The Fitbit... anyone ever heard of this thing?

Filming schedules are hectic. Most times when I work on films, I don't see anyone except those with whom I am working with (literally) for the entire shoot. There's just no time. And the one day off in a shooting week isn't really a day off. There are errands to run, people/locations to confirm things with or set things up with. The one day off is really a day off for actors, not us. And if I do get a partial day off... I sleep. This past week proved to be pretty busy and tiring, thought shooting hasn't started. This phase of filming, called Pre-Production, is almost as busy as the production itself, with many long nights and certainly long days but at least during Pre-Prod you get time off to have dinner with friends and ocassionally even a whole day off. I had a partial day off Saturday (I slept and caught up on some tv) and then a whole day off Sunday (which I spent having a "where is my life going, what the hell am I doing in LA" talk with my LA-roomie Gabriel, and then at the pool). I went to the pool to swim laps and to get a tan (workout + relaxation). I got a few laps in, and then all the young people of the community came down and we got drunk instead. I did mean to work out... just wasn't especially successful. Oops. That was relaxing in itself, so at least I accomplished that!

Soooooo... now you know a bit about what my life is like out here. My brother-in-law Alex mentioned this new tool on the market, the fitbit http://www.fitbit.com Has anyone heard of this thing or used it? It promises to "accurately tracks your calories burned, steps taken, distance traveled and sleep quality," though it admits it can't track certain calories burned for activities such as cycling because it's more of a pedometer-type tracker. Because of that I'm not sure how accurately it will track lifting, but you can also log your workouts, so maybe that will allow you to add in calories burned there. It also trackers how long you slept, whether you woke up a million times, etc. Sleep is also a tough commodity to come by when filming so this will be a good way for me to track how much I am really getting.

So, at this time in my life when I will rarely have time to get workouts in but still want to maintain a healthy figure, I'm thinking I'll try this. If I use this to track my activity level and my sleep, and then separately track my nutrition, I think I'll be in much better shape coming out of this project than if I do not do so. So, I plan on giving thsi a shot! It says it's backordered and won't ship till mid-October, so I have a bit of time before I get to try it out, but I think it'll be a good diea. This way I will on a continual basis be reminded of the necessity of sleep and exercise, and can see when it starts getting off track, so I can do something about it right away. Good idea??

Tuesday 9/28.

Morning workout. I didn't have much time but figured I'd go for a quick run/sprint session. About 1.5 miles, switching between sprinting at full pace and running/jogging pace. Worked up a good sweat, then did 45 reps sit up variations. Then, had breakfast and headed into the office :) Not a great workout, but I had to get something in.

Back to Bikram

Thursday 9/23. travel day. Wanted to wod at CFC in the morning but was hella sore so took the day off since I would be sitting in a plane for four hours and then traffic for one or more so opted to have coffee with Jonny Vu instead :) Way more fun.

Friday 9/24. Bikram at 6:45am!!

There's a bikram yoga studio in between the apartment I'm staying in and my office in LA that I plan to utilize whenever I know I won't be able to get over to CF Hollywood. I figured I could use a good stretching/cardio/sweat-it-all-out session. 90 minutes of sweating my ass off. Sounds about right :)

I expected to be pretty worn out for the rest of the day but I actually felt great. Still do! I mean, I had a low-carb Monster (delicious) with lunch, not sure if I would've been struggling or not without it.

Back in Chicago for a few days!!

Tuesday - WOD at CF Chicago!! Strength component:
Jerk 5-5-5
Split Jerked @ 75#, 90# and 105#.
Felt strong on these, was able to hit these hard and form felt really solid. Got under the bar faster than usual at full lockout which was nice. Wanted to go heavier, but didn't think I could do it.


Metcon:
30-20-10 reps of:
Wall Ball (20/14 to 11′ target) - Rx'd
Sumo Deadlift High Pull (95/75) - used 65#
Box Jumps (24″) - used 20" box b/c there weren't enough boxes
Push Press (95/75) - used 65#
Row (10 damper setting) - Rx'd
Time- 31:something
I hate not going Rx'd. At other boxes, it is rare that I sub or reduce the weight... which makes it super frustrating when I come back here and can't. Frustrating as it is though, it makes me proud. Proud of our box, of our programming, of our athletes. Even at reduced weight GOOD GOD was this a killer workout! I was sure I was going to puke during this. I haven't felt so close to puking in a very long time during a workout. After I completed the 2nd round I sat on the rower, for, what? twenty? thirty seconds? I couldn't convince my ass to get up. It was 23 minutes into the wod and I hit a huge wall. Bryce, who had thought I was finishing my 3rd rd realized that I was about to quit, just looked at me and demanded I finish the damn workout. God I hated him. But that's one of the best things about CrossFit. There's always a coach to push you when you just can't push yourself. And other athletes like Donna and Karen to help push me as well. I love CFC.

