Kickball!

I love hosting the Monday pubquiz, I really do, but there is no question I have had a little ache in my heart this summer.

Last summer, I joined a Monday night kickball league at Bossen field (team name: Like a Bossen) and it was a blast. Playing put me around great people, playing a fun game and enjoying beautiful summer weather every week. It's just the bees knees.

So when the my quiz venue shut me down for a week to celebrate their 10 year anniversary, of course I laced up my kickin' shoes and wandered down to the field. Pitching again brought back old memories, and (because this was my first and last game of the season) going 2-2 leaves me with a perfect 1.000 on base percentage.

Sure, we lost the game. Sure, the team hasn't won all season. But on Monday we had a lot of fun, and that makes us winners in my book. Check out some of the shots from the game:

Thats a good looking group!

I honestly do not recall this photo being taken. I must have 

been too deep in thought planning out how to strike out the other team. 

7.22.13- sweat sweaty...

Today was a rough one. From the beginning of the end of the workout, I could not, for the life of me stop sweating. The humidity was killing me!

The first part of the workout was back squat thrusts. I did a set of ten at 155, eight at 185, six at 225, four at 245 and two at 255. Somewhat taxing stuff!

Then, for the second part of the workout, we had to do this beast as fast as possible:

-21 sumo deadlift high pulls at 75 pounds
-21 push presses at 75 pounds
-15 sumo deadlift high pulls at 75 pounds
-15 push presses at 75 pounds
-9 sumo deadlift high pulls at 75 pounds
-9 push presses at 75 pounds

I took it down in 4:22, but boy am I tired now.

Fitness Update (week 32)

Starting Stats (12/10/12)

Height- 5'8.5"

Weight- 336.6 lbs

Waist- 58.5"

Neck- 17.5"

Bodyfat- 46.9%

Current Stats (7/19/13)

Height- 5'8.5"

Weight- 308.2 lbs

Waist- 49.5"

Neck- 16.5"

Body fat- 38.66%

Change:

Weight: -28.4 lbs

Waist: -9"

Neck: -1"

Body fat: -8.24%

So what happened here? After my two weeks of completely reckless cheating, followed by 2 weeks back on the plan I gained 3.8 pounds (not a complete surprise, but more than I was hoping.) Despite this weight gain, I still lost 1.75 inches on my waist, and lowered my body fat percentage  by almost a point and a half. That is crazy. 

Still, I can kind of feel it. When I go into the gym, I feel stronger. When I first got there, I could barely hold on to the pull-up bar, let alone do anything once I got up there. Now, I'm able to do a bit of swaying (called kipping) and I can feel myself getting better. If I keep going this way, I feel like I'll be able to do a pullup in the next 6 months (which I have NEVER been able to do before.) 

7.19.13- throw a twomp down

Today's workout was pretty simple: attempt to do 20 unbroken reps of backsquats with as much weight as possible. Of course, if you don't get to twenty, you hast have to be happy with what you did. Now, as it turns out, my eyes were a little bit bigger than my stomach on this one. I went for it with 225 pounds, and only managed 13.

After that, we had another doozy. Every other minute we had to do either 3 cleans at (in my case) 115 pounds, or (once again, in my case) 12 pushups. If I had done it prescribed, it would have been 205 pounds on cleans and 3 handstand pushups.

Good grief! It's been a grueling week, but I'm glad I did it. I'm not expecting to be down weight at my weigh in tomorrow morning, but at least I won't embarrass myself by having gained 20 pounds.

7.17.13- feeling the heat!

It is hot outside. Like, unbelievably hot. Unfortunately, my gym (like most crossfit gyms I believe) is pretty minimalist, and while they do have a number of large fans, they do not have air conditioning. To be honest, that still gives it a leg up on my apartment (which has no air conditioning and only a single small fan that I point directly at my bed.) Still, almost 100% of the time when I'm at crossfit I am doing something that is athletic and makes me sweaty. At home, most of the time I am sitting on my couch or in bed watching Who Framed Roger Rabbit for the 40th time, and when I am doing something that makes me sweaty, I'm having a lot more fun.*

*I enjoy cooking, ok? Get your mind out of the gutter.

In any case, none of that really mattered today. What mattered today was that my gym was going into it's last day of competition against the Mendota crossfit gym and we had ground to make up! As I discussed last week, there was no way I was going to help out the squad with my actual athletic performance. Instead, I showed up ready to motivate people like I was Burgess Meredith in Rocky.

