2 weeks ago I tried out the “Christine” Crossfit workout as part of the Athletic Skills Level 1 (well rounded beginner) and failed to meet the 15 minute target, only managing 19 minutes and 1 second. Christine is this workout:
- 3 rounds of:
- 500m Row
- 12 Dead lifts
- 21 box jumps
Whilst there’s no prescribed weight or height, the Crossfit Manchester instructors set me 60kg dead lifts and 20″ (inch) box jumps. It was disappointing to fail it then, so today I tried again. I’ve been working on my rowing technique to actually row slightly slower in order to stay fresher. Hare and the tortoise and all that. 😉
Cutting a long story short, I paced myself much better and completed the first round in 4:30, giving me 30 secs lead (5 mins per round to get 3 rounds in the 15 min target). The 2nd round was getting very hard work as I couldn’t afford to take more than a few seconds rest and I was getting very “blowey”, but I got the 2nd round in just under 5 mins, giving me about 40 seconds room.
3rd round was very tough. I’m afraid there was grunting and groaning, especially the row, sweat was dripping off my face, nose, eyelids, the works, and I barely kept the 500m row to under 2:10. 12 dead lifts were done in 3 sets, but took over a minute. I know from the clock I had a little over 2 minutes for 21 box jumps, about 5 seconds each but by now I was ready to sit on my 4ss.
It was the slowest box jumps yet, but I managed it with 22 seconds spare, time: 14:38 ! 😀
I failed this 2 weeks ago, but Crossfit has a habit of surprising me. 4 minutes 23 seconds faster, a massive 23% improvement! I put this down to 2 things I think, the first was (bizarrely) taking Christine slower. I know it sounds odd, but by not going all guns, and pacing myself, I could keep going with less rests. Crossfit is all about work and effort, the (one of the) mantras is: stronger, fitter, faster. I did the same amount of work, but in less time, so power output was higher, and that will get me fitter in the long run.
The second is possibly the zone diet, I’m not sure I’m bursting with energy, but I certainly feel less tired and since I started the zone diet, my performance has definitely improved, as today can attest to.
15 minutes continuous work and I was wasted, but that’s my penultimate skill in the Athletic Skills Level 1 requirements. I have but to do a 1 mile run in 9 minutes, and I can call myself a “Well Rounded Beginner”, lol. I’m very pleased with my Crossfit performance to be honest. I’ve only really been doing Crossfit for about 2 months properly, and to get all but one of the Athletic requirements for Skills Level 1 in 2 months, has actually surprised me. I had set a goal of achieving this by 1st June 2007, now is just that run, maybe the zone diet will help with that too….
