How much are you willing to sacrifice ?13weeks out

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 I'm tired . I've been working 18 hours days and  sticking to my diet. I am just taking it one day at a time. The immediate goal is to get through every day both nutrition & workouts .
 I keep a big wall calender in addition to my note book . This helps me see the big picture. It helps me see patterns in my workouts, body parts, skill work etc to see what I missed. Since my legs were fried from the wall balls 13.3 WOD I could only do cardio and stretch Finally :)  I guess that was the fitness gods way a making me do it .

As of today I am officially 13 weeks out. Initially starting 18 weeks out was good for me . I am a slow starter LOL.  It usually takes me 3 weeks to establish a rhythm.  So the June 29 Th show is perfect for me.  The crossfit open is coming to a close, so I am getting ready for the next two competitions. Mayhem in the meadowland April 21, the Tracey Greenwood Classic on June 29th and a return to Beasts of the East in October.

I wish I could tell you the shit is easy but it's not. It just requires work. At the end of the day it's about how much work you are willing to put in to reach your goals . Everyone doesn't want to work out twice a day , pack all their meals, sacrifice time with friends ,family to get things done. But it's temporary discomfort for a greater reward.

The system of working out in between clients is working . I get things done , body part here , skill work there .It's gone a lot smoother the past 2 weeks .
I will say some days I don't feel like it but I remember :
Only thru sacrifice will you achieve success.You have go where others won't go and do what others won't do to truly reach your greatness.
Get after it fam ,
DIVA

13.3 The day Diva died

So last year this f'n wall ball wod came up and I was terrified ! All things I do well( except Muscle ups) but the damn volume.....UGH!!!

12 min amrap
150 wall balls
90 double unders
30 muscle ups

At this point last year it was  more about my squat depth . But what actually happened was I did the wall balls picked up the jump rope and collapsed. No legs at all !Couldn't even jump ! Crazy ! So this year my biggest fear happened again , I'm stronger better conditioned athlete and still once I got to 120 wall balls I was numb in the legs . Once I got to 150 . I could barely walk and again the legs did not work .13 double unders was all my legs could do . Once I heard time I just dropped on the floor and could not move for at least 20 min. Not really sure of the time because I was out of it .So all jokes aside at some point in that WOD I just died and had some weird out of body experience.

 My body kept going but I could not  hear or see anything except  the ball & the wall.
There is this really dark place you go to sometimes. When I used to box I went there a lot . It feels like life or death. Death is failure and life is survival and finishing the work to the best of your ability. Lady T told me that at some point I left my body.She said I looked like a punch drunk boxer that was just conditioned to move. Her re-enactment is quite funny , I might get her to do it on camera :) What sucks is twice now I have been defeated by the f'n wall balls and they didn't allow me to get through my double unders which are  normally cake .

How do we fix it !
I have to increase my lactic acid threshold.Which means I have to get used to more volume and be able to recover faster. There are 3 different types of muscle fibers...... Screw the technical shit!  My muscular endurance sucks and needs to improve if I want to become a better crossfitter.

 I honestly could not stand up  for 30 min and my friends had to pick me up off the floor( thanks J sax & lady T) was a little scary . I think everyone thought I was gonna die. Ok, not really but Doc tony definitely did:) LOL

I know my capabilities & how to create a plan and stick to it! Sometimes you hear a lot of people yelling and telling you to go ,but you gotta stick to the plan . Just like boxing ,you have to fight your fight. Thank you Abby, Knight and who ever else was around , honestly can't remember:) , for keeping me on point and helping me fight my fight !
 If I'm gonna get better at this shit I gotta get comfortable in that dark place. It is what it is ! 3.2.1 Go!

machine workouts are boring as F'K

 The plan I had ain't working. LOL  Due to  busy season at the globo the workout regiment has changed. The diet is going fine. I was a little moody the first two weeks but I have a cheat meal sat night and Sunday night. But I must say I've learned I hate vegetables and I am not a fan of many fruits. I like strawberries ,bananas ,apples,grapes and not too much else. I only like spinach and string beans. I am a meat and potatoes kind of girl:) So sweet potatoes are my friend right now. So are protein shakes, tuna fish , and eggs. My diet doesn't have a shit load of variety because truthfully I just don't want or need it. If I have something different its because I'm out of my usual not because I am looking for it . I rotate between a few things its just easier in terms of packing and prepping.Oh and I carry my blender everywhere.

I am Getting leaner but no real weight change on the scale. I tell my clients all the time that the scale does not always move right away and they never believe me but its true. Usually I'll start leaning out after about 3 -4 weeks.That's just the way my body works . But once it gets going it goes.
With my current work schedule, cardio sessions are non existent. I use the same intensity in my  my globo workout as I do in my crossfit workouts to get the cardio effect. So I am 15 weeks out from the June 29th show.

The 18 hour work day is not helping at all, so I've come to the conclusion I have to do workouts in between clients in 30  min intervals just to get it done and rest when I need it .  I am going to try this for the next three weeks and see what happens.

