Another Goal Accomplished!

Ok, so this one was just outside of the window of my mission, but after I started looking more into CrossFit, one of the goals I made for myself was to be able to perform a "muscle up". This is almost a rite of passage in the CrossFit community. Well, last night, after my workout at the local affiliate, I was staring at the rings. Someone else was trying out muscle ups, so I thought I would give it a go.

I got set in the proper position, grabbed the rings, and violently pulled myself up and spread out the rings to my side. The next thing I knew, I was through the transition and pushing myself up to fully lockout the dip portion. I was shocked! I had just done my first muscle up! I stayed in that top position for a little while with a big goofy face.

A couple minutes later, just to make sure it wasn't a fluke, I tried it again and got another one!

If you don't know what a muscle up is, just check out this video:

Mission 2 Goals

Yesterday I did my strength testing, going for 1RM on my squat, press, and deadlift as a bookend to my Mission 2. I still have to test my pushups and I'll have to admit that I didn't really work my bench press as much over the mission. I viewed it as more of a supplemental exercise to help my overhead press, which is viewed as a more functional measure of pressing strength.

So these are a bit late, but my lifts were as follows:

Squat: 265 lbs (+40)
Overhead Press: 140 lbs (+25)
Deadlift: 315 lbs (+40)

So I didn't quite reach my goals for the Squat and Deadlift, but I did add 40 lbs to both of those lifts. I also exceeded my goal for the overhead press.

As for the rest of my goals, I know that I have easily added more than 5lbs of lean mass and I have managed to stay below 12.5% BF. In fact, my fat pinches have changed very little. I'll have exact measurements tomorrow along with my final "reveal" pics if I can find my camera. It's gone missing for the past little while since my gf and I got back from a trip.

As for the pushups, I want to test them on a day when I'm fresh, so I don't know when that will be, but sometime this week hopefully. So technically, I will have gone past the deadline on this challenge, but I haven't maxed out on them in a while, so I don't have all that great an idea of where I am.

Over the next few days I'll try and get back into posting a bit more about what I'm doing and some overall reflections on this mission, and what I plan on doing next.

Happy Easter

Hey folks. Just a quick post to say that I'm still around. I haven't fallen off the wagon, just haven't posted in a while. CrossFit is a whole different animal and has consumed my life. My strength goals and pushup goals have kind of taken a back seat to it. CrossFit will still have me working towards those goals, just at a slower rate since I'm working on my improving my overall fitness. This means working harder at what I'm not good at. From doing CrossFit so far, I found that my areas that I was working to improve before CrossFit are my strongest points, so there's other things that need catching up.

Tomorrow I should have a final body composition analysis as well as my final pics. I guess you could say my lack of photos in the past few weeks is going to be more like a "big reveal". I'm also going to do a CrossFit Total tomorrow and get numbers for my squat, press, and deadlift. I know I won't be able to hit the numbers I set as goals back in January, but I have definitely improved.

Day 170 - Committed to CrossFit

Well, today, I signed off on the cheques that'll have me going to my local CrossFit affiliate 2x/week. The rest of the time will be spent at my University gym. It'll be nice to have that bit of coaching, as well as a facility that is specifically geared to being able to do the crazy workouts.

Here's today's workout (it's a CrossFit.com rest day, but not a rest day for me!)
CFWUx3

5RM Back Squat:
45, 95, 135, 165, 195

mini G.I. Jane (L'il G.I. Janie?):
for time
50 Burpee Pullups
6:16

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 52

Day 169 - Caveman

The workout posted on CrossFit.com today was:
Five rounds for time of:
400 meter Run
50 Squats
30 Back extensions

The treadmill and back extension machine apparatus are in separate areas, so to save running back and forth, I substituted dumbbell swings. I also scaled it back since I'm just starting at this.

