Poor form in the gym...

...is caused by insufficient yelling. At least according to Mark Rippetoe.

Had my first Turkish get-up workout today. I have much deeper respect for folks who I've watched use their spouses/girlfriends as a weight and perform the move.

Turkish Get-up - 3x6's (35lb, 20lb, 20lb)

Press 5RM - 125lb

Rear Squat 3x5 - 125lb (Messed up, did 3 reps on the first two sets instead of 5)

Metcon - 5 inverted pushups and 7 cleans (three rounds) for time.

This metcon was a good challenge and I was happy to have finished with the time I did. My cleans were around 90 lbs or so. We only cleaned the bar to the shoulders and stood before releasing, without going into a full squat.

We seem to be progressing towards doing a full clean and jerk. Today we did the presses which will translate into the jerk part of the full movement. I've never done olympic weightlifting before, but I'm impressed with the attention of the trainers. It was just two of us this morning at the 9am class and he was right there the entire time making sure our form was proper.

Bought The Paleo Solution: The Original Human Diet by Robb Wolf today. It comes highly recommended and goes into the science behind the ideas of Paleo. I believe it's time I really read into this if I'm going to get serious with it. On a sidenote: I need more recipes.

Kettlebell smash

I was really looking forward to the workout this morning. It was a very lazy weekend, and I strayed a bit (read: lot) from Paleo guidelines.

3x5 front squat @ 135 - I think I have the feel for the front squat down, although it is still a bit awkward. Back went out/wobbled a few times at the lowest point of the squat

5 RM bench press @ 135 - I finally was able to bench 135. It's about damn time. Failure on the last rep but it felt good overall.

Metcon - 7's - 1 arm OH Kettlebell swing / weighted situp (35/50) (~3:50) - 7, 6, 5, 4, etc of doing overhead kettlebell swings and then down to doing weighted situps. The 50 lb kettle hurt my arm/shoulder like a bitch. I don't think I have the movement down, so I went with doing 35 lb for the metcon. It was a bit too easy, unfortunately there is no in-between the 35/50 lbs.

Goals for the week are to do three more Crossfit workouts and stay away from sugar all week.

Has anyone seen October?

It seems like we skipped straight from Summer into Winter here in Tennessee. A few weeks ago the temperatures were hovering around the high 70's and even 80's, and now we have an expected weekend high of 40 and low of 27. Apparently, Mother Nature does not want us to think her boring or predictable.

I finally got started with CrossFit. Two days this week, but today I just haven't been put together. I'm not sure if I'm having a sugar crash or getting sick, but I feel so fatigued and weak it's a bit unnerving. I have been eating Paleo for a few days/week now and enjoying it a lot. I've focused mostly on cutting out bread/starches and sugar. Haven't been that great about the sugar - had a coke yesterday (which might explain the fatigue today, almost).

Overall though this has been a great experience and I've started trying a lot of foods I normally wouldn't like mushrooms or onions. I'll be hitting the Paleo cookbooks this weekend as the standard stir fry some veggies and mix it with XX meat is getting slightly old.

CrossFit hasn't been as terrible as I thought it would be. Terrible as in grinding my soul to dust on the floor. They break their sessions into a few phases

• Warm up - Can consist of an endurance type of warm up (pushups, situps, double-unders, long jumps) or a strength type warm-up (with a barbell doing overhead press, clean and jerk, overhead squat)
• Mobility - Consists of movements to increase your flexibility and to help with recovery (leg swings, hip stretches, placing a tennis ball between your shoulder and wall to massage out the muscles)
• Skill - This section focuses on teaching a movement that is used in CrossFit and working towards perfecting the movement (muscle up, kipup)
• Strength  - So far this has been the core of the time at the gym. They may focus on getting to a 1 rep max squat/deadlift/benchpress or work up to a good solid set of 3x5's for any given exercise
• WOD/MetCon - "Workout of the day" or...(I don't really know what my gym's "MetCon" means) is the main high-intensity training at the gym. This can be as quick as 6 minutes or as long as 20 or more. This seems to focus on high intensity at all times. So far I've done Tabata Sprints and Tabata Knee-ups, which is basically interval training. There are a lot of other combinations out there, such as doing three rounds of certain exercises for time, or doing as many repetitions of an exercise as you can in an allotted time.
• Finisher - There is normally a finisher such as doing 10 l-sit attempts or doing situps/back extensions.

Since I'd like to try to track progression, I'll post up some of the recent activities
3x5 Bench
135 lbs

1 RM Front Squat
135 lbs

Tabata Sprints (20 sec work, 10 sec rests, 8 minutes, 10 yards)
18 rounds

Looking forward to the weekend as time to recover from whatever is wrong with me right now and also get prepared for this makeup exam I have on Tuesday. I also have a second interview with the IT Manager at UT for the helpdesk assistant position. I need to crunch some numbers to ensure I'll be alright financially if I take a new job and the painful pay cut that comes along with it.

Next semester is looking like math, philosophy, computer science (C++) and the second half of western civilization. I have to get my holds on my account cleared by the Arts and Science adviser even though I met with the Engineering advisor. Bah to regulations and guidelines. The A&S advisors aren't available until the 16th of November, and my registration opens today but I won't be able to start. Doh!

Here's to a peaceful, warm weekend.

Reading can be amazing...

... when used properly.

Did get myself set to do this CrossFit routine and stick with it, but upon arrival at the gym this morning I found out that they don't have a 10am class. Doh.

The guy I spoke with, Grant, did say the times, I just neglected to note that the "morning" sessions last from 5/6-10am. Doh doh.

I think today was a snatch day. 30 @ 135/95lbs. Ow.

Doing pretty good on the Paleo-esque part of things as well. Threw out all of the other junk in my fridge. I need a bigger lunchbox! And some recipes. Making a salad every day and throwing cucumbers on it with random meat will get a bit boring.

I've been staying busy enough lately from gym, working out and games at night to really get stressed/depressed or anything else. Did have a fairly annoying bout of loneliness a few weeks ago but thankfully the focus has changed away from that. I figure I need to fix myself before I can commit to another person. Still talking to my ex, fairly often but she's pretty upset with her stomach giving her pains and her anxiety is making her nuts. Still love her to death though so want to make sure she's okay.

Tomorrow = CrossFit BEFORE 10am! Yes!

Of Change

I'm the person who will become interested in something and never finish. It's been a bad habit I've been doing for most of my adult life. At this point in my life, however, I feel it's time to be done with that. I've made too many excuses about change and never followed through. I can't keep that up. Not when it involves my health or school.

It's the season of change.

Paleo starts tomorrow.
CrossFit starts Wednesday.
Classes start in January.
New job starts... TBD.

I've read that goal-setting is an incredibly powerful motivator. Fancy that though, I never wrote any down. So it's  high time to start keeping myself accountable.

Short Term Goals (November)

Fitness
- Start CrossFit and make every MWF class

Diet
- Eliminate sugars from diet
- No bread, potatoes
- Water water water water
- Learn 3 Paleo meals

School
- Meet with advisor and stick with computer science focus, no matter what
- Study for make-up exam for Bio

Professional
- Meet with ORNL IT (Decemberish)