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!

Get Your Sweat On!

After yesterday’s workout at Kathleen’s, I felt super energized and ready to take on anything this morning. I was pleased when I saw this:

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Skill: Back squat 3×10 E2M

I paired up with Telsey and Jen and truly didn’t know what to tackle for weight for these. I did 85#-90#-95#. The last round felt challenging, but I think I could have done 100#. Dang! Next time!

WOD: Escape the Trap

That was a fun team WOD and I remained paired up with Telsey and Jen. Because there were so many of us we had to start the WOD with the burpee BJ. I started our trio off by doing 8 true to form, then I did step-ups. At some point, I resorted to granny-style burpees, but picked it back up again. Second round was fairly similar, except we were taking a long time and Coach Caleb told us to go to the Trap DL part of the WOD after our second round and to come back to the burpee BJ afterwards if we still had time.

We were using 75# for the trap DL and that was way too light. I was even able to trot carrying the bar across the gym, so next time, I should go up to 85-90#. Once we were done with the Trap DL, Jen had to leave to get home in time for her hubby to get to work, and Telsey was getting close to her cutoff time as well so she did her 3rd round of burpee BJ and I took it upon myself to finish the last 30 reps (my 15 and Jen’s 15). It was slow, but I tried to keep things moving as best I could and we finished with a time of 23:06. I was pouring sweat from everywhere and even my hair was dripping.

Sweaty deer stuck in headlights. “What the heck just happened to me?!?”

I came back home and had an interesting text exchange with Kath about where I’m at as a Crossfitter.  I feel that even though I still scale pretty much every WOD, I’m definitely out of the “newbie” category, but I’m still worlds away from the true athletes. Which makes partnering with people difficult at times. I love hanging out with new people because I was just there not so long ago, so I understand the struggle. At the same time, I think sometimes it would be worth it to challenge myself and team up with people I consider “beasts”. At the same time, I also would feel very bad if I slowed them down.

The mental struggle is real, I tell ya!

Once I had showered and refuelled with breakfast, I realized I had forgotten to clean the inside of my freezer and fridge last week, during the Deep House Cleaning, so I got right on that. Then, our tenants finally moved out and it was time to start cleaning the suite after they left. We still have a little bit to do tomorrow morning before the new tenants move in, but overall it went well. Except when I broke the telescopic mop. I was vigorously cleaning the ceilings (I was also amazed at how people can get ceilings so dirty, but I digress) and the silly thing broke in two.

I broke that thing like a twig!

I had no time to fiddle with that kind of crap, so I took my step-stool (midgets unite!) and got scrubbing with the old rag-and-cleaner method! 6hrs later, we have the bathroom left, vacuuming and mopping the kitchen floor as well as priming the holes that have been patched and painting the walls.

Yeah, not how I had anticipated my day or my last week off before heading back into work. Hopefully, I can still manage to book myself a massage. I’m pretty sure if Crossfit came out with a WOD involving having to wash walls, windows and vacuum, I would RX the crap out of that! Ugh! One last cleaning boom to do tomorrow and then I should be done for at least 24hrs!

Yeah right, one can only wish!

3 Little Steps

Im back!

We had a lovely week in Cuba, filled with fun family times, sun and ocean! I will do a photo recap a little later, but for now, it was back to business as usual this morning for a challenging WOD:

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WOD: Six by Five

I was really hoping to do this one Rx and it was close, but my little noodle arms couldn’t do the KB push press at 35#, so I settled for FG with the following modifications:

6 RFT of:

• 400m run
• 15 AKBS @ 35#
• 10 reverse KB lunges @ 35#
• 5 KB push press @ 26#

I was expecting this to hurt bad after my week of lounging on the beach (I did only 1 WOD I made up while in Cuba, more on this in my Cuba recap post) and I was right. Rounds 1 through 3 went fairly well. I was slow compared to others, but I didn’t let it affect me. I kept up with my inner positive dialogue of “just one more rep, one more step”. It worked until round 4. When I first took off on the run, I stopped and took 3 walking steps. I don’t know why I did that, obviously, 3 steps is nothing and it was only a mental block I had to get through as those 3 little steps really didn’t offer any rest. I picked it up again and managed to not stop for the remainder of the runs. When I came back in from my 4th run, that KB was playing mind tricks on me. I did not want to pick it up again. I took a much longer rest, and finally, I won over my head and got back to work. I typically broke my AKBS in sets of 9-6 0r 10-5, lunges were broken into 5-5 and push press were done without rest.

Round 5 went a little smoother than round 4 and I tried to “recover” on the runs, taking advantage of the downhills and picking up the speed. Round 6 destroyed me. I did NOT want to go back out and run again, let alone, do another round of this. Tracey and David came out to run with me and, although I didn’t want to disappoint them, I also didn’t want to push anymore. I was crying with exhaustion and I’m pretty sure I looked somewhat like Kara Webb during Murph at the Games this year. Although, to Webb’s credit, she probably still looked better than I did! I came back in and picked up the KB right away, I knew that if I hesitated, there was no way I would pick it up later so I just went straight to work with it. I finished my last rep at 34:14 and I was so freakin’ happy with that time.

Even though I finished almost last, I knew I had accomplished so much in those 34 minutes. I used to “run” 3km in 30 minutes before I had kids. Today, I ran 2.4km in 34:14, but I also knocked down some serious work as well, so to me, this is great. It’s a true testament of my fitness and where I’m at right now. I can honestly say, even though I don’t look my fittest (heck, I’ll never have my 18 year-old body with a 6-pack ever again), I’m probably in the best shape of my life and that means everything to me. I was elated when I made that realization and I couldn’t stop the happy tears from flowing. Onwards and Upwards my friends!