So I did:

CFWUx3

4 rounds for time:
25 db swings (30#)
25 squats
15 back extensions

10:04

Probably would have been faster, but a guy stopped me in the middle of my last set of squats to ask me if I was doing CrossFit. He must have noticed my crazy non-stop db swings and huge puddle of sweat developing on the floor. He said he knew some people on his rugby team that did it (he was wearing a University Rugby team shirt). He asked me how it was, what I thought of it, and how I was finding it. I could only come back with winded caveman answers.

".....yeah.....just starting.....good......hard.....crazy"

I had originally planned for 5 rounds, but my form was suffering really bad on the last set of db swings, so I figured it was time to stop. Not too bad for my first WOD with a bit of weight.

Splits were:

db swings: 25, 15/10, 15/10, 10/10/5
squats: 25, 20/5, 15/10, 15/10
back extensions: 15, 9/6, 10/5, 15

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 51

Day 168 - Catch up

Yesterday I ended my current strength program and am switching to following the CrossFit WOD's. I figured the best way to end my strength program was to do the CFT!

Squat:
Warmup - 45x10, 135x6, 185x3, 205x2
-----
3 tries: 225, 255 (+30 PR), 265 (f)

Press:
Warmup - 45x8, 65x6, 95x3
-----
3 tries: 120, 130 (+15 PR), 135 (f)

Deadlift:
Warmup - 135x7, 185x3, 225x2
-----
3 tries: 295, 305 (+30 PR), 315 (f)

Total: 690

Notes: The 135 press was going up slowly, but it was so uneven and wonky that I just dumped it given it was so ugly looking. I think I could have gotten the 315 deadlift up if I took a few less warmup sets. The total amount of time I was taking was really long and I think I just gassed myself. I wanted those "3 wheels" so bad! Definitely topping 700 next time.

Today, well, the day I decide to come off a strength program and start following the WOD's, a strength workout is posted. Since I maxed on the press yesterday, I didn't think it was too wise to do a big workout of presses, push presses, and push jerks.

Thought I'd do a light day and work on my POSE running.

CFWUx3 (The modified CrossFit WarmUp is 10 reps each of Good Mornings, Overhead Squats, Pull-ups, Dips, Pushups, and Knees to Elbows)

7 min warmup run/walk
Tabata Treadmill Run 11.5, 11.5, 11.5, 11.5, 11, 11, 11.5, 11.5 (km/h @ 7 incline)
5 min cooldown run/walk

Had a bit of time to kill so I thought a couple push jerks @ 115 wouldn't hurt. Wasn't really feeling it, dropped down to 95, banged out a set of 5 and called it a day.

Here's this weeks stats:
M2 Week 7: 2008-02-18 to 2008-02-25
Weight: 140.29 (+0.62)
Suprailiac: 10 mm -> 11.6% (no change)
Jackson/Pollock chest/ab/thigh: 7/15/10 -> 9.13% (-0.31)
Avg BF: 10.4% (-0.1%)
Lean Mass: 125.70 (+0.70)
Fat Mass: 14.59 (-0.08)

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 50

Day 164 - First time to CrossFit

Tonight I used up my freebie visit at my local CrossFit affiliate. A common saying among the CrossFit community is "Your workout is our warm-up". Well, I thought I had been doing reasonably well following the CrossFit warm-up on my own, but I had been leaving out the pull-ups and dips since I do weighted ones of those as part of my strength program. They also had us do ring dips which are waaaaay harder, chest to deck push-ups, and "knees to elbows" instead of crunches/sit-ups. That made a world of difference. I was already feeling it by the end of that. I only had enough courage to attempt a very scaled down version of the workout of the day that they did, and it was plenty.

I was planning on doing my CrossFit total (1RM testing of Squat, Press, Deadlift) again tomorrow, but I think after today's workout I'm going to have to push that to Saturday to give me proper rest. Today's workout was like a bonus workout anyway, so I don't feel bad about moving tomorrow's planned workout back. I just know I'm going to be sore tomorrow!

Anyway, I think the workouts are great and I want to jump right in. So I'm changing my plan and I'm going to start doing (scaled versions of) the CrossFit workouts starting next Monday.

Get your game face on!

Cheers,
Raiden

M2 Day 46