Crossfit: Day 28 - It's Like Kicking Ass in Church!
Man, today was a GREAT workout! My favorite part of Crossfit may always continue to be the stretch. It's always tailored to work out the aches from the day before and, today, I needed it bad. My ass and my hamstrings were extremely sore. I could not fall asleep last night to save my life. I finally drifted off around midnight and only got about 4.5 hours of time in bed. I don't say sleep there because my soreness from yesterday combined with crazy dreams about zombies and people I know had me tossing and turning throughout the night.
When I got to Crossfit Tire Factory this morning, I heard several other members complaining that they were sore in all the same areas. It was pretty extreme for all of us and everyone had trouble sleeping through the soreness. Crazy, right? I'll tell you this...for a group of tired people, everyone powered the eff through it this morning for the WOD.
This WOD is funny. I didn't only get modified down today. I got modified down with increased reps so I'd have an equal amount of difficulty. My arms are useless to me today from this WOD.
We spent a good deal of time in the skill portion today working on Overhead Snatches. These started at the knee, raised to the hip and then jerked up and over head. When the bar gets fully jerked over head, you had to catch it in a 3/4 squat position and then lower fully into a squat and back up. The bar went back down to the knee and this was all repeated. Three unbroken reps. This means you don't let the bar to the floor between reps and rest at any point in between. It goes to the knee, back up and to a squat three times. We did this as an EMOM for 12 minutes. Remaining soreness from yesterday and my back allowed me to only use the 45-lb barbell for the skill portion today.
The WOD was:
9 - 7 - 5
Overhead Snatches lowering to a squat (like in the skill portion)
There's one girl in the class that can do muscleups. She was the only one who didn't modify. The rest of the class had to modify to:
18 - 14 - 10: Ring Dips (some used resistance bands to assist)
9 - 7 - 5: Overhead Snatches lowering to a Squat
The rest of the class except for me. I don't stand a chance of doing ring dips so the first half of my WOD was multiplied by 3 from the original. It looked like:
27 - 21 - 15: Ring Rows (strict. No use of hips or momentum. Arms only, on my heels at a low incline pulling up)
9 - 7 - 5: Overhead Snatches lowering to a Squat
We were given 12 minutes to complete this series. This was another one of those where we got to 6 minutes and I guess most everyone was doing well so Brandon yelled "Don't stop untili you get to the end and now you have to finish it in 10 minutes or less!"
I already knew I was going to make that time but the ring rows killed my arms and I had claw hands from gripping the rings for that amount of reps followed by gripping the bar. The last round of 15 ring rows and 5 snatches was close to impossible.
I dropped the fifth snatch to the floor at 7 minutes and 43 seconds. That was a great time for someone like me. Brandon confirmed this at the whiteboard. I went over to stand near Robert with a few others to see him finish his final round just in time under the 10 minute mark. All in all, a great class this morning and everyone saw success. Not a single DNF in the group, just modifications for each person's body type.
I love this way of exercising. I'm close to 30 days. I feel like I know these people and they know me. Paul turned to me just before the WOD to comment on my work during the skill portion. He said "you're looking good on your form today with squats compared to when you first started". It's a great feeling to have someone notice your effort and progress and everyone here does that. It's more than a gym. You're in a time slot with a lot of the same people every day and there's a fellowship here that I haven't experienced anywhere. Not even in a church setting.
Crossfit is like church for those looking to kick ass and every person in my class is doing just that. I can't wait to see how these relationships continue to develop.
Two days left until day 30! More to come!
