Pieces of the Puzzle

Mornings are my favourite time of day. I'm actually a morning person, if you can believe it. Who *is* these days? I have been for a long time and it's also been my habit to get my workout in first thing in the morning. That leaves me with a wonderful low-key feeling for the rest of the day. Besides, after a Crossfit workout, nothing in my day will be as hard as that. It's not the easiest thing to roll out of your comfortable house and head off to lift twelve thousand pounds. But you know what's cool? In my office I look to my right. I look to my left. I know for a FACT that I am stronger and faster than most of the people I worked with. While most people are exercising their distinctions in what channel to watch, WE are breathing fire. We're the cool kids.

Of course my favourites are on the menu this morning. The overhead squat challenges me because it asks for considerable shoulder flexibility. When I'm down low in the squat position sometimes I feel myself teetering forward a bit. It's barely noticeable  but to my inner balance I feel like the leaning tower of Pisa. No problem - just keep practicing. Now the front squat used to be something I did NOT like. "Tricky tricky" I thought.  I remember Mia stepping in front of me when I was learning this lift. "Do me a favour", she said. "Take a step back from the rack so the barbell lands on the mat when you lose control of it." That was good advice, as it turns out. I've had a few wrecks doing the front squat. Something funny happened along the way. I started to appreciate it's merits. It was cool because it was different than the back squat. Elbows up is such an important thing to learn and the key to driving that weight upward. Today something happened that made me smile all day. I was working with Coach Clarke on the front squat and we were loading plates for his set and deloading plates for mine. I knew my maximum was 185lb so we loaded to that and I gave it my best. My first attempt failed and I was a bit disappointed. Nothing like blowing a lift you have done before. But, I thought, it was my maximum so just chalk it up and move on. Coach suggested I try a weight belt. He also noticed that I took a breath during the upward push of my lift. That caused me to lose stability and the barbell came down to the floor. So I took his advice and strapped on the belt, inhaled a deep breath, held it, then went down for the squat. It was tough but I kept my posture and nerve and drove it up for two nice reps. Ah, that felt good. I knew I had learned something powerful that will help me with all my lifts. Then I noticed something else. In my focus to get good technique I didn't count the pounds on the bar. Instead of lifting my personal best of 185lb, I had actually lifted 205lbs! I didn't just sail through that lift, I drove by it with the car window down and knocked over it's mailbox with a baseball bat! I beat my personal best of TUESDAY by twenty pounds. Damn, I have felt good about that all day.

I always talk glowingly about the Oly lifts, but don't get me wrong here - I need the Met Con. I'm always glad (afterwards) to leave a swangel on the gym floor. It's my bread and butter of feeling fit and happy. I naively thought the walking lunges would be the rest exercise of the round. Ha. Was I ever wrong. I was begging for a pullup after a set of those. The pain! I was able to squeak out six rounds in ten minutes and then I lay on the rubber mats with that good old fashioned feeling of exhaustion and exhilaration.

OHS

3 X 75lb

3 X 95lb (failed on the last)

3 X 95lb

F Squat

2 X 135lb

2 X 185lb

2 X 205lb (fail)

2 X 205lb (with belt)