Interesting smoothie

Blended together spinach, almond milk, and frozen blueberries.  Ended up with concoction that tastes like a light version of pistachio ice cream and looks like poo.  Great treat! Just don't stare at it.

Crossfit On Ramp Skills

I'm starting to lose track of all the tips for the exercises I've learned during the On Ramp course, so I'm going to record them here before I forget:


Day 1 Skills

• Air squats: Toes angled out, send but back until but level is below the knee creases, then push up with lower body.  Keep upper body posture straight up, arms out with hands together to maintain balance.  Body weight rests on heels throughout.
• Pushups:  Look 2 feet in front to make room for chin to hit the floor.  Full range of motion means chest touches the floor during each rep.  Maintain plank position during transitions by keeping core tight.  On the way up, imagine abs pushing up through the lower back.  Arms should be about shoulder-width apart. 
• Split squats:  Step one foot forward.  Legs are nearly in one line and toes are slightly in.  Lower torso keeping posture vertical entire time.  
• Ring dips: Grab rings with palms facing each other.  Heels touch the ground.  Tighten core.  Lift and lower body using upper back and shoulder blades.  Squeeze shoulder blades together on the way up.  

Day 2 Skills

• Frankenstein postion with weight bar: Reach arms out like Frankenstein.  Rest weight bar against throat and on top of shoulders.  If posture is right (big chest, tight core), the bar will balance easily on front shoulder shelf.
• Front Squat:  Start in Frankenstein position with the weight bar.  Then rest hands on bar with palms facing body.  The hands do very little if the posture is upright.  Do a perfect squat.  See air squat.  If posture and square are right, weight bar will go up and down on one vertical line.
• Back Squat:  Rest weight bar on the backs of shoulders.  If posture is right, it will balance easily on back shoulder shelf.  Grab bars, palms facing forward.  Hands will do little if bar is balanced on shelf.  Do a perfect squat.  See air squat.  If posture and square are right, weight bar will go up and down on one vertical line.
• Dead Lift:  Get into bottom part of air squat position.  Grab weight bar on the floor. Lift bar by moving up you're standing up mid air squat.  Keep weight bar very close to shins - may even scrape the shins.  Bring bar to level right about knees.  Stand up.  Go in reverse to lower bar.  Remember to keep core tight.  Send the butt back and keep weight over heels and to keep chest big.
• Chin Up: Arms shoulder width apart, palms facing away.  Can't say more about the mechanics of these because I can't do them yet.

Day 3 Skills

• Front Hollow Position:  Arms and legs together, straight, and stretched out; knees and elbows are locked.  Stretch out body and tighten core and make a tight parentheses shape with the body.
• Handstand: Step forward with one leg into position that's like a splint squat.  Plant both hands on ground and use momentum to go into an upside down front hollow position.  Don't forget to lock elbows.
• Kipping:  Swing on pull-up bar.  Make body flips between front hollow position and its opposite (like two sides of a parentheses).  Use the transition between these 2 positions to generate momentum.
• Kipping chin-up:  Kip until you have a rhythm then chin up using momentum from the back swing.  Push away from bar after the chin up in order to send falling energy into forward swing.
• Abmat sit-up:  Rest fat part of abmat against your lower back.  Sit almost Indian-style- don't cross legs, let bottoms of feet touch.  Straight arms, palms together.  Lean forward and touch fingers to floor in front of toes.  Lean back until shoulder blades touch the ground.  Extend arms and touch fingers to ground.  Repeat.  Keep core tight throughout.

Day 4 Skills:

• Box jump:  Look at box.  Jump and land so that both feet are planted on the box.  Stand straight up.  Jump backwards off the box. Repeat.
• Burbees:  Drop into plank position.  Drop body in plank position until chest hits the floor.  Power back up directly into an air squat position.  Jump into the clapping part of a jumping jack.  Repeat.
• POSE running:  Land on balls of feet.  Send knee up so that feet end up right below butt when they are in upward position.  Maintain a slight forward lean position throughout. 

Day 5 Skills:

• Overhead Squat:  Lower body, just an air squat.  Upper body: shoulders active and up, arms straight and stretched out like you're pulling the bar apart.
• Snatch: Middle section (right after bringing bar to about waist height), shrug shoulders up and drag bar up the body, bend elbows and continue upward motion, then flip bar up to overhead squat position (upper body) while lower body falls from a neutral, hip width stance into an air squat
• Clean: (right after bringing bar to about waist height), shrug shoulders up and drag bar up the body, bend elbows and continue upward motion.  When the bar can not be moved upward anymore, rotate elbows around in a backwards J motion until palms transition from facing the body to away from the body and under the bar.  Then power up to overhead squat position while lower body falls from a neutral, hip width stance into an air squat.

