3 Months…

We made it three months at Crossfit! This morning’s workout marked not the end of a journey, but merely the beginning of another. The past three months have been incredible, I cannot thank Coaches Angie and Gino enough for the amazing gift they have given Liz and I. Their skills, dedication, and passion for fitness far outrank any other trainer or coach I’ve ever met.

When we walked in the doors of Crossfit Salus 3 months ago, we were scared, anxious, excited, and frankly out of shape (even though we had been working out for nearly a year before that). So we did our first WOD and surprisingly, didn’t die. That lead to the on-ramp classes, and before long, we were doing REAL Crossfit Workouts. Something that I had only thought about before and had previously dismissed as impossible.

At this point, I’m not really sure of the number of workouts (WODS) we have completed, but I know I want Crossfit to continue to be part of my life. I probably don’t need to be on TV at the National Competitions, but I don’t want to go back to the old way I used to work out (and even before that, the lack of working out).  

Crossfit is hard to explain to someone who doesn’t do it, and I don’t know if I can even give a great explanation of it. Of course the official definition is “Constantly varied, high-intensity, functional movement.” But this can mean a lot of different things to different people. For me, Crossfit is the most awesome way I’ve found to work out yet. It prepares you for life. There are no chest fly machines, no treadmills, and no lat pull down machines, no calf raise machines, etc. Think about it, you don’t find these machines in your everyday life. But.. in a Crossfit Box (Gym)..  there are results.

Coaches Angie & Gino along with the Crossfit Methodology, and clean eating, have taken this formerly fat out of shape guy, and turned him into a leaner, fitter, ready for life guy. Three months ago, I could barely do a lap around the building let alone lift anything without a horrible bent over position. Now I can run further, faster, harder. I can lift heavier things ever before, I can do burpees, overhead squats. I can even jump rope which I couldn’t do at all when I walked in the doors! All this in 3 short months! And.. as a side but very important note, safety and proper posture were enforced and encouraged at every step in the game. (“Feet Straight, knees out, heels planted!” is forever stuck in my brain).  Coaches Angie and Gino really do care about their people.

Perhaps the most important thing that I’ve experienced at Crossfit during the last 3 months is my mental state. Working out at this high intensity pace gives you sort of a natural happiness once the workout is done. It gives you a feeling of being ready to tackle new adventures that might come your way.  Before this whole journey started, I was a pretty negative person. I used to say “No” a lot to new opportunities or situations. Nowadays, I usually say “Lets give it a try”. I’m ready to tackle a lot of new adventures and get better at stuff I already do.

It’s time to keep on being awesome and see even greater gains!

Here’s the proof.

In this picture, on the left is the first day we walked into Crossfit Salus. On the right is this morning, 3 months later.

 

Here is a shot of my overall progress (I believe the pic on the left was around my heaviest ever. The pic on the right was taken this evening. This is a bathing suit that I found. It used to fit “properly”.) :

 

 

Short and Sweet

This past week was pretty short. I skipped out on the Saturday class, but I still did work. My friend and I moved two truck loads of Sheetrock and plywood. (Its probably should have actually more than 2 loads, my truck was riding really low and steering like a boat). Those sheets aren’t extremely heavy by themselves. Somewhere between 50 to 70 lbs, but when you have like 50 of them to move, load, unload, move again, it gets to be a big job of a couple thousand pounds. It was not too much work for me in terms of strength. Since starting at Crossfit Salus, I’ve gained immense amounts of strength. However, the awkwardness of handling the pieces really gets to you. They are 8 foot long, 4 foot wide, and the weight is evenly distributed. OK, so a barbell is 7 feet wide, but you can grip it really easily. I know I was lifting and moving them in a less than perfect manner (how can you?) But because I had the strength from doing functional exercises, I was able to do this task without injury or undue stress. See.. how cool is that, I lift things up and put them down.

Last Friday was a kettle bell thruster day. even though I did graduate from the orange sized kettlebell, this was one WOD where you really have to be careful about having a big metal thing hanging off your hand above your head.

Yesterday was a gymnasty day. Short version.. I’m far from a gymnast.. LOL. The first set of wall climbs were pretty impressive though. and my shoes have some Crossfit Salus signature red paint on them 😛

Today’s WOD was Bodyweight squats, and ring rows. I couldn’t do RX at bodyweight. I did go kind of light, about 50% of my one rep max, so I probably could have did a little more weight, but.. I was getting a little of the “deadlift dizzyness” everyone knows about. So it was probably safe to not push it. however, I must say how “at home” the squats felt. This was one of the first WODS where I really felt in control of it. I wasn’t really wobbling all over the place, and my feet where almost perfect. I was getting good depth for me too. I finished faster than I had thought I would too. So, next time I will try a little more weight.

I also did loose a few pounds. I haven’t been checking the scale a lot like I used to, but figured once a week or so is enough. As far as the nutrition, I think Liz and I are doing better, still cracking along. It’s much easier to just eat real food. Myself I’m finding that real food just tastes better. I really don’t crave the chemical stuff anymore. I’ll admit that we did go to a fancy pizza place. The chef came over and explained how he likes to homemade make whatever he can, and he has a garden with 1500 plants in it, and hes all about fresh food, and hes doing farm to table as much as he can. So, if we are going to splurge on “Non-Crossfit approved” food. I think it would be best to find the cleanest “bad” food you can. And the taste was amazing compared to the normal everyday food. Liz calls me a “gluten hypochondriac”. I don’t know if that’s exactly it, or if its some kind of other chemical, but if I do happen to eat something bad (which is getting rarer and rarer), my nose starts to get stuffy. It happens pretty fast too, like 5 minutes or less. I don’t have any kind of violent reaction like some people might, but its enough to notice. Its pretty remarkable since 2 years ago, I never would have noticed anything. It’s like the saying “I feel fine”.. 2 or 5 years ago, I felt fine too, but now its another awesome level that can’t compare.

Nasty meeting done.. back to crossfit.. relating to everyday

This week seemed to fly by again. As hard as I tried, I couldn’t get out of that horrible meeting for two days, and I missed Crossfit. But on the bright side,  it’s over with for at least a year. I decided not to buy new clothes and just wore the baggy ones. I guess I looked a bit sloppy, but it turned out OK in the end. I decided to wait until I’m really jacked, then I can buy some new dress clothes and walk around with the buttons undone or something.

