Friday, May 16, 2008

The Quickening...

This week has been a bad one for me with Crossfit - I only made it into the Blue Room once, on Monday. I've been missing out for various reasons (late night helping a friend move, early meeting, feeling feverish), but I've been trying to keep up with the workouts. This was the second time I missed The Quickening, so I decided to hit it in my gym at work. Used 20lb dumbbells for the push press, and a 45lb dumbbell for the high pull. My workout was fraught with a couple of problems:


First of all, treadmills suck for sprints. It took a full 38 seconds for the treadmill to go from 0mph to 7.5mph. Yay for wasted time and intensity? I tried to adjust my final times to compenstate (subtracted 1:15 from each). So - instead of 14:48 and 11:34, I estimated that it would have taken me 13:33 and 10:19. Hopefully, I'll get a chance to find out what my REAL score would be one of these days!


Secondly - this was the type of dumbbell I used:









Which led to this (picture taken today, workout done yesterday):


OUCH. I guess these are bruises, although I've never seen red bruises before. These are quite swollen, which you can't see in the picture. Attractive, no?



I saw that the workout I missed this morning (courtesy of Katie's blog) was working on the front squat, and then a circuit of front squats, pull-ups, and dips. Even though I'm not feeling my best, I think I can handle a strength circuit. Of course - this is what I have to work with for pull-ups and dips:



Which is SO not the same as doing kipping pull-ups and ring dips, but I suppose it's what I'm stuck with when I don't make it into the blue room!! Not sure how much weight I should use on these - maybe 50lbs? Any suggestions? I know I can't dip my full weight (using the pink band, where I can get maybe 2 in a row), and I definitely can't do a dead-hang pull-up yet. Advice welcome!

6 comments:

Adrienne said...

several comments!

-red bruises come from the stupid dumbbells hitting your forearms over and over again. It's a good way to work on your forearm strength and grip. It also may be a sign of week wrists. when you do push presses with this.. you gotta remember to keep those wrists straight! Come to think of it.. you may have gotten the bruises from the high pulls.. if that's the case.. then try holding the dumbbell on the ends instead of by the bar in the middle.
-stupid pullup machine.. can still work. you can get rid of the knee rest and still kip, although it's a little cumbersome. think of it as a chance to work on efficiency of movement. Do the same things for dips. Get rid of that rest and push your dips. It's a little easier on this thing because it's more stable than on the rings.

and I'm done!
Get your butt back into the blue room

Katie said...

I second Adrienne... get your butt back in the blue room... ;)

Cara said...

Yeah - there was almost no way for the dumbbells NOT to hit my arms, with the way they were built!

Sadly, even with the knee rest gone, there wasn't enough room to kip.

I will be back in the blue room Monday-Wed (I'm out of town this weekend, and then from Wed to the following Monday!

Jerry Hill said...

WOW!

Oh those red marks will turn a deeper blue sometime today...

Nice work, way to get some!

Cara said...

Hmm - not sure if I'll prefer the blue to the red...

See you on Monday!

Katie said...

I'm telling you Cara, just make up crazy stories about how you got them, the way I do with the ones on my legs that I ALWAYS get from dropping the bar on myself when we hit hang squat cleans. It's way fun! :)