Front Squats, Cursive and Crying While Eating

Hello to all of my adoring fans,

Hope all is well....I've been wicked busy with fantasy football research, moving in to my new place, and jetting all over the country to exotic locales like Gull Lake, MI and Geneva, NY so I apologize for the two week gap between posts. However, since then I've gone to a bunch of classes. I've got a few pics for you, some hilarious videos and, of course, some witty commentary. 

I've decided that since I've gone to probably ten sessions since my last post it would take forever to write up each of them, so I'm just going to pick a couple anecdotes that I found hilarious or that make me look like a boss.  Sooooo enjoy.

21-15-9 and Front Squats

As many of you are aware, I fell deeply in love with a fellow CrossFitter almost immediately after starting. I have said nary a word to her, but my love grows stronger for Kansas shorts with each passing moment. Some of my friends find it funny to disparage my ultra-in-shape princess, indicating that she is using performance enhancing drugs, or bringing her gender into question, but I just brush them haters off and keep on ballin.

At a session about two weeks ago we did a wicked hard WOD (Workout of the Day), 21-15-9 of pull-ups, dips and burpees. Basically, you do 21 pull-ups, then 21 dips, then 21 burpees. After that, 15 of each, then 9 of each. It was hard as hell and I was absolutely dead afterwards. (See pic below of the kid bustin out a pull-up...it's OK to stare at my rippling muscles ladies, totally natural)

After the 21-15-9 was done, I collapsed on the ground and laid there until Doug, the head trainer, started yelling at me to stop being a bitch and go do some front squats. I obliged and joined up with two dudes who were able to front squat about six times a much as me. No joke, both of these dudes were straight yoked, miles out of my league.

Now you may be asking yourself "but John, why would you do such a thing? Wouldn't you rather join up with some poor schlubs who can barely walk so you could look sweet in comparison?" My rationale: location.

In front squatting, I reasoned, as in real estate, location is paramount. I noticed that these two greek gods were stationed directly next to, you guessed it, Kansas shorts. I hopped in with them hoping I could make some small talk with her in between sets, maybe drop a few witty one liners, get them digits, take her out to a delicious seafood dinner, then, ya know, see what happened from there. Such decisions, as Jeremy Goro will tell you, are why I am 27 and single.

What I failed to consider was that proximity was far less important than relative performance. We did 5 sets of 3 reps, so I started out with 135. Each of my squat buddies started with 225. This meant that after each of my reps 2 45 pound plates had to be added to the bar. Not the best feeling in the world. Kansas shorts started out with 115 for those of you scoring at home.

I did OK for my first three set, but, unfortunately I wasn't able to chat up Kansas Shorts as she sat on the opposite side of her squat rack from me. Lame sauceeeee.

For our 4th set Doug came around to critique everyones form. As luck would have it me and Kansas Shorts were squatting at the exact same time. A quick recap...

To me: "John, you need to go deeper, you're not going down far enough"
To Kansas Shorts: "Great job, perfect form."

I looked over and was horrified to see that Kansas Shorts had upped her weight to the exact same amount as mine. Fuck.

To me: "You need to go past parallel, you need to use proper form or you're going to hurt yourself, you really should think about going down in weight."
To KS: "Perfect, push yourself, great work!"

Not only was I a million times worse at this than the two dudes in my group (who were each up at some astronomical weight I can't even count up to) I was actually weaker than a girl I liked. I think this was the moment when my genitals actually went up inside my body. I'd blown it with the girl of my dreams, no hope for a happy life, and my man point count was certainly well into the negatives. I felt kind of like Billy Madison when he tried to write buzz in cursive, I really wanted to run out of the gym crying and never come back.

I was able to channel the shame and embarrassment I felt and bust out three respectable front squats in my last set, but the damage had been done. After class ended I pretty much booked it out the door, then went home, ate a gallon of Ben and Jerry's Ice Cream while crying, and watched the Notebook.

OK, I didn't really do any of those things, but I pretty much felt like a little bitch. In all seriousness I'm guessing no one else really cared too much about how much or how little I was able to lift, but it seemed extremely important to me at the time. As has become a common theme, I'm gonna need to grow up and accept that I'm not going to always be the best at everything right away.

Alright, that's all I've got for tonight, more to come soon though I promise. Thanks for reading and stay hooooood.

Rumplemintz, Reflections, and Unity For Life

Dear Loyal Readers,

I sincerely apologize for taking so freaking long to update this thing. I know your days (or, in the case of Lauren Krensky nights) probably felt empty without some hilarious musings penned by yours truly.  Seriously, my bad. In the interest of time (I've gotta run to Mitch Bradford's show at the Blind Pig....kid's legit, check him out) I'll make this short, but I'll probably write about my latest session tomorrow night, so keep an eye out for that.

SESSION TEN

Well, my tenth session was freaking terrible. I had Jeff, and as you may or may not recall, it was on a Saturday morning at 10:00am. The night before I had a grand old time at Rick's American Cafe, and ended up going to bed around 4:30am. For those of you not familiar, Rick's is basically a dirty basement with sticky floors where 18-24 year olds (and me) go to freak dance on one another and drink way too much. Rick's is a hotbed for bacteria and bad decisions, and everyone seems to love it and be willing to wait in line for hours to get in. So ya, rough wake up after all that.

On the way there I pounded a five hour energy drink and hoped for the best. I arrived about five minutes late, but luckily Jeff was in the middle of another session. I raced through my warm-up, and then went over to where Jeff was.

I went through the same exercises I always do, but was expectedly terrible at them. Jeff noticed this immediately and looked me up and down like an airport security guard scrutinizing a minority. He quickly identified the stamp on my right hand. "Rick's last night, huh?" I nodded, ashamed. Jeff was not impressed by this. He proceeded to assign me 30 overhead presses, basically saying fuck you for going out last night.

