Wednesday, February 26, 2014

Burpees & Boobies

Anyone who's ever done more than one burpee will tell you that they are the worst. The. Worst. Try doing them quickly in a workout with other moves and you quickly start questioning your sanity.

It's worse for girls. Repeatedly slamming a soft, sensitive part of your body onto gym mats makes for some sore girls. For a while, I'd dread the days following burpees more than the actual burpees themselves. I blamed my pain entirely on the floor...until this last weekend.

We did the Games 2010 WOD 7: 3 Cleans followed by 4 HSPU for 7 rounds. I wanted to see how my form was looking, especially on the heavy cleans, so I had Nick video tape the first three rounds. I was certainly not prepared for what I saw when I replayed the video later on. I'd post it here, but it's almost NSFW.

Now, I've never considered myself to be particularly busty, average maybe. While my opinion of their size hasn't changed, I have a whole new appreciation for their range of motion. Those girls were everywhere (and not in a good way)! I can see how a spectator would be worried that they were going to break lose, especially after seeing myself do HSPU. I'd known that some of my sports bras were more supportive than other ones, but I had NO IDEA how inefficient some of them actually were.

I can see how the pain started with burpees. The burpee is explained as the move that contains the fullest range of motion for your whole body. You literally go from standing, to laying down, to jumping...and that's just one. Think of it from your boob's perspective, they're squished onto the ground and then bounced around on your way back up. Full range of motion = Ouch! While I have no plans to inhibit the range of motion for most of my body, the girls have got to be controlled.

What's the solution to my problem? Shopping, of course! And throwing away my old bras. I'm trying out a site called Fabletics, which is almost like a monthly subscription service for workout clothes. They claim to be the less expensive Lululemon, which is enticing. The clothes are cute and I've got some coming my way. I'm sure I'll do a full reveiw. 5 stars if the bras rock and the tights aren't see through!

Friday, February 21, 2014

Progress Report: February

We had a week of retesting this week at the gym. I'm disappointed to say that I didn't hit nearly as many PR's as I would've liked to. I didn't regress, which is to my favor, but didn't experience the level of improvement that I have with some past testing cycles. It doesn't help that I was on a business trip recently that lasted over a week and only left time for one workout in the midst of it.

The thing that really disappoints me though is that I slid so easily back into a pattern of feeling bad about myself and verbalizing those feelings. I won't list all of the things I felt bad about, because that would be counterproductive, but their was quite a list.

In the interest of focusing on the positives, here are some things that have been going well for me recently:

  • Pull ups! I strung three kipping pull ups together this week, proof that my upper body strength has improved

  • PR on Open 13.4. Love me some clean and jerks, not so much on the toes-to-bar, but I can do them in this WOD.  Multiple people commented (positively) on my form and tone, which made me feel really good. I'm still going to need photo proof to believe them, but it's a step!
  • PR on my 3 rep max push press. Go figure, the one weight lifting PR I hit this week was putting weight overhead! I added a full 10# to my max.
  • Volunteering. By pure chance (or was it?) I saw that Girls on the Run is looking for coaches. This was exactly where I wanted to volunteer, so I'm signed up for a training session next week. A girl I CrossFit with also coaches and loves it, which is encouraging. I just hope that the hours they need volunteers can work with my crazy work schedule. Fingers crossed! 
I leave this post with a few articles I've been digging this week: Dear New Girl at the Gym & CrossFit Chicks - The Paradox