Monday, February 16, 2015

You are far too smart to be the only thing standing in your way

Today's lesson:
Have confidence in yourself, and trust in your coach.

Friday's  WOD included thrusters. For you non-crossfitters - that's squatting (my least favourite thing), while bringing the barbell to your chest/shoulders, then as you stand, you push the bar up over your head. NOT my favourite move.
The WOD was 3 rounds 4 time -- of 10 burpee facing bar; 15 thrusters (Rx 55) ( me - empty 35 pound bar:); then 10 chest to bar pull ups ( I scale it back with some bands).



So, I got to my 3rd (last) round of overhead squats and I was pretty sure I was going to die faint collapse. I was shaking. So I ran to switch out my heavy bar for a practice bar ( yes, I know --  in the middle of a workout) .

 


Mags stopped me " What are you doing???"
Me - " Uhhhh, switching my bar"
Mags - " No you're not," " You're finishing with this one "
Me  (scuttling sheepishly back to my bar)
Mags "3 at a stretch-- we're finishing this!!!". And he begins to count for me....
Me ( I do 5, then 5 more, then 5 more), then skip off to do the pull-ups. And pretty much look sheepish, like someone who has tried to get out of something (well, I tried).
and Mags is giving me this smug, told you so, kind of look....

So after the pull ups, I get a different from Mags, the 'what the hell were you thinking?' look,  then the lecture.
Crap. I'm a teacher. I give that look and the exact same lecture every day. But I like to feel free to thrown in the towel myself, when life gets a little tough. Yes, people, I am a quitter :)

You finish what you start. You don't scale back in the middle of a WOD ( unless the coach tells you to). The coach ( or teacher ) will not ask you to do something that he/she truly believes that you cannot do. You can do it ( and you will).

Self confidence and trust. Sigh.

Okay, I need to begin practicing what I preach :)

Wednesday, February 11, 2015

Shake it Off

Well, I'm not a huge fan of Taylor Swift.
But this song seems to come up often in our WODs.
And I tell ya. Music does affect my results, lol.

I get lost in the song.
The problem with the music in our workouts is that I lose count. Because not only do I have to count my reps, I have to count what round I'm on. I can't hold all of those numbers in my head :). When I work out at home, I put some jewels in a jar after every round. Some people use pennies. But for the gym, I just bought one of these:



What do you use? Do you just keep it all in your head? How do you do it when you are concentrating on the movements (and singing along to a catchy tune)? I need a personal trainer to do all of that counting for me, lol.


it is a cute video :) I think that the video makes me like the song more :)

Sunday, February 8, 2015

When I get older I will be stronger..

So.... many people have asked what drew me to CrossFit. Part of it was Miss L's nagging  begging encouragement. The other part went like this.

"Hi Ms. Brown!" (I'm a teacher)
I waved Hi back. But, horror of horrors, the underpart of my arm kept waving (just like a wavin' flag). It was fascinatingly repulsive.

That, my friends, was my wake up call. I was 49, out of shape, and overweight.
So the journey began.
The funniest thing that I remember from the Foundations class what when Mags shooed me out the door and said that I'd be running 100 meters. Then he looked at me and said "you can run, right?". I said "uh, well, I run for the bus sometimes..." But I ran that killer 100 meters. And in a later workouts ran many many more of them.

So, I started CrossFit last May. And remember that wavin arm? Now it stops when I stop.