Fitchick challenge: The end

I've always been a finisher, I know that about myself. I think I get it from my dad.

When I was little as I watched Dad build a 30ft sailing boat in our backyard. Every night he'd come home at 6, eat dinner, change into his fibreglass encrusted work jeans and disappear to work on the boat. Our weekends would be taken up entirely with boat building activities. Every weekend. For five years. It was a lesson in persistence and in fortitude. My Dad showed me how to break down a big task into smaller milestones and how, at the end of the day you had to stand back and admire everything you achieved. **

When we launched that boat I'm sure there were many who thought it would sink, but it didn't and I spent many happy holidays floating with my mum and my dad in NSW waters. Eventually it would take them on a circumnavigation of Australia.

Since then, finishing has often been my friend. I've seen big projects in my home, work and sporting life come to fruition as I've attacked them with the same persistence and fortitude I'd seen in my father.

But there's a downside to being a finisher too. Sometimes I can be so focussed on an accomplishment that I choose to hang on to projects, even though they no longer serve me. I don't want to let people down, and you definitely don't want people to think I'm any kind of a failure.

Which is why the decision to pull out of the fitchick challenge has been both a disappointment and an enormous breakthrough. In the end, a week and a half was not enough time to prepare, no matter how much work I put in, and putting myself through more would only have broken my body.

I am proud that I tried though, and I have learned so much about myself and my capacities during the training. On top of the skills I've learned I know now that even if I think I can't, I usually can, and this will help me to break through all kinds of mental barriers in my training in the future.

I can't help feeling I've let you all down, but I'm trying my hardest not to care.


** My dad's favourite phrase at the time was "You must admit, it's starting to look like a boat now." And gradually, layer by layer, it did.

Fitchick challenge: Jackie

Today I nearly got beaten by a chick named Jackie. Jackie is big, Jackie is aggressive and Jackie is mean, in fact some would call her a monster. Jackie is the name of a crossfit work out of the day.

For those who have never been crossfit has a number of landmark workouts named after women (how and why seems to be a mystery), and other 'hero' workouts that are named after fallen soldiers.

I will probably never know who Jackie actually was but if I did get to meet her I would probably have to slap her. This is the Jackie

1000m row
50 thrusters (a new form of torture consisting of a squat that goes straight into an overhead press)
30 pull ups.

Seems simple, or at least it did when it was first explained to me.

But these crossfit workouts play on you psychologically more than physically. The row is designed to exhaust you, so by the time you get to the thrusters your hamstrings have turned to jelly and your heart rate is up. The thrusters then take an interminably long time. You end up breaking them down, first ten at a time then seven, then five, until you get through them. Then come the pull-ups, you are so relieved to give your legs a rest that you forget your arms had to do all that rowing and then all those presses. Again you have to break them down and as you approach 30 you have to do those pull ups as singles, with rests in between.

I was disappointed in the end that it took me so long, but then again proud that I didn't have a giant dummy spit and walk out half way through. I kept going, and didn't let Jackie beat me.

The great thing about crossfit is that my time will be recorded, and I can come back to this work out in two three or four months time. And when I do ... I'm going to give that Jackie a huge dumbbell slap.

Want to see what the workout looks like check out this link

(This guy makes it look easy, believe me it's not)

Fitchick challenge: I can

I get the feeling that this fitchick challenge is going to be a more mental than physical challenge. Firstly, there's the fact that I've only just learned skills like kettle bell swings, thrusters and deadlifts. But more than that, too often I let those words 'I can't' creep into my head.

Yesterday, during a particularly evil rowing session I noticed that my mind gave up way before my body was ready to. As soon as the words 'I can't slithered like a snake into my head I felt like I was totally finished. So, on the next round I tried something different. I rowed to the words "I can". It was the last of five rounds, I was exhausted but I did my best time of all five rows. So, from now until the fitchick challenge I am running, pressing, lifting and pulling to the tune of 'I can'.

And who knows, my little mantra might creep over into other parts of my life too.

