No Surgery for this Shoulder!

Hey guys,

Thanks for all of your support and encouragement over the past few months. You all have been so great. The doctor says my shoulder is much stronger than it was a month and a half ago. He says he sees no immediate need for any kind of surgery, unless I do not keep progressing. I'm going to keep up physical therapy on a once a week schedule for the next month. I will also slowly start to reintroduce some movements.. REALLY SLOWLY.

The only concern is the return of pain once I start doing our regular workouts. The doctor says he doesn't want me to continually be going through injury and then taking time off to recover and then getting injured once again.. if that happens surgery may be a consideration. At this time though, I'll keep working on getting stronger and taking it easy on my shoulder.

Yay! Good news. Thanks again to everyone!

CONGRATULATIONS Karen and Joel!!

At Least it Wasn't Raining

Tuesday, April 8;

I think I said this weekend that my workouts weren't bruising me up enough. I have been missing the tears, cuts and gashes from the old CFOT prescribed workouts... until today. I was thrilled that I was able to do everyone else's workout with only a slight modification. I threw on a weightvest and hoped for the worst. I didn't know what I was asking for! About 2/3 of the way in to the run on my first round, I realized that the vest was rubbing up against the skin on my back. I ignored the slight bit of pain and continued on. By the end of the 3rd round my back was stinging and I knew I was in store for a rash that equaled my old situp rash from last summer. Ouch! But, Yes!

Warmup:
3 rounds of 30 seconds of each
Superman
Hollow rocks
Jumping Lunges
Hops
Russian leg raises
Side to sides

Workout:
3 Rounds for time w/ 15lb weight vest

800 meter run
30 R arm KB swings 36lb
30 weighted jumping squats 12lbs
Total: 26:10

Ready for tonight's Happy Hour!!

A Testimony to Crossfit's Scaleability

Sunday, April 6;

Today's CFOT workout was awesome for several reasons. The setup was a little different. To celebrate Crossfit Challenge's move from Saturday to Sunday workouts Jerry held our usual weekend class at 9am and then opened up a clinic to newcomers at 10am. I am constantly reminded that Crossfit has something for everyone. It doesn't matter if you played college sports or if you haven't worked out for years. There will always be something for you to do at Crossfit. We started out the morning with a Hero's workout, which involved running outside.. in the rain. What better way to feel hardcore than to go run outside and then hop on a bar and do pullups? I didn't do that but my wet, slippery kettlebell did my workout justice.

Back to scalability... I haven't been able to do a regular workout with everyone else for a few months now because of an injury. Despite the fact that I can't do many of the movements, I have managed to maintain my bodyweight and strength. It also helps that I've been zoning for a few months now as well. It goes to show that exercises can be replaced. As long as you put together a metabolic workout and continue to strengthen your muscles, Crossfit will continue to work!

After our regular workout this morning a group of 18 newbies tried their hand at Crossfit. (I love that their preview of their workout was a whole bunch of crazy people doing pullups and barbell hang-power cleans while soaking wet! My roommate was petrified!) The group was a great mix. Many people had military backgrounds.. some were athletes and others had spent time on the treadmill and the elliptical machine. Jerry, Chris and Andrea walked them through proper technique of the movements and then Jerry unveiled the workout.. I love the reaction.. "50!!" But the great thing is EVERYONE did it! Everyone finished their workout with a few modifications on the movements. One guy blew through the first round, so he did it again! It just goes to show that Crossfit really can be a great fit for many people. It's just a matter of tweaking exercises so they fit your skill level and physical ability.

A great day! And my roommate said it was the most difficult shower she had ever taken, because she couldn't move her arms!

Workout:
3 Rounds of:
800 meter run
30 R arm KB highpulls
30 Box Jumps
30 Situps

Total: 29:14

An All American Workout

Saturday, April 5;

I joined a group of Lacrosse players from American University on the stairs this morning. Well maybe I didn't join.. more likely I just got into their way. I know I'm getting old when a group of college lacrosse players is no longer attractive to me. It was a little sad for me.

Warmup:
Stretches

Workout:
10 Rounds for time...
1 round stairs
20 situps
20 jumping lunges

Total: 26:14

Wrapped up with 5 times up and down the stairs

The Craving Hour

Thursday, April 3

I don't know if any of you Zoners experience the craving hour, but I think I may die from it! If you've faced this particular time in your day you know what I'm talking about. It's the unbelievable food craving that hits in between the time between your lunch and your afternoon snack. It generally hits me at 3:30pm.

