The Friday Five

Happy Friday, kids!  We made it to another weekend – wohoo! And you know what that means….it’s time for another edition of…

Let’s get to it!

1.  It’s the end of week 2 of the Whole Life Challenge.  I have been doing very well with all of the components of the program:  nutrition, workouts, mobility, supplement, & lifestyle (first two weeks it was drinking half your body weight in ounces of water).   So far I have all of my points.  That may all change tomorrow.  Tomorrow, the lifestyle challenge changes…and it really will be a challenge for me – get 7 hours of sleep a day.  Most nights I get somewhere between 5.5 and 6 hours of sleep.  Last time I did the challenge, 7 hours of sleep was a lifestyle challenge for only 1 week, i think, and I was so happy when that week was over  Getting 7 hours will not be easy.  Weekends won’t be a problem, but getting 7 hours during the week will be tough.  I will have to make a good effort to get to bed significantly earlier than usual if I’m going to keep my lifestyle points.  Hopefully I can do it.  I really could use more sleep!

2.  Today’s WOD was killer:

So, the shoulder press wasn’t too bad.  I stuck with 55# for the last 3 sets and just worked on form and squeezing everything as I pushed the bar up.  It’s hard to resists the urge to give a little dip with the legs and help get the bar up.  After the shoulder press strength work, we did some work on muscle ups.  For the first time ever, I was up on the rings.  I worked on the kipping motion from hollow body to super man.  It’s very different doing it off the rings than the pull-up bar as the rings move.  We also got a few tips about how to get the transition from the swing to get your hips up to the rings.  There is a lot going on there.  I will just stick with trying to kip from the rings for the next while. 

After the muscle up work it was down to the WOD.  Since I can’t do a muscle up, my WOD would be pull-ups and ring dips.  RX was 90 of each, but Coach said that number if for the elite athletes.  I am not one of those!  I ended up scaling to 40 of each, and I did all 40 pull-ups unassisted!  I was alternating 10 pull-ups and then 10 dips.  I really wanted to get to 10 unbroken pull-ups, but I could only manage sets of 5, and towards the end that dropped down to a few sets of 3.  My hands are killing me. I really need to find some grips or gloves to help with that.  I didn’t tear tonight, but both hands are pretty tender. 

After all of this I did only 20 GHD sit-ups as my back was feeling a little tweaky and I didn’t want to risk it.  I’m okay with that.  I still got a pretty goof workout in!  Now I’ve got 2 days of rest before going back for more Monday night.  I will need to find something to do at home to get my workout requirement done for the WLC.  I will see what time I wake up tomorrow…maybe I will go for another quick treadmill run.  We’ll see!

3.  I am chipping away at my reading goal.  I just finished reading Orange is the New Black last night.  It was really good and very different from the TV series.  I won’t give anything away, but they have taken a lot of liberty with the TV show!  With this book finished, I’m now at 2 books for 2014.  I will need to find my next book and get right to it if I want to reach my goal of 24 for the year. To keep track of my reads, I’ve created a “Books I’ve Read” page where I will list everything once I’m finished reading a book.  If you have any good suggestions of what I should add to my reading list for the year feel free to comment on my “books” page. 

4.  I think I’m taking Belly Dancing lessons!  One of my girlfriend’s saw a TeamBuy for 4 belly dancing lessons for $20. She thought it might be fun if we did it as a group.  It sounds like 4 or 5 of us are in.  No idea what I may have gotten myself into, but I’m sure it will be good for a few laughs!  I will let you know how it goes when we actually get our lesson with the Desert Belles
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5.  The CrossFit Open is coming up.  Everyone who does CrossFit knows about the CrossFit games, and the route to the games starts with The Open. 

The Open is really just that.  It is the qualifying round that is Open to anyone who wants to enter.  Sign up on the website, pay your money, and then wait for the Open WODs to be announced and then hit the WODs for 5 weeks in a row.  Top scorers from each region will go to regional semi-finals.  The best from there go to the Games.  There is no way in hell that I will be going anywhere, but I’m considering signing up for the Open just to see how I can do and to challenge myself a bit.  Coaches at my Box are encouraging everyone to sign up. 

I started CrossFit just before the Open last year and did a few of the Open workouts.  They are tough and I scaled just about everything last year.  Since we have no idea what the WODs will be, I have no idea if I will even be able to do them RX, which you need to do to score any points.  Still, I will consider signing up. If nothing else, the Open WODs should be some pretty good workouts. 

Happy Friday, everyone.  Have a GREAT WEEKEND!

Do you have any recommendations for good books I should read this year?

Are you signed up for the Open?

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