Session 9: Fly Kicks, Caveman Eating and Box Jumps

Session 9

For sesh 9 I had Mike, the little ginger leprechaun dude. I got in on time, did my standard warm-up, then went over to go through the standard lifts we had been practicing for the last 3 weeks. This time, he brought an iPad with him and video taped me. This was at first a bit disconcerting. I was worried I'd look ridiculous, but actually seeing myself was quite helpful. I could see my knees tracking out during squats, and my elbows dropping down during front-squats. Overall Mike was pretty complimentary, and was happy with my progress. The session wasn't all that tough, and I got done pretty early so I had a few minutes to grab water before class.

Class started with everyone running 400m then circling up for the 30-20-30. Steve (dude who calls me Josh) was leading. As per usual I looked around, searching for my dream girl, and then....my heart skipped a beat. There she was, tight white tank top, blue nike shorts, hair in a pony tail....Kansas shorts had returned! I could barely contain my excitement and for sure stared hard for the whole warm-up. Chances I was giving off the creep vibe....strong to quite strong.

After the warm-up Steve told us to go grab a box and a medicine ball (20 lbs for girls, 30 for dudes), so I did just that. When I got back to my spot the two dudes next to me were laughing at me..."are you really gonna do 50 bro?" one of them asked. I had no idea what they were talking about. Then I looked down and saw everyone else had either a 20 or 30lb med ball and I had mistakenly grabbed a 50. I was clearly outta me league tossin around a 50 so I picked up my ball and started to walk back to get a 30. Steve, however, had a bee in his bonnet and wanted us to start..."Where are you going?" he yelled at me. "I grabbed the wrong ball, just switching it out." I responded, matter-of-factly. "Oh, gotcha, make sure you grab the 20!" 20 was the girl weight. Thanks so much for blowin up my spot in front of my future wife bro, I really appreciate it.

I came back with the 20 (feeling like a girly-man) and dropped it next to my box. Steve told us we would be doing 10 ball slams, 10 box jumps, and a 100 meter run for 15 minutes, do as many as you can. I felt like this would actually suit my skill set pretty well...I had some mad hops back in high school (yup, I could dunk a basketball, not too shabby for a white boy) and I had done work with med balls before and felt pretty comfortable with them. Get ready for a show Kansas shorts.

Steve yelled for us to start and turned on an unedited version of Young Jeezy's "I Love It". I strongly approved of the song selection and went out hard as fuck. I slammed the shit outta my ball 10 times, then showed off my prodigious vertical on the box jumps. You can see me doin work below.

After I finished those I took off running like a bat outta hell. I was near the front of the pack and feeling good. When I got back I took a look at the clock and there were 13:45 left on it. My first thought was "sweet, I can do a ton more!"

My second, more rational thought was "shit, I'm gonna hafta do a ton more."

I realized I'd need to pace myself if I was gonna last for the whole time, so I did my ball slams a little slower, and took it a bit easier on the box jumps. My legs were still pretty fresh so these weren't too bad. After I finished those I took off for my 100m.

The problem with the 100m run is that it really doesn't take very long at all. whereas a 400m gives you a few mins to catch your breath and get ready for your next set of exercises, the 100m is over in an instant, even if you're slow as hell. This made it much harder to catch my breath between sets of ball slams and box jumps.

The third and fourth sets weren't too bad, but my legs gradually started to lose their bounce. This was not a good sign. The last thing I wanted was to miss my jump, fall over, possible hurt myself, and, more importantly, look like an unathletic loser with no hops. I slowed down even more on the box jumps, and made sure to get as high as possible.

During all of this Kansas shorts was doing work. She probably lapped me 3 times total, and I didn't mind a bit. Just killin it. (Note: Post-sesh I did some hardcore Google stalking and found out that she did the pole vault at Kansas, and was 3rd in the Big 12 her senior year...took some sting out of losing to her for sure)

By the fifth time around, I was tired as hell. There were still like 7 minutes left, and I was legit worried about not being able to jump high enough to get on the box. I had also realized that a regular (not sure what his name was) and I were basically neck and neck. I decided that I'd try to keep pace with him til the end. I grinded through the next few sets, struggling pretty hard but keeping pace.

