07/23/2012 – Good Eats

What a day. I’m freakin’ pooped and I couldn’t wake up to get to CFPA. I ended up just lifting at work and doing a 15 Minute KB AMRAP workout.

15 Minute AMRAP

10 Goblet Squats(16kg)

10 Burpees

20 Two Handed Swings(Russian Swings)

10 KB Bent Over Rows(12kg)

Result: 6 Rounds

Getting on the straight on narrow took a little bit of work, but I made it through. Especially since my Nutrition Coach sent me my new eating plan. Looks like I’ll be adding in more carbs one day a week to see how my body reacts. Then it’ll go to 3 days a week(strength days).

After my workout, I had some chicken thighs, sweet potato, bok choy and kale, and blueberries.

For lunch I had leftover salmon and bok choy. I also ate two more pieces of chicken thigh.

My third meal was leftover roasted pork from the party and more kale. I added in a sweet potato because I didn’t have beans during lunch.

I forgot to take a pic of dinner, but it was more chicken thighs with veggies.

04/20/2012 – Turkish Get Ups and 8 Min AMRAP

We finally made it to Friday. I’m so excited for the weekend because I get to spend time with my family and friends. I get to see my GFs this weekend, and I so need it. The weather is going to beautiful in The Bay, so I can tell this weekend is going to be epic.

We continued to work on our Turkish Get Ups this week. My goal is to use the 16kg bell for 3 reps. I’ll try it next week.

Turkish Get-ups: 12kg(1) – 12kg(2) – 12kg(3) – 16kg(1) – 12kg(2)

Our WOD was a quick but good one.

8 Minute AMRAP:

21 KB Chest High Swings

15 Push ups

9 Toes to Bar

Result: 4 + 31 reps

I tried to keep up with the boys, but the push ups are what got to me, like always. I jammed through the first 2 rounds, but the push ups definitely slowed me down in the last two.

Once I got to work, I decided to quickly lift again and just do a few sets of bench presses. Last time I did the bench press, my top set was 75#. I decided to start with 80# today. I warmed up to 75, which was sort of dumb, but oh well. Here was my RPT scheme:

Bench Press: 80#(6)-75#(9)-65#(12)

The 80 was definitely hard to do. I might have been able to do 1 more rep, but I didn’t have a spotter. I could tell my form was off on the last rep because my back was starting to lift off the bench. Everything else felt good. I wonder what my one rep max is….I guess I’ll find out soon enough.

Happy Friday everyone. Have a wonderful weekend. Get some vitamin-d and stay motivated!

04/15/2012 – Good Eats(Leangains Experiment)

Today’s the first day of my LeanGains experiment. I’ll try this out for a couple weeks and see how it goes.  For my training day macros, I’m trying to hit 180 grams of carbs and 124 grams of protein. For my rest day macros, I still have to hit the same amount of protein, and then carbs should be low, and fat would be moderately high.

For training days, the protein I plan on eating is anything lean! Fish, chicken, beef, anything that has close to 0 fat in it. My high carb sources will be from Ezekiel bread, sweet potatoes, and fruit. I don’t want to over consume on fruit, because sugar is sugar, so I might sub that out with chestnuts. I thought about dropping the Ezekiel bread, because I wanted to stay as “Paleo” as possible, but it’s freakin’ hard to consume 180g of carbs in one day. I might try to switch it up with more sweet potatoes or white potatoes.

Sorry to bore you about my macro nutrient issues. LOL. Onto my sunny Sunday!

I woke up early, did 100 Kettlebell Swings, and then weighed in. Didn’t gain any from last week, but didn’t lose any either. I’m just happy I didn’t gain! Success!

I spent the day food shopping, fasting, cooking, going out, and cooking some more. I swear I was standing in the kitchen ALL FREAKIN’ day! It’s hard to cook different meals, especially since there are high and low carb days. It would be easier if I kept the protein the same for all days, but I want variety. Maybe next week, I’ll be a bit smarter in planning my meals.

Sunday was a good day to start the Leangains experiment because I knew I would be busy and occupied while going to the Mountain View Farmer’s Market, visiting my parents, and meal prepping. I ended up fasting all the way until 2:00PM(unintentionally) when we got to The Counter at Santana Row. I had a 2/3 beef burger with mixed organic greens, fried egg, roasted peppers, pickles, and sautéed mushrooms. It was so good.

It took a lot of willpower to NOT eat the fries. Lil’ Munchkin’s grilled cheese looked delicious too, but I resisted. The thought of a having a real cheat day crossed my mind as well, but I remember my nutrition coach telling me that I’d feel better if I earned it.

After we left Santa Row, I went back into the kitchen and cooked some more. It took forever! I made two different breakfasts and two different lunches for the week. I made Nom Nom Paleo’s Big-O burgers, which you can find on their soon to be released app. I also made Paleo-Project’s Chicken Salad, and Melissa J’s Best Chicken recipe, which you can find in her Well Fed. Ya, that chicken was pretty damn tasty. I didn’t take any pictures of the food because I just wanted to finish and clean up the kitchen!

