The Open Sectionals.....Now It Begins!

Well it's finally here! The Open Sectionals is upon us. Now, I'm not going to lie. I'm still not as excited about these online sectionals as I was for the Sectionals Weekend last year in Austin. There's just nothing that can compare to the atmosphere at a big CrossFit Competition. I can't explain it if you've never been to one, but let's just say the energy is palpable and the camaraderie can't be beat. People accomplish things that they never thought possible and old and new CrossFit friends unite. It's part of what makes this sport so much fun. But enough about that. I think it's safe to say that the initial phases of this Open Sectionals have been disappointing from a technical standpoint. The first WOD was posted about 7 hours late making it impossible for anybody to complete the WOD on Tuesday night as had been previously planned. The Website has had problems ranging from people not being able to register to people not being able to submit scores and the leaderboards are frequently all screwed up. Does this frustrate me? A little bit. I mean, I haven't had any problems BUT it's irritating that HQ has known that they were going to try and pull this off for a LONG time and yet, they still underestimated how much work it was going to be. But I think the thing that really bugs me about this whole thing is that HQ claims to be going big-time. Reebok is sponsoring. Glassman and Crew can't stop talking about how Elite the CrossFit Athletes and the CrossFit Program is, that it's just as legit as any other professional sport BUT when things get rough...like they are with the Open Website....they hide behind the fact that they're just a small group of people trying to do big things! Be straight with us HQ. Either you're Pro sport status or you're not. You can't be both and when you screw something up....just apologize! I think that's what we're all looking for. Just say "hey look we screwed up. It's much bigger than we thought and we didn't plan enough ahead for it, but we're working our asses off to make it right." That's all I want, an acknowledgement that they still have things to learn and ways to improve. We're not all sheep.

Sorry, I am done with my rant. Back to the Workouts themselves. The first Sectionals WOD this year was:

AMRAP in 10 minutes of

30 Double Unders

15 Power Snatches @55lbs

I admit when this WOD was announced, I was not that psyched about it. It's light....meaning it's gonna be all cardio! Anything that is high rep/light weight means cardio and that is exactly what I SUCK at! So far, I have surprised myself. The first time I tried this WOD was Wednesday afternoon with Neal, Brittani, Kim and Adriana. I told myself before it started that the key to this WOD was going to be my double unders. I can rock out some double unders but I have to be relaxed when I do them or I screw up...big time! I didn't go into the WOD with any expectations of doing that well because, like I said, cardio is my weakness. I started out steady and got a great rhythm with my double unders that carried through for most of the WOD. I didn't even keep track of my rounds because all I could think about was "stay relaxed and get those double unders". When the clock hit 10 minutes, I'd gotten 6 rounds, 30 double unders and 1 snatch! That was the best time in the gym and you know what, I was pretty stoked about it! I rocked a cardio WOD! How did that happen?? When I uploaded my score, it put me in first place in the Region....which was VERY short lived! :) I ended up getting knocked down to 11th and decided to hit the WOD again today to try and get back in the top ten. My goal was 7 rounds. This time, the WOD did NOT feel as good as it did on Wednesday, but I did get an extra 6 reps bringing my new total to 6 rounds plus 37. It was enough to put me back into the top ten at #7....BUT I have once again, dropped to 11th. HQ has given us an extension of one week to get this WOD done...I just might have to try again. Maybe this time I'll get my 7 rounds!

Big Things Coming!

Hello Hello Blogger friends. There's so many exciting things happening on the horizon! First of all of course is the online Sectional Workouts start on Tuesday! I'm still not completely sold on this format. I happen to have love love loved Sectionals last year and this year the atmosphere is obviously not the same. That being said, I'm still excited because I think CrossFit Katy has enough talent to

A) Make every workout competitive

B) Qualify for Regionals!

Ok so maybe I'm jumping the gun, but I think we've got a legitimate shot to make it. We've developed some really awesome athletes in the last year and I'm excited to see how far we can go. One thing's for sure. We're gonna work our asses off trying!

In other news, CrossFit Katy is moving! YEAH! We've signed the lease and started building out at the new space. We're going to have almost twice as much room, 6 showers, and A/C! Ok so maybe that makes us a little less garage, but who cares! We still kick ass and take names! I can't wait to see how much we grow. We've got an awesome community, new nutrition programs in the works, and a handful of upcoming new coaches! The future is bright!

That's all I've got for now. Check back this week for info and updates on Sectionals! Ready to Rock it!

Airrosti Day with Dr. Matt!

