velocitysports

This time, Joe at Velocity

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Joe, a coworker of Kris', joined us this morning at Velocity. Breanne decided to let us off easy this morning, provided you weren't Joe and knew what to expect. After Monday's workout, I needed something easy (where "easy" is relative).

This morning's workout was 3 rounds of:

30 box jumps
30 kettleball swings
8 lengths of running

I did my first two sets of box jumps on the 3rd highest box, which is also the third lowest box. It's about 18" high, so not the maximum height I've trained at before, but a height I was comfortable jumping three sets of 30 after running. I did the last set at the 12" box, but only because I was in a hurry to catch up with eveyrone else.

The kettleball swings were normal.

I managed to run the first two sets of 8 lengths (which are really 8 x 50m shuttles) at a good clip: good form, knees high, crank out the meters no problem. The last set? I needed to run behind someone to pace me, just to keep moving.

Joe did pretty well, smiling and laughing through most of the workout, jokingly complaining about how hard it was. He told me after class that he works out 4-5 times a week in the gym and doesn't feel as tired as he did at the end of class. He ended up signing up for a few classes. I don't know if he signed up for the monthly membership or just a 10x deal. Kris wasn't sure either, but was surprised that he signed up, as "the gym at work is free." Kris' motivation is to workout with me, I think.

Me? I find group workouts far more compelling than working out alone in the gym. I'm glad Kris and I are still going to the classes.

Breanne made me cry

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This morning, once again, I was reminded of the stark contrast between "adult fitness" and "ultimate fitness." More importantly, the difference between the small world of sports played passionately and larger world of people just wanting to stay in shape, or lose a few pounds, or something else like that.

I am the slowest, possibly the second slowest, person on my ultimate team. Much of this has to do with (my lack of) fitness and my growing number of annoying injuries, but I can't ignore the lack of dedication (read: obsession) this season after becoming a practice player. Well, that and just plain genetics, even though my college times imply I can run an okay fast time.

In contrast, I am the fastest, possibly the second faster, woman at Velocity for the times I go, which are the morning adult fitness classes. Not that it ever really matters during the warmups, since people should be running as fast as they want, not as fast as they can go. I do prefer, however, to try to keep up with the boys, and I manage for those first five steps, the ones which are so important in ultimate. The last 30 meters? Yeah, their backsides.

The latter inspires significantly more than the former. Though that could be Breanne's infectious attitude towards pushing oneself to see really how well you can do.

This morning's workout was two rounds of:

20m x 2 Overhead walking lunges
30 squats
10 dips

20m x 2 Overhead walking lunges
30 jumping squats
10 dips

20m x 2 Overhead walking lunges
30 split squat jumps
10 dips

Overhead walking lunges are done with a wide grip on a barbell, held over one's head with arms locked. The lunges are supposed to be low, but not so that the front leg goes past 90°. I didn't use the girlie bar for the walking lunges, opting instead for the trainer bar (17kg or about 35 pounds). My upper body wasn't as tired as my lower body as a result.

The squats were normal squats, but done explosively! as fast as possible while keeping form. The hamstrings were to go parallel with the floor.

Jumping squats involved the same as the squats for quickness, but also included a jump at the end.

The split squat jumps were essentially jumping from a lunge position and switching feet, attempting to go as high as possible.

The dips could be regular dips on the dip bar, a jump up to the dip bar with a lower, or a dip from the jump boxes. I opted for the latter, after realizing that I couldn't do one regular dip, and not really wanting to fight over the dip bars for the jumping ones.

I finished the workout, maintaining as much form as I could, just behind Kris. The last sets of squats weren't one set of 30 each, but rather three sets of 10, strung together quickly, because my legs just couldn't handle 30 explosive anythings by that point.

At the end of the last set of dips, I curled into a ball and started crying. I sat that way for a moment, before standing up, and walking over to Kris and burying my face in his shoulder to continue crying. He was standing next to the big fan, where I needed to be, as I couldn't manage to get my body temperature down this morning, despite the 65° room or the removal of various pieces of clothing during the workout. "You're not injured?" was Kris' first reaction, a perfectly reasonable reaction, I'd say.

No, not injured. Just very, very, very happy to be done with that workout.

Chookie joins us!

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Last night, I managed to use three of the four standard modes of transportation to travel home. Doyle drove me from work to Stanford, where I sauntered to the train station until I realized that the noise I just heard was the southbound train arriving, not the north bound train departing. One heft of the backpark and two red-light dodges, and I was running for the train, 10-ride ticket validation be damned.

Little did I realize as I was launching myself into the nearest car door, was that the train was going to wait for another two minutes for the not-express train in front of it to accumulate a little more space. Of course, the puzzled, yet humoured looks of the seated passengers around me let me known that the crazy lady who launched herself into the their quiet car had better be quiet, too.

I didn't care, I had to pee.

