Archive for the Crossfit Category

When Nothing but Crossfit Will Do

Posted in Crossfit with tags , , , , , on 30/01/2012 by DangerousDame

This weekend was a bit stressful.  There was the whole deal with my parents at church are the scene my dad caused when I refused to take the communion bread because it was made with whole wheat and for those of you coming in late, I’m gluten intolerant. I’m not so bad that I’ll have an allergic reaction immediately, or can’t touch it (although I probably shouldn’t just to be safe) or that some minute trace amounts are going to kill me, but even a little bit is like poison to me so I’m not going to ingest it whether it’s representative of Christ’s body or not.   Sorry, I think God will understand and if not, that’s between him and me, not anyone else.  Needless to say, I took some of it to stop him from the scene he was making, shoved it in my pocket while we were praying, pretended to eat it and then threw it away later.  Then there was the freak out I gave myself last night and let’s just say, it’s continued in a very upwards exponential trend this morning as well.  I’m leaving it at that.

Needless to say, days like today are why I look forward to Crossfit.  Thankfully I have a class tonight, otherwise I’d go pound some asphalt until I didn’t give a damn anymore.  Crossfit is my ‘me’ time.  It’s where everything comes out- my frustrations, my neurosis, my stress, my anger, everything that I need to let go of- gets transferred into the energy that drives me through that work out.  Crossfit is my religion, my opiate.  It doesn’t lie to me, it doesn’t give me false hope.  It doesn’t tell me I’m the best or the worst, it tells me strictly what I am and what I’m capable of achieving and nothing more or less.  It simultaneously kicks my ass while silently priding me on a newly set PR.  It’s my personal psychotherapy between me, the pavement, weights and the pullup bars. Or the mats, or the rope.  It never judges me. It never ridicules me or makes me feel less than.  It never abandons or neglects me or shames me, although I do plenty of self-shaming when I don’t put in enough effort.  It’s my best friend when I’m my own worst enemy.

I know that on days like today, when my mind is a mess and nearly fried from the anxiety and concern and just humanness of my situation, when I feel like I have a huge weight on me for many reasons, that I will show up to class, I will put everything I have into that hour and I will push myself beyond my reasonable limits and come out too exhausted to do any worrying or stressing.  It’s amazing how much becomes so clear when you don’t have anxiety and stress clouding your thoughts.

Someone hand me a kettlebell already.  I have some shit I need to work out.

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Better Sooner Than Later

Posted in Crossfit with tags , , , , , , , , on 25/01/2012 by DangerousDame

A few of you know that I recently took a trip down to Southern California.  It was amazing, and perhaps I’ll post about it soon, but that is not this post.

No, this post is going to be focused on my Crossfit experience (or lack there of).

As soon as I knew I was going, I started looking up Crossfit gyms to visit near where I’d be staying.  I contacted a few, but one really seemed to fit. I was excited- this was my first time at another Crossfit! I’d be on my own, in a new environment with brand new workout partners and trainers.  I was almost as excited about this as I was about my real reason for going to Southern CA.

Unfortunately, my hopes were dashed — along with my quadriceps muscles.  Truth is, I should have said I couldn’t complete the workout and stopped. I know myself better than any trainer.  I know my muscles intimately, I know what they’re capable of.  I know their strengths, their weaknesses and every point in between.  I know that because of my weakened rhomboid muscle I’m push-pressing 15lbs instead of 17.5 right now. I know that my running is limited to my body weight alone- nothing added because my foot is still recovering.  I know that I’ve only been able to do unassisted lunges for less than a month now, and that overhead plate lunges are out of the question for the moment until I’ve outgrown straight lunges.  My trainer at my gym can tell you that too, because she’s worked closely with me for the last 4 months. That’s half of my Crossfit training time there, so I’d hope she knows.  She cares too, because my success is reflective of her just as much as it is reflective of my own drive and determination.  Not everyone sees it this way, and in the world of the ever-fast-increasing Crossfits, there seems to be less quality.  Not every Crossfit gym is equal.

The gym I visited was not a good gym.  The trainers seem to be focused solely on benchmark workouts- Fran, Murph, etc.- and less on the PRs of their clients. There was no ‘Hey! how are you doing? How’s your (insert workout here)?’  In fact, there was little talk at all. No laughing, no smiling, no joking.  That immediately set me on edge, but I figured it was a different gym, maybe they were more serious.  It wasn’t a killer for me.