Ahhh! It hurts so good! Ok so here's the deal. We all need to do more mobility work! In fact, I'd venture to say that 90% of us don't do as much mobility work as we should and I am definitely one of those people. I've been inflexible for as long as I can remember. I remember in 5th and 6th grade when we had to do those Presidential physical fitness tests. One of those tests was the sit and reach where we were supposed to sit with our legs in a V and reach forward as far as we could. We weren't supposed to lunge our upper bodies forward to reach. It was supposed to be a slow and easy reach forward......I was the kid that lunged forward. I couldn't get as far as I was supposed to unless I did it that way. Needless to say, I didn't stretch then and it never really bothered me. I could still play all the sports and I still excelled, so no harm no foul right? Wrong! Enter CrossFit.

I did my fair share of Oly lifting in high school, but we were never really pushed to do overhead movements like jerks or snatches. Now all of a sudden I had to figure out how to put a heavy barbell over my head and keep it there, not an easy task when you can't even put your arms by your ears when you reach up overhead! So for the last 2 years, I have been compensating. I compensate by sticking my head through a kettlebell swing like a turtle instead of bringing the bell all the way over my head. I compensate by severely hyper-extending my back anytime I need to push a weight overhead, I compensate, compensate, compensate and it's finally getting to me. It kind of came to a head last month at the Fittest Games. We had to do fifteen 95lb snatches in the middle of a WOD. They took me forever!! I know, I know.....they were 95lb snatches...that's heavy! But it wasn't the weight. I'm a strong girl. I can clean 175lbs, I can back squat 225lbs, I can front squat 190lbs......95lb snatches shouldn't be that hard for me but my shoulder mobility makes them impossible. I can't drop under the bar quick enough while keeping the bar over my head....my lack of mobility always makes the bar drift out in front of me and when the weight is heavy, I fail. After that competition, I decided enough was enough and it was time to really get this mobility thing worked out....literally.

I'd heard of Airrosti before, I'd even had my psoas released at a Team Competition held by Bayou City CrossFit, but I'd never actually been to a treatment session. I told Dr. Matt Arnold about my shoulder woes and he convinced me to come in for a real session and let me tell you it was amazing. Don't get me wrong, it was painful! I'm sure Dr. Matt was incredibly entertained by all my laughing, moaning, and groaning. And more than once I almost wiggled right off the table....especially when he dug into my biceps tendon! Ouch! But in just one session, I think I gained a good 3-4 inches in flexion in both arms! I could also raise my arms all the way up by my ears while staying in the frontal plane. Crazy!! I can't believe I hadn't gotten this done sooner. Dr. Matt explained that every muscle is covered by a layer of fascia and the more work we do on our muscles, the more we lift, the more shortened our muscles become. Now we can prevent this shortening by diligent stretching and mobility work after and between workouts but, like I said, we all need to do more mobility work! So as our muscles shorten and contract, the fascia that surrounds our muscles contracts and kinks too (like a sausage casing) And once they get to that point, it's almost impossible to get that mobility and stretch back in our muscles without getting the fascia released. Or in other words, I was never going to fix my mobility without Dr. Matt bringing the pain! He also explained that I was going to be able to increase my work capacity just from increasing my mobility. In other words, I'm going to be a better CrossFitter, without actually doing any more CrossFit! So after my session, Dr. Matt showed me a thing or two on the foam roller and I promised to keep at it. As proof, I got Neal to take a few pics of my morning foam rolling session today. Check out the pain face in the second pic! Ok so foam rolling isn't that fun and it hurts but it's going to make me better. And Dr. Matt promised that it gets easier! I have two more appointments with Dr. Matt and I can't wait to see how far we get! This is probably going to benefit me more than anything I have been doing in the gym as far as my training goes. If you're serious about becoming the best athlete that you can be, I'd definitely give Airrosti a chance. You can make an appointment by calling their number 800-404-6050. Call up Dr. Matt and tell him to bring the pain for you!

Hearts of Lions

Hearts of Lions - CrossFit Women from SICFIT on Vimeo.

Progress

After attending the Form3 Women's World Tour, I got to work on my new goals. This really isn't anything new. I've set goals for myself twice before and guess what....I didn't accomplish any of them and after the Form3 Event I finally knew why. I never developed a plan on how to achieve my goals. I had them written out in 3, 6 and 12 month increments but I never broke down my 3 month goals into anything beyond that, 3 month goals, which means I had no road-map, no plan, no checklist with which to accomplish them. All that has changed! I now have a weekly checklist on my refrigerator which tells me exactly what I need to do each week to accomplish my 3 month goals.

