PR During Rehab

*More about women’s health and pelvic floor stuff in this post. Dudes might want to skip this one too*

Let’s be honest here. I’ve been in a funk. I fairly certain that I have SAD (seasonal affective disorder) and the gloomy/rainy weather isn’t helping a ton. I was also having a little pity party regarding my sciatic pain and I was secretly afraid this would mean the end of me squatting, deadlifting, thruster-ing, clean & jerk-ing and snatching. It made me really sad that I was thinking about giving up, but the butt pain was annoying to no end. Ok, maybe I wasn’t really sad about never having to snatch ever again, but that’s a different story. I have a tendency to keep quiet when I feel this way because my Mom always said to keep your mouth shut if you have nothing nice to say…

So yeah, annoying funk. When I get in a funk, I eat. Not always good food choices. My new jeans are feeling snug and so are my scrub tops again. In order to snap myself out of the funk and emotional eating, I reached out to Kathleen and Courtney and we have embarked on a (second for me) Whole30 together. If one of us falls off the wagon, we ALL have to do 15 burpees… per cheat snack. We started last Thursday and so far, everyone has been on plan! Way to go ladies!

I have also had my 1st appointment with the pelvic floor physic. It was interesting and mildly uncomfortable at times. I mean, where else do you get little stickers (electrodes) put next to your bum hole and vagina, hooked up to an ultrasound and get to see the strength of your inner abdominal muscles and rectal muscles as well. Add to that the presence of an almost 3-year-old who was peeking under my gown and asked A LOT of questions and you have a pretty good picture of my appointment.

The findings were interesting though:

• I have weak rectus abdominis (front abs)
• My abdominal muscles remain contracted too tight, even at rest.
• I can’t hold a deep abdominal contraction for 10s during kegels
• I get better control of those contractions if I think more about contracting my anus than if I focus on my abdomen.
• My internal obliques and transversus abdominis are working overtime in order to compensate

In terms of regular physic, here’s what’s wrong with me as well:

• I have too much mobility and squat too low, curving my spine at the bottom of the squat, resulting in my obliques taking over and adding a toll onto my lower back
• Too much mobility on the erg as well, resulting in the same outcome as in the squat

What I’m doing to fix this:

• Lots of kegels (we’re talking 60 reps of 10s contractions with holding and 10s rest)
• a weird contraction of the deep abs while lying on the floor and opening my legs sideways, then extending the leg out straight.
• firing the small deep posterior chain before doing any squatting or any heavy lifting
• contracting my pelvic floor muscles when lifting heavy, or even lifting the girls
• one-legged step-ups in the stairs and focusing on not tilting my pelvis
• Squatting down to a med ball to limit my squat depth and ensuring I don’t squat too low (still below parallel, but not ass-to-the-grass

It doesn’t sound like much and when I do my keels and pelvic floor exercises I pretty much look like I’m just standing or lying down and staring into nothing-ness, but it’s a lot of hard work. I also started these on last Thursday.

What I have noticed so far:

• I haven’t had a flare up in my sciatic pain since Thursday.
• The numbing I felt in my lower back has decreased tremendously. So much so that I recently sat down and was amazed to notice what it felt like to sit down and not have that low numbing pain in my back
• I did thrusters today, PR’d my 1RM and there was no leakage
• I sneezed twice today without crossing my legs and also without experiencing any leakage
• I’m not feeling any discomfort in my sciatic or lower back at all after doing the thrusters today
• The pelvic floor PT gave me the green light to start doing my ROMWOD again, now I just have to clear it with the regular PT!

This is huge people! After 5 + years of lower back pain/ butt pain/ sciatic pain, I’m walking almost pain-free and it feels awesome. It has brought back a little of positiveness in my life and it makes the world of a difference in my day-to-day life.