Finally Steve screamed "One Minute!!!" I dug deep and went as hard as I could. Luckily Rack City came on right around then, so my energy level spiked.

After my last round of ball slams and box jumps, vet dude and me were neck and neck. With about twenty seconds left, we both went into the 100m and he started slightly ahead of me. He looked over his shoulder, clearly looked at me, and took off as fast as he could. I also sprinted, and caught him with about 20 meters to go. I finished out ahead, went back to my med ball, and spiked it like Gronk scoring a game winning TD as the clock expired. #boss

After we finished we all put back our balls and boxes then grabbed water. Steve said this was going to be an easy day, so to just stretch out for a bit. This was absolutely music to my ears. I grabbed some water and posted up on the ground. I did a few stretches and waited patiently for Kansas shorts to come over and chat.

To my chagrin, she decided that instead of stretching and chatting she'd rather go outside in the 95 degree heat and push a sled thing with like a million pounds of weights on it. If I was a boss I woulda gone out there and pushed a sled right along side her, demonstrated my manliness, and then taken her back to my 2002 RSX for a passionate make out sesh. But alas I am not, so I stayed in the air conditioning and basically laid there.

I chatted it up with a few of the vets and they were extremely nice and helpful. I asked them how long they'd been doing it (each over 4 years), how often they came (everyday) and what kind of diet they were on (paleo...I'll get into that in a sec). It kind of dawned on me that people don't get in crazy good shape by accident. The people at CrossFit who look like fitness models have basically made a choice to dedicate themselves to it. They're there twice a day, and it basically consumes their life. The people who go two or three times a week look a lot more like normal people.

Now to the paleo diet. Don't quote me on any of this, it's all second hand, but I guess a lot of CrossFitters ascribe to the Paleo diet. Basically, the premise is that our bodies haven't changed much at all since pre-historic times, and that eating meats and vegetables is pretty much all you need. The diet basically cuts out grains, sugars, anything that's processed. I told them I could in theory do that, but it sounded pretty terrible. They told me it really wasn't that bad. I've decided to give it a try for a bit, nothing crazy but just cut out unnecessary sugar and grains (if you're wondering I've deemed beer a necessary grain, just FYI), and see how I feel.

The Mall

After I finished my marathon stretchfest, I bummed around for a few minutes waiting for Kansas shorts to finish. She didn't. Obviously, she was gonna be there for a while, so I decided to bounce. Hopefully I see her again #fingerscrossed

After I left I headed to Briarwood Mall to grab some new kicks. A bit of background on my current kicks: they look fly as fuck, but they smell TERRIBLE. Seriously. My dad and sister have each made numerous comments regarding their odor. I'm guessing others have noticed but were too polite to tell me I smelled, but I figured it was time to take care of them.

Important note regarding malls:

If your go-to mall has any of the following stores:

-Payless Shoes
-JC Pennys
-Sears
-Spencers Gifts

You need to find a new one. Seriously. I grew up right by Somerset in the 248 so I'm an unapologetic mall snob, but I can say confidently that nothing is worse than a shitty mall. If you read the last few sentences and thought "Man, John is such a dick, I love those stores!" we probably shouldn't be friends anymore. Just sayin.

But I digress, I hit up Foot Locker and, to my dismay, they had no running shoes in any size bigger than a 10. Seriously, ridiculous. To me that's the equivalent of KFC running out of chicken or Starbucks running out of coffee. Unacceptable.

Undeterred, I headed to Finish Line. Their selection was also limited, but a little better. I bought the kicks you see below. I know, pretty baller.

After making my purchase, I headed back to my humble abode, watched some hardcore NetFlix (quick update, just finished season 3 of Breaking Bad...shit is WILDDDDD), and went to sleep. Overall it was a solid day, and I left excited for my final sesh.