Tag: Butt Kick

Wiped Out by Floor Wipers

I’m absolutely wrecked from the last week of WODs and today was my 5th day in a row. I don’t like going to 9am when I went to 8pm because that’s a short recovery, but with heat indices approaching 105 today and a heat advisory until midnight, I knew I wouldn’t go in tonight if I wanted. Working out in the morning also gives me extra rest to hit up the 4:15 and then open gym tomorrow before I head out-of-town for the weekend.

Warm-up

  • 100 Jumping Jacks
  • 100 Butt Kicks
  • 5 rounds
    • 1m Plank
    • 1m Bottom Squat Hold

I made it through each of the 5 plank minutes without breaking down by concentrating on a tight core and ass as well as consistent deep breathing. In the bottom squat holds I’m really fighting for better position of the back and keeping my chest up. These holds were really needed after the last few days of squat movements.

WOD

  • 21-15-9 Floor Wipers (45# DBs)
  • 12-9-6 Man Makers (45# DBs)
  • 400m Run

This was the first time doing floor wipers and I really liked them. Great core work due to the combination of holding up the weights and moving the legs as one unit without having them touch the ground. I broke the rounds down to 12+9, 9+6, and 9. Man Makers are absolutely brutal but I felt better here than I did when we did 50 of them for time. Having some wrist sweat bands really helps to keep my hands from getting soaked with sweat. I really tried to push it on the last 400m and finished in 23:31.

Time to chill in the AC for the rest of the day while I work.

Killer Medicine Ball Warm-up

Still pretty sore from Sunday’s WOD and some new soreness from doing “Cindy” yesterday. I can really feel all of those push-ups. I don’t remember the last time I was this sore to be honest.

Warm-up

30 yards down and back

  • Zombie Kicks
  • High Knees
  • Butt Kicks
  • Power Skips

5 rounds with 20# MB

  • 1m OH Lunges
  • 1m Sit-ups
  • 1m Front Squats
  • 1m Diamond Push-ups (on ball)
  • 1m OH Squats
  • 1m Rest

The MB work was a real arm and shoulder killer. It got the legs nice and loose for the WOD too.

WOD

20-18-16-14-12-10-8-6-4-2

  • Burpees
  • Goblet Squats (50# KB)

The burpees were much harder than usual due to doing 186 chest-to-ground push-ups yesterday and about 60 MB diamond push-ups in the warm-up. All sets of burpees were done unbroken, but I had to break each round of goblet squats into 2 sets until I got to the round of 10 when I went unbroken the rest of the way. I finished in 15:08.

Strength

5×5 Weighted Pull-ups
Take 2 minutes of rest after each set and try to increase the weight each set.

For my sets I used 8#, 10#, 12#, 15#, and 15#. I might have even come up just short on the 5th rep in the last set, so I’m glad I didn’t try to increase to 20# which would have been the next jump. I actually stayed after class to finish this off because there was a 15 minute gap before the next class started. I know I need the work to increase my strength. This is a huge improvement over the last time I did weighted pull-ups and used 12# for the last 3 sets.

End of the Paleo Challenge

One month ago, we started a team Paleo Challenge at Survival Fitness. I promised myself that I would try to go 100% Paleo for the entire challenge, and with one small exception (shredded cheese and croutons on a salad), I did it. I’ve seen incredible results in my fitness, my body composition, and how I feel.

I started the challenge at 12.3% body fat and 181 pounds. In less than 2 weeks, I had dropped to 172 pounds (home scale)! I was losing too much weight, so I increased my protein sources (eggs, meat, fish, etc.) by 50% at each meal. As an example, I went from eating 4 eggs at breakfast to 6. This brought my weight back up into the 175 pound range where I’ve been able to stabilize. This morning at my final weigh-in at the gym I was 178 pounds (not sure how I got back up that high) and 9.8% body fat. That’s a drop of more than 20% of my starting body fat %. I have a visible 6-pack, which has always been a goal of mine. I can’t believe the changes in my body is one short month. A key point is that I had already been eating 80-90% Paleo since I started doing CrossFit, but going 100% made a huge difference!

After taking the rest day yesterday I was feeling great this morning. I attended the 9am class so I could get the benchmark WOD done early. Can you say pizza and Mountain Dew for lunch and dinner? Seriously!

