FGs Crossfit Adventure

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feelinggooder

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Time to retire the old thread from 5 years back and come up with new goals.

https://weight-loss.fitness.com/threads/weight-loss-journey-for-feeling-gooder.52971/

I've bounced around a lot over the past 5 years with periods of focus and activity mixed with many less than productive periods. I've completed two half marathons spent periods cycling, swimming, obstacle course racing, completed a mini triathlon, played recreational basketball and lots of time doing little to no physical activity.

As a result I find myself starting the year at 270.5 lbs which is between my heaviest at 290+ and lightest in recent memory of just under 230lbs.

Too much of my previous focus was on the number on the scale and while that is a good indicator to track a trend over time it's far from the most important aspect of getting to a point of real fitness. Here is a list of my goals for 2018.

1. Complete six introductory sessions for Crossfit to get a handle on proper technique and form.
2. Complete 1 pull-up unassisted
3. Complete a 10k run
4. <Insert realistic deadlift, back squat, clean and jerk targets after intro sessions>
5. Complete set of 5 pull-ups unassisted
6. Execute set of 10 handstand push-ups from box
7. Get under 30% body fat
8. Execute one handstand push-up against a wall
9. Complete the <insert name> crossfit workout
10. Complete another half marathon

I'm intentionally leaving out any weight specific goals however in order to achieve many of these, my current weight will need to change. Once I know enough to clarify these goals I'll update the list and once I achieve 5 out of 10 I'll add 5 new ones and keep going.

Tomorrow is intro session #1.
 
Good luck with the new diary and goals! :)
 
Handstand push-ups. Hand-stand-push-ups?! You´re braver than me. Love your goals, by the way, and I love that the weight thing is just a part of reaching the other goals.
 
1/6th of the way towards goal number 1 and heading to my second session tonight.

Like everything this is going to be about working on weakest areas not the strongest so lots of success in identifying weakness during the first session.

Still no closer to being able to set realistic goals for number 4 as the focus of the intro sessions is 100% about getting the mechanics correct and consistent before using anything other than the bar itself. First session we went over the importance of your core when lifting which I had never seriously considered when showing up at a gym and trying to throw weight around.

Scorecard
Air Squat - decent form, still parts to focus on
Back Squat - decent form, still parts to focus on
Front Squat - worse than back squat and feels like the bar is going to choke me out but still reasonable for first time out
Overhead Squat - forget about it, horrible - First major mobility issue identified that will require work
Push up - Form was good, limited ability to crank out many
Pull up - Holy not even close batman.... coach was very good though and gave me good foundational moves that will help work towards this
 
You've set yourself some difficult targets. I'd suspect that you'll be under 30% body fat when you achieve 5 pull-ups and 10 hand stand push-ups. No doubt excess weight will vanish in the achievement.
 
Thanks Hale, I think you are right about the difficulty of certain goals. The handstand push-up goal is 10 modified (feet resting on a crossfit box) and only one against the wall. I should have added one goal to simply getting into the handstand against the wall position.

Session 2/6 completed and went through a bunch of core work and then tried to execute a TTB, which was reduced to attempting a KTE which was then reduced again to an attempt at a KTC.

The second half of the session was working on deadlift form. There's a lot more to it then bending down and picking up a weight off the floor and I quickly got confused when trying to squat without getting too low, keep shoulders back, chest up, move hips back, lean forward while keeping back and arms straight, keep bar against legs etc etc.

The great thing about the deadlift session is that I got to set and then break my official PR since it was my first time I can recall executing a deadlift. Original PR: 64 lbs (bar plus minimum weight to get bar off ground) Next PR: 114 lbs (added minimal weight to get better feedback)

Found a rough guide on weightlifting goals for beginners in the 6-12 month range. I'm going to adjust these down by basing the target on my lean body mass instead of total body weight.
  • Barbell Squat: body weight x 1.2 = (174lbs *1.2) approx 210 lbs
  • Barbell Deadlift: body weight x 1.5 = (174lbs *1.5) approx 260 lbs
  • Pull-up / Chin-up: body weight x 0.9 = going to overshoot this keep the goal of a full rep unassisted.

Body fat % today was sitting at 33.6% so starting to make slow progress towards the 30% goal.

Next session is going to cover some olympic lifts, press, push press and one other that I'm going to dread :)
 
Hi, FG. I'm reading your diary entries, but maybe not commenting as weightlifting is way out of my sphere. If you want a hug any time sing out :) I'm impressed though!
 
Pleaaaassseee be careful. Crossfit is one of those things that can either be great or terrible. A lot of the lifts they do are Olympic lifts, which are very technical. If you don't have the technique down and are trying to do them for high reps or for time, it's a great way to get hurt. Not saying your box is like that, but I've seen some REALLY bad ones.
 
Thanks Cate and Cory,

I know exactly what you mean Cory, I had avoided Crossfit for the first ten years of its existence for that very reason. So far it seems like this box is one of the very good ones. The focus has been completely on MCI (mechanics, consistency and then intensity) strictly in that order and they don't let people jump into any of the classes without going through 1 on 1 coaching sessions first to make sure they learn the proper form. They also have a healthy respect for the olympic lifting components and don't seem to program those into any of the crazy workouts of the day that focus on speed.

