Wednesday, February 27, 2013

I Put Things Down and I Pick Them Up

Today was a pretty crummy day as far as the weather goes. And crummy days usually mean sweatpants and my couch. But first I worked out.

Warm Up:
100 jump rope
20 kettlebell swings
10 broad jumps
1 lap inchworm
Chest/shoulder mobility

Strength:
5 x 5 split jerk

MetCon:
5 rounds - 10 pull-ups, 10 ring dips (5 minute cap)
...rest 3 minutes...
40 dumbbell ground to overheads (20 each arm)
...rest 3 minutes...
5 minutes of burpees

This workout hurt...a lot. It was very chest/shoulder intensive, which for me is bad from the start. It was my first time learning a split jerk, which looks a lot like this:
I think that this movement is a lot of fun. It's like a push press with a lot more added momentum to it. Now with the momentum coming from your legs, you'd think you wouldn't really feel a lot in your arms but you really do. I finally maxed out at 83 pounds, and by maxed out I mean I was literally teetering at the top.
The MetCon was just a heart racing pile of awfulness. To finish the first exercise, you literally needed to be doing a round per minute and that sure as hell wasn't happening. I did really well with the ground to overheads though, finished in 4:00 using a 30 lb dumbbell. And then it was burpee time. Effing burpees. I can honestly say I'd never done 5 straight minutes of them before. I got 35 done. Not TOO shabby but I was kind of looking for more.

I have a few thoughts as Week 2 starts winding down.

So things that I'm starting to notice overall:
   - My burpees are getting a lot more powerful. I can now fully jump back up to a standing position whereas before it was a little hop and I was using my back to roll back up to standing
   - My upper body strength overall has improved a lot. When I first started crossfit, I was very uneven with my left side being at the disadvantage. I think I'm starting to even out more as well as building up a little more strength each time. I no longer practically fall on my face when I'm doing burpees and I can just about do some full-body pushups in a row. But that leads me to my next point...
   - I've kind of hit a wall with pull-ups. I haven't noticed any marked improvements. I'm still using the same band and my stamina is about the same. I don't know if I should start going for kipping pull-ups, or maybe I should just stay after class and work on them.
   - I'm having a much easier time doing the simultaneous movements that are required with olympic lifts. It's not such a big deal anymore to use legs and arms all at the same time. I'm sure my squat cleans still aren't all there, but overall, it's getting better.
   - My leg strength is just shooting through the roof. I feel like I'm sore for a day after and then I'm ready to lift another 10-20 pounds higher than I did the day before.
   - I was already somewhat flexible, but my flexibility has gone up a lot in the past 2 months

Things that I'm noticing after going completely paleo:
   - Little to no soreness after workouts and if I do feel it, it's nothing unbearable
   - I sleep like a rock at night. I no longer have issues falling asleep and I legitimately feel well rested
   - I come home from workouts feeling like I have energy to get through the rest of the day. I may hit some mid-afternoon sleepiness but I don't leave the gym feeling like I need a nap
   - Shoulder and back muscles! And who knew my knees were so bony?!
   - I finish my meals feeling full and I no longer feel deprived if I don't have a source of carbs
   - I feel genuinely happier. It could just be because I'm done with school, but I walk into the gym feeling ready to go and I feel like my mind has kind of sorted itself out a bit

All in all, this is going really well, and like I said yesterday, I may not notice the inches coming off but there are still some aspects that are continuously getting better.

The rest of today was really low key. I came home and took a long hot shower. I don't know if anyone else notices this, but when I come home after working out, I feel so cold. I go from hard sweaty work to getting in the car and going home so I wonder if my body slams on the brakes with trying to cool me down and just needs some readjustment time. Either way, it's nothing a hot shower doesn't fix. Spend the rest of the afternoon relaxing on the couch. I didn't have meal prep Day 2 as promised because I just wasn't feeling it. It'll probably get moved to tomorrow.

Food today was a breakfast of scrambled eggs, an orange and a link of Italian sausage. Lunch was when I got super lazy. I heated up some of the soup and was going to make a side salad with tomato and deli turkey. Well I decided I didn't want to cut up the tomato so I wrapped the lettuce in the turkey and made a couple wraps out of that. Perfect lazy meal. The soup was delicious by the way! My snack was a boiled egg and a banana with almond butter. Dinner was two slices of meatloaf and some zucchini pancakes that I made (recipe below). The meatloaf was a little dryer than I wanted it to be, but it was still fairly good.

Zucchini Pancakes
1 tbsp. almond flour (you can also use coconut)
3 eggs
2 cups shredded zucchini
Coconut/olive oil or bacon grease
Salt/pepper

Sift the flour into the eggs and beat them together. Mix in the shredded zucchini and seasonings. Coat a cast iron skillet with your oil/grease of choice on medium-high heat. Spoon the mixture into the pan in desired sized cakes.

I think these ended up delicious. Very easy to make. I burned the first couple a little bit but the last few ended up great. I would say to cook them about 3-5 minutes on each side. I made about 6 cakes out of the recipe. Only complaint I had was that they flattened out a lot so they're not very thick. Otherwise, a not too shabby last minute attempt. If you're like me and ended up putting too much olive oil in the pan, just put the cooked pancakes on a plate that's covered in a paper towel and it will absorb whatever is left over.

Tomorrow is another day at work - 11 hours. I have my meals all packed up and ready to go. Also had to figure out what source of entertainment I was going to bring since I no longer have schoolwork to worry about. There definitely isn't a shortage of things I found to do. And now that I've cursed myself, we're going to be running our asses off all day.

Well, it is most definitely bed time. G'night all!






1 comment:

  1. Three Hudred Seventy EightMarch 5, 2013 at 3:26 PM

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