After I finished he told me to rest for a hot second. I jogged over and grabbed some water. I was of course sweating profusely at this point, and could smell the alcohol cascading out of my pores. Like I said, many a bad decision has been made at Rick's.

After I came back over Jeff told me I was going to be doing my baseline test to see how far I'd come compared to my first session. I was fairly sure I was going to do significantly worse given my state, but I figured I'd give it my best shot.

The baseline test involves rowing 500m, 40 squats, 30 sit-ups, 20 pushups, and 10 pull-ups. I started out rowing and straight sprinted out of the gate. Generally a solid pace for me is about 1:50 but I did it in 1:30. Jeff was yelling at me the whole time saying I was going to burn myself out but I of course didn't listen. Sorry I'm not sorry.

After rowing was over my legs felt like jello. And I had 40 squats in front of me. Lame sauceeeeee. I started those and quickly realized they were going to be the hardest part of the test. I went pretty slow and had a few stops in the middle, but I made it through. Jeff screaming constantly about how much of a bitch I was definitely made it easier to power through.

After squats I burned through 30 situps. These were also difficult since I was tired as balls and pretty much never do sit-ups. After I finished, I did 20 push-ups with pretty shitty form (Jeff told me as much, but luckily didn't make me start over) then I ran to pull-ups.

For me at least 10 pull-ups is a pretty good amount, even doing the cross-fit kipping ones. I tried to get some momentum swinging and went as fast as I could. To my surprise I made it through without stopping, which I was pretty proud of.

"How'd I do?" I asked Jeff after I'd finished. I really had no idea what my time was going to be, but I knew he'd probably be pissed if it was worse than my baseline.

"4:44....not too bad, it's tough to drop a lot of time once you get under 5:00." I had started at 4:59 and that was doing jumping pull-ups, so I was pretty happy with 4:44.  Not doing backflips or anything like that, but satisfied given the situation.

SINCE THEN...

I've gone to I think 4 classes since I finished session ten (check out ya bout at the 2:01 mark), and I gotta say I'm pretty much hooked. It's for sure gonna be tough to schedule it consistently with no trainer breathing down my neck, and the shame and embarrassment of being worse than girls is still pretty awful, but I feel like the pro's far outweigh the con's at this point. Plus I started a freaking blog about this shit, so I'd say I'm pretty pot committed.

STATUS CHECK

I'm coming up on a month doing CrossFit and I feel like this is as good a time as any to do a quick status check. First off, I'm really glad to have something like this to do outside of work....great distraction from the weekly grind, and it makes me feel like I accomplished something at the end of the day.

I also like that it's hard, and that I suck at it. That's kind of weird to say, but I feel like the chances of me plateauing are a little less since I have so much room for improvement. They do a great job of mixing things up and keeping us guessing, and I feel like that's gonna make it easier to stick with it. Make no mistake, getting beaten by Kansas shorts in strength exercises still sucks, but I feel like I'm slowly coming to grips with the fact that (gasp!) I can't be awesome at everything right away.

I feel kinda weird mentioning this, but I've lost about 10 lbs since I started. More importantly, I feel like I'm in a LOT better shape then I was a month ago. I leave each workout feeling like I got better and stronger (except sesh 10....I just felt like shit after that one) and I feel like at this point the sky is the limit. No Brad Pitt Fight Club abs yet (sorry ladies) but my clothes fit a little better, and I do have a little more confidence.

Above all, I love having a goal to strive for. My boy Jared turned me on to a book called The Art of Fielding. I'm about 60 pages in right now, and it's awesome. It's about a kid who goes to a D3 school for baseball (remind you of anyone????) and just busts his balls to turn himself into an absolute stud shortstop (.....maybe not so much). It made me nostalgic for the days back at DCD (Unity4Life) when we'd longtoss in the snow and take BP til our blisters made it so we couldn't hold the bat anymore. Nothing could ever replace that feeling of brotherhood, togetherness, and just generally caring more about that one thing (winning state) than anything else in the world. But at this point for me this is about as good as I'm gonna get.

Alright, that's all, gotta run, thanks a lot for reading and more to come soon I promise!

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.

Sesh 8: Kipping Pull-Ups and Lice Scares

Sup Y'all,

Been a while, I know, but I've been busy and haven't really had a ton of time to blog. However, it's Sunday afternoon and I have nothing better to do sooooo I thought I'd go ahead and catch you all up on things. I think I'm gonna break sessions 8,9 and 10 up into separate posts to make it a bit more manageable for you all, so here we goooooo


Pre-Session 8


Session 8 I worked with Steve. To refresh your memories, he's the former army dude who calls me Josh. I am not a huge fan of his because of this. As a side note, if you would like for me to hate you forever, a surefire way to accomplish that is to forget my name. Seriously, not that hard to remember names, I learned like 150 each semester of teaching. And if you don't remember someones name, DON'T SAY ONE! Call me buddy, bro, dude, homie, whatever floats your boat, but NOT Josh.

Sorry about that, got a little fired up. Moving on...before the session I told Steve about my wrist (quick update, still numb, hurting quite a bit), I kind of expected him to say something like "Oh, you poor thing, it was so brave of you to come here and try to work out in your condition, but why don't you go home and rest for a few weeks until it's fully healed, then we can try this again." On the contrary, Steve was completely unconcerned by my wrist, and basically said "Sack up Josh, don't be a bitch." Awesomeeeeee.

We worked through the same lifts I had been doing previously. I kind of surprised myself at how many of them I was able to do without much pain in my wrist. If anything the injured wrist forces me to engage my core and improve my technique on most lifts, although it does make front squats and overhead squats much harder.

