Portland sunrise.. a picture will do- no really, I don't need to see it..
Here are a few clues as to how effing early I have to get up on Wednesdays:
1) The sun isn't up
2) It's May, however it's cold enough to wear my puffy coat
3) The parking meters don't accept money yet
4) I'm at work before the construction workers
5) I'm at work an hour and a half before the coffee cart opens
6) The night security guard is still at the concierge desk
Last night I could not fall asleep. With this new Wednesday opening (4:45am!!!!!!) shift at March Wellness (my craptastic part-time, steady income, benefits job), I have pretty much resigned mayself to sleeping very little, like 4 hours, the night before, and taking a very long nap when I get home around noon. However, while I normally have no problem falling asleep around midnight (and waking up about 8:30, to no alarm, so nice..) on Tuesday nights I find myself anxious and wide awake until well after I attempt to go to sleep. Last night I was lying awake until after 2am, only for my alarm to go off at 4:15am. This is not okay. I don't normally drink coffee, since I quit last year, but these Wednesdays it is an absolute necessity. Why did I take this shift in the first place? Because in order to get benefits (medical and dental insurance) I must work at least 20 hours a week here. And the shittiest shifts were what I got.. low end of the totem pole, even though I've worked here for 2 years now. I am beginning to hate this place. While I am here, I dream about my garage and how nice it will be when I make more money training out of it 10 hours a week than I do with my two jobs and 25-30 hours combined. I am seriously considering dropping this early shift, and thus dropping my benefits for a while, for the sake of my physical and mental health. Some of you might say, "But it's only one day a week, not such a big deal!" Yeah, that's what I thought too.. but this is not the case. It makes it harder. And I'm not going to do it ANYMORE.
Okay, it's later in the day now, I'm home, had a nap- but still exhausted. It's a good day to take a rest since my body and brain are not actually fully functional. I spoke with my boss about this opening nonsense and hopefully I will be able to trade a shift with someone. Fingers crossed.. otherwise, I'm just going to have to say fuck it and lose some hours for the sake of my health.
All the more motivation to get my own thing going and stop working for others.
Shoulder Stretching/Opening Partner back bend stretch 3x10 Backbend kick overs x12 (6 each side) 4 panels down to the floor(!!)
RCF WOD: 7 rounds for time- Run 200m 10 Burpees 10 Pullups 24:20
That was a tough metcon.
I'm super stoked that I FINALLY achieved my backbend kickover from the floor. I have been working on this for quite some time using panel mat progressions and some shoulder opening stretches. But NONE of the stretching or kicking over from an elevated surface has worked like the partner back bend stretch that Ido showed us. After a good warmup and working my way down the stack of panels; when I finally did it from the floor, it was EASY.
It was strange. I felt okay going in to the workout, but once I got to the first set of arch hollow snaps, I just got angry. Plus, I was a little frustrated with my muscle up attempts because I have started to feel somewhat apathetic about actually ACHIEVING a muscle up, since I have ben trying for so freakin' long. I know that attitude won't get me there. Sometimes this is how workouts are for me, but not often. I just feel furious. Why? I can't quite explain. I think it's mostly from frustration of not being good at one particular thing.. Or I feel like my body isn't cooperating.. Or it's just plain hard. Sometimes the fury can be detrimental to training, but sometimes it can add fuel to the ever-burning fire.
This is the beautiful barbell I am manifesting for the garage.