The dress shoes which I had were horribly uncomfortable. At one point in time, I was wearing these things where ever I went because I thought they were so nice. The sole was really thick and were supposed to be designed so you could stand up and walk all day (Now I’m kind of thinking how absurd this idea is. We need shoes that let us do something we were genetically designed to do??) So I was walking like a duck, literally on the sides of my feet. It was ridiculous. When I got home after work, I literally threw them in the garbage can before I came into the house. I’m not sure what it is, maybe since my posture is getting better, and I’ve been wearing the Nanos, I don’t need those “corrective” shoes any longer. I’m generally not any kind of brand loyalty guy, but those Nano’s are sweet. Most comfortable pair of shoes I’ve ever worn.

Back to the meeting, its not really related to Crossfit in terms of exercising at all, but its interesting how we are going through this process and our thoughts are changing. So without getting too technical I’ll detail it in layman’s terms.

Our customers fly in from all over and stay at a hotel for 3 or 4 days. The meetings are generally 9 to 5 with breakfast, lunch, and snack breaks. Most of the content of this meeting is about changes to industry stuff. So when one customer requests a change, it can have an impact to another customer. There is a process to go through where there is a research period and the other customers get to voice any concerns. Then, when they come to this meeting, it gets voted on, or amended. It all seems like a mini democracy. Except that most of the attendees at this meeting really don’t care one way or another unless they raised the issue. Everyone is just typing away at their laptops doing other work, or researching menus for restaurants which they will have dinner at. The funny part is, everyone in the room has been informed of the issues, and for the most part have had plenty of time to research it within their own company. So everyone knows exactly what is going to go on. I’m pretty low on the totem pole at the company, but this whole process seems pretty inefficient to me. All you guys have to fly in from across the country, waste multiple 10’s of thousands of dollars, and sit here not interested in anything.. why? We have phones and emails. We could do this stuff a lot more efficiently. I guess it’s just like real congress. Just because “that’s the way it’s been since the 60’s” is a pretty poor excuse for wasting money, time, and resources. You could give everyone in our department a nice bonus every year and be exponentially more productive and profitable in the marketplace. But more important than money or selling more products and services… Why does anyone want to waste their life doing this crap?

So that was mostly a rant.. but it does have connections to Crossfit as I thought about it. In the WOD’s we are always being taught to do things in the most powerful efficient way. As a small example, even when we set up our equipment, we will put it where it makes sense to transition from one exercise to another. So why are we wasting our finite number of days stuck at inefficient meetings, hunched over laptops with horrible posture, and not paying attention to anything. At the same time, we are filling up on horrible “foods”.

The organizer of the meeting was hounding me to sign up for breakfast and lunch on both days, and I politely declined over and over again. I even got an email back saying (Verbatim) “You will be hungry if you don’t eat all day!!!!!” You know.. that never occurred to me 😛 So I got my own healthy food from outside of the hotel catering. As with any buffet style food, there is always a lot left over. So my coworkers then starting telling me to eat it. I looked it over, and I sort of had a feeling of disgust. Don’t get me wrong, I’m sure most of it tasted OK to a SAD palette (Standard American Diet), but It was pretty much standard catering food. Breaded and deep fried chicken cutlets in all kinds of sauces, and rices and bad starches, breads, pastas, danishes, pastries, soda, etc. The salad was off in the corner of the table and looked like it had been there since yesterday. My boss started hounding me to eat.. and I responded with.. “oh.. no.. i had lunch.. I’m trying to eat healthy”. and his response was “oh.. you can eat all the salad”. That’s what people these days think is “healthy”. Just salad 😦 I essentially just walked away.

In one of the chaffing dishes, they had whole carrots with the stems still attached. And surprise, they weren’t touched. I kind of got excited at the idea of trying the carrots with the green stuff still on it. And I was even willing to look stupid with just a plate of carrots. But as I was going to get a plate, I noticed, they were glistening. It didn’t look like butter. So.. I didn’t even try them for fear that they were covered in some kind of nasty oils and other stuff you don’t want to eat. Saddened, I thought about how as a society, how could we pervert the idea of beautiful carrots with the stems still on them???

So as for the exercises at Crossfit, We are making good progress. I’m moving up in weights I can use. On a lot of exercises, I think I’m right on the edge of going to the next step. For example, I can do jumping pull ups by using mostly arms, and not too much leg any longer. I’ve moved up to the parallel bars with just a pretty loose red band for dips. But there are a few issues that pop up now and then. Like for instance, the other day in the clean position, it was horribly uncomfortable, and I couldn’t get my elbows up as far as I could on a previous workout. At the other place where we used to workout, trainers were telling me, “You are going to have good days and bad days.” I don’t think I’ve ever had a bad day at Crossfit. Sure there are days when I’m slower or can’t lift as much, or have some issues with proper form. But we are still going there and still kicking our own butts, and we are still moving forward with progress.

The 10,000 lbs lifted WOD was really fun. To be efficient, Liz and I shared two bars. Coach Gino warned me about this when we started. He said that Liz will probably be able to beat me in most of the WOD’s. That’s OK though, its pretty awesome that my girl Crossfits!

I kind of gave it a break tracking weight loss on the scale. Maybe I’ll do it once or twice a week. I can see some pretty impressive physical changes. My shoulders, traps, biceps are all getting pretty big and toned for what they used to be. My forearms are getting small and the upper arms are getting big. My legs above my knee are getting big, and below my knees are getting small and toned. I’m pretty sure my belly is getting smaller. It’s either that, or maybe my core muscles are getting way stronger and holding it in better. 😀 I know this will be the last to go. I can’t wait. I guess just keep on doing what we are doing, and tighten up the diet a bit more will help there. Greg.. It wont be long before we can workout without our shirts on! I read in multiple books to track changes using measurements and pictures. Even the unhealthy weight loss plan we used to follow recommended that. I never really gave it much thought until now. I really would have liked to see the progress incrementally. If by chance, anyone new is reading this blog, I’d highly recommend tracking measurements and pictures.

So we’ve only been to Crossfit Salus and have not visited any other boxes yet. But the community and the people there are awesome. Crossfit is kind of infectious. My mother and my sister even joined. And I have friends and coworkers asking me about it.

Liz and I are on this weight loss, fitness, healthy lifestyle journey, and its affecting the way we think for a lot of things. For example, Liz has pretty much gave up couponing except for stuff like soaps, paper towels, and non-food type stuff. That 48 pack of mac and cheese with the yellow powder for 5 bucks sure is a good deal, but what are the consequences of eating that? From our experience, its pretty rare to see a coupon for fresh fruits and veggies, or meat.