After going through the standard lifts, Steve showed me how to do CrossFit Pull-ups (aka Kipping Pull-up for those of you concerned with proper terminology). Basically, these are pull-ups where you swing your legs opposite your body and use all of you body and your momentum to achieve the pull-up . These are considerably easier than regular dead-hang pull-ups, but getting the rhythm of it is pretty difficult. I can certainly do more kipping pull-ups than regular pull-ups, but I feel like this will for sure be an area of growth for me. After messing around with a few different grips, Steve said it was time to start class...

Sesh 8:


Session 8 started out pretty standard, 400 meter run followed by 30-20-30 warm-up. As always I scouted out the group for talent and this time I was sorely disappointed. There were only about 10 people in the group so the pickings were slim. There was one tall girl who was decent looking. Not even in the same zip code as Kansas shorts, lame sauceeeee.

The owner of the gym, Doug, was running the session. A bit about Doug: He's awesome. I think the best way to describe Doug to you is to construct a hypothetical dating profile for him, so I have done so below.

Name: Doug the Trainer
Age: about 35
Height: 6'
Weight: 270
Favorite Exercise Regimen: Circuit Training: 1 rep max bench, 1 rep max squat, drink 5 bud diesels...repeat 5 times at high intensity.
Favorite Song: Ozzy-Crazy Train
A Perfect Saturday Night for me is: Kicking the shit out of hippies then chugging Wild Turkey like it's gatorade.

So basically Doug is a boss. No joke I could see him putting down a 30 rack of bud and not being phased a bit. But I digress...

The WOD (Workout of the Day) was 7 pull-ups, 7 burpees and a 400m run, do as many rounds as you can in 20 minutes. This actually seemed to suit my strengths pretty well, so I was cautiously optimistic about it. Doug cued up some Black Sabbath and yelled for us to start.

I started with pull-ups. I was still not terribly comfortable doing the kipping ones so I just did dead hang pull-ups. I did seven without too much trouble, then jogged 400 meters. After the 400 I powered through the burpees fairly easily and returned to pull-ups.

The thing about pull-ups for me is I can do a fair number for one set, but after I am tired I get to failure real quick. By my second set I was battling to get up for numbers 6 and 7, and I knew the third set was going to be even worse. After I finished pull-ups I jogged the 400, then battled through burpees again. When I returned to the pull-up bar I knew there was no way I'd make 7, so I decided to do the kipping ones. This made it significantly easier, but I still struggled to finish. I made it to 7...barely.

Quick side note: during all of this Doug was yelling encouragement/threatening us with bodily harm if we stopped, and also snapping pictures at an alarming rate. Below is a pic of me finishing up one of my 400's...I'm a champion.

You'll notice I'm rocking ankle socks...this is unusual for me as I generally rock no-shows, so I'd love to get some feedback...thoughts? Feelings? Good move? Brutal move? You tell me. Also, notice my neon green kicks...those of you who have been watching the Olympics have probably seen team USA rocking similar kicks...you should know I've been doing that shit since a year ago. #trendsetter

I continued the cycle and eventually had to switch to jumping pull-ups (like a bitch). In all I did 8 rounds of the 7/7/400, 4 were real pull-ups, 4 were jumping. Just an FYI, working out at high intensity for 20 minutes straight is hard as fuck...I was absolutely dead tired afterwards and just kind of laid on the pavement for a few mins. After I got my wits about me I got up and jogged over to grab water. Then Doug yelled for us to head over to the squat racks. Well shit.

I went over to the racks and partnered up with Tim, a pretty nice guy I'd never seen before. We were doing 2 reps of squats every minute. I decided to not do too much weight since I was tired as hell and worried about getting hurt again. Tim had no such fear and did significantly more than me. I was surprisingly not phased by this, I guess I'd grown used to being one-upped. Maybe a good thing, maybe a bad thing, who knows.

Midway through the squats I scratched my head and felt a piece of something on my scalp. "Oh fuck" I thought, "I must have lice." I was immediately back in 2nd grade where all the kids got checked by the fat old lady with the latex gloves...basically any chance I had of making friends with these CrossFit peeps would be ruined if it got out that I was the lice dude. I felt around a bit longer and to my relief I realized it was a bunch of gravel from the pavement I'd been laying on....still makes me a straight up dirtball but at least I didn't need to buy special shampoo.

The squats went pretty quickly and Tim and I made some small talk, which was nice. He encouraged me and said my form looked pretty good for a newbie. I appreciated his positivity. After the session I did some stretches for my ankle and wrist, then took off. All in all it was a good workout and I left with a positive attitude. Alright, that's all, thanks for reading, I'm probably gonna throw up a few more posts soon, so keep an eye out!

John

I've Become So Numb...

Why Hello There,

I'm sure you are all anxiously anticipating a recap of my 8:30am workout. Did I make it there on time? Was I all hanged over? Was Kansas shorts there? Did I profess my undying love for her? Well, all of those questions (and more) will be answered in due time, but I think I'll start with Friday.

I actually didn't get too crazy on Friday night in anticipation of my early wake-up...not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing, but in hindsight, wise move by the kid. Friday afternoon my fantasy football league had a chugging contest to determine draft order (organized by yours truly...brilliant I know). For those of you wondering, 1/10 people puked (not me, thank Christ), winning time was just over 25 seconds for 32 oz (not me either) and a good time was had by all (except, debatably, the puker) After the contest I had dinner with a few buddies then retired to my chambers for some Breaking Bad and sleep. I'm getting pretty lame in my old age, I know. Quick update on Breaking Bad...solidly in my top 5 shows of all time at this point...just finished season 2, just unreal. If you're not familiar, check it out on Netflix.

Saturday morning I woke up at 7:30am which is the earliest I've woken up in months #googleproblems I hopped in the shower and immediately got a feeling of dread in the pit of my stomach. One thing I both love and hate about CrossFit is that I go into every session legitimately not knowing if I'll be able to complete it. Fear of failing is an extremely powerful motivator for me, and I had a healthy amount of fear heading into this sesh.

