My workout:
I took the girls to the beach for our ‘fittuin’ class and we did this workout that I also did with Mijndomein colleagues last year. Last year it took me 15 min 43 seconds. Today I took 14 min 13 seconds. Last year we did it next to the beach, so the run was a bit easier, but I also measured it out last year to be exactly 400 meters. Today we did it on the beach, but I didn’t measure the run and I think it was a little bit shorter than 400m. So, can’t really say if I improved or not as the conditions were not the same. Definitely felt easy though. Although burpees in the sand are not fun!!
My workout:
Hell! I went to Lowlands this weekend, so didn’t sleep much and did a loooad of walking around, dancing, drinking some beers.. so I wan’t at my fittest. Been having a cough for days now as well.. I was a little bit wary of going to the gym, but thought it would be good for me. Until I saw this on the board. This for sure was the most dreadful workout during the Open. Absolutely horrible! I took 29 min and 28 seconds when I did it during the Open in March.
Before I started I was certain I wouldn’t match that time as I felt so tired from the weekend, but when I started the thrusters felt so much easier than before. In March I did the thrusters in sets of 3 and now I did them 5 to 4, and they felt easy. So that went much better. Everything went quite ok and I was on pace to match my previous time or even go under it until about the 7th round. And then… then I kind of just gave up. I just couldn’t breathe, move, coordinate myself. I kept failing my double unders and started resting extremely long between sets. I actually felt like crying in my 9th round and just wanted to stop. I did finish, but my time was 36:36. So, more than 7 minutes slower than in March. What a horrible feeling. But in the end.. still glad that I went and that I finished it. But, wow, that was a struggle!
On another note.. a festival is not bad for Fitbit step-tracking:
I don’t think I ever gotten over 50.000 steps before. So yay me!
I didn’t check my previous max before, which was a shame, cause I should have gone a little bit heavier. My previous max was 8 deadlifts at 80kg. So definitely should have tried 82 or 85 for 7. Felt good though.
Did some handstand practice afterwards and had a couple of times were I really got into the sticky point.
My workout:
Working up to a strict ring muscle up.. we did a lot of exercises that I’ve done before.. false grip hang, false grip pull up, dips, holds, etc. Can really tell all my practice on the rings has given me a very good base in ring work.
In the end we got to try our first muscle up. I’ve never actually properly tried a string ring muscle up before. I’m not there yet.. but I got pretty close! Yme only had to help me a tiny little bit to be able to finish it!
The only annoying thing is that being ‘so close’ can still take ages before getting to ‘got it!’. Still fun to get to do it like this though. I really liked just being able to spend time on it as a skill.
After this we did a short workout. Scaled the muscle ups to assisted muscle ups with feet on the floor. Double unders went great. Finished in 6 min 32 sec.
I use this blog a lot to make up workouts for my friends nowadays and enjoy reading back about my earlier workouts so much that I want to try to start writing out my workouts here again. I’ve still been keeping track of my workouts, but I use the website www.beyondthewhiteboard.com now. It’s a handy tool to keep track of your benchmarks and fitness level, but it’s more fore statistics and not so much to read back.
So.. here goes.
WOD
5 rounds of:
200m dumbbell farmers carry
20 dumbbell pushups
10 dumbbell shoulder to overhead
My workout:
In the practice round I used 2x 15kg dumbbelss, but that was too heavy. So in the workout I used 12,5kg. That was still very heavy!! I had to put them down multiple times during the farmers walk. The push ups were ok. The shoulder to overhead hard but ok as well. But that farmers walk… prrrfffff. My grip and forearms!!
So.. even though I’ve been doing and feeling great training-wise. I have been absolutely rubbish at everything else. Sleep.. food.. organisation..
My house is a huge mess all the time.. I don’t even remember when I cooked a meal for the last time.. and I rarely get my 8 hours of sleep at night. It’s been like this for a long time now and I’ve tried to fix it a couple of times already, but somehow I’m struggling. I seem to not be able to get the focus or drive to really go for it.
I feel sluggish all the time, which makes complete sense, because I’m eating absolutely ridiculously. Most days I survive on crisps and chocolate and I’m not even joking.. It’s horrific.
It’s a miracle that my training has been going well despite all of that.. but obviously I could do much better. Health-wise especially. So.. it’s time to try again!
