Three years of Crossfit, by the numbers.

3 years since I started my Crossfit "experiment".

553 workouts logged.

58  named WODs completed.

18 "Open" workouts completed.

71 personal records logged.

1 physiotherapist crossfitter named Rob Crispo who changed my body and my outlook.

10  coaches who have instructed, inspired and pushed me to my limits and beyond. Kenny from the Ottawa Downtown YMCA, David Kalec, Reza Mashkoori and Robin from L'Usine Crossfit in Gatineau, Francois Leclerc, Isabelle Leclerc, Adam Davidson, Tim Hemmerick, Alex Howard and Danielle Robitaille from Physics Crossfit in Orleans.

1,000,000:  the number of bucks I feel like.

2014 is the year of strength development.  I feel like my mobility issues, while they still need work, are no longer limiting my ability to progress.  Last December I started adding powerlifting, strength development work at the Y instead of mobility and have already noticed some strong gains.

I am stronger than I have ever been in my life and the road ahead is unhindered.

Look forward to seeing what this year brings.  I'm ready for anything.

Crossfit log for Thursday, April 10th

Well I don't have to work overhead squat at the Y this week! 

We did 1 rep max overhead squat for strength. 

Started with small plates under my heels to warm up with the empty bar, then smaller plates, then just my shoes for a total of 9 reps. So far so good.  Did 75# for 2 reps, then 95# for one.  Stable, deep enough, no problem.

At 115# the bar was all over the place, wobbling forward and back until I could stabilize it. Manged to get deep enough, but the bar path was definitely not straight.

At 125# I couldn't stabilize, shoulder were toast by that point.  Maybe with a longer rest.  Good to know my current PR.

The WOD was a chipper with 12 minute cap.

100 double unders
40 thursters  95#  (should have scaled)
30 box jumps  24" box
30 kettle bell swings  24kg
20 burpees
20 mucle ups (would have scaled to 10 rope climbs, if I'd made it this far!)

Double under weren't great, took 4 tries to get past 10.  Decided to scale to half the reps, but then I got a string to like 40, so I decided to keep going. Got to 60, then failed a couple of times and decide to split the difference and stop at 75.  Naturally I got a streak going to 94. So I just finished out the last 6 and moved on to the thrusters.

So thrusters after struggling to max out overhead squats isn't a good idea. I should have scaled to 75#, but it didn't occur to me during set up.  That first rep however, brought it home quite clearly.  Struggle through the thrusters in sets of 5 and finally made it to the box jumps which I finished with less than a minute to go.

Managed 15 kettle bell swings before the buzzer for a score of 185. 

Kinda glad I didn't have to do any burpees! 

I guess I should start tracking my overhead squat progress:

Progress update of revised weightlifting goals. Derived from intermediate level for my body weight (at the time the goals were set!) at www.exrx.net

New Overhead Squat PR. 

Lift / target weight / current PR
Bench / 190lbs / 195lbs Jan 10, 2014 (up from 185lbs) !!!!!!
Dead Lift / 300lbs / 300lbs Jan 22, 2014 (up from 285lbs) !!!!!
Press / 130lbs / 130lbs Mar 7, 2014 (up from 125lbs) !!!!!!
Power Clean / 185lbs / 185lbs Dec 30, 2013 (up from 175lbs) !!!!!!
Power snatch / 140lbs / 125lbs Mar, 27, 2014 (up from 115lbs)
Back Squat / 255lbs / 265lbs Jan 14, 2014 (up from 245lbs) !!!!!

Other lift PRs:
Front Squat 215# Sept 11, 2013
Push Press: 175# (up from 165#) Feb 18, 2014
Clean: 185# (up from 180#) Dec 23, 2013
Jerk: 185# (up from 180#) Oct 30, 2013
Snatch: 130# July 22, 2013
Clean and Jerk: 175# July 24, 2013
Overhead squat: 115# April 10th, 2014 

Crossfit log for Tuesday November 12th

What a horrible day.