Last week was the first week that I implemented this new plan and I found out some interesting things. One, having the list is FANTASTIC. The other night I was looking at my list before bed and realized that I had forgotten to do something, so I hopped on the internet and did it and checked it off my list! Two, even with a list, I was unable to accomplish everything that I had set my mind to last week. I did not complete my mandatory 3 mobility WOD's or work on Handstand Push Ups enough among other things. I don't consider this a failure though. Having the list makes me realize which items I tend to put off...hello mobility!....and makes me even more focused this week to check everything off! I've got my to-do list...where's yours? What are you going to accomplish this week?

The Fittest Games

Wow, what a weekend! I actually don't think I've had that much fun at a competition in a long time. Not that there was anything wrong with any of the other big competitions I've gone to recently. I just think that before this weekend, I was in a different place. I've been taking care of my body, getting in proper nutrition and training, and I've had a few big physical accomplishments in the gym recently. That all adds up to a weekend of excitement and anticipation instead of regret and anxiety. I've got to say, I think attending the Form3 program a week ago had a lot to do with my attitude going into this weekend. Ever since I've taken the time to actually write down my goals and evolve a plan to accomplish them, I've felt a renewed sense of control over my life....so thank you Form3!

Now back to the competition! When the workouts first came out on Thursday, all I could think of was "Damn! Look at all that running.......AND there's muscle ups! I am screwed!" But the more I thought about it, the more excited I actually became. I mean, the running workouts were tamed by a bit of weightlifting, they had one Max Lift event which I am usually great at and I had been practicing muscle ups for months....not all of those practice sessions had been successful but I had a feeling the atmosphere was going to give me just the boost that I would need. The other great thing about this event was that it was going down in the ATX and I was going to get to compete with (thanks Lisa) some of the best athletes in the state.

Anyway, Saturday was beautiful and Neal, Ziggy and I packed up the Tahoe after the morning class at CrossFit Katy. The drive was smooth and we cruised right into Austin over to CrossFit Central to pick up our packets and say hey to some of the crew over there. The rest of the day was filled with lunch at Whole Foods with my mom and step-dad and relaxing at the hotel. For dinner we met up with the rest of the crew from CrossFit Katy at a funky mexican joint where the manager was giving out free tequila shots after the meal! No, No I didn't have one....but it was tempting! :)

Sunday morning was freezing! Haha! I definitely was under-dressed for the first workout. I wore my speed shorts thinking it was going to be warmer....which it was later in the day. But I definitely couldn't feel my legs during that first workout. The first workout did not play to my strengths! First of all it had a 30 lateral burpee "buy-in".....30 burpees! Put a fork in me, cause I'm done! I believe that I was on burpee number 23 when the rest of my heat took off for the sprint across the football field.....Note to self, work on burpees! Needless to say, I did not fair very well and ended up 17th in that workout. Boooooo! Just a little side note, for this competition I was put into a heat with Lisa Thiel, Carey Kepler, Crystal Nelson, Emily Baker, Chardonnay Poole, Ingrid Kantola, Whitney Welsche-Reese.....You get the picture. It was an intimidating group. I may have let my brain internally shout out "You don't belong in this heat" a few times after that first WOD. But I quickly pushed it aside because the 3 Rep Max Bear Complex was up next and I was determined to make up for my poor performance in WOD #1 with a killer weight on that one!

Now I haven't done the Bear Complex ever I don't think. But I knew my max power clean and I figured I could get about 20lbs less than that. I was a little worried about the push jerk out of the back squat position because my shoulder mobility is so limited but I was determined to put up a good number. I warmed up with #115 and decided my first attempt would be #125. Easy peasy! I hit that one, took a couple minutes break and put #135 on the bar. That one was tougher but I got it and was pretty confident that I could do more. The clock was against me though because I needed at least another 2 1/2 minute break to be ready for another set and I didn't have that much time. I took a minute and put #140 on the bar but going up to it, I knew I wasn't recovered enough. I got the first rep but failed in the push jerk out of the back squat on the second. My #135 Bear Complex was enough to tie for second place though! Definitely made up for WOD#1 with that one!