Ok, enough about my lady bits and let’s now focus on the WOD today:

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1RM Thruster: I warmed up to 65# before the timer went off and I planned on doing those E2M with 5# increases on each rep. I was hoping to hit 90# on my last rep, which would have been a 5# PR. Here’s what I ended up doing

65#-70#-75# with the assist of a med ball behind me in order to know when to stop dropping. I almost tripped on it when I did 80#, so I decided to try without any assist on the last 2 reps. 85# went well and Coach AJ told me I had good speed. I failed 90#. I managed to squat it and get up with it, but I couldn’t press it overhead. I was slightly disappointed. I humm-ed and aww-ed for a little bit and then decided to try for a 2#-PR anyway and go for 87#. I went to get the fractional plates and added them onto my bar. I had about 20 seconds left before the 12 minutes were up and i took a deep breath and went for it! I was so happy to get it up and above my head! I didn’t have much expectations that I would PR while rehab-ing my sciatic, but this was a nice welcomed surprise! 🙂

Double Tabata Row: A Tabata is an interval workout. You do 8 rounds of 20s work / 10s rest. Because it was so intense for my sciatic, I chose to go for the Assault bike instead of the erg. I probably could have done a regular Tabata, but not a double one. I set myself up next to Marika (who was on the Airdyne) and off we went. For the 1st Tabata, I managed to keep my intervals at 4 cals for all but the 7th interval! I was disappointed, but kept going and managed to get 4 cals for the 8th round. As soon as we entered the second part of the Tabata, I was just trying my best to keep each interval at 3 cals. I surprised myself by getting 4 cals for a few rounds, but I mostly stayed at 3. I was glad when It was over and my quads were throbbing nicely and seizing up slowly. I got off the Assault bike, got on all fours and then slumped onto my belly on the floor. I caught my breath and went to write my score on the board. I was shocked when I saw that Marika’s lowest score was 6 cals! Holy crap! I thought I’d worked hard for all my rounds, but my score was a measly 3! Coach AJ told us that they don’t count calories the same way and after doing some research online, I found in some forums that people mentioned the Assault bike was scoring about 1/2 the cals and distance when compared to the Airdyne. Good to know I wasn’t so far behind then!

I’m just happy with how today’s session went. I know you can’t always have great workout days, but it sure start the day the right way when you do well on the Skill and WOD!

Putting In The Work, Reaping The Slow Progress

I’ve been at this Crossfit craziness for a little over two years now and to say that I absolutely love it is an understatement. Don’t get me wrong, there are days when I truly don’t enjoy the WODs (ahem, crazy warm-up sesh followed by DT, ahem), but I know and trust my coaches and I know that, in the end, no matter how much I scale back, I am still working towards becoming fitter.

From the beginning of my little journey, I have always wanted to make sure that I understand the mobility behind a lift before I start increasing my weights. It has sometimes been frustrating to see others progress faster, to see them putting heavier plates on the barbells or to see them master a lift or a gymnastic move that still evades me, but, overall, I have managed to stay true to my promise of moving properly before adding weight. Two years into this, I am between Novice and Intermediate (as per this chart) for all my lifts. I’m sure I could probably be a solid intermediate or even higher if I trained more, but I am a wife, a mom and I have a job, therefore, I am pretty happy with where I stand today.

Up until recently, I was using 55# for all my lifts during WODs and I kind of promoted myself to 65# a few weeks ago. It has been challenging for certain WODs, impossible for others and has felt comfortable for some. See? Intermediate! 😉

Here’s what we did today:

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We really warmed-up our hips and ankles and the mood was pretty cheerful throughout the warm-up. Then, it was time to get serious and tackle this WOD.

Triple Treat

I warmed-up with 55# and although the thrusters felt somewhat easy and the deadlifts were truly easy, I knew it would become taxing towards the end. Still, I unloaded my bar, put on 15# plates on each end and was ready to tackle this one at 65#. Coach AJ came by and told me she wanted me to really be explosive from the hips in the BJ and actually move my hips. I have a tendency to keep my hips at the same height and only pull my legs up like  a frog jumps. It makes things easier for this short stuff to get on the box, but it’s not proper form. I did a few reps and it was definitely more challenging, but it gave me something new to work on, form-wise.