Today I worked on a little bit of barbell stuff. I haven't worked with a barbell in a LONG time. I want to get one for the garage, along with some bumper plates, but it's not at the top of the expense list.. So, I did it while I was at work. Nothing too serious, just light weight and a few movements:
3x5 Deadlift 45#/65#/75# 3x5 Front Squat 45#/65#/75# 3x5 Overhead Squat 45#/65#/75# 3x5 Hang Squat Clean 45#/65#/75#
Ab Series: 20 V-Ups 20 Lemon Squeezes 20 Side Arches (each side) 40 Russian Twists 40 Arch Ups
Tonight Ramman and I had a great training session in our garage. 2 hours of uninterrupted skills training and a WOD at the end. It is so nice to be able to just go downstairs to our own little sacred place and do what we love to do. Here's what I did:
Ab series (as part of my warmup) -20 V-Ups -20 Lemon Squeezes -20 Side Arches each side -40 Russian Twists -40 Arch-Ups Get Up-Sit Ups 3x5 each side- 8kg Bent knee handstand drill x20 Partner backbend stretch 3x10 Backbend progressions on panel mats x6 (3 each side) 4 panels down to 2 Queda De Rins x12 (6 each side) WOD: 3 rounds for time- 3 TGUs each side- 12kg 10 KB SDLHP- 20kg 5 KB Clean & Press- 16kg 10 KB Swings-16kg Time= 11:15
Then off to New Seasons we went for some Dragon Thighs (YUM!).
Last night I also made these delicious little gluten-free carrot muffins. Since they are made with coconut flour, really the only carbs that they have come from the carrots, currants, and the tiny bit of honey (about 1/8 cup) I used (instead of 1/4 cup yacon syrup). And they are delicious. Of course I made them a bit non-paleo by adding some maple syrup-cream cheese on top. But I figure having a little bit of organic dairy is better than having gluten and refined sugar. I don't feel at all guilty about this treat!
Today we went to CrossFit Portland again to do the Gymnastic Bodies WOD. Ido was still there, so he offered up some more tips and exercises. I tried a muscle up after which Ido said, "Oh, give me a break!" meaning, cut the bullshit and just do it! No kidding. I did some negative transition drills, or at least tried, and practiced some handstands. A great drill for finding your line in a handstand is kicking up against a wall, bend the knees so that your feet are touching the wall. Tilt your pelvis and push through the shoulders until your feet come off the wall and then try and straighten your legs. If you lose balance and your feet go back to the wall, start back at the bottom of the knee bend. Also important: placement of the hands and fingers, and pressure applied to the different parts of the hands. Hands should be shoulder width apart and index fingers parallel to one another. Finding balance has a lot to do with controlling imbalance with your fingers and heel of your palm.
Finish with 60 seconds total aggregate work of a straddle L variation. 6x10 on parallettes
Later Ramman and I did a nice 1.5 hour long partner stretching session. I am usually resistant to this kind of thing but I am trying to reverse my aversion to in depth active stretching. We are going to start doing this 2 days a week.
As it turns out, I lost the Gymnastic Bodies Contest. Coach Sommer offered me 50% off the price of tuition for coming in second, but all together the trip would cost me about $700, and I just don't have that extra cash right now.. Sooo, I will be staying home. I'm okay with that. It's actually the same weekend as my brother Ira's 30th birthday, so I will be able to go up to Olympia and celebrate his birthday, which is important to me. There will be more chances to meet and learn from Coach Sommer, I'm sure. Thanks to all of you who voted for me!
Last night Ramman and I went to the Parkour class and afterward did not feel like cooking anything so we stopped at Ole Ole, one of our favorite Mexican places, to pick up some dinner and grab a margarita. Big mistake. The dinners we usually get there are pretty well balanced, and although they are not Paleo (a little bit of beans and rice), they are Zone. We usually enjoy it and feel fine afterwards. Well we thought we would treat ourselves to a mango margarita, again something we have enjoyed in the past, and were sorely disappointed. After we finished them and were at home we both started feeling icky. Not like food poisening or anything that bad, but just OFF. The margaritas were WAY TOO SWEET. Although we didn't feel that great it was kind of cool to see how something that we used to think was a delicious treat was now something we never wanted to have again. Don't get me wrong, I will have a margarita again, probably a few in my lifetime, but just not those ones. The same goes for the food. There are plenty of much better Mexican places where you can get good quality meat and veggies, we won't be wasting our precious eating out dates on that crap anymore. Ole Ole, we are breaking up with you.
