Oh The Pain!

Today's session:

5 x (15 x thrusters, 15 x bar-facing burpees, 200m run).

Thrusters. Hold barbell and do a front squat, as you stand up keep the bar moving straight into a shoulder press. I started with a 30kg bar but could only manage 2 rounds with this weight, and by the last round was struggling with a 15kg bar!

Bar-facing burpees. Squat down and kick legs out into the press-up position. Do one press-up. Complete the squat by bringing the feet back to the hands and stand up. Do a feet together jump over the 12" log in front of you You can twist in mid-air if you want, or land and turn round. That is 1 rep.

The thrusters exercise just about every muscle group, as do the burpees. This is a hard set.

Glad I did it, though.

Edit: Just found this quote on the web:

The Most Important Thing About The Thruster
If you don't feel a little nauseous after a set of Thrusters....you aren't doing it right.

Yet More CrossFit

Today's session was a beast! As follows:

21 reps of box jumps, power snatch (30kg for me) and pull-ups followed by 15 reps and then 9 reps.

And then, just for fun, we did 10 minutes AMRAP (As Many Rounds As Possible) of 50m sandbag carry (25m uphill; 25m down), burpees and kettlebell swings (20kg). Certainly felt like a good session at the end of it.

The good news is that I'm getting much better at pull-ups and I may be able to dispense with the band completely in the next couple of weeks. I've recently increased the weight of the kettlebell to 20kg so my skinny cyclist's uper body is clearly responding to the new stimulus, which I'm really happy with. I need to sort out my eating regime as I'm allowing too many 'naughty' things to sneak under my primal rader so I'm not getting the full benefit of my new 'strong' (again, it's a relative term!) physique.

Train smart folks.

To Bee or Not To Bee ...

We've got a bee hive (or, more accurately, Mrs TM has got a bee hive!):

First impressions are that they are very calm, and are quite happy for us to sit in the garden with them. They are currently very busy building the inside of their new home and we hope that we will have some honey before the end of the Summer.

Bike - CrossFit - Bike

Had a busy day at work so was unable to train at lunchtime. But not to worry, as tonight was another Bike - CrossFit - Bike session.

I rode moderately hard to the gym, and had to overtake a moped at one point that was taking up space in the cycle lane - what's that all about?

Today's session was 5 sets of (5 x power clean; 10 x front squats; 5 x jerk; 20 x pull-ups), with 90 seconds rest between each set. Being a weedy cyclist I was doing this with 'just' 35kg on the bar and I'm still using the thin, blue band on the pull-ups. But I smashed through the first set in 1 minute 27 seconds, and was particularly chuffed that I managed 20 pull-ups straight off; a first for me. No surprise that I slowed down after that, mainly because I was unable to do the pull-ups in one go and need to take a rest, and by the last set it was more than one rest! A damn fine session though.

And it was a very enjoyable ride home again. I fully expect to be very sore tomorrow!

All the best

Stress, Rest and CrossFit

Following last week's excellent training, I needed to take my foot off the throttle a little this week. On Monday I had to take 2 of our children back to school that involved some 10 hours in the car for me. Although not as physically stressful as a full-on training session, this is still extremely tiring and brings its own stress that requires a similar need to rest as the physical sessions. So on Tuesday I did an easy 40 minutes that included a warm-up on the rower, core, stretch and flex and finally an easy 10 minutes on the gym bike. And that was it. Today I hoped to get out on the bike but work intervened and I didn't get out. I did, though, get to the CrossFit gym for an excellent session. After a good warm up that included some interesting stretches, we did the WOD; 5 x 5 reps of front squats. The idea is to start at a weight you know you can do and to increase it until you max out. I started too light and so I ended up doing 7 sets and eventually maxed out at 55kgs. It's not a massive weight but it is more important for me to get the technique right at this stage; the weights will no doubt go up once I get this locked in. Once this was over we did an extra session, 15 minutes of a mixture of exercises that included lots of bodyweight exercises, kettlebell lifts and 100m runs. An excellent evening's work.

That Was Some Week!

As part of my new lifestyle I've stopped keeping a training diary so I'm not tempted to chase hours, but this has clearly been quite an intensive week for me.
Monday: Bike and CrossFit
Tuesday: Bike
Wednesday: Duathlon
Thursday: Bike-CrossFit-Bike
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Bike-CrossFit-Bike
Sunday: Bike-CrossFit-Bike
Today I took the Litespeed out and rode to the CrossFit gym; there was plenty of wind that made it a hard ride but I continue to be impressed by the wheels. They are just so smooth. Today's WOD was 4 x (100 feet of weighted lunges, 30 box jumps, 20 wall ball and 10 handstand push-ups (I'm not yet able to do these so have to do an alternative) and was chuffin' hard. Legs are now very tired and so I'm taking some medication to ease the pain. :-)

New Event - Isle of Wight Sportive 24 July 2011

I was browsing the internet this morning searching for a new cycling challenge to inspire me, and came across this one - it's part of the excellent Wiggle series of events so I know from experience it will be well organised and will take riders from the New Forest across to the Isle of Wight, do a clockwise tour of the surprisingly hilly island, before returning to the mainland and a short ride back through the forest to the finish. Naturally, I've gone for the 100 mile option, and I am already really looking forward to it. This should be enough to keep me motivated through the next couple of months.

As an aside, I know that Fast Daz is planning an IOW ride in mid-May and am hoping that I can make that as well, but I can't be sure just yet.

Must dash, have another Bike-CrossFit-Bike duathlon to complete!