Week of January 21-January 25

Monday- MLK Day Group Workout
Meet the Spartans
25 Chins
50 Pushups
75 Push Press
100 Squats
75 Sumo Deadlift Highpulls
50 Pushups
25 Chins
Total Time: 24:53
Epic! My first 300 workout. Felt great! Zone starting to pay off! Dropped a good 5lbs and feel great! Keeping with 4 block meals and 2 block snacks, but find my self moving some blocks into meal times and doing some 1 block snacks. Still playing with it, but getting more efficient with eyeballing. Doing favorable carbs during the day but sneaking in some unfavorables at night. The thought is if I keep it within the acceptable portions, at the end of the day the body breaks down the favs and unfavs the same, so why not keep yourself a little sane with some tasty carbs:-)

Tuesday- Swim
Jack and I did prolly 1200 meters. 200 swim, 200 kick, 200 pull, 200 swim warm up. Some amount of drills, finger tip drags, # of strokes, etc... Still working on building the base.

Wednesday - 30 muscle ups for time
10:52
Decided to go for a max. I hit 10! I was very very very very close to 11. Again, just missed at the top of the lock out. Looking forward to Chriss' muscle workout next wednesday.

Thursday - 5k run with 6lbs in the weight vest. Still a little frigid but good to get the legs moving again.

Friday - Handstand work Great skill day. Never worked the set up and balance. Thanks Andrea for some great tips and cues!

Saturday/Sunday - LAZY. Did a whole lot of nothing workout related and drank too much wine on Saturday night but im back on for next week!

Workouts of the Week

Thursday- Morning swim. Needed a day off from crossfit. The body is sore!
wu: 100 swim, 100 kick, 100 swim
main: 1x200, 100 kick, 2x100 drills (25 swim, 25 right hand, 25 left hand, 25 catch up)
cd: 100

A few laps in the pool felt good. Even suckered Jack into a dip in the pool. Body is still pretty sore, especially the abs. I like the thursday morning pool. It'll be a good workout in the mix of the week.

Wednesday- Sydney
5 L-sit Pull Ups
10 plyo push ups
15 pistols
AMRAP in 30 minutes
total- 11 rounds.

L-sit chins just tear up the abs. My abs haven't been this sore ever. wow.

Tuesday- Muscling Fran
9 thursters
6 muscle ups
5 rounds for time
time- 16:25ish

Ouch. First round, 6 straight mu's. Second round, 3, 2 and then 1. Third round, 2, 2, 1.5, 1, 1. then some amount of 2s and 1.5s and 1s. Felt good on the transition but couldn't lock out a few at the top. Definitely feeling stronger though.

Monday- Overhead Squats and a quick circuit
10x OHS max effort. 95lbs
10 rounds or 10 minutes
10 big box jumps
10 jumping slam balls
10 kettlebell high pulls
total- 7 rounds

A week and a half in the Zone

So the zone has been going well. We are getting the hang of the blocks and putting together some easy meals and snacks. Karen and I would both agree that breakfast, lunch and snacks are pretty easy and the timing of the meals give us good energy. The problem is with dinner. Dinner at our house is usually the time where Karen puts together an incredible meal and we catch up on our day. We generally eat healthy but the size of a 4 block or 3 block meal is pretty small compared to how we used to eat. Also, haven't found great zone dinner recipes. We have found good recipes but nothing GREAT. That said, we have been really good for almost two weeks. We definitely do a night off, which helps with the monotony. We are thinking of looking at some of our favorite dinner recipes and see how we can Zonify them. I find come up with something good, i'll be sure to post it!

Run base building

Buiding the run base with an easy 2 mile run with 6 lbs in the weight vest. I decided not to do a lot of runs with the weight vest but I had to try the new toy! I'll do some short shorter runs with the vest (1-2 miles). Maybe some hill repeats with it but long runs will be sans weight vest.

Meals:
Same breakfast as yesterday: An hb egg, a string cheese, 2 macadamias and a cup of chocolate milk.
1100- some grapes and almonds
1230- turkey and cheese sandwich on a slice of bread with some light mayo, an apple and some nuts
630- 5 oz of tilapia, seared with some salt, lemon and butter, strawberries and a glass of wine
Evening snack: ??? I may treat myself with 2 blocks of chocolate chips and some peanut butter? We'll see...

Sandbags, Muscle Ups and the Zone

Started the Zone this week. Dabbled in it before, but now time to "dial it in"! I consulted a nutritionist a coupla years ago before doing the St. Croix half ironman to help out with cramping problems and a tough course. I knew nutrition would be a big part of this race so I wanted to consult a professional. The nutritionist was nice enough and had some good advice but didn't really give me good insight into why we avoided some foods and focused on others. It was more of a "do A, B and C, and you should be good". I have seen a lot of the x-fitters start and continue with the Zone so I decided to do some research on it and read a good bit about it and I buy what I am reading. Now to put it into practice and see how it helps. My first assessment that it utilizes portion control and balance to create a hormonal response and achieve a positive mental and physical energy. Anyway, at the end of the day I will track and comment. Okay, on to the workout:

Muscle Up WOD:
[80lb Sandbag Shoulder + 2 sandbag squats] x 6
Muscle-ups x 6
*5 rounds for time*

Total time: 22:35

That sandbag is heavy and awkward. Different change of pace. It hurt but I liked it. Muscle ups felt pretty good. First round cranked out 6. The second round did 5 and then 1. The final 3 rounds were 3s, 2s and a coupla singles to finish up. I like the muscle up tip. Elbows in and pull to the sternum. Pull high at the chest leaves little room for error if you don't have enough speed. I'll work on the the pull to transition from the sturnum.



Meals:

900am - 1 hard boiled egg, a string cheese, 12 almonds and 16 oz of chocolate milk. 4 blocks
1100am - medium 1% latte, 6 almonds. 2 blocks
1230 - turkey and cheese sandwhich on 1/2 slice of bread, 12 almonds and an apple. 4 blocks
500 - 2 slices of cheese and 6 almonds. 2 blocks
730 - Zone Cheeseburger and a macadamia nut. 4 blocks

Need to be better about incorporating "favorable" carbs vs. the unfavorable, however if I keep them w/in the alloted blocks, it will be a good way figure out portion sizes of the unfavorables when traveling.

Happy New Year

First work out of 2008!

Warmup:
3 rounds of
50 seconds of Medicine Ball Squat Cleans
50 seconds of Cals

Short Circuit:
AMRAP in 3 minutes
Medicine ball squat clean thruster and Slam!

Workout:
2 rounds
Max Chinups
Round 1: 25
Round 2: 15

2 rounds
Max Pushups
Round 1: 45
Round 2: 15

Strength, Power, Skill:
5 rounds
Sumo Deadlift High Pull x 10 reps
I finished at 95lbs

Thank you Adrienne for the cut and paste. The end of year goal x-fit goal was 10 muscle ups and 40 chins. I finished with 9.88 muscle ups and a well under 40 chins for the year. Today I hit a very meager 25 chins. I lost my grip in the early 20s but wasn't feeling anywhere near 40. One thing to note, is that im not sure where to keep my calluses, pinched under the bar or stay more on the finger tips. Today, I pinched the calluses under the bar and the grip didn't feel good. Maybe it's the few extra pounds i put on over the holidays but i think i'll mess around with it to find something more comfortable. I definitely need to get my groove back on the chins. Some pour chinup numbers the last coupla maxes. Let' reset the chins goal to a PR by feb.

I need to get out my race and workout schedule. Tri training will start and need to figure out my routine so I can start crushing some old results!