Rope Burns and Blisters

So this week was my first week of Crossfit General Population (GP). I was out of town until Tuesday so K3 and I went to our first regular classes on Wednesday and Friday. I was able to do some sort of scaling for everything so really proud of myself and got a hell of a workout both times. Like, I was dead both times.

Wednesday was rope climbing, rowing, and zercher carries. Instead of climbing, I did walk ups — where you lay on the ground and pull yourself up by climbing the rope (and in my case getting up on my legs to shift some of that weight asap). Then I also did J hangs, which is the way you position your feet to hold your weight while you’re climbing. We did it from sitting on a box. I was able to swing on the rope! Go me! Spidermaning it! This is where K3 and I both earned our rope burns. So THATS why they all had leg protection on. Then I used the 35lb bag for the zercher carry. Man that killed my arms. I’m gonna zercher carry my pool salt to the pool now.

Friday was muscle up pull ups, double unders (jump rope), and rowing. So I did ring rows where I lean back and pull myself up to the rings instead of pull ups. I did the row to 20 calories rather than the Rx 24. And I can’t jump rope so I did a step to weight. It was kinda hoppy alternating which leg I hopped on the weight with. Three rounds. This was the most ass kicking I’ve had yet. I felt a bit nauseous after it. Blisters on my hands from the ring rows too.

So far I like the crossfit. I like the group workout and that it’s got a cutoff time. There’s no hour long workout — you workout until the clock is done or you finished early. If you didn’t finish, too bad. I also like that there are options for my out-of-shape ass to do and still get a good workout in. Also the coaches vary a lot. I’ve had 3 coaches now. For sure liked the Friday coach the best. He was super good about giving us lots of options. He also showed us the proper form for every option before the work out. And he didn’t ignore those of us who were really toned down on the scale. Even though I was only doing ring rows, he came over to correct my form. The Wednesday coach was far less interested in those of us doing the low scaled options. Like, in the zercher carry, I just couldn’t hold my arms at 90 degrees by the end. She didn’t even try to encourage me to try to get them up. Not on any of my 3 carries.

I still wouldn’t go by myself. There’s just so many attractive women who are perfectly in shape. I feel like a mean girls high-school thing is gonna happen. Logically, I know it won’t. But I still feel like I’m just invading these peoples space. A few of the “regular” girls introduced themselves to me and were super nice. One of them was there for both Wednesday and Friday and she was really intimidating in the looks department, but I liked that she refused to even try a rope climb or a pull up LOL. I’m with you, hot chick. None of the super buffs have said hi yet. I feel like the super body-builder type women are looking down on me. It’s most likely totally not true, but I’m self conscious. Even though I really don’t find their body builder build aesthetically attractive, they scare me. I’m very attuned to the possibility of being made fun of.

So three weeks down. I’m going to try Sunday, Wednesday, Friday this week and Monday, Wednesday, Friday next week. I’ll settle on one of those.

CrossFit Continues

Still doing CrossFit! Mostly because other people are doing it with me and I invested too much money to bail. But hey, I’m doing it. I’ve got my 4th and last one-on-one with the trainer in 45 minutes. It’s been interesting. Some things I’m better than I expected to be but most things I’m just so not capable. Like if we just had to do stretches — WINNING! Bitches I can get lower than all yall, apparently. Other things, not so much. I can’t jump rope. I can’t even do step thrus! It keeps getting caught on my shoe. God, I’m so inept!

It’s so embarrassing. And of course you’re surrounded by the fittest of the fit going about their shit and I just feel in the way. I have, however, come to accept that I just sweat like aint nobodys business. But so does everyone else. Cause these people are hard core. Tuesday, one of those guys should have just been in a wet tshirt contest.

So Wednesday will be my first general-populace-workout. Lord, that’s gonna be a shit show for sure. How far down can we scale these workouts? Like I mean real low. Box jumps, I’m doing step ups. My step up is 12 inches. My workout buddy’s box jump is 24 inches. Holy shit! Girl can jump. I can’t even jump rope! Can we just stick to stretches and warm-ups where I don’t feel foolish? Please? I feel like a dumpster fire.

Speaking of dumpster fires, it’s 96 degrees today. Yeah, lets go work out in that! Not like heat stroke is a thing! Lord help me.

CrossFit

So how on Earth is my lazy ass doing CrossFit?  I’ve never even been in any gym. Ever.

Well, it started at work.  K2 is a CrossFit evangelist.  When she moved here, she started at this gym.  She met her significant other there.  She’s all about that lifestyle.  She even just bought a house from a fellow member.  So K2 convinced K3 to sign on for onboarding (They’re both coworkers). I thought the onboarding sounded really interesting because it’s four one-on-one sessions with a personal trainer/coach teaching you how to do everything and use all the equipment. So even if I didn’t continue CrossFit, knowing the proper form and techniques and stuff would be worth it no matter what.

But then to do the onboarding, apparently you also have to sign up for a month of membership. And holy shit, CrossFit is an INVESTMENT. So K2 goes every day and K3’s doing it with me so they promised I’d never have to work out alone if I committed so OK, I’ll give it August.

Our first onboarding class was Monday.  It took about two hours.  But hold on. It would have been one if it was just one of us.  However we wanted to do it together.  So we had one coach teaching us both so taking turns back and forth with each lesson item.  So we didn’t work out for that full 2 hours.  Half the time we were watching the other.  I loved learning all the different techniques and how to scale them to stuff I can actually DO. ‘Cause you know I aint doing a pull up! We learned burpees (nope), sit ups, kettle balls (American and Russian style), air squats, ring rows (which is sort of a pull-up learner), incline push ups (loved these compared the real push ups) jumping pull ups (I only needed four risers), dead lifts and who knows what else.  Then our actual workout was walk/run, air squats (mine with a 20 inch box), incline pushups, and ring rows.    

I felt great about everything except the running.  Holy shit I am SO BAD at running.  I can walk faster than I run and I’m not even sure how that’s humanly possible, but it is.  I also learned that I might as well just jump in the pool after my workout because I sweat more than I ever would have imagined.  Also, for $300, I think I deserve an air conditioned gym.  But yeah, it might as well have been raining on me I was dripping so much.  And even the next morning, my pile of workout clothes was still a sopping wet mess.  It was embarrassing.  Very much so.  

So I’m not to the point where I’d go alone.  However, thankfully, I don’t have to!  K3 really had to work to get me in the car after work to go.  Right up until I committed that payment I was really second guessing so hard.  Of course now that I’ve paid, I’m not wasting all that money.  I’m apparently in this now until August 11th at least. 

Also, as you know, I’ve got an upcoming appointment with a plastic surgeon to see about finally getting my arms shaped up to normal and my stomach straightened out. So I really think I’ll continue this up to my surgery date (If I get one, of course) because the more muscle I have, the better the outcome will be.

And hell, by the time I’ve been doing it that long, I might be drinking the Kool Aid too.