When you’re injured, it affects you both physically and mentally.
At this point, I’m doing what I can with CrossFit.
Trying to stay active, but be cautious about it. And trying to keep my mental game in check since some days it’s all I can do to get up and move.
I gotta be happy with that.
Yesterday, I had a CrossFit competition that was local. I was just not feeling it. I skipped the floater because I’m battling injuries already and truly don’t think I can handle any more. The floater was with heavy weight. And then, in the only CrossFit WOD I had fun in, I ripped my hand, which always sucks. God, I hate kipping. Every time I kip chest-to-bar pull-ups, this crap happens.
Needless to say, I should have skipped this one altogether.
It’s been all I can do to keep up with my CrossFit for the last few months. Every day it seems has been a challenge just to get it done. Between being sore all the time and my run still not where it needs to be, I’ve been questioning again why.
Until yesterday when I crushed DT.
DT is a CrossFit Hero Workout I’ve done before. It’s insanely hard and is a test of strength.
It’s always been the hang power cleans in the CrossFit Hero Workout at 105 lbs that have gotten me.
Yesterday, I did this CrossFit workout with no expectations. Then I cut 7 minutes off my previous time. It gave me hope that all this work is doing something because most of the time I feel like I’m wasting my time.
After 3 1/2 years of doing CrossFit, it’s rare when you PR it seems. But yesterday I did. And it was a PR that meant something.
So as I was doing CrossFit Hero Workout Luke, I realized I would set no record. I’m still not recovered from running injuries so my runs all suck. I just can’t go above a jog most days. But, I needed a long workout, and I needed to run.
At this point I realized everything in CrossFit for me is mental. Sure, there are things I can’t do physically, but after 3 1/2 years of CrossFit, it’s hard just to do it any more. That’s why for me, victory is in the doing, not in the setting a good time or beating others. I save that for CrossFit competitions, but even those sometimes I’m not in it to win it.
I’m in it to do it. That’s all I can do right now. And I’m happy with that.
DOMS or delayed onset muscle soreness is real. DOMS is the soreness felt after working out, and it usually sets in 24 to 72 hours after your workout. No one is sure exactly what causes DOMS, except for the fact that you’re injured your muscles and they are repairing (which is how you get stronger).
Today, I feel worse than yesterday after my three-day CrossFit competition over the weekend. My lats, my core, and my arms mainly. My legs were sore at the beginning of the competition, but the last two days of the CrossFit competition were arm-heavy exercises, and I’m definitely feeling it.
The thing with DOMS is you just have to endure it; there’s not much you can do to help it. It hurt to sneeze yesterday, and I couldn’t scratch my back. We’ll see how today goes.
Two days ago, I did a CrossFit Hero Workout called Coe, a seemingly simple CrossFit WOD from looking at it:
Ten rounds of
I finished in under 20 minutes, which is short for a CrossFit Hero Workout and didn’t think much about it — until the next day when every time I went to lift my arms over my head, it hurt.
That same day, I decided to do Flight Simulator, a Crossfit Notable workout that involves jumping a bazillion double unders. I didn’t think much about this either — until the next day and my right calf was seized up again.
Incredibly, this didn’t bother me. What bothered me was the next day when my shoulders were still sore and my right calf was even worse. It was at this moment I got completely fed up.
I can’t run. I can’t jump. And I can’t do a bazillion reps without thinking about it first. This is what is bothering me. Everything I do from now on has to be strategically planned. God, this sucks.
This week I posted on how frustrated I was with working out and then being too sore or too tired to do anything else. Well, I’ve decided it’s time to pivot my strategy after reading this article.
At the beginning of the year, I thought I needed to workout more, to push my body more in order to see the results I want to see. Well, for five months now, it hasn’t been working. I’m stronger mentally (which is important), but it’s not my primary goal.
Hence, I’ve decided to cut my workouts and take more rest days and try that for 5 months and see where that gets me. So I’m quitting HIIT workouts because, although I love them, I’m always physically exhausted afterwards, which is not why you workout.
You work out to have more energy to do the things you want to do, not the opposite.
And I’m adding in a rest day in my CrossFit routine in the middle of the week. For the last couple of months, it’s been challenging to do the whole week so I’m hoping to improve on this as well. I’m hoping to give my body and my brain the rest it needs.
Enter another dilemma to working out that many face — you’re too sore to go and do the things you want to do.
In part one of this blog series, we discussed how the reasons to workout are overblown because you are so tired after your workout session that you don’t want to go and do anything else. Here, it’s a very similar situation.
For me, I’m sore all the time. My muscles are tight, even after a massage. And there are days where it’s hard or even painful to move. Recently, I’ve been wondering what it’s like to not feel like this all the time. Is this worth it? I keep asking myself. Lately, I’ve begin to question my workout routine.
As I’m experimenting with different workout routines, I’m still trying to find the right balance between being physically fit and being too sore to enjoy my physical fitness. I’m trying a new strategy: more rest days.
Instead of busting my ass 6 days a week, I’m going to cut that down to 5 whereby I do nothing at all on those 2 days and then do active recovery on the days I’m spent.
Results to be determined.
This entire year (2019) has mainly been a battle against my body. Tweaks here and there. Days off from training. Avoiding certain exercises. The things you don’t like about training.
There have been a few bright spots here and there. I’ve PR’ed (set a personal record) for my bench press. I PR’ed my thruster in a CrossFit competition.
And then today I PR’ed CrossFit girl workout Grace.
CrossFit benchmark workout Grace is pretty straightforward: 30 clean and jerks at 95 lbs for women for time.
It’s been almost a year since I’ve done Grace, and I knew I’d PR it, mainly because I know I’m stronger.
It can be hard after you’ve been doing CrossFit a while to keep going, to keep progressing, to keep getting stronger and fitter. It can be REAL hard. There are days I don’t want to get out of bed and workout. Workouts I look at I don’t want to do. Days I wonder why I do this.
In those moments, you need a win. Today was my win. I’m unsure how long my win will propel me forward. But it doesn’t matter — at this point, I’ll take anything.
More frequently than not, I wake up in the morning and scrap my CrossFit programming in light of something completely different. This is for two reasons:
With two CrossFit competitions in the last two weeks, I’ve had both of these reasons come into play several times. I’ve had to adjust my schedule every day for the last two weeks, and take unplanned rest days because I just couldn’t do it anymore.
Today was another example. I had a CrossFit Hero workout planned, which are CrossFit workouts named after service men and women and are known for being tough. However, when I woke up, I just couldn’t run. I had done a HIIT workout yesterday and ran over 3 miles. Hence, while doing the workout, I changed it.
While I freely admit I don’t know how to stop doing what I do, I do know when to stop doing a movement when I can’t. Today was one of those days. I stopped running and rowed instead. I cut all my reps in half. I did a 30 minute recovery workout.
In the past few months, I’ve learned the mental game of CrossFit is much more important to master than the physicalness of it. Don’t get me wrong, you have to be able to physically do the moves; but that’s not the hard part of CrossFit. The hard part is committing in your mind to do the CrossFit workout.