Thursday

We worked on bench press with a close grip.  It works the back of the arms more.  I could only do 63 lbs in sets of 5.

The workout was 3 rounds of:

  • 15 Box Jumps
  • 15 Back squats – We had to pick the bar up off the ground to start instead of doing it off a rack so I only did 65#.
  • 15 Push Ups

I did it in 7:46.

Saturday

I went to a skills session.  My gym has these every so often to work on specific things.  This one was swimming because how can we make CrossFit harder – Let’s add the possibility of drowning!  There are swim workouts available.  You do laps and at times jump out and lift weights or something crazy like that.  I’m not doing it.  I just wanted to learn to breathe without inhaling the pool.

It was done at a local high school that has a very good swim program.  The coach of the team is also CrossFit certified and used to work out in my class.  One of my coaches swam for her in high school.  I was working with him first and still inhaling the pool.  At one point I was gagging in the deep end and he looked at me and asked if I was dying.  I said yes and he said, “Ok” and then kept teaching.  I guess he didn’t believe me.

I got sent to the remedial side of the pool.  But I was a star in remedial class!  The words, “Ok, now watch Heather do it because she’s good at this” were used.  Shocked me.  But the swim coach wandered past remedial class at one point, looked at me for about 0.25 seconds, and diagnosed my whole problem with breathing.  I have to breathe harder to exhale my full breath under water so I’m not making a vacuum when I come up that makes me inhale water.  Problem solved.  There was another coach working with me at this point and he asked at the end how I felt.  I said that I was still swallowing a lot of water but not inhaling it.  He said that was ok because swallowing it wouldn’t kill me like inhaling it would.  Fair point I guess.

Sunday

I tried to practice breathing at the pool. My freestyle still sucks but I can breathe on the breast stroke now.  I’ll have work on that stroke.

Tuesday

It is bring a friend week so the workouts aren’t too bad.

We did 5 sets of 5 kettle bell thrusters.  I had a 25# kettle bell in each hand.  Hold the kettlebells at your shoulders, squat, then stand up and press them overhead.

The workout was 21 reps then 15 reps then 9 reps of:

  • Wall balls with 14 lb medicine ball
  • Kettle bell swings with 35 lb
  • Box Jumps

I did it in 10:06.