First day of CrossFit!

I woke up at 2am this morning, and could not fall back to sleep. Ugh. This again. So, I finally got out of bed around 4:45 and got ready for my first CrossFit class. Woo hoo! 

First I hopped on the scale though, which was probably not a good move in case my vacation had a very negative effect. However, I was very pleasantly surprised! Before leaving, I had bloated up 2 pounds after a night out filled with drinks and likely cross-contaminated buffalo wings. When I stepped on the scale today, I was back down those 2 pounds! I DID NOT GAIN ANY WEIGHT DURING VACATION!!!! This is CRAZY. And that's after averaging a couple drinks/day, and eating some chips and sugary sweets (not a crazy amount, but some). Granted, I did a TON of walking, and managed to avoid all of my allergens. But I am still in shock.

When I got to the gym for the 5:30 class, I met the trainer, and he had me join the other 4 people on a rowing machine to warm up. I don't even know the last time I used a rower, so he helped me out with my form. I chatted with the other woman there and learned that she'd been CrossFitting for over a year at another gym. So she was a pro. But the trainer was very nice to this newbie.

Then came some core warm-up stuff:

• some sit-ups on a sit-up bench: he said the goal is to reach back all the way to the floor on the way down, then lock your knees on the way back up, which will give you momentum to come up. 
• some back extensions after flipping over on the bench - I'm sure holding a plate while doing these is in my future...

Then some stretching:

• We started with hamstring stretching since we were going to do a primarily hammy/glute workout. We took some stretching bands, laid down on the floor, put the band behind the ball of one foot while holding the ends in our hands, and stretched one leg at a time straight in the air while the other leg was straight down on the floor. Got a good stretch after doing that for a couple minutes.
• Then we took a longish PVC pipe and held it straight in front of us with hands pretty widely spaced. Then we had to rotate our shoulders while keeping our arms straight, until the bar was behind our backs. Then we had to keep moving our hands inward to make the stretch harder. Takes some good shoulder flexibility.

Then it was time for the heavy lifting. We got our 45 lb barbells, and practiced a couple reps of deadlifts, focusing on perfect form. I'd never done deadlifts from a squatting position before - I'd always done straight-legged deadlifts, so this was definitely different for me. Once our form was down, we started loading plates, 10 pounds at a time. After each loading, we'd do 2 reps back-to-back, and if we thought we could handle more weight, we'd add another 10 pounds and repeat. And repeat. And repeat... I finally got up to 165 pounds (including the bar). He called that our 2-rep max, and then had us drop to 70% of that weight and do sets of 3 reps, 10 times, during 10 minutes, on each minute. 

Instead of just standing around for the 45 seconds or so between sets, we did some air squats (squatting nice and low), and had to do a total of 20 pull-ups between all the sets. I have never been able to do a pull-up in my life. It's definitely a goal of mine. So, the trainer put a box on the floor beneath the pull-up bar, and then tied 2 green resistance bands on the bar. I stepped off the box and placed one foot in the bands, and then crossed my other foot in front of that one, and proceeded to do pull-ups with the assistance of the bands. How about that! Two green bands was too much help, so he had me try one green, a blue, and a red (each color gives progressively less support). I was able to do a couple with just the green and blue, but ended up adding the red for most of them too. So, my first goal will be to ditch the red one! And then the blue one! And then that green one (eventually - that will take some time)!

After finishing all of our deadlifts and pull-ups, we stretched a little more, and that was the end of our hour-long WOD (workout of the day). Loved it. Felt good to lift heavy. Looking forward to my next session on Thursday (Brian and I will alternate days). Although I'm already starting to feel a little tightness in my back...could be ugly tomorrow!

Food: 

• Breakfast: 
• homemade turkey sausage
• 1/2 grapefruit
• Lunch:
• big salad with thickly sliced Boar's Head chicken, lime, avocado, coconut oil, and balsamic vinaigrette
• Dinner:
Chicken breast and baby carrots sauted in coconut oil and balsamic vinaigrette

• homemade applesauce
• Snacks:
• 3 slices of Boar's Head turkey before workout
• strawberries

Exercise:

• First CrossFit class! -  burned 500 cals in an hour