Save Your Hands!!!

Happy Friday!!!

I want to introduce you to one of my best friends: Burt's Bees Miracle Salve:

This stuff is awesome!  Even if you wear lifting gloves (which I do), your hands can take a beating at CrossFit!  Mine always seem to get a little ripped up and dried out - this stuff works wonders.  It's unscented and super easy to throw in your gym bag or purse.  It's also great for softening dry elbow/knees, removing mascara, and fixing frizzy/flyaway hair. 

It's also helped me in a weird health plight - the skin around my eyes, nose, and mouth can get a little raw due to sweating and wiping my face repeatedly in hot yoga.  Then when I go to put sunscreen on...it stings like heck!  Now I dab on the Miracle Salve pre-sunscreen, and it does the trick perfectly!

Sold, right?  You can pick up a pack of four at Amazon.com.

Here's a look at this week's workouts:

Monday - PT exercises/planks/shoulder stability; CrossFit with my momma; Hot Yoga (hatha) with a girlfriend after work
Tuesday - Racquetball with my dad and some friends
Wednesday - CrossFit
Thursday - Hot Yoga (hatha again - I'm told I have "enough power in [my] life already")
Friday - More racquetball tonight after work; I intend to get my PT exercises, planks, and shoulder stability in as well
Saturday - CrossFit (Team Wod!!!); Yin Yoga
Sunday - REST

Wednesday was pretty killer - we got to do a "strength" I'd never done before: weighted pushups!

We started out doing 5-10 non-weighted pushups to get our form down. I tend to wing my elbows way out when coming back up - so I'm working on keeping them in the same plane of movement.  Even if I'm not doing hand-release pushups, I make sure to get my chest all the way to the ground on every rep, even in the warm-up.  To me, that's the only way to get stronger and better.

I did the first set of 8 with the #5 plate, then the #10, and went with the #15 for my third set of 8.  My first five reps with 15 lbs were great...but the last three were pretty shabby on form.  I went down for the next two sets and actually couldn't push back up for the fourth rep of the fifth set (with 5 lbs).

The WOD was just killer.  It sounded so easy: "Oh, I only have to do that for a minute," but boy were those the longest minutes!

I was able to RX this time, which made me happy.  I feel that my strongest point in the workout was definitely nailing those 1 minute rests.  The hardest part was the push press.  I got some good pointers on how to link the reps cleanly...and then didn't really use them when we got going in the WOD.  I always get tired and end up slamming the bar back down into my shoulders.  I think next time we have push press in a WOD, I will try to link more reps even if it means I have to set the bar down more frequently...rather than resting with the bar still up or on my shoulders.

My total score for the workout was 201, and I really killed myself on the final row, so overall, I felt pretty good!

You tell me: What are your plans for the weekend?  Do you use gloves at CrossFit?  How many rest days do you schedule each week?