And I’ll close this blog post with a few comments that could possibly be perceived as me being a judgmental ass. Please don’t take it that way, I’m trying to write this with all the best intentions.

I’ve been noticing a lot of children in my neighborhood who are pretty overweight. I know some kids get “baby fat” or whatever, and I’m not saying that kids shouldn’t have junk food once in awhile. I am in almost no way, shape, or form any authority on how to parent kids…

But, when your kid is walking down the street like a duck with his feet out, literally stuffed into clothes, and probably weighs 2 or 3 times as much as he should, theres a problem! He’s 5 or 7 years old, he didn’t drive himself to MacDonalds, or order the pizza, or the mountain dew. Its not a trip or two once in awhile to those places, its a chronic habit. If you are an adult and make the choice to only eat crappy chemicals, then go ahead man, its your money and your life.

But, when its a kid, he doesn’t know any better! He has no idea of the harm it is doing, and the repercussions it can have on his entire life. It’s not an issue of being poor, for a cost of a big mac meal, you can go to the farmers market store and buy an entire shopping bag of veggies and fruit. You don’t have to be a hippie and grow your own stuff in your backyard garden. They have decent food at every supermarket. Don’t feed your kids crap all the time. It used to be that the next generation should learn from the mistakes of the generation before it. A lot of people need to wake up before they kill their kids.. slowly.. one twinkee at a time… I’m not in the medical field anymore, but when I was.. almost all the bad disease, pain, suffering, and death that I saw could have been easily avoided.Just a few examples:

-Diabetes (sticking yourself with a needle multiple times a day, being forced to eat processed garbage to keep your Blood sugar regulated. If it gets bad enough, passing out in random places, getting beat up because people think you are drunk. Then.. it leads into hundreds of other stupid painful issues…blindness, wounds that wont heal, systemic infection, eventually death)

-COPD (basically drowning from the inside out, these patients actually leak out of their painful skin),

-Cancer (Slow, arduous, torture painful death in a hospital bed. You wish to die as its is less painful than living).

Please don’t do that to your kids. The hard part now that I’m thinking this way is that this is a train wreck in slow motion.You can’t really even attempt to help these people without expecting a punch in the face.

Most of that horrible stuff can be avoided with a pretty simple formula- Eat healthy, stay active, and don’t do stupid stuff.

The only thing you CAN do is get yourself healthy and your family healthy, maybe it will catch on.  

 

 

And finally because I like pictures in my blog posts, here’s a picture of me doing the parallel bar dips (lower left)

Kettlebells, Crossfit Total, Better Fitting Clothes..

This past week seemed to go by really fast for me. I guess the shell shock of the WOD is sort of starting to wear off, or its just becoming normal. Don’t get me wrong, it doesn’t really get any easier, because once it does, you are not using enough weight! I think Greg and Coach G had a conversation to the effect of.. “It never gets easier, it just sucks less”… “Yeah, but then we make it harder!” I think we did pretty well this week.

We tried the Crossfit Total this week and I was surprised at how far I’ve come in a short period of time. The Wodify link on my face book was pretty cool. “New PR – 545 lbs vs 0”.

One thing that has gotten remarkably improved is running. 1 lap around the building is like nothing. I remember on the first day, I could barely make it all the way around. My friend has been asking me about joining Crossfit, and I keep trying to get him into a free intro class. If he does decide to try it out, I’m going to ask Coach G and Angie if I could come with him to see how far I’ve improved at the basic workout.

In my limited spare time, I’ve been doing some more light construction projects on our house. Crossfit has been really helping me here. So if we are training functional movements in the gym, they translate to real life things. Sure we go crazy and can dead lift like a few hundred pounds, but those are weights that are designed to be picked up. You can get a good grip on the bar, the weight is nice and balanced, it’s close to your body, and you have a good center of gravity. If you go to Home Depot and start throwing 50 lb bags of cement in your cart or 8 foot lumber from one end, you start to remember how important physics is. But my point is, Crossfit, by way of efficient movements, is helping me with the inefficient movements of everyday life. The other day while Liz was sleeping, I was hanging cabinets by myself.  I’m still not really sure how I pulled that one off without an emergency room trip, but they should look good when I’m done.

This week, I have to go to a multi-day meeting at work. Being an engineer, I usually wear sneakers, jeans and a t-shirt or polo shirt on the days I have to go to work. This meeting is the few days a year which everyone hates, you have to look pretty, (A shirt that has more than two buttons ;-( ) and the agenda is sitting in the corner all day falling asleep. So for a few weeks, I’ve been dreading going to the store and buying new dress clothes that will sit in the closet for another year.

So last night, I finally surveyed the scene of what dress clothes I had in the closet. As I tried on the shirts, I noticed I have several inches… like two sizes too big probably. Those shirts used to be tight! It was almost to the point of believing that our washing machine was enlarging our clothes instead of shrinking them.

Like Liz said, we are only losing a pound here and there, but we really should have taken measurements when we started this fitness journey. I read about it, but never thought it was important until now.

For the nutrition and foods part of this blog post, I’ve really been seeing how I kind of crippled myself with information overload. When I went all crazy paleo and bought all the books and subscribed to all the podcasts. I had so much information that I sort of knew what to do but couldn’t do it. I heard Steve Kamb (creator of nerdfitness.com) on an interview and I identified with a lot of what he said. Basically, being a computer kind of guy, I’ll research stuff as much as I can before I either buy something, try something, or when I’m trying to solve a problem. He said that a problem he sees with a lot of computer/nerd type guys is that they want to research something so fully, that they get so overwhelmed with info and confused that they end up not doing anything. (Try goggling paleo diet.. and see how many links you get as to why it is awesome, and how many links you get as to why it’s not going to work).  But, he said, the most important thing is to do something. Something will get you in the right direction. Doing nothing will just keep you eating Doritos and Mountain Dew. So if you get on the road, if it’s the wrong road, just take a different one. If you never got in the car, you don’t even know what works and what doesn’t.