The coaching sessions have been fantastic so far. I'm kinda get the feeling that learning proper form is going to be much better than my previous gym experience of reading an exercise description online and try not to hurt myself.

Managed to make some ever so slight progress towards handstand push-ups yesterday by doing a couple while standing in the shallow end of a pool (admittedly the pool might have been doing 90% of the lift(float)ing.
 
That's good to hear! And I know some can be very good places to go. Unfortunately, I tried one once when I was first getting into weight lifting. I knew enough from listening to my brother to know that the things the box I went to were doing weren't particularly smart (or effective in terms of training methodology). Since then I've pretty much stuck to powerlifting-esque programs on my own with the occasional training day more geared towards Strongman or Highland games. I wish you much gains!
 
It is good that you seem to have found one of the rare crossfit boxes that teaches form.
 
This is inspiring. I have some of the same goals, just not for 2018. Thanks for reminding us to have tangible, specific goals to work towards rather than "lose weight" or "get more fit." Good luck with your goals. I'm looking forward to hearing about your journey and experience with CrossFit.
 
Thanks Cory, Tru and MarineLizard, I'm really considering myself lucky to have found a box that teaches proper form but starting to get the feeling that a few bad apples have probably given every box a bad name. No argument that there are some truly horrible examples out there that have allowed the focus to drift too far towards speed vs form but it seems like the boxes that have remained open for a few years (in my area at least) have realized that in order to make any box sustainable long term, they can't get away with turning people loose on exercises without at least some fundamental training on proper form.

So my third session of CrossFit introduction is in the books and starting to get into the kettlebell-swing of things. It was a full session including stretches and time on a rower to get warmed up, review of deadlift technique (still a work in progress) and then got a solid introduction to presses including the strict form as well as a push press and split press.
The split press takes some getting used to for the technique and it seemed harder on the wrist that it should have at first. A big part of the problem was that I found myself holding more weight than I should have on my wrist versus getting into a better starting position resting the bar on my shoulders but I started to get the hang of it towards the end. I'm still struggling a bit to keep my pinky in a good position to be able to grab the bar as I jump under. We finished the session with an introduction to the kettlebell swing which came with a big surprise for to me to learn that very little of the effort comes from the arms. Once again all the power seems to come from the hips when you're doing these correctly.

For the fourth session the plan is to cover both the clean and the snatch which are quite challenging so I have quite a bit of homework to do before going in there if I want to have any chance at hitting the basic techniques.

After seeing the awesome list of exercises LaMaria has in her micro workouts I did a bit of searching and found an app call Move - daily activity to stay healthy and I'm love/hate(ing) it so far. Instead of having to decide on a random exercise, the app does the work and picks something randomly on a set interval. Seems like brutal fun and here's a list of yesterday's micro workouts:
25 crunches, 60 lunges, wall sit for 45 sec, side plank for 90 seconds (had to alternate sides) 8 flight of stairs, 15 pushups, wall sit for 45 sec, 10 crunches, 30 hindu squats, 20 bodyweight squats, side plank for 45 seconds.

Each exercise was broken up into a 60 minute reminder and it seems to break up the day nicely and looking back at the list of activities it was a great workout broken into bite sized chunks.

Thanks for tagging along and hope you're all enjoying your own journey.
 
I would recommend practicing your cleans and snatches with a broom stick before attempting them with a bar. I know a lot of oly lifters who give that advice to folks when they first start. Glad the micro workout went well!
 
feelinggooder said:
Seems like brutal fun and here's a list of yesterday's micro workouts:
25 crunches, 60 lunges, wall sit for 45 sec, side plank for 90 seconds (had to alternate sides) 8 flight of stairs, 15 pushups, wall sit for 45 sec, 10 crunches, 30 hindu squats, 20 bodyweight squats, side plank for 45 seconds.
Click to expand...
Micro workouts? Phew! You are well & truly on a roll FG :)
 
Thanks Cory and Cate,

Session 4/6 done and the Oly lifts have been very successful in highlighting quite a few areas to work on. The first and biggest challenge right now is my limited range of motion in my shoulder (primarily the right one) With this limited movement I can't get into an overhead squat position which is going to limit my ability to hit anything close to proper form for the entire movement so I see a lot of broomstick time in my future. Beyond that limitation I'm also working through breaking down the snatch movement into training exercises to get something close to muscle memory. Much later I will work on recombining them into a fluid movement.

The micro workouts served up by the Move iPhone app continue to give me little boosts and training throughout the day. Typing of which, time for another one now
 
Time to hit the delete button on yesterday. I let my bad mood bleed into meal choices and no amount of micro workouts were going to compensate for that.
Can't change the past so back to training and eating better again today.
 
We all have these stumbles and today is a new day. It's so easy to let a bad mood impact our food choices. I hope you have a better day today.
 
Thanks Cory and LaMa,

Rest of the weekend went better and survived my CrossFit session on Saturday where I went through more lifting technique and worked on mobility issues in my shoulder again. My last of 6 introductory sessions is scheduled for Thursday so after that I need to nail down a weekly exercise schedule. There are olympic lifting sessions every Friday so going to make that day a priority. Also getting the sense that I need to build one or two cardio days a week into the schedule to work on my endurance.

Help you're all having a great week.
 
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