Friday massage, Saturday hot bath, Sunday and Monday rest, all add up to incredible potential.

Untapped potential, wasted potential, unused potential.

Started with overhead squats.  What a joke. I've been trying to get an OHS for years and I hadn't tried in while, so with all this recover and fresh muscles today was the day.

Not even close.   3 sets of 3 became 3 failed attempts with an empty bar and calling it quits

Then we had 4 sets front squat + push press for load on 1 min rest followed by one armed kettle bell overhead squats.

Didn't matter what the weight was I couldn't squat while keeping the weight overhead,  my arm would invariable be forced forward.  I walked away after the second set.

As I put my equipment away, while everyone else was happily (more or less) squatting and push pressing, tears welled in my eyes.

I wanted to leave, but I decided to do the workout anyway.

5 rounds of 185# dead lifts 5 reps and bar dips 10 reps. 10 minute cap.  Finished in 9:51.  I was reduced to singles and doubles on the bar dips on the last two rounds. 

At least I finished before the time cap.

I've been adding my old log entries to this blog for a while now, slowly working backwards through time. I had set a goal of getting an OHS by year's end back in 2011 and again last year. 2013 is coming to an end and I suck just as bad as I did 2 years ago.

I was looking forward to putting my year of mobility behind me and starting my year of strength.  But I can't see that happening.  I've booked an appointment with Rob Crispo to see if there is anything I can do. 

I know it's a long journey, and I can't get discouraged.  I've come a long way, but it seems like I still have such a long way to go.

Keep moving forward. That's all I can do. Just do the work. One day, it'll all come together.  Or so I have to keep telling myself.

What will it take?

I can't figure out why it's so hard to blog regularly.  I post in my training log daily, I could just as easily put that content here.

I think it would be pretty dry though, and maybe that's the problem.  When I stare at this blank screen I want to fill it with "marvellous" words. (and now I've just realized that the title of my blog has a mistake in it)!  Or I have so much to say that I know I won't have time to put it all in, or the post would be way too long.

So rather than try to post about everything, I'll make a list, then blog about each one over the next little while. Maybe that will keep me posting!

So here we go.

Status of my eye surgery - the short of it is: no update, going back to Dr. Delperro April 4th)

Physio therapy - this is a new one, worthy of it's own post.

The House - I should really be posting daily on this one as we approach the deadline and so much has been done.

Strep Throat - Four infections in the last five month, eight in the last fifteen months.  Is a tonsillectomy in my future? Stay tuned!

Kids - they grow, and learn, and surprise you all the time with the stuff they come up with.  Need more posts about them.

So now that that's out of the way, I have no excuses!

Eye made some progress

Well so much for that writing catalyst.

Not one single post in the entire month of September.  Ouch.

Last Thursday I waltzed into the Riverside Hospital and let retired Colonel W. Delperro sever some over zealous muscles controlling my left eye.

The results have been less than miraculous.  All this time of my brain ignoring the left eye has left it unable to synchronize with it brother.

The recovery, as usual, not as trivial as advertised.

Granted, it is still early in the healing process.  I only missed 2 workouts, and the abrasion on the eye was unpredictable, so I should be, and really am, thankful that it went so well.

My eye no longer shoots up and in, which is good.  I still have double vision (which I've lived with for 35 years and can manage quite well), but now the images are parallel, whereas before the left images was slightly rotated (about fifteen degrees).  On the rare occasions when the image from the left eye asserts itself it is less disorienting than before, which is a bonus.

The muscles are still in spasms according to the good Colonel, and will take a couple of weeks before they settle into the new normal. So things may yet improve. At that point we can measure the difference in angle and decide where to go from there.

There are only two choices. Corrective glasses with prisms, that would correct both vision and angle. Since I'm farsighted, I'd need glasses for reading for vision and angle, but I'd also need glasses for driving with only the angle correction.
The other option is corrective surgery to permanently alter the angle of the left eye to match the right when looking straight ahead, leaving me with regular reading glasses. 