Warm-up

4 rounds

  • 15s Zombie Kicks
  • 15s Jumping Jacks
  • 15s Butt Kicks
  • 15s Mountain Climbers

12:00 AMRAP

  • 150m Run
  • Rest as long as the run took

I started out pretty fast, but realized 12:00 is a long time to do sprints, so I slowed down to a 30s pace in order to save myself for the WOD. It is a warm-up after all. I think I completed 13 runs.

WOD

We partnered up again so that we could count each other and get a bit of rest.

5:00 AMRAP

  • Burpees

4:00 AMRAP

  • Wall Balls

3:00 AMRAP

  • Air Squats

2:00 AMRAP

  • KBS (Russian)

1:00 AMRAP

  • AbMat Sit-ups

I improved in each of the tests:

  • Burpees went from 82 to 91, an increase of 10.9%.
  • Wall balls went from 77 to 95, an increase of 23.4%.
  • Air squats went from 101 to 112, an increase of 10.9%
  • KBS went from 76 to 82, an increase of 7.9%.
  • AbMat (“cheater”) sit-ups went from 67 to 81, an increase of 20.9%
  • Total reps went from 403 to 461, an overall increase of 14.4%.

I had one of the top 5 scores for the first assessment, so I figured improving wasn’t going to be easy. I’m thrilled with a 14.4% improvement. Hard work pays off! I’m really happy with my burpee and wall ball improvements because burpees are such a great overall cardio and full body exercise and I knew wall balls were one of my weaknesses. My air squats are still pretty weak compared to the best in the gym, but getting better. It’s hard to improve on the Russian KBS, except by increasing weight, because you can only do them so fast. In the first test I took one short break, but went unbroken for the entire 2 minutes today. I’m not concerned about the sit-up number because it was doing the cheater standard, which I’m no longer doing.

With all of the rest time, I don’t feel like I had to work very hard overall, even though I pushed as hard as I could go. I may try attend 8pm open gym and do a strength WOD since I’ll be out of town for the weekend.

DB “Fran”

The Paleo Challenge ends this week and I can’t wait to order a pizza on Thursday! I love eating Paleo, but I need some cheat meals. With that said, I’m glad I’ve stuck to the program for the entire month, with a very minor cheat. I’ve seen incredible results, but I’ll post more about that in a couple of days.

I joined a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) called Saginaw Meadows with a couple that I’m good friends with. Yesterday was our first pick-up. It’s going to be pretty neat to get fresh, local, organic stuff each week, some of which I’ve never eaten. The first week was pretty small because not much has grown in yet, but each week we’ll be getting more and more food. I used a green onion in a breakfast scramble this morning and made a sauté with some greens and tomatoes I had picked up on Friday from the local Farmer’s Market. Good food!

Warm-up

  • 100 Jumping Jacks
  • 100 Butt Kicks
  • 100 Lateral Hops
  • 100 Mountain Climbers
  • 10 Slow Air Squats
  • 10 Burpees

I think I did this in about 5:26, without pushing too hard. I wanted to save myself for the WOD because I knew I was going to need everything I had to survive.

3 rounds

  • 1m Plank
  • 1m Leg Raises
  • 1m Bicycles
  • 1m Side Plank (30s each side)
  • 1m Boats
  • 1m Rest

These long core circuits are great and they are always much tougher than they look. Does core work every get any easier?

WOD

DB “Fran”

21-15-9

  • Thrusters (45# DBs)
  • Pull-ups

Here’s one of those heavy upper body workouts where I struggle. We had a 10:00 time limit and I wasn’t sure I’d be able to finish. I’ve never attempted “Fran” before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I wish my intro was with the barbell instead of DBs, but you don’t always get what you want. 🙂 I really struggled to string together pull-ups, which took a lot of extra time. I knew I’d have to break the thrusters down quite a bit, especially in the 2nd and 3rd rounds. My time was 9:05. I’ll take it. It gives me something to shoot for next time.