So with that being said, I think my view on the food theory is changing from the hardcore “paleo” (lets Google it to see if it’s paleo or not) to eat as natural as you can and non-processed or minimally processed as you can. If almost all of the food is healthy and natural, then the once in awhile when you eat a sandwich or a Dorrito at a party, it’s not going to be such a big deal because it’s such a small percentage of your diet. I also noticed that the strict paleo diet can solve a lot of health issues, and a lot of people find it because medicine has given up on them, and they don’t know what else to do. Liz and I are lucky that we are young enough to not have developed these horrible conditions yet. We were just overweight and un-fit.  So if we were to eat an unhealthy modern-chemical bomb of a “food product”, we would probably just not feel energetic and the next day, we would just eat healthier. But, for someone who has a severe condition, it could put them in the hospital. Don’t take this sentence the wrong way; I’m grateful for my health. But, when you can eat all that crap with very little consequences and your brain sort of disconnects when you see that marketing, it makes it harder to avoid. Like coach G said, all that bad stuff is more addictive than drugs, and it’s legal.

So a final thing I want to touch on is the kettle bell WOD’s. Last night, we did a WOD last night with kettle bell Lunges, Swings, and Push Presses. I noticed a remarked improvement over the last time we tried it. I was even able to use the sizable ladies’  RX kettlbell. Last time I tried something similar, I was barely able to make it through with the kettlebell that looks like an orange with a small handle on it.

 

Here’s a really awesome picture Crossfit Salus made.

 

Progress is in the Works

As we are closing in on another week of Crossfit, it’s pretty awesome to look at what we have accomplished. I did my first wall walk last Tuesday which gave me an awesome new facebook pic. I’m getting better at Rowing and Running, and I did 95 singles unbroken tonight. I remember on my first time jump roping at Crossfit, I was hoping for 10 unbroken.  We did a 30 burpee-Muscle up WOD also. I did them scaled, with burpees, jumping pull ups, and box dips. Not that anyone likes burpees or they are easy to do after like.. 1 or 2, but I did 30 of them without dying. A year ago, I would have trouble doing 10 Burpees by themselves. I would have to sit down and take a break.

We did Annie, which includes 150 sit ups, and 300 singles (if not doing doubles). That’s just insane. But we did it! My abs were tight all weekend from Annie.

Yesterday, (Memorial Day).. We did Murph. Well, we scaled it to a half Murph. But from what I’m hearing, Murph is one of the toughest workouts to do from a conditioning standpoint. I was really excited to finally try something like that. I smoked the first ½ mile and probably should have paced myself a bit better. By the end, my arms were like Jello, and I had to walk some of the second ½ mile to avoid meeting Pukie, but coach Gino was on his bike encouraging us to finish strong.

When it gets hard during a WOD, I’ve been telling myself to keep going, because look where I am. I’m at Crossfit! This is awesome. A year ago, I was asking the trainer at the globo-gym if I would ever be able to do Crossfit. Here I am buddy!

Tonight, I was even able to do the second METCON at RX, it took me awhile, but it’s pretty sweet that I was able to click the RX button! It still counts!

It really doesn’t matter if it’s scaled, or if you are going to the regional competition; if you are a soccer mom, or an engineer. We are all here, and it’s awesome. Let’s get some work done! I like coming to Crossfit.  I want to come here. We’ve been coming 4+ times a week since its crunch time for the wedding, so once it’s done, we might scale it back a bit, but it’s a part of our lives at this point. What we used to do was like getting your teeth pulled out and I never wanted to go.

I think this weekend coming up, I’m going to go clothes shopping and get some smaller clothes, hopefully, the XL shirt is out. I’ve been noticing more definition on my body. Especially on my shoulders, arms, and legs, it’s pretty impressive that it’s been such a short time. I just need more patience for the beer belly to leave.  The scale really hasn’t dropped much, but the visual results are pretty impressive. This weekend, I saw a friend who I don’t see on a regular basis, and he commented on how great Liz and I look. He used to do body building in his past and he was commenting about how it’s likely that Liz and I won’t see much difference on a daily basis because the change is gradual, but for someone like him, who we don’t see all the time, the change is pretty dramatic.

I still need to concentrate on proper posture, especially the upper back not rounding, but it has been getting easier also, and I’ve slowly been adding weight to the lifts, so I also PR’ed the back squat this week.

Our food still isn’t 100% perfect Paleo, but we have been really trying to concentrate on the clean eating part of things more so than what is and isn’t Paleo. The main advantage I can see is that most of the stuff I used to consider staples now just doesn’t taste good, and I know it’s just filled with chemicals and garbage. It’s been much easier to just avoid more and more things. It just isn’t as appealing anymore. This is sort of disheartening in a way, since we are essentially learning how to eat all over again. It’s sort of like losing a part of yourself. But, when you think about it logically, that part was fat and unhealthy. It’s like getting rid of that giant car payment for the vehicle you owed more on than it was worth. There is more to life, way more to life than being chained to objects, or being addicted to chemically processed inflammatory empty calories.

This week at Crossfit is going to be great! I can’t wait to knock down some new PR’s or get faster on something I already tried!

That dude’s upside down!

Check out this super awesome leg muscle

MURPH!!

A Weekend for Reflection

This week, I think I’m going to pretty much echo what Liz said. It was a short week, and the rest time was great for us I think. We didn’t work out at all this weekend other than running around doing some errands and some housework. But I woke up today feeling really good and full of energy and my pants don’t fit anymore. They are about a size and half too big. The scale came down about a pound, but I think feeling great and having to budget for some new clothes is better than whatever number the scale says. I remember listening to a podcast, I believe from Jason Seib, (Paleo Coach and Trainer/Gym Owner) who said your gains aren’t made in the gym; they are made on your rest days. You try your hardest to tear yourself apart in the gym; the body rebuilds and benefits from the training on the rest days. Not sure if that is solely responsible here, but it seems to hold weight, at least from the refreshing mental view.

We did quite a bit of running in the WOD’s last week (I suspect the programming is getting us ready for Murph on Memorial Day). But it’s getting easier every time we do it. Liz seems to enjoy running a lot more than I do, and I’d rather lift heavy things.

As far as lifting heavy things, I’ve set a new bench press PR. And, I’ve also made it to the top of the 30” box. I really thought I was going to leave some DNA on the edges. Coach Gino has been working with me on mobility and posture. I’ve also been going to the Chiropractor twice a week. He’s seen improvement, and I will start going 1 time a week. I still have a lot of work to do, notably getting my elbows up in clean position, but it’s pretty cool that I can make some noticeable gains in a short period of time.

As far as the actual WOD’s, I really have to practice slowing down and pacing myself, so I’m not spent halfway though. Coach Gino expressed this when I did Jackie (1000m row). At first it seemed like I was going way to slow, especially with the high intensity atmosphere and loud music. But around 700 or so meters, she really catches up to you, and that’s when you are supposed to sprint to the finish.