Then came the work out- 100m of lunges, 800m run, 100 air squats for time.  Lunges…fine (although my knees bore the evidence of lunging on asphalt and still hurt. Ouch!). Run…fine. Air squats I wasn’t so sure about. I’d never done 100 of anything in a row.  I’d done sets of 10 and broken them up with other exercises, but never all at once. I might have been doing Crossfit for 8 months, but I knew this would probably be more of a challenge than even I could handle.  I was right, although I gave my best effort.  I paid dearly for it though when for the next 5 days I would cringe when standing, sitting, moving, etc.  I would take a step and feel all four muscles in the quadriceps individually give out, in both legs.  My trainer joked about having the group I’m normally in doing the workout and I begged her not to.  Even she and the other trainer/owner of the gym I go to here agreed I should not have done that work out, that the trainer should have stopped it when he saw me get to a point where it was obvious I was seriously struggling, instead of pushing me like he did.

So, lesson learned.  Next time, if there is one, I will speak up if I know I’m past my point of doing.  Better now than later on down the road.  Just one more thing to look for in a gym as well, so I’m better prepared next time.

And, on an even kind of crappier note, I believe I have asthma again.  I’d had pretty moderate-severe exercise induced asthma as a child that I seemed to have outgrown.  I’ve had a pretty persistent congested-type cough post-workout for about a month or so, but without actual congestion, and several other symptoms that made me relate it to asthma, but never pieced it together.  After killer workout, I had the usual coughing and at one point was proceeded by a huge wheeze.  Of course, the wheeze had to show up and let me know that this annoying little disease is apparently back and probably to stay for me.  Let me just add that to the laundry list of ailments.

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Second Most Important Day of my Life

Posted in Crossfit, Law Enforcement, Life, Rape, Uncategorized with tags , , , , , , , , , on 04/01/2012 by DangerousDame

Warning: Possible triggers (Rape/Sexual Assault)

‘The two most important days in your life are the day you are born and the day you find out why.’ -Mark Twain

I recently rediscovered this quote.  I’ve always believed that things happen for a reason, whether we know that reason or not.  I don’t think that life just happens as a result of random events.  Of course, many things have tried to shake this theory, namely, my rape.  There are so many senseless acts of violence every year, this was just another one.  It almost destroyed me on several occasions.  I couldn’t figure out how or why this would happen to me.  The only reason it didn’t totally obliterate me is because it takes a lot more than that to break me.  I won’t lie though, if anything has ever come within millimeters of honestly, completely and totally destroying me, it was this.  There are so many times I almost didn’t make it.  There were days I struggled to get through and most times I scraped through by the skin of my teeth.  Other things, like my marriage, were not so fortunate.  This one event destroyed huge, enormous parts of my life.  I’ve lost almost everything.  There is so little that I didn’t, and those people are my family, either by blood or choice.  They’re the ones that realized this wasn’t a cake walk.  This was real life, and it was dirty, disgusting and I had to battle it mostly on my own.  They saw me even when I couldn’t see myself, let alone find me.  Outside of my immediate family, I can count these people on one hand if that tells you anything of what I’ve lost.

It’s hard to see what good can come of this, especially when the detective decided that I couldn’t have been raped, despite conflicting facts including documented physical injury.  My case never stood a chance of ever being tried, let alone my rapist ever seeing a day behind bars.  He’s still walking free.  I couldn’t even obtain a restraining order against him, despite video of him coming after me in a public place.  What kind of universe or higher power allows that to happen?  I’m not going to pretend I know, but I’m glad it did.  It took me a long time to get to this point, but if anyone was going to be raped that night, at least I know I could make it through without it destroying me completely.  My experience with law enforcement was shitty at best and I knew from prior experiences in my life that if there’s something that’s not right, the best thing you can do is change it.  I tried to by going up the chain of command, but that got me no where.  I realized that my situation really sucked, for lack of a better phrase, but that this likely wasn’t the only place it was happening.  I thought some more and came to what was the only logical solution for me.