Wednesday - 2nd WOD at CFC (!!)
Strength component:
3x Max kipping pull-ups
10-12-13.
Who increases?! My issue was my grip. And with not wanting to tear my hands. I could feel it start to almost tear and dropped instead of pushing through and dealing with a few tears. When did I become such a pussy?

Metcon:
50 Overhead squats (135/95 or 60% of 1RM) - used 55#
Time cap 8 minutes.
DNF'ed - got through 33 reps.
My wrist flexibility is still atrocious. I got 5-5, then for the rest I had trouble stringing 3s so by the last 15 or 20 reps I did singles, with a few doubles thrown in whenever I felt I could hadle it. Depth was an issue by the end but felt good to start off. I just can't do too many reps of OH squats!!!

I felt GREAT about my workout today!!!!

Tuesday 9/21 travel day.

Wednesday 9/22 wardrobe malfunction.
Seriously, I'm an idiot. I went into the film office for a long day of scheduling and data entry work (producing on a low budget film is NOT as sexy as it may sound. Seriously, on our films, I've done makeup, scouted locations, been dragged around as countless dead bodies, worked out special effects, collected bark, ran after drunk extras and begged them to come back for "just one more take"...). I packed workout clothes so I could leave straight from the office and I grabbed my brand new lulu shorts out of my bag and realized that the security tag was still attached. Awesome. Do I have that receipt anymore? No. Did I buy the shorts locally where I can just go back to the store and get this resolved? Of course not. I bought these shorts on one of my countless trips to VA. So... Needless to say, didn't get a workout in that day. Instead I worked until about 2:30am. Exhausting.

Thursday 9/23. Wod at CF Hollywood:
Find your 1RM deadlift in ten mins.
Metcon: 5 rounds of 3 min on, 3 min off - 5 reps 225/155# DL, 5 pull-ups.

I was five mins late getting in and there was a huge class so I didn't have my own bar and so ended up just going around the room and sharing bars with whoever had a good amount of weight to lift, and so I didn't get to find my 1RM, but I got up to 225#. Then, hit 21 1/4 total rounds! It was a TOUGH workout. 105 DL at 155?! 105 pullups?! Of course, I tore my right hand (twice) in my fourth round so that hurt like a mother! But it was a strong showing and I had the highest number of rounds (I think) in the class so I was pretty stoked. And a couple people said really nice congratulatory things for doing so well, and one guy even said it was awesome to watch me crush that workout :) which made me feel awesome. I still have a lot of work to do to get back to where I was and even more to get to where I want to be, but I was proud of my wod today. And that's a great fucking feeling.

Also, I'm pretty sure my back is going to hate me tomorrow. Even better- my hands are gonna look stupid all bandaged up when I have to sing at a wedding rehearsal tomorrow and at the wedding on Saturday. Oh well. I felt like a badass today, so, fuck it. Totally worth it ;)

FGB with my mom

Monday 9/13.

Fight Gone Bad! Today my mom's CrossFit, Rare CrossFit (www.rarecrossfit.com), was doing a practice run of FGB, so I agreed to do it with her. First let me say that my FGB PR is 268. Last time I did it I got 212 and was pissed. But I've been getting back to where I was (albeit slowly since my travel schedule is still a mess) so I figured it would be somewhere in between. I was hoping for closer to 268 than 212 :) but mostly I was hoping my mom would do well and that I would be able to be a good coach for her while she went through this intense wod.

Let me stop for one second here and say that I LOVE that my mom CrossFits. If I had a photo to upload (or the ability to... I'm a bit tech-challenged on this iPad) I would show her off as I am so proud of her. My mom started off as all of us CFers start off... Struggling through wods, finding certain lifts or running (especially running for her AND me) a real difficulty. But she stuck with it! She's been CFing for about four-five months now. She even had to take a few weeks off for a medical issue but came back, strong as ever! She calls me most days when leaving her box and we chat about her progress, what lifts she did, what weights, how best to track her progress, etc. The other day she was so proud... Called to say that her workout included 4 rounds of 400m runs (along with other lifts I don't remember) and she had run all 400m each time without walking once (see, Bryce, I get it honest)!! I'd never heard her so proud and I couldn't be more proud of her.

So, today I got to do FGB with her. We discussed game planning a bit beforehand, but it wasn't until we went through it that she really saw what I meant and understood why in this particular workout you game the wod. I knew WallBall would be tough for her so I watched her work through it, helped her find the right wall ball weight for her first round, and by the third round encouraged her to take two shots, followed by 2 second rests, then two shots, etc. This third round she did way better than her previous two rounds (WB rds were 6/5/9 reps) when she followed the game plan. We also worked on punting breaths during sumos and push presses so that she would focus on what she was doing and rest enough that she could get through the wod, but not rest longer than necessary.

