And the deadlift sorted me out...

Today my heart goes out to the deadlift. I heart the deadlift. Why you ask? Well...that weird nagging/painful back issue (that actually came on after a day of biking that had been proceeded by a day of yoga...so not necessarily related to the oblique injury of last week...but everything was too conveniently linked to the oblique so, I blamed that...not sure it was the right thing to blame.) gone...gone today after a notsofun/but remarkably satisfying crossfit workout.

3 rounds of Christine:
500m row
12 DL your body weight (too bad I don't weigh 98lbs)
21 Box jumps 24"

If you are curious about your strength to weigh ratio?...I suggest deadlifting your bodyweight...over and over. Focused me on continuing to decrease my % bodyfat, that is for sure. But here was an awesome benefit to today's workout, the weird lower back pain...pretty much gone. My muscles are a little sore on my back, but that's muscles not the weird place I was not feeling good before. I think that the deadlifting sorted out a spasming muscle. Very weird. Since this back pain started I have been trying to roll out trigger points my hips with a tennis ball as I was tending to blame them, but the deadlifting seems to have dramatically improved my wacky back.

The other awesome part of this morning I DID BOX JUMPS ON A 24" BOX!! Very exciting for the girl totally mortified of box jumping. Last time I did box jumps I was on a 12" box. This was so VERY exciting.

Speedy's brought up an interesting point about my level of injury prone-ness and why do crossfit when it hurts a lot even when it doesn't injure you. I've actually thought about this a lot and have been meaning to post about it for awhile. First of all...I quite possibly am a little injury prone. I easily get overuse injuries (have been to a PT two times prior for those...both IT band related), I have bizarre muscle imbalances, and most people are more flexible than I am....even when I'm doing yoga on a consistent basis. I can touch my toes now though, and that wasn't the case a few years ago. Granted I also fall more frequently than the average person too. My psoas injury being just one example of me falling, but due to pre-existing hip tightness PLUS glute weakness was a recipe for an injury that is just stupid in my book.

Crossfit appealed to me in the beginning for a number of reasons, but some of them were around addressing my weird overuse injuries that have been brought on by muscle imbalances and flexibility issues. Crossfit website talked about building strength, flexibility and power (of which I have little)...so I thought I would give it a try.

Aside from the oblique issue last week, (which I actually blame on my previous psoas injury as that has created a muscle imbalance as it tries to recover), crossfit has delivered its share of DOMs, but I've also seen amazing increases in strength and one thing I have seen is that my knees have stopped complaining about related IT band issues which is where I end up with overuse injuries. While I have yet to see if my strength gets translated into any kind of power on the bike(which so far...NOT seeing) or run, I have seen increases in lean body mass, and muscle definition.

So...why do I continue to do crossfit if it hurts so much even when it doesn't injure me? And I say this in full jest...but is this where I get to say "have ya run much lately"?;-) Why do any of us do these things? The human body and spirit is capable of amazing things. While at times my body protests to what I throw it through...I learn from it while it learns to adapt. Recently I've learned too much, too soon, too fast isn't good.

I also embarked on crossfit because I have sport ADD...I don't like to focus on one thing. Maybe that's why I'm a triathlete, because I get to mix it up...but in truth swim-bike-run...yawn. I still get bored and while I enjoy triathlons and the endurance I've gained from them, I also like learning new sports. Last weekend when I was biking on the ROAD near some kite surfers (Paul...:-) ), I thought that would be cool to learn to do. Or last week when I was talking to a co-worker he mentioned that he was part of a waterskiing club in the area. I have to say how COOL is that? I grew up waterskiing so I think that would be super fun to get back into. And while I'm actually not terribly athletic, it doesn't really matter much to me. I don't pick up a sport and discover that I'm actually outstanding at it, but it's fun. For me Crossfit addressed the ability to just pick up and do whatever new sport I want to try out by giving me the cross-functional strength when I need it.

Sure, Crossfit will even level the most seasoned crossfitters at my gym. On many a morning I've heard "UH...that hurts". But there is a level of camaraderie in suffering all together. And if a particular workout has me struggling, people are incredibly encouraging.

And to address my 'offseason'...I actually don't know how much of an "on season" I will have this year, but that being said...even if I thrown down an Oly later in the season, I doubt crossfit will be pushed to the wayside either. I'm still trying to sort out my balance of tri training and crossfitting. In truth, it doesn't really matter to me that much call it offseason or onseason....whatever whatever. I've got some bigger fish to fry in other sections of my life and I am finding that I can't really give training much mental focus. So I'm more focused on consistent training and increasing strength in order to help prevent injuries. It doesn't matter that much to me what that may look like as far as training. My main season goal is just to get back to enjoying the training which is more important to my life right now.