Kayaking and Kettlebells

Got up a little later this morning. Did my morning mobility routine. Then after breakfast we went kayaking on Shem Creek. When we started out I quickly realized just how pre-exhausted my hands, forearms and shoulders were from my daily kettlebell routine. But once I got going, got warmed up everything felt okay. We spent about two hours on the water. It was fun. We saw lots of water birds and a dolphin. Unfortunately we didn't see any manatees this time. I drank about 1.2 liters of water while we were out.

After we got back to the beach house I drank a couple of small Gatorades and more water and headed to the beach carrying my kettlebell, a chair, towel and my string bag w/ a book and my electronics.

It was early afternoon and getting hotter but there was still some good cloud cover. After sitting and watching the waves for a while I got started with my Original Strength warm up and kettlebell practice.

Original Strength Reset

• Cross Crawl - 20 per side 
• Crocodile Breathing - 2 minutes
• Head Nods - 20 reps
• Rolling - 4 reps left and right first leading w/ arms then legs
• Rocking - 40 reps
• Crawling - 3 minutes

Simple and Sinister

• One Hand Kettlebell Swings  L, R, L, R, L, R x 10 x 44 lbs
• Turkish Get Ups L, R, L, R, L, R x 1 x 44 lbs

Finisher

• Waiter Walk - Rack Carry - Suitcase Carry 30 secs, 30 secs, 1 minute, rest 30 secs, repeat series w/ other hand

I did my warm up. Felt good. Of course I was covered in sand by the time I was done rolling and crawling. Nobody came up and asked me what I was doing like they did on Tuesday, though of course I drew funny looks. Total warm up time was 12:46.

Today was a 60% Simple and Sinister day. I decided to do all my swings today one handed. It worked well even though my arms, shoulders and lats had been worked thoroughly by the kayaking. In fact the swings felt really good. Screwed my feet into the sand and no hip or knee pain. The getups we solid. No wobbling, no stumbling, no slipping even though I was in the sand. After I completed the getups, I was so hot and sand covered that I stopped my timer and went into the ocean for a few minutes. Total time was 12:41.

After I got out of the water, I dried off and sat and watched people and waves for a few minutes. Then I did my loaded carries. I started with my left hand and walked away from my chair for 30 seconds in the waiter position, dropped down to front rack for 30 seconds, then suitcase carry for 60 seconds. I rested for 30 seconds, picked up the bell with my right hand then walked back to my chair using the same sequence of positions. I sat and rested for about 2 minutes or so, then did another series left hand then right hand. I didn't make it quite as far down the beach the second time, but I was close. Total time for the carrying was about 11 minutes.

Then I jumped back into the water! The water was nice. The tide was way out, the waves were gentle. I just floated and swam and floated and swam. Wonderful way to end my training.

Row Burpees Jumprope How Hard Can It Be

Barely made it to the box in time to change. No time for extra warm up before the start up.

Reps
Courtesy of the 5:30am-ers

Startup
AMRAP 6
5 situps
20m run

WOD
'The Ghost'
6 rds
1:00 row for cals
1:00 burpees
1:00 dubs
1:00 meditate (rest)

Finisher
Stretch & roll

So the start up was As Many Rounds As Possible in 6 minutes of 5 situps and 20M runs. I didn't keep track of my rounds. The last two rounds I know my abs were cramping up something fierce.

The WOD was "The Ghost". It looks easy but it was HARD. You're trying to get as many reps as possible of each exercise in a minute. What made it even worse is my woeful competency with the jump rope. I've just got to work on my jump rope skills outside of the gym. I only got 154 reps total. I should have take a picture of my tally that I wrote on the floor w/ chalk so I would know reps of each exercise. I finished up with my normal Prasara Yoga cool down since no specific stretches were prescribed.

I'm crazy sore from all of the push ups and pull ups yesterday. You've got no idea until you do that many reps of push ups and pull ups how much those moves involve your abs. So my entire upper body and core are just fried. I wanted to do the squats I missed Monday but Coach Derrick says tomorrow will be a tough leg day so I let it slide.