When I say I may die from it, I'm not exaggerating. Well, I may not die.. (so I guess I am exaggerating) but certainly the people who are forced to be around me are in eminent danger. They don't know it, but the pain in my stomach makes me want to tear off their faces. That's a little violent. Maybe not tear off their faces, but certainly to squeeze their fingers really hard or stomp on their foot. I get this glazed look on my face and my mouth begins to water. Imagine the monster in Aliens.. that's me by 4 pm.

I've tried nearly everything to calm this death craving.. huge amounts of tea.. and water... an almond.. everything! Since giving up the Diet Coke I have no good standbye. I am forced to hide in the bathroom and wait until snack time comes around. I'm in the bathroom because of all the water and tea I've had to drink. I call it my Dr. Jeckle and Mr. Hyde moment.

Finally, at 5 pm I eagerly dig into my little cooler and pull out my most pitiful and ultimately unsatisfying 1 block snack.. today it's about 2/3 of a cup of Zone approved pumpkin mousse. Sounds yummy, and it would be great if I could eat another cup and a half of it! Then I'm left to suffer until I can fight through the end of my work day.. sit in traffic.. get home.. get the mail.. entertain my roommates.. and finally fix my dinner. THANK GOD!

Anyone have any solutions that I have not thought of. Please help... My coworkers would be very thankful.

Workout (Wednesday, April 2):

3 Rounds for Time

800 meter run

10 jumping squats

20 R arm KB swings (I have started working with my right arm again! Yay!)

40 air squats

Total: 27:49

Some Thoughts

Tuesday, April 1

I went for a nice run tonight and it gave me some time to think. Gar was talking to Jerry about some of the tracking that he's done of his workouts. It got me thinking about setting some goals of my own. I've shocked myself with my ability to quite drinking Diet Coke cold turkey. Today marks 6 weeks without Diet Coke. I think that's crazy! I have had a few sips of regular Coke and literally had to give it away, because it was too sweet.

I'm wondering if I can give up something I have been pretty addicted to for nearly half of my life. Then I should be able to control my cravings for sweets. My new goal is to cut down tremendously on my sugar intake (if I had been truly zoning.. then that wouldn't be an issue). I think this is what's keeping me from truly dialing in on my diet.

On top of that, I've been working on getting my shoulder healed. Physical therapy twice a week. That is why I miss class on Mondays and Thursdays. I've been icing the sucker religiously and doing my little shoulder exercises. I can do a wall pushup without any pain, and on Monday my trainer put me on the arm bike! I'm making baby steps, but it's been totally worth it.

This brings me to another concern of mine. The Crossfit certification is in a little over a month. I've finally come to the realization that I will not be at my peak performance. I probably will not be at any sort of performance level. I've started wondering if it's a good idea for me to go at this point, knowing that all I'm going to want to do is jump in and put in a hard workout. I'll think about it over the next week or so and see where I am. I have a doctor's appointment next Tuesday for the shoulder. We'll see if it's in store for some surgery (I'm expecting that is the worst case scenario).

I rambled. Sorry!

Workout:
4.5 mile run in 40 minutes.

Crackle and Crunch

Tuesday, April 1

April fools day usually brings out a bunch of jokesters, pranksters and a whole lot of no good. There were no jokesters or pranksters, but there was a whole lot of no good abound! Jerry treated the other CFOTers to a nasty grouping of about exercises and then told everyone to do all of the exercises 21-15-9.. "no joke".

While everyone sweated through that workout I had my own pairing of pain (like the alliteration?)!

Workout:
Walking Lunges: 100 - 75 - 50 - 25
Situps w/ Abmat: 25 - 50 - 75 - 100
All was done with 15lb weight vest
Total time: 19:35

Crackle=The sound my knees make when I do lunges
Crunch=What I did 200 times today, on an abmat, while wearing a 15lb weight vest

Cooldown:
For solidarity sake I threw in a few 21-15-9 rounds with the weight vest
21-15-9
Box Jumps (3 mats)
Deck Squats
R Arm Kettlebell swings (35lb)