After getting dressed, scarfing down a power bar and chugging a Gatorade I hopped in my car to head over to the gym. I got there right around 8:15am...right on time, crushin it off the bat. I parked, put my shoes on, and headed to the door. To my dismay (or maybe relief) the door was locked. Oh well, guess I'll hafta go back to my bed and catch some z's. I knocked on the door....no answer. I walked around to another door and took a look inside.....I saw a middle-aged woman in spandex workout pants sprawled out on the ground stretching. I knocked on the door and she kindly opened it for me.

I was now running late so I quickly thanked her and jogged over to start my warmup. I saw Jeff upstairs. He looked mildly surprised to see me. He came down and greeted me with an "It's took fucking early to be here right now." I wholeheartedly agreed with him.

I went through my warmup (500m row followed by 30-20-30) then started my workout just like every other day. We went through everything I'd done up to that point, then added in the clean. I had done these since college so I felt pretty comfortable with them. The whole getting the bar from my waist to my shoulders wasn't a problem. I felt pretty good, like I was actually picking this up quickly.

Then Jeff decided to add in a squat right after. Shiiiiit. I struggled through these for a few reps, then Jeff had me do 30 cleans+squats to finish off. This was pretty rough but I actually finished a bit early, which was nice. "Rest up" Jeff shouted at me, "We've got Nancy".

CLASS NUMBER TWO


Now I had no freaking clue what Nancy was, but I would learn soon enough. Apparently (and this was totally foreign to me) a lot of CrossFit workouts have girls names. I'm not really sure where Nancy ranks in terms of difficulty, but for me it was hard as hell. But we'll get to that in just a sec.

Class started with Steve, the lead trainer, yelling for us to run 400m. Steve is a former military dude who calls me Josh. Needless to say I hate him forever for this. I should note that Jeff joined the class. Next, we did the standard 30-20-30 warm-up. To my relief Steve didn't really watch us during the warm-up. The last thing I wanted was to have Steve pull a "Creepy Trainer" on me and make me look like a little bitch. During the warm-up I scanned the room for Kansas shorts. Nowhere to be found. Heartbroken.

After a moment of unbearable sadness, I decided I would have to move on. I am nowhere near over her, and make no mistake, next class I see her she will again be the apple of my eye, but I mean, we never talked about being exclusive or anything like that, so with a heavy heart I checked out the room again. (note: I realize the previous sentence has like 12 commas and is long as hell, but I'm not changing it, sorry for partying)

While my previous class was mostly composed of roided out former softball players who resembled Fran from Dodgeball, this crew was a bit better. The top tier(Kansas shorts) was certainly better in sesh one, but the depth in sesh 2 was stronger. I decided to focus my attention on a cute little babe with jet black hair and a sleeve tat. Not gonna front, I'm a huge fan of the tats...if I wasn't worried about looking like a drug dealer from downriver I'd prolly have a few of em. But alas, I will most likely never get a tat, so I must live vicariously through girls who have daddy issues like my sleeved out love interest.

I was happy to identify a girl I wanted to impress in class. Probably the greatest motivators for me in this type of setting are fear of embarrassment or failure and desire for female attention. Good to know I'd have that last one fueling my fire.

After the warm-up we did a circuit of jumping jacks/free weight squats/jump squats/mountain climbers
x3. Pretty easy, just a warm-up. Next we all lined up and jogged to one side of the gym and did various exercises back. These included (but were not limited to) lunges, toe touches, inchworms, and, my personal favorites, cartwheels. I say this not because I am good at cartwheels (I am not) but because I saw during cartwheels that Jeff has a lower back tat. Being the brilliant thinker that I am I shouted out "Jeff, lovin the lower back tat bro, killin it!" Jeff did not find this nearly as funny as I did. I looked over at sleeve tat babe....she smiled and giggled. That's a win.


NANCY

After we finished with the jogging and cartwheels thing we were introduced to Nancy. Nancy consists of a 400m run followed by 15 overhead squats, repeated 5 times. This was unquestionably the hardest thing I've done in CrossFit. I already am not very good at overhead squats, doing 75 of them was gonna be rough. The recommended weight for males was 95 lbs, 65lbs for ladies. I pulled Jeff aside and asked how much I should do. "You're not gonna like this, but you should probably go just bar."

....Fuuuuuuck that.

No way was I gonna do less that the girl weight.  I looked around and literally every other person there had at least 65. Desperate to fit in, I threw a few 10's on the sides of my bar and dropped it strategically right behind....you guessed it.....sleeve tat babe. If you think this was a coincidence you severely underestimate my creepiness.

Steve put 20:00 on the clock and abruptly yelled "GO!"

First was running. I took off pretty fast and finished the 400 towards the front of the pack. I jogged back to my bar and battled through 15 overhead squats with the lady bar. This was NOT easy for me, but I felt like I did a pretty good job keeping my knees out, having good form, ect.

After I finished, I took off for the 2nd 400. This went fine and I passed a few people like a boss. I got back to my spot right behind sleeve tat babe. I jerked my bar up and put it in overhead squat positon. This time, things didn't go quite as well. I finished the first 7 without too much trouble, then I started to feel some numbness in my right arm. Steve came over and told me to keep my knees out. And also to keep the bar locked out over my head. And also to keep my back straight. Basically I was a shitshow.


After I finished the second set I took off for my 3rd 400. I started to pump my arms when I realized that I could no longer feel my right arm. Literally it was just hanging at my side. I probably looked like a stroke victim out there. 


When I got back to my overhead squat bar Steve gently told me to drop down to just the bar. "I know you're strong enough to do it, I just want you to work on technique." This sounded like a speech he had given to a fair amount of overzealous beginners.


