Hand stand pushups – CrossFit and Workout Log

WOD 3 September 2013

September 5, 2013November 24, 2015 Tessa Leave a comment

I hadn´t been to CrossFit for a week again!! :O

But, I did do a lot of other working out. It was actually a very nice week for me activity wise. After that last WOD last monday I went for a run on Wednesday. I went in the mountains and the run started with going up up up for the first 10 minutes and I was able to keep on running. Which made me so happy!! Because I hadn´t been running for a while and I always really struggle with any kind of elevation. So for me it was a personal victory to manage to go up all the way without falling back into a walk.

Then on Thursday I did my very first home WOD haha. I had a bad headache so didn´t want to go to the gym, but in the end I got bored at home and felt like doing something anyway. So at home I did 70 burpees, 50 squats, 50 sit ups and 25 pushups.

On Saturday I went to the beach for my first solo kite session. Well, bodydrag session. I´ve had a few kite lessons and have now bought my own kite to practice with. But I haven´t had a lot of time to practice getting up on the board yet. I tried a little bit this Saturday, but there wasn´t much wind and I was struggling. But it was still fun!!

Then, on Sunday, I had the biggest challenge! A 10km run. I had never run more than 6km so I knew this was going to be hard. And I never run when the sun´s out either and this was right when the sun was out with 30 degrees C. So I was a bit worried. And rightly so. The first 5km were really nice and I ran them quite fast (improved my record!), but after that it just went downhill. I had to take a lot of walking breaks and it really was very very hard mentally to just keep on going really. But I made it in the end and even ended with a sprint to keep the clock from going into the next minute. I´m happy with the result, but I won´t be doing that again any time soon ;).

Tuesday I finally went to the gym again and did the following workout.

I tried to do it RX as much as I could. Which meant I did the push ups properly (not from the knees) and the snatches with 25lbs (as was written on the board). The double unders I unfortunately still can´t :(. During the warm up I managed to get a few in, but I can´t do two in a row yet so it would take me forever to do 30. Instead I had to do 120 singles per round. Handstand push ups I still can´t do either so had to do 8 wall walks per round. The pull ups I decided to do with the green band, which is much harder than with the black band. We had a 30 minute time cap and I made it almost through 2 rounds. In the second round I skipped the wall walks so I could finish the pull ups.

I felt good about it though, because I was using more strength than before so hopefully I´m building strength with that as well. I really want to try to follow the weights and things a bit more now.. which will mean I´ll be even slower than before haha, but I think is probably the best way to improve.

Anyway, not a lot of workouts at the gym, but a good week nonetheless. I have been slacking a bit with the eating habits though. And struggling with the headaches. I have one now as well and I want to go to the gym tonight, so hopefully it will go away in the next couple of hours.

Hasta luego!

WOD 15 August 2013 and 1 Month Progress

August 19, 2013November 24, 2015 Tessa Leave a comment

When I went to the box I had no idea what DBB meant. But when I arrived the 7pm group was just about to start it and Rich asked me to join them as my warm up.

DBB stand for Death By Burpees. And that´s exactly what it is. It starts of very slow and easy, but very quickly it becomes very hard. The way it works is that you start with doing 2 burpees in one minute. When the minute is over you have to do 4 burpees in one minute. Than 6, 8, 10 and so on. Until you can´t beat the clock anymore. The problem with this is that at the end you just about finish within the minute, meaning you don´t get any rest time before starting on the next set. I got up to 12 burpees in a minute. And then failed on the next one. In total I did 50 burpees. Nice warm up ;).

1st min: 2
2nd min: 4
3rd min: 6
4th min: 8
5th min: 10
6th min: 12
7th min: 8
Total burpees: 50

The WOD was 30 single handed kettle bell swings, 20 pistol squats and 10 hand stand push ups. AMRAP in 20 minutes.

Pistol squats are basically one legged squats. If you can do them it looks like this

Not necessarily on a kettle bell though. But this picture is too awesome not to use.

When I saw pictures of these squats before I didn´t think it was that hard. But try it! I can´t do it…! But, luckily, crossfit has a modification for everything, so also for this. What I did was stand on a box with one leg hanging from the side. And then try to squat, not bothering about having to put my hanging leg up. Like this:

The kb swings I did with 12kg. And instead of hand stand pushups I did the dreaded wall walks (I REALLY need to practise a handstand!!). Instead of 10 I only had to do 4 each round.