Now it is Thursday.. I am not being very good at finishing posts on the same day I start them! But, training comes first- blogging about it second. Yesterday was AWESOME. We went to CrossFit Portland for Ido Portal's workshops. The first session was on Equilibre, the art of balancing. As Ido said, Equilbre is not something that is very well learned in a 2 hour workshop as it takes years, a lifetime, to master it, and actually he says that no one ever acheives a perfectly straight line. I understand what he means, but I still learned a TON in 2 hours. He showed us some very good techniques and drills for achieving a straighter line and thus balance in the handstand. He also showed us some more grounded hand balancing positions used in capoeira and breakdancing.
The second session was more focused on gymnastic/acrobatic strength and conditioning. This session was VERY hard, but also fun. When one of the first exercises he showed us was Japanese Pushups (which I cannot find a video for on YouTube, so if you look it up and see a Japanese guy doing atrocious pushups, this is not what I am referring to!), I knew it was going to be a hard session. I learned a lot of cool, extremely difficult strength exercises, some of which I could not even do, like the Japanese pushup and the single leg squat holding your other leg behind you with both hands (for all of them there are modifications, of course). Ido is an endless resource for exericises that will help with acrobatics and hand balancing. After it was all said and done we had 5 full hours of learning and training.
Lots of people are referring to Cinco de Mayo as "Cinco de Drinko" on Facebook, which I think is kind of embarrassing. So I'm calling it Cinco de Traino (even though it doesn't make sense gramatically), because instead of drinking my life away like all these other people, I'm going to be training.
Okay.. I'm alive. I'm still not 100%, but I am alive and I'm glad that I feel better. It's Tuesday, which means that Parkour class is tonight. Normally I would do a WOD before I go to the class, just to make sure I get my metcon on.. But today I think I will just do the class. Whatever he has us do I'm sure will be enough for my not-fully-recovered-self. Last week was the first time I went to the class and I was a little disappointed when I got there and found out that it was open gym. I was looking for a structured class and I went on a day that was open gym. Don't get me wrong, I still practiced a lot of skills and got some instruction, but this week should be a little better for learning. We'll see..
Being a personal trainer is tough sometimes. It's nice being able to create your own schedule and set appointments when you want to, but it also is sometimes a pain in the neck trying to coordinate with other people's schedules. Sometimes it takes MONTHS to get someone on my schedule for their first FREE session. You would think getting someone in for a free session would be easy, afterall, people like free stuff. But NOOO, not so easy! And the cancelling and rescheduling, oh man, some weeks it's enoughto make me want to scream. Afterall, training people is the only way I get paid. Consistency, commitment, and flexibility are the most important qualities in a client. If I could have like 15 clients all with those three characteristics, I would be stoked. I have a few now.. But a few ain't gonna cut it. I know it can happen though!
I signed up for Robb Wolf's Nutrition Certification (CrossFit) which is coming in June to CrossFit Portland. I'm super stoked for this. Many people go to it and rave about it afterward and the changes they were inspired to make in their own lives. I'm already inspired to make some changes toward a strict Paleo diet, but I guess I just don't fully BELIEVE that I can do it. It doesn't seem that hard in writing: Eat meat, vegetables, nuts, seeds, some fruit, little starch, and no sugar. EASY. Until I am faced with a piece of carrot cake when it's not time for a cheat meal, or I get home from work have a delicious Paleo dinner and have serious hankering for some dark chocolate. Are they SURE there wasn't chocolate and wine in the Paleolithic times?! And then, just like that, I'm not on a Paleo diet. Now, for the most part, I am doing it. But it's those tiny little, kinda crucial parts that I need help with. I ordered two books (that will hopefully help me focus!) to study up on before the cert: "Lights Out: Sleep, Sugar, and Survival" by T.S Wiley, and "The Paleos Diet For Athletes" by Loren Cordain. I'm super excited to read both of these books and will surely be posting about what I learn. Meanwhile, I am doing my best with the Paleo thing.
Now it is the next day- at 5:25am. This Wednesday shift might be the end of me.. Okay, I'm being dramatic, but really, it sucks. I can't go to bed early one night of the week, my body is used to going to bed at midnight and waking up between 8 and 9am. So this waking up at 4:15am business is NOT COOL. But these are the kinds of things we have to do when we work for people and their establishments. Well, I'm over it.