 I figured dropping down to the bar would cost pretty much all of my remaining man points, but honestly I don't think I could have lifted much more than the bar over my head at that point.


The rest of the workout was an absolute battle. The 400's weren't all that bad but the overhead squats were terrible. I was basically balancing the bar with just my left hand by the end. I had a few people comment on how I needed to keep my knees out or that the bar was not in a good position. Thanks for noticing guys! 


  I finally finished in just under 15 mins. This was actually towards the front, but obviously that should come with an enormous asterisk next to it since I dropped down weight. However I was pretty proud I powered through and finished at all. 


THE AFTERMATH


  I'd like to say I stayed around, chatted up sleeve tat, and that we're gonna have a lovely date to eight ball Wednesday night buuuuut I didn't. I was totally spent and pretty much left immediately. I dunno, she's a nice girl but I don't know if it'd workout (wordplay, I'm hilarious). #jayhawkshortsforlife


When I got to my car I literally couldn't turn the key with my right hand, I had to reach over with my left. You know that feeling when your foot falls asleep? Same exact feeling, but all the time. I was a little worried about it but figured I'd wait a few days and see if it got better. 


After I got back to my place I showered, threw on a tank and a snapback Lions hat, and did work at the Ypsi Beerfest. It was an absolute blast, but as a result of my disdain for sunscreen and my affinity for fratted out tanks and fitting in I now not only have numbness in my right arm but also a brutal tank top burn. Enjoy that mental pic ladies. 


Post Beerfest I basically ate a bunch of unhealthy food then passed out at like 8pm. This actually worked well, kind of cushioned the hangover blow a bit I think. Anyway, the next day I woke up, drove back to the 248, played golf (poorly) with the fam, went running for a bit, then had some delicious Buddy's pizza. Not a bad little weekend.


FINAL THOUGHTS

• I absolutely hate waking up in the morning, but I could honestly see myself doing the whole morning CrossFit thing more often. Probably not before work, but it's a nice start to a weekend day, and a good motivator to not get sloshed the night before.
• I googled "my arm went number after doing overhead squats" and got like 1,000,000,000 hits....I guess I'm not the first person to have this happen. Sounds like it's not too big of a deal unless it lasts for more than a week. I'll keep y'all posted.
• Olympic ring tats are boss
• I'm getting to the end of my individual training sessions and I'm starting to change my attitude a bit. At first I wanted to do as much weight as possible, but I think this whole numb arm thing is a good wake-up call that I need to figure out proper technique first, then worry about lifting a lot later. 
• Lastly, I just went over 1000 pageviews, which is honestly way more than I ever expected to get. For that, I want to say thanks. I'm pretty sure only like 875 of those came from me, so that means at least a few people are reading this and I truly appreciate it. It's really cool for me to know there are people who read this and enjoy it, so thanks! 

Alright, that's all, thanks for reading and have a good night! 

Crystal Meth, Snatches, and Man Points Lost

Sup Homies and Homiettes (yup, I just made up a word, deal with it),

It's been a hot minute since I've written and a lot has happened in CrossFit land since then. I'm going to go through sessions 5 and 6 pretty quick because today, right after session 6, I did my first real class. Aside from this being an exciting first step for me, I feel like it will be much more interesting for you as well. As much as I'm sure you care about how many free weight squats I can do in a row, some of the feedback I received from people last time (thanks by the way!) is that you'd rather hear more about my awkward interactions with girls, about me getting yelled at and basically me being a little bitch. And, I mean, gotta give the people what they want...

SESSION 5

I did this session on Tuesday and honestly it was pretty uneventful so I'll go quick. We went over the lifts I had done already and added in overhead squats. For me, these were really freaking hard. I'm really inflexible in my upper back so just getting in the correct postion is taxing for me, and squatting down all the way really sucks. I did a shitload of these until I couldn't hold the bar anymore, at which point Jeff had me row for 15 mins....30 seconds on, 30 seconds off. This was pretty taxing too as I was trying to stay above 140 meters/30 seconds, which for me is pretty tough. I dipped down to 139 a couple times but on average was over 140 for each so I was pretty satisfied. After the session I drove home, showered, then proceeded to lay in my bed for the next 13 hours alternating between sleeping and watching Breaking Bad. Great show. Just sayin.


SESSION 6


In this session I learned all about the snatch (no not that kind of snatch, get your head out of the gutter). I started out with my 30-20-30 warmup (with band, never making that mistake again). We then went though all of the lifts I had done previously (quick update on those...still suck at most of em but getting better).

After Jeff was satisfied with my progress we moved on to the almighty snatch. As you can see from the video above the snatch takes quite a bit of coordination and finesse to pull off. As those of you who have seen my running technique can attest, neither of those are my strong suit. Basically you're supposed to use your legs and hips to make the bar "float", then just get your body underneath it. Since the bar wasn't that heavy, I just kind of lifted it up over my head with my arms. Jeff was not impressed by this. "Use your legs, more booty!" he screamed. I did my best to engage my badonkadonk, but even after 30 reps Jeff was still not satisfied. "You're still using too much arms, you need to cut that shit out. Do 30 more." Although this was with only the bar 30 more was quite a few. I sacked up and did my best to engage my big muscles, but still got quite a bit of "constructive criticism" on my technique. By the end I think my form improve, but my arms were basically shot. After I finished those I was pretty spent. "Alright" Jeff said, "You've got 4 minutes until class starts". Fuuuuuck.


CLASS NUMERO UNO


After session 6 ended I jogged over to my bag and grabbed a Gatorade. I was in rare Sweat Monster form at this point, shirt totally sweated through and perspiration literally dripping off me. Other CrossFitters were filing in and seemed to be congregating around Jeff, so I followed suit. Naturally I began to scope out the talent around me. The first few ladies I laid eyes on were hideously ugly former softball catchers with overdeveloped shoulders. Lame sauce...hope this gets better.....

