Tuesday, March 8, 2011

Keep on keepin' on!

Whoops! I kind of fell off the planet, sorry! So feel free to nominate me for the worst blog updater award before I have to nominate myself!

Anyways, last week was a busy, exhausting week...the falling asleep in class kind of exhausting (yeah, my HVAC teacher talks for two hours about refrigerent, no joke..!) but needless to say lots happened.

 Crossfit! ...is something that will knock your ego right on its ass and slam it into the ground with a hammer. In otherwords, awesome.


This is Crossfit Cheshire, which I highly recommend to anyone in Connecticut.  I attended 3 one hour long one-on-one training sessions with a coach called 'On-Ramp Sessions' in order to learn the fundamental crossfit movements (mostly olympic lifts). The majority of the sessions were spent warming up and learning proper form and then I was given a workout.

Day 1;
Warm up:
500m row,10 air squats, 10 push-ups, 10 crunches, 10 pull-ups.
Workout: (8 minutes)
10 deadlifts, 15 pullups, 15 ring pushups (hard!), 20 medicine ball cleans (also pretty hard!), 15 sumo deadlifts w/high pull.


Day 2;
Warm up:
100 reps of jump rope, 10 medicine ball wall throws (I'm short so I had one hell of a time getting a 20lb ball up that high onto the wall!), 10 medicine ball slams, 20 russian twists w/20lb ball.
Workout: (8 minutes)
5 back squats, 5 ring pulls, 5 back squats, 5 ring dips.
5 front squats, 5 ring pulls, 5 front squats, 5 ring dips.
5 overhead squats, 5 ring pulls, 5 overhead squats, 5 ring dips.

Day 3;
Warm up:
500m row, 15 kettlebell swings, kettlebell turkish get-ups, 30 kettlebell figure 8s (15 foward/15 back)
Workout: (7 minutes, 40 seconds)
I don't remember this one exactly but it involved overhead presses, push presses and push jerks..with medicine ball cleans in between and walking lunges.

All in all it was a BLAST and I was pretty sore afterwards. I learned a ton from the three sessions, I loved learning front and overhead squats and all the presses..I'd never done them before. I also learned a lot of technique, which will help me at work with clients and in my own workouts. Sumo deadlifts are my new favorite form of deadlifting and I finally understand those shirts that say, "Your workout is my warm-up." yeeooww!

In between crossfitting, I tried out a new "activity"...boxing..or bullshit boxing as I call it. (I know nearly nothing about boxing/how to properly hit so it's just me going to town on the bag). At night Steve and I tend to zone out infront of the television and it gets boring and...I don't like sitting on my ass for hours, so we're constantly looking for stuff to do at night since its still freezing outside.


Me being a dingleberry and hammin' it up.
The punching bag had been laying around Steve's basement for ages and I finally forced him to hang it up. While he was hanging the D-ring I decided to be a monkey and climb on up the bucket to try a "D-ring Pull-Up"...

SUCCESS!  One step closer to a full, dead-hang, wide grip pull-up..some day..

So I decided not to join crossfit for the time being..although I do highly recommend it for anyone trying to improve their performance and challenge themselves. It just doesn't fit with my goals right now and I need the money to fix my trucks instead.  So I'm back to my normal lifting routine and the week I took off a couple weeks ago did wonders for me strength wise (broke through a couple plateaus!), although my bodyfat shot up a full percent (ohh setbacks..) last week from only working out 3 days doing crossfit. Bummer, but extra motivation for this week, right? I do plan on officially joining crossfit over the summer though.

Other Good Stuff! The get well present I bought myself when I tore my muscle finally arrived! haha.


Boob shot. Anyone else buy themselves gifts? I do it a little too often ;)


I finally added this stuff to my nut butter stash. Oh my goodness it tastes like reese's peanut butter cup peanut butter! Love it.

That's all the rambling time I have for now, I have to go write up a workout for my next client.  I enjoy working Tuesday and Thursday nights because our studio does a Bodypump class and it just brings lots of good energy :). Coming up I'm going to do some protein powder reviews and write a bit about machines vs. free weights. Steve also requested that I add more 'dirt' talk..so if there's anything automotive related that anyone wants me to write about I'd be more than happy to, just give me a shout :) or maybe he can just do a guest post? hm...

Since today was a leg day, I leave ya with this for some motivation:


<3

6 comments:

  1. UGH!!! Naturally More's texture creeps me out. Especially when you get down near the end of the jar and it's all flaxseeds. GROSS. I hope it works better for you than it does for me!

    PS. that crossfit studio looks ridiculously bad*ss

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  2. Great post Erika! Wow I have never seen medicine ball cleans! Thanks for sharing that video.

    Crossfit looks damn hard!

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  3. First off I absolutely love that tank! Second, naturally more has to be the best pb ever :)

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  4. I can't find Naturally More around here but for real if it tastes like Reeses PB cup PB I really might have to resort to Amazon ;-)

    I LOVE the Strong is the New Skinny shirts! I want a million!

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  5. I love that shirt - great saying! And you look like a total badass in those boxing picks - own it! : )

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  6. Hey! Thanks for stopping by my blog. :) I have lurked around yours before, but I totally forgot about it! I just added you to my google reader. :)

    And, I LOVE LOVE LOVE Naturally More. The only store that carries it around my parts is Wal-Mart, so last time when I ran out, I bought 6 jars because they are very bad at keeping the shelves stocked. I go through one jar in about 2 weeks. I am addicted.

    Also, I love that you lift! It's fun to find more women bloggers who like to lift heavy and be sexy strong! Keep in touch. :)

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