When I started Crossfit the first time around, I knew it was going to suck for at least the first 6 weeks but then I would start to get used to it and I did.  I think that this time around, I thought the same thing would happen but today I realized that this time is going to be harder and take longer.

I tried to do today's WOD
3 rounds of:
5 hang power snatch/30 sec airdyne
-rest 1 min b/t rounds
then
3 rounds of:
5 squat clean and 30 sec AMRAP burpees ( I did the burpees just down to a box instead of the ground again)
-rest 1 min b/t rounds
Then
Run 1k (I rode 2 miles on the airdyne instead)

I put the weight at 95lbs for the hang power snatch and squat cleans, which used to be a very easy weight for me.  But each time I tried to take off from the hang position, I would get a shock down my spine.  I finally had to strip the weight off all together and just do the bar and try to practice my form. Even with the bar at 45 lbs, it was still shocking me and so my form didn't look very good.  It's frustrating because those weights really shouldn't be that bad.

I am going to the chiropractor and we are starting to get more movement in the spine but I think I need to add something else into my rehab like a sports massage or acupuncture or something else that can help loosen the muscles in my back and legs. There seems to be as many sports medicine/massage places in South Ogden as there are LDS church buildings.  Maybe it's some type of zoning requirement that they have to have so many per capita.  I'll have to see if anyone can recommend any of them.  Maybe what I'll do is wait until the next Groupon or Living Social comes out with one of them and consider that as a sign from heaven.  Nonetheless, I definitely need to add something else to my therapy because it's not fun not being able to stand up straight.

5-13 if you're starting to wonder, I really do wash these clothes every day.  I think about wearing other shirts but none of them are long enough if we end up doing pullups and I don't think people really want to see my belly flapping in the wind.

I didn't have time to post yesterday but it was my first team WOD since I've been trying to make a comeback.  I love the Saturday team workouts because it pushes you a little harder because you don't want to let your teammates down.  I usually also love them because you usually get to rest while your teammate goes.  This one was different in that we were actually in teams of 5.  I also have a harder time with that because in teams of 2, I can usually find 1 person who doesn't care if I ruin their score but it's a little tougher to find 4 that won't mind if I drag them down to last place.  The workout was 4 round of 5 different exercises at a minute at each station.  So by the time we were done, we had done 20 minutes straight.  

It was definitely a killer.  I can still feel a lot of pressure and grinding on my back so I couldn't RX everything but I did what I could.  The 5 stations were:

-Sumo Deadlift High Pull at 75 lbs -I still can't bend all the way to the ground so I modified it so that I was doing it from a hang position at the knees.  I know half of the exercise is gone that way but it is what it is

-Box Jumps-20″ -Due to the tight tendons and muscles in my ankles, quads, knees etc, I've never been able to jump these.  (Try box jumping almost straight legged and without moving your ankles and you'll see the problem). 

Push Press-75lbs- I love push press.  One of the only things I can do correctly

Cal Row-

Static Dead lift hold- 225lbs.- There's no way yet.  I used the women's weight of 155lbs and I still thought I was going to fall over from the grinding in my back.

It was a good workout though and luckily one of the ladies on my team would occasionally get mixed up on which station she was supposed to be at so by the time I got her to which station she was going to be in, I would only have half of that minute left for the station I was at.  I think if I had gone the full 20 minutes straight, I'd still be lying on the floor.  Most of my team lost count so we didn't know our exact score but the team next to us was made up of the people that represented the club at the Xfit regionals and they got something like 1780 reps and they are pretty good so I figured that we probably got 1781 reps.

Although I'm still modifying a lot, I'm getting anxious and really want to just go full out again.  I really hope I can get there again.  I'm not delusional to think that I will ever have a good score but it always made me feel good just to finish the WOD at the prescribed weights.  Time will tell.  I'm still thinking I can get there.

5-12-2012 Still can't see a difference but something better be happening darn it!

I've been having a harder time trying to update this blog for the mere fact that I am still mostly just riding the bike everyday.  Just writing that I rode the bike everyday makes for a very dull story.  I would love to be able to actually do a full WOD without my back starting to spasm.  I have also thought about just substituting any of the back exercises with something else but the majority of the moves that we do in class still use your back in some way.  So I am continuing to see if I lose more weight, will that help take some pressure off of my back. 

The goals that I had set for myself were to have lost 10 lbs by now but I'm currently only down 5.  I will take that as a victory since I have spent half of the past 6 weeks lying around with my leg elevated.  But it's still annoying not having lost more.  I think that's why most resolutions to get in shape don't get very far.  It's hard to keep up with it if you don't see immediate results.  I just have to remember that it took a year to put on all of this weight so it's going to be a while before I start to see the results that I hope to get. 

The other issue that I'm having is seeing people in class that are relatively new who can lift more than I can.  I keep thinking that I should be able to do just as much as them until I realize that I'm probably about twice their age and I need to quit worrying about it.  My health and fitness will never be based on what someone else in class is doing, right?  Or, will it?  I am starting to see a little more range of motion although I still have a lot of tightness in my legs back and I think things are starting to loosen up a little more at the chiropractor. Although I'm sick of saying this, I need to have more patience there also. The swelling in my leg is getting better but I long time to go there also.  I know.....Patience.  Stupid Patience.....