I may not have abs, but that smile is everything! Happy and comfortable with myself!

Games Standing And Family Life

As promised earlier, here’s my standing in the Games. For some reason, every time I check my standing, it keeps changing. I don’t know why people are still allowed to enter/validate their scores, but I’ll keep with the standing I had as of earlier this morning (0900) for the purpose of this post:

Open 2015 standing

51760 out of 108,764 women worldwide places me in the top 55% (I was in the bottom 14% last year).

I also managed to place 1538 out of 2777 women on the Canada West division, which places me in the top  44% (I don’t have those stats from last year). Just to give you an idea of how strong my little Box is, I came in at 76/83 total registrants, placing me in the bottom 8% (I was in the bottom 6% last year). Now do you believe me when I tell you that I work out with fit/beastly people?!? Lol!

Looking back at those numbers, I’m pretty happy about my accomplishments on the worldwide front, that’s a huge improvement! I also noticed the number of women registered worldwide has more than doubled from last year (from 52550 to 108,764)! That’s insane!

I got up before dawn again for my Oly class. Here’s what we did:

For the Squat Snatch, if we failed a rep, we had to drop back to our last successful weight, which is why I dropped back to 50# since I had failed my 2nd rep at 55#. Overall though, it felt a lot smoother than it ever has before and the concept of pulling the bar while dropping underneath it is slowly coming around… if I don’t think about it too much! 😉

 

We had to start at 65% of our PR for our Power Clean and Jerk which meant 40# for me. I progressed with every round and finished at 65#. The Split Jerk comes naturally to me and I was working on really dropping lower under the bar. It felt good to do so and the reps felt strong throughout.

I came back home to walk Duke and was rewarded by this gorgeous sunrise once I reached the park:

Modern Day Rapunzel tower as the girls like to pretend when I take them with me! 😉

Once we came back home, I lounged in bed for a little bit with Ben and Rina and then she decided to blow raspberries on my belly. We were both laughing hysterically. Fart noises are funny at any age! 😉

Then it was onto breakfast, laundry and cleaning. The girls have been easily upset and a puddle of cries and tears all morning. So much so that I had to put both of them in their rooms with the doors closed in order for them to calm down. This BabyMama is very much looking forward to quiet time and nap time before I head in to work before my night shift!

 

 

Embrace The Suck!

Not much to say this morning other than it was another cold morning heading in to the Box for my workout:

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http://crossfitviccity.com/size-and-strength

Skill: HSPU+ rope climb

I finally managed to get 1 kipping HSPU from the yoga block + 3×2.5# plates. I was so excited that I got out of my handstand and wasn’t able to get back to it afterwards since my shoulders were getting tired. I’m just glad I finally managed to do one though as it was very elusive to me before today. I credit Tracey and her wonderful advice to push towards the ceiling with my feet! 🙂 I tried a regular rope climb, but even with my long sock, I wasn’t able to tolerate the pain on the scabs remaining on my shins. I did lying down ones instead.

WOD: Triow

Kevin was back and he needed to do the Airdyne instead of the rowing since he’s still recovering from surgery. Tracey was also doing Aridyne because her shoulder was bothering her so I offered to be their 3rd partner for the WOD on the death bike Airdyne. That’s right, I actually volunteered for the Airdyne. I guess I was all about embracing the suck or something. Marika also offered to team up with us so we then split up into two teams of 2  (I was with Kevin) and made up an imaginary 3rd partner. We ended up adding an extra rest period for each round to make up for our missing partner. Here’s what we had to do distance-wise on the ‘dyne:

• 0.35 x3 (each partner)
• 0.75
• 0.35 x3 (each partner)
• 0.75

Coach Caleb had given us the wrong distance for the first interval so we all ended up doing 0.45 instead of 0.35. Bleh! My goal for today was to simply not stop and not take my hands from the handles. I just wanted to keep pushing for each interval and I managed to do so! During the struggle, I would just close my eyes, focus on the music and try to keep up the cadence to the rhythm of the music. It worked!  We had to come up with team names and the theme was Galactic Warriors. I suggested and Schwinners (Schwinn is the brand of the death bike) of the Universe and Kevin agreed. We finished in 36:42. It was a long one and I was glad it was over! I guess I’m slowly getting fitter since I didn’t stop at all during the intervals, just like I can now run (very slowly albeit, but run nonetheless) all the intervals when running is involved! Yay. Slowly getting there!

I am very much looking forward to tomorrow’s Skills Plus class and see what’s in store for us!

Looking Back

Remember yesterday, when I wrote that the WOD felt easy and I didn’t really feel like I had worked out at all? FAMOUS. LAST. WORDS!

My butt and quads are so sore, I couldn’t stand to have either of the girls sitting on my lap today! 😦 Never underestimate the power of a WOD and the soreness that will inevitably follow.

Also, during the Skill yesterday, I realized I had put the pegs (whatever you call those little things to hold your bar up on the rig) too low for my back squats. My bar was already loaded up at 55#. I picked it up, put it on the floor, raised my peg-thingies just as Coach Caleb came by and asked if I needed help to pick my bar back up. I almost laughed and said a very confident “No” before proceeding to power cleaning my bar and racking it back up. That’s when Coach Caleb said:

I remember when you couldn’t even clean an empty bar.

I remember it well too and it doesn’t seem that long ago. I know 55# isn’t heavy, but I HAVE improved over the past 9 months and it would seem I am not the only one noticing…

Have I ever mentioned how much I love Crossfit?!?