She also has a great coach, Adam, who owns the box and who was there checking in on her, making sure she was okay and not going to hurt herself but also encouraging her in a great way as she pushed through each round. I really like him as a coach for her. Makes me feel good to know she's in good hands since she can't CF with us at CFC (b/c she lives in VA).

So, anyway, my FGB wasn't bad. 226. Definitely not as high as I want but I've got some time before FGBV so I am gonna push it and not allow any more slacking!

Seriously though. I'm not a runner.

For someone who isn't a runner I sure run a lot recently. It clears my head, and I've had a lot of shit on my mind recreantly and it gives me 30 minutes or a hour or more where all I can think about is man I wish I were doing something else (just kidding).

Actually I don't know what I think about when I run. I think about a million different things, it's almost like dreaming. My mind goes all over the place, and when I'm done I feel completely drained and have no clear memory of what went through my head during the run. When you spend too much time during the day thinking about things, this is the perfect way to put it all away. I also feel like it helps control my emotions- if I'm feeling sad or stressed before the run I feel like I somehow run all the emotions out of my system.

Today's workout:
Run 1.2 miles up/down hills... More downhill on the way out (approx 13 min)
20 situps
20 leg raises
Run 1.2 miles up/down hills... More uphill on the way back (approx 15 min)
4 rds: 5 pushups w/ 10 sec rest in b/w each rd
<2-3 min rest>
2 rds: 2 super steep hill sprints

The path I chose was only 1.2 miles (I got a bit turned around... Surprise) before it ended so once i got back to my starting point I just didn't have enough sunlight or the desire to run another 30 minutes back and forth the same path, so i figured I'd exhaust myself with super steep hill sprints. That did the trick!!

Fran at CF Hollywood and MMA circuits

Thursday 9/9.

I went in to CF Hollywood thinking I had to do Nancy (OH squats and runs), which would've sucked b/c my quads were pretty damn sore from the previous day's wod and the 7 mile run the day before that. So, when I found out we were doing Fran instead and was happy. Okay not happy, but glad not to have to do Nancy. Fran, however, was not happy to have me and she kicked me in the face. I finished a full 1:30 slower than my previous PR.

Fran: 21-15-9 reps of thrusters 95/65#, pull-ups. 8:42 (prev PR 7:12)

*to be fair- I did 63# b/c there were no baby weights to use to pull it up to 75. I actually considered dropping the weight to 58# before I started b/c I knew my strength/cardio isn't where it used to be. But I'm glad I fuckin manned up and went Rx'd. No reason to drop weight as long as I can do Fran sub-ten.

I know I'm not where I was before. When I did Fran it was at my Level I Cert and I was very close to the peak of my performance I've had since starting CF. God, I can HEAR a million excuses in my head right now- haven't trained enough recently, when I am training it's less weight training and more cardio MMA circuits vs CF wods, I am getting over a cold... Ugh. All that matters is I have a fucking lot of work to do to get back to where I was and then get even stronger. Faster. Fitter.

[Friday 9/10 traveled from CA to VA. Damn. 9 hrs of travel su-ucks.]

Saturday 9/11.

12 min cardio circuit, 1 min each station, no rest: hitting/punching/kicking/etc the heavy bag, burpees, heavy bag, bear crawls. Yuck.

Five minute rest, then was supposed to alternate b/w heavy bag and gorilla drills but I couldn't figure the damn gorilla drills out today. I was having a rough day mentally, and while hitting the bag certainly helped, doing a drill I don't get just irritated me more. So, I did 1 or 2 rounds of burpees as a sub and then just alternated b/w the bag and a rest pd.

I think I rested about ten minutes or so, and then hit another circuit. 1 min each station - 22" (?) box jumps (not sure of the height but it was higher than our 20" box but not by a substantial amount), stairs, hammer slams, rest. Twice through.

Then I just dicked around the gym for awhile. I did a few sets of 7 pull-ups (I need to get back into doing these for max reps but when I'm fresh, not after a lot of cardio), did 30 sec of sit-ups, leg raises, side-to-side oblique work, I climbed the rope at some point (20/30ft?). And THEN I worked on snatch form for awhile at light weights. Just practiced good bar path, speed through the second pull, landing in the full squat (versus landing and dropping down into the squat afterward). Worked at about 30/40#... didn't know what the weird bar I was lifting weighed. I only know the weights of traditional 33/45# bars.

And ps can I just say it irritates the hell out of me when people tell me and insist that a 33# bar is 35#?? It's 33#.

