My New CrossFit Buddy/Nasty Girls WOD

People think we look alike.  Go figure.

I'm a pretty lucky girl - I work (in a different department) at the same company as my mom.  And we thankfully have the kind of relationship where we enjoy being coworkers.  We have a lot of the same inside jokes and whine to each other about the poor grammar so often used in inter-office communications. 

As you may know, I had a huge family fitness victory last year when my dad joined the Stroum Jewish Community Center and started working out for the first time in years.  My mom, on the other hand, has been doing Jazzercise regularly for the last five or six years, mixed with running, hiking, and of course, downhill skiing.

I have felt for a long time that CrossFit would be a great workout for her, especially in attaining that next level of fitness.  And this Monday, she bravely showed up to take the 7am class with me!

I admit I was nervous.  CrossFit can be so intimidating if you've never tried it, and while I was confident that my mom would do well in her first WOD...I was also afraid she might hate it.  Our box posts the WOD usually the night before, and Monday's WOD would be a benchmark workout - extra hard, for those of you non-CrossFitters out there.  I just prayed she would have a good time and took comfort in knowing that our box has all new folks scale the workouts, and that the Mercer Island crew is an encouraging bunch.

We started out with the warmup, which included a 400 meter run and 1 minute plank holds (on which my mom kinda kicked my butt). 

The strength for the day was front squats.

Coach Jared had everyone start with a PVC pipe as we reviewed (or learned) proper form.

I got up to #75, and decided to stick with that, rather than going higher.  We weren't looking for a one-rep max, and so I wanted to focus strictly on good form.  My knees tend to bend in and I also tend to collapse my chest forward a little.  (Incidentally, chair pose in hot yoga has been a huge help to improving my front squat form.)

My mom looked great and even seemed to be having a good time with the strength portion.

Then...dun dun dun...we were on to the WOD: "Nasty Girls."

Although it's a killer, this WOD is actually a perfect introduction to CrossFit, since it combines so many key elements!  "It includes a gymnastics movement in the muscle-up, an Olympic lifting element in the Hang Power Clean, and a metabolic movement in the air squat." (From the Mercer Island CrossFit blog post.)

The newbie scaled version was 2 rounds of 30 air squats, 15 pushups/15 box dips, and 10 power cleans.  I scaled my three rounds to 20 pullups/20 box dips, and #65 for the hang power cleans.  Originally I had high hopes of using the red band for my pullups.  Coach Jared talked me out of it ("there's 60 pullups in this workout") and boy was I glad he did.  Blue band was PLENTY hard. 

I was able to power through the air squats and box dips unbroken on every round.  Pullups and the hang power cleans really killed me.  I went to take a water break after the second round...not because I was thirsty, but because I was mentally tired and felt I'd "earned" it.  Later I was kicking myself because I know that added at least 30 seconds to my time, if not more.  I finished in 16:06 and can't help wondering if I could have beat the 15 minute mark.

But the best news of the day?  My mom had a GREAT time, and was so impressed that she's gonna give CrossFit a trial run for three months!  Can't wait to join her tomorrow for her second WOD.

YOU TELL ME:  Have you brought a friend to CrossFit lately?  Did they enjoy it?  Do you take un-needed water breaks during your WODs?  Can you do muscle-ups?  I wanna know!