How do you want to die?

How do you want to die?

How about death by burpees? 

Sure, why not!! 

For my sane family and friends who do not do CrossFit, here's a quick video clip of a burpee:

Now, regular death by burpees means that, at the beginning of minute one, you must do one burpee ... and then you rest ... until the beginning of minute two, at which time you have the remainder of the minute to do two burpees ... until the beginning of minute three, at which time you have the remainder of the minute to do three burpees ... and so on, with an increasing number of burpees and a decreasing amount of rest time before the next minute starts.  Due to time constraints, we did multiples of three.  So, the first minute, we did three burpees ... the second minute, six, etc ... until we failed or gave up or died. 

I am happy to say that I finished 6 rounds, completing the round of 18 burpees with more than 10 seconds to spare, but knowing I didn't have it in me to do 21 in the next minute.   63 burpees.  Given that, before I started eating meat a few months ago, knocking out 10 wore me out, I'll take it.  

The take-home message?  Since a picture is worth a thousand words ...

Ups and Downs

Today was a great example of one of those CrossFit days with highs and lows.  It started with many failed attempts to do butterfly kipping.  I just don't feel it yet, and I got too easily frustrated today to make progress -- LOW.   Then, we moved on to L sits and L hangs. (For those who don't know what L sits are -- sit down on the ground with your legs in front of you, put your hands on the ground either side of your body fisted up, and lift your legs.) I discovered that I can maintain an L sit on the ground pretty easily -- HIGH.  Then on to handstands, which I utterly fear due to my panic of having my feet above my head -- LOW.  William helped me to do two handstands against the wall, my first two ever -- HIGH.  But I know I need to work on them more so I can start doing real handstand pushups -- LOW/HIGH mix.  Then, on to the WOD -- 5 pullups, 10 modified burpees (each burpee included a roll on the ground -- carpet burn on the elbows!!!), and 15 kb swings (35lbs), AMRAP [As Many Rounds As Possible] 20 minutes.  I managed 7 full rounds and completed the pullup and burpee portion of the next round.  Ended the workout with a good session of stretching and then called it a day.  Highs and lows, up and downs ... just call me bipolar Beast Girl. :)

Note to self, Beast GIrl ...

Note to self, Beast Girl ... if you're going to follow up a "Death" WOD (see prior post) with a Hero WOD Rx+ the following day ... make sure, before the Hero WOD, you have some of this:

or you'll end up like this:

with maybe a couple more muscles than this stick person. 

That being said, I did Wittman -- 7 rounds of 15 kb swings (36lb), 15 power cleans (65lbs), and 15 box jumps.  For the box jumps, women's Rx was 18".  I jumped 20", thus Rx+ -- my first ever!!!!!! Yay!!!! So, that totally eclipses my sucka$$ time of 36:00, right? I'm going to say so.  And it has also earned me two days' rest, which I may spend looking like Mr. Dead Stick Person.  But, again, with a couple more muscles. :)

Let's go sledding!!

What better way to enjoy one of the coldest days of this winter than by going sledding?!?!  Yay, fun!!!

But, you might say, "Now, wait a second, Beast Girl, even though it's cold outside, you need to snow to go sledding.  Sledding without snow -- are you a little confused?  Perhaps one too many CrossFit WODs have made you delirious?"  Well, yes, you are correct -- in fact, many CrossFit WODs have left me delirious ... but none so much as today's WOD, which included pushing a sled. 

Now, for my non-CrossFit family and friends (or, as some people might say, the sane people), let me explain the sled.  I've included a photo for added explanation:

Weights are stacked or hung on the smaller poles -- for the females,135lbs. From my online research, it appears that the sled itself weighs about 33 lbs.  For the purposes of this WOD, we started out by pushing the sled using the two high poles (on the right in the picture) down the length of the room -- about 50 feet, maybe? -- and then, for the return trip, pushing from the opposite side of the sled (left side of picture) using the two lower, horizontal poles.  We did this 8 times, with approximately 2-3 minutes of rest between each round, with the final score being all 8 times added together (not including the rest periods).  Here's another visual, for added clarification --

Even though my time for these pushes was less than six minutes, I can definitely say this is the most strenuous, painful WOD I have ever done.  Murph, step aside -- while you almost made me cry thanks to your hour-long torture, you didn't make whimpers spontaneously jump out of my mouth in less than 3 minutes.  The heavy sled push is now Beast Girl's official Death WOD. 

