Fitness Update: Week 24

I am posting this update on a day in which I feel decidedly NOT fit. I am sickly and it is terrible. Still, I need to give the people who care about me the latest stats. Here they are:

Starting Stats (12/10/12)

Height- 5'8.5"

Weight- 336.6 lbs

Waist- 58.5"

Neck- 17.5"

Bodyfat- 46.9%

Current Stats (5/24/13)

Height- 5'8.5"

Weight- 306.6 lbs

Waist- 51"

Neck- 16.75"

Body fat- 40.45%

Change:

Weight: -30 lbs

Waist: -7.5"

Neck: -1"

Body fat: -6.45%

So, a loss of 4 pounds this cycle! way to go, Me! 

That said, I do not expect good things next time around. forces of the universe are keeping me from working out more than one time this week. Eek!

5.24.13- The Helen

So, Rob and Laura (the owners of my Crossfit gym) are on vacation for the next week starting today. So instead of relying on the people I usually trust to make my life a living hell, I got a whole new cast of characters to torture me. It appears that Bobby, one of the regulars at the gym who also works as a personal trainer, has taken up the mantel of the draconian drill sergeant, tasked with shaping this gelatinous glob of man flesh.

What I did NOT know, is that when Rob and Laura go away, the class sizes dwindle. Kind of like how high schoolers might skip biology when a sub comes in. Unfortunately, this meant that I was the only person in my class today! This meant that Bobby only had one person to focus his training rage into. Now, if you are used to group classes, one on one sessions turn into quite a shock. Bobby never let me slack, so while I'm very grateful, and the results are good, well, I'll let Eric Carmen tell you how I felt:

So, After a few reps of push pressing, we got around to the hard stuff. The Helen. As prescribed it is:

 3 Rounds for time of
 -400m Run
 -21 KB Swings  24Kg 
 -12 Pull-ups

Of course, I scaled it a bit. As evil as Bobby is, he wasn't going to force me to do stuff I can't do. Instead, I rowed 500 meters, did the kettle bell swings with 20 Kg and did 12 ring rows. It was tough, especially doing it while under the watchful eye of Sauron. Nonetheless, I conquered it in 16 minutes and 4 seconds. It's true one does not simply walk into Mordor, but one can row, swing and pull themselves in. I'm proud of that. So thanks, Bobby, for forcing me to work my tail off, even if I do hope to never be in class by myself again.

5.23.13- Back that squat up

The first part of yesterday's workout was sets of 5 back squat thrusts. To be honest, I didn't write down the weights I acheived, and now I am having a bit of a brain fart. For some reason, I thought I got a couple of sets with 285 lbs done, but that would be strange since my previous single rep max was 265. Well, shit... chalk that up to poor record keeping.

That said, it is possible I guess. I've been working out hard and I can feel my behind getting stronger. Pretty soon, I'll look like an extra in a Juvenile video.

except, you know... a dude.

After that, we had a workout where we had to do, for time, 7 rounds of 7 push-ups, 5 leg tucks, and another 5 pushups. I took it down in 7:51 seconds. Now for the last workout day of the week!

5.22.13- That's why I'm easy...

On week 2 of my attempt to hit the gym every day, I was thankful that Wednesday's workout wasn't super intense.

First, we had to attempt to get our 1 rep maximum for the snatch lift. As it turned out, working out every day is exhausting and I was not able to establish a new maximum. In fact, I wasn't even able to hit my previous maximum (125 lbs.) Looks like I was taking even easier than most yesterday, and I topped out at 115. However, I did that weight a grip of times, so I don't feel too bad.

After snatching, we did some slow form workout. 4 rounds of 5 super slow overhead squats, then 5 super slow good mornings, both with a 45 lbs weight. It may not have been Christmas, but with how hard I had to work on Monday and Tuesday it sure felt that way.

5.21.13- Double Down

Well, after going a little crazy last week (doing a class 5 days in a row) I am getting even a little crazier this week. You see, I'm still planning on hitting class Monday through Friday this week, and yesterday they convinced me to do TWO classes.

The first was an efficiency class. We were just working on form for a clean and jerk lift. To be honest, I'm not sure how much better my form is now, because I didn't start out that great at it. Looking at my weightlifting form and trying to figure out what is wrong is like trying to help Charles Barkley fix his golf swing.

Such a sweet stroke. 

In any case, after working on form for a full hour, I moved on to the real class. We were to build up to a 1 rep maximum for the dead lift. Now, I didn't have a previous dead lift maximum written anywhere, so I just went as high as I could and hoped that even with my depleted energy reserves I got a new max. My top weight was 315 lbs. 

Then, we moved on the the cardio portion of the workout. While most of the class ran sprints, I and a few other member of the class did rowing sprints. Essentially, we rowed as hard as we could for 10 seconds then took 50 seconds off. Not too shabby, I suppose. 

