The Final CrossFit Friday

Week Four

It's official, we tested out of the intro classes : ) but before we got there, we had a really tough week.

Monday was one of the toughest days of CrossFit to date. The warm up wasn't tough, but man did it burn my legs! We did the Samson stretch from one end of the gym to the other (which is pretty much a really wide walking lunge), then duck squats going across and back, then another hoping squat thing (I am blanking on the name right now) across and back. Needless to say, lots of squats/hops = legs like jello. And that was just the warm up! 

We did a ton of strength on Monday too. Bench press, goblet squats (squats holding a kettle bell for added weight), and reviewed all of the lift moves we have learned. Then, after all of that, we did Fran. 

I have heard the term "Fran's a b*tch" on multiple occasions, but I had no idea what it was. Here's the breakdown: 21-15-9 of thrusters and then pull ups. So basically this means three rounds, first round 21 thrusters and 21 pull ups, then second round 15 of each, last round 9 of each. I have never hurt so bad in my life (until Wednesday that is, more on that in a minute). 

Thrusters are basically squatting with a bar, then when you stand up you push the bar overhead. These aren't so bad in theory. I didn't have weight on the bar but I was still feeling the burn. The last round of these were really tough. Then, the pull ups were no fun since they aren't something that I have mastered yet. I can't even do one unassisted, so I used a double green band. This was super easy at first, but getting to the last few in the set I still struggled. When will they get easier?

I finished in 9:24 while H (who did unassisted pull ups) finished just after. I was proud of myself for finishing but I know it would have been way worse had there been weight on the bar and if I had to do strict pull ups. 

Wednesday was the big day - the last intro class to determine if we were ready to join everyone else and get into the real deal. The test wasn't as hard as I thought it would be. We started with a quick warm up of mobility stretches, nothing too taxing. Then we went right into the lifts. H and I had to show we knew each of them by name. There were only a handful to remember so it wasn't bad. And he cut us a break with the snatch since it is one of the tougher lifts. 

Then came the workout. It's a wonderful workout by the name of "Fight Gone Bad". As you can imagine, it was a serious fight that went south fast. This is why Wednesday was tougher than Monday. This WOD consists of 3 rounds (though we did two) of as many reps as possible in one minute, changing exercises each minute. So we started with wall balls, as many as we could do in a minute, then went to sumo dead lifts, same deal, then box jumps (I did the 20" box this time around), then push press, then we hopped on the row machine. I can't even describe how hard this was, and it was only two rounds!

It really doesn't sound that bad on paper, but after doing as many reps as possible in a minute and having to move to something else, I was seriously dragging! It's not like you are doing 5 reps of each thing, it's more like 20 or 25, then immediately swtching to something else. It was nuts. Fight gone bad is the perfect title for this WOD. My final score was about 160 and H's was somewhere near 180/190. 

After two rounds we were spent. Rolling on the floor, taking a solid five minutes just to catch our breath. Are we seriously ready for classes? I don't know but apparently we are starting April 1st. 

This is the last post in my CrossFit Friday series. I really just wanted to write about our experience as beginners and only working out twice a week has allowed me to really get into the nitty gritty of it all. We are hoping to work out 4-5 times a week now so it would be impossible to write everything down. But, I am hoping to post once in a while to share our progress as the weeks go by. 

If any readers are thinking about joining CrossFit, I hope you found this series helpful and inspiring. You CAN do CrossFit, even if you haven't worked out in over a year (like me) or haven't work out ever! There are so many ways to scale back to help you achieve your goals. It's all what you make of it. Just give it a try and remember my motto - Everyone Starts Somewhere : )

Happy Friday!

JP