And then i saw her.

Dark brown hair, cute smile, smokin bod, and, most importantly, normal sized shoulders. She was rockin a white tank top and University of Kansas soccer shorts. Former athlete, major plus. I shot her an "I'd come over there and throw some mad game your way right now if I wasn't worried about sweating on you" look. She smiled and looked away. Sold.

After everyone was together, Jeff screamed "400 meters, now!". Everyone took off running so I followed suit. To my surprise I was one of the faster people in the group, I finished the run 3rd out of the 18 people (I'm positive I was the only person taking note of such things, so don't be too impressed). We then circled up and did a 30-20-30 warmup. Jeff used an interesting motivational technique he liked to call "creepy trainer". Basically, if your technique was bad on your squats, he'd come up behind you, grab your knees and pull them apart. Luckily I was not a victim of Creepy Trainer Jeff but I can confidently say that having your knees spread apart by Jeff while he rested his chin on your shoulder would be about the worst thing ever.

Throughout the warmup I kept a close eye on Kansas shorts while at the same time attempting not be be creepy. It's debatable whether or not I succeeded in this...I guess only time will tell. Her form was impeccable thought and she barely sweated. Killin it.

After we finished the warmup Jeff had us go grab a kettle bell and an ab mat for our WOD (Workout of the Day). We were going to do a 100 meter run, 20 sit-ups, and 20 kettle ball swings repeated 5 times. Jeff put 15 minutes on the clock and screamed "GO!"

The first event was running, so I sprinted out and was actually leading for a hot second. I got back and started sit ups immediately and was quickly passed by some of my more experienced classmates. I then moved to kettle bell. I had never done this before so my form was terrible. Basically I used too much arms and not enough core (common theme for me). Jeff had me slow down and work on technique. Come on bro, I'm trying to impress ho's here, get off me!

After I finished I dropped my kettle bell and sprinted the 100 meters. There were now 4 people ahead of me, including Kansas shorts. This caused me to be concurrently horrified at my own lack of athleticism and extremely impressed by her. I passed a couple people and came back to sit ups in 2nd. Again, I was passed in sit ups and kettle bell, but made up some ground in running. This continued 3 more rounds. I finished in 5th place with a time just over 10 minutes, a couple steps behind Kansas shorts.

 I was pretty happy with that for my first time, but I'm pretty sure that doing my kettle bells incorrectly probably helped me go a bit faster. Also, not sure if other people were as worried about what place they finished in as me (probably not) but I refuse to apologize for having the heart of a champion.

After I finished I laid on the ground for a pretty long time, then finally mustered the strength to stand up and grab water. Obviously I left behind a 6'2" long puddle of sweat. I'm a disgusting human being. I jogged to my bag, grabbed some water, then put back my kettle bell and ab pad. To my dismay Kansas shorts had retreated to the ladies room after she finished. Small talk opportunity wasted...never gonna get it back...tough break for the kid.

Next, Jeff told us we would be doing front squats. For those of you not familiar with front squats, they suck. A lot. Well, I shouldn't say that, more to the point, I suck at them. I basically feel like I'm going to break my wrists every time I do them. Jeff paired me with Scott, a pretty big dude who's about the same height as me. We were going to do 7 max lifts at 3 minute intervals. I casually asked Scott what his max was. "About 240" he said nonchalantly. Well shit.

We each warmed up for a few mins with the bar, then I started off with 135 lbs (significantly less than the grandma in the video above for those of you scoring at home). I rested the bar on my shoulders like I had been taught, said a quick little prayer, then went for it. I made the first lift, although the bar, as it is wont to do, rolled too much onto my hands and, as previously stated, made me feel like I was going to break my wrist. But whatever, I was done.

After I finished we threw 45 more lbs on each side of the bar for Scott, and he made his lift like the bar was a toothpick. I looked over at Kansas shorts. She was lifting 115 with perfect form. Very impressive, but also terrifying. What would our future relationship be like if she could lift more than me? Would she be the man? Would I be relegated to cooking, cleaning, and doing laundry? Cause I'm terrible at all of those things. I decided I needed to ramp it up a little bit. "Let's throw 55's on each side" I told Scott. 


When the timer sounded for me to do my next lift I dug deep and made it again. This time I focused on not having the bar roll onto my wrists. Consequently, it mashed against my collar bones leaving a pretty awful looking red mark on each side. Nevertheless, I was pretty happy about making the lift...until I heard Jeff screaming at me. "You're not going down far enough! Get that weight off of there! It's too much!" Fuuuuuuck you're blowin up my spot bro, chillax. 

We threw a few additional 45s on the bar for Scott and he again made the lift easily. Between sets I tried to make small talk with him. "Where are you from, Scott?"...."Garden City" he responded. "Oh, cool, did you go to school around here?" I asked...."Nope, dropped out". Well shit, makin it tough for me Scott, now I feel like a dick. We sat in awkward silence for the next minute until my next lift. This time I threw 45's on each side again and focused on form. I am sure it was nowhere near perfect but Jeff didn't say anything to me about it so I counted it as a win.

After a few more we finally got to our last lift. I was dead tired at this point and was pretty sure I wasn't gonna be able to make it. Then I looked over and to my horror Kansas shorts had 135 lbs on the bar. Same as me. I pictured myself in an apron making bag lunches for our great looking kids before school. Screw that. Not gonna happen.

I gathered all my strength and energy, and focused on this last lift. I replayed the How Bad Do You Want It video in my head, then went for it. Aaaaaaaand failed miserably. Didn't make it, not even close, Jeff said something about sequencing to me but I was too crestfallen to listen. Better start watching the Food Network ASAP.