I also received some awesome new Reebok Nano’s which seem to make the WOD’s easier from the standpoint of not having to fight to plant your heels like you would with running shoes, or the bottom of your feet hurting from wearing lifting shoes. Maybe it’s partially mental too, but I really like the shoes. Liz yelled at me for wearing them all around and out saying they were exercise shoes. Wait till I get the custom ones with my name on them 🙂

I’ll close this blog post out with some of my thoughts on our nutrition journey. We weren’t perfect this weekend, but I don’t think we did too badly either.  It’s amazing how stuff you used to think was so delicious just doesn’t taste good anymore. Like for instance, soda. A few years ago, I would just about drink gallons of it a day, combined with the “Standard American Diet” of highly processed , high fat, high carb “food”.. it was just the way it was. Now, if I drink soda, it is just overly sweet, and I can feel it coating my teeth, in my brain I get an idea that I’m basically drinking battery acid. I started drinking seltzer water thinking it was a good substitute for soda, and I think it was, but lately I’m realizing I’d just rather have regular water.

Another thing I’m starting to realize is that a lot of these cravings are mostly for the taste of things, not necessarily for the nutrients contained in the food, or lack thereof. Like nobody sits down and eats an entire carton of ice because they are hungry. So speaking of ice cream, we checked out the farmers market in Red Bank over the weekend. There weren’t a lot of vendors, maybe because of the rain, but there was the “Freezy Freeze” ice cream truck. I wasn’t going to give it much attention because it was an ice cream truck, but as we walked by, I read the sign that said they make ice cream made to order using liquid nitrogen. I started asking the guy about the process, and they basically take milk, cream, sugar, and mix it up with liquid nitrogen in a blender and you get ice cream made to order. So the process was pretty cool, and the ingredients were pretty pure so I had to try it. It was really good, it was very creamy and the “normal” flavors (I guess from preservatives) were absent. But the funny thing is, after two or 3 spoonfuls, I just didn’t have any more interest in it. I wanted to try it, and I tried it, and we actually threw most of it away. I know it’s horrible to waste food and money, but since we are doing this whole getting healthy transformation thing. It was an important moment… you don’t have to eat an entire serving just because you wanted a taste.

So I think this weekend was great, it gave us a chance to reflect on our progress and where we are. We get so caught up in daily activities to relax and just chill out. We aren’t were we need to be in terms of our goals, but we are a whole heck of a lot better than where we were a year ago, and a whole lot closer than we were two years ago, and so on.
 
A while ago, I was browsing through my Facebook pics and found a really nasty one from September 2011, I had been waiting to put it in a Blog post, but since Liz posted a bunch, now seems to be a pretty good time. And its “perfect” for this blog since I was fat, sweaty, and in a bar eating pizza. I never really cared about what I looked like, but I have to admit now that this is a little embarrassing.

Now here is the pic from last week when I got the 30″ box jump

Here is the pic from the 1000M row (I’m in the top left)

 

OWW That hurts! (But in a good way)

I won’t go into the details about the Wedding shoes. Liz can do that.. LOL 😀

I think we have our planned schedule worked out for now; we are going to be taking Wednesdays and Sundays off. It just works better so Liz and I can both show up together, and Debbie can join us as much as possible.

We started off the week with Olympic Lifting Class, which is a really cool vibe since its dedicated to mostly technique. I have a bunch of mobility issues that Coach Gino has been working with me on, and I’ve also started going back to my chiropractor, so I can’t really lift heavy yet without risk of injury. But the form and technique is everything, so once I can get that down.. I will be able to add a bunch of weight quickly.

On Tuesday, Debbie (My sister) and I attempted Barbara, which can basically be described as “10 million pull-ups, push-ups, sit-ups, and squats”.  Ok, maybe not 10 million, but there’s a lot of them. I got through 3 rounds and spent a lot of time with my face on the carpet. It’s weird because the pull-ups give your abs a chance to rest, and the squats give your shoulders a chance to rest, and the 3 minutes of rest time is the worst because that’s when you really start sweating and trying to catch your breath. I’m sure next time I try it I will be able to get further into the WOD. My whole body was shaking for a few minutes after Barbara. I guess I looked kind of silly walking around Shoprite with my t-shirt drenched in sweat while buying good stuff for dinner.

I had to skip Thursday due to a bad allergy flare-up, but I was back in action on Friday. I did pretty well on Bench Presses, and I’m confident next time it comes around, I will PR again. This was another killer of a WOD with so many reps in 21-18-15-12-9-6-3. Since I have trouble keeping my back flat, I really had to slow down on the dead lifts, and I got through 4 rounds of the WOD. Many thanks to Greg who spotted me and provided encouragement to help me get as far as I did. You are awesome dude!

Saturday started off with early morning yoga, and it was really great again. I think I’m getting more flexible in just one week of it. I’m not sure who is going to read this blog post, but I think there is a pretty feminine stigma focused around yoga. Coach Angie’s class is not like that at all, it’s about getting more flexible so we can lift bigger heavier things more safely. And she also teaches plenty about foam rolling, which is almost sort of like a self massage. As Coach Gino explained “The pain is already there, we are just finding it!”

I really encouraged Liz to stay for the WOD after yoga. I think she is still sort of in the “sticker shock” of it. The RX version is always pretty intense, but this is Crossfit after all. Everything is scalable. And you are going to get a great workout. So we played cards that day. We went through a whole deck of cards, and it was a combination of Power Snatches, Split Jerks, Dips, Pull-ups, Shuttle Runs, and Toes to Bar (Knee Ups for us). This was quite a long workout, and it took me over 45 minutes to complete especially since I have to take so much time focusing on my form during the lifts, but at the end, my last exercise was 6 shuttle runs. Everyone in the Box was cheering me on and keeping count for me. It was awesome! That is probably the greatest thing about Crossfit that I’ve experienced so far; the energy from the other people and the coaches.  And… I finally got to dump some weights on the floor! YES!!!! It’s so awesome! Why don’t more people know about this!?

A nightly conversation Liz and I have is something to the effect of “Hey! Look at this muscle!” or “Wow, feel how hard my arm is!” Things we didn’t know we had are really starting to pop out and firm up. And of course, since we are doing a lot of practice with foam rolling, pvc pass-throughs and lacross ball smashes… “OOOOWWW!!” “Oh wow” “Yeah.. that hurts!” … but in a good way 😀

 Here’s a picture Coach Gino took on Saturday. Not really a flattering picture, but these should get better as time goes along.

