WOD: Workout Of the Day.
I did my first CrossFit WOD today! Rowing machine 2K, 40 wall balls (12#), row 1K, 35 wall balls, row 500m, 25 wall balls, all this in just 34 minutes and 32 seconds. CrossFit is an exercise methodology and crossfit.com posts a new workout daily.
Tomorrow morning I’ll be drinking Valentine tea with my daughter’s entire 2nd grade instead of getting my butt kicked in my strength/cardio interval class. So, last minute decision, I hauled myself to the gym at 4pm. Lacking skill in structuring my own workouts and deeming this WOD fairly non-intimidating for a first attempt, I enlisted a staff trainer to demo the rowing machine. Yes I’ve been working out for a year and a half and never touched the rowing machine. Anyway it’s not hard and I was soon 2K into the WOD. Then wall balls. Also new. The instructions said 20lb but I was smart and chose 12. Squat, then hurl the ball about 10 feet up the wall, catch and repeat. Sounds simple, but oh no no. Only the first five are simple. The initial set was supposed to be 50 reps and I was dying after 25. My heart was pounding and I felt dizzy. Eventually I made it to 40 but that was with some resting moments. The rowing machine felt super easy after that. When the workout was done I felt shaky for a whole hour. Even if I never do another WOD (which isn’t likely, it was torture but it was fun) I still gained two new workout skills.
Perhaps a little history? Around New Year’s I had some shoulder pain that my chiro Dr. Higgins couldn’t fix, and he did some abdominal palpation to diagnose a gallbladder issue. Ouch, that thing is tender when it’s not happy. It can also cause referred shoulder pain. Higgins told me to cut grains, dairy, starches, sugar, and most red meat out of my diet. It’s not that fun for someone who was eating homemade granola for breakfast and sandwiches on homemade bread for lunch and afternoon pita chips nearly daily. In trying to figure out what I could eat, I came across the Paleo diet. Now for anyone who knows much about that, I’m not strictly following Paleo primarily because I need to stay low-fat while the gallbladder heals, Higgins approved beans as tolerated, and I have chosen to cheat with rice when I’m too hungry to think of something better. However it’s been a great source of research on grain problems and ways to substitute wholesome foods, and I soon discovered that there is an entire fitness community that embraces the Paleo kitchen: the CrossFit camp. Which led to researching the CrossFit ideology. Which led to the WOD above. Which led to immense pride in myself this afternoon!