I dropped all of my engineering classes and on a whim, signed up for criminal justice courses.  I wasn’t going to let this happen again if I had any say in it and I decided I did by going into law enforcement myself and not treating some other victim the same way I was mistreated.  I’ve always wanted to do something where I could help others but was too afraid of others opinions that I was selling myself short by going into something like firefighting and law enforcement.  If anything, the rape made me realize that what other people thought didn’t matter.  I wasn’t dropping out of college to do this.  I was getting my degree still (and in fact, I’d love to get my master’s or PhD some day, but right now my brain is just burnt out).  I’d have something to fall back on if this didn’t work, and could go into a field like law or something if needed.  During the one period in my life where I handled everything in the most illogical manner possible (which is so rare for me.  Logic and I are like best friends, most times), this was the one thing I was completely logical about, thankfully.  The minute I changed everything, it all fell in place so perfectly.  My logical, linear thinking was a perfect fit.  My courses kept me interested, even the ones I hated. I excelled at them (with the exception of when my marriage was completely over, as is obvious by my grades dropping across the board. I still graduated with over a 3.0) and felt like I’d made the right decision.  Even getting back into shape has been awesome.  I’m stronger than I’ve ever been and feel better than ever.  I won’t pretend that it’s going to be what I use to protect myself because let’s face it – I’m 5’8″.  Even if I’m strong, some 6’4″ guy could probably still kick my ass.  But it helps, for sure.  Working out with CrossFit has made me confident that I can handle the worst that any police or FBI academy can throw at me and take it in stride, probably with a smile.  It’s improved my mental fitness as well because those days I want to throw the towel in, I’ve got to convince myself that it’s not worth it to give it all up.  I am forever so thankful that I’ve found something like CrossFit – it’s just another piece I was missing that I didn’t know was til I found it.

I don’t remember the exact day, but that day in mid January 2008, two days before classes started,  was the day that I figured out why I was born.  I was born to help others during their darkest nights.  I was born this stubborn, this strong, for this very reason.  I was born to face adversity and exceed it, to not take ‘no’ for an answer.  I was born to be the one running into the fight, one of the first to respond when anyone else would run from it.  I was born to walk that thin blue line, to maintain order in a world full of chaos.  I’m not anything special or unique, there’s nothing that sets me apart or made me more prepared for this.  It’s just who I am, what I was born with, and how my life events brought me here.  I’m not a hero, I never will be.  At least, I’ll never see myself as being so.  I’m just someone with a burning desire to help people when they need it most.  Why not a firefighter? Why not a doctor, or a nurse, or something ‘safe’? Because ‘safe’ has never described me.  Risk and danger find me no matter what, so why pretend that I could get away from that?

Even better, aren’t I afraid of dying? Of the danger? Of course.  Any sensible person would be but I’ve lived through my personal hell.  Dying will happen when it’s meant to, whether it’s a bullet, a plane crash, a heart attack or when I’m old.  Why not live my life doing what I love and makes me happy instead of some soul-sucking job that leaves me feeling resentful?

This is what I was born for, no matter what path brought me to this point.

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Inspiration

Posted in Crossfit with tags , , , , on 20/11/2011 by DangerousDame

Yesterday was definitely a great day for inspiration not just for what a person can do when they really want something, but also in regards to weight loss and fitness.

When I started Crossfit in May, I was very overweight. As in, over 250 lbs. I can tell you right now, there are not a lot of overweight people at the Crossfit gym I go to so that made it even a bit more daunting. But I know myself and I knew I could do it, which is more than a lot of people have.  Not to offend others, but if you don’t do Crossfit go to YouTube and just type ‘crossfit’ in and watch some of the videos and then tell me you’re not the slightest bit intimidated.  I’ve seen people in good shape be completely worn out to the point that they can’t stand after a workout.

To walk into that gym, or see a competition, all you see are the fit, muscular athletes that make it all look so easy.  All you see as a spectator (or even a volunteer, etc) is the end result, which is this well honed machine that has years and years worth of work put into it, day in and day out.  You don’t see the struggle, the changes, the metamorphosis that some of these people go through to get to that point.  Case in point- there was a woman competitor that was very muscular, very built, very strong and fast too.  She was beating the other competitors in her heat by minutes.  I didn’t give her much thought other than ‘Damn, she’s really worked hard for this’ and went on doing my supporting and volunteering.  Later on, one of the other girls from my gym introduced me to a girl that was me 6 months ago- same height, same weight, and just done with being fat and lethargic but not knowing where to start and a little scared to take that leap (Off topic but I’m almost always insanely scared to take that first step when it comes to anything but most people don’t know it because I hide it by cannon balling into the deep end of things and just going for it).  I talked to her, got on my phone and showed her my FB pics where I started out compared to where I am now, and just told her my story.  I was flattered beyond belief that my other gymmate (is that even a word? IDK) was impressed and thought of me when she was talking to this girl because I still see myself as overweight (which I am, just less so) and not always so great at the work outs and just generally, a work in progress.  I finally found my trainer and she was talking to her about everything when my trainer’s husband came up and started talking to me. Going back to the competitor I was talking about earlier, he asked me if I’d seen her compete, which I had.  He then told me that since she had started in Crossfit, she’d lost a total of 104 lbs.  The fact that she had lost that much and was not just competing, but beating other people that probably hadn’t lost that much, if anything, was nothing short of amazing.  The end result doesn’t tell the whole story and it sure as hell doesn’t even begin to show the journey that person has made.  But stories like those and even like mine are the type of things that can change a person’s mind from ‘I can’t because I’m not like them’ to ‘I can, and I will become that’.

