Hip Flexor Hell

I spent most of Monday and Tuesday in Hip Flexor Hell thanks to the 50 floor wipers on Saturday but after 1 WOD, lots of rolling and a great yoga practice with lots of emphasis on opening those suckers I have finally been released :-)

Monday's WOD was lots of fun!  We started with our usual warm up and then moved on to:

1000 meter row
30 pull ups
30 wall balls
1000 meter row

When I first read the WOD on the Crossfit Central Women Blog I thought the rowing and squatting in the wall balls was going to KILL my hip flexors but I was wrong, actually it was the pull ups that killed me.  When I sat down on my rower I noticed that there was no monitor, Coach Lauren informed me that my monitor was broken so I would have to row with Myriam at her pace to track my distance.  Since Myriam is the bionic woman, I knew this would make or break me so I strapped in my feet and hunkered down prepared for the row of my life.  Much to my amazement, I was able to match Myriam pretty much stroke for stroke with ease and it felt great!  Small success celebration moment here, YAY ME!!!!  I always struggle unstrapping my feet from the rower and lose precious seconds and today was no different.  Note to self:  add to goals list to practice unstrapping feet from rower :-) 

From there I went on to the wall balls station since someone had snagged my green band that I had set up for pull ups.  I had a choice of an 8# ball, too light, and a 14# ball, too heavy, the just right 12# ball had been snatched up by someone else.  Determined not to sell myself short, I grabbed the elite weight 14# ball squated down, sprung up and threw the ball 10' to hit the bottom of the target, my arms felt as heavy as lead but I dropped into a squat and sprung up 4 more times before my nice classmate with the 12# ball asked if I'd like to trade since she was on 25 out of her 30 wall balls.  I knocked out the next 25 and moved on to pull ups but the same person was still on my green band so I frantically searched for space and another green band.  Crystal finally located another green band, lassoed it over the bar, Lauren helped me step into the "stirrup" and I fell apart.  The band was old so it was more like the less elastic blue band, my arms felt like 2 steel pipes that I could not move to save my life, the rhythm of my kipping was totally off and I could not get my chin over that bar to save my life so I jumped down and ran to another station with a box and did jump, reverse decline pull ups with Crystal coaching me to use my kipping motion.  These were too easy so I feel like I cheated myself and should have just stuck it out on the band.  I have never struggled through pull ups like that and can only conclude that my arms were just kaput from the amount of work they did on Saturday.

I ran back over to the rowing station, this time snagging one with a monitor but Annie got stuck with without one so we rowed together and I yelled out our distance every 100 meters so she would know how far we had to go.  I called time and Crystal yelled back 17:18.  I knew then if I'd stayed on the old green band in push ups I would have never made that time and probably would not have finished in the 20 minute time limit.  Since then I have been debating in my head what I should have done about the pull up situation.  I gave up on the band for 2 reasons.  The first being that I was trying to listen to my body, not to push myself so hard that I ignored the warning signs of overworked arms which could possibly end up swollen and useless like they had after 85 pull ups in Angie a month ago.  Secondly, the competitive side of me really wanted to  finish this WOD as quickly as I could since I had done so well in all the other stations.  Did I cheat myself or do the right thing?  So I'm torn and finding it difficult to celebrate the success of my awesome rows and wall balls in this WOD  :-(

We finished up with handstands held for 30 seconds then going straight into a squat for 30 seconds x 2 and I held both STRONG!!!  My handstand felt so easy and the squats were a breeze! I continue to be amazed at how much CF is actually helping to improve my yoga practice!

Last night I had a great yoga practice with the lovely Lilyana at Black Swan.  Melia Scott was there giving  incredible adjustments!  Luckily Lilyana did a lot of poses that opened the hip flexors, thanks Lilyana :-), so my soreness has disappeared :-)  I will say Navasana, which is usually fairly easy for me was a challenge not for lack of core energy or strength but my hip flexors were just toast!  Over all my practice rocked and I hope Melia visits Lilyana's class again to give adjustments! 

I'm super psyched about today's WOD.  Our skill practice is the Turkish Get Up:



Never done these bad boys but they look as fun as tire flippin' so I am looking forward to tryin' them out!

The WOD is:
For 3 Rounds (sure there will be a time limit but don't know what it is yet)
10 Sumo Deadlift High Pulls - Elite Weight 65lbs
10 Back Squats- Elite Weight 65lbs
10 Push Ups

I LOVE back SDLHP's and back squats!  I can definitely back squat the elite weight of 65#.  My last attempt at SDLHP was in Fight Gone Bad last Monday and I did 55# so I am going to see if I can RX this one since we will probably have to use the same weight for both.  Tonight my intention is to lift as heavy as I can and not to focus on my time.

Fuel Log for 5/10 - 5/11/10:

Monday

Breakfast 7:45 a.m.
paleo pancakes

Lunch 12:00 p.m.
2 c spaghetti squash
2 c meat sauce

Snack 4:00 p.m.
1 oz prosciutto
1/2 c canteloupe

Dinner 8:45 p.m.
3 oz oven baked salmon w/1 tsp olive oil, garlic salt and pepper
asparagus oven roasted with garlic salt and pepper
1/3 med sweet potato oven baked topped with 2 tsp of coconut butter and sprinkled with cinnamon
1 oz of  Naked coconut water

Tuesday

Breakfast 8:00 a.m.
1/2 c egg whites
1/4 c chopped green peppers
1/4 c chopped onions
1/4 c baby bella shrooms
1 small mandarine orange

Lunch 12:00 p.m.
2 c spaghetti squash
2 c meat sauce

Snack 4:00 p.m.
1 Chocolate Hazelnut Larabar

Snack 6:15 p.m.
12 pistachios

Dinner 9:00 p.m.
11 oz of Naked coconut water
3 oz oven baked salmon w/1 tsp olive oil, garlic salt and pepper
asparagus oven roasted in olive oil, garlic salt and pepper
1/3 med sweet potato baked and sprinkled with cinnamon
3 1/8" thick slices of Fra Mani salumi - my new addiction, thanks to Mr. X :-)


From the Fra Mani website:

fra'-má-ni Italian abbreviation for fratelli mani, meaning “brothers hands.”

sa-lú-mi (plural noun) Italian for salted, cured cuts of meat or sausages made primarily from pork.
Founder Paul Bertolli, renowned chef, launched Fra' Mani Handcrafted Salumi in March 2006.

Philosophy
Our mission is crafting salumi in the finest Italian pastoral traditions, using the highest-quality pork.
Our pork comes from family farmers committed to the well-being of their animals and their land. The hogs are never given antibiotics, artificial growth hormones, growth-promoting agents or meat by-products. They eat only the finest grains and natural feed. This old-fashioned way to raise hogs produces pork of outstanding quality, which is the essential ingredient in all Fra' Mani salumi.