Woman’s Day‘s Karen Birkemoe has taken on a 12-week CrossFit workout challenge to shed some unwanted kilos. Find out what happened in her festive fourth week…
Holiday Spirit
I should have known something was up when Dani busted out the Christmas music on our December 1st workout. It just got bigger from there to the point where I showed up last Saturday for my workout and everyone was wearing Christmas costumes for their morning workout.
From a full foam Christmas Tree, Santa outfit, reindeer, little elves… the list goes on. They went for it and we’re talking super sweaty Christmas Spirit. I was relieved to just have my regular training session (with a Christmas T-shirt of course).
Old dog… new tricks
There are a few pieces of equipment at CrossFit Athletic that I had never seen before and I wasn’t sure exactly what they were for. First came the GHD (Glute Ham Raise/Developer) which looks like a Middle Ages torture device. It’s full on, you wedge your feet into one end and hang your torso off the other. Then you use all the strength you can muster in your glutes and hamstrings to lift yourself to be parallel to the floor. Half the battle is getting over your fear of falling out of the thing and flat on your face.
The Torsonator is another personal favourite. Really it’s just a barbell attached to the ground that pivots and rotates but I tell you if that thing doesn’t give me abs of steel I don’t think anything will.
The last little machine looks like a simple stationary bicycle but there is nothing innocent about it. Especially because of the way it’s used. I’m never on it for very long but even 20 seconds pushing for the maximum calories I can get feels like an eternity. Legs and arms pumping away every second feels like an eternity.
The Word from on high
Well just when I thought it couldn’t get any harder… Paul Walton stopped us on the way out to let us know we’d be moving into the “conditioning” phase of our workout. Pete was going to let us wait another couple of weeks but apparently we’re looking strong enough. I’m not exactly sure what that “conditioning” means but I have a feeling it has very little to do with having silky smooth hair. When I pressed Pete for what it would mean he said with a laugh that it meant we’d sweat…. Oh dear!
See www.crossfitathletic.com.au for more.
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