Week 21: Swings, Walking Lunges, Wall Ball

Functional Friday:

3 stations:

KB Swings, 1.5 pood (about 53#)

Walking Lunges (OH with 35#, though I only did the first 2 rounds with weight, then ditched weight for a round, then went to a 10# overhead weight for the final round)

Wall Ball (10# Ball - these just felt really hard today, and normally wall ball and I are pretty tight.)

Here's the Drill:

15 reps on, then 10 second rest off. Repeat as many times as possible for 1:30 interval. Move to next station. 15 reps on, 10 seconds rest. Repeat as many times as possible for another 1:30 interval. Continue rotating thru stations for 20 minutes total.

I was averaging 2 rounds per interval on swings, just under 2 rounds per interval on walking lunges until I jettisoned the weight, then I was right at 2 rounds per interval, and I was at about 1.5 rounds per interval on wall ball until the final wall ball round, where I squeezed out 2 complete rounds.

I was happy, happy, happy to be able to the KB swings at the same weight as the boys. I wasn't real high in the swing--definitely Russian style, not American, but that's about my height with that weight KB when I'm not pregnant, and about as high as the guys were getting, so all in all I felt good about it!

I'm definitely getting bigger! My workout top kept rolling up in the middle of the workout!

Week 21: Fun x 30 + Squats

AM:

Walked track for 50 minutes...nice moderate pace, nothing too aerobic, just a way to stretch our my back and move comfortably. Covered probably 3 miles, but I wasn't keeping count of my laps.

PM:

Warm Up:

1 mile interval walk/jog. 6.5 mph flat/4 mph @ 5% grade.

Workout:

30 push ups

30 pull ups

30 one-armed kettlebell swings -12kg (15 each arm)

30 knees to elbows

30 pregnant burpees

Rest, then:

5 rounds

10 squats (45# Rnd. 1, 65# Rnd. 2, 85# Rnd. 3, 95# Rnd. 4, 105# Rnd. 5)

10 bench dips

105# squats have never felt so hard! On a nice non-pregnany day that would be a warm up weight! Oh my god, I regret not squatting more in early pregnancy. Now I'm going to have quite a bit of ground to make up after the baby is born. But hey, let's face it: everything is harder in pregnancy, and the point is to get in there and do what you can safely and comfortably do, not to compare to what the non-pregnant people (including my old non-pregnant self!) are/could do.

Nice 45 minute long walk with Nick along waterfront to wrap it all up.

After all that great movement I was ready for dinner. Luckily I had braised some lamb shoulder chops with curried gingered vegetables earlier in the day, so dinner was a snap and I was happy to devour it!

Week 21: Thrusters, Dips, Pull-ups

Standard Crossfitmom.com warm up--

2 rounds of:

400 meter run @ 2% incline, 6.5mph

10 squats

10 good mornings-15#

10 shoulder press-15#

Workout--

5 Rounds of:

10 Thrusters-45#

10 bench dips

10 pull-ups. Had to break out the small band for an assist on the pull-ups! My extra 10 pounds and changing tummy contours are making a difference in my pull-up ability. :)

Week 20: Tabata Wall Balls, Rowing Machine, Burpees

Tabata 20 seconds on : 10 seconds off, 8 rounds:

Wall Ball, 8# ball to 12' mark. Average 8-9 shots per round.

Rowing Machine, total distance over 8 rounds. 834 meters.

Pregnant Burpees. Squat to Wall Push-off. Average 7-8 burpees per round.

Week 20: Lots of Walking

AM: 40 minute walk around track...just walking, nice and brisk.

PM: 110 minute walk around town with dear hubby to celebrate our anniversary, including a 30-40 minute beach walk portion that, while slow, was surprisingly effective as working some stabilizer muscles. Lots of slippery rocks to scramble over. Also got some nice hills in that had my heart rate a bit elevated. So, nothing too dramatic to report, but lots of moderate-slow movement across nice, varied terrain.

Week 20: Lunges, Squats, Back Extensions

3 Rounds:

100 feet walking lunge

50 squats

25 back extensions

Took maybe 15-20 minutes, with my frequent breaks. :)

But, as this was my second workout of the day, I feel just fine about my pace. Afterwards, I went for a brisk 30 minute walk with hubby and came home to whip up a delish salmon dish with asparagus from the garden!

Week 20: 4000 meter farklek

10 laps of the track, walk/run/jog/sprint as energy & body desired. In practice this ended up being a warm up walk lap, brisker walk lap, jog lap, several sprint laps with various sprint distances (from about 200 meters to probably 80) and recovery distances (also from about 200 to 80), intermittent 350-400 meter jog laps, and several cool down jog/walk laps towards the end.

This was a truly wonderful way to get out there, play and move without a feeling of drudgery or necessitated pace. I was just listening to my iPod, going as I felt comfortable, and more often than I would have thought, what felt good were those interval sprints. I haven't been able to really push my heart rate with spin class or the cardio WODs so doing some nice hard sprints felt great...like I was making my heart work, but still within the context of listening to my body.