5.20.13- the Wood

Today's WOD seemed designed strictly for the purposes of ruining my week. The workout at prescribed was as follows:

“Wood”

5 rounds for time of:
400m Run
10 Burpee Box Jumps @ 24
10 Thrusters @95
10 Sumo Deadlift High Pull @ 95

Rest 1min between Rounds

Maximum time cut-off of 30 Minutes. Ain't Nobody Got Time For That.  

Holy smokes! In any case, I altered those numbers a little. First of all, I did my box jumps at 18 inches, rather than 24. I also decreased the weights from 95 lbs to 65 lbs. Also, after two rounds of running and making my existence awful, I switched up to a 500 meter row. Eventually I got through 3 whole rounds and through the rowing a burpees on round four before my time expired. Rob promised that the rest of the week would be super easy. He better keep to his promise this time!

5.17.13- Balls to the Wall

Today marked my fifth day in a row working my tail off at Crossfit, but that doesn't mean I was allowed to slack off for today's workout. It was a tough one. First we did our 1 rep max for the clean lift (I got to 155.) After that, we had to start the wall ball:

Despite the fact that I've been doing crossfit for about 6 months now, I had never had the... pleasure... of doing wall ball. Honestly, I thought it looked like fun. Oh, how wrong I was.

so today's workout was:

For time:

12 Cleans at 115
30 Wall Ball (10 lbs Medicine ball)
9 Cleans @ 155/103
20 Wall Ball
6 Cleans @ 155/103
10 Wall Ball

About 10 throws into that first set of wall ball, my lungs started to seize up. It felt like I couldn't breath AND like I was going to throw up (thank god I didn't have anything in my stomach.) That said, even though it felt like I was going to die, I finished that mother fucking workout. It took me 7 minutes and 24 seconds, but I beat that thing like Ivan Drago beat Apollo Creed. 

5.16.13- In which I am tricked!

So, I'm trying this thing where I go to work out 5 days in a row. Thus far, I am incredibly tired and sore, and that only stands to get worse. That said, I am seeing pretty great results! I'm sure it is partially the increased working out and partially the fact that I haven't really been cheating on my diet at all this week. So, hopefully the next weigh in will be a good one.

Good results aside, lets discuss deception for a moment. Yesterday's workout, as described on the website was as follows:

For time

500m Row
21 KB Swings @ 16
21 TTB (toe to bar, I actually just did tucks)

500m Row
15 KB Swings @ 16
15 TTB

500m Row
9 KB Swings @ 16
9 TTB

Now, that is bad, especially after 3 days in a row, but it could be worse. See, for men of my size, rowing is actually kind of fun. We aren't put at a disadvantage because we aren't being asked to move our body weight. Also, it makes us feel less inferior because when everyone is rowing together, we all remain pretty stationary. You don't have to feel the shame of watching some Adonis woosh past you smiling. So, when I looked at the site and saw we were rowing, I was very happy.

Then I got to the gym...

Rowing had been replaced with 400 meter runs. I HATE running. Hell, I might have skipped the workout yesterday if I knew I would be required to huff and puff my way up and down the hill. The Oxford English Dictionary defines Deceive as  to "cause someone to believe something that is not true, typically in order to gain some personal advantage." There is no question that Rob Gerdes caused me to believe something that was not true, and from that he gained personal satisfaction from my soul dying a little. 

For every 5 souls he crushes, he gets another pound on his maximum deadlift. Needless to say, he's pretty strong. 

In any case, despite my pain, I made it through the workout in a about 18 minutes. I'm feeling haggard, but no one ever said transforming my body would be easy. I'm just lucky to feel that the rewards are worth the sacrifices. 

5.15.13- McGhee

Today we did the McGhee workout. As perscribed, the McGhee consists of:

5 deadlifts at 275
13 push ups
9 twenty-four inch box jumps.

Done as many times as you can. For 30 minutes. Holy Shit.

When done by someone much more competent than me, it looks like this:

Of course, I am not more competent than me, so instead I did:

5 deadlifts at 205
13 push ups
9 twenty inch step ups (where you step onto the box, rather than jump. My shins were scared.)

In twenty minutes (the class was a little shortened today, I didn't give up early.) I got through 7 whole rounds. It was tough, but I felt good after it was done.

Today marked day 3 in a row of Crossfit, a personal record. Heck, depending on how I feel tomorrow (and what the workout is) maybe I'll try to see what 5 in a row feels like!

5.14.13- I thought it looked fun (ha!)

Usually, I only go to crossfit on Mondays, Wednesdays and Friday. However, after looking at the workout scheduled for yesterday, I actually thought it looked fun, so I decided to head over.

The workout started with 2 Box Squats at 155 lbs every minute for 12 minutes. Not the easiest thing ever, but certainly not the hardest.

The second part of the workout was 12 minutes of steady weight lifting, at the same weight (I used 75 lbs.)

10 presses
15 over head squats
20 push presses
25 front squats
30 jerks
35 back squats.

It was rough! While I may have used the lightest weight of any guy in the class, I was still one of only two people to actually finish the workout (in 11:50)

I'm really hoping it doesn't leave me too gassed to perform well on the workout today.

5.13.13- Jump around

Today's workout actually had 3 parts.