Here's what we did in Parkour class last night: LOTS of Bear Crawls up and down stairs Rail Balancing & Walking, Pivoting LOTS of Safety Vaults & Lazy Vaults Precision Jumps Conditioning: The workout we did was pretty easy, used dumbbells for some pressing variations, old fashioned, non-functional exercises, some good core work, and more bear crawls... I worked up a good sweat but none of it was very hard.
I was a little disappointed with the class structure, or lack thereof. I would like for it to be a little more structured with more specific direction by the teacher, but he is kind of young and obviously has experience doing Parkour, but not a lot of experience organizing effective classes with large groups of people (and lots of unfocused & hyper kids). I'm going to continue to go for the rest of this month because I paid for the whole month, so maybe each class will be a little different. Not sure I like his workouts for conditioning. Yesterday it was fine because I was getting over being sick and didn't want to do too much, but next week I might risk doing a WOD before I go to class.
Looking forward to the hand balancing workshop put on by Ido Portal, this guy from Isreal who is incredibly good at hand balancing, acrobatics, and capoeira. Scott (Hagnas) got him to come to CrossFit Portland for an afternoon, so I cancelled a couple of appointments so that I could go. It should be pretty cool! Here's one of Ido's videos on YouTube:
I have been incapacitated all day today.. Everything I do requires a tremendous amount of energy.. I feel like absolute shit.. Everything from the outside in hurts.. I have watched about 8 episodes of The Office alternating with sleep.. Ramman brought me some stuff that should help me feel better.. Hopefully.. This is lame..
(This is what we make Toro do on his 3 ft tall scratching post/perch...)
Wow. I went to bed last night and I was down by 4 votes. I woke up this morning and it is tied. Incredible! So now we are in the middle of a tie-breaker.. We have until Monday to get as many votes as possible, and then that's it. Just when I thought it was over, I got another chance! So, if anyone out there who reads my blog and hasn't voted yet, vote for me! If you don't know how, let me know and I'll send you the info.
Today I felt super tired and sluggish. I think I am slightly affected by the abundant pollen in the air. A lot of people, including Ramman, have super bad allergies this time of year, luckily mine aren't that bad- but just enough to throw me off. So I ended up taking a SUPER long nap. I peeled myself out of bed to go down to the garage for a wod. I was extremely unmotivated and fatigued, so naturally I threw something terrible at myself. Melissa Byers, co-owner of CrossFit 603 in New Hampshire, talked about this wod on Facebook a few days ago.. So of course I had to check it out. Silly me... I went into it trying to beat her score, and ended up getting the EXACT same same score. Here's what it is:
20 Minutes for Rounds: 12 DB Squat Cleans (I used KBs)- 12kg 9 Pullups 6 Burpees
Those squat cleans SUCKED. I got 6 rounds + 3 cleans..
At 603 they have a pretty cool WOD structure with a "Buy In" which is not necessarily part of the warmup, but it's what you do before you get to do the WOD. And then there's the "Cash Out", which is performed after you are done with the WOD. I think this is genius because it gives you the opportunity to have a more structured hour, getting a good warmup, some skill work (usually what the Buy In is), th WOD, and a little extra work with the Cash Out. I think I'll start incorporating this style more with my own workouts and my clients'.
Buy In: 5 TGUs each side Cash Out: 3 rounds of 5 each side of "Get Up, Sit Up" (see it at the wod link above..)
The state of the world is a direct reflection of the people in it. We all need to begin with improving ourselves; only when we have begun this process will we be able to improve the world. I am a movement coach and I help the people around me connect with themselves so that they may lead happier and healthier lifestyles. I love food and cooking and teaching people how proper nutrition can serve as our medicine. Intellectual challenges and athletic endeavors rule my world. I am constantly striving to evolve by returning to my primal foundation, helping others, and being active physically, mentally, and emotionally.
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one." -Albert Einstein
