start working out with CrossFit Des Peres

I attended my first CrossFit Des Peres class on Wednesday. In honor of this, they named the WOD after me.

The following is the workout as I completed it. Weights were scaled and I subbed jumping pull ups for regular pull ups.

Sean
Complete for time:
25 KB swings (30 lbs)
25 jumping pull ups
25 forward squats (30 lbs KB)
25 lemon squeezers
15 KB swings (30 lbs)
15 jumping pull ups
15 forward squats (30 lbs KB)
15 lemon squeezers
5 KB swings (30 lbs)
5 jumping pull ups
5 forward squats (30 lbs KB)
(this is where I lost the contents of my stomach)
5 lemon squeezers
25 burpees

I finished in 19:28.

I think I’ve met this goal. Today, I met with Dan and Orie at CrossFit Des Peres .

I worked on dead lifts, back squats and overhead presses. Dan also taught me the turkish get up and SOTS presses. At 95 lbs, I did a set of 3 overhead press and a set of 6 back squats.

Finally, we did a WOD. With continually running clock and rounds of 3 minutes do the following: 30 sledge hammer tire slams, 20 KB jerks (10 each arm) and 2xround pull ups (2 first round, 4 second round, etc). I subbed 20lb dumbell jerks and ring body rows. Also, after we failed a round, we had to do the incline trainer at 5mph 30 incline.

I completed 4 rounds. After lifting the sledge the second time in the 5th round, I just quit. I think I rested for about 15 seconds then hit the incline trainer for 30 seconds. The last 10 seconds were beyond rough.

I believe Dan completed 5 rounds and 20 seconds on the trainer. Orie was a monster with 6 rounds.

To finish a perfect workout, I bought a 10 session package. I’m hooked on CrossFit. 2 weeks and I have seen marked changes in my upper body. My chest is bulking up. My shoulders and biceps are larger and more defined. My abs are starting to peek through my spare tire. The impact has been remarkable and my weight has started going down again. This morning I hit a new low of 243.5 lbs.

Orie invited a bunch of St. Louis Crossfitters over to his house for a CrossFit Zone BBQ.

We started out with a workout on the high school track, literally across the street from his front door. 6 stations setup on half the track. Kettlebell swings. Medicine ball cleans. Box jumps. Sandbag presses. Slam balls. Push ups. 2 rounds of 30 reps each. And to make things worse, between stations we alternated bear crawls and lunges. We did get a 200m recovery jog from the push up station to the kettlebell station. This was an epic exhaust fest. Between my last 2 stations, just walking was a challenge. I’d given up on the transition exercises early in the 2nd round. And by the time I got the push up station both times, I could barely do push ups from my knees in sets of 5. The abuse to my arms was brutal. You can’t get a better workout than this at my fitness level.

After the workout, we headed across the street to Orie’s house. Orie is an amazing cook. He has collected together some great old recipes that happen to be very zone friendly. We had grilled salmon, tilapia and pork tenderloins (absolutely perfect) along with a thai cabbage slaw, a wonderful indian curried mock mashed potatoes (cauliflower), which I will be adding as a staple of my diet because it was so good, and grilled chicories (endive & radiccio).

The workout was intense. The food was superb. The company was friendly, healthy and happy. Really, I don’t think you can have a better BBQ than this.

I completed two CrossFit WOD (workout of the day) today.

Yesterday’s WOD
Run 5k for time.
35:48 PR (personal record) by 2:09

Today’s WOD
With a continuously running clock, do 1 pull up the 1st minute, 2 pull ups the 2nd minute, 3 the 3rd minute, etc. Your score is the number of minutes you complete.
4 (possible compromised range of motion at the top on the last 2 minutes)

I met with Dan, Brandon and Orie at CrossFit Des Peres today. They have a lot of open space above Core Fitness. 6 sets of adjustable rings, 2 lifting platforms, a huge tire, just to name a few things I noticed right off, not to mention the giant kettlebells. We did various warm ups. They checked my form on some basic movements, air squat, front squat, thrusters. I tried a ring pull up, some ring push ups and a couple ring dips with legs on the ground.

We finished with a sick WOD (workout of the day). 21-15-9-3 reps of (my scaled versions) 20 lbs dumbell thrusters, jumping ring pull ups, dumbell push ups. (I’m still wary of doing normal push ups on the ground since my nerve problems in my left arm.) I figured out pretty quickly I could break this down into 3 mini sets, so 7-7-7, 5-5-5, 3-3-3, 1-1-1. This made a huge difference for the last set because it was just like 1 more set of 3 from the 9s with a little rest. I had a total of 5 push ups that I didn’t count because I couldn’t finish the rep. To be that close to, or at failure so often in such a short time was a new experience. Anyway, I finished in 16:22. I read somewhere that the first time you do something is always a personal record so I guess that was 16:22 PR.

Before I left, I jumped on the incline trainer. 20-25 seconds or so of 4 mph at a 50 incline. That thing is just sick. I totally want to do more. Of course it made my legs match my arms for the spaghetti lactic acid burn. Stretching felt so good as toxins flushed into my system from pumped muscles.

I’m going to love CrossFit. This is like the first month or so when I started working out, only, as far as I can tell, the feeling should just keep going. I can’t wait for the next sick workout.

I met Dan, Orie and Elizabeth today at the Kirkwood High School track. It turns out Orie lives across the street. We set up 4 stations around the track. Do a station, sprint to the next station, go around twice. Elizabeth suggested 36 reps as the magic number because it was 36 degrees outside. I think she needs to see a shrink.

We each started at different stations. I started at the one arm dumbell snatches (KB for most but I did 25 lb dumbells because I was unfamiliar with the motion.). 18 with each arm, then sprint to the 24” box for box jumps. 9 box jumps and my bursting heart forced me to lower the power requirement by doing step ups instead. From that point on, the sprint was more like a recovery walk and I just hoped to be able to breath by the time I got to the next station. 36 ball slams with the 20 lb medicine ball. Umm, no problem? Sort of…. An actual semi-run to the 4th station, sand bag. I don’t know how heavy the duffel bag of sand was but carrying it 100 yards and back was a great challenge. I kept going for all 8 stations. After my last sandbag carry, I gave everything that was left for a final 100 yd sprint then spent 5 minutes gasping for air hoping not to revisit breakfast. All told, one of my best workouts ever. After only 9 hours I’m already feeling muscle rebuilding.

I’m meeting Dan at CrossFit Des Peres on Tuesday to see the facility. If their workouts all get this much out of me, the returns are going to be awesome.