The WOD for today looked extremely intimidating when I accidentally caught a peak yesterday, and it didn’t get any easier looking when my husband asked me what it was yesterday.
– 50 Air Squats
– 10 Deadlifts
– 40 Air Squats
– 8 Deadlifts
– 30 Air Squats
– 6 Deadlifts
– 20 Air Squats
– 4 Deadlifts
– 10 Air Squats
– 2 Deadlifts
The length of the list alone was cause for fear, but adding it all together, I was going to be doing 150 squats, and 30 deadlifts. My mind was just not able to comprehend it fully.
150.
Squats.
And wait a minute, what’s an air squat?
I looked those up online yesterday, and they looked like regular squats to me, body weight, very low. The hips have to go below the knees, and the drive comes from the hips, which should pop out on the top.
I tried one before I left for the class – just one because I didn’t want to do any more than I had to – and I felt reasonably confident that I could do a few. But 150?
The class began with working on some lifting skills, and I learned a better way to have the bar land for a power clean. I had been landing far back on my shoulders and hitting bone, but the way I was shown today had the bar landing on my muscles instead. It still hurt, but it felt better.
I don’t know if this is something that I should be fixing, but I noticed again today that I got faster as the workout went on. I definitely took the longest to do the first set of 50 air squats, but I did not finish last. And I’m almost 100% certain that I didn’t skip any sets. I was actually conscious today of starting out a little slower. My right quad felt sore in the motion at first, and I didn’t want to strain it. But somewhere in the set of 30, I was able to speed up my squats and I finished in 5:51.
Not first, but not last. And I was only deadlifting with 55lbs. But, as someone said when we were cooling down, “who knew air could be so heavy?”
But it hurt plenty. And I can’t sit down now without grunting with pain. Probably didn’t help that I went to the gym and did a two mile run after I got home from Crossfit. But I have to keep my runs up so I don’t get stiff and let the ITB issue resurface. So I did it, and then my normal post-run lunges (30 forward, 30 backward, around the track with a 10lb plate over my head).
I even went to the bouldering cave after that, but I only stayed about ten minutes, because there was a serious climbing guy there and I felt a bit intimidated. No, I felt a lot intimidated. He was spidermanning up the wall and I – well, I actually got higher than I ever have before, but my arms and legs were shaking so I got down and went to the hot tub for a rewarding soak.
It’s kind of amazing that I managed to leave it.
Tomorrow, I’ll “just” be doing a WOD.