Yay 2012! It’s a new
year (so I’m a week or so late), and while I’m not a “New Year’s resolutions”
type (really? let’s wait until January 1
to make changes, refer to previous post to see my opinion about living life by
a calendar), everyone is talking about their goals for the upcoming year, which
means I can’t help but to zoom my focus in on how can I make my CrossFit life
better. Luckily, I have an awesome
coach, Dickey Blaze (formerly known as Stacey) to sit down with me to seriously
and realistically evaluate where I can go in this awesome sport. So a couple of weeks ago, we did just that –
went over all of my max lifts, how long it took me to get there, and set goals
for the upcoming months. I’ve been doing
this O-lift class for a month, I thought “damn I’m going to get strong!”
But wait! Stop the
presses! Dickey Blaze is a bit of a
bastard so he’s going to introduce more change into my life. Me and change and trust are the not lifelong
BFFs – No we’re more like the high school frenemies that share a limo to prom
and smile in pictures, but deep down know that we’re going to roll our eyes and
make snide comments if the other gets named queen (what a hoe!). Last week started “Games Prep” for those of
us at CrossFit Music City who like to compete.
And unlike what the name suggests, Games Prep is not just for those who
actually have a shot at making it to Regionals.
It’s a program aimed for those of us who want to do the Garage Games
Series or any of the other CrossFit competitions that come up. Stacey, whoops, Dickey Blaze, has
meticulously crafted a program that is going to make us awesome! Change I should embrace right? And I did put on the prom smile when he first
told me about it. But then Games Prep
actually started….
I came in on Monday, saw the board, and thought a string of
profanities that would get me booted off the internet. In Blaze’s drafting class style writing was:
Standard Warm-up
Max rep STRICT pull-ups. Split total in half and do sets at that number until you have
accumulated 20 (guys)/ 10 (gals) strict pull-ups.
Butterfly Practice. 5 x 10 butterfly rotations using the
box.
Strength: Use 20 minutes to warm up to 80% of your 1 RM of
strict press. Then do 4 sets of 3 at
that weight.
Metcon: 8 min AMRAP of 4 HSPU, 8 KB Swings (53/35), and 12
GHD situps.
Well puke like you have motion sickness and we’re doing row,
row, row the boat for 26.2 again. This
did not go well. I am Dickey Blaze’s
problem child. He had to have me use
bands on the negatives (because I can’t do a strict pull up – awesome!) because
of my wonderful shoulder imbalance. It
was almost comical at first with my right arm popping out half way down every
time. But Blaze did not realize that the
true comedy routine would be in the HSPU.
I was in the most special of the special ed version of HSPU. I try to keep in mind that it was not until
August that I started working on not being afraid of being upside down (and yes
that is a completely rational fear.
Breaking your neck from HSPUs is up there with midgets in clown costumes
on my fear level). But needless to say,
it’s aggravating to waste so much of a short 8 min amrap on conquering that
fear of being upside down. You waste
even more time when you get stuck at the bottom, with your head on the floor,
looking like you’re stroking out trying to push yourself back up. This time compounds itself to infinity when
Dickey Blaze realizes you are indeed not stroking out, you are simply stuck,
and it is truly the comical moment of the night when this happens not once, not
twice, but three times.
So the first night of Games Prep did not go pretty. Shake it off.
Tomorrow is a new day. Except in
the world of Dickey Blaze hates Opal tomorrow is NOT a new day. Oh no sir! The next 6 or so weeks get to be
Opal’s Comedy of Errors working on skills she stinks at. The next day – more negative pull-ups and
monkey bar work. Day 3 – more negative pull-ups,
ring dips, and muscle up transitions.
Day 4 – more negative pull-ups and monkey bar work. Are we seeing a pattern? The pattern is continuous frustration and
wanting to give up because I was tired of coming into the gym EVERY DAY and
feeling like the worst person in CrossFit.
But contrary to the belief that Dickey Blaze was trying to
break me, in reality the hellacious workouts that focus on my weaknesses are
like your mother baking you muffins after you say you want to lose 5 lbs. She does it because she cares – and she’s
testing you! Evil mama. Evil Blaze.
He cares that we get better. He knows we are only as strong as how we
conquer our weaknesses. And he’s testing
our mental fortitude. I realize that….NOW. After of course questioning him as to whether
I should drop out of competition prep class because I wasn’t good enough. After berating him with whining about how I’m
never going to get better. After begging
him to schedule me some more practice time for my weaknesses so I don’t come
into prep class being the worst. After
he had to basically shake me and pound into me “Trust the process” every day
for a week.
But NOT…I just breathe.
Trust the process. And go back to
struggling through my negatives.
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