Deth

This morning I had the hankering to do a quick but tough WOD. We’re hoping to get out for some caches later, so I wanted to get it done. I rolled my ankle yesterday stepping off the edge of a road where there was a significant drop. It doesn’t hurt, but does feel a little weaker, so I would rather not run or jump or anything like that.

I slept good last night, but somehow I woke up still feeling tired. I didn’t sleep well most of last week, so I guess it’s just residual. At least the weather is great today.

I found an old WOD that has just rowing in place of double unders for a change. Finally, a substitution that makes sense! Lateral hop overs are for me a poor substitution, and I don’t have the height inside to do singles.

The WOD was a ladder of kettlebells swings with five, ten… with ten calories of rowing in between. I’m not crazy about rowing for calories, but still, it’s better than stupid hop overs.

I went with the thirty-two kilogram Kettlebell like I often do. Turns out they were mostly overhead swings today. I don’t mind if it goes overhead just as the process of doing the swing explosively, but I don’t like the idea of forcing it to go overhead, and certainly dislike the Crossfit standard. It adds nothing but risk. I know people like to say it’s a different exercise, or it is a harder version, but that doesn’t stop it from being dumb. I wouldn’t consider it a bad thing every once in a while, but regularly, it is just stupid.

I had an excellent flow with the swings today. I didn’t break until I got to the set of twenty. That was more because of the strobe effect in my eyes from the sun coming in the window at that point. Earlier on it wasn’t bothering me, but it had moved out from behind the neighbor’s tree and was shining directly in the window.

The WOD got me thinking about how great kettlebells are. They’re fairly cheap and take up virtually no space. They’re easy to move around or take outside if you’d like to, and not that difficult to learn. Just swings are easy enough to learn, but then you could add snatches and other things too. I’d highly recommend getting a good kettlebell for your home gym or just your home if you don’t even have a gym. Ours were some of the first things we picked up from before we even started at Crossfit. We used to use ours out on the front sidewalk on nice days.

Cardio wise, there’s not much that gets me more than good old-fashioned Kettlebell swings. They spike my heart rate like nothing else does because they’re a fast and not overly complicated movement. The weight just adds to the intensity. They’re fun too! Painful on your lungs kind of way, but still very enjoyable to use. To get better, you have to be uncomfortable.

Music for Ozzy.