But on a different note how the hell do people do machines day in and day out . Before crossfit I was boxing so I was doing more functional stuff because that's just how most fighters have always trained. Then before that I did a decent mix of both because I taught group fitness and danced .But this shit is boring. LOL I am making itunes rich right now ! Machines drive me nuts & I am bored out my mind , so I try to get through it like an AMRAP! So I can be done with that shit!

Moving forward and not looking back ! Get fit or die trying LOL

Sort kinda figuring it out

So after meeting with my long time friend and fitness mentor of 15 years  Stacy Simons , talking to my fav Oly girl/gymnastics coach  (Sammy ) and looking at my retarded work schedule with all my clients. I sorta kind have a plan until after the open and then I'm gonna have to restructure the whole shit all over again:)

The times are all over the place but here it is :
Mon 7am cardio/ 1pm Oly
Tues legs 7 am/ 2pm cardio
Wed off
Thurs 7am Cardio / Metcon or upperbody 2pm
Fri Cardio 10:30 am /2pm skill work for crossfit
Sat Open WOD
Sun  Legs
So this week will be a test run New nutrition Plan start tomorrow. Yeeeeeeah no... not really !!!
LOL

If anything good happens I'll let you know :) Remember training for lifestyle and sport are two different things. Pics next week !

Back to the world of figure/physique

So everyone knows I love crossfit. Before crossfit  there was boxing & before boxing there was figure for me. 3 completely different was of training and competing . So after a long drawn out process and about 2 weeks of deliberation , I'm going back to body sports.

Am I leaving crossfit? NO! I am interested to see what happens when the worlds of aesthetic and function meet . The cool thing about crossfit is we don't care how you look . Crossfitters just care about what you can do. Body sports are purely about what you look like.

I do have to go back to doing boring isolated movements again. I haven't done a bicep curl in like 3 years . Truthfully it just might  be to much with a restrictive diet and the way I like to now workout and train. Who knows.  But nothing beats a failure but a  whole hearted try .Of course I make this decision during the Crossfit Open . Everyone knows open workouts are tough and I might be to tired to do any damn thing:)

By putting this out there! It gives me a different level of accountability. The figure show I did in   2005 went OK:/  The  figure show I did in 2007 was absolutely disastrous. Everything that could have gone wrong did, lost luggage, peaked 2 weeks to early, flattened out the day of the show & crazy water retention . It was all sorts of craziness. I Still haven't decided if I want to figure or physique yet , but I have time.I'm looking at going from 160lb down to 140lb over the course of 14 weeks. 140 is a little light in the ass for me  LOL . I am still going to work on my crossfit game because that's just who I am and what I do.  My lightest competition weight was 146 so 140 is a stretch .I'm always up for a challenge. So stay tuned for pictures & updates!
Get fit or Die !!!!

LET'S TALK CROSSFIT

I have been doing Crossfit since April of 2011. As one of my coaches often reminds me, I'm still a baby Crossfitter.

My fascination with human movement started when I was just 8 years old. Growing up in a religious household, I was forbidden from listening to secular music, but outside of my home I sought every opportunity possible to watch and listen to hip hop videos and music and imitate the dance steps popular at the time. As I grew older and entered middle and high school, I continued to dance and added basketball and track & field to my favorite list of physical pastimes. In 1996, I enrolled at Temple University as a dance major. Two years later I became a certified personal fitness trainer and group fitness instructor. When I graduated, I went on to dance and choreograph professionally before stepping into the world of fitness and figure competitions from 2001-2007. During this time, I also started boxing, and I became a Pennsylvania State Golden Gloves in 2008.

I am not new to fitness. My body has done and can do a lot of different thing but as i get older the reality is i enjoy competing . I have done it all my life. In my search for a new activity i stumbled upon crossfit . I briefly  heard thing about it in 2008 from a fellow trainer , but because he just wasn't the brightest guy the way he articulated what it was made me turn away ." so yeah div you should try this crossfit stuff, you'll do 50 pull ups as fast as you can "...WTF!!! Why in gods name would i want to that .

So fast forward 2011 i roll into a crossfit tribe on a Sunday the girls are working ...i just remember sitting there like WTF ...To be honest i wasn't sure what happened. i remember coming home telling my partner , "its was so dam fast it was like a workout blur"hahaha

I was intrigued so  i go back and decide I'm not going to anything that makes me super nervous or uncomfortable. I noticed right away there were a lot of exercises that required a lot shoulder mobility that i didn't have . Boxing made my shoulders really  tight so i could do the wrong thing  and be numb for a week .So i committed and  start to go 3-4 times a week , and i noticed something . There were major gaps in my fitness. I noticed with the gymnastics movement strength at the top not at the bottom . Then with the Olympic lifts  i noticed i was strong enough to things up but not get them through a full range of motion.
Oh my god I suck ! I was not good at all ....with that said I was in !!!!!

