People Mover

I am really attached to the Boynton location of HEW. For a good year and plus months I was a WPB member and it was great to be part of that family. But because of our home break-ins and other personal reasons, we moved to Boynton mid-last year and thus had to commute 20 miles north to workout. This was taxing to our gas and safety (had to speed through 40 miles during rush hour traffic after work, so that I don't have to do a tardy-burpee penalty)!

I even considered signing up to the CrossFit Boynton across the street from our house but my loyalty to the HEW family, and the friends we had made, deterred me from changing gyms. To much of my surprise, this past March, HEW opened a new location in the same plaza as our apartment complex. (It's urban livin' bro)!

Since then, our WODs have been completed outside until the interior was complete. This past Saturday was moving day and we're finally indoors.

I guess the reason I'm so attached is being part of something from its inception. Yes, I miss WPB very dearly and I rarely see the friends I made from that location, but in comes room for more friends, more experiences, different scenery and all in all the same workouts! 

Saturday Movers

Moving Day Challenge

I was told to squat from the container to the gym. This did not happen.

Giddidy Gideon!

Yesterday's benchmark workout was called Gideon:

21-15-9
Power Clean
Push Press
Overhead Squat

The weight is meant to be light, therefore, I chose to go even lighter than the 65 Rx on the account of my pinched back from last week. I had meant to go on the 42lbs, but because of the growth of the class, they graduated me to a 45 lb empty bar. Now, I ain't got no time for that!

Going to HEW for a while now, a major thing I've absorbed from my coaches was being told a sign of a good athlete is listening to your body and modify if necessary. So, I listened I did. As much as I wanted to stay on the 45lb, another week of a pinched back was not something I was looking forward to ... considering this is a 21-15-9 workout. So I stayed behind and powered through a 35lb with two wooden plates (the weight of this is roughly 4lbs) sooo it's like 40shhhh lbs.

It's lower than my previous benchmark, but there are plenty of time in life to improve!?!

So, without further ado. I finished this baby up in the fastest personal record time -- and the fastest time in class. Woo hoo! 7:09!! The last time I did this was this January past at 42lbs over 9 minute plus.

Gideon WOD Results 5/28/13

Eat up, dillweed.

Cucumber Tomato Salad with Dill

This week has been taxing -- between the weather and all the excuses I've been making from not doing well in my WODs -- to even things that are happening in my personal life. ... So I won't elaborate on that.

I will talk about how dill has been in a lot of my cooking lately because I don't like herbs to go unused. So at least two batches of salmon dill has been prepared and consumed since posting about it. And I've even added to now one of Danny's favorite salad: Cucumber Tomato Salad with Dill! Yay for Dillweeds!

We had company over last night to watch Game 2 of the Heat vs. Pacers game; and my dearest friend is a vegetarian so I had to make sure I had an option for her. Towards the end of the game -- and because both Danny and I are emotional eaters, I found him picking at this salad, while the Heat unlawfully got robbed a second win. But alas, this blog is not about that. More about food.

I created it with rice vinegar and 2 tps of olive oil. I know there's a debate about vinegar being paleo or not, but I know for certain rice vinegar is not paleo considering the name. It actually didn't dawn on me until I started typing about it. I was certain during my creation, that I was following my regiment. But damn, this salad was a hit.

When it rains ...

It's been raining everyday in South Florida since Monday that even Seattle gets jealous. And since our gym's interior is still incomplete, our WOD gets modified to the state of the weather. This doesn't bother me at all. Regardless of how modified the workout gets or how the equipments are tucked inside the container, all in all I'm still going to get a good workout (or at least I thought). 

This was supposed to be the workout on Monday:

 5 Sets x 5 Reps: Back Squat *Work up to a heavy set of 5

Rounds or 15 Minutes of:

-50 Bent Rows (95/55 pounds)
-50 Weighted Ring Dips (45/25 pounds) 
-50 Kettle Bell Snatches (53/35 pounds) 

This is what we did instead:

4 Rounds of 1-minute each station (no rest)

Squats

Push-ups

Lunges (R/L = 1)

Sprawls

I was a little disappointed that  we didn't get to work on the back squat technique, but that all faded away when I realized I had the best score in the class :)

Tuesday's workout was a bit better. It started as a technique on handstand push ups ... and ...well ... I am deathly afraid of being upside down. I can do the wall walks, locking out my arms is no problem for me, but to be upside down scares me more than death itself. Danny helped me out though and held my legs as I was upside down but I downplayed my accomplishment only because I still am unable to hold myself up. To some people, this movement comes easy and natural, but you're reading about someone that has never done, let a lone tried, a cartwheel before in her life! 

Perhaps I've just allowed the weather to bring me the blues because today --  I did something I haven't done since the first few weeks I've frequented HEW ... feeding in my thoughts of giving up. 

I'm so ashamed and embarrassed. 

To my defense, we did plenty of pistol squats on Tuesday which caused my knee to swell up before today's WOD (as is always the case the day after a pistol squat WODs). I tried to ignore it, but there was no way I was going to row for the next three months like what happened last year! 

Anyway, when it rain, it pours. My diet has been cheated almost every day and my energy levels are off the map! It goes to show that when I don't follow my routine religiously, my hunger strikes and spikes more often, I get tired easily during the workouts, and well I don't look forward to working out ... 

I'm hoping tomorrow looks a little better. We haven't had a benchmark this week, so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that it will carry my momentum higher than this black hole I've bene in. 