Yoga.. Seriously.. ??

We finished up the On-Ramp Classes, and finally got to do a real Crossfit WOD (two actually)!

Before I start typing about the impressive stuff we did, I think I should explain how beneficial the On-Ramp Classes are. We ended up doing the on-ramps out of sequence, so our last class was actually the first in the sequence. So the class that focused on the core work was the hardest for me. Coach Gino is great at explaining the fundamentals of movement, and how one thing is linked to another. And this is all done for safety. A broken athlete can’t move.  Coaches Gino and Angie are excellent at breaking down movements to their simplest parts, and explaining why we are doing it like this. Everyone has to be re-taught how to do things properly in order to enter the real crossfit WOD’s.

I think this is something that really isn’t exemplified in the whole Crossfit scene to the general public or maybe just someone who is lifting weights at a regular gym. Most of the media you do see just likes to show monsters with ReeBok on squatting hundreds of pounds, or the guys at the Crossfit games with sledge hammers and sleds and stuff. And this is the most important part.

So as it turns out.. Surprise.. I have major issues with mobility especially in my shoulders.. I have a lot of homework to do. With stretching and foam rolling to try and gain it back.

So we finally made it into the real Class. Our first WOD was Elizabeth, and our second was Rowing and Bench Presses. And, I think the way to describe these both is “Wow”. The amount of work we were able to get done was impressive. Of course we had to scale them for weight, but we did the full amount of reps and rounds.

We won this contest promising to transform our Body, Mind, and Soul. I’m starting to see where the Mind part comes into play.

I once had a teacher in college tell the class that the difference between animals and humans is mainly in the brain. For instance, a cougar or a tiger or whatever wild animal can literally rip another animal apart without thinking about it. They use crazy amounts of strength when their natural senses call them to it. We as humans are raised and civilized to do pretty much the exact opposite. We don’t usually get into fights and we don’t exhibit impressive feats of strength and mobility in our normal lives. But.. every once in awhile, you see things like the normal pedestrian who lifts a burning car off the child, or something of that nature, and the guy is usually like “I don’t know how I did it.. It just happened.” So the point the teacher was trying to make was that most humans are much stronger than they think they are, their brain limits their muscles in an attempt of self-preservation.

So I don’t know if any of that makes sense or not, but I can kind of draw a parallel to that idea when it comes to the crossfit WOD. I think I said this in the previous post, but it’s sort of making more sense now. The last WOD we did was 4 rounds, so it was a total of 60 reps on the bench press. I’ve bench pressed before, but never anywhere near 60 reps. So in my head, I was like.. alright.. well.. I’m going to push through it.. but that’s a lot. So I started off strong with the rowing, but that gets tiring quick! Round one of the presses was alright.. but also tiring. Round two was the hardest because of the fatigue. In the beginning of round 3, I got sort of this “second wind” and something in my brain clicked that I was past halfway, and I got this. So by the third round it was the home stretch, and the end was in sight. I don’t know if it was the loud music (which I don’t really “hear” but the beat keeps you going), or Coach Gino yelling in your ear to keep going and straighten out your form. But whatever it is, it makes you do a TON of work in such a short period of time. By the last set of bench presses, I didn’t even realize it was Greg who was spotting me and not Coach Gino (Thanks Greg!). It was go time, I was getting those 15 reps done.

So maybe that whole thing about your mind limiting your work effort has some weight. When you can overcome some of that, you get impressive work output.

The next day we went to yoga class with Coach Angie. I was a bit skeptical of this. I guess I had the typical guy view of it. But the way she ran the class. “Yoga for the Crossfitter” it was really great. She didn’t make us do all the meditation stuff, or summon the Chinese spirits or any of that. It was just a lot of great stretching, mobility work, and foam rolling. Which all of this stuff translates into Crossfitting and Olympic Lifting in general. And hey.. surprise.. not only do I not have great mobility.. I’m also not very flexible! More work for me at home. My beautiful fiancée surprised even herself and did a wheel position.  After the yoga class, we felt pretty good. I described it as being “very loose”.

So we were pretty sore from hitting it hard for 4 days in a row, and decided to skip Crossfit that day. I took a peek at the WOD and it was probably good that we decided that. I don’t know if we would have been up to “Death by Super Burpees” on that day. These past two rest days have been good, and we are ready to go again tomorrow! I’ve been practicing foam rolling, and stretching. Liz was a bit mad that a broom stick wasn’t good enough for me. I had to go buy a new piece of PVC from Home Depot. (She has her own now too, I should paint it pink to cheer her up.)

As far as the Paleo nutrition plan. We are doing pretty good at following it. I’ve lost a couple pounds already. I’ve heard some Podcasts say that it takes a good year of following it for it to become second nature. We don’t really have that much time. But, every step is a step in the right direction!

I’m very excited to attend Coach Gino’s Olympic Lifting Class tomorrow. I know I probably won’t be flexible enough to add much weight. But dedicating the whole hour to just OLY lifting will be great.

Here’s a cool picture Crossfit Salus made for us!

“Racking” up the WODS…

(*Note before I start, I really wanted to title this post something cliche-ish about push-jerks and snatches.. but I got yelled at for that idea :-).

So today is Saturday, and my calves are hurting.. but in a good way. 2 days of rest is going to be great also.

Liz and I completed 4 out of 6 on-ramp classes. Four days in a row is a pretty good run for us compared to our old selves.

Crossfit Salus is still AWESOME!

The on-ramp classes are structured sort of like a regular Crossfit WOD, but there is a lot more attention paid to the warming up and stretching aspects of the class and the skills and technique parts of the class. Coach Gino explained this is so that we know how to do the exercises correctly before we start adding big weights and most importantly.. that we do it correctly and don’t get hurt.. we want to be able to come back the next day and continue working out.

At the end of the on-ramp class, there is a short WOD, which 1. makes us exhausted :-P, and 2. gives us a taste of what a regular Crossfit WOD is like.

So far, we’ve experienced the AMRAP (As many rounds/reps as possible), the EMOM (Every Minute on the Minute), and the Tabata style WOD’s. Each seems to have its benefits and disadvantages.

I’ll run-down a quick list of major points regarding the exercises that I learned how to do properly.