I only completed 4 rounds in 20 minutes. Which is not very good I think. But the wall walks are really a struggle for me.

Oki. So, like I said in last post, I took some pics before I started Crossfit and then exactly one month later. Find the differences! :p

I didn´t take a picture of my arms before I started. But I took one a couple of days ago. So will have to look again after another month.

I did tone up a bit I think. Which is nice :). It´s not just the crossfit though, I also started eating much better. It´s a struggle for me, because I´m horrible at cooking and I also don´t really have much knowledge on what is right and wrong. But I try and I do feel that I´m getting better at it every week. And that I´m learning more. I read a lot about the paleo principle, as a lot of people in crossfit are on a paleo diet. But I don´t really want to restrict myself too much, as I don´t really think it´s necessary to completely stop eating some types of food. But, I do think that the paleo lifestyle is probably the most healthy one. It´s all based on eating natural, real, unprocessed food. Loads of meat, fish and veggies. No sugar, starch, grains and dairy.

For me that means that I try to base my meals on meat, eggs, fish and veggies. But I do still eat dark chocolate, which has sugar. I do still have oatmeal for breakfast sometimes. I do still eat a bag of crisps or popcorn when I feel for it. And if I´m out for dinner or lunch I won´t think twice about ordering a sandwich.

But, I do try to eat less bread, less crackers (I changed my daily cracker with peanut butter to just a spoon of peanut butter haha), less sugar (no more cookies), less pasta and rice.

And, I must say, it´s starting to be easier. When you eat a lot of the stuff that is good for you, you have less cravings for the stuff that is bad for you. My breakfast is now much bigger (I used to eat 2 toast with chocolate spread every morning and now I eat two egs, bacon and a bunch of veggies for breakfast on most days) and so is my lunch. Dinner used to be my most important meal, but now it seems they are all equal.

When I started working out I didn´t care about my food habits at all. And I really didn´t want to get into it. It all seemed like such a hassle. And it is. A hassle. It´s not easy. But I noticed that it´s too important to ignore. If you want to work out and get fitter you will simply have to be aware of (and probably change) what you eat too.

WODs and Nutrition

August 14, 2013November 24, 2015 Tessa Leave a comment

Whupsie. I haven´t been updating properly.

Last week was a tough week for me. The WOD on Thursday (August 8) was again really hard for me. I struggled a lot last week.. not sure why. This week is going better though :). But lets go back to Thursday. The WOD was like this.

It´s a “hero” WOD. We had a 40 minute time cap and I made it through .. wait.. I don´t remember!! I do remember that I only did 5 thrusters each time and that I did them (and the deadlifts) with 24.2kg (5kg less than the Rx). The first round I did 10 deadlifts, but changed that to 5 as well from the second round on. For me those (heavy) lifts are still very new to me and I don´t want to overdo it and hurt my back or something.

I think I did 3.5 rounds.. not 100% sure, but yea I think so.

Then, the beach WOD on Saturday. That one was really fun and hard. But fun. The WOD was run from one point to another (on soft sand) at about 30m distance. When there do 10 pushups and 10 squats. Run back and do 10 kb swings (8kg) and 10 burpees. Then run to the sea and go in up to your middle. Run back out to first point. That is one round and we had to do 10.

When everyone was long finished it was me and another Dutch guy that still had to do two full rounds. I don´t know how they can be so fast!!! They must be cheating :p.

After the WOD we went out for breakfast with some. They have been doing that for a few weeks now. When I used to come with Luke I couldn´t go as I had to drive him back to Calahonda, but now I can join :). And it´s the best breakfast ever! It´s at a place called Pan y Mermelada in Marbella and I don´t know how their breakfasts normally are, but they have a special “CrossFit” breakfast, which basically means you can get anything and everything for €12. Sandwiches, veggies, fruit salades, fruit juices, coffee, pancakes, bacon, more fruit, more veggies, more yummies. It´s delicioso!

Anyway, back to the WOD´s. This week I started going on Monday as well. On Monday the WOD was like this.

The squats I worked up from 20kg to in the last three rounds 43kg. I kind of last my form in the last round though.. didn´t go all the way down with my squat. I was afraid I wouldn´t be able to get back up again!! I think I can do heavier though.. If I don´t have to do 6 reps :p. Should try it next time. The walking lunches I did with 2kb swings of 8kg.