And that is one of the most fulfilling and inspiring experiences ever.

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Why I Crossfit

Posted in Crossfit with tags , on 19/11/2011 by DangerousDame

I’ve been trying to write this damn post for months.  Fucking months.  I’ve got about 7 drafts on it, but nothing that really spoke what I was feeling, what Crossfit actually means to me.

Then, this morning, it hit me. I’ve been waiting all damn day to get home so I could write this out and finally, finally explain it.

(I had to wait because I was at Crossfit today, volunteering and judging for our strength challenge. It was exciting and so inspiring.) (I realize that the beginning of this blog post makes me sound partially, if not completely, insane. Don’t worry, I probably am. It’s fine.)

I first heard about Crossfit while I was still in Germany.  Of course, there wasn’t a trainer or coach or anything within any driveable distance.  It sucked because I became entranced by it just from reading about it.  So when I found out I was coming back, I messaged the owner of the gym here, told him I was out of shape, so out of shape it wasn’t funny, but I wanted to do this so bad.  I wasn’t going to take ‘No’ for an answer.  He told me that he didn’t have any of the beginning classes starting soon, but as soon as he scheduled one, he’d let me know.  Lucky, it started the day before I got back and I was able to start on May 18, 2011.

Before I go on, I know a good number of you are probably asking, ‘What is Crossfit?’ Honestly, I find myself unable to define it completely and yet, succinctly.  The best explanation I’ve found so far stems from Wikipedia and is as follows:

CrossFit is a strength and conditioning brand that combines weightlifting, sprinting, gymnastics, powerlifting, kettlebell training, plyometrics, rowing, and medicine ball training. CrossFit contends that a healthy, fit person requires proficiency in each of ten general physical skills: cardiovascular/respiratory endurance, stamina, strength, flexibility, power, speed, agility, balance, coordination, and accuracy. It defines fitness as increased work capacity across all these domains and says its program achieves this by provoking neurologic and hormonal adaptations across all metabolic pathways.

CrossFit athletes run, row, jump rope, climb rope and carry odd objects. They frequently move large loads quickly over short distances, and use powerlifting and Olympic weightlifting techniques. CrossFit athletes also use dumbbells, gymnastics rings, pull-up bars, kettlebells, and many bodyweight exercises. CrossFit is used in nearly 2,000 gyms worldwide and by many fire departments, law enforcement agencies, and military organizations including the Canadian Forces, and the Royal Danish Life Guards.  (Source: Wikipedia)

Next, what follows is, ‘Why do you do Crossfit? How? How do you find the drive and motivation?’  These are more questions I’ve struggled with, just because I didn’t know how to say it.  Why do I do it? Because I needed a damn intervention.  I needed to get my life, my health and my fitness back on track and I’m honest with myself.  I knew that I could buy a gym membership, hire a trainer, whatever.  But I knew I needed competition.  I knew I needed someone that would keep me responsible.  I also knew that I needed something that was going to kick my ass every single time because that seems to be the only thing that works for me.  How do I do it? One day at a time.  Seriously, I do have goals.  I want to make it to the top level class.  I’d love to compete in one of our strength challenges.  I want to be in shape enough to make the police academy seem like a cake walk.  I didn’t start out lifting the weights I do now- I started far from it and with extremely shitty form on quite a bit of it but I’ve had the most amazing people behind and beside me, helping and supporting and teaching me.  How do I find the drive and motivation?  That’s a bit longer.

There are days I just don’t want to go.  But you know what? That one skipped class turns into two, and three and then next thing you know, you haven’t gone in 6 months and you’ve gained 20 lbs.  I know that cycle and I don’t want to go back down that path so, it’s off to the gym I go even if I’m sick (not insanely sick. I’ve missed one session because I couldn’t get away from the bathroom long enough for anything, let alone working out) because I have no excuses.  I don’t allow myself to make them.  There are times I just don’t want to do the work out, or warm up even.  But I sit my ass on that rower, or get my bar ready, or whatever, and I take it one rep at a time, one drive at a time.  I get tunnel vision and next thing I know, the work out is over and I’m on to what’s next.