• Handstand Push-ups.. I guess everyone has seen these on YouTube.. but wow.. they are hard even scaled from a box.
• Sit-ups, on our first on-ramp, it felt like that scene from Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom where the Kalima guy rips out the slave guys heart with his bare hand, except you know.. in your abdomen. (I’ll let you YouTube that yourself if you don’t remember ). But.. in a good light.. it felt great to push through it.. and overcome the mental block of wanting to stop… its a real sense of accomplishment getting the round done. Today, I did more sit-ups then just three days ago in a lot less time.. and it was kind of like just getting punched in the abs kinda hard. So major improvement in just 72 hours!
• Running – Running was probably just above root canal on my list of favorable things to do. And I know we didn’t do a lot of running, but my respiratory function is improving greatly again, and its easier than last time, I see noticeable performance improvement in under a week. (*note to CF Salus – Please don’t give me the weight vest just yet)
• Burpees- I mean.. they are burpees, I think pretty much everyone hates them.. just practice practice practice
• Double unders – I think this is the hardest thing I’ve tried so far. My singles are getting better, but overcoming the fatigue and not slowing down with the wrists seems to be the things I need to work on. Its pretty amazing to see how technical a kids toy like a jump rope is. and how much work it actually takes to do it correctly.

The past two days, we did a lot of skill work with components of Olympic lifting like the overheat squat, the back squat, shoulder press, dead lift, Push press, thrusters, sumo dead lifts, etc. I’ve tried some of these things at my previous place of exercising, and it was a pretty big shock to me to find out that I’ve been doing pretty much everything wrong (or at least not right). Coaches Gino and Angela’s instruction is exceptional. They can explain things in such a way that you get it pretty much instantly. For instance.. I unknowingly used to overheat squat in a position that pretty much resembled an Aunty Ann’s pretzel. In about 30 seconds, coach Gino corrected me and I knocked out what I consider to be a pretty good overheat squat for my mobility level (which is pretty bad at the moment). So I guess my new really cool Facebook picture might be closer than I thought.

One of the really cool things about Crossfit so far is that you see the WOD on the “whiteboard” and your like.. “Damn.. well.. I could probably get through one round”… so the timer starts and you do a few reps and your good, but then the work starts catching up on you and you start getting tired.. but you really don’t want to quit,( before one round.. seriously?..) but the key is pushing through it all.. and you have to realize that as long as your doing stuff like you’ve been taught.. your really not going to get hurt… So you come up on your one round and you realize “Hey.. I just did what I thought was going to be a challenge.. and theres plenty of time left.. lets keep going!”.. so you sort of get this second wind.. and knock out a bunch more reps… and by the final stop watch runs out.. you are exhausted, and there is an overwhelming sound of panting in the air from all the exhausted athletes.. but everybody is sort of looking around in astonishment that they themselves aren’t dead yet, and then we start looking around for the fatalities..

 

 

OK, they don’t actually kill people at Crossfit, but its sort of a weird awesome thing when you realize you just accomplished what you thought you couldn’t just a few minutes ago. I know a few of my classmates are going to read this, and guys/gals.. you are knocking it out.. great job!

So now a few words about nutrition..

Wodify (Crossfit Salus’ whiteboard system/ performance tracking system) also includes a journal where you can record your food and water intake, your sleep, your weight, and comments about the day. Then, you can request reviews from your nutrition coach. It is a little bit tedious to remember to put everything in, but you can do it right on your phone, and if loosing weight and increasing performance are your goals like they are for Liz and I. This can be a great tool.

So the diet that Liz and I are trying to follow… as I had mentioned before, we had transitioned out of Weight Watchers into this sort of grey area, and now we are trying to follow a Paleo Lifestyle as much as we can. I remember hearing about this “caveman” diet back when I heard about Crossfit, but never really gave it much thought until this year. So, being the Computer Nerd/Engineer that I am.. I went to Barnes and Nobel, signed up for their membership card, and bought just about every Paleo book, and every Paleo cookbook that I could afford. Then proceeded to read them all. Robb Wolf, Loren Cordain, Mark Sisson, Diane Sanfilippo, and a few other authors have a special shelf in our house. But that wasn’t good enough.. I subscribed to all their podcasts too! (and of course all the facebook/twitter feeds)..

So for a few months here, I think I’ve/we’ve been pretty much bombarded with information overload on a concept that is pretty simple.  I think we are just starting to get it now that we have to back up, and return to basics for awhile and see how that works out. And I think we have to realize, different people turn to different diets/lifestyles for different reasons.. it takes awhile to tailor it to your needs.

A week or two ago, I was stuck in a YouTube black-hole and found a clip about nutrition that had Coach Greg Glassman (Founder of Crossfit).. he gets a lot of criticism from all angles.. both good and bad, but I found one of his quotes very interesting.  I’ll pull out a quote which hit me pretty hard:

“..Effective nutritional strategies for avoiding heart disease, death, and misery. If it’s got a food label on it, it’s not food. You know like how many grams of fat, and sodium and all that. If it’s got that on it, it isn’t food.”

So that’s were we are today. Crossfit Salus is still Awesome. We are going to rest for 2 days, then I want to complete the next two on-ramps, and get to a real WOD. I can’t wait to dump some bumpers.

And for fun.. heres a picture of me ripping my abs apart 🙂

 

 

The First WOD…

On Saturday, we attended the first ever introductory class at Crossfit Salus. It was one word.. AWESOME.

Oh.. before I continue.. so you don’t have to google if you are BRAND NEW.. “WOD” is the abbreviation for “Workout Of the Day” (That one took me awhile to figure out a few years ago).

I had some apprehensions about the day finally being here. I had emailed Coach Ang and had asked if they would scale the workout for us newbies. She assured us that the beginners would have no problems.

About 6 years ago, I was introduced to the idea of Crossfit and Crossfit.com by a good coworker/friend, David Perez. We had workbenches across from each other, and one day he was reading a fitness magazine about building this fitness “rig”/garage gym kind of thing for his backyard. He had explained that everyone could do it from a grandma in a wheelchair, all the way up to a fighting Marine, or an Olympian. At the time, I couldn’t really figure out what “scaling” was. I had explored the site a bit, and it was kind of hard to figure out.. and basically, with HQ pushing the “forging elite fitness” thing, I had walked away with.. “Screw that, that stuff can kill a Marine!”  But I guess it stuck into an unused corner of my brain because here I am today.

So I guess a lot of stuff has changed within the last 6 years, and Youtube is on our phones and TV’s now, and Reebok sponsors the Crossfit Games now. It’s becoming pretty main stream.

