I am back at the gym for my second and final
fundamentals course. I walk in and the
coach teaching the course is just about to hit a workout with a group of
people. He sees me and asks if I’m ok
waiting until he finishes the workout. I
oblige since I’m curious and eager to learn so I wanted to watch. Again these guys are at it and I’m amazed
watching this coach who is probably 5’7” maybe 165lbs lift 225lbs up for cleans
like it was nothing. He finishes comes
over and I met Danny and again I’m headed over to the corner with
these PVC Pipes. We mainly focused on the Olympic Lifts which I had pretty much no experience with. These felt very awkward even with no
weight. Snatches forget it! The receiving portion shown in the image to
the left(no this is not me!). To see the full movement if
you have no idea look it up on Youtube search "Olympic lift snatch". Overall, I gained as little comfort as I could
on these highly technical movements.
Again I left and I couldn’t wait to hit the class on Tuesday since
Monday was Labor Day.
Thursday, August 29, 2013
Tuesday, August 27, 2013
Fundamentals Course
I signed up for
the fundamentals course. In my head I’m
thinking what do I need this for I know what I’m doing. I walk in a little intimidated and get to the
front desk and say I’m here for the fundamentals course. I’m relatively fit, athletic, and strong but
Crossfit was something that I had no experience with. I get sent into the gym and there is blaring
heavy-metal music and about ten fit looking guys and girls ripping heavy
barbells off the floor and then doing some crazy jump-rope where it passes
through twice on each jump and then hitting effortless pull-ups. Now I’m really thinking what am I doing
here? So I am waiting for the coach to
come over and meet me. So over walks this
sweaty, ripped woman she looks in shape to say the least. I met Kelly one of the crossfit coaches who was teaching tonight's fundamentals class. She takes me and a middle-aged mother and her
13 yr old son over to the corner with these long thin PVC pipes and I’m
thinking (What the hell are these for?)
We go through some of the staple motions like the back squat, deadlift,
front squat, and thrusters. We start to
use just the empty barbell and never put more than a ten on each side. I leave anxious to get back for the final fundamentals
course on Thursday.
Thursday, August 22, 2013
My Journey Into Crossfit
Hi, my name is Nicholas Hodgson and
I'm 22 years old. The reason I am
starting this blog is to track my journey through Crossfit. I am currently about 6 months into
Crossfit. I will spend a few posts on
how I got here and my first few months of experience. The dates on the posts will reflect the date of events not the date I published them on this blog, since I just started this blog in February. From then on I will be updating my progress
and experiences on a daily to weekly basis.
I spent most of my high school years and a few years after doing the
Globo Gym routine chest and tris, back and bis, and threw in a half-hearted leg
day in there. I saw tremendous gains
through my first year and a half going from a scrawny 120lbs my freshman year
to about 185 going into my junior year.
Now I didn’t put on 65lbs of pure muscle but a good proportion was. I also grew a few inches which made up some of
this weight gain. After reaching my peak
junior into senior year with a 330lb bench press I started to hit a serious
plateau. A shoulder injury also stunted
my gains. Three years later of training
the same way, I actually lost a good amount of strength and muscle. It seemed like I was just going through the
same motions over and over. I followed
bodybuilding and strength routines over and over trying to break through my
stunted growth.
I worked as a personal trainer for about a year when I was 19 and began to lose my passion for fitness. I would see the same redundant routines passed onto our clients without any real progress. Many clients didn't want to train which makes it hard to want to train them. I eventually left there unsure of what I wanted to do because I thought some form of physical training would be my calling. Two years later I’m bored with my routines and I started looking into Crossfit. I saw the Crossfit Games on ESPN a couple times and thought it was awesome. I was like who are these crazy fit athletes walking on their hands, doing 30 pull-ups in a row, squatting on one leg? This is absolutely insane, so one day I’m scouring through the internet trying to find out more about this crazy fitness routine. I become even more intrigued by hearing stories of the everyday crossfitter who have become more mobile, fit, and able to do things they never thought were possible. I saw the camaraderie of people inside these gyms that were filled with just about every age group, gender, shapes, and sizes and was inspired.
Looking on the internet I saw a couple workouts and decide I’m going to give one a shot. I figured I’d pick Fran which is a combo of thrusters @95lbs(whatever those are!) and pull-ups 21-15-9 repetitions of each. How hard could it possibly be? So I went to my regular gym and got all set up with a barbell with no bumper plates and a curved handle pull-up bar. Not exactly the ideal set-up. I got my Blackberry phone stopwatch ready 3.2.1. GO and off I went. First thruster ouch that’s tough 20 more to go Yikes! It took two sets to get the thrusters done and now I’m on to the pull-ups. I figured I’d do the pull-ups strict since I had no idea how to perform a kipping pull-up. Very tough, got these done in about three sets. Now onto the round of 15 I’m out of breath and can barely stand. Grab the barbell and get 4 thrusters. Now I’m strongly considering throwing in the towel. I toughen up grab the barbell and get 6 more repetitions. I am struggling and eventually I am doing pull-ups in sets of twos for my round of 9. Finished hit the timer and see a time of 11:15. I collapse to the floor head’s spinning and I'm on the verge of puking on the floor. After about 10 mins of being completely useless I go home with my head held high thinking I got this. So I go on the web and look up people’s times for this workout. I see that I was basically in the lowest category. 2:30 is the elite category 3:30 excellent 5 mins good 6:30 average and 8:30+ untrained. Wow this was a gut check. All these thoughts began to race through my head like am I really this out of shape? Has any of my previous training paid off? What kind of people do this in under 2:30?
I decided to watch the technique of this workout and give it another go two days later. I develop a kipping motion on the bar more like a fish flopping out of water but it works. Sort of, I get the thrusters down a little better, thinking technique was 90% of why I did so bad last time. I go and do Fran again I seemed a little more efficient on these movements. I stop the watch thinking I’m probably around 6 minutes. Way off! 8:44 was my time and I’m still in the untrained category. Afterwards I felt just as bad as I did when I did it two days ago(lying on the ground gasping for air on the verge of puking). I was frustrated but now I’m very intrigued by Crossfit, I'm hooked!
So, I look up local Crossfit gyms
and find Crossfit Grand Strand which is not too far and has a pretty low rate
compared to other local boxes. The membership is included with a regular
fitness center called Fitness Edge just down the road. I finally built up the courage to go to the
fitness center and sign up for a membership.
After signing the year contract I thought to myself, what have I done? I don’t even know what the Crossfit gym looks
like, other than a few photos online.
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