So last Friday was the first wod of the Crossfit Open. It was called 18.1, which of course I have to do scaled. The scaled version is
20min AMRAP (Crossfit Talk for As Many Rounds As Possible in 20 minutes)
8 Hanging Knee Lifts
10 Dumbbell Hang Clean and Jerks
14 Cal Row.
Scoring consists of counting each rep and cal for a total, for example I complete 8 rounds, 8 knee lifts and 2 dumbbell clean and jerks for total score of 266.
Considering I've only been doing Crossfit since Oct 23, I am very proud of this score and as I am writing this my overall rank in Worldwide Men (40-44) is 15,155/27,582 and in the South West (40-44) 705/1,329 which places me in the 46th percentile.
Sorry, had to get the stats and boring information out of the way. It might seem not the best or even above average, but I am absolutely thrilled! If someone would've have told me 6 months+ ago that I would not be bottom of the leader boards, let alone doing Crossfit, I would've laughed at them and called them crazy. This is a great bench mark for next year and the years after to check my progress. Granted I do use BTWB app to record and track my workouts, but nothing like a little competition and working out with a larger group also competing to get the blood and nerves going!
Shout out to Brendan, Allison and Luke for helping me get this far this fast. Here are their websites for more information on a group of awesome trainers.
http://www.crossfitlasvegas.com/
http://www.6packentrepreneur.com/
A couple things I've learned recently...
1 grip strength needs vast improvement.
2 If considering anything active, knee sleeves are a must.
Back in the dark ages, I played high school football. During the week of our Homecoming game I twisted my right knee, so I sat out a couple of drills and it began feeling up to more exercise (oh to be 17 again physically lol) the very first play, I took a helmet to the outside of my left knee. I couldn't walk for a couple of days. The doctor told me that I had the option of surgery on it, so I asked what were the chances of walking when I was old (40 in my mind at the time lmao) and he said the odds were better without.
If you read my previous blog, I then journeyed to the hefty size of 496 lbs. I recovered better than expected and don't get me wrong I did get knee pain, but it took a lot of it to hurt. So I used it as an excuse to get out of non physical activity. This I feel contributed to my explosion of weight. As I got heavier, my knee pain worsened. As it worsened the more I couldn't do stuff.
Back to the Present.
I do live with knee pain almost daily now. However, I feel mostly its lessening from making my legs and hips stronger with Crossfit. Once I get them warmed up through various stretches and exercises I am good, but on a ticking clock. The things that affect them the worst are Cleans and Assault Bike. The knee sleeves make them bearable. however I am almost through my 2nd pair since I started Crossfit. Of course they were cheap since I didn't want to over invest if I wasn't going to stick it out, my first pair were $10 from Amazon and some no name brand. The 2nd were $15 and not a name brand, now I am actually looking at $45 knee sleeves from bear Komplex. These ones are highly rated and the grips I bought from the brand are life changers. Still, pulling the trigger for $45 on knee sleeves is a tough thing to do.
Another thing I deal with on a daily basis is Body Dismorphia. The description from Wikipedia is
Body dysmorphic disorder (BDD), occasionally still called dysmorphophobia, is a mental disorder characterized by the obsessive idea that some aspect of one's own appearance is severely flawed and warrants exceptional measures to hide or fix it.[1] In BDD's delusional variant, the flaw is imagined.[2] If the flaw is actual, its importance is severely exaggerated.[2]Either way, thoughts about it are pervasive and intrusive, occupying up to several hours a day.
This for me comes from having lost so much weight so fast. I never recognize myself in the mirror and first thing I always notice is the loose skin from where the weight loss happened. I try to conceal it best I can, but I always see the muffin top in my shirt as well as feel the instant one of my shirt sleeves comes up. Ugh having gone from a 5-6xl shirt to L-XL shirt means a lot shorter sleeves too! My waddle on my neck, I've been growing out my beard to camouflage it. Thank god my pant cover the loose skin on my legs and butt. I feel like a melted candle half the time, and the other half is like who the fuck is that in the mirror. Whenever I do a push up and look down I see the blob that used to be my belly pour onto the floor every single push up. I know I am not longer obese, and that I am carrying 7-10 lbs of loose skin and this puts me in a healthy BMI; its just hard to see my changes. I hate the question "You must feel so much better?" Yes I do physically, except when my knees hurt. Self esteem is a little more tricky, I've spent so much time as a morbidly obese man, its hard to accept that I am anything other than that now. My biggest cheerleader is my Wife and I could've never gotten this far without her, she inspires me and supports; even when I wonder how she can find all this loose skin attractive, which is the same feeling I hate when I was 496 lbs.
Even though the following picture is a woman, it still summarizes a lot, and does help me.
Jeremy Olson
Podcaster, Producer, Blogger, and now Crossfitter!
LLAP
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