Deth

One of the problems that I find that I have with working out at home without a coach watching is pushing out of my comfort zone with weights. I would definitely stop if it didn’t feel right, but I find that I am hesitant to go heavy in case I don’t feel my form breaking until it’s too late, and I trash my back or something. This is especially true in WODs, where it is more about speed and intensity. That kind of is the point of a WOD.

As I get older, I am more cautious than I would have been when I was younger. I do this to stay strong and healthy now. What I am trying to do is prevent myself from spending my life sitting on the couch in front of the TV all day. There’s nothing wrong with that once in a while, but I don’t want it to be my life.

Another thing is here I don’t have the guys who are stronger than me to sort of push me in to trying to use the same weight as them. Another example is I can remember one WOD in at the gym where I was next to a woman who was known as Army Steph because she was in the army. She was a real badass, but also the nicest person. I was next to here, and the WOD at least ended with a set of thirty shoulder to overhead lifts. We got to them about the same time. I was watching for her to put it down and break before I did, and it turns out she was thinking the same thing, so we ended up doing the thirty unbroken. That was cool. That can be a double edge sword though occasionally. It can cause you to go too heavy every so often.

I have been wanting to try the fifty pound dumbbells in a WOD setting for a while now. I wanted to do it when my girlfriend was home and able to watch, so she could call me out if my for breaks without be noticing, and today she was home and did have time to watch.

After searching for a WOD that would work, I found an older Street Parking WOD that had lower reps, eight to be exact, of snatches. I wanted less than ten at a time to try the heavier weight. I also wanted one that didn’t have other shoulder intensive stuff involved, so this one fit those requirements with just four burpees over the dumbbells and six toes to bar or V-ups which I scaled to sit-ups. My goal for the day was to experiment with the heavier weight. The snatches actually felt light and easy with the fifty pound weight today, and I did nine rounds of the eight reps, all unbroken. Later on in the WOD, I had to break out the chalk for sweaty hands, but that’s what it’s for.

It felt great to get out of my comfort zone with the weight on this WOD. It was time and I felt I needed to test out the waters with heavier snatches, and it was a considerable success. What I learned is that with the right movements and rep schemes in a WOD, I should definitely be using the fifty pound dumbbells if it’s not a massive number of reps or shoulder intensive. Even if it is both of those, I feel like I probably could use the fifties, but not yet.

Music for today was Death.