Relatedly, my Dr. gave me the green light yesterday to do pretty much whatever I wanted athletically as long as I stayed away from impact sports that could lead to trauma to the core area...ie, no basketball, volleyball, etc. But she said as long as I listened to my body, and didn't push anything to the point I hurt myself, there was nothing I could pick-up, push or deadlift that would hurt the baby! Yeah! So I can continue to do heavier weighted squats and DL, as long as I mind my own back stability. Coolio.

Week 19: 21-15-9 Row/Swing

Functional Fitness Friday...

Fran style 21-15-9:

Calories on the rower

Swings. First 10 swings with 45# plate, then to 35# plate.

Time was 4:30ish I think.

Week 19: DL, Step-ups, Push-ups

30-20-10

DB deadlifts 45#

Step ups - 18" box

Push ups - from 18" box

I'm off the floor for push-ups. Made the call today while looking at the 30 push-ups in this first round. Did my push-ups to the 18" box I stepped up to, and they were still hard. I'll try to keep it here for a while before going the the wall....hopefully that can wait until T3. But you know, gotta modify as you gotta modify.

Then:

250 meter row

10 one-armed snatch, right hand, 20#

250 meter row

10 one-armed snatch, left hand, 20#

250 meter row

10 one-armed snatch, right hand, 20#

250 meter row

10 one-armed snatch, left hand, 20#

250 meter row

10 one-armed snatch, right hand, 20#

250 meter row

10 one-armed snatch, left hand, 20#

That was fun! The snatches were hard, especially left arm, but the short rows felt great.

I'm holding pretty steady at 162 right now, a 7 pound gain from pre-pregnancy weight of 155.

Week 19: Beach Workout

Went for a lovely 1.5 hour walk with Nick along the waterfront and on the beach. At a nice driftwood strewn stretch of beach, we got a little functional fitness in, primal-style. Using the logs and hungs of driftwood all around us, we ran through a nice collection of standard movements. Doing these with uneven hunks of wood rather than uniform hunks of metal added a fun component, as did the gorgeous and oxygen-rich seaside local!

25 Partner Log Carry Side step-overs (holding a relatively heavy log with Nick, we side stepped up and over another large log. Uneven elevation on either side of the log made this fun from a stability standpoint)

25 Squats (to ~15"Log depth)

25 Good Mornings with Driftwood Log (Estimate 25# log)

25 Log Step Ups (~18" Log)

25 Log Tri Dips

25 Shoulder Press with Smaller Log (Estimate 10# log. Really light, but the larger ones were too big around to grip securely. I ended up doing 10 regular presses and 10 single-arm presses each side to somewhat compensate for the light weight. Next time we find rocks for this.)

25 Push-ups in Sand (fun!)

25 Log Deadlifts (Lifted up one end of a really heavy log. I would estimate aprox. 95# pull equivalent, with was more of a Sumo/KB deadlift style because of hand position together, directly under torso and fairly turned-out leg position. The "handle" point on the end of the log made it nice to grip, but hard to finish the stand because the point wanted to whack me in the ever-larger belly!)

Nick added in 25 Curl and 25 Curl-to-Press with the ~10# log after shoulder presses while waiting for me to finish the DL.

Walk was gorgeous! We saw a seal and the weather was just perfect--soft ligth on the water but patches of sun in the sky. Excellent!

Week 19: Lunges, Farmer Carry, Med Ball Cleans

Warm Up:

2 rounds

1/4 mile run (6 mph)

10 squats (15#)

10 good mornings (15#)

10 shoulder press (15#)

Workout:

3 rounds

30 walking lunges

1000 ft farmer carry with 35# plates each arm

15 Med Ball Squat Clean (10# Med Ball)

Stretching & foam roller to finish

Had the ultrasound today--It's a boy!

Week 18: Jogging, Burpees

Kevin's Functional Fitness WOD, as Rx:

700 meter run (2 laps outside running path)

30 burpees

700 meter run

25 burpees

700 meter run

20 burpees

700 meter run

15 burpees

700 meter run

10 burpees

As Modified for Pregnant Me:

700 meter run (2 laps)

30 burpees

700 meter run

25 burpees

350 meter run (1 lap)

20 burpees

350 meter run

15 burpees

350 meter run

10 burpees

Kevin took out a lap from each of my last 3 rounds to cut down on the jarring of the running. I'm grateful because I have felt a real fall-off in my (not particularly great to begin with) cardio conditioning. I have done a few bike sessions where I just cannot get my heart rate past about 120. It's like beyond that oxygenation becomes an issue, and I'm not able to push any harder. It is what it is, and I'm sure it's there for a reason, so I just go with it and do my little jog-shuffle and my little paced-out spin class and know that it's better to keep it slow and steady than to risk too little oxygen to the baby.