 After I picked myself up out of a pool that was composed of equal parts sweat and man points, I gathered myself enough to watch Kansas shorts do her lift. She made it of course. Gonna be a strange household dynamic for us after the wedding, but I feel like we'll get through it together.

After we finished Jeff took a picture of everyone, then told us to get the fuck out, he wanted to go home. Kansas shorts quickly gathered her things and walked out of my life. Heartbroken. Reeling from my missed lift and the love of my life walking out on me I went over and asked Jeff to sign me up for my next session. He begrudgingly allowed me to do this. "What do you have this weekend?" I asked. "How about 8:30 am on Saturday". "Sure, sounds great, see ya then!" I said, and walked to my car. After I closed my door it hit me. Did I really sign up for an 8:30 am class on a SATURDAY!?!?!??!?! I contemplated going in to change it but didn't for fear of Jeff thinking I was a pussy. So I guess I'll go. I'm an idiot. Fuck.

On the way home Call Me Maybe came on the radio and I obviously rolled down my windows and played it at full volume. Then, as I was cruising down State Street, I swear to God I saw a meth addict. He had his shirt totally unbuttoned, ridiculous hipster hair, and he was holding a pipe with some smoke coming out of it. Maybe it's the 16 episodes of Breaking Bad I've watched in the last 48 hours but I could have sworn it was crystal. I immediately turned down my music, rolled up my windows, and locked my doors. Terrified. I finished the drive home in silence. I then grabbed a shower and some dinner (the douche at subway charged me for extra cheese by the way...come on bro I go there like 6 times a week, are you serious? I'm honestly thinking of boycotting...not pleased) then passed out on the couch.


A FEW FINAL THOUGHTS

I feel like this is as good a spot as any to share a few milestones I've decided will be big for me. First, I'm going to wait until I've finished my 10 session to buy my first CrossFit shirt. I really don't wanna be that guy who buys the shirt but sucks. I figure by the end of my 10th session I'll have graduated into that elite class of human who has paid $350 to have some dude teach them how to do exercises for 5 hours...pretty big stuff. 


Another big milestone will be when I first take my shirt off during a session. This is common practice amongst the guys in the group, and most are a lot more jacked than me. I don't wanna burst the bubbles of any ladies reading this who think I look like Brad Pitt in Fight Club buuuuuut I don't....I don't have a definitive timeframe set for when it'll be raining Eshelman abs all over HyperFit USA but I'm guessing it'll be a while. 


Finally, something I thought was hilarious and also motivating. As I was walking out today I saw a stack of "Cancellation Request" forms. The good people at CrossFit actually make you fill out a questionnaire when you decide to quit. Agressive. There a was a big freaking stack of these, and on top was the name of a guy I knew. I am not going to say this guy's name, that'd be kind of a dick move, but I will say I already didn't like him too much. He used to be friends with this really hot girl I knew and would frequently post things on her facebook wall like "hey bestie, great to see you today (insert emoticon here)" or "remember that thing that happened today, totes hilarrrrr." Nuff said. But I digress, seeing his form there, basically declaring to the world that he couldn't hack it at CrossFit made me even more motivated to stick with it. I am not excited to wake up early as hell on Saturday, but I am excited to have something like this in my life. It challenges me, and makes me want to be better every day. Can't ask for much more than that. 


Alright, that's all, thanks for reading and stay classy! 

The Kid Returns (with YouTube links!!!!)

Hey Y'all,

Long time no blog...I'm sure you've all been having trouble filling your days with no hilarity coming from here lately, and for that I sincerely apologize. In my defense, I was busy watching my boy Jared get married, and eating an absurd amount of delicious food at the rehearsal dinner and wedding. Project six pack definitely took a hit, but it was absolutely worth it.

Now on to the CrossFit portion of the blog.


SESSION THREE


I had a session on Thursday and I'll be honest, it feels like it was a million years ago. The session was with Jeff (the dude who looks like a much older and more jacked Dane Cook...although I've recently revised his celebrity doppleganger, he is a dead ringer for the uncle in Weeds. He even talks like him. But I digress....). I got in early and did my warm-up: 500 meters on the rowing machine followed by 30-20-30, which is 30 free weight squats with that freaking band around my knees, 20 arm pull over things (basically you hold a bar at your chest with your arms spread apart, pull your arms up over your head while still holding on to the bar and touch the bar to your back, then pull your arms back up over your head and touch your chest...not very hard, mainly good for flexibility...sorry, couldn't find a youtube video of this) and 30 squats with a bar raised over my head...this was a pretty taxing warm up for me, and I was dripping sweat after I finished. This prompted Jeff to nickname me "The Sweat Monster." Awesome, look out ladies. 

We worked on my form in dead lifts (still shitty but getting better), overhead presses (my flexibility in my shoulders is still pretty bad but these were probably my best exercise) clean and jerks (sequencing isn't great, but progressing slowly) and back squats (knees still go in if I don't concentrate on pushing them out....this will for sure be an ongoing struggle).

After what seemed like a millon reps of each (just with the bar, but still, pretty tiring for me) Jeff proclaimed that I was using my arms and shoulders too much on my clean and jerks. He told me not to fret though, he had a solution. He was going to burn out my arms and shoulders so I could no longer use them. Motherfucker.

I then proceeded to go through my hardest arm workout in recent memory. I don't remember all the details but I remember being yelled at constantly, wanting to stop numerous times but not being allowed, and probably crying a little bit. It was a combination of overhead presses with the bar and presses from behind my head. After finishing this portion of the workout I don't think I could have picked up a pencil and written my name clearly.