I took the day off today to kick-start all my good intentions. There’s plenty of things to improve and I don’t think I’ll manage them all at once, but here’s a list of improvements I think I really need to make to get a bit healthy again.
Proper sleep: 8 hours a night
Eat normally. Not even talking about perfectly healthy.. but have at least 3 normal meals a day and stop with all the chocolate.
No alcohol
Drink more water
Take more showers. This sounds a bit stupid, because it’s not like I don’t shower every day.. but I tend to not shower immediately after working out.. and my skin has been giving me a lot of problems lately. Which I think is because of a combination of bad food (obv.) and bad skin care. The skin care comes mostly from keeping sweaty clothes on for too long. Which resulted in acne on my back. That needs to go!!
Less TV. More books.
Less driving, more walking/bicycling. I have legs – should use them!
Romwod every morning. I started this a couple of weeks ago and really love to start my day like that. But, like everything, I slowly stopped doing them again.. Time to get back into it!
At least 2 runs a week. They can be short, but since I have the triatlon in september I need to work on my running again.
1 swim a week. Same.. for the triatlon. I’m going to swim every Friday for the next couple of weeks.
So.. I think that’s it pretty much in order of priorities as well. Runs and swims would be nice, but they’re not a necessity for good health. I mean.. I still do CrossFit pretty much every day..
I’m going to start keeping a journal again as well (not here) to keep track of things. I’ll probably won’t keep up, but for me it’s a little tool that helps with motivation.
On another note.. training has been awesome. I’m really enjoying CrossFit at Bear Up. And I also love all the training sessions in my garden with friends. It’s really cool :-).
I do feel that I try to do too much at once.. which leaves me with not enough time to relax. Resulting in me having no energy when I’m home alone and not cleaning, cooking, etc. Which is a problem… but.. I don’t know.. I guess it should also go on my list: do less. But, it’s all just so much fun! I give training now on Wednesday evening and Friday morning. They want me to add Monday evening as well, but I’ve been strong and said no.
This morning I asked Yme if I can do an internship at the CrossFit if I would start a course and he said I’d be very welcome, so that’s cool! I’ll probably start observing his fundamentals classes anyway… Just to learn from his coaching. Will be fun! And maybe it wil result in me being able to do some classes for them whenever they both can’t. Zoe is pregnant with their 3rd kid, so she’s going to need some time off at some point.. Anyway.. I would be very happy to get some experience / learning opportunity and would love to help out coaching if that opportunity comes along.
For last months I had set two goals in training:
5 unbroken kipping toes to bar
100kg deadlift
And I managed to complete both :).
Toes to bar are still a struggle, but I finally manage to get the proper kip.. I will need to keep on practising though to make sure I can properly do them in workouts as well. As now they still take so much effort.
The 100kg deadlift I got when training at RAF sport with my friend John. Wasn’t really planning on trying it yet, but it felt good so I thought ‘why not’. And was able to get it! So cool!!
Not a greatly timed picture, but I did stand it up completely.
My next goal is a 10 sec freestanding handstand hold. Have been practicing for the last couple of days and already went to sometimes being able to hold it for about 2 seconds.. (I started with not begin able to kick up far enough). Am really enjoying the practice and hope to get this goal within a month!
Also.. a couple of weeks ago I finally (after years lol) got my first strict handstand pushup from the floor. I’ve been able to do it with one abmat for forever, but never managed from the floor. Until now :D.
My fittuin is starting to be a dream come true. It’s so awesome!! My dad made the most awesome shed, with roof so that I can train even when it storms or rains. I helped with the grunt work and rubber flooring XD. Next week a friend is going to come to fix the rest of the garden with fake grass and more rubber tiles. But my “squat corner” is pretty much done and I LOVE IT.
I’ve been pretty happy with my training and fitness the last couple of months. I feel fit. And I’m able to train frequently. This garden helps a lot as well, cause even when I don’t have a lot of time I can now still get a quick workout in.
I’m also starting to give a little bit more classes. I’ve been training with my friends on Friday morning for a couple of months now. They recently started paying a little bit as well. I am now going to add a “class” on Wednesday evening and maybe on Saturday morning. I am a bit cautious about adding more times, because it does take away from my own time to train and it also limits my options for going to Bear Up CrossFit. I still really like it there, so would be a shame if I’m too busy with my own garden to not be able to train there anymore.
Next Saturday we are organizing Murph “a hero workout for heroes”. We’re raising money for the Roparun with it. About 40 people have registered, which means we already raised over 300 euros. Will do some cool extra stuff on the day to raise some more money as well. Pretty stoked to be organising it!!
