CrossFit – All roads lead to gains!

Hi all,

Yay it’s Friday! Bring on 2 days of chilled out fun!

(source)

Depending on when you read this, I will probably be some point within my road trip – listening to some cool tunes/ pod casts with my hubby! Hopefully not in traffic or with bad weather and fingers crossed the London smog has lifted when we arrive! (Anyone see that in the news?).

Anyway, time for a re-cap of yesterdays CrossFit. If you missed my post on Wednesday, check it out here for more info on what we are doing at our box at the moment – athletic testing.

So the session went really well actually, some good bits and some weaknesses noted. It didn’t help that it was absolutely chucking it down with rain the entire time though – and when you see below what we were tested on (a lot of running) you will see why that wasn’t fun at all!

However, there were 2 major gains for me though…

1)      I actually did a box jump! I have this strange thing in my head about jumping up, I never think I am going to be able to do it and I freeze. Previously I have either done step ups (a combo of this and because of my knee) or I have done jumps at 16 inches, but that took so much courage and practice beforehand to get in that zone. But today, 20 inches was there in front of me, I knew I needed to do it to reach yellow and there was no physical reason whatsoever which meant I couldn’t do it, just my head. So I walked up to the box and did it!
I was so shocked on my first one that I wobbled off the box and it didn’t count, but then I did another one and boom! Take that crazy head!

2)      My other gain was in overhead squats. I needed to do 5 reps of 15kg to get into yellow. I had only ever done a max of 10kg and that was difficult. But I went for it, stayed locked out, gave it my all, kept my breathing in check and nailed it!

Below is a list of what we were tested on – once again, what is required for yellow is in brackets afterwards.

800m block run – 5.22 minutes (4.15 minutes)

Box Jump Height – 20 inches (achieved!)

Back Squat – Yellow 40kg x 5 – attempted but no rep. My 1RM is 35kg!

Overhead Squat – 15kg x 5 (achieved!)

Deadlift – 50kg x 5 (achieved!)

‘Helen’

3 rounds for time

400m run

21 kettle bell swings

9 pull ups

Yellow for Helen – 12kg kettle bell and jumping pull ups are the scale. To be completed within 11 minutes.

I was 100m into my last round when I hut 11 minutes. We continued but the time finished wasn’t recorded. I also used a 10kg kettle bell as I’m not quite at the 12kg stage yet! But pleased with my performance in this met con, especially with having to run in the rain too! I managed it faster than I have done Helen before and without stopping – always good!

As you can imagine from doing all of this we were shattered! Although I didn’t meet the mark for running, I know I am still quite new to that and with more practice I will only get faster. That same principal applies to the rest – more practice will equal gains!