Sunday, October 16, 2011

I am now an Inglorious Crossfit Basterd

So, my first-ever CrossFit training session went down this morning in Simi Valley 11:00am.  Of course, this is prime time for NFL Football, but I had to make a decision about what was important to me.

The training was good.  It was challenging.  I enjoyed it.  It was even exciting... when we got to the 200 meter sprints.

The CrossFit workout is divided into 3 phases.  There is the warm-up phase, there is an agility and flexibility phase, and then you have the Workout or WOD phase.  The head coach--and that is what they call him--will write a to-do list on a dry erase board under each of those three headers.  This is the game plan for the workout.

So our warm up phase consisted of the following items repeated three times:

  1. 400 Meters of Olympic Rowing
  2. PCB pipe stretches
  3. 10 push ups
  4. 10 pull ups
  5. 10 kettle bell swings.
The skills phase consisted of the following items:
  1. 20x jump rope.
  2. 10 reps of Lunges
  3. 10x pull ups
  4. 10 Olympic crawls
The actual WOD consisted of the following items
  1. 200 meter sprint
  2. 10x burpees
  3. 10x kettle bell swings
  4. 15x straight leg situps
  5. 10x jump rope
The WOD pattern was repeated as many times as possible for 20 minutes.  I managed 4 complete reps of this pattern and a little more running.  The running was exciting.  

Due to my knee problems and my body weight, I haven't run in years.  I honestly didn't know how my knees would respond to the running.  I just stayed in the moment and decided I had to give it my best shot.  It turned out I made that 200 meter run and it was easier the second time around.  It was easier still on the third rep.  By the third rep, I wasn't worried about whether my knee would suddenly shatter and my leg fold up in a bizarre way.

To know that I can run again--and not super slow either--was a great revelation.  If CrossFit restores my running ability, it will have done more than enough for me.  I suspect it will do a little bit more.

I had some knee inflammation after the workout, but that didn't concern me much.  What bothered me was the lingering pain in my right foot.  I sure hope I didn't break a metatarsal on the run.  That would truly suck.  That would break my current plans.

Anyhow, I hope to do this again tomorrow night.