I managed to do all 6 rounds with a squat thruster for my 1st rep of every thrusters and keep going from there. The deadlifts were definitely the easiest (for me) in this WOD and I tried my little heart out to really engage my hips in the BJ. That made for some very noisy landings on the box, but I think, overall, I did ok. I could tell on my last round that my form was slowly reverting to my old habits, but I was still determined to work on these! Even though this WOD was a “no score” one, we were able to keep track of our times for each rounds. Here’s how I did:

1. 0:52
2. 0:50
3. 0:46
4. 0:45
5. 0:43
6. 0:42

I was pretty pleased that I was able to shave off 10 secs of my initial time for this!

After the WOD, Coach AJ came by and told me I made her “want to try that ROMWOD thing. You’re moving so well and your squats are so good!” It’s nice to know that what I’ve been working so hard on for the past 2 years is finally paying off and people are noticing.

She asked me if I felt any different in my performance and, funnily enough, today is the first day that my sciatic is truly killing me post WOD since I have started the ROMWOD. Is it because I changed my BJ? Not sure, but it sure is (literally) a giant pain in my butt. I went to the mall with Béatrice after my workout and I couldn’t walk while holding her in my arms, it was hurting too much. Even with her walking by herself, I was limping next to her while we walked really slow. I guess it’s really time I book a chiro appointment for some active release therapy!

As for ROMWOD, I can definitely see an improvement in my flexibility, but I’m not sure how it’S helping me in my performance overall. I really enjoy the increased flexibility I have gained in the past 2 weeks and am looking forward to keeping it up, even if it feels like relaxation most of the time.

Seated Straddle, 2 weeks ago, after 4 minutes into the pose. Head isn’t touching the forearms, shoulders are up.

Seated Straddle, 2 days ago, at the beginning of the 4-minute hold of the pose. Forehead is almost touching the forearms

Seated Straddle, 2 days ago, at the end of the 4-minute hold. My head is past the forearms and almost touching the ground. Definitely an improvement!

Shoulda, Woulda, Coulda

I came home late from a long day at work. I stayed a few hours extra to help out a co-worker who had some family business to attend (don’t worry, she’ll come in early for me next week, so I’ll have a short day!), but that meant I did 14hrs at work yesterday. I managed to squeeze my ROMWOD in during a short break and it felt good to be stretching at the end of the day!

Pigeon pose in my scrubs!

I got home after Ben did and we hung out a bit on the couch before I headed to bed. I fell asleep around midnight and the night seemed very short when Rina came to wake me up at 0600 this morning. I got up, made her lunch, got breakfast going, started with my weekly cleaning and had to leave it unfinished because it was time to head into the Box.

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I felt like quitting and heading back home during the warm-up so I knew I would struggle today to get it all done!

Skill: 3RM Front Squat (12 mins)

We had 12 minutes to find out our 3RM on the front squat and although I had planned on reaching 120#, I stopped after I did crappy reps at 115#. Energy was low, I was stripping my butt on the up and I knew the WOD would be brutal (for me) so I saved what little I had left in the tank for the WOD.

WOD: Nancy

I decided to do FG1+ yet again today. That’s what I had done the last time I did this one and considering I felt drained of life, I knew it would be a definite challenge. To add to all that, it was also raining. Perfect weather for my crappy mood and to go running outside!

3-2-1- Go!

There was no way I would keep up with Linda today: she’s a faster runner and I’m pretty sure she managed her OHS non-stop for all her rounds as I had to break mine mostly into sets of 5 (with the occasional 7 in there).

I knew I was in trouble when I started bawling on my 1st round of OHS. I tried to regulate my breathing as best I could on the run and finally got things somewhat under control, but mentally, I had already checked out. You know it’s bad when I get it into my head that “I’ll recover in the run!” Ha! Yep! That thought actually crossed my mind quite a few times during the WOD. Everybody was done by the time I reached my 4th round of OHS, so I kept going and went out by myself for my last run. I came back in with everyone cheering me on I finished at 24:53 and crumpled to the floor to get a good cry. Who knew I was this tired? After I left a puddle of tears on the floor, I got up and put my stuff away, all the while thinking I should have listened to myself and gone home after the warm-up. I. AM. SPENT! It took me 1:36 longer this time around to finish Nancy at the same weight I had done previously. However, apparently our 400m run isn’t 400m. It’s somewhere between 440-460m, depending on who you talk to. Therefore, I guess I PR’d today even though I really didn’t!