Shortly after destroying my arms and shoulders Jeff had me start doing clean and jerks again. This was extremely difficult at first, I was legit worried about dropping the bar on my head. However, Jeff was right, once I started engaging my bigger muscles it was much easier to get the bar up over my head. I guess there's a reason these dudes can charge so much money. I did a few more clean and jerks and finally Jeff said I was done. I immediately dropped the bar on the ground and ran to grab some Gatorade.

A bit of background on Jeff: he hates when people don't clean up after themselves. HATES it. He was clearly not thrilled by my behavior, and shot me a "what the fuck do you think you're doing?" look. I got that kid being called to the principal's office feeling in my stomach. "Go pick it up" he said, and pointed at the bar. I shot him a frightened smile then jogged over to grab the bar. I'm an asshole.

To finish, Jeff had me row 2000 meters. He said I should aim to keep my pace under 2:00 per 500 meters, and that under 8:00 would be a really good time. I was tired at this point but I also wanted to atone for my previous thoughtlessness. I basically sprinted the whole way and finished in 7:37. I was pretty proud of this.

After I was done Jeff asked when I wanted to schedule my next session. To my dismay he made no mention of my time. Womp womp.  I told him Monday of next week. "Oh really, waiting that long?" he commented, clearly judging hard. I let him know I had a wedding to go to and I'd be out of town. Jeff was not impressed by this. I assured him I would work out over the weekend. He absolutely didn't believe me.

After the session I hopped in my car and drove back to the 248 for the wedding. Friday I didn't work out at all, Saturday I did a quick circuit (10 pull-ups, 20 pushups, 30 free weight squats, 40 sit-ups) three times and a 2 mile jog, then Sunday I nursed an aggressive hangover, watched the British Open and probably burned about 12 calories the whole day.

SESSION FOUR

Today (Monday) I had my 4th session. I showed up a bit late to the session due to traffic (and me being an idiot and not allowing enough time to get there) so I had to rush through my warm-up. I did my 500 meter row, then started my squats. Jeff came over, looked at me like I had a second head growing out of my neck and commented "no band today, huh?" I had legitimately forgotten to put the band around my knees, but Jeff clearly thought I had done it on purpose. (A little context, this exercise is significantly easier without the band) He proceeded to lecture me on the merits of the band, told me that everyone in the class used the band for the warm-up, even the top CrossFitters in the world used the band, how dare I saunter into the CrossFit gym and do my squats bandless? Basically I had shamed my family, my country, and every organization with which I had ever been or will ever be affiliated. He had me stop, walk over to the band bag, grab a band, and start my squats over with a band on. Great start to the session, just killin it.

After I finished my banded squats, we proceeded to review the exercises I'd learned during my last few sessions: Dead Lifts (getting better, still a battle thought) Overhead presses (still inflexible but not bad), Clean and Jerk (Still working on sequencing but a bit better) and back squats (knees still go in...I basically feel like a baby giraffe doing these...totally uncoordinated).

Once Jeff was satisfied with my progress in these exercises, he decided to throw in a few more. Next was front squats. This involves basically holding the bar on your shoulders and doing a squat. This is not necessarily the hardest thing in the world, but it hurts my wrist to hold the bar. #whining. I did a few of these and then Jeff asked me if I had ever heard of a thruster. I indicated that I had not. In my head I pictured Will Ferrell and Chris Kattan thrusting their hips during Night at the Roxbury (starts at 0:32). Jeff then got a big smile on his face which I'd come to realize meant this was going to be hard as hell. Probably not like in the movie.

Basically a thruster involves doing a front squat, then a press over your head once you get to the top of your squat. See video here. This was pretty tough for me and took a while for me to get the hang of. After a few ugly reps and Jeff requesting that I move to a new spot since he was scared I would slip in the pool of my sweat on the floor beneath me I got to a point where I was able to do a few in a row. Jeff then informed me that I would be doing 16 sets of 2 reps of these at 15 second intervals. At first glace this did not sound that tough, but after doing a few sets I realized it wasn't going to be a walk in the park. 15 seconds really wasn't much time to rest, so by the end I was battling. I finished pretty strong though and Jeff, surprisingly, seemed impressed. "This is the point in the sessions when you start to see if someone is going to quit or if they'll work hard for you, I can see you're working hard." I shrugged off the compliment like it was no big deal but inside I was thrilled. Ego grew exponentially.

I finished off with a leisurely 2000 meters on the rowing machine, then signed up for 2 more sessions for tomorrow and Thursday. I asked Jeff when he thought I should start classes and he said the sooner the better. I am scheduled for my first class Thursday. I'm definitely nervous about this and I am fully expecting to be the worst person in the class, but I am also excited for the opportunity to measure myself against people who have been doing this for a lot longer than me.

I will leave you with a few thoughts. First of all, it is impossible for a dude to look cool while riding on a bicycle built for two. I saw some bro riding with his smokeshow girlfriend on the drive back to my apartment and he looked like a huge loser. I think I saw a puddle full of man points right beneath him. 

Secondly, I don't care if Paul Sandmair defriends me on the facebook, there are no fewer than 5 Nickelback songs that will cause me to immediately roll down the windows of my car, crank my system, and sing at the top of my lungs. One of them (Photograph) came on this afternoon and I did just that. Sorry I'm Not Sorry.

Finally, after careful thought and consideration I have decided to solicit a little bit of feedback on this blog. I feel like the only way for me to make it better is to hear what people think of it. As previously stated I started this for two reasons: to keep myself accountable and to improve my writing. I am more concerned about the second reason right now. If you like a certain format (listing times for example) please let me know. If you like the youtube videos, let me know. If you think I sound like a conceited asshole (and your name isn't Chris Weber), let me know. Cards on the table, that third one will probably not change, but feel free to tell me. Also, if you think of anything that might make it better (pictures, more stats, ect) please let me know.

Alright, that's all, thanks for reading and keep it gangster.