During the few times I actually showed up to the global gym to work on stuff my own, I had tried and failed horribly to set up circuits, or emulate the stuff from the Crossfit main site. So that didn’t last awhile, but being that I followed them on facebook, I sorta had an idea of what they were doing. Not that I ever did a WOD before..

So before I describe the awesome time we had at Crossfit Salus, let me describe what a visit to the Global gym has become. If we don’t have a training session, and I go to “workout”.. I’m pretty discouraged by the time I get a parking space, and sign in. You see the rows and rows of cardio machines, and something in your brain says “not fun.. abort!”.. then the different groups of people walk by..

1. the meathead guy with his Tims, dirty wifebeater.. American flag bandanna.. and his straps hanging off his wrists.. you know the type of guy.. the one you never actually see lifting anything

2. The teenage girls who show up and walk around with their water bottle but never really do anything

3. The roid guys sitting there doing bicep curls and checking themselves out in the mirror.. they have mirrors at home depot dude..

4. The “cool” guys.. who come as a group and guard the bench so no fat guy like me could ever get near it.. they will do a max weight set of 1 rep and bang the weights so everyone knows.. I’m not a trainer.. but that seems like it’s just stupid/prone to injury/ and abusing the equipment. They don’t have bumpers at the global gym.

5. The fat people like me sweating all over the treadmills.. and I know I’m not pretty.. but they aren’t either.

So after you take in all this information, whatever menial plan you had, just goes out the window.. and you just run on the treadmill for a mile or two so you can tell yourself you did something, then you go home.

I’m sorry if that last part offends anyone, if you look like that, or know someone who looks like that. I’m not trying to be mean. And I’m the fat guy whose out of shape just like #5 people. I’m just trying to be honest here.

So anyways.. back to the good times.

I was totally pumped up about our first visit to Crossfit Salus, I’m not quite sure what it was. Possibly the idea of trying something I had inadvertently been thinking about for 6 years. Possibly, just the idea of something new and different. The prospects of results. I had watched Gary Roberts and his “Killing the Fat Man” series of videos from Crossfit HQ on youtube. (That’s where I got the idea of the wording for my facebook submission.. Thanks Gary!). What ever it was, we got there early. Ask Liz, my mom, my family.. Ed Johns doesn’t go anywhere early.. it’s my style to be unfashionably late.

We met Coaches Gino and Angie, and they showed us around, and introduced themselves. The place was nice! Having never physically been in a different Crossfit box before, I don’t really have a benchmark to compare, but from the youtube videos, this place was definitely not an old mechanic’s garage with the grease still on the floor. Gino and Angie really put a lot of work into this place. But.. it also resembled nothing of the gym I described above… the only things recognizable between the two are the rowers, barbells, kettlebells, and slam balls.. barbells excluded.. that’s the stuff that hardly gets used at the other place!

Coach Gino seemed to be really proud of his wodify system with dual screens, and the “electronic” whiteboard feature. It was really cool. I’m writing this blog sort of “dumbed down” in hopes that I could help other people who don’t have as much research time into Crossfit as I do.. I hope that’s ok.

I know this is pretty much like “yeah..and..” for an experienced Crossfitter, but one of the most awesome things about Crossfit for a newbie is that the Workout of the day is programmed for you. It’s on the whiteboard when you get to class. You do these things and you are done. You don’t walk around the global gym waiting for equipment, you don’t have to guess.. you don’t leave without accomplishing something.

So the workout was pretty tame in comparison to a hero WOD or one of “the girls” but still pretty damn challenging for most of the class it seemed. It included Squats, push-ups, sit-ups, running around the building, and pull-ups. Coach Gino had instructed the class on proper form, and then lead a warmup.. which for the fat guy (me) was sort of challenging in itself.. my previous warm-up at the other place was walking from my truck to the front desk.

So once the timer went off.. the WOD was on! It was 12 minutes of the most intense workout I’ve ever had. I’ve done all of those things individually, and some even in combination.. but never put together like that. I don’t even know how I breathed enough air to not pass out. One thing was for sure though.. I didn’t want to stop.. At the beginning of the class.. I knew I could do a sufficient number of those exercises by themselves.. but THAT many.. all one right after another.. I wasn’t sure if I could do THAT many..

Probably the most awesome thing about the day was the other people in the class. It didn’t matter if you were the fat guy or the strongest guy.. as long as you were kicking your own ass and doing the best you possibly could.. then its cool dude. People were even giving each other high-fives and encouraging each other.. “what??.. where am i? This is supposed to be a gym right?”

The coaching from Coach Gino and Coach Angie was unbelievable. In my hurry, I had been doing the squats with my feet too closely together.. Coach Gino calmly came over and pointed it out. I made a quick adjustment and was able to finish all the squats. I had gotten tired by the time the pull up’s came. I had to use the biggest rubber band they had, and Coach Gino once again came over and helped me finish.

My sister had attended the class also, and on the beginning of our second lap around the building outside we were quickly running out of energy, Coach Gino had somewhat magically appeared (at least in my exercise induced tunnel vision) to offer words of advice and jogged with us. During the last-minute or so of the timer, Coach Gino had once again, somewhat magically appeared to give us motivation to push to the end and finish strong.

For a few minutes afterwards, I was just exhausted while we recorded our PR’s on the whiteboard. I drank as much water as I could then. In comparison to the other place, when we workout with a trainer, we go for a whole hour, and take multiple minutes of breaks, and I consume much more water. It just makes the whole process seem arduous. On the drive home, I had what seemed like a renewed sense of energy which lasted for most of the day. Working out the other way just makes me exhausted, tired, and I go to Sleep. Later that day, I also felt a bit of what I think is “lung burn”.. I guess from all the air that went in and out during the workout. It was not a horrible feeling, kind of good actually.. but definitely a new experience.

After the workout, a lot of the other members were using foam rollers, I gave it a shot, but it just seems weird. I know this is a vital part of the class, and I even have a foam roller at home siting next to me right now. I really need to learn how to use this thing.

So the one thing is for sure.. I can’t wait to go back again and again.

So looking forward, I have two new goals. I want to be able to do some pull-ups unassisted. I even built a new pull up bar in my house using black pipe.

And I want to master the overhead squat. I need an awesome new facebook picture.

Also, I can’t wait to play with the bumpers. I’ve watched so many videos of dudes just dropping them when they are done with the lift. You can’t do that at the other place!

Here is the pic that Coach Angie snapped of Liz and I doing Pushups.