Monday's Workout

I really didn't feel like getting out of bed this morning at 6am to work out, but I summoned up some willpower, got up, put on my workout clothes, took a look at the WOD on my iPad, and headed out the door.  The workouts at my new box are posted at 5:30 in the morning each day. My former box always posted them the night before. I still haven't decided which is worse--knowing what the workout is and fretting about it all night, or not knowing and being blindsided by it in the morning, lol.  

Today didn't look bad on paper, but boy was it tough! That's one of the things about CrossFit; the WODs look innocent enough, but they're always a lot harder than they look. My box has a 5:45am and a 6:45am class so I usually get there as the first class is finishing up and I hate it when they all look like they're dying! It's the worst because I know I'm going to be feeling that way soon.

Warm up--jump rope for 2 minutes--I didn't attempt double unders because the warm up wasn't posted in the workout and I didn't prepare properly--getting old problems--I'll explain in another post!

PVC pipe warm up--This is where we take a PVC pipe that's about the length of a barbell and stretch with it. 

Work up to 3 reps of max overhead squat--The overhead squat is the most difficult lift for me to do. It requires a lot of mobility and strength, and is hard on the shoulders--I'm getting better though 
--I PR'd today and was able to overhead squat 45 pounds 3 times. I probably could have gone up to 50 pounds fairly easily, but I didn't want to risk irritating my shoulder (it's finally getting better after giving me trouble for a long time at my old box--all credit for its improvement goes to my awesome new coach). 

We had 18 minutes to work on our squats. I've learned to keep a close eye on the clock so I have a few minutes to use the ladies' room before we start the WOD which is important at my age, lol. The WOD was a doozy today:

burpees to box jump overs
wall balls
handstand push-ups (the modification for this was a dumbbell strict press--I used 15 lb dumbells).
pull-ups (modification was ring rows)
power cleans (I did 55 lbs)
assault bike

The assault bike is an even more exquisite form of torture than the burpee. Whoever invented it must have been a sadist. The first time I got on one I pedaled for about 10 seconds and then started feeling around for the knob to adjust the resistance--but guess what--there isn't one! The faster you try to pedal on this evil device, the harder it is. Put it this way--I rode it for 3 minutes this morning and only got 17 calories. It's ridiculous!
We had to do each movement for 3 minutes and then move directly to the next movement without stopping. We were supposed to count our reps to have a total number at the end of the workout, but as is often the case I lost count and didn't have a total at the end, lol, I was completely spent though. It felt good to have my workout over before 8am and I was done and ready to start my day.