But my biggest, most effective motivator at all? Every single person that ever insinuated or outright stated that I couldn’t do this.  That my goals were too far fetched.  That I couldn’t be that fit again.  Hell, I plan on being in better shape than I ever have before.  The most effective person behind this motivation is my not-quite-ex husband. And all the ex-boyfriends that wanted a skinnier, 120 lb stick version of me.  Each rep I complete when I feel like I don’t have it in me anymore, every max I break, every time I Rx a work out, every time I do it better than the last, every time my times go down, is a ‘fuck you’ to all of them, each and every one.  And oh, how I want to tell them all to fuck themselves for breaking me down, tearing me apart and making me feel worthless because I wasn’t a number on the scale.  Being healthy and fit is so much more important to me than being ‘skinny’.

And with any hope, I’ll see each and every one of them someday when I’m in crazy amazing shape and they’ll realize just what they lost by being superficial douchebags.  Because that? That would be the icing on the cake and the cherry on top.  That would be the best payback ever but even if it doesn’t happen, I know that I’m better off now than I was then, both emotionally and health-wise.

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Crossfit and Paleo

Posted in Crossfit, Paleo on 19/06/2011 by DangerousDame

The stress from my separation, pending divorce, move, school, money issues, and just about everything else has caused me to gain a total of about 100-110 lbs over the last two years.  I know I need to lose it, and I want to, but I also knew I wasn’t going to be able to do any of that until I got out of the situation.  I’d done everything I knew – running, cardio classes, Slim-fast, Jorge Cruz, etc.  Nothing, nothing worked.

I found out about Crossfit from a few friends.  What is Crossfit?  Crossfit is a work out program that is different from anything else I’ve ever tried or heard of.  It’s a combination of weights, cardio, sprinting/running, and some gymnastics thrown in.  It’s a lot of work in a little amount of time, and it’s insane.  There are WODs or Work Out of the Day that usually combine some sort of upper work out, lower work out and core. It’s usually three different components that are combined, like a 400 m run, 21 kettlebell swings and 24 pull ups (that’s Helen, at our gym.  She’s a bitch) and it’s timed.  You’re doing it with other people, but it’s really a race against yourself to beat your last time.  Google ‘crossfit’ or look it up on YouTube, people are insane.

I started the On-Ramp program at my local Crossfit the day after I got back from Germany.  I did 10 out of the 12 sessions (one I was still in Germany, the other I was sick and unable to get any more than 10 feet from the bathroom) and it kicked my ass so good.  The hurt was incredible.  Every work out I hurt somewhere new, and it’s amazing.  I love it, and even though I’m probably the least fit there, I’m looking forward to making it up the ranks.  It will definitely be a good thing for when I’m in the police academy.

Along with Crossfit comes Paleo.  You don’t have to switch to the paleo lifestyle, but it is highly recommended, which I’ll get to in a bit.  Paleo is also known as the caveman diet, primal lifestyle, etc.  A great book to check out is The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet by Robb Wolf (A fellow NorCal-ian, I must say).  I’m reading it and it’s got something for everyone – technical sciency parts for your inner geek, watered down versions for those times your brain hurts, and a way to skip the explanation if you just want to look good in a swimsuit.

Paleo is cutting out the crap from our diets that makes us sick.  You can eat all the meat, fruits and veggies you want.  You do have to cut out grains, starches like potatoes (sweet potatoes are OK, although my trainer specifies after a work out only), processed foods, sugars, dairy.  I’ve tried it for a month and I feel amazing. I had crazy cravings every so often (like, cupcakes. It makes sense – carbs, sugar, dairy, all in one tasty little delicious package) but I never felt like going to go get it, and once I had a handful of strawberries or grapes, I’d be fine.

I know, what about those wholesome whole grains that we keep hearing are so amazing for us? What about the fat?  What about your arteries? And yeah, I know. But I’m not going to explain it so if you want to know, go read the book. You don’t even have to buy it-head to B&N or where ever, pick a chair, and read it. Or borrow it from someone.  I’d buy it, just because it’s truly awesome and if you’re like me, you’ll read it again.

Either way you cut it, I feel amazing.  I’ll get my lab results on the 5th and get back to you on how close to death I am.  I miss gooey brownies and frozen yogurt, cheese sometimes and potatoes, but not as much as I enjoy feeling great.

But on the other side, I can have all the steak, seafood, fresh fruits and veggies that I like.  I’ll take it.

(if you’re really into it, check out this AMAZING cook book by another NorCal-ian, Sarah Fragoso – Everyday Paleo.  There’s also another cookbook that’s worth checking out: The Paleo Diet Cookbook)(And if you want to talk about this with me, email me at lie2me87@gmail.com or find me on twitter, @lie_2me)

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