Fitchick challenge: Metabolic conditioning

So, if a personal trainer comes to you with the words 'metabolic conditioning session' my advice to you is to run, fast, preferably not in the direction of the treadmill.

Metabolic conditioning is intense training that's designed to make the body use energy more efficiently. Metabolic conditioning workouts tend to be short but intense, and are, unfortunately ideal for helping me to  get in shape for the fitchick challenge.

Nina my trainer (formerly known as the pocket rocket but from now on known as 'the bitch'*) put me through the following workout yesterday. 1km run, 150 skips. 800m run, 50 burpees. 600 metre run, 50 over the bench jumps. 400m run, some abominable exercise that was obviously so awful I've put it out of my mind**, 200m run, 50 mountain climbers.

This was followed by a five minute hanging of the head to prevent vomiting and then a ten minute collapse on the floor.

Uggghhh ...

*Nina could in no way actually be considered  a bitch. She is in fact awesome and probably the fittest person I know. I'm thinking of getting her to pretend to be me to compete in fitchick.

** I've remembered it was squat jumps, but by the time I got onto them I was feeling so stuffed that i couldn't coordinate swinging my arms with the jump.

Fitchick challenge: At 2am

It's 2am and the air is holding onto water like a sponge. It's going to rain tomorrow.

At 2am everyone is still sleeping, but I'm awake. Not even the animals stir when I toss and turn, throw the covers off an pull them back up to my chin. 2am is when the doubts and fears come, like water cascading over a dam, they pour down over me. I am drenched. I should never have signed up.

I consider yesterday's effort. My first box jumps, deadlifts, pull ups. I know that everyone else will have been training for this event for months or years. I will embarrass myself. I seek shelter from my own thoughts. I must think of something else. Doubts and fears wear a track into my brain like a river cutting through sandstone. What a stupid idea. Drowning, I reach for my life raft. I will email them in the morning to let them know I'm pulling out.

The panic subsides, the tide changes, I drift back to sleep.Overnight the fresh rain clears the air. I rise, put on my training gear and head to my second cross fit session. I can do this. I am, after all, a very strong swimmer.

Back on the box

My first ever experience of cross fit today and it was a great one. If you haven't caught up, I've entered a fitchick challenge at the fitness expo next weekend. I entered it on a whim and then found out what it is I have to do ... oh dear.

To get an idea of what the competition might look like check out  this video.  Like I said ... oh dear.

It has been decided that I will do two training sessions a day. One focussing on technique, the other on strength and conditioning.

The cross fit gym is more like an industrial wasteland than any gym I'm used to. The equipment is simple: wooden boxes, barbells, huge looking weights and pull up bars. As I made my way to my trainer I had to step over the bodies scattered across the floor. Absolutely 100% spent after their workout. this is not the kind of thing you see after an aerobics class. These people, mostly ultrafit looking men could not move for at least five minutes.

This morning I learned the techniques of cross fit including the box jump, the deadlift, the clean and press and the pull up. This morning I realised how far I have to go

I did however make a major break through.

The box jump (jumping up onto a 20 inch box) was probably what I feared most from cross fit. I knew it was psychological, that I had the strength and agility, all I needed was the mind set. So, how surprised was I when I did it, first up, with pretty much the correct technique.

Now all I need is to master the same mindset to achieve my first cross fit pull up!

Holy crap: The fit chick challenge

Sometimes your life changes. Sometimes you're not prepared. Sometimes that change can be like a slap across the face with a cold hard stone.

I happen to believe in karma, I know it's not logical and there are a thousand examples out there of wrongs that are never avenged, but I just do. And when a sock across the face with a a cold hard stone comes, I try not to let it knock me out.

Because change is an enormous opportunity. It's freeing. It allows you choose options that would otherwise have been unavailable to you. But a slap across the face with a wet stone is also going to render your judgement and decision-making somewhat impaired for some days ... or weeks.