However, there was a different mix of people in my class today. All of them we incredibly self motivated, and I got the feeling that me talking them up was simply going to annoy them. The last thing I would want is to annoy someone to the point that they actually got a lower score on the workout! That would make me more like Burgess Meredith in Batman.

Although, come to think of it, this character is 

certainly more in line with my personal sense of style. 

So the workout consisted of this:
-7 minute AMRAP of fifteen 95-pound thrusters and fifteen pull-ups
-7 minutes of rest
-1 rep maximum of the clean and jerk.

The score for the workout would be total thruster plus total pull-ups plus total weight on the clean and jerk.

Now, unlike yesterday, I was not gonna try this puppy prescribed. I am still a big beast of a man and cannot, under any circumstances, do a pull up. Instead, I did 65 pound thrusters and ring rows. In the first 7 minutes, I took down 3 full rounds, plus 15 thrusters and 11 ring rows. This process left me exhausted, so it was no surprise that I was only able to get up 155 pounds on the clean and jerk (20 pounds less than my PR.) Still, I'm happy with the work I'm putting in, and hopefully, we'll be able to come away with the win in the competition.

7.16.13- Call me the pharmacist.

So, yesterday's workout (like many workouts) came in two parts. First, we were supposed to work our way up to a one rep maximum on the snatch lift. I wasn't able to improve on my previous maximum of 125 pounds, but I was able to match it. No elation, but no real disappointment in that department.

My real happiness comes from the second part of the workout. It was certainly a strange one:

three rounds of

30 seconds of rowing (for calories)

30 seconds rest

30 seconds 24 Kg Kettlebell swings

30 seconds rest

30 20 lbs wall ball.

30 seconds rest.

The score for the workout would be total calories burned, plus total kettlebell swings, plus total wallballs.

Now, usually on the workouts, I scale down. I would have done lighter kettlebell, a lighter medicine ball on wall ball. Yesterday, however, I was feeling kind of sassy. I decided to try to do it prescribed. What the hell, I thought. I will measure myself against the other, fitter people in the gym. So what if I get the lowest score (by a lot)? I felt like some kind of pharmacist by doing prescribed. I felt like my hero.

Yes, I was born in the 80's

I was killing it on the first round, but I definitely petered out by the end. I could barely get 2 kettlebell swings in my last round. My muscles were dead and my lungs couldn't draw in air quickly enough. After the workout, I just laid on the ground for about 6 minutes.

And then I looked at the leader board. I scored 117 on the workout. This was very respectable and even beat a couple of people. In fact, I had even beat a couple of the people that had scaled down on the workout. Holy mackerel!

7.15.13- The morning grind

Usually, on Mondays -Wednesdays-Fridays, I take a break from work over my lunch hour to head into the gym. It is a nice way to break up the day a little. When I have appointments that fall on the lunch hour, I usually try to head to the gym after work. Unfortunately, because of my second job as a quiz master, this is not an option on Mondays. 

So when I looked at my calendar last Friday and saw I was pretty booked up during lunch today, I decided to do something I have never done for this gym: wake up early and hit a class before work. This is an issue because the latest morning class starts at 7:30, and it takes me about 45 minutes to get out to the gym from my apartment. So, I woke up at 6:15 this morning, neither bright eyed nor bushy tailed, and made the trudge out. 

When I got to the gym, I started my warmup and realized I didn't feel right. Running my warm-up, usually not a big problem for me, left me dragging. I told the owner, Rob, I didn't feel as strong this morning as I usually do. That is when he hipped me to this fun fact: our bodies are not meant for peak physical performance that early. Apparently, our bodies are in peak performance mode somewhere between 8 and 10 hours after we wake up. According to Rob, no world record for either running or weight lifting has ever been broken before noon. 

That fact was born out in my workout. the first part of the workout was 5 sets of 2 heavy deadlifts. Up to this point, my one rep maximum on the deadlift was 365 pounds. Today, my maximum double was 315, and when I tried for 335, I couldn't even get the bar off the ground the first time. 

The second part of the workout was sprints. 5 sprints of 10 meters, 4 sprints of 20 meters, 3 sprints of 30 meters, 2 sprints of 40 meters, 1 sprint of 50 meters (notice a trend?) Of course, of the three people running this, I finished dead last in almost every sprint. What can I say? It is hard to get this much mass of a man moving (wow, alliteration is fun.) 

In any case, I still did it. I did a workout when it would have been very easy to say screw it. For now, that is enough progress for me. 

