Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Birthday Funtimes and Forging Elite-ish Fitness

Last friday was my birthday.  In the spirit of taking good care of myself in my old age, the boyfriend and I checked out Southern Maryland Crossfit, which is located in the bustling metropolis of Waldorf.  I got interested in Crossfit last year and have been dabbling & teaching myself some less-dangerous movements, but I know I haven't been working out at intensity, so it was time for some motivation.

They offer two free sessions to newbies; the first is an assessment, and the second is a group class.  Friday was our assessment, and we both had a great time!  The coach started off by going over some basic health history to make sure he was aware of any injuries or other limiting conditions, gave us some info about Paleo nutrition (check!), and went over how they run their classes.  He had us both show him how we are with pullups (I'm getting there- he showed us how to use assistance bands, which I'm now implementing in my usual routine), pushups (yeaaahhh, I need to do these more often), and bodyweight squats (this was ok, but I was not sitting back enough- good to know).  The coach was really cool and helpful, and put things in terms that made sense (e.g. "imagine you're drunk and there's no bathroom around; what are you gonna do?  Sit back!") Then we did a 500m row to warm up, and a WOD.  It was 5 ball slams (I hadn't done these before, really liked!), 10 pushups, and 15 wallball shots, as many rounds as possible in 5 minutes.  Only 5 minutes, you say?  Well, I don't know if I even squeezed out two full rounds, it was TOUGH.  Definitely a humbling experience, and reinforced the fact that while I've been making some good strength gains, and having fun teaching myself new lifts, I've been bo-jangling!  We're really looking forward to going back to try out a class; hopefully we'll be able to make it up there at least a couple times a month. 

4 comments:

  1. I came across something for pushups the other day called "100 pushups." It works like the couch 2 5k program that I did for running. I've decided I'm going to add it in to the days that I run and see how I do.

    http://hundredpushups.com/

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  2. Cool! There's even an app for that!

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  3. I've got that app, too ... but I forgot to try it out. Whoops! Maybe I'll remember now.

    Sounds like you had a good class. I was sore for a week after my first Crossfit class. I think that workout was the Cindy, if I remember right. Good luck with it.

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  4. Thanks WildShan! I am still sore from this weekend- Friday was:
    Row 500m
    15 thrusters (I did a 36 lb bar)
    Run 400m
    30 Bastards (burpees but with a lateral jump over barbell)
    100 single-unders

    And Saturday was death by clean & press- that was actually fun!

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