Eventually I did find the Caltrain conductor and asked him to validate my ticket. He looked at me, then looked down at my ticket. Not only had he NOT asked for the ticket (meaning I could have ridden for free), but I was handing him a ticket from zone 2 to zone 3, when we were already in zone 3. I held my breath, wondering how long before he realized the ticket had expired four months before.

He said nothing, validated it, handed it back to me, then walked back out of the car.

15 seconds later, the train stopped in Mountain View. Sigh.

I then walked again, hoofing my way over to Chookie's place, which is about half was home from the train station. We talked for a while, before Kris called to see where I was. He was done with his lesson and on his way back home, too. Since Kris didn't know where Chookie lived exactly, I gave him directions to "close enough," as Chookie readied himself to leave also.

He was going out to run the track workout, not especially motivated to run by himself. I was concerned about his running in the dark, worried about ankle sprain potential. I offered to pick him up tomorrow morning and loan him my car after class, if he wanted to try out Velocity.

He said yes, and joined us this morning. Turns out, he knew someone at Planet Granite that Breanne knew, too, so they bonded instantly. Well, that and Chookie was "with them" where the "with them" from Sandy included a nod towards Kris and me.

Today's workout was four rounds of

20 swiss ball passes
20 back extensions
2 lengths of sled pushing
1 length of med ball walking

The swiss ball passes were similar to previous ones, but done solo. Lying on my back, I started with the swiss ball in my hands. Sitting up into a V position, lifting my legs up, I passed the ball to my feet, then dropped back down from the V up to lying back down, the ball between my feet. Next, back into a V position, passing the back back to my hands, then lowering it over my head as I dropped back from the V up position back down to a lying position.

I managed one of those before I couldn't actually do a V-up properly. I ended up lifting my shoulders and upper body off the ground, but not my full back, when passing the ball. Not fully correct, but sufficient.

The back extensions were as normal.

I ran the first sled push with just a 50 pound plate on the sled. The run was harder than I was expecting it to be, especially at the end. However, "harder than I was expecting" is not the same as "too hard," and I bumped up the weight to the 50 pound plate and a 25 pound plate on the sled for the last two runs. Breanne was amused by the weight increase and declared to Kris, "She's showing you up!" Kris, who had also been pushing the 75 pounds on the sled, looked and me and smiled. "She's tough!"

The med ball walking was the same as the plank walks of before.

After four rounds, we had time left over, so we did more abs (plank position on swiss balls, with Breanne kicking the ball).

At the end of it all, I asked Chookie what he thought. Was it tough enough for him?

A smile, a nod, and a "Yeah." in response.

And again with the velocity

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This morning's workout was three rounds of:

20 kettleball swings
40 one-armed kettleball swings, 20 each side
40 lateral box jumps, 20 each side
20 box jumps

Given that I've been feeling sick for the last day, I wasn't too excited about anything other than the warmup at the workout, and even that was difficult. I'm trying to recover from the quad pull from practice a week ago, and I forgot my properly cut-up running shoes that don't jam my achilles, and this whole workout was a recipe for disaster.

I started with the lateral jumps, jumping up sideways to the second lowest box. On the regular box jumps, I moved up to the next box height, but didn't start looking up (instead of watching my feet) until the second round.

The first 20 kettleball swings, no problem. The one-armed kettleball swings? Problem. I had to drop down to a 10# weight from the 17# kettleball for that one.

At round 2 or so I was moving so slowly that by round 3 my lateral box jumps became stepups. Slowly. Yeah, understatement. Everyone cleaned up the weights before I could finish my workout. No, THAT's not discouraging, why do you ask?

Rockin' the bear crawls

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This morning's workout was two rounds (yeah, Breanne's going easy on us) of:

50 kettleball swings
40 overhead thrusts
30 situps
20 pushups
10 burpees
5 lengths (20m) of bear crawls

We had only two rounds because previous classes couldn't finish three rounds of the workout. Clearly Kris isn't in the class. There was a new girl in the class, who received a jolting introduction to Velocity. I'm not sure why anyone starts in the morning classes with Breanne, as tough as she is. It's like jumping into ice cold water just after waking up under a pile of warm comforters. The day after you learned to swim.

They should just have new people come in the evenings. More likely to retain new customers that way, instead of the morning workouts scaring them off.

Yeah, so, I'm finally able, if I warm up both slowly and enough, to run again. The transition from not being able to run and being able to run was really abrupt. I managed to jack my achilles on the last day of the Canyon trip, running up a sand hill "because it was there" (yes, the actual answer to Kris' question, "Why would you do that?"), so wasn't expecting to run for another six weeks again. However, lots of stretching, sandals, walking, more stretching, heat and ice, and what do you know, I managed my return to ultimate, though still no heavy impact plyometrics (box jumps and jumping jacks are still out).

So, on the warmups this morning, I was able to run at my 100% and keep up with Kris for the first three steps of the 100% warmup runs. Of course, when he runs the 100% at 82%, I can almost keep up, too.