Finisher

50 Burpees

This was great practice for Thursday when we have to perform the Paleo Challenge benchmark again, which starts out with 5 minutes of burpees. I pushed myself pretty good here and finished in 2:48. In the original benchmark a month ago I did 82 burpees in 5 minutes, so if I can keep up the pace I used today I can beat, especially since I won’t have such a long warm-up and “Fran” to do before.

I’ve only worked out 2 days in a row, but I’m going to take a rest day tomorrow to make sure I’m not too tired or sore for the benchmark test on Thursday. I’ll be walking 18 holes of golf tomorrow morning anyway, so that will get me some exercise.

 

Garage WOD

My buddy Mo came up for a couple of days to visit and wanted to try some CrossFit. Today we worked out in my garage with the limited equipment I have.

Warm-up

Tabata Mash-up

  • High Knees
  • Plyo Lunges
  • Butt Kicks
  • Mountain Climbers

If you aren’t used to the intensity, this can be a tough 16 minutes, but he hung in there. Plyo lunges were fun in a Tabata.

WOD

4 Rounds

  • 1m Man Makers
  • 1m Air Squats
  • 1m KBS (Russian)
  • 2m Rest

We alternated who started with Man Makers and who started with KBS, but always kept Air Squats in the middle. Doing Man Makers first and KBS as the 3rd exercise was definitely easier. We counted total reps for each round, so this was like 4 mini-WODs in one. I got 82, 81, 68, and 73 reps in my rounds. I had 4 Man Makers for each of the first three rounds, but only managed 2 in the last one, due to time lost in transition. We used my 50# KB for the swings and went with 45# DBs for the Man Makers. That’s a nice jump for me and was challenging.

Finisher

10 Rounds

  • Sprint Driveway (down and back)
  • 20 Russian Twists

I used a 25# DB for the Russian Twists and Mo actually did leg lifts instead because of a lower back issue. Time to complete that was 6:24.

One Month Paleo Challenge

We’re doing a one month Paleo Challenge at Survival Fitness. Everyone has to keep a food journal to work on a point system. You get 5 points to start the day. Bad things like a cheat meal or alcohol are negative points, but you can ears extra points by doing a WOD at the gym, getting 8 hours of sleep, or drinking 1/2 your body weight in ounces of water. Everyone has their body fat taken at the beginning and does a benchmark WOD. We’re going to randomly be put on teams. Scoring is 50% body fat change, 25% WOD improvement, and 25% food journal points.

It was only $25 to join and I need something to get me on track to those abs I want, so I figured being part of a team will hold me more accountable. So I get to class, weigh myself, and have my body fat measured with the handheld device. It read 12.3%! Yeah right! If I was that low you’d already be seeing my abs. The Withings scale puts me consistently at 16-17% which is more realistic. With such a low starting number, I won’t be winning the body fat portion of the competition so I’ll have to make up for it in the other parts I guess.

Warm-up

  • 30 Air Squats holding PVC vertical in front
  • 20 PVC Pass-thrus
  • 30 PVC OHS
  • 4 partner rounds (alternate each round)
    • 50 Jumping Jacks
    • 50 Butt Kicks
    • 50 High Knees
    • 50 Lateral Hops
    • 50 Mountain Climbers

WOD

For the Paleo Challenge benchmark, we did 5 different AMRAPs and totaled up our reps. We partnered up so that we could count each other and get a bit of rest.

5:00 AMRAP

  • Burpees

4:00 AMRAP

  • Wall Balls

3:00 AMRAP

  • Air Squats

2:00 AMRAP

  • KBS (Russian)

1:00 AMRAP

  • AbMat Sit-ups

I did 82 burpees, 77 wall balls (20# MB), 101 air squats, 76 KBS (53# KB), and 67 sit-ups for a total of 403 reps. Doing the air squats right after wall balls was the worst and my score showed compared to others in the class. I pushed pretty hard, so it’s going to be interesting to see how my numbers come out a month from now.

Update: After all classes finished for the day, I had the 4th best score.

Packed House

Biggest class I’ve attended, but Tuesday is usually pretty big because there is only a 5:30pm and a 7pm at night. I think we had 18 or 20 people there. It’s cool to see the box growing especially in the new space.

Warm-up

3 Rounds:

  • 200m Run
  • 50 Jumping Jacks
  • 50 High Knees
  • 50 Butt Kicks

Pretty easy warm-up, but it did its job and got the blood flowing.

