Stronglifts session with Brian in the #fittuin.

5 x5
back squat: 47.5kg

5×5
bench press: 30kg

My workout:
The back squats felt reaaaaaally heavy. I think the row and run on Sunday  had something to do with it XD.

For the gazillionth time..

It’s time to try and become healthy again. Ever since I moved back to The Netherlands my eating habits have become worse and worse. All my good habits that I got into when living in Spain have vanished. I’m eating chocolate spread on bread every morning and a bag of Nibb-it crisps almost daily. I almost never cook and honestly, I kind of feel like I’m poisoning myself daily with all this crap that I eat.

My skin has been horrible and I’m 100% sure it’s because of my eating habits. Other than that I don’t feel bad though.. I usually have a lot of energy and training is going steady as always. I think because of that it’s hard to find the motivation to do something about my eating habits, because it doesn’t feel like it’s affecting my day to day much. Apart from the skin problems (which do bother me).

Anyway… I know I’ve tried plenty of times before and I always feel. But I just have to change something or I’ll become miserable. If this time I fail again. I think I might need to try another route and get some help with my eating. Seems like a proper addiction then.. but yah.. let’s try one more time by myself ;).

WOD

Find 7rm Deadlift

My workout:

Sets:

• 7 Deadlifts | 55 kg
• 7 Deadlifts | 65 kg
• 7 Deadlifts | 75 kg
• 7 Deadlifts | 80 kg

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.

 

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 :-).

Volle bak in m'n #fittuin gisteravond! #gezellig #fitfam #fitfriends #trainoutside #traintogether #samenfit

A post shared by Tessa (@_.t.e.s.s.a._) on Jul 20, 2017 at 4:11am PDT

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!!

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!

Always set new goals. Handstand (walk), I'm coming for ya!! 🤸‍♀️ Does anyone know if it's better to aim for a freestanding hold or a walk first? #handstand #freestanding #handstandpractice #handstandwalk #fittuin #fitfam #fitdutchies

A post shared by Tessa (@_.t.e.s.s.a._) on Jul 21, 2017 at 11:16am PDT

21.. 22.. wobble wobble 😄#handstand #handstandhold #freestanding #practice #woah #nofaceplantyet #fittuin 🤸‍♀️

A post shared by Tessa (@_.t.e.s.s.a._) on Jul 25, 2017 at 10:12am PDT

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.

When you don't feel like working out.. 🙃#skillpractise #handstand #hspu #upsidedown #lefthandistooshaky #wheresmyhelmet

A post shared by Tessa (@_.t.e.s.s.a._) on Jul 15, 2017 at 5:53am PDT

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 have signed up for a marathon with 3 of my colleagues. We are going to run the whole distance in estafette, which means each of us will run approximately 10km. The marathon is on April 10th, so still have some training time luckily :). My running is really bad at the moment. I struggle running 5km, let alone 10. So definitely time to start practicing it more.

Yesterday I went for a run in het Zuigerplasbos. It was raining and storming like crazy, but I went anyway. I was so cold!! So weird to be sweating, but have freezing hands at the same time.

Anyway.. I didn’t go very fast or far, but it’s a start :).

Strength/Skill

– Find heavy double power snatch

My workout:
2 x 25kg
2 x 30kg
2 x 35kg

After 30kg I wanted to stay at that weight, since my technique is still so wobbly, but Vincent made me go up. First at 35kg was horrible, cause I got under the bar so slowly that I had to push the bar out like a press. Second one went much better.

WOD

9 minuten AMRAP

3-6-9-12-15-….

Power snatch 50/35

Ring dips

Double unders x 5

My workout:
I liked this workout.. I did the snatches with 25kg and the ring dips with a blue band. I managed to finish 9 snatches in the round of 12’s. Double unders went well. Snatches are slowly starting to get better. Still a loooong way to go though.

Extra work

1. 3 x 12 banded push ups
2. 100 band pull downs for time
3. 3 x 8 overhead sit ups

My work:
I did 3 x 6 banded push ups. The band kept moving and it was hard! The band pull downs were ok.. it started burning after about 30 so started doing quick sets of 10 from then on. I didn’t look at the time, but don’t think I took much longer than 2 minutes. Both push ups and pull down were with a red band.

The overhead sit ups I did with 2 8kg kettlebells. Basically you lay down and raise the kb’s to the sky and lockout your arms and then you start doing sit ups. Interesting exercise.