Civilian Military Combine - New York City 2014

This past Saturday Team CrossFit Hell's Kitchen took on the Civilian Military Combine (CMC) - New York City 2014, and as Social Director, I felt that it was my duty to be there. That, and I just really like my CFHK friends and signed up months ago because I knew I'd be in New York for weddings in September.

True Love is Clipping Each Other's Body Fat

Ryan and I had a fun and exciting Tuesday night watching Yukon Men Revealed and clipping each other's body fat with calipers. Nothing says, I love you like stripping down and pinching what jiggles.

That is my tubby flab being calipered by my boyfriend.

I downloaded the app Body Tracker and used the Jackson/Pollock 7 site skinfold equation. My body fat came to 23.56%, which falls under the fitness category but is pushing into the unacceptable acceptable category.

Brooklyn Boulders

I'm back in New York this week because I flew up for my friend Tai's wedding, which was beautiful. On Saturday, before the wedding, I went climbing at Brooklyn Boulders with Ryan and our friend Adam.

I've been climbing at The Cliffs and Island Rock, but never Brooklyn Boulders. I like The Cliffs better because it smells less like feet and lets in more natural light, but I don't have anything negative to say about Brooklyn Boulders.

Bouldering scares me because you're not hooked into anything. Going up isn't so bad but coming down makes me squeal in terror. I made it up to the top of the first V0 problem I tried but kept getting stuck on the second one. During my last attempt of the day, I finally made it up there as you can see in the photo collage above.

We went to Dinosaur Bar-B-Que for Shiner Bock and ribs afterwards, which is really the whole reason that I went to climb at all.

Thank you Adam and Ryan for including me in your Saturday ritual.

Fitbit, CrossFit, and Two Tiny People on TV

You know what sucks? Finding out that your Fitbit is dead on the day that you walk 36 blocks in Manhattan and that day becomes your WEEK'S LEAST ACTIVE DAY. Eff that shit.

Ryan found this from the 2014 CrossFit Games and sent it to me with the caption, WE'RE FAMOUS.

I made it to CrossFit one time so far this week. Sheesh it was a killer.

Tuesday’s WOD…

The warm up:

Row 5 minutes

1 minute easy

then alternate 30 seconds hard and 30 seconds easy for four rounds

EMOM 10

Clean + 2 Jerks (climbing)

I made it 55#, 65#, 65#, 75#, 75#, 75#, 75#, 85#, 85#, 95#

For time:

Row 750m

21-15-9

Shoulder to OH

50 Double Unders after every round

then, Row 750

Rx was 75# and I used 55# and I DIED.

Another Hotel WOD

My best friend got married over the weekend. I hadn't worked out since Sunday at Flywheel and I was beginning to feel gross with myself. We were staying at the Hilton in Westchester and Hiltons tend to have good hotel gyms. My room was conveniently located across the hall. I grab some 20# dumbbells, took them outside of the sliding door, and hunkered down for a very hungover road WOD.

Not Even Flywheel Could Help Me

Sunday morning I awoke with the distinct searing pain in and between my eyes that can only mean one thing - I stayed out way too late showing off my impressive endearing straight up terrifying ability to chug Fireball interspersed with the occasional tequila shot. Guess what Atlanta? I found my people. So help me God.

The reason I woke up was the screaming alarm on my phone announcing that it was time to go to Flywheel. During my drunken bedtime routine, I laid out my spin clothes and my shoes, so clearly I really wanted to go. This is like that one time when I woke up wearing my gym clothes because I was afraid I'd oversleep for the Holley Mangold seminar. What can I say? I'm special.

So I'm dressed, I get in the car, and I consult the park instructions that I saved in my calendar invite. Midtown one-way streets and random ass parking entrances confuse the beejezus out of me so I reached out to the Flywheel Midtown team and received a detailed email back. I realized that the street I thought went right actually only went left (not while I was on it, I realized this as I drove down 10th Street, thank God), completely throwing off my understanding of the directions. I turned around 4 times, and then finally said fuck it when I got concerned that I'd be late and told I couldn't go to class. I parked in a residential building parking structure in the visitor spot and I am in no way sorry. Who is visiting at 10:30 in the morning on a Sunday who isn't there from the night before?

Airdyne Assault

See what I did there?

(The Schwinn Airdyne and the Assault AirBike are both fan wheel bikes in case you didn't get my clever humor. They are both pure torture.)

So Dr. Dan cleared me for light lifting and a body weight metcon when I saw him on Tuesday. It wasn't the, GET YOUR ASS BACK TO CROSSFIT! I was looking for, but it was better than nothing. 

Food Diaries

I took about three weeks off from tracking my food and it was one of the smartest things I've done all summer.

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Logging your food is a proven way to reach your weight loss goals. Many respected fitness experts, including Jillian Michaels and Bob Harper, recommend keeping food diaries. Trainer Bob might be a vegan but he CrossFits at Brick so I trust his judgment, and I love me some Jillian even if she can't push press a 55# bar. There's been a lot of information circling about timing your eating and fitting your macros and eating for your body type, all of which requires some kind of food diary. It's a good habit to get into.

Unless it starts to drive you crazy.

1st Choice Healthcare Center

You might have been wondering where I've been since lately. Sadly, I have not been at the box.

On Monday, August 25, I woke up feeling sore and kind of foggy. Pretty typical Chinese food hangover with the headache and bloating to match. I decided to work from home and then take a midday break for the 12 noon class at CFID. I kept thinking that if I got a good workout in that I'd shake the ugh feeling and loosen my muscles up. Unfortunately, I was barely through a warm up set of front squats at 85# when I felt a weird tinge in my back. I didn't like the feeling one bit so I put the bar down and went to speak with Keith.

Keith spent some time helping me to pinpoint where it hurt and said that I should go home and ice. I was sad that I couldn't complete the workout (front squats, power cleans, TTB, and running!) but I'm not a fool and I didn't want to be laid up with an injury. Keith said that if it still hurt the next day that I should contact Dr. Dan Shuman. Dan is a chiropractor who is nationally certified in Active Release Technique for both Full Spine and Long Tract Nerve Entrapment. He also happens to be one of my favorite friends at CrossFit Identity.

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I went to see Dr. Dan on Wednesday, August 26 because it really hurt to walk. I couldn't bend over to touch my toes and normally I can lay my hands flat on the ground. Dan said that psoas muscle was spasming. Basically I spend a lot of time sitting on airplanes and sitting in the car and sitting at my desk (must build pop up desk this week!) and that makes my body think this is normal. When I rolled up to the box and started squatting, my back was like WTF? We don't move this way! Dr. Dan did some adjustments and then some other body work and I felt better immediately. When I came in on Friday for my next appointment, I felt like a new person.