By 6:30PM, I was finally able to sit down and eat while feeding the kiddies. Hubby and I chowed down on Nom Nom Paleo’s Slow Cooker Chicken and Gravy, but I put it in the pressure cooker. Took 25 minutes. Yummy!

Leangains day #1 a success in my book. I think I stayed within calorie intake, and was close to my macros. Hopefully tomorrow is the same. It’s high carb day tomorrow, so we’ll see how lethargic I get from all the carbs that I need to eat. Have a great day people! Stay fit and focused.

04/11/2012 – Wednesday’s Workout

I woke up ready to get to work at CFPA. I was expecting us to do a long WOD, but we worked on Pull ups today. Guess the long WOD will be on Friday…

Pull Ups: BW#(5) – BW+6#(3) – BW+12#(3) – BW+15#(1) – BW+20#(1)

Everything felt really good. Once I got to the 20# dumbbell, it was a challenge, but I was able to get over the bar. Yes, I’m a happy camper. Next time, I’ll be warming up with BW, and then starting the 5 reps with BW+6. In between each pull up set, we all practiced our push ups. Good stuff!

Here’s our WOD:

For Time:

21 Box Jumps(24″/20″)

21 Kettlebell SHDP(32kg/24kg)

21 Kettlebell Swing-Catch-Squat

15 Box Jumps(24″/20″)

15 Kettlebell SHDP(32kg/24kg)

15 Kettlebell Swing-Catch-Squat

9 Box Jumps(24″/20″)

9 Kettlebell SHDP(32kg/24kg)

9 Kettlebell Swing-Catch-Squat

I decided to go with the 20kg bell because I wasn’t sure what the Kettlebell Swing-Catch-Squat was all about. When Tim demonstrated it, the first thing I thought was that I was going to get smacked by the bell as I swung it towards my body. My coordination is not that great, so I was being cautious. Turns out the 20kg bell was good enough. The swing-catch-squat means to swing the kettlebell around and catch it, so that the handle is facing away from your chest. Once you’ve caught the kettlebell, you squat like a goblet squat. I practiced a few and sort of had a handle on it. I’m loving all the new movements that we are seeing at CFPA. Fun and interesting stuff!

Result: 8:43 w/ 20kg bell

Side workout: I went downstairs around 1:30 to do an uphill walk for 25 minutes. I was starving afterwards!!

01/06/2012 – Friday’s Chipper WOD

This week was one of the toughest weeks ever for me, and its the only week 1 in 2012! I battled a cold, two kids being sick, trying to eat right because everyone else is doing it, and hitting the gym. Not to mention, I’m crazy busy at work. Thank god we are going to Maui next week. I need to shut down for a bit and relax.

I got to the gym this morning sort of excited to see what Tim had in store for us, but I’m not sure my body was as excited as my mind. Here’s what we got handed to us after the warm-up.

For Time:

100 Air Squats

80 KB Swings(24kg/16kg)

60 Overhead Lunges(45#/35#)

40 Toes To Bar

20 Headless Horsemen(24kg/16kg)

We last did the headless horseman during the workout called Hallowbata. You basically one hand and swing the kettlebell into the opposite hand. Then push jerk the bell up, using your leg strength. Of course, there needs to be some arm strength there too. I could not do it with 16kg after all those different movements, so I used 12kg. Other than that, everything else was RX’ed. The air squats flew by, and I was hoping to reach 75 without stopping, but I took a quick break at the 60something rep. The kb swings weren’t too bad, but my shoulders were so tight, that it seemed like the 80 reps took forever. The lunges were agonizing. I knew I would take the longest on the toes to bar. My reps broke down to 3, but they were all good reps so I can’t complain.

Result: 20:18

11/18/2011 – Last WOD before Thanksgiving Break

I feel like I’m in school getting a Thanksgiving break from CFPA. The box will be closed next week, so I’m not sure what I’ll be doing to stay active. I’m doing the 5k Silicon Valley Turkey Trot on Thursday. Not going to push myself because I want to stick with some friends and support them. Should be fun just to get out there and see so many people get their fitness on!

Today we worked on Push Press and I paired up with Jackie again!

Push Press: 63(5)-68#(5)-73#(5)-78#(3)-78#(3)

The last time I did Push Press was in June. I decided to stick to similar weight. I have to work on keeping the elbows up as I dip. I don’t want the elbows to go down when I dip because then there’s more work to bring the bar up.

WOD:

3 Rounds For Time

21 Kettlebell SDHP(24Kg/16Kg)

15 KB Swings

9 Handstand Push Ups

I used the 16kg bell and the SDHPs seemed pretty easy for me. The swings went unbroken in all rounds. I used the jet pack for the HSPUs. What sucked was that in the last round, I got of the jet pack 3 times, versus not getting off the jet pack the first 2 rounds. Shoulders were burning, but I should of mentally push through. It was a good WOD though! Great way to end the week!

