knocking down limits

This week has been one of mini triumphs for me, both in and out of the gym. I am one more step closer to finding out if I will be attending Concordia this coming January, I should receive news in the first week of December. This is an enormous step for me, as it is the beginning of a future that can hold many opportunities for me and I am so excited about this!

As for my successes in the gym this week, I have goals that I am trying to meet and have begun working on them when I have time to spare. I have been stuck on the wall walks, only able to walk my legs up but not my hands back. One evening I decided to start working on trying to walk my hands back, at first it was just a shimmy. The next evening I tried I actually moved my hands back a step or two. The third night I gave it a go I got even closer, but that is as far as I got. Fear of falling backwards has been plaguing my mind. I also need to work on walking back out, I've been panicking and just falling to the side. This may not sound like a big deal but after almost two years of CrossFitting and only now making this sort of progress is a big deal to me.

The second thing that I accomplished was, somewhat, kipping. We had a WOD this week that had pull-ups, and instead of doing ring rows like I have the last several months, I did banded kipping pull-ups. In all honesty I had no idea if I was doing it right or not, I just moved however I felt my body would move to get my chin above the bar. I no rep'd myself a few times but still hustled through the WOD. Afterwards I asked Coach Joon how to kip and he told me that I was already doing it. Then it all made sense!

Lastly, I accomplished something that I never thought I'd do, like ever! I did my very first handstand!!! There are a lot of things I was able to do as a child and somewhere along the way I lost it all, as many of us do. After seeing my first WOD with HSPU, I thought to myself that I will always be modifying that movement. This is partly my not having any faith in myself but also thinking I am not strong enough to hold myself up. Well it took a few tries but with Coach Tony's help I did it and it was amazing and scary all at the same time. I wanted to practice them again tonight but after the FYF WOD, I felt far too beat up to even attempt it. I'll get back to it on Monday.

Tonight was also a triumphant night for me. I fought really hard, mentally, to keep moving through the suck. My quads were constantly on fire and my low back was flat out tired. And this wasn't even the hard part, the AirFit just about killed everyone. Naturally I am exaggerating here but when you do something that leaves you completely uncomfortable no matter what position you lay, sit, stand, or walk, you know it was a bad one! For this portion of the WOD we had to do 3 rounds for time, as fast as you can on the AirFit, 20 calories for the ladies and 30 calories for gents. I am impressed myself tonight by getting incredible times, times that blows all of my past times out of the water (23/32/39). All of my hard work with Joon is most certainly paying off. My biggest lesson this week and evening? That no matter what age or fitness level I am, I can knock down the limits I have set up for myself. I am able and I am willing.

This photo was taken from Pinterest.

reliving a childhood activity

Do you remember when you were a kid how you felt almost invisible. You were always up for a challenge, and nothing ever scared you. We did cartwheels without a second thought, hung from monkey bars behind our knees, jumped down off of something high… and nothing happened to us. Sure we got the occasional scratch or bruise but we always recovered rather quickly. Now some 20 something years later, have you attempted to do any of those things? Maybe for some of you nothing has changed (freak!) but for most of us it has not crossed our minds. Think about it. Would you do a cartwheel right now if you were asked? Would you do a headstand if asked? Would you really? (Liar!) One of the gymnastic movements that you will find in a WOD regularly is a Handstand Pushup (HSPU). If you watched any CrossFit competitions you will most certainly have witnessed this. The first time I went into class with that in a WOD, I remembered shaking my head thinking there was no way I was going to do that. I won't lie, I was scared and intimidated. I'm not afraid of being upside down, I'm more afraid that I would hurt myself. So instead of even trying, I opted for the modified version. The first level is doing a tripod pushup, I mastered that rather quickly and that's basically all I would ever do.

Well last night the HSPU reappeared in a WOD and in my head I pretty much resolved to continuing the same modified version I have been doing. Except I wasn't expecting our coach to go into a little speech about pushing forward and trying something new. Crap! So after setting up my space for our workout I asked Joon how do I begin to learn to do the HSPU. Well the first step was to just be comfortable being upside down. Let's face it, the last time I did anything like that was probably the 4th grade! So he showed me what to do, and I knelt down and attempted it a couple of times. I was so scared. What was I so scared about? I think part of it was fear of hurting myself and part of it looking foolish. But I got much encouragement from my fellow CrossFitters, and so I tried one last time. Only this time I managed to get on my head and feel my butt hit the wall behind me. I did it! Next step was to straighten my legs… did it without hesitation and stayed in that position for a bit. It wasn't so scary being upside down. But the next step was to go into it with my arms locked out. It should look something like this…

This photo was found on Pinterest.

My coach and a fellow CrossFitter stood on each side of me, ready to catch my legs and help me up there. I made two attempts but each time I believe I chickened out. Hey, it's ok. I'm just excited that I took the first step in trying. It is something I will most certainly work on. So in the meantime I have upgraded to a new level of modified HSPU, and it looks like this…

This photo was found on Pinterest.

I managed to do these without failure. I'm excited to keep making improvements, and most certainly can't wait until the day I can do a handstand without any fear or assistance!