Growth Premiere + CF Hollywood

So, sometimes I produce movies. I know, not exactly a hobby, but whatever. Tuesday night was the premiere of my film Growth, so thanks to nerves I barely ate during the day (2 eggs + 1 egg white in the am, plus a chocolate muscle milk split pre- and post-wod, turkey burger with grilled onions, chiles, and a bit of guacamole sans the bun of course) and then no more food until late night post-premiere NON-paleo/healthy apps (handful of french fries, hot wings, mac-n-cheese, and 2 potstickers... oh and maybe a few vodka sodas). I did certainly earn that food though... the afternoon workout was at CrossFit Hollywood and it was a bear. Plus I wore five inch heels from 6pm - 1:30am and that's a damn workout in itself.

5 Rds (for time):
250m row
10 Front Squats 135/95#
15 GHDs
20 Box Jumps 24/20"

Rx'd. 29:26.

Ouch. Finished Round 1 before anyone else in the box and then slowed the fuck down. This was my first CF workout in awhile since I've been on a train and haven't been eating well so I didn't think it'd be an awesome time, but damn it hurt. And I took the following day as a rest day b/c I was so damn sore. My quads were beat the hell up and my abs were a little sore too (managably sore though - I totally could've pushed through that soreness if the quads didn't burn as much as they did). Felt alright about my row times - stayed under 1:55 in rd 1, 2:05 for rd 2, then under 2:15 for the last 3 rounds.

I expect to get a workout in today. May check out a new box or hit CF Hollywood again.

Four months later...

Wow, it feels like a lifetime ago I was tracking my nutrition and my workouts daily. I haven't been CFing as hard as I used to. I've been traveling, working stupidly long hours, and trying to fit in time to see boyfriends, friends, family, and so I've probably cut my workouts down to a max of only three a week. The truth of it is though, as much as I have been busy and super stressed, the real reason I cut back my workouts is because I burnt myself out. After competing in the 2010 CrossFit Regionals team trials, I needed a break. I had been working out five days a week from April through December, and then began training as hard as I could from mid-December through end of April - working out pretty much seven days a week plus playing volleyball (for awhile on three separate teams at the same time), and so for my entire life was laced with workout activities with no down time. I have a bit of an obesessive personality so when I want to throw myself into something I am QUITE capable of doing that. But eventually it wears on me. What I needed was a short break, but I got complacent and took too long off getting buried behind work and socializing.

About a month ago though, I realized what had happened and I got back into my active lifestyle. I needed a change, something new and fun to get me excited again, and I found an AMAZING new thing. I started training (while traveling in VA and incapable of getting into our amazing CF Chicago) at one of the top MMA gyms in VA (Gold Medal Grappling - www.goldmedalgrappling.com) and that jump-started my desire to get back into working out every day. The workouts there are super intense and I get to learn new things every day as I'm learning to box (what a perfectly me thing to do that I have no idea why I never got into before). I'm the only girl in the whole gym which makes me push harder (it's an awesome feeling being a girl and not having to scale back the weights as I can lift what the lighter guys are lifting during the workouts. That's obvi one if my favorite parts ;)) and the community there feels similar to ours (though of course nothing could compare to our box) so I'm really enjoying myself. Their emphasis is on cardio and lifting lighter (not light of course, but not max effort) weights for longer rep schemes, so it's a nice complement to CrossFit workouts. After I do their workouts I focus on strength sets that Bryce designed for us and I'm really enjoying the two in conjunction with each other. Constantly varied, right?

So, now that I've discussed where I've been... onto blogging my workouts. I arrived at my friend Sara's place in LA around 9 pm last night and took off for a run. Not knowing the area and it being pretty damn dark out, I just ran up and down White Oak Ave (a main and well lit street) in between Burbank and Ventura Aves, alternating running at about a 9 min pace for one lap (1.25 miles) then varying it up by sprinting segments (sprint from this tree to that sign up there, etc then jog to the next random sign/tree I'd see and sprint again), and then another lap of running at a consistent 9 min pace, etc for an hour. I ran approx 7.5 miles.

I have to say- I felt like shit last night during that run. I sweat my ass off so it was definitely a good cardio workout and I varied it up with sprints which would boost the effect of tbe workout on my body and push me harder than just a regular easy paced run, but my body felt super shitty. I've been on a train since Saturday TRYING to eat as healthy as possible, which meant not eating much since there were few veggies available and starches (potatoes, rice) which were on my plate though I asked them not to be (I have only so much self-control... A baked potato is fucking good and I hadn't had one in probably over a year so a few bites were necessary) and not working out. Thankfully Amy made bison burgers and packed farm fresh veggies for us - enough for about two meals so those felt good. I had red meat though for at least half my meals since that was the only meat not covered in sauce or battered so I'm feeling heavier than usual.

Today has started well though- two whole eggs plus one egg white and 2 cups coffee (with dairy-free but not sugar free hazelnut creamer (mmmm). And now I'm off to find a local CrossFit box and then I have my movie premiere tonight!!!!

Wish me luck!