Also very busy with the Merdian Regional trip coming up. Organising it, while not going is very strange. I hope it’s a success!!
What I also find very interesting is that my heart rate has been going down in the last couple of weeks. My resting heart rate was around 70 a couple of months ago and in the last couple of months it went down to about 64. But I’ve had it under 60 a couple of times now!! Right now it’s only 57. That’s extremely low for me!! During the day, even when sitting down, it’ usually around 70 or 80. I call that huge improvement in fitness!!!
Also:
I had my first exam for the firefighter academy last week and passed :D. Very happy with that. I will have my practice exam next month. We went to Germany for 2 days a week ago to practice. It was very intense, but so much fun!! It really gave me more confidence that I can actually become a real firefighter. Still nervous about working with real life victims though…
So.. this became more of a normal blog post than a CrossFit update, but oh well ;).
I love looking back at my very first posts in this blog. To when I just started CrossFit and regularly felt like a truck had hit me. Starting CrossFit really was an adjustment to my body, that took some time to get used to. The body aches and even mental fuzziness from all the new physical strain was pretty intense!
It’s almost 4 years since I started CrossFit. My first official workout was on July 15, 2013. Time flies..! But I still love it just as much now as I did back then.
Since a couple of months I weekly train with my friends in my garden. I have started gathering more and more stuff and now have most equipment needed for a variety of CrossFit workouts. The only downside is that I have 1 of everything.. so it’s hard to program workouts for time as people can’t use the same stuff at the same time. So we do a lot of Fight Gone Bad style workouts. Sometimes it still works out.
Yesterday I had them to a workout that I’ve done in my first month of CrossFit. Slightly moderated. On August 13, 2013 I did:
I was not able to finish within the timecap, but got to the 18th wall ball.
Yesterday I made the girls do:
So I took out the BB rolls and snatches and replaced the handstand pushups with a handstand hold. Three of the four girls made it within the timecap. Pretty cool!!
The girls going at it:
In the next two weeks I’m fixing up my garden even more to make it a proper ‘home gym’. It’s going to be so nice!!
My latest purchase is a barbell and powercage. Now we can do barbell workouts and pull ups, which pretty much means we can do almost any workout.
I tested out my power clean the other day. My max is 55kg and I was able to do 1-1-1-1-1 at 55kg without too much trouble (it wasn’t easy, but I made all the lifts). I don’t have 2.5kg or 1kg plates yet so I couldn’t try 60kg and din’t want to try 65kg.. but think I could have gotten a PR if I had the smaller plates!
My last rep at 55kg:
Anyway.. I better get ready. I’m doing an obstacle course race today called Toughest (www.toughest.se). It’s going to be pretty mental!! It’s 40 obstacles in a 8km course. We’re doing it with a team of 5 people and will stick together. So it’s going to be fun!! Cold and muddy, but fun!
I started training at a new box. Bear Up CrossFit recently opened in Lelystad. It’s all shiny and new and I really like it. They are just starting up so only have about 15 members, but the atmosphere is really nice.
I have a 2 per week membership with them now and still have a 2 per week membership at Almere as well. I don’t want to give up my membership at Almere yet as the level is so good there. At Bear Up I’m the one with the most experience and even though in some ways that can be nice, it’s not the environment in which you learn the most. For that it’s better to be surrounded by people that are better than you.
Also, the prices in Almere are ridiculously high if you become a new member now. I still pay the old price.. but if I would cancel now and want to come back later I would have to pay the new prices as well. So before I cancel I really need to make sure that I won’t regret it.
I do think in the end I will probably move over to Bear Up completely though. It’s nice that it’s in Lelystad, but I really just like it a lot there.
The Open is going on now.. Tonight they will announce the last one: 17.5. The open until now has been really great for me. I think I like this Open the best of all the ones I’ve done. And this is my fourth Open.
This workout was hard! Especially the burpee box jump-overs. I scored 159 reps, which means I was 1 rep shy of finishing the burpees on the round of 40 snatches. I was happy with how I did.
Open 17.2
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 12 minutes of:
2 rounds of:
50-ft. weighted walking lunge
16 toes-to-bars
8 power cleans
Then, 2 rounds of:
50-ft. weighted walking lunge
16 bar muscle-ups
8 power cleans
Etc., alternating between toes-to-bars and bar muscle-ups every 2 rounds.
