pull ups, pushups on knees)
I haven't weighed myself since I started CrossFit. I'm not too concerned by it since I'm sure I've gained some muscle. But at the beginning of Elements I weighed in at 165.
May- July 2012
Back Squat- 125lbs
Shoulder Press- 50 lbs
Deadlift- 155 lbs
Front Squat- 75 lbs (3 reps)
Thruster- 75 lbs
Clean- 45 lbs
Snatch- 25 lbs (working on my form before adding weight!)
100 Burpees- 14:06
Baseline- 8:56 (pushups on knees, jumping pull ups)
Cindy- 10 Rounds (jumping pull ups, pushups on knees)
I haven't weighed myself since I started CrossFit. I'm not too concerned by it since I'm sure I've gained some muscle. But at the beginning of Elements I weighed in at 165.
Who am I?
My name is Hayley. I started this blog to talk about two things I love, CrossFit and Paleo. Maybe some other things too :)
I'm 24. I've never been particularly fit. I love doing active stuff like snowboarding, swimming, hiking, biking, sports, but I've never been in great shape so I've never gotten too into anything. I love weight lifting, but with the exception of when I was working with a personal trainer I never had a lot of direction or motivation.
I gained some weight a couple of years ago, and have been struggling to work it off. I was doing some weight lifting in my garage, but I wanted more motivation and direction, and you know, some company sounded nice too! I had heard of CrossFit before, and I had done CrossFit style work outs with my old personal trainer. One day I got up the courage and emailed Diana, the owner of Graham CrossFit to sign up for the Elements introduction course.
From day one I was hooked. Everyone at the box was SO nice, and so encouraging. On my second day doing a real WOD we had to do a total of 150 sit ups (along with ring rows, ring dips, and sprints). I was really struggling on my last set of sit ups. The rest of the class was done, standing around sweating and trying to catch their breath. Diana came over and kept cheering me on, encouraging me to keep going. And so did everyone in the class. That's just how it is in CrossFit. We are competitive, we post our scores and times and try to get up on the leader board, but at the same time we support everyone else at the box and cheer them on and push them to do their best.
I love the shit out of my box, and everyone in my class. They're my CrossFit family. If you're thinking about trying it out but you're intimidated by CrossFit, don't be. The people are amazing and the workouts are FUN. Anything can be scaled to anyone's ability. You improve so fast, it's an amazing feeling. Every night when I leave the box I am so proud of myself. I can't think of any other time in my life that I have consistently felt so good about myself. When I first started I couldn't even do 1 push up. I still can't even do one unassisted strict pull up, but it's a huge goal of mine, so I named my blog in honor of where I hope to be soon.
I'm 24. I've never been particularly fit. I love doing active stuff like snowboarding, swimming, hiking, biking, sports, but I've never been in great shape so I've never gotten too into anything. I love weight lifting, but with the exception of when I was working with a personal trainer I never had a lot of direction or motivation.
I gained some weight a couple of years ago, and have been struggling to work it off. I was doing some weight lifting in my garage, but I wanted more motivation and direction, and you know, some company sounded nice too! I had heard of CrossFit before, and I had done CrossFit style work outs with my old personal trainer. One day I got up the courage and emailed Diana, the owner of Graham CrossFit to sign up for the Elements introduction course.
From day one I was hooked. Everyone at the box was SO nice, and so encouraging. On my second day doing a real WOD we had to do a total of 150 sit ups (along with ring rows, ring dips, and sprints). I was really struggling on my last set of sit ups. The rest of the class was done, standing around sweating and trying to catch their breath. Diana came over and kept cheering me on, encouraging me to keep going. And so did everyone in the class. That's just how it is in CrossFit. We are competitive, we post our scores and times and try to get up on the leader board, but at the same time we support everyone else at the box and cheer them on and push them to do their best.
I love the shit out of my box, and everyone in my class. They're my CrossFit family. If you're thinking about trying it out but you're intimidated by CrossFit, don't be. The people are amazing and the workouts are FUN. Anything can be scaled to anyone's ability. You improve so fast, it's an amazing feeling. Every night when I leave the box I am so proud of myself. I can't think of any other time in my life that I have consistently felt so good about myself. When I first started I couldn't even do 1 push up. I still can't even do one unassisted strict pull up, but it's a huge goal of mine, so I named my blog in honor of where I hope to be soon.
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