WOD #3 was the dreaded muscle-up WOD! Like I said in a previous post, before Sunday I had only gotten 3 muscle ups ever and I was expected to do 8 in a single WOD! Needless to say, I was nervous, but I was also excited. I mean I was in a heat with some of the best athletes in the state, it was the kind of atmosphere that you dream about. If there was ever a time to amaze myself, this was it! 3..2..1...GO and I was up on the rings. I got that first muscle up immediately! What what?!!?!?! Unfortunately when I was up there, my arm hit the latch on the rings and dropped one of them about 5 inches meaning I had to come off the rings and get my judge to help me get them even again. Talk about a time killer. Oh well, I struggled through another muscle up and made my way over for toe-2-bar and double unders. Back to the rings and I was tired already! After failing for what seemed like an hour, I struggled back up onto those rings! Ha! 3 muscle ups...the most I'd ever gotten before...all in one WOD! The clock was ticking away and I knew at that point that I was not going to be able to finish this WOD, so my next goal was to just get through another round. That was it...one more muscle up, 15 toe-2-bar, and 30 double unders and I'd be happy! It didn't seem like it was going to happen for a while, but miraculously I fought through another muscle-up! That was it! 4 muscle ups! I finished the round and took my DNF. I don't think I've ever been happier about a DNF. All I could think about was..... I just got FOUR muscle-ups! Hell yeah!!!! Who cares about anything else??!!

There was a looooong wait between WOD 3 and WOD 4 and at that point I didn't think that I had any chance of placing top ten (which was my goal going into this competition) But when they wrote out the top ten on the whiteboard at the track, there I was sitting in 8th place! So the only thing I had to do was not completely blow the last workout and I had my top ten finish......easier said then done!

I was tired! The sheer volume of workouts had gotten to me and I didn't know how the last workout was going to go. In the middle of WOD #4 stood 15 #95 snatches. Yes, my max snatch is #115 so I knew I was capable of doing the 95 pounders but 15 was a lot of them and my form is pretty abysmal. My shoulder mobility means I have a hard time squat snatching heavy weight. When I drop under the bar quickly I can't keep the weight far enough back above my head and therefore my choices are either power snatch, get set, and then squat.....or fail at the weight. It takes a lot longer to power snatch and overhead squat 15 times but that's what I had to do. The rest of that workout was a blur...all I could think about was how bad I wanted it to be over! That last 200 meter run was brutal...and SicFit got the pics to prove it. Luckily I had my biggest fan and best friend, Neal Kay running beside me pushing me to the finish. Without his support and encouragement, I might have just walked to the finish....ok probably not but you have no idea how much it helps to have support like that! I was pretty confident that I had just knocked myself out of the top ten....the winner of WOD#4, Karen Pierce, beat me by a full 4 minutes! That's like a lifetime in a CrossFit competition. Amazingly enough though, my finish in WOD #2 and the fact that I got half-way through the muscle-up WOD was enough to keep me in eighth place! YES! Top ten finish for me! The icing on the cake for the weekend was the fact that one of our CrossFit Katy athletes Mike Scott, a relative newbie to the CrossFit world won the intermediate men's division! It's so awesome to watch one of your own athletes do so well! I expect big things from him in the future.

So there it is. Amazing weekend with amazing people. I can't stress enough how incredible the entire CrossFit community is and I had as much fun competing as I did visiting with all my CrossFit friends. Big thanks to Karen, Lisa, Carey, Crystal, Adrian, Laura, Ingrid, Chardonnay, Adrien, Meg and all the other CrossFit ladies! Can't wait to do it again!

Push Your Limits!

Yesterday The Fittest Games WOD's were posted.....Yikes! Looks like WOD #3 is going to have muscle ups in it! For the record I have gotten a total of 3...count 'em 3 muscle ups EVER! The first muscle up I ever got was at CrossFit Beaumont after their competition. It was kind of a joke. I had been playing on the rings at CrossFit Katy for weeks but had never gotten an actual muscle-up. I think one of the reasons I got that first muscle up at Beaumont was that I approached it with no pressure, just got on the rings and did it! I definitely surprised myself. Since then I have gotten two more on different days, weeks apart. I have yet to be able to get one on my first attempt and I have never gotten more than one at any single practice session. So what does that mean for me this weekend?? I don't really know. I guess you could say the odds are stacked against me, BUT I can't help but remember a little conversation I had with Lisa Thiel before the final WOD at Regionals last year. That WOD had a 10 Muscle Up buy in. At that point, Lisa had only ever gotten one muscle up, but when we talked about it before the WOD she said, "Well, if I can do ONE then I can do TEN!" And that's the attitude that I am going to try and embody this weekend. I know that I am not going to win this competition but this competition is an opportunity to get better. I am going to end this post with a little quote I stole from my good friend and fellow CrossFitter Katie Russell....ok so she stole it from a movie...but you get the point! :)

"If you are trying to be better than someone else....you are doing it wrong! Being the best is not about beating everyone else. It is about beating who you were yesterday."--The Rookie