I managed to complete the first set of kettleball swings in one go, all 50 in a row. The second set was 15, 29 and 6. The overhead thrusts, even with the lightest bar, I had no hopes of doing in one set. I opted for four sets of 10 for both rounds. The situps were easy, no problem there. The pushups I had to do from the knees, having exhausted my arms in the thrusts. And the burpees? Oh good lord, I was barely jumping in the second round. The first round's burpees I did fairly well, but still did the pushup part from my knees.

Now, the bear crawls, oh, boy, there I SHINED! I am at a serious biomechanical advantage on bear crawls, let me tell you. Never before has a long torso been so desirable! Two hands and two feet on the floor, facing down (facing up is a crab walk), move forward on all fours. With the short legs, my butt doesn't stick up waaaaaaay in the air like, say, Paul's or Kris', and I'm able to practically jog down the turf on all fours, limited only by how fast my hands can ove. Breanne can actually sprint on all fours, which I'll have to build up to. My bear walking pace, however, is as twice as fast as everyone else's in the class.

Rock on, long torso!

Velocity this morning

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This morning's workout was five rounds of

Run 8 lengths of the track (or 8 x 50m for a total of 400m)
30 box jumps
30 squat wall ball tosses

This morning's velocity

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15 overhead thrusts
20 m walking overhead lunges
15 overhead squats
20 m walking overhead lunges
Run 6 lengths (240m in 6x40m shuttles)

4 rounds

Velocity today

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Today's workout at Velocity was four rounds of decreasing reps of:

Plank position hand walk
Kettleball swings
Overhead push press
Box jumps
Run 4 lengths

Sets were were 21, 18, 15, and 12 repetitions. Well, except the plank position hand walk and the four lengths of running, which weren't decreasing.

The plank position hand walks were done along a row of medicine balls lined up along ten yards, spaced a bit over a yard apart. Starting in a plank position (a pushup position), hands just to the left of the first ball, hand walk to first ball and put both hands on the ball, then continue walking to put both hands to the right of the ball. The trick is to move your feet along with the sideways hand walking. One round is done walking to the left, the next walking to right.

The kettleball swings are the same as normal. The overhead push press was same as normal, as were the box jumps and running four lengths.

The workout was a good combination of upper body and lower body workout.

First returned workout

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Today's workout was 4 rounds of:

10 overhead squats
10 overhead backward lunges
20 barbell rollouts
2 suicides sprints of 5m-10m-15m-20m

The overhead squats were normal.

The backward lunges were done holding a barbell overhead, stepping backwards.

The barbell rollouts were freaking HARD. Start on the knees, with hands shoulder width apart on a barbell with light weights on them, used as wheels. Start in a tucked position, then roll out to a plank position, then roll back to a tucked position. I didn't make it out to a plank position in any of my rollouts.

I ended up biking the suicide runs, being unable to run yet.

Velocity, sans Kris, with Paul

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I went to this morning's workout without Kris. For reasons I don't understand, hard workouts make me sore starting less than 12 hours after the workout ends, but Kris doesn't start feeling soreness until 24 hours after the end. Of course, this means that he's still sore two days after the workout, and I'm on the way back to full recovery.

So, he was tired and sore, and I really wanted to go. Paul goes Wednesdays and Fridays, so I was motivated to go. Honestly, I'm sore, too, but consistency is key, so go go go!

This morning's workout was four sets of reducing reps of

Overhead barbell squats
Side to side hurdle jumps
Swissball rollouts
Handstand pushups
Run 4 lengths (50m each)

Reps were 21 18 15 and 12.

The overhead squats were done with a barbell held overhead, so that the arms were straight and the bar was directly over the head. I originally thought the bar plus ten pounds would be fine for me. After three squats, I was sure I was wrong. I dropped the weights and just used the bar. I had problems keeping the bar directly over my head. I kept holding the bar slightly back, which allowed me to lean slightly forward, the bane of my squatting existence. I struggle to work the right set of squatting muscles every time, and compensensate by leaning forward. Such muscle weakness shows in my marking, too, unfortunately, so these lifts are important for me to perform right.

The side to side hurdle jumps were at two heights: 12" and 6". I did the first three sets at the lower height, once again because my knees have been achy, but also because my legs were (are) still exhausted from Monday's workout.

Today's swissball rollouts were different than Monday's rollups.. The rollout was started in a plank position with the ball under the arms, which were bent (e.g. with arms resting on the ball). The ball was then rolled backward to the point where only the hands were on the ball. The butt needs to go up into the air. That's one.

None of the four of us at class were able (well, willing in the case of Breanne) to do the full handstand pushups against the wall. I remember doing them with Gino, but I had a spotter when we did them. Instead, we put our feet on a jump block, and angled ourselves so that we were as close to the block as we could be, essentially doing a handstand pushup, but with greater range of motion since we had less weight on our shoulders.

I wasn't able to run the runs full out, so I had to settle for a fast, first five steps.

I am way sore. While I rather like the sore feeling, I don't like my achilles hurting as much as it has over the last few days. It's really starting to bother me a lot.

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