Well, maybe I’d done better if Ryan had actually been there for me today! 😉

I came back home to finish my cleaning, had a quick bath, made lunch and roasted pumpkin seeds (’tis the season!) Béatrice refuses to play nicely upstairs so I’ll try to fit in my ROMWOD for today and will relax a bit before going for a nap before my night at work tonight.

What Was That?!?

I went to bed at a decent hour last night, woke up, got Rina ready for school and then even had some time to do a little food prep before heading in to the Box. I had read the workout last night and I knew it was going to be a tough one, but I thought to myself: “It’s DT. You can do it at 65# if you strategize appropriately about it.” RIIIIIiiiiiiight!

That was before somebody pointed out that the warm-up was x3 this morning. I had read it as x1 only. Holy Cow, this was gonna be hard!

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Warm-up (aka WOD #1):  3x

• 500m row
• 15 burpees
• 30 light RKBS

Myeah, ok. I’ll get right on that! There was a few of us and in a way, I’m thankful for that because that meant I had to do 0.6km on the death bike for my second round since none of the ergs were available. To say that I enjoyed this much more than the erg is an understatement. At least, I was benefiting from the wind I was generating on the death bike vs. the erg. I did all my rounds with an 18# KB and did all my burpees Rx, but I had to stop twice during my last row. That was intense to say the least and it put me in a foul mood. How was I supposed to use 65# for DT now, when I felt like I had nothing left in the tank? I warmed up to 55# and called it a day. I felt like wiping down the barbell before I got started because it was already full of sweat from the hang power cleans!

Yep!

WOD: DT

3.2.1.Go!

I managed all my rounds with unbroken DL. I would go up to 11, take a few breaths and then do my last rep before transitioning to the Hang Power Cleans. Those were the hardest for me. I had to break most rounds into sets of 4-4-1 and that made me waste a lot of time. I just didn’t have the forearms to push through. I did manage to do all push jerks unbroken, which tells me I probably should have stuck to my idea of using 65#, but I was too angry. The amount of swearing I did in my head was pretty phenomenal, even for me! Thanks goodness I managed to keep my mouth shut and just grind through it. I could tell I had my “pissed off” face on and the first thing that came out of my mouth when I was done was: “That was stupid!”

I was really trying to finish before Linda and I didn’t manage to do so, but I hung on to her pretty well and I did whatever it took for me to get over this insane warm-up/WOD. It’s rare that a workout puts me in such a bad mood and I’ve been trying to understand why it has done so. Was it because I felt drained form the warm-up? Was it because I didn’t use 65# like I had originally planned on doing when I misread the WOD last night? Was it because it was a grey/rainy day? I still don’t have the answer to that and I’m still pretty mad at the whole thing. I know I should let it go and I will, but it is surprising to me how upset I am at the whole thing. I finished with a time of 10:25, which puts me right in the middle of the pack (I think) and makes me think I scaled appropriately. I’m just not sure why I had such a violent reaction to that WOD. I spoke to Rob afterwards and he seemed to think like me. We were both agreeing that we HATED this one! Oh well, it’s done and over with and I now have a record for this Hero WOD, but it sure didn’t make me feel like one when I was doing it. Gotta check that mental fortitude and my internal self-talk, once again!

I came home, finished my food prep for the week, finished laundry and now have a luxurious 15-mins break to lounge before I go get Rina at the bus stop. Then, it’s prepping dinner, bath time and ROMWOD for me when the girls get to bed. I’m truly hoping the ROMWOD will help lift up my sourpuss mood!

That’s what I should have done today!