Result: 6:13

11/04/2011 – Kettlebell work

I woke up at 10:30 last night and had to fed lil AMRAP. Once I finished and put him back to bed, I couldn’t go back to sleep and stayed up till 1 or 130 scouring the internet. No sleep probably means sleeping past through the alarm to get to CrossFit Palo Alto. And that was exactly what had happened. I woke up and it was 4:52. Definitely not gonna make it to CFPA in the rain.

So, around 5:30 I left the house and headed to my work gym. I warmed up with a 500m row(2:15) and did some double unders. Then I just casually did the following:
2 set of Kettlebell Man Makers, 6 reps each
10 KB snatches each arm x2
30 KB Swings x 2

Wow, I thought I could get in more man makers but they were hard. I used the 8kg bell for the entire workout. I wasn’t even trying to do this for time and I got a good sweat. I’m disappointed I missed 2 days at CFPA, especially during long met-con week, when I get to really test myself and see if there’s any improvement. Oh well…onto the next cycle!

10/31/2011 – Hallowbata

Happy Halloween!! I hope everyone had a great time last night running around with their kiddies. I sure did. My lil’ munchkin’ is 2 years and he had a blast running around. Maybe too much fun! LOL. It was a long day though, and I started it off with a workout at CFPA.

It is long metcon week, so I was a little nervous with what was in store for us. Turns out, it wasn’t too bad. It was tabata turned spooky.

Hallowbata

8 rounds of Green Slimy Grasshoppers

8 rounds of Headless Horsemen (a variation on kettlebell palm presses) (24kg / 16kg)

8 rounds of Cauldron Jumps (jump over a plyo box and land on the floor on the other side for each rep)

8 rounds of Deadly double-unders

I started with the grasshoppers. They seemed easy for the first round, and I was able to knock out 12 reps for each leg. Then it hit me that I could not get the same amount for the next round. Kevin and I looked at each and laughed because it was freakin’ difficult!

Next up was the Headless Horsemen. I did not go RX’d with the headless horsemen because my arms weren’t strong enough for the 16kg. I worked with the 8kg for 6 rounds, then moved onto the 18# kettlebell. At least I think it was the 18# bell. It didn’t seem that much heavier, but oh well. This was the easiest station.

The Cauldron Jumps were fun and I thought I did pretty well. The double unders was the one that bit me in the ass again. 20 seconds of pure failure every time. The rope would get tripped up, or I couldn’t get 5 DUs in a row. I also lost my rhythm and was doing single-double-single-signle-double instead of single-double-single-double. SIGH!

Total Reps: 199

10/25/2011 – Wednesday’s Workout

I’ve been up since 3AM!! Lil’ AMRAP got up and I finally was able to settle him down. I went downstairs to try to get some more shut eye before having to leave the house at 4:30. Very close to not waking up and missing class.

It’s our last week of this strength cycle, and today was Deadlift day.

Deadlift: 95#(5)-133#(3)-163#(3)-193#(1)-203#(1)-213#(1)

These lifts still feel pretty heavy, and I haven’t reached my PR number yet. I am about 40# off. A little disappointed, but hopefully I can get back there soon.

Onto our WOD:

3 Rounds For Time

30 KB Transfer Swings(24kg/16kg)

10 Plyo-Plate Push Ups

Broad Jumps to Planter Box, then finish the 240m run

This was a fun WOD, and I was trying to not break whenever I did the transfer swings. BUT on the last round I did break at 15. The broad jumps were the difficult part, and my distance was getting shorter and shorter every time. I liked this workout though. Always good to get creative and try different types of met-con movements.

Result: 9:02 RX’d

10/21/2011 – Ring Dips & The 22′s

Aaah finally Friday, and finally another great day at CFPA. It’s always great to see the same faces at 5AM on Monday when we are dead tired from the weekend. Then comes Friday, and we are all still tired, but happy that we made it through a week of strength and met-cons together. Despite any soreness or aches and pains that we may have been feeling. I love The Five Tribe!

Today we worked on Ring Dips. I felt a little stronger with the Ring Dips because I was able to use one strand of the pink band for assistance instead of the usually two. I tried to do one un-assisted but again, the core was too weak and my elbows keep flaring out. I will try again next week!

Our WOD included two movements I despise most, but want to get better at. Double Under and Rowing.

For Time do the following:

22 KB Swings(32kg/24kg)

500m Row

22 Burpees

100 Double Unders

22 KB Swings

I knew I wasn’t ready to go RX’d with the swings because I’m just not that strong yet. I grabbed the 16kg bell and thought it was a little light. So, I found the 40# bell, and it was perfect for a heavy swing. The first set of swings were easy and I got through them unbroken. I took it easy with the row and focused on using my legs to get a good pull in the end. I wasn’t going to go balls to the walls with the row. Having good form will get me the time I want…I think. I checked the clock when I was finished and it was a little over 3 minutes. Not bad I guess. The burpees took forever, and so did the double unders. I’m getting a slight improvement with the double unders because I’m not doing 3 or 4 singles in between each double under. I’m only going ONE! Slowly but surely I will get those damn double unders. The last set of swings were tough. I stopped at around 15 to take a breather. Shouldn’t of, but I did.

Result: 11:47