Holy Smokes, my hands hurt. We did Knees to Elbows today and man oh man — my calluses/blisters are burning. Many times its not the actual exercise that will kill you, it’s the residual effects you get from doing them. And it’s funny because both my kids are working on the monkey bars at school and have come home to tell me all about their blisters. Think I am brainwashing them or as I say tailoring them for the CrossFit lifestyle? Perhaps —
My friend and fellow CF athlete, Kim and I were talking last weekend about why we do this. She told me how she was talking to a guy who saw her hands and said “i don’t think i could date a girl with hands rougher than mine” and then proceeded to ask her why she is doing this. That there had to be an end goal, a means to an end. What was she training for, when will the stopping point be reached… She told him she wasn’t training, but striving for lifelong fitness. So, that when she is 80 she can still carry a bag of groceries up a flight of stairs or get up out of a chair with no problem. Or how about warding off depression, or the aches and pains that come with getting older and not maintaining your body?
Well she made sure she told him what she thought of his comments and I share her feelings– Most of us CrossFit girls would rather not date guys with hands softer than ours. If a guy is that shallow to begin with, well it will catch up with him eventually. It just boggles my mind that people don’t get that it’s not about training for a race or marathon. Crossfit and this type of High Intensity Interval Training (HIIT) is about living fit. Fit and Sore! If I have any control over it, I refuse to be one of those old ladies who can’t move around without help. I get that there are illnesses and other situations where it’s out of our hands, but whatever I can control, I am going to do whatever it takes to ensure I am as fit as I can be. My heart breaks for those seniors I see who are the shell of the people they once were. No thank you.
Today’s workout was hard but manageable — Coach Conan was on hand to push us through. He is really good about leading us through serious mobility work. Today was all about hips, so we focused on really stretching and opening our hips. I will talk about mobility in the next day or so here, because it really is a super important part of overall fitness. Many times its harder than the actual workout.
Warmup
100 single jump ropes
Dynamic Stretching
Mobility Work
Skill
KB Swings
KTE
WOD
5 RFT
21 KB Swings
21 KTE
21 DUs or 21×3 Single Jump Ropes
Time: 12:09
I went with a lower kb weight this time in order to focus on not stopping. I wish we had a KB available that was somewhere in between the lighter and the 1 pood we have at the box. Because I did go lighter and felt it was just too light and then at the end, tried the 1 pood and had to stop at 10 reps and then pick it up again. It was definitly mentally hard for me to go lighter, but Conan told me to do it. I still feel like I finished too quickly but it is what it is. And now, I am going to nurse my hands for the rest of the day — woe is me.