Which leads me to this. In a moment of madness induced by the spirit of grabbing every opportunity I have signed up for the fit chick challenge to be held at the Fitness Expo in Darling Harbour in two (GULP) weeks. http://www.shapemagazine.com.au/FitChickChallenge/tabid/1843/Default.aspx. In the fit chick challenge just 30 chicks battle it out in a series of exercise-offs that include box jumps, pull ups and deadlifts.

And why not? I'm fit, I thought, and a chick. What could go wrong?  Except of course that I've never performed a deadlift, rarely do a pull up, and my idea of a box jump is up to and including boxes 10cm high. On top of this I will be competing against 29 other women who practically live these moves.

So, over the next two weeks I'm going to blog my attempts to develop these skills, in preparation for the fit chick competition. I've engaged the help of professionals and prepared to give t everything it takes.

Wish me luck. I'm about to see just how far I can push my body in two weeks.

Eat more: do less

So the husband has a weight loss secret. He thinks he can make himself a pile of cash by advertising it for a $1 on the internet, and when people send him their dollar he'll tell them this... eat less:move more.

But now, contrary to advice you may have read previously in blogs such as (and including) this one, I'm going to tell you that the opposite is working for me at the moment. Do less: Eat more.

I know, it's doing my head in too, but it is definitely changing the shape of my body.

I haven't been kind to my body. I've put it through hours at the gym. I haven't fed it enough, and when I have I've fed it up on 'fat free' this and 'artificial' that. The result. The moment I slow down for a second, or increase my calories just a bit my body is so grateful, it stockpiles fat.

You see, my body thinks it's perfectly healthy, it's only me that thinks it needs a bit of reform.

So, I've upped my intake from 1200 to 1700. And I've decreased my exercise to weight training 5  days a week and the occasional bike ride, indoor climb or circuit. Now, far from the 500 calories a day I used to expend in exercise, I'm guessing I'm doing more like 250 -300.

Don't get me wrong. I don't eat 1700 calories of whatever I like. I eat a balance of vegetables, protein and carbohydrates. I've dumped refined carbs and limited anything that is overly processed. I include more fats in my diet than I ever have before. I eat full fat yoghurt.

And, for the first time in ever so long I'm not always hungry.

I'm not saying this is for everyone, but I am saying that maximising the calorie deficit is not always the way to reach your goals.

It's been a long 12 months of discovery for me. I'm guessing that without the journey I wouldn't have necessarily reached the destination, but boy, some good advice early on could have saved me a lot of time and energy.

Does it get any easier?

A new season of Michelle Bridges 12WBT is about to begin and I'm going back for my third and final round. Already I've had a number of people ask 'Does it get any easier?'.

The truth is, it does and it doesn't.

Yes, 5am starts get easier. Yes, as you see the benefits (losing weight, growing muscle, getting faster) your enthusiasm for health and fitness grows. In this sense it does get easier. But easy is not what we're after here because, if you want to continually improve (lose weight, get fitter, get faster, jump higher) you need to move out of your comfort zone and this requires dedication persistence and above-all, courage.

Over the years people have said 'but it's easy for you because ...'  but I want to put this out there - it's not easy. It's tiring, it's boring and it is so hard. But this is only because I've deliberately made it so by setting new goals.

For me, the hardest thing has been allowing myself to compete (half-marathons and triathlons) when I know I'm not going to win, in fact there are times when I come in last. Times when people who've trained less than me have beat me. But by doing so I've been able to move on both physically and emotionally. I've learned not to compare myself with others, but to measure and celebrate my own achievements. I've learned that the safe place where you know you can win, is not the place you grow and improve.

I can't tell you how hard this has been. Seeing people packed up and going home when I am still finishing my race is hard, in fact it is heart breaking. The temptation to compare myself to others rather than look at my own achievements is persistent. Training for hours knowing that my improvements are going to be modest is the pits. But the lessons I've learned and continue to learn are priceless.

For a muscle to grow and develop, we first need to injure it. By lifting heavier weights, or more reps we create tiny tears in our muscles, but it is in the recovery from those tears that our muscles grow stronger.

Our heart is a muscle too.

So does it get easier? Only if you let it.