One of the first things that I learned when I was first taking Crossfit was that I should never look at what the WOD was for the next day because there's a good chance that I wouldn't show up to class.  This morning, my back was extra tight but I decided that I still needed to go to class to at least ride the Airdynes if nothing else.  Apparently most of the class did read the workout because only 8 people showed up and we usually have 20-30.  I felt bad for those that did show up because they had to run the hill next to the gym 4 times.  So if I can pass on any wisdom, don't look at the workout the night before.  Just show up.

My foot is still very swollen and my back hurts but I did make it, to cheer on others.

5-9-2012

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Um, I believe I ordered the large bottle of antibiotics.  Hello!  Plus the doctor gave me 8 refills.  I'm thinking this isn't going away any time soon. 

I finally got my PICC line taken out yesterday but my leg is still pretty swollen.  The doctor has given me a months worth of oral antibiotics with 8 refills because she said it could take anywhere from a month to a year for the infection to be completely gone.  For something that came on so quickly, this really is annoying getting rid of it.

The good news is I was able to go to Crossfit with literally no strings attached.  The bad news is I'm weaker than ever but now I can start going at it full on.  Today's WOD was 3 rounds of 465 meters running (I chose rowing) and then 20 burpees and 20 kettle bell swings at 53 lbs.  My back is still bad and so I modified the burpees to where I didn't go down all the way to the ground but I went down to two 20 inch boxes instead and then did a push up off of them.  Pretty weak.  I did do the kettle bells at the correct weight but I probably shouldn't have.  In a way, I think that it was good that I have had the recent problems that I've had because I'm going to have to try to come back slower than I was going to do.  I probably would have ended up hurting myself because my back still isn't great but I have a hard time doing any of the workouts at lighter weights than I'm used to because I'm too proud.  So I'm going to say that the leg infection was a good thing. 

I haven't taken any pictures of myself lately because I haven't known the people that were in my classes and I would have felt like a fool asking someone that I don't know to take a picture of me in the gym.  But, I will start again tomorrow because I do want a better idea of how I'm doing.  I better be losing weight because today at work we had Chic Fil A and all I got was a grilled chicken salad.  So if I'm not losing weight I'm going to be ticked.

I am looking forward to see what I can do now.  Hopefully I'll be able to gain back some of the muscle that I've lost.

I haven't updated this for a few days because my days are quite similar and boring and if I do still have someone that reads this, I didn't think you would want to read "rode the airdyne bikes and then went home and watched a lot of tv" for every day.  So there you go, I skipped a few days on your behalf.

I have made it to the gym every day this past week but there isn't much you can do to mix up my exercises yet.  With the Airdyne, one day I'll try just riding it for as long as I can, the next day, I'll try to mix it up with the rowing machine and one day I did 20 minutes of Tabata sprint for 20 seconds and rest for 10 seconds.  Whatever I did, I still hate that machine.  Hopefully I get my PICC line out tomorrow so that I can start incorporating weights back into my workout.  One thing that I hadn't really thought about was that my back was not hurting as bad for the past couple of weeks so I was looking forward to doing the full WOD every day.  But, as I'm starting to spend more time on standing up, my back is starting to hurt again, so I guess that it was just better because I wasn't putting pressure on it.  The worst part of that means that I wills still be doing a lot of that darn Airdyne bike instead of running during the WODs.

There is one advantage to having all of this happen.  One of my neighbors has season tickets to the Jazz and I guess they felt sorry for me so they offered me tickets to the Playoff game yesterday.  I realize it was pity tickets but I'll take that type of pity all day long.  The Jazz lost and my leg is more swollen and red today but it was nice to actually get out of the house for more than a trip to the doctor.

The last plan that my doctor had for me was to pull out the PICC line tomorrow if my leg looks a lot better.  The doctor told me I could go back to work with it in but my insurance won't pay for it if I go back to work because I'm on "Home Health" and home health isn't covered if you're gone that much.  So I'm crossing my fingers that they can put me on penicillin pills for a couple of reasons.  First, I'm not getting any paid while I'm at home and we're quickly running out of money.  More important, I'm driving Katie crazy and she'd like to get back to not having me at home all of the time.  So let's hope things go well tomorrow.

Jazz Playoffs Lower Bowl seats!

So I've been trying to be as positive as I can through all that's been going on in the past month and I really don't want to this to become a negative blog.  But, today when I was doing my back and leg stretches at home, a Nickleback video came on the tv and I was stuck in a stretch and couldn't get to the remote.  I had to suffer through the entire video.  That very well might have been the worst thing that has happened to me so far and if it happened again, I don't think I would be able to handle it.

As for the daily exercise updates, there's not much to report on other than I am making it to the gym still but only really just doing the bikes.  I'm still hoping that I can be done with the IV's on Monday so that I can resume my "fitness quest" full on.  It has been nice to be able to go somewhere even if it's only for an hour.  My leg continues to go down but it's now peeling and leaving skin everywhere I lay down.  I'm pretty sure Katie will be excited for this to be over also.

5-1-2012

5-2-2012