And, of course, the irony is that, by the time I got home, I was thinking, "Hmm, I wonder how much I could improve my sprint time if I did sled pushes more often..."

Beast Girl, 28 days later

Today was body composition testing day #2.  Daniel and I lament that we didn't do a body comp test until January and missed getting to measure all the advancements my body made between October and January.  For me, my measurements on January 10th meant little, having no prior measurements for comparison. So, today was the true test. Sure, I had noticed improvements in my strength in the past month.  And I had noticed that my thighs now want to rip through my pants without me getting mad and hulking out!  But was that really muscle mass, or perhaps additional fat as well?  And those two pounds that the scale shows I've gained since my prior body comp test -- what do those two pounds mean?

I'll spare all the numerical details gleaned by the calipers and cut right to the chase.  In 28 days, I lost 1.3lbs of fat and gained 3.3lbs of muscle.  Holy shitake mushrooms!  Perhaps there is something after all to this CrossFit and meat-eating thing! Beast Girl needs meat!!!

"Only I can defeat me"

On this day of rest, I share a great quotation from CrossFit Lisbeth: 

"My time on this earth is limited. My actions don’t have to be. The opportunities are as wide and as open as I want them to be. The only limiting factor is my mind. Only I can defeat me."

Hells yeah.

Nothing too exciting

A entry more for bookkeeping than for entertaining the masses, mainly due to a lazy Hill-day.

Today's WOD:
5RM bench press -- 80lb (limited by pain in my elbows/upper arms rather than by strength)

Then, AMRAP 15 minutes of 5 HSPU, 10 back squat (75), 15 ring rows -- 6 1/3 rounds.

Then good massage. 

Now, tired laziness. :)

"Do you really want to blog today about failing your workout?

That was the question asked by my trainer Daniel after I told him that I didn't think I would be able to finish the WOD.

The WOD I did today was "Holbrook" -- 10 rounds of : 5 thrusters (Rx 75), 10 pull-ups, 100m sprint.
There was no way I was going to be able to do Rx on thursters, so I brought it down to 65lbs and did 100m row rather than running. 

After the fifth round, my arm muscles and tendons were so tight, they were screaming and my grip was giving.  That's when I looked at Daniel and received the above-listed question. And that's when I didn't quit ... because I just couldn't give in to defeat.  Sure, I failed a few times -- rounds 8 and 10, I failed at my first attempts to clean the bar up for the thrusters.  Boom, down went the bar ... and I rested for a few more seconds, thinking, "Tonight, I will not blog about failing to complete this WOD." 

Ladies and gentleman, I will not keep you waiting any longer ... I did complete the WOD.  It took me almost 30 minutes, and I immediately ran for my bag to douse my arms in BioFreeze afterwards ... but I completed it. 

Thus, this blog entry is not about failing my WOD. Instead, I'll use (the rest of) it to give credit to Holbrook, in whose honor the WOD is named.  Really, no matter how much I might blog about my pain in CrossFit,  it's nothing compared to the sacrifices made by young men and women like Holbrook.



US Army Captain Jason Holbrook, 28, of Burnet, TX, assigned to 1st Battalion, 3rd Special Forces Group (Airborne), based out of Fort Bragg, NC, was killed on July 29th, 2010 in Tsagay, Afghanistan when insurgents attacked his vehicle with an improvised explosive device.

He is survived by his wife Heather Holbrook and his parents Joan and James Holbrook.

First posted January 27, 2011

And I call myself an animal lover!

Going along with my theme this year of "Sorry, animals, but you must die so I can thrive and perform well," I learned an exercise today called "skin the cat."  (And despite the saying, I don't really think there's more than one way to do it.)  Here's a quick video to give you an idea of what the exercise is (since it's easier to watch than to explain):  

And here is me, at the prospect of this exercise -- "No, sir, please don't make me!"

But do them I did.  It took me a bit to get the hang of it, mainly because being upside down makes me panicky.  Fortunately my understanding trainer William was very reassuring.  Maybe I can transfer this learning experience to attempting unmodified handstand pushups.

So, for the record, the WOD was:

500m row
50 walking lunges with 25-lb plate overhead
40 back extensions
30 wall balls
20 ring dips
10 skin the cat
20 knees to elbow
30 burpees
40 GHD situps
75 squats (modified from Rx vertical jumps due to rehabbing stress fracture)
For time.  And, being so happy I managed to skin the cat, I completely forgot to write down my time. :)  Different priorities on different days.