Please can I lift more weight than Kehau?

Why do you mock me oh Crossfit gods? I train and train and train and yet the women at my gym still out run me out lift me and just humble me. But let us backtrack so you understand fully.

I was really looking forward to yesterday's workout, which was five reps of shoulder overhead presses followed by 10 burpees for five rounds. Yeah, I know, I said I was LOOKING FORWARD TO IT, as in, "Oh I can't wait to do this." I know, I'm sick in the head. Or getting stronger. Take your pick.

But I was thinking I can pretty much do more weight than almost anyone else in the gym, if it's a straight lifting contest and we're not running laps or doing squats or something mental like that. Burpees are tough but ten of them at a time are reasonable.

Anyway I get to the gym and experiment with weight. First I try 135. Kinda heavy. I'm thinking, am I going to be able to do 5 sets of 5? I have my doubts. So I switch to 115. Okay, cool. Not bad. I'll do this.

So we do our strength routine - which was bench and I lifted 135, 185 and another 185 - and get ready for the second workout. I slap on the 115 and see that Kehau, aka Wonder Girl has slapped on the same weight. Sigh.

I guess I coulda slapped on the 45's at that point but I had already given my racks to my friend Josh and was going to be power cleaning my 115 off the floor. I knew sure as hell I wouldn't be cleaning 135 off the floor for five rounds so I stayed at my weight. F--king Kehau, I don't usually use this word to describe women, but she's a STUD. She freaking pressed that 115 like a champ. I had the best time for our group, 7:08, but since she was doing my same weight it almost felt like a false time. I SUCK!!!

Nah, I know I've come a long way but if you are a competitive guy you can't help but want to blow everyone else out of the water. Eventually. But I gotta say as humbling as it is it's cool to say you work out at a gym which is so intense that the chicks kick your ass. Oh and I didn't mention that Frank, aka the Beastmaster is back. Keahu's husband of course. A tall surfer guy that lifts more than anyone else at the gym. He did 165 lbs I think. Brah. That's all I can say. Brah.

115. Pagh. That's it, whatever weight Kehau is doing I'm doing at least 20 pounds more. Or ten. At least 5 pounds more for sure. Ga-run-tee.

ps - the diet is going well I think. I had salad 8 times yesterday though and it's been tough going #2 all of a sudden. Should I be concerned? Also, what does Paleo say about eating pot roast at 2 a.m.? It's protein right? Stay tuned.

Hunger

So I'm on this Paleo diet thing and I am hungry. I just ate a mix of zuchinni, eggplant, onions and spam. Does spam count as protein? I know the cavemen couldn't hunt for the wild spam beast but they ate the same parts that spam comes from. I actually don't know if this is a Paleo legal meat like substance but damn it I can't just eat vegetables tonight.

I am hungry. My hunger is so great if I was a zombie I wouldn't be walking slowly towards you, I would be running like a freaking track star and would jump on your back from twenty feet away. You get it?

I AM HUNGRY. I feel like killing a cow and pouring hot sauce on it. Grrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrr...

Oh yeah, I worked out tonight too. Run 400 meters then come back and power clean as much as you can, all within 3 minutes. You get to rest for a minute and a half then do it all over again. Then again. Yes, three rounds. I power cleaned about 95 pounds, that's 25 pounds on each side of a 45 pound bar. Not bad.

That and I wasn't as tired tonight. It's beginning to suck less folks. It's still hard but not as hard. Gotta keep pushing though. I was watching guys power clean hundreds of pounds on youtube and was wondering if I'd ever get to that point. At least I beat Kenna the high school wrestler while during the 400 meter runs tonight, that's something. Did I mention Kenna's a girl? I'll take any win I can right now.

Hey, tomorrow is MMA day. Wish me luck. PEACE.

12:36

That's how long it took to do a strange combination of lunges, pullups and situps tonight. The rep count was 18, 15, 12, 9, 6, and 3 for the pullups and situps BUT, you also had to do 20 lunges to start off each round. And the lunge count stayed the same, always 20.

The lunges were tough but my legs weren't totally exhausted. In fact I jumped out ahead of the pack in the beginning. I started to fall behind because I couldn't rep out those pullups though. But that crazy swinging technique is starting to get easier. Hopefully I'll be able to crank out 20 at a time at some point like the other guys.

It's getting better guys. Definitely. I also started the Paleo diet yesterday on November 1st. It's only day 2 and it's not bad so far. The worst part for me is just being paranoid about everything I'm eating. I'm constantly reading labels and looking for sugar. I was at iHop (wait, before you start saying it isn't healthy) and ordered the healthy omlet with spinich and mushrooms and grilled chicken and no cheese. There's too much sugar in ketchup for me to use but thank God for salsa. In fact I think salsa is my new friend. And tabasco. Freaking using tabasco on everything now.

And I don't miss drinking milk but damn, I never realized how much cheese is in everything. Even on some of the salads that I wanted to order. So far so good though. As usual, I'll keep you posted.

Failure IS an option

Today was the first 9 a.m. weekday class I went to at Raw Maui Fitness, mainly because I have to catch a flight this afternoon and won't be able to go to the 5 p.m. class. It was me, Jun and Mary, who is crazy fit. I think she was lifting more weight than me on the push press. Damn.

Anyway today's workout was 21, 15 and 9 reps of kettlebell swings, pullups and box jumps. My time was 7:36 or something like that. (If anyone sees my time on the board and it's NOT 7:36 let me know). Which was kinda odd because our trainer Kristi said usually it takes 10 minutes and I know I haven't improved THAT much.

Well, it turns out my pullups were too damn easy. I was using the green rubber band to assist while Mary was using the skinner purple band. Shoot. Okay next time I use the blue band at least.