Week 18: DL, Power Clean, Push-Press

Standard Warm-up, which I barely ever do:

2 rounds:

1/4 mile job (6.5 mph)

10 squats (15# body bar)

10 good mornings (15# body bar)

10 shoulder press (15# body bar)

Then, 4 Rounds:

12 Deadlift-65#

9 Hang Power Clean-65#

6 Push Press-65#

Then I went home and made, and ate, a hamburger. This is the first time I've purchased beef for my own consumption in years. I bought grass finished chuck steak that I ground into burger and seasoned up with worcestershire and ground onion. I took pics and will post about my burger bender as soon as I can. It was a very satisfying foray back into beef.

Week 18: Row, Press, Good Morning

For 15 minutes, do rounds of the following:

250 meter row

15 Shoulder Press - 45#

15 Good Morning - 45#

Got 4 rounds + complete 5th row.

Felt fine. I love those short, intense rows. The workout followed about 30 minutes of foam rollering my low hip and low back area. I've been really feeling the changes from my tendons loosening, and it's manifesting in a lot of low back pain. The rollering helped so much, though it hurt a bit at the time, but I really need to make time for that on a regular basis.

Week 18: 21-15-9 OHS + Spin Class

21-15-9

OHS 45#

Push-ups

Step-ups, 18" box

Then roller-balled the heck out of my low back and hips, which have been sore for awhile in a "hormones are causing all my joints to loosen and expand" kind of way. It helped some.

Then, 60-minute spin class. My ass is still sore from that damn bike marathon, but this was a good way to strap in for some cardio. Didn't push super hard at any point, but did enjoy some fake hill climbs.

In other news, I looked up how many calories I should be consuming based on my activity level and where I am in the pregnancy and based on that have increased my caloric "goal" to 2300 calories per day. I was eating at least that much anyway, now I just don't have to track it as an "overage." I love getting to fiddle the numbers like that. Maybe after I'm not so full from my enormous dinner of dilled cucumber-chickpea salad and roasted fennel-rubbed salmon over quinoa and garlic kale I'll have another hunk of 70% Scharffenberger Chocolate.

Week 18: Bike "Marathon"

Did a "Biggest Loser" inspired cardio workout, the "bike marathon." Basically, 26.2 miles on a spin bike. The resistance was set to wimpy but I was maintaining 22 mph+ speeds. All was fine and I was rocking out to my ipod until the bike computer stoped clocking milage at 24.6 miles. I was somewhere just before 70 minutes when I noticed it, and I kept spinning to see if it would catch up. It didn't, so I just kept riding for a few minutes while impotently pushing buttons, until finally I whacked the thing hard enough to restart it. Clock back to zero across the board and I rode another 1.6 in a bit over 4 minutes. Not really the glorious finish line ending I was looking for. So I'm saying my total time was 1:13-1:14 ish.

The thing that was frustrating to me about this workout, other than the technical glitches, is I barely broke a sweat. 26 miles at 22 mph pace and honestly it was just about keeping my legs moving fast. Heart never went about 120, never felt like I was pushing hard except insofar as my legs were moving as fast as they could. I much prefer the challenge of a varied resistance, with hills (or spin-class mock hills) and recovery, intervals and sprints and variety.

My husband, who is a master of the "shut up and let me just go" school of cardio, loved this workout. He did it just before me and will most likely use it as a benchmark workout from here on out. I will probably not opt to repeat it....the pain in my "sit-bones" is way worse than the pain in my thighs, glutes or calves, so to me it's just not a fun trade-off. Bummer, too, because I loved this idea as a concept, and the low-impact, moderated-heartrate style workout is exactly what I should be doing more and more of as I get further along in pregnancy.

Week 17: Karen. 150 Wall Ball Shots

Karen. 150 Wall Ball. Broke into 10 sets of 15, with lightest Dynamax ball (8 lbs, half of rX weight for women). Actually, this wasn't bad. I think I was the only one not hating life at class. It was just kinda about getting thru it. Most other people pushed really hard and then took 30-45 second breaks. I just did my 15, took a little sip of water between each set, and went back for the next set of 15. Working methodically like this I didn't burn out and it took until set 6 to really feel like I was pushing. I am moderating intensity carefully, and that's deliberate, so I don't think I really pushed myself hard enough or used enough weight to feel this workout the way it's meant. I don't think you are supposed to come away from Karen saying, "eh, not so bad."

7:45, second fastest in class today. Beaten by the guy who also had a 8# ball. :) Methodical pays off.

Tried to get some folks to do a second 150 with me, but no one would do it, so I did the stair climbing machine for 20 minutes, worked up a decent sweat and called it a day.

On a side note, I ate a huge, delicious, carb-o-rific but light Vietnamese lunch today. (Tamarind Tree rocks!) I wonder if being so fueled up is why this workout didn't burn me out so much?