September Crossfit Update

Today is the day where everyone but Jen ignores my blog! Hi Jen! I'm super excited to update you on my CrossFit stuff.

I'm still going about 4x, sometimes 5 per week. Most of them (3-4x/week) are Crossfit classes, though some of them (1-2x/week) are special programming for strength done by one of my coaches. They're never timed and it's a lot more of working on technique than zipping through WODs, they're also hour and a half long classes, which makes them exhausting in a different way.

Yay back squat, and I've yet to get my DL to actually over body weight, but that 5x5 was at 115lbs

I haven't gotten over 85lbs on my clean but it's nice to know
that btwb thinks I could do it!

This is my third full month going that frequently and I feel like the noob gains (lol) are slowing down. A lot of my PRs from July and August were due to me just being nervous in the beginning. Now I feel confident (but not stupid confident, I'm still careful) and I'm really able to see how far I can go.

We didn't do a ton of maxes this month, we do a ton of 60-80% of 1RM work, which is great for strength training but not fun to post about. Some of it was also that I was conveniently gone for a lot of the strength WODs (we do mostly cardio on Tues/Thur and I always seem to be gone Mondays) so I ended up doing more cardio than I wanted to. No cardio is my ideal workout plan. The programming can be a bit off too... we had one workout that I did in 3:15, which is ridiculous. I mean I sprinted and probably went too light, but that's a short fucking workout okay.

September Achievements
9/5/2018: PR - Back Squat - 100lbs (this meant so much to me omg)
9/5/2018: PR - Snatch (full) - 45lbs (I'm putting this here even though it's light because this is so damn technical)
9/11/2018: PR - OHS - 65lbs
9/23/2018: Sled Push/Pull - 155lbs

The best day!

I wanted to talk for a second about my coaches. I have several of them, but two really stand out.

One is a CrossFit Games judge, I don't see him much but when I do, it's awesome. It's like being taught by Lilo Fore or someone equivalent. He has a lot of really good strategies for workouts and he's clearly a natural teacher. He is the one who taught me to rope climb, which apparently a lot of women struggle with. Even a few of my coaches can't do it. He also taught me a better technique for double unders.

Lifting with him is great, he breaks things down like crazy. My other coaches are good, but this one has breakdowns for every lift, elements you can practice on their own to improve your form. It reminds me a lot of horse training actually.

He's also very low key, like I get frustrated with things sometimes and he just reminds me to keep working at it. His big thing is to just plug away, just put in the time. He says all we have is time. No emotion about it, just do it.

This was where I hit my max, then couldn't go any more, eek

My other coach is great too! He is our main coach I'd say, at least at the times I go. During the CrossFit classes, he's great about adding extra stuff in, like having us practice double unders or hand stands between sets of lifts. His big focus is on mobility and movement, so we do a lot of really weird/difficult movements for warm up that I have a love-hate relationship with.

With the lifting, he's awesome. He has been a lot more about taking what I've already developed and having me make minor changes to it. More big picture, vs first coach is more breaking down the steps. He's really good at explaining to me how I need to operate around the bar vs what I need to do to the bar, if that makes any sense. He fixed the way I was cleaning the bar, he just told me "keep it closer to your body" and it all changed for me.

He's also really great with the mental aspect of it. He is the one who is always telling me to turn my brain off, that I'm stronger than I think I am. He called me out early on whenever I would say "this is hard," he said "what are you here for, Megan?" and I stopped saying how hard it was. That alone changed my mentality. He told me early this month that he's seen a huge uptick in my confidence. I have too, it's great!

I'm super excited for the next month!