Crossfit Armoury - Week 2: Upcoming competition practice, Karma Crossfit, and Meal Prep

The first event for us, (time to practice this movement)

Open Teams - we are in this division

June 8 (evening):

As you can see from the above, we have our work cut out for us.  Considering that Rob Hansen (my team mate for the competition), we haven't done any training yet.  We had a lot of  training to put in before the end of the month. The other events hasn't been released yet.

I am anticipating they would be over the next few days and well, between Rob and I work schedule.  It's going to be hit and miss on the practice.  Not exactly the best way to train, but life happens.  You do what you can!  We both are not 100% full time crossfit athletes.  We do our best, and the fact that we would classified as being in the MASTER division, but we had to compete in the OPEN class.  The MASTER division only has a Rx class, no Scaled division.

So, twelve hours after my morning 5-3-1 strength training; I find myself back again for some additional training.  We had talked a bit about what we wanted to tackle.  We had some of the other Armoury members who were also competing, that was willing to share their strategies.  With that being said, especially the 1 Squat Clean + 1 Front Squat; 6 minutes isn't a lot of time. Considering that within that 6 minutes; both of us has to complete it.

It was suggested by Connie W., that we should start our weight at 75% of our 1 RM and build up to our max.  Essentially, having 3 attempts each to achieve the maximum weight for the complex.

I managed to hit 155 lbs without any issues, but anything above that would results in failures.  I found it a bit cumber-sand at 175 lbs and of course, hitting 195 lb would results in failures.   Dropped the weight to 180 lb to see if I could muster that or not.   We had one of the Rx athletes that came over and offered his advice.  It was very much appreciated as he demoed the issues I was having, and gave me supportive suggestions.  Thanks M.G.H. for the advice!  I love our crossfit box, love the people; everyone being supportive!

I don't recall how many Squat cleans that was done, but all I remember was being their for about 90 minutes, of which we spent about 15 minutes stretching and rolling out.   

June 11th:

I had hope that we could go and do a bit of cardio, to work on another area that we would need to be ready for.  The last two competition had shown where the biggest weak spot for me was.  Cardio.   Between Battle on the Border (Feb), the Open (February - March), and the Festivus Games (April).  It was repeated, over and over what my weak spot was. 

However, mother nature had a different plan.  Upon arriving at the box; it was pouring buckets.  Just running from the parking lot to the doors; I was half soaked already.  

We ended up working on our some cleans and skipped the front squats.  And the next thing was to work on the partner dead lift.  I'm not sure what made me think that we would be doing those.  Perhaps it was overhearing of the Rx or regionals athletes talking about it.

Played with the idea of doing partner dead lifts, this was the weight
Rob Hansen and I made it to during our training. (545 lb)

We ended up hitting a maximum weight of 545 lbs; more weight than I even thought possible.  Rob figured we could had hit 600 lbs.   

Afterwards, we decided to work on some stationary cardio.  Airbikes!!  

Peddle for max calories for 15 seconds with 1 minute and 45 seconds of rest; 6 rounds.

It was painful after we finish all 6 rounds.  I don't think Rob liked me much after that.

We ended up going for a walk afterwards, walked for about 1000 meters, as the rain had stopped and it had cooled off the temperature outside.  

We needed that walk considering all the lactic acid build up in our legs.  We discussed life and strategies for future training, and what areas we were needed to work on.   Also we talked about custom shirts, something that we wanted for ourselves.  I was in charge of design, and getting it sorted out.

Karma Crossfit - June 12th

A very interesting class in deed.  Well; actually, it's not a class.  It actually Karma Crossfit.  For every class you attend, when you reach 4 classes.  You will get credit with one month free.  This Karma Crossfit class is highly seek out and it's limited to 4 members.  I actually had to booked this class about two months back.   Hindsight, I'll be booking my future ones as far as I can get.  Currently my next Karma Crossfit class won't be until August.   Wow.

What do you do in Karma Crossfit?

Well, you basically clean the box!  Each member volunteers to or is directed by our Karma Captain, Dawn S.   

Choice of duties:  

- Mopping

- Vacuuming

- Cleaning bathrooms, and other gym equipment, emptying garbage

- Floor Scrubber (Floor Zamboni)

Before any mopping, vacuuming, floor Zamboni can be done.  Equipment close to the wall has to be moved to the middle of the box.  This way, the initial vacuuming can be done, followed by the mopping (the area where the floor Zamboni can't reach), and then the actual floor scrubber to follow.

This includes moving Rowers, all those dumbbells (see picture below), kettle bells, boxes, sleds, weighted bags, GHD machines, boxes of wooden dowels, couches and whatever equipment that might be against the wall.

Once the the floor scrubber has passed those areas, and some drying of the floor had occurred.  We would move all the equipment back to where they were.

On average, the cleaning of the box is between 1 to 1.5 hours.  It all depends on how efficient the team is.   Being it my first time, and I was mopping.  It took longer as the floor scrubber had to wait for me to finish my part.   Next time, I'll be faster.

Dawn S; our captain for Karma Crossfit

Clean floor

If there is anything you learning from cleaning the floors, is the new found respect for the use of the chalk.  God, is that ever hard to clean up.  New respect for not just randomly making a mess on the floor.  I think it would be a great idea for the members to do one Crossfit Karma class.   At least that way, you will know what it takes to clean chalk from the floor, and equipment.

Sunday; Meal Prep day

Almost every week; Sunday is the day I spend the bulk of my time doing meal prep.  Consistency will pay off.  And yes, I like to post my pictures that I make with food.  Hoping this will motive others to do the same.  I'm always tweaking my food, for flavor or for quantity

The following is what I had made for this week.   .

Here's the finish product after my weekly Sunday Meal Prep

Making of the breakfast (frittata)

Lunch - Rice, Kale Salad, and Poach Chicken breast (with some spicy sauce)