BUT . . . I am proud to say I almost killed myself trying to box jump the 24 inch box today. I was trying to push it and managed to crank out 6 when I didn't clear the top and almost ate it. But hey, I tried. That's when I realized failure is fine as long as it's while you are reaching for something beyond your grasp. Next time I'll  do at least 10 of the 24 inch box jumps and then pretty soon it'll be for the whole workout.

So, 24 inch box jump attempts good, sissy green rubber band pullups bad. And I should have probably increased the weight of my kettleball too.

I'm getting there folks. It's comin. In the meantime have a safe and fun Halloween because I am done working out and blogging this week. Five days in a row is enough for me. Can't wait to start again on Monday. Then again maybe I'll check out Hardass Crossfit on Oahu while I'm there this weekend. Hmmmm . . .

Back to Elite Fitness

So when I started this blog I promised a comparison between Crossfit and MMA style training. Except I've only gone to the MMA gym (Elite Fitness) a couple of times while I have been religiously going to Crossfit.

There's a couple of reasons for that, one is when I don't go to Crossfit it's like I fall back and gotta start all over again. Two is that Elite Fitness is kinda out of the way in Waikapu.

Anyway, I promised myself that I would go today to the 10 a.m. MMA cardio class. And I did. And let me tell you, it is a short but intense workout. First we ran around the mat, did footwork and squats and these crazy lunge things that I can't even explain. You get down on one knee and drag the foot from the other leg across the floor. Tough as hell. Throw in some burpees and clapping pushups and I was sweating like crazy.

Ernest is the MMA cardio trainer and it's different every time I go there. Last time we were slamming sledgehammers into giant tires and this time we were doing kicking and punching drills. Thank God I have some martial arts training in karate because I would have sucked at this otherwise. As it was I didn't have the footwork that the other guys had. Plus it's obvious that my right leg is the only one I ever threw kicks with. My left couldn't break a chopstick.

The two workouts are similar as far as being short and intense and have you dripping with sweat the whole way through. But both have different goals. MMA is preparing you for the ring of course, trying to punish your body so that you have stamina to go round after round. Crossfit is just a great all around workout trying to give you functional strength for everyday life. I can see an MMA fighter doing Crossfit to improve his conditioning (and I hear some do) but I can't see a Crossfit athelete doing MMA stuff for some reason. I mean, you wouldn't need to know how to throw a right hook during the Crossfit Games or anything like that.

However Raw Fitness Maui does reccomend that sports be a part of your life, so why not have MMA fill that void? Bump plays soccer regularly and told me he was doing judo until he blew his knee out so me doing MMA stuff doesn't seem that far off base. I'd like to start longboarding again too, not that I ever did it regularly but just to get out in the water on a regular basis would be great.

Man, one more workout tomorrow at Crossfit then I'm done for the week. Hopefully I can keep this routine up. See you tomorrow folks.

6:22

Can you remember that? Six minutes and 22 seconds. That was my time tonight for our workout of the day. That's how long it took me to do four rounds of 5 pushups, 5 renegade rows (per each side) 5 deadlifts, 5 cleans, 5 squats and 5 push presses all with 40 pound dumbbells.

It was tough but I like weights. Weights make me happy. Cardio not so much. That's why this blog is called, "I hate cardio".

Also today I promised Coach Bumper to start recording my times. Everyone else that works out at Raw Fitness Maui has a notebook where they write down their workout and their times. That way you can look back and say, "Hey look, I sucked less at this workout today than I did three weeks ago. Right on."

Actually it is a useful tool and I should do that. But I have this blog and why not keep my times on here? So when you see this WOD - 6:22 it means Workout of the Day - six minutes and 22 seconds.

6:22. Remember that time. The next time we do this crazy dumbbell marathon I expect to either slash that by a full minute or increase my weights to 50 pound dumbbells.
Yeah you heard it here first. Rod is starting to push the envelope, take it to the next level, go the distance or whatever they say when you're ready to get serious.

Because today I noticed that some of my chin fat was disappearing. WHAT? That's right bitches.

I used to be a tv news reporter and CHIN FAT is the enemy folks. Why you ask? Well if your face gets fat then you look like $hit because that's usually all people see on tv right?

I got out of tv long before my chin fat started to grow and moved to print news but it was still depressing to think that if I ever decided to go back to tv I would look 100 times fatter than I used to.

But now I see there is hope. It is October 27, 2010 and my time today was 6:22.

What's yours?

Running scared

Tonight was a straight up cardio blast. Running and sit-ups. Specifically run 400 meters and then come back and do 20 situps. You had to accomplish this feat within 3 minutes over an 18 minute period. That's 6 rounds of this cr@p.

Now, 18 workouts ago I might have been coughing up a lung. But I've actually improved a bit so I didn't do too badly. Lori was running way ahead of the pack and she tried to say she was going to fail before the workout started. "Oh I'm sick, I've got stuff in my throat, you're going to run way past me" blah blah blah blah.

Well Lori is the typical humble local girl with legs of steel. Former track girl, long jump and sprints and all that. Anyway, running is NOT a weak point for her. Maybe I can beat her at military press but freaking A that girl can take off running so I knew for all her complaining she was going to blast past everyone. Could she have run faster if she was completely healthy? Sure, but she still beat everyone. I just like thinking about stuff like that as she blows past me on every lap. Makes me feel better about coming in second.

Oh by the way, I promised Coach Kikuchi that I would tell everyone that I'm actually IMPROVING my physical condition while working at Raw Fitness Maui. He's afraid that my blog makes it look like I just get beat up every workout. I DO get beat up on every workout but in all honesty it hurts less and less every time. Progress right? You know it.

By the way, someone figure out what 40 percent of 190 pounds is. I hate math and I need to figure out which dumbbells to use to hurt myself with for tomorrow's workout. Oh joy.