After that it was 3 rounds for time of kb swings and runs. (More running!!! GRRRR!!) I wanted to take the 8kg kettlebell again, but they convinced me to take 12kg. Which, when trying out, I had a hard time with from the first go. Butttt, I did manage!! In the end I did 90 kb swings of 12kg and 3 400m runs in 14:58 minutes! It felt awesome!!

Then.. yesterday..!

When you see this on the wall you know it´s time to be scared!

He called it the Tamburello. As Luke Tamburello (one of the box members) turned 30 yesterday. Hah! Let´s hope nobody turnes 40, 50 or 60 soon ;). In 35 minutes I got up to 18 wall balls. I did real push ups (instead of from the knees) for the first time in a WOD and made it through all 30 almost in one go :D. Box jumps I did 20″. Pull ups with black band.

I found the roll outs really hard.

BB Roll Out

You´re supposed to roll out all the way to a vertical position, but I can´t come back up when I try that. So I just go about halfway and pull back.

Double unders I don´t know how to do yet (they´re rope jumps where you jump once but the rope goes under twice) so I did 60 single jumps instead. And I did all of them in one go as well, which made me happy. The handstand pushups I did from a box. Basically you put your toes on the box and make sure your body is in 90 degrees so your upper body is straight up in the air and your legs are vertical. Then try and push up.

Handstand push up from box

Looks easy. Is not easy.

Sit ups were a piece of cookie (because a cookie is so much nicer than cake). The kb swings I did with 8kg (yah I know I should have taken the 12kg but trust me after doing all those other things my arms were already like jelly). Then the friggin burpees, which always make me dizzy. The push press is something I had never done before. I did them with 2 kettle bells of 8kg. It was quite heavy!! I had to do reps of 5 so I spent a lot of time on it.

DB push press

There was 1 minute left on the clock when I started the wall balls. I used a 10lbs ball and got 18 in there when the time was up.

It was a very nice workout!!

Today I´m feeling it though. Happy that I have a rest day ;). Tomorrow I´m going again. Today it´s one month since I started. I made some pics on the first day and some this morning as well. Maybe I´ll post a comparison picture later. Although I don´t think there is much difference to be seen yet.

I wanted to post something about my food habits as well. But don´t have time!! Will try and update soon!

Beach WOD 27 July 2013

July 28, 2013July 28, 2013 Tessa Leave a comment

For the first time I really didn´t feel like going. It takes a lot of will power to get up at 7am on a Saturday morning to drive half an hour to a work out :p. But I was happy I went anyway. It was a short workout compared to the one we had last week on the beach. This time we got divided into two groups (of twelve) and there were 5 stations placed around the beach (with a little bit of running distance between them). Everyone in the group had to do all exercises on all stations, but you weren´t allowed to continue to the next station until everyone in the group was finished. If you were fast you had to wait in a plank position until all members of the group were done with the exercise.

The exercises were:

15 hand stand pushups (one of your team mates would keep your feet up)
10 bear walks (walk using both hand and feet)
30 jump overs (jump over another teammate crouching or lying down)
40 burpees
50 sit ups

That was one round. And we had to do two.

The hand stand push ups were surprisingly easy, mostly because my partner pretty much just pulled me up haha.

I absolutely hated the bear walks. They were awful. Almost as bad as the frog jumps. Before we started it was set to do 20 of them. But after doing 1 bear walk I think the coaches realized it would be too much so luckily they changed it to 10.

The rest of the exercises were quite easy. It´s just hard to do so many of them, in the sand.

I felt a little bad after this WOD though. Because our team was faster than the other team so we “won”. But I cheated a little bit. On the bear walks I didn´t do ten when we moved onto the next round. I gave into peer pressure. I was a bit behind when everyone was already in plank waiting for me. And they wrongly assumed it was my last walk, even though I was only on my 8^th, but I was too self conscious to correct them.

Afterwards I felt really bad and I definitely won´t be cheating from now on anymore! They will just have to wait for me. Or help me out, because that was also allowed, if one team member struggles keeping up, another team member can help out by doing more (so I could have done 8 and someone else 12 for example).

I think of all WOD´s up till now this was my least favourite. But that´s mostly because I felt like a big cheater afterwards.