What doesn't kill Natasha

[Natalia Reynolds]

The name "Natasha" that English speakers are so familiar with is actually the informal, friend's version of Natalia. My husband calls me Tash, bureaucrats call me Natalia Reynolds, Russians call me Natalia Alexandrovna; you can call me Natasha.

I'm a tiny girl, who decided to become stronger and fitter. I was never an athlete, I was always last in all sports in school. The only 'almost athletic' background I have is 8 years of ballet school.

When my husband discovered CrossFit in December (2007), I was back in Russia visiting my family -- so my start in CrossFit began with him sharing the exercises and workouts with me over the internet. I even managed to involve my mom in doing Tabata squats and Tabata sit-ups with me :)

My first 'official' CrossFit workout was on January 23rd - 3.5 months ago.

I came from not being able to do even 1 push up to 4 in the beginning of the year, 6 by the time I started regular CF workouts, 11 after a month of CF and 21 after 2 months of crossfit.
I did my first ever strict pull-up on 25th of February and just yesterday I did really perfect kipping pull-up. One :)
My Grace time progressed from 11 minutes to 3:50 in 3 months, and just several days ago in "Elizabeth" I finally 'jumped' from 45# to 50# in my cleans :)
With CrossFit I decreased my 400 m time from 2:04 to 1:46, I ran my frist ever non-stop 5K (uh-oh, 40 minutes :) and learned that no matter how strongly I dislike running - it doesn't kill me!

My Crossfit total 'officially' is 276 now -
Squat 100
Press 56
DL 120

Since then my Press increased to 60# and my PR on DL is 131#. Still fighting with the squat, I'm stuck at 100# and it still feels incredibly heavy.
My goal is to get to 315 total by the end of May, my husband bet 200 burpees that I can do it :)

My weak lifts are slowing me down in all WODs, turning metcon WODs into strength exercises. That's why I'm starting on SS now. I have a lot of difficulties with the program, because my lifts are so small that it's nearly impossible to follow Rip's programming - 5# jump is a LOT for me, but I will work on it.

Ok, probably that's enough for beginning introduction :)
I'm going to share my goals, my results, my fails and my little victories (and some whinning sometimes) and I would love to hear from everyone of you.

Let's see what doesn't kill me!

[Ariff Saufi]

welcome aboard Natasha!

for smaller increment weights, some of those iron safety collars do weigh around 2-3lbs.

maybe you can use them for smaller increments.

hope that helps.

[Alix Clark]

Welcome! Sounds like you're well into it - I look forward to reading your log!

[Natalia Reynolds]

Hi Ariff and Alix! Thank you for your warm words! And welcome :)

Sounds like you've seen some great results in a short time!
Looking forward to reading more about your progress, and we all whine lol

[Veronica Davis]

Welcome to the boards. I look forward to reading your about your progress. LOVE the title.

[Natalia Reynolds]

Just finished. Wow, that was hard!

Starting Strength, day 2

I know that I'm violating some rules and principles of the program, but sometimes we need to find our own path to the big road. I will be there, I just started, I need some time to increase my lifts to the level, where I can count work with 45# bar as a warm up set.


My workout was:

Back squat:

45x5x3
60x5
75x3

work sets: 100x3x2

Woohoo! I did it! 2 days ago I called 100# my 1RM, and today I did it 3 times and I did it twice :) I think I just became more confident after I nailed 1-1-1-1-1 of 100# the day before, today I was sure I can do more.
Go for 5 reps on the next workout day!

Press:

45x5x2

Work sets: 55x3x2

And just for me - 60# x1 - my PR :)

"Warm up" sets were more like beginning of work sets, I actually barely completed second warming set!

Power cleans - poor :(

I don't have good form on this lift, I need a lot more practice. So today my goal was to work on my form.

I was working with empty bar, 45#
Hang power cleans, 3 sets of 5

Bad bad bad form! But I'm glad the SS makes me practicing it - I will do it! Soon :)

My husband was watching me and he said that the weight is too easy for me. He said that the bar was flying up to my nose and then was falling to my chest. So I let myself try heavier weight - 55#. Was aiming for 5, but did just 4. Still - good job!
Kirez said the form was much better with heavier weight. Hmmm...


I think it was the first strength workout I really enjoyed :)

And I did another kipping pull-up before the workout!

[Natalia Reynolds]

Hi Camille! Hi Veronica!

[Kirez Reynolds]

Tash, I know you're re-thinking the decision to do SS, after you found this thread and post by Jeff Martin: http://www.board.crossfit.com/showth...t=30569&page=3

...
All of that as a preface, the current trend on the board is to advise people that they should leave Crossfit for extended periods of time and do Starting Strength. The thought process is that they will become strong and be able to bring that strength back into CrossFit and perform the workouts with the rx'd weight well. Fact is, we know that segmented training delivers segmented results. Yes you will be stronger, but you will still perform poorly in the WOD. You'll lift the weight but not be able to handle the metabolic demands of the WOD.

The second mistake in this advice is to ignore the strength gains of the person following the main page WOD. A new person following the WOD and applying themselves properly to the strength days the mainpage posts will be getting stronger but they will be working the other 9 physical skills as well, and be more prepared to kill the WOD than a person following single modality or segmented modality training. (By The Way, lest you think there isn't enough strength training in CrossFit it is the 25th of April 2008, eight workouts have included heavy singles, 3 across or 5 across, 3 more, Gwen, Elizabeth and Quarter Gone Bad have included "heavy" training)

Third, the results. The top CrossFitters around, including the top one and two place male finishers at the CrossFit Games, follow the mainpage workouts religiously. At 48 I have resigned myself to a tier two position. My 2:39 Fran, 3:30 Diane, and sub 9:00 Helen are nothing to brag about, but I hate to run and row so I follow a MEBB version of the workouts, because I would rather stand in one place and lift weights. Clearly though abandoning the metabolic workouts in place of the strength workouts will not yield the results that following the mainpage will.

As a trainer, I would have told you the following. The mainpage metabolic workouts are designed to crush elite athletes. You should be looking to scale the workouts and do them quickly and well rather than saying "I did Fran as rx'd it took me 10:00 but I did the thrusters with 95#". That is simply ego talking. CrossFit has strength days to lift heavy (11 so far this month) scale the weight to 65# and get Fran done well in 5:00. Next time Fran comes along bump it up 5 or 10#. Pretty soon you will be doing the workout as rx'd with a decent time.

So...
I know you said you still want to do the WODs. While I am recovering, do you want to do main page WODs, or try something like the fast little soul-sucker we just discussed:

10 rounds,
50 meter sprint,
10 push-ups
for time.

How are you going to schedule this with your SS workouts this week? I'm not clear on your plan.

[Natalia Reynolds]

Kirez,

Since I just started the program, I can't yet say how exactly I'm going to manage this.

My plan for now is to do 3 WODs with good metcon component per week. I will have to replace WODs including heavy lifts (like today's one) with something different, of course, but since I'm doing just half of main page WODs I will have a choice. And our sprinting workouts are something I am definitely willing to try.

I don't know if I should do metcons on the same days as SS, or on alternating days. I think by the next week I will see how well my body recovers from the SS training and this will help to make a decision. Also I can just try both variants.

Right now I'm off of the WODs for another 3 days!

Do you have any suggestions for me? What do you think about my plan?

Tash