Distinct Tri Two Days Late

The WOD at Distinct Crossfit on Friday was

Run 1600M
Bike 3200M
Row 800M

I missed it because I didn't leave work soon enough and I needed to take my sons to TKD. I kinda' had it in my mind to make it up yesterday but I did the Aces Wild WOD as prescribed instead. So, I went out to the Furman PAC and did the best analog of the workout I could.

At Distinct we run outside on the road. Today I ran on a treadmill. Also, at the box we use Airdyne bikes whereas at Furman I used a recumbent style bike without the arm action. I did have access to a Concept 2 rower so that was the same.

1600M in 15:23
3200M in 8:56
814M in 4:22

Total Time 28:41

I took 12 seconds off my mile time! I wonder how much of that is due to not having to do any hills? I did run the entire 1600M which is a vast improvement. Almost all running I've been doing has been running interspersed with short walks.

WOD Hit My Every Weakness

Didn't get to Distinct Crossfit in time to do my Intu-Flow warm up. Actually I did but I stood around talking instead of doing extra warm up.

So after taking five days off (three to go to Lexington, KY for my brother's wedding, and two because I was so freaking tired from the trip and disorganized) I hit the gym and of course it's a running and core-centric day. ARG!

Start up
1 min per station
Airdyne
Row
Rope slam
Jing jang
Mountain climbers

W.O.D
800m run
80 bicycle crunches
400m farmers carry 60/40 DB/KB
40 reverse burpees
200m run
20 ghdsu

Goat work
10 mins
Rope climb work
Work on wrapping and getting up the rope

Finisher
Stretch and roll

This was hard as shit. My core and running are two of weakest areas for now. It will get better. I had never done reverse burpees before, they ain't no joke. I haven't climbed a rope since junior high school. I ran my 800M in 6:46, which is super SLOW, and finished the WOD in 28:20. Slowest in the box. Damn, I'm too competitive to keep being so slow.

I tell you one thing, it's a whole lot better to get in shape and stay in shape than to let everything go and try to get in shape again. I did do my Prasara Yoga cool down.

Overhead Pressing Means No Leg Work Right

Overhead pressing means no leg work right? WRONG. I went back to Swamp Rabbit Crossfit for my second Crossfit elements class. Yesterday when Coach Brandon said that we would be working on overhead pressing today I naively imagined my legs would be minimally involved in today's workout. No such luck.

We started out doing some shoulder warmup and opening exercises with lengths of PVC pipe which we would soon use to simulate barbells. After a few minutes of warming up we were instructed in proper hand and arm position to do overhead pressing motions. Coach also emphasized the need to keep the core tight and even to squeeze and activate the glutes. We then worked through a progression of movements using only the PVC pipes.

• Strict presses
• Push Presses
• Push Jerk  <= This video demonstrates the first three exercises.
• Hang Clean and Jerk
• Thrusters

So of course my thighs were complaining. But after the unweighted thrusters I was nicely warm and loose. Then we got real barbells. We had choices of 15lb, 15kg or 20kg bars. Today instead of the younger of the two women I worked out with today we had a youngish man and the older of the two women from yesterday, the one who looked like a runner. The guy chose the 20kg bar, I started to take one but reduced my ego and took a 15kg bar.

We then worked on thrusters with the bar. After a few minutes of that we received instruction on how to use the rowing machines and then rowed 250 meters. Our WOD ( Work Out of the Day ) was three rounds of rowing and thrusters structured as follows.

• Row 250M
• 12 Thrusters
• Row 250M
• 9 Thrusters
• Row 250M
• 6 Thrusters

That was it. I was again the last to finish. My time was about 7 minutes and 49 seconds. We finished up with some lower body stretching. Again with the Spaghetti Legs. I'm going to be crazy sore tomorrow!