Monday, September 28, 2009

Fight Gone Bad IV


Anyone who knows me, knows that I have a bit of a cautious nature and am pretty reluctant to try new things....to say the least.

When the opportunity arose to do this workout for charity, my first response was no! Mainly because I was worried about raising the money that it would take to participate, I was more then willing to contribute, I just did not want to have to "ask" for people to donate for me. After some pushing from a friend (Ellen), I agreed to do it and was quite surprised that I actually raised over $200.00.....thank you to everyone who gave to this great cause!!

My second and equal concern to money was the actual workout, especially after I found out that the 20" box was involved! I have this love/hate relationship with the box jump and especially with the 20" box jump....I LOVE it when I can do it and HATE it when I fail!!!

The days leading up to the workout were consumed with thoughts of the dreaded box jump! Then before I knew it, I was in the gym warming up for "The Workout".....Which consisted of the following:

The Rules for Fight Gone Bad

The CrossFit workout is ‘Fight Gone Bad.’ In this workout you spend one minute at each of five stations, resulting in a a five-minute round after which a one-minute break is allowed before repeating. This event calls for three rounds. The clock does not reset or stop between exercises. On call of ‘rotate,’ the athletes must move to the next station immediately. One point is given for each rep, except on the rower, where each calorie is one point. The stations are:
Wall-ball, 10 ft target (Reps)
Sumo deadlift high-pull (Reps)
Box jump (Reps)
Push-press (Reps)
Row (Calories)

Standard Women = 55lb push-press and sumo deadlift high pull, 14lb wall-ball and 20 inch box Jump

Ellen and I decided to partner up and I would go first while she counted my reps and coached me. We could go in any order we wanted, so we decided that I would go in the following order; Sumo deadlift high-pull, box jump, push-press, row and end with Wall-ball.

The Sumo deadlift high-pull was actually pretty easy with only 55 lbs and I did 28 reps the first minute. Next was the 20" Box Jump....I walked up to it, set myself up AND.....NOTHING, I could not make myself jump for anything, you heard me right....I freakin' FROZE. I could hear Ellen encouraging me...I could hear the spectators encouraging me....I even heard Joe yelling for me AS he was jumping but nothing happened! Then the minute was up and I moved on to the push-press....The next round and the next, was the same results with the box jump...I completely and totally choked but even with that failure, I still came up with some pretty decent numbers overall:

Round 1
SDHP - 28
Box Jump - 0
Push-Press - 12
Row - 6 Calories burned
Wall-Ball - 7

Round 2
SDHP - 18
Box Jump - 0
Push-Press - 13
Row - 8 CB
Wall-Ball - 8

Round 3
SDHP - 20
Box Jump - 0 (I did do 3 step-ups, hoping it would help - it didn't)
Push-Press - 8
Row - 7 CB
Wall-Ball - 7

TOTAL
SDHP =66
Box Jump = 0
Push-Press = 33
Row = 21 CB
Wall-Ball= 22

Grand Total = 142 Reps

Tuesday, September 15, 2009

"Kettlebell Hell"

Tabata Intervals (20 seconds work/10 seconds rest repeated 8 times) applied in turn to:
- Front squat
- Double clean-and-jerk
- Alternating floor press
- Bent-over rows
with a one-minute rotation break between exercises.

(24/16 kg)

Score is total number of reps in the workout


I have made a decison to really crank up my workout's and part of that entails learning how to dig deep and do more then I think can. With Coach and Ellen encouraging me.....I managed to do 21 more reps then I did last time....21!!!! What a great feeling!

~ Front Squat = 16
~ Double clean-and-jerk = 12
~ Alternating floor press = 17
~ Bent-over rows = 46

TOTAL: 91

Friday, September 4, 2009

NASA Colorado Powerlifting Meet


What in the world would possess a 46 year old woman, who has never been athletic her entire life and in addition has never participated in any kind of sport, enter a Powerlifting Meet?

It takes a couple of key ingredients:

An amazing Coach who gets the best out of regular, everyday, working people and motivates them so much they think they can do anything!

A great group of fellow students who offer nothing but encouragement!

And that is how I found myself at the NASA Colorado Powerlifting one day in August 2009. The whole day had a somewhat surreal feeling to it...from the moment I walked up to the table to actually register, the weigh-in, the pre-meet athlete meeting during which I had this distinct "How Did I Get Here" feeling...yet feeling so much pride, to be in a room with all these amazing people.

The first event was Back Squat and I was scheduled to go on FIRST!! I walked to the front of the room, chalked up, walked to bar and followed Coach's direction and started to squat...."down, down, down, down...good" and then I came back up.... the first lift was done in all of 30 seconds.

And that is how it went throughout the day....I missed only one lift on Bench, other then that everything was successful! I even got my first trophy (well plate) for being first in my weight class in the novice division.

What's next? Another meet in November and this time I hope to go heavier and be a little more daring in my lifts!