Women use 15 kg dumbbells
This felt a little bit like a redemption WOD for me. I always struggle with toes to bar in the open. I never practice them and in normal wod’s I usually scale them. Last year during the open I again vowed to work on them and this year I again didn’t. So I was worried. But it went great! I ended up with 77 reps. Which is 2 rounds + 45-ft lunges. That means I did 32 ttb in the workout :). I stuck to singles and they felt great!!
The lunges went better than expected as well. Felt solid doing them. Was very happy :).
*If all reps are completed, time cap extends by 4 minutes.
This was another good test for improvement. Last year during 16.1 I had my first chest to bar and managed 3 total in 15 minutes. I hadn’t tried them since. After the announcement of 17.3 I tried them a couple of times and failed miserably. I had therefore decided that I was going to scale this workout. As I did not want to spend the first 8 minutes failing chest to bars and not even get to the snatches.
However, during my warmup I decided to try one last time and suddenly got two chest to bars in a row. So in the end I decided to go for Rx after all. And I’m happy I did! I managed to get 6 chest to bars and 6 snatches in the first 8 minutes :). I did get back to the chest to bars with some time left, but couldn’t get my chest up to that bar anymore. Still, I was happy with the result yet again. The last year I felt that I have not trained hard, but a steady trip to the gym throughout the year still means progress and that feels really cool.
Open 17.4
Complete as many rounds and reps as possible in 13 minutes of:
55 deadlifts, 155 lb.
55 wall-ball shots, 14-lb. ball to 9-ft. target
55-calorie row
55 handstand push-ups
I thought this one was really mean. This is a repeat of 16.4. After doing this WOD last year I felt that I lifted too heavy for what’s good for me. 155lbs is 70kg and that is a lot of weight to lift 55 times. I managed to get 91 reps last year. The next week I hurt my back and I always that it had to do with doing those deadlifts prior.
So.. this year I had decided that if a weight like that comes up and I feel that it’s more than I can handle that I would scale the workout. But then they come with a repeat workout.. which is perfect to see if you have improved. But you can only really measure that if you do it the same as last year; meaning Rx. I decided to see how I would feel during the warmup and promised myself to go slow and not lose form.
I did Rx and managed 111 reps. 20 reps more than last year! The deadlifts felt ok.. I did loose form a bit on the last couple of reps.. so that’s still something I need to look out for. Damn open, it pushes you to go beyond your normal limits. Which is good in some ways, not so good in others.
But I don’t believe I have injured myself. I almost have no soreness, although I do feel some stifness in my lower back in the same spot that I had the injury. Which is still a weak spot. I’ve been trying to roll it out with the foamroller.. and hope it’s gone on Saturday when I’ll be doing 17.5. Which are going to involve thrusters again for sure.
Anyway.. I’m really enjoying the Open. I have been helping at Bear Up on Saturdays with judging and have done the workout myself in Almere on Sundays. It’s fun to enjoy both community’s this way. This week I think I’m going to do the workout at Bear Up.
Also.. yesterday I got a new PR on my deadlift: 95kg!! :D
For time:
400m Run
50 Pull-ups
400m Run
50 Push-ups
400m Run
50 Sit-ups
400m Run
50 Squats
400m Run
My workout:
I was a bit short on time today so decided to not go to the box, but do the workout at home. I invited Michelle and Linda to join me and by miracle they both did. We did the workout at the playground in front of my house. Their kids joined us haha. Put the rings up so we could do ring rows instead of pull ups. I think the run around the playground was only about 200m though. My time was 17 m 12 seconds. It felt pretty good. Fun to workout outside with friends :). Kyan was joining me and Michelle on the pushups. He’s so cute!!
My mood:
Awesome. Still can’t decide on firefighter though. A couple of times I wanted to send the email saying yes. But then I didn’t. Now asked for the phone number of the guy so I could postpone a bit more.. will have to call him tomorrow. I really don’t know what to do!!!
My food:
Breakfast: 2 slices of brown bread with chocolatespread
Snack: 1.5 advocaatreep
Lunch: 1 cracker with peanutbutter and mixed fruit
Snack: bowl of nibb-it
Dinner: 2 chicken crispy and mixed veggies
Drinks: 1 can of diet coke, 1 black tea, water
Supplements: vit d (1), fish oil (2), magnesium (2)
