Early Morning

You have to find a time to invest in your fitness. For me that is before the work day starts. I'm usually in the gym at 5:30 to start the workout of the day. This is a great time for me because it allows me to get some work in the bank before the day begins. With my job, I'm never 100% sure what the time after the end of the school day will bring (in addition to all of the extracurricular activities we have). It also ensures me of not being bound by the weather by only biking after school. So this morning, along with four of my guys who like to do work, we hit the Crossfit Countdown Throwdown WOD #2 (with some strength work before:

Warm-up:
3 rounds of

• 50 single unders
• 10 squat holds
• 10 push-ups
• 10 sit-ups
• 10 arm haulers

Then strength work with front squats

(5,5 - warm-ups) 3,3,3,1,1,1 - increasing the weights to hit 225 pounds of the last rep

then 12 minutes of work

0 - 3 minutes - run 400 meters (right at 1:30 for me)

3 - 10 minutes - 7 minute AMRAP

5 x #115 front squat

7 x toes to bar

9 x #115 shoulder to overhead

5 rounds by 16 reps (5 front squats, 7 toes to bar, 4 shoulder to overhead)

10 - 11 minutes - rest

11 - 12 minutes - Burpees (I was able to get in 22 burpees)

I really liked the scheme of this workout, constantly varied! Two areas of improvement for me would be shoulder and wrist mobility (definitely an area in which I need to invest more time) and strength. This was taxing to the cardiovascular system, but I need the strength to push through unbroken on the presses.  Also, it was definitely a strength issue because I was able to recover fairly quickly, and complete 22 burpees in the nest minute. Hopefully this will build some capacity for me for the competition in just over a week.

Like we always do about this time (yeah, lyric reference...), I start talking about the ROD (ride of the day). Short and simple Fulton Ride tonight, just spinning the legs out again. I could really feel the front squats on this ride (didn't I say something about lowering the volume earlier). We had pretty awesome weather for a January that wasn't even approaching Manurary as the temps rose to the high 40s, I'll take it!