WOD

15:00 AMRAP

  • 5 Box Jumps
  • 10 Wall Balls

I used a 28 inch box and a 20# MB. Started out strong going rep for rep with the fittest guy in the gym, but I couldn’t keep up and fell 2 rounds behind him by the end. I completed 15 rounds + 4 box jumps, so that’s an entire Karen in there.

AB WOD

5 Rounds:

  • 1m Russian Twists
  • 30s Side Plank on each side
  • 1m Ab Crunch
  • 1m Hand Plank
  • 1m Scissor Kicks
  • 1m Rest

I used a 30# KB for the Russian twists which was plenty with all of the other stuff in there. The ab crunches were probably the hardest but nothing was easy I guess. Had to take breaks during most everything except the side planks and only one short break during the hand planks.

Great workout today and probably the most I’ve sweated during a CrossFit workout since I started. I feel like I lost 5 pounds. It’s not even 60 degrees out, so I can’t imagine what it’s going to be like when it gets in the 80s or 90s with high humidity.

Deck of Cards

At Survival Fitness.

Warm-up
5 round Tabata mash-up

  • Jumping jacks
  • High knees
  • Butt kicks

WOD
45:00 Deck of Cards

Suits:

  • ♣ – Goblet squats (55# KB)
  • ♠ – 2x Russian KBS (55# KB)
  • ♦ – Mountain climbers or plank (1 minute)
  • ♥ – Burpees

Ranks:

  • Ace – 14
  • King – 13
  • Queen – 12
  • Jack – Pick another card and double it, using the suit of the new card
  • 10 through 2 – face value

For example if the K♣ comes up you do 13 goblet squats. If any Jack comes up, another card is flipped. If the next card was the 9♠ that would be 2 x 9 = 18 (since swings already double the rep count) and then double it because of the jack for 36 swings. The ♦ is always one minute unless a jack is involved and it would become 2 minutes. If you picked the A♦ you wouldn’t have to do 14 minutes!

In 45 minutes I completed 47 cards. Only had 5 left! The last time we did a deck of cards it was a 40 minute limit and different exercises, but I only completed 30 cards.

At Survival Fitness Warm up 30 reps each…

At Survival Fitness.

Warm-up

30 reps each:

  • High knees
  • Zombie kicks
  • Squats
  • Push-ups
  • Jumping jacks
  • Butt kicks
  • Mountain climbers
  • Standing bicycles

If you finish before everyone else, do 30 jumping jacks on the minute every minute until everyone is done.

WOD

Using a deck of cards, one card will be flipped over at a time for 40:00.

Suits:

  • ♣ – Now and Laters (4 count plyo lunges – 2 each leg)
  • ♠ – Plank (1 minute)
  • ♦ – Pull-ups (ring rows)
  • ♥ – Burpees

Ranks:

  • Ace – 14
  • King – 13
  • Queen – 12
  • Jack – Pick another card and double it, also using the suit of the new card
  • 10 through 2 – face value

So…for example when a King of diamonds came up we did 13 ring rows. If a jack (any suit) comes up, another card is flipped. If the next card was the 9 of clubs that would be 9 x 2 = 18 Now and Laters, which themselves consist of 4 lunges, so we would have 72 lunges! As you can see, things add up fast. Oh, and plank is always one minute unless a jack is involved and it would become 2 minutes. If you picked the ace of spades you wouldn’t have to do 14 minutes of plank!

In the 40:00 time limit I finished 30 of the 52 cards. High counts (not total for the workout) were 68 lunges (42 another time), 42 burpees (I think it was 3 hearts in a row), and 28 ring rows. Somewhere is the middle of the WOD I switched from plyo lunges to regular lunges.

Beginning CrossFit

At Survival Fitness – On-Ramp #1

Warm-up

5 Tabata Rounds

  • High Knees
  • Butt Kicks
  • Mountain Climbers

WOD

“Cindy”

  • 5 pull-ups (scaled by doing ring rows)
  • 10 push-ups
  • 15 squats

The WOD is supposed to be AMRAP in 20 minutes. I survived less that 7 minutes before I was feeling sick and couldn’t do any more. I completed 3 rounds.