All my life all those sports no one ever made me do a real clean and jerk. All those years no one ever forced me to squat below parallel.For years most female athletes can relate depending on your coach all you did was calisthenic they never or rarely made you do strength conditioning like our male counterparts. I was strong but the strength was not through full range and that where the injuries occurred. Interestingly enough as dancer i did it every day for 15 years and it never hurt me.

I know crossfit gets a bad rap.  lets be honest there are gyms all over the world where if you walk in on any given day there at least 10 people doing bad technique. Seriously .So for people to generalize and say across the board that crossfitterrs have shitty technique is an unfair claim. Like many other fitness modalities when it is new and people see it works( though i believe if you commit to anything whole hearted it will work) , they do their version of it. In their mind they are doing butterfly pull ups like Rich Froning .In their mind they can do a heavy ass grace like Rob Orlando but truth is like with anything it takes time and proper skill to develop good technique. Are there bad crossfit coaches out there? absolutely!, but there are no more of them than there are bad trainers at the globo. When aerobics first came out it was so hardcore at the time everyone did everything high impact and got hurt. They thought more was better. When bodybuilding became popular same thing happened , people when nuts on the weights and the time spent in the gym and got hurt. So whats happening in crossfit people want to have a sub 2 min Fran time when the are not doing clean reps and what happens ,they get hurt.You look at the top crossfitters and see these amazing bodies but  keep in mind they eat fairly clean .What works for one athlete doe not necessarily work for the other but diet is a big part of them being able to compete at the level they do . And working out  intelligently .Not senseless movement just because .


So what does this mean ? You have to find a box where people are getting results and not getting hurt.
Pride makes it hard, cause you wanna do all the crazy long insane workout but i learned very early if i have to scale, i do . Every WOD is not the games . If you goal is to get to the games or be competitive you need clean efficient movement, if you want to be in the best shape of your life you need to do clean efficient functional movement  . Look at all the top competitors they are damn near flawless . Everyone has there own style and way of doing things , no two people train alike .

So in reference to crossfit not being safe i say it the movement is functional ,it is  proper coaching and scaling that keep people safe.Crossfit is not for everybody. Everybody doesn't want to do Olympic lifts and gymnastics moves. Everyone does not want people yelling aka motivating them as crossfitters do :) I feel it has put the fun back in exercise and created a heavy resurgence in Olympic lifting and gymnastics. I have even see the effects of it in the globo . The concept of cross training now has a whole new  meaning. I've watched it evolve over the last 15 years.

I watched the days of 1hr of cardio and hour of weight change to  interval cardio sessions  and total body workout , change to what i see now short intense workouts . Functional compound movements  with the results being everyone getting more bang for their buck as I tell my clients:)

So is a crossfit a sport?
To that i say bodybuilding is a sport and they lift weights for a desired physical result .
jogging around the track is exercise , racing your friend becomes sport. Sport I believe is defined by competition, not by how cool your injuries are. Hell archery is a sport, whats that happens tendinitis. Doing heavy deadlifts in the gym is exercise but doing it to lift more than the next man is sport.  At least with crossfit , there a physical result , functional results and winning is cut and dry. If i finish faster and do more reps than you I won , there is no question about it and no ones opinions matter .

So when you go to your box day in and day out you work out  to get in the best shape you can. Or if you are challenging yourself to be better than the day before. When the Crossfit Open comes up and your goal is to lift more weight and do more reps than the next person you are now involved in a sport.
I enjoy the workouts and camaraderie but i definitely here for the sport.
I believe crossfit is it solid program but its not for everybody but can be scaled for anybody.

I do crossfit and now my jeans don't fit !

"I do crossfit and now my jeans don't fit"

So it's a comment I have heard  in many of the boxes that I frequent. I've also seen this in news feeds on twitter, facebook, and various blogs.So this is just my take on the issue.

Crossfit is about fitness not physical aesthetic . It's about function and the bodies ability to do it all:)So most programing it's created for the masses of a the box ,not individual.

So sometimes what happens is people get in the best shape of their life but look the same. Like any fitness regiment you can not reap the benefits without proper nutrition.
Yes, you can you lift heavy and get lean . But poor nutrition will kill any and all results.

There is a lot of responsibility left on the athlete/client.You have to take control of your fitness.Crossfit is small group training. If what the group is doing does not work for you seek out answers from your coaches to guide you in the right direction.

Being a personal trainer for 15 years I can tell you that some people get amazing results from a group situation and others don't. If your goal is to enhance your fitness then general programing will work for you. If your goal is  (a look) you may want to tailor the programing to fit your needs. Consider doing some  private sessions with your coach, do your research and ask questions.

This is in no way bashing crossfit. Everyone knows the kool-aid is in my veins. This is just my opinion. I definitely want to be the best athlete I can be.But ...... I Crossfit to look good naked :) All jokes aside just be clear on your goals #Get after it. Officially open for discussion.