First, we played a weird mash-up of freeze-tag and kick the can. I won't even try to explain it here, but needless to say, my cunning and guile carried the day for my team, and we would be victorious.*

*read: we lucked into a good strategy, that I had very little to do with. We took advantage for a long time before the other team knew what was going on and we won the game.

After this game, we moved on to 2 rep front squat thrusts. I am not very good at these, as I have a tendency to lean too far forward, and I can never keep my danged elbows up. I was, however, able to get some decent weights today lifting 155-165-175-185-165.

Afterward came the hard stuff. We were supposed to do 100 double unders on the jump rope, followed by 25 pull ups.We had a time limit of 10 minutes, and were supposed to get through 4 whole rounds of that shit . Of course, this was my reaction:

Instead, I did 300 regular jumps on the jump rope, then 25 ring rows. I was suppose to still do 4 rounds of that, but that was still impossible for me (at this point.) I got through one whole round in the 10 minutes, plus 147 more jumps. Not too shabby right?

Fitness Update- Week 22

Starting Stats (12/10/12):

Height- 5'8.5"

Weight- 336.6 lbs

Waist- 58.5"

Neck- 17.5"

Bodyfat- 46.9%

Current Stats (5/10/13)

Height- 5'8.5"

Weight- 310.6 lbs

Waist- 51"

Neck- 16.75"

Body fat- 40.45%

Change:

Weight: -26 lbs

Waist: -7.5"

Neck: -1"

Body fat: -6.45%

So good cycle, right? I lost 1.8 pounds, another half inch on my waist! Hard to believe I've been doing this for 22 weeks now. Hopefully I keep it up ok.

5.10.13- Burpee bonanza

No question about it, this week has been a rough one for the big guy at Crossfit.

The first part of today's workout was doing a maximum weight snatch lift. Sadly, I was not able to establish a new one rep max for this lift, and I am still stuck at 125 pounds. That said, I feel slightly better because one of the super in shape dudes at the gym got a new personal record at the gym today. It was one pound heavier than his previous max set last May. So I guess I can't expect to improve by leaps and bounds every time up. I do think I'll get better though. The coaches over there are great, and sometimes they post coaching videos to help people along. Check out the video below to see a bunch of the folks at my gym (and please ignore the beginning, it contains such silliness.)

What can I say, I have a thing for 90's songs by cute girls in hipster glasses.

But it's the second part of this workout that got really tough. We were required to do 4 rounds for time of a 20 calorie row and 10 burpees. This means you row for about 350 meters or so, then do ten of these devil spawn:

My apologies, Mom, if you are not pleased to see it is a video of a nubile woman in a sports bra jumping around. It was literally the first video that showed up when I typed burpees into youtube. Blame the internet, not me. 

In any case, it was terrible, and I was the last person in the class to finish. It took me 10:25. But hey, I finished, and that is an accomplishment for me. 

5.9.13- A tale of 2 workouts

So The workout of the day was split up into two parts. The first part was back loaded squat thrusts, which I liked. We were supposed to do 5 reps, ideally hitting around our maximum on the fourth. I hit the weights:

225-245-255-265(!)-235

265 was a new personal record by 10 pounds, which is pretty cool. I enjoy doing back loaded squat thrusts because, as a large man, my leg muscles are really strong, meaning I can outlift many people who are way, way more in shape than me. Hitting a new personal record on on the back squat, I can fairly say, is the best of times when it comes to the gym.

You can all probably see where this is going. The second part of the workout was supposed to be 8 sprints of 200 meters with a rest of 1 minute between each effort. That means we were supposed to sprint a goddamn mile! Wowzilla, do I hate running. Honestly, moving this humungous body that I am trapped inside for that distance is terrible. I had to tap out after 6 rounds. I got it done in a little under 12 minutes, meaning that my sprint pace takes me 3/4 of a mile in about 7 minutes. That isn't even very fast without the breaks! I suppose I have work to do...

5.6.13- Revenge of the sixth

As most of you know, Saturday was Starwars day (May the 4th be with you) and yesterday was Cinco de Mayo. That makes today revenge of the sixth! And what sweet revenge it took:

Every 30sec for 12rds:

2 Deadlifts at 155

then:

AMRAP in 4min of:
50m Shuttle Run*

*Shuttle Runs will go to the 10 & back, 20 & back, 30 & back, 40 & back, 50 & back; then back to the 10. 

Rest 4min

AMRAP in 4min of:
Deadlift at 185

Now, I fucking hate running, but I kind of got through it. Still, I felt like this immediately afterward:

During that time, I got an overall score of 69 points (2 full cycles of the running, plus one extra 10 meter, which is 31 points, and 38 dead lifts.) Not the highest in the class, but not the lowest either. Plus, one of the dudes in the class who is a personal trainer told me I looked good, which is a bonus.

5.3.13- Sumo thrust!

So, here was today's workout,

20 min AMRAP of:

5- thrusters (65 lbs)
7- hang power cleans (65 lbs)
10- sumo deadlift high pulls (65 lbs)

I got through 8 rounds. It was rough!