7.10.13- In which our hero puts the I in team.

So, right now my crossfit gym is doing a competition with another gym in Mendota to see whose exercisers are the best at exercising. To be honest, I don't know all the rules, or how scoring works, but here is what I surmise from the postings I see:

-Both gyms have their members do the same workout on the same day.
-The top 10 overall men's and top 10 overall women's scores count
- the workouts must be done prescribed,so no scaling.
- points are awarded based on placement with low scores being best (like golf or whatever.)

On this particular day, the workout was a 10 minute AMRAP of a 250 meter row, 15 burpees and 10 deadlifts at 255 pounds. Here was the problem: On this day, CFSM happened to have one of the largest noon classes ever. It was like 20 people. Eventually, we split up into two "heats" to do the workout. Even then, with a group of ten, we ran into trouble, because the gym only has 8 rowing machines. The solution? 2 people in each heat were going to have to run.

Now, as previously discussed, I abhor running. It is the devil. Still, I knew that the competition would not count workouts for people who ran, so it was not smart to make out best people give up a rower. Looking at the situation, and knowing that my workout would not help the team out no matter which option I chose, I took one for the team and volunteered to do the running.

I don't like to throw around the world hero, but I was totally a hero to my gym in that situation.* Eventually, I got through 2 whole rounds of the workout, then started the run for round three with about 40 seconds left. As I jogged my way up the hill (incredibly slowly) I realized that I couldn't even see straight and gave up. I ended up with a final tally of 2 full rounds and 50 extra meters running. Now, two days later, I am still incredibly sore.




*Hopefully, everyone knows that is sarcasm. 

awful cheating period

So, I have a confession to make. During the week of the 4th of July, as well as the week before that, I was cheating all the time. Like, I pretended I didn't have a diet at all. The reasons for this cheating were many, ranging from stress, to sadness to celebration. In addition, due to a crazy schedule I only worked out once or twice in that time. Yeah, I regret it. That said, I'm glad I am writing it down, because this is a forum set up to hold myself accountable. I've got to tell you all when I turn back into that monster from Weird Science.

It's still better than looking like a regular Bill Paxton. 

During that 2 weeks, I got up to a top weight of 319.4 pounds. Yikes! Now, being that I've been doing this for a while, I know that when I start my diet again, that weight isn't going to stick around. As of this morning, I am back down to 307, but obviously, I would rather be lower. Something manageable like 180 or so.

So, this period becomes kind of a test. How much of my progress can truly be undone with 2 weeks of full out cheating? I don't know, but I'm hoping the answer is minimal.

7.8.13- Sunburn Sam and Pistol Pete

Today was my first workout back after a 9 day hiatus. During this hiatus, I laid out by the pool, drank beer, ate a copious amount of sumptuous meats and generally celebrated America in the most obnoxiously American way possible. It was awesome.

However, the first of those activities (laying out by the pool, for those of you with short attention spans) left me quite sunburn, as I have no medium setting between ghost white and lobster red. In particular, my left shoulder is burnt to a crisp, meaning that the first part of today's workout, front squat thrusts, hurt like the dickens. Nonetheless, I was still able to do my 5 sets of 2 reps for the front squat, topping out at 185 pounds. 

The second part of our workout was doing a 5 minute AMRAP of 10 pistols and 10 hanging leg lifts. Pistols, in case you are as confused as I was, are one legged squat thrusts. It is tough, and the whole gym struggled. Instead, almost all of us hopped up on a box and stuck one leg off, dipping down as low as we could with the other leg, until we had to give up and touch the ground. It was strange, and I only got through 3 rounds of it. 

That said, whenever we do pistols in the gym, all I can think about is this artist. He went too soon!

6.28.13- Hulking out!

Sorry to have not updated with this workout over the weekend, but I was celebrating Pride and winning in poker (not a bad combination.)

In any case, Fridays workout was pretty stellar. The key component to the workout was a session working up to (hopefully) our 1 rep maximum on the clean and jerk lift. Now, previously, my maximum on that lift was 135 pounds, not terrible but not great either. As it happened, I had some kind of breakthrough on Friday and got all the way up to 170 pounds, a 35 pound personal record!

This means that between April 5 and June 28, a little less than 2 months, I upped my one rep max on this lift by 25.9%. Hulking out!

As a matter of fact, I hulked out so much that (for the first time) I got more in a lift than Dr. Jake, one of the crossfit regulars and a big hunk of a man.

Look at that winning smile. I'd want him in my boy band!