Spinach Salmon Cakes with Dill

Today, I concocted a tasty pan-grilled spinach salmon cakes with dill. It was 90% paleo because I used soy flour instead of coconut flour. 

The rest of the ingredients were:

A can of salmon (obviously)

Fresh spinach

Green onions

White onions

Fresh dill

Pinch of garlic salt

Soy flour (would have preferred coconut flour)

Having not made this before, one would assume research of existing recipes would have taken place. Nope, not me. I pretty much added things that I like together and hope for the best. I don't measure either, I eyeball quantities of vegetables. The only thing I am weary about are spices and anything with high content of sodium.

My blocks are still up in the air since my food scale broke. So I made smaller patties to monitor our portions. I paired this with stewed cabbage, which didnt really complement so well. Next time I will roast with broccoli and cauliflower.

Ashamed of my own hypocrisy

The previous post suggested my disdain over those that show-off how they "Rx" it all the time. Oddly enough, I am a victim of my own despising. Within that same day –– on Wednesday –– I proudly said aloud my score that proceeded with an Rx at the end. I get it. I realize there's a thrill of pride after going through 18 minutes of an AMRAP WOD which tested your strength, agility and coordination.

The WOD was:
9 - 95lb. deadlift
12 - push-up (big girl - on your toes version)
15 - box jumps (18")

It didn't seem like a lot considering it was a light deadlift and the jumps are lower than my usual 24 inches. But by the time three minutes had passed, I already felt gassed out in mid push-up. These dreaded push-ups. It took me so long to perfect the full movement on my knees this past year, now I've graduated to my toes!

Regardless, when that timer hit zero and my pace was at max speed, I wanted to talk to anyone and everyone, though I'm sure they could have been a little less indifferent about it since they did just endure the same "torture" ... Man, so I was that guy.

But the fact that I am now aware and have accomplished such a feat. I know one thing that worked well during my trials and tribulations of my Rx WOD .... which is to endlessly sing this song until they call time's up.

Your ego is a buzzkill.

Part of the reason I truly enjoy participating in the high-intensity workouts is the motto of helping each other succeed their personal goals. Whether to lose weight, achieve most of your personal records or just shed those extra annoying inches. I've never been to another CrossFit-like gym let alone completed a WOD at a franchised CrossFit gym but I have read plenty of blogs and met various people that frequent those places to sense out the "dude-brah" and/or douchebaggery amongst meatheads. It's like they graduated from the dumbell-clinking noises at the local commercial gym to the "brah, my Rx time was this ... what's yours?" mentality. 

Forgive me if I offend anyone here, but your ego is a total buzzkill. Don't get me wrong, I love competition and sharing each other's accomplishments to show progression. It's just completely annoying when the main objective is to be better than everyone else -- even though their form and technique is completely wrong or off. The word elite is a misrepresentation of the absolute aim of wellness and exercise.The goal being: to do it right and to do it well. 

I see it time and time again, this cream of the crop fitness mantra, even at my gym. Some say it's in my culture to make sure that no one is left behind. Whenever there's a one-mile buy out run, I cheer those that pass me or whom I pass. Maybe it's a personality thing, but I want to hear about everyone's goals and what they are doing to achieve this. What I don't want to hear are your grunts of how fast you can kip your pull ups or push your V-ups, but it's pretty evident, you're not getting your chin over the bar and your knees are bent to ease the v-ups.

Some will also say it may be pure jealousy on my end. It's not. I'm not jealous you can "complete" Rx 5 times a week. In fact when you score better than me my indifference overshadows the board. It's just overly frustrating when I see that your squats are not parallel to the ground and you're not opening up top on your burpees. (I'm guilty of this too. I have my Quizomoto burpees when I'm in the zone). 

At the end of the day, did you have a good workout or did you have a fabricated boost to your self-worth? If it's the former, I'll see you at the finish line. 

 

Photo taken 5/14/13.

WOD

Death by Burpees (10 minute)

Death by V-UPs (until failure)

Final score: 16/16

I gave up on my V-ups and felt awful about giving up. But then I saw this photo and was proud that I actually got my torso off the ground! Just two years ago, I couldn't do more than 5 sit-ups. This is the type of progression that I like to document.

Overcoming Adversity

I'm not one for quotes. I actually think some of them are a bit pretentious and unoriginal. Although, when it pertains to working out and identifying with the quote -- I've become a hypocrite.

I created this image about a year ago after injuring my left knee -- from banging it on the corner of my office desk. This is comical to me because I frequent Hard Exercise Works five to six days a week. A gym known for high-impact/intensity workouts, much like CrossFit. I put my body to the test and am susceptible to various kinds of injuries -- and yet I get hurt because of my clumsiness!

My injury set me back the whole freakin' summer of 2012. It was good in the sense that I didn't have to run in the South Florida heat, however I felt deflated and weak for a good three to four months.

Fast forward to a year later. Since slowly coming back from the injury, I've ran two 5Ks, one I finished sixth in my age group; surpassed all of my personal lift goals as far as dead lifts, split jerks, snatches, etc; and have gone down to three dress sizes. 

The purpose of this post is that I kept this quote in mind, thinking at the same time last year I would hope I would be where I am today. Now, I've reached my hypothesis. My adversity, aka my bum knee, is overshadowed by my accomplishments and always remembering to push through my limits.