Egg Cupcakes Togo :)

This is a recipe sent to me by Tristy Stephens, one of the trainers at Crossfit Austin.  I'm copying it here to preserve it just in case I lose track of the email with the recipe.  Just bakes a batched tonight and tasted one.  So tasty!

"Egg Cupcakes Togo" 
(they are easy to make at the beginning of the week and pop in the microwave in the mornings-if time is an issue, this is a good solution!) (feel free to substitute veggies you prefer)
10-12 eggs
6-8 slices of cooked bacon, crumbled
2 zucchinni/squash, grated
1 red onion, grated
1/4 cup sun dried tomato, diced
Salt and pepper, garlic salt
Preheat the oven to 350 degrees.  Grease your muffin cups (the silicone type works best for me).  Using a box grater, grate the zuchinni and red onion (both of which came out of my CSA box this week!).  Whisk your eggs till blended and then add the grated veggies, bacon, and sun dried tomato. Season to your liking.  Using a measuring cup, scoop about 1/4 cup of the egg mixture into each prepared muffin cup.  Bake for 20-25 minutes, or until egg is set in middle. This batch made 18 Egg Cupcakes.  You can vary the ingredients to match what you have on hand...diced ham, ground beef, chicken sausage.

Crossfit Beginnings and the Graham WOD

I'm starting to get REALLY into Crossfit.  However, I don't want to drive my friends crazy by talking about it or writing about it all the time, so I'm going to record my thoughts here.   Only the Younger J reads this and she is an extreme athlete in her own right.   I'm not worried about scaring her or making her crazy because her fitness regimen is already pretty nuts (which suggests that she's already pretty nuts about fitness; there's no saving her).

I'm into Crossfit because it gets great results and because it's fun.  Looking at how their athletes evolve gives me the hope that one day I will be able to do things I've never thought possible.  I would like to be MUCH stronger and fitter by the time it's time for my to take my black belt test.  Seeing Max prep for this black belt test is exciting and scary.  Last week, he fought all the black and brown belts at sparring class in 30 sec rounds with no breaks between the grounds.  Every fighter came in fresh with kicks and punches a blazing and he had to keep fighting even though he was much less fresh than everyone he fought.  Since they went in order of low to highest rank, the gaps between Max and his sparring partners became more and more exaggerated.  When it's my turn to do this, I want to be very ready so that no one gets hurt.  Kicking and punching with accuracy and control is so hard when you're tired.  My base level of fitness needs to get higher to pull off the sparring rounds that Max is now running through. 

I've been going back and forth in my head as to how many classes I should sign up for a week.  I'm tempted to do 3 classes because I'm very interested in it.  However, it's not really cost effective considering that during the school year it will be very difficult to make time to attend 3 classes per week and still excel at my job and attend karate classes.  To reduce the temptation of signing up for a membership that does not work with my schedule, I have decided to create WOD's (Workouts of the Day) that I can do at home in my garage that blend Crossfit and karate.  Here's the first of several.


The Graham Workout

Sempai Graham has two black belts: one in Seido Karate and one in Tang Soo Do.  He has excellent speed, accuracy, and control in his kicks.  He is a very fluid when he spars.  He evades strikes very quickly and he attacks and counterattacks with flurries of combos.

To capture Graham's speed and accuracy, I designed a workout that involve quick combinations and lower body and core strengthening exercises.


Warm-up/Skills:

• 1 min high knees with quick turn around speed and quick punches
• Seido Warmup routine
• 10 mae kaege each leg
• 10 yoko kaege each leg
• 5 mawashi geri on the 3 count each leg, focus on high chamber and pivoting the supporting leg

Graham WOD, Complete 5 sets for time:

• 10 air squats
• 10 striker combos in kiba dachi on the bag.  Combo: Left/right each: chudan zuki, shita zuki, uraken, tate zuki, haito)
• 10 sit-ups
• 10 Sparring Combo #4 on the bag, alternate kicking leg.  Sparring Combo #4: jab, reverse punch, roundhouse kick off the front leg.  Move around the bag to simulate sparring.  

Although this workout was intense, it didn't feel difficult.  On my first try, I finished in 13 min 13 sec.  Maybe to make it more challenging, I can hold 1 lb weights when I do the karate parts of the workout.   I will try this the next time I try this WOD.

Totally New to Me

ATHLINKS.COM - just search for your name, and they post most/all of your races!

http://www.athlinks.com/searchbeta.aspx?search=Athlete&term=janelle%20trinidad

Food Journal

I created a spreadsheet to track my calories and my grams of carbs, protein, and fat.  I've set it up so I can compare my foods to specific goals.  So far, I've learned that eating healthy involves eating a lot more food than I expected and that a lot of clean foods are really delicious.