I Made It!

Happy Monday! Good news--I made it through the Crossfit workout my friend put me through, and then some! He was nice enough to send me plenty of links to youtube videos of the workout we would be doing, the Cindy. I am a COMPLETE Crossfit amateur. As in, never done a Crossfit workout in my life up until Wednesday evening. I went into it a little lot wary and intimidated. I walked out of it pretty darn confident...and beaten down physically!

Cindy

If you're never done Crossfit before, or you've just never done the Cindy WOD, it's this"

• 1 clean and jerk/press
• 5 pull-ups (or ring rows upon fatigue)
• 10 pushups
• 10 air squats
• Repeat for 10 sets, increasing clean and jerks/presses by 1 rep each set.

We only did 7 of the 10 rounds, and by the time that last round came around, I was struggling to get the bar above my head for the press portion of the clean and presses. Luckily, I had a decent "instructor" who emphasized the importance of throwing your full body into the movements--after all, it is a total body workout. It's definitely something different than I'm used to, since I lift to target certain body parts on certain days and am unable to "throw my full body into it" for lack of actually working the targeted body parts.

The Crossfit workout was challenging for sure, and although intimidated by some of the other workouts mentioned, I think I would be open to trying another one again. Apparently there's one workout that's purely 150 wall balls--yikes! Although, thinking about it outside of the gym, not fresh after just having gone through my first WOD, it does seem a bit less intimidating. Just a bit though.

Other Fitness Happenings

What else have I been up to since then? Well, checking in/working out with Pleasants, for one. And this was the morning after my Crossfit workout--not my best idea ever. My body fat percentage has crept up just a bit--nothing too alarming, but I really need to focus on adding more protein to my diet. Most days I'm go, go, go, especially when I have to drive to Richmond for work and stay at my brother's apartment overnight. I feel a little ridiculous packing an entire cooler of food for less than 48 hours, especially when I'm not on prep. My nutrition could definitely be better, especially going into the holidays, but I'm making up for it with my energy expenditure--I'm in off-season, and yet I'm still at the gym for 1 - 1.5 hours 7 days a week. I feel very unproductive and puffy when I skip a day.

That being said, I really am trying to embrace my 3 day split, but I tend to enjoy 4 day splits better--chest/tris one day, shoulders another, back/bis another, and legs the last day. Pleasants wants to see me doing a 3 days split of chest/shoulders/tris, back/traps/bis, and legs. I prefer working shoulders separately and don't necessarily think this is impeding my progress, but if it is, I take full responsibility for it.

New shoes make working out that much better!

On top of my muscle-building splits, I've been trying to get the most out of my cardio, and even took it outside of the gym yesterday. Three friends and I went hiking at the local Humpback Rocks yesterday--one of the friends being Jared, the Crossfit warrior (ha!). Umm, let's just say that to him, hiking up this thing is beasting up it and nothing short of running up the last, steepest stretch. Unfortunately, Megan took all the pics and I took none, so I'll have to wait until I get those from her to show you all the amazing view.

And one more thing--I threw up some 35# dbs doing chest press on Saturday! Could have done 40#s but I needed a spot, just in case. Next time!

Thanksgiving Week

Family get-togethers are definitely interesting with my family. And I'm sure this year will be no different. In contrast to last year, I'm actually more excited to work off the food I eat than I am excited to eat it. That being said, Gold's is open at 8am on Thanksgiving day and then normal hours Black Friday. You best believe I will be in there both days doing what I do best!

In pictures, the things that I'm looking forward to:

Sending Thanksgiving cards.

Seeing a lot of this gent--maybe in a less
provocative pose...?

Baking more of these next week!

In less than two weeks I will be on the road going up north, accompanied by these sweet treats. Hopefully I won't get into any of them, because they're not actually for me!

Fun fact: Before you get on with your lives/Mondays--I can't be the only person that still looks for the Indian with the shooting star...

I think he's more common now?