Conditioning…CrossFit Style

My workout today was today’s CrossFit. CrossFit is really great. Their website gives you the daily workouts (or you can have them emailed to you) as well as instructions on how to do certain exercises. The only problems I have with CrossFit are: 1.) the exercises can be way out of my league. I understand this was built for people in the military so their standards are high. So,when this happens, I usually try to think of the muscle groups they’re trying to work…then think of a different exercise I can do. Who can actually do handstand pushups??? 2.) I don’t have the right equipment in the gym. Usually, this is not a problem since most exercises are with your own body weight or free weights. Every now and then though…it does happen. Like rope climbs…or using gymnastic rings. Unfortunately, my tiny apartment gym does not include gymnastic rings (I’m pretty sure no gymnasts train there).

Other than that, CrossFit is pretty cool. It’s always challenging (which I like) and usually relatively short. Today’s workout was no different:

For time:
50 Box jump, 24 inch box
50 Jumping pull-ups
50 Kettlebell swings, 1 pood
Walking Lunge, 50 steps
50 Knees to elbows
50 Push press, 45 pounds
50 Back extensions
50 Wall ball shots, 20 pound ball
50 Burpees
50 Double unders

I changed a few of these…because let’s face it, there is no way I can do 50 jumping pull-ups (or regular!) without the assisted pull-up machine.  Here is the version I did:

• 50 jumps on bench- I did these the other day. Again, I was trying to stay controlled in my jumps and landings so I wouldn’t hurt myself or run into the coke machine.
• 50 pull-ups on assisted pull-up machine- I was still sore today from doing the CrossFit from a couple days ago. But I powered through and completed all 50. I used about 70 pounds as assistance.
• 50 single arm dumbbell swings- So, there aren’t any kettle-bells in my gym…so I used a free weight and did 1 arm at a time. I used a 20lb. weight and did 25 swings on both arms.
• 50 walking lunges- these are pretty standard. I held 15 lb. weights in both hands to make it more challenging.
• 50 double crunches- I’ve never done the “knees to elbows” exercise and didn’t think I could pull it off because a.) it looked really hard and b.) there’s not really a good piece of equipment I could hang from. So, I did 50 double crunches…those were definitely tough enough.
• 50 push press- I used 15 lb. in each hand instead of 45….there’s just no way I could do 45 lb. These are much harder than I thought they would be.
• 50 back extensions- I did these on a swiss ball.My hamstrings were on fire towards the end of the set!
• 50 wall balls- I used a ten pound medicine ball instead of 20. There’s only 1 medicine ball in our gym….it’s pretty tiny. The ten pounder was still challenging though.
• 50 burpees- When I saw these were on today’s list….I was seriously dreading this workout. Doing ten burpees in a row is hard enough, let alone 50! I basically completed as many as I could (around 10) then took a mini break…then kept going. I did complete all 50…but it took some time.
• 50 knee tuck jumps- I didn’t do the double unders today (or ever) because there’s not a jump rope in the gym. Even if there was, I probably would do something else. I’m not a skilled enough jump roper to pull those off. Instead, I jumped in the air bringing both knees to my chest. This is a major heart pounder. I would do about 10 then take a short break and do ten more. Hopefully, I got the gist of the double unders….to get your heart beating.

This was a great workout! I’m already feeling a bit shaky so I know tomorrow I’ll be feelin’ sore. I also just want to point out the record time for this workout: 16 minutes. I finished this in about 55  :). Whatever, at least I finished! Happy Friday everyone!