Having committed to this course of action, I suspect I'll be returning to the Riverside Hospital over the winter to see this process to it's end.

My brain will decide on it's own whether turning my head to maintain stereoscopic vision, or reverting to discarding the image from one eye will be the best approach when not looking straight ahead.



I really should have done this years ago.

Writing catalyst

Clearly I don't post regularly.

Although I do log my workouts daily.  I've decided that must subject my readership to my workout log as an intro to my blog posts as a last resort to get me writing.

To my RunningMania.com peeps, the workout portion of my posts here will be identical to my Crossfit log on the forum (but with unrelated bonus material)!

I have a lot to post about lately, so much so that I've shied away from posting at all for lack of ability to prioritize it all.

There's the house rebuild, there's Fan Expo this last weekend, our new car (new to us that is), my upcoming eye surgery, Dexter developing an attitude, Delilah starting school, Clarisse starting highschool, Caleb learning to drive

I'll just have to work my way through it all.  So here we go.

Yesterday's workout left me exhausted (which the runningmania crowd already knows), which is unusual.  My workouts usually energize me for the day.

I guess two days on my feet at Fan Expo in Toronto with Caleb, plus four to five hours of driving each day, took a lot out of me.

Today was a different story. I got a good night's sleep and the workout was a good one.

Well not the strength part.  We did "Turkish get ups". Ugh.  We had 10 minutes to find our 4 rep max.  I managed 20kg, but it cost me, with two minutes left, I couldn't even sit up with the 24kg kettle bell.

The WOD was unclear.

It was 4 three minute rounds of
-3 cleans at 135lbs (not long ago this was my maximum for 1 rep)
-6 handstand push ups (just learned to do these a couple of weeks ago)
-40m sprint

Isabelle, the morning coach, doesn't do the programming, her brother Frank does. At first we thought it was 1 round then rest for the remaining time, but we were finished with half the time remaining, and noticed it said "for max reps" on the side.  So round two we did as many rounds as possible, but there was no indication of rest between rounds. We just slugged out the rest as an 8 minute AMRAP (as many rounds as possible).

I look forward to finding out what it was supposed to be.

I really enjoyed the cleans. They were hard, but I'm must've done fifteen of them. Considering they were my max a couple of months ago, I take that as a sign of progress.

Crossfit log for Wednesday, March 7th: The fear of having nothing meaningful to say

I think that's why all my previous attempts at blogging have failed.

Most if not all of what I post is of interest to no one but myself. I guess that made me feel self conscious.

I guess I've grown up a little, in as much as I don't care anymore.  So without further ado here is my Crossfit workout for this morning.

For strength work we did power clean. I like power clean only because it's the one Olympic lift I am capable of doing without embarrassing myself.

We did 3 rounds of 5 reps in quick succession at about 60% of our maximum weight (also known as our 1 rep max), I don't know my max, so I went with 75# which worked pretty well.

We did one clean from the floor then three from the hang position (bar at waist), then another from the floor for a total of five reps.

I felt good, felt like I had good position (most of the time), but I need to work at getting my elbows up and in front faster. This is important because when you elbows are up, your deltoids are contracted and form a cushioning shelf for the bar to land on instead of you collar bone. I'll have a nice bruise by tomorrow.

The WOD was brutal
12 min AMRAP (as many rounds as possible) of:

5 handstand push ups (did scaled with feet on a 36" box, bent at close as I can get to 90% with a large percentage of my body mass over my hands)
10 pistols (these are essentially one legged squats, did scaled version, down to a seated position on to a 16" box)
10 knees to elbows (hanging from a pull up bar, bring knees up to touch your elbows. This I did Rx, as in without assistance and full range of motion, and did well).

Made 6 rounds + to 6 knees to elbows, so almost 7 rounds.


It was hard, hand stand push ups are essentially a strict shoulder press upside down, which isn't my strongest point even when right side up.  Pistols are rough. At first I was doing 5 on one side then 5 on the other, then it became 3, 3, 2, 2 and by the end it was 1 each side. They are going to make my run this evening very interesting.