Today: Last week’s workouts.

In an effort to keep myself accountable and motivated with weekly workouts, I thought I’d start sharing them with you lovely folks.  It seems like I can cook up more (and more creative) excuses than ever to skip a workout or sleep in (for example: There is not enough room for both me and this baby inside my Spandex or, I just ate two ice cream sandwiches and an entire jar of pickles).  Right now (and likely for the remainder of my pregnancy), working out is about doing something rather than doing nothing.  It’s about enjoying the time I’ve carved out for myself, rather than pushing myself.  It’s about consistency, rather than extremes.  It’s about appreciating all the cool (and sort of terrifying weird) things happening to my body.  It’s about staying as strong and stress-free (does that state of being actually exist?) as possible.  It’s about taking care of myself and setting a good example.

My goal, as of late, is to make time for three structured workouts each week (2 at CrossFit Southie, and 1 yoga class), and plenty of walking (occasionally running shuffling) and mobility work on off days.  I recently decreased my CrossFit membership from three days a week to two, and will soon be looking for a new prenatal yoga class to join, as my series at Bodywaves Boston is about to wrap up.  I am truly grateful to be feeling really well lately.  I’m planning to take advantage of this as long as possible.  I’d be remiss without saying that Nick has been tremendously helpful in both encouraging me to get out the door and ensuring that what I am doing make sense for how I feel and what my body’s up to.

Sunday, October 13th: CrossFit Southie

Strength:

• Strict press 3-3-3-3-3
• Between each set complete 15 GHD sit-ups or 20 abmat sit-ups

WOD:

• 5 rounds: 15 wallballs, 10 burpees

This workout took a bit of creative scaling.  I’ll share more about this in a separate post, but I tend to follow crossfitmom.com’s trimester-by-trimester guidelines and recommended substitutions, along with a healthy dose of common sense and adhering to Clark’s m.o. (if it feels good, do it).  I strict pressed 50 lbs., which is 10 lbs. less than I did a few months ago.  I’m working on maintaining good form (and not, like, falling over or hitting myself with a barbell), rather than PR-ing.  Honestly, part of me (namely, the irresponsible part) would love to still be going for it.  I really like most shoulder-to-overhead movements, but I always battle to not use my legs for this lift, and find the weight gets really heavy, really fast.   For ab work, I did knees to elbows rather than sit-ups.

I planned to do 3 rounds and see how I felt, and managed to slog through 4 full rounds in just over 11 minutes, trading in “pregnant burpees” (air squat, wall push-up) for regular… like, non-pregnant ones.  Needless to say, my legs were burning by the time we left CrossFit Southie.  Bonus: I managed to not hit myself in the face with the ball.  This may have been a first.

Monday, October 14th: Long walk with Nick and Clark

We took advantage of the beautiful weather and a day off (thanks, Christopher Columbus) and enjoyed a lovely walk in the neighborhood.  There were lots of stairs and hills involved, much to Clark’s dismay.

Tuesday, October 15th: Reebok CrossFit ONE

Warm-up: Obstacle course

WOD: Jackie

• Row 1000 m, 50 thrusters, 30 pull-ups

On Tuesday, I joined five other bloggers for a day of focus groups, product demos and a workout at Reebok HQ.  Reebok announced a partnership with Spartan Race earlier this year and has a Spartan-inspired obstacle course on the campus of their Canton, MA headquarters.  Coaches Ericka and Matt took us through the course as a group before we headed back to Reebok CrossFit ONE for Jackie.  I was able to tackle some of the obstacles, including the shorter walls and balance beam, but opted out of several others (and suffered the 10 air squat penalty at each).  We drilled each of Jackie’s movements before starting the WOD, and after 15 or so thrusters, I decided to drop the bar and stick with air squats (30 total).  They were not using bands as a scaling option for pull-ups, so I went with ring rows (20 total) and rowed the full 1000m.  With various scaling options and great coaching, we all finished in just under 10 minutes.

Wednesday, October 16th: Rest

Doesn’t he just melt your heart?

Thursday, October 16th: CrossFit Southie

Strength:

• EMOM (every minute, on the minute) for 10 minutes: 1 power clean, 1 push jerk
• Work up to max load

WOD:

• 3 rounds: 20 hang power cleans, 10 handstand push-ups

Some days, I am ready for bed the second I get home from work.  Thursday was not one of those days.  Hallelujah!  I was eager to get to the gym and get to work.  I sort of forgot ignored my own “no more PR” rule on Thursday and clean and jerked 75lbs. during the strength portion of the workout.  I tried for 80lbs., but failed on my first attempt and decided to stick with 75.  For the workout, I used 55lbs., which felt heavy, but doable.  Rather than handstand push-ups or hand release push-ups (the belly gets in the way), I did incline push-ups using a racked barbell (on the lowest rack).  I loved this workout.

Friday, October 17th: Yoga

I had to miss this week’s prenatal yoga class due to an all-day work commitment on Saturday, so I made sure to fit in 2 episodes from the Body Talk prenatal playlist on YouTube.  The baby’s room is currently empty (awaiting our furniture delivery and the 10,000 things little humans apparently require), so I rolled my mat out on the hardwood floors and pretended we have our own yoga studio.  While I would have preferred to have made it to class the following day, these videos were the perfect alternative.  Each episode is about ten minutes long, and are designed for specific trimesters.

Saturday, October 18th: Rest 

I did more running around than resting, and came this close to ordering a pair of orthopedic shoes (Amazon 1-click ordering is dangerous and should not be available to people who are feeling over-worked and/or over-tired), but hey.  That’s life.  Clark, however, stuck to the schedule and rested like a champ.

Also On Tap for Today:

• Looking forward to chatting with my favorite HLS pals tonight
• How good does this look?: Chunky guacamole salad
• Love this: 8 tools to thrive as a highly sensitive person

What goals are you currently working toward?