January 9, Day 9: pulling my knees back!

When I was a child learning to play the violin, I noticed something funny: when I was trying to master a new element, I would go through a period where my playing seemed to get worse for a while, and not better. 

So for example, I always had a good sense of intonation. I think I was born with that—it comes from having gifted, musical parents. They were always singing and making music, and I just breathed music in as I breathed the air. So after I learned the mechanics of putting my fingers in the right places on the fingerboard, playing in tune wasn’t so tough. I learned to play “Mary Had a Little Lamb” and “Twinkle, Twinkle” and lots of other songs out of the Suzuki books.

I thought I was pretty hot stuff until my teacher told me that there was this new thing I needed to learn to do. As a beginner, I only knew how to play in first position—my left hand stayed in one place, and I played only by moving my fingers up and down. In order for me to improve, I would need to learn to shift my hand up and down the fingerboard—playing in different positions, it’s called—so that I could play higher notes and with greater facility.

Learning this was hard. Really hard. I had to change everything about how I thought about my left hand worked. And my intonation, which I was so proud of, completely went to pot. Even when I played easy songs, they sounded terrible. For a while, anyway. After lots and lots of practicing, I got the hang of it and my intonation was better than before.

All this is to say that I have seen how this same concept applies in so many other aspects of life. Sometimes you get worse before you get better. For sure it applies to Crossfit!  

Today at ACF I was talking to a woman who was clearly new to crossfit. We were working on power cleans, and she was having trouble with that whole shrugging-and-then-getting-under-the-bar thing. She was looking pretty discouraged. I pointed out that I had been doing power cleans for almost four years and I still need a lot of coaching--there is always more room for fine-tuning! 

Today, Kevin was telling us as we were practicing lifting the barbell from the ground to above the knees--"pull your knees back!" I have been doing this for how long and I've never thought about that in just that way before, it kind of blew my mind. And then it's just like the experience of learning to shift into third position on the violin--everything else gets out of tune, for a little while at least. My power cleans (and I love the Oly lifts, by the way) felt awkward and hard because I was concentrating on this new idea. I walked away feeling like I needed to practice that exact thing--pulling my knees back--every day, until it became second nature. Maybe if I practice more, the way I *used* to practice the violin, I might actually improve my cleans one day. I guess practicing more is part of what this whole 90 day challenge is about.

Anyway, enough music--I mean, musing--on to the persnickety stuff.

What I ate: 

• 9 AM: 1 c cooked quinoa with a few raisins, 2 tbsp flaxseeds and 2 tbsp flax oil. I just love this for breakfast. digests easily, sustains a long time, contains protein and complex carbs and omega-3's and is tasty.
• 12 PM: post-WOD protein shake. 1 small banana, 1/2 c blueberries, 1/4 cup protein powder, 1/4 c coconut milk, 6 oz almond milk
• 1 PM: work meeting at Panera. Ordered a greek salad with 2x feta.
• 5:45 PM: broke out the awesome salad I prepped for myself this morning: greens, 2 hardboiled eggs, 8 baby carrots, 1 c lentil and chickpea sprouts, 1/2 avocado, 1/4 cup homemade tahini dressing. 
• 6 PM: a friend showed up for a meeting with a casserole she'd made just for me...so I put my salad away and took a scoop. Tasty comfort food: vegetarian shepherd's pie: mexican corn, cheese, and mashed potatoes on top.
• 9 PM: after my meeting was over, ate the rest of my salad.

What I exercised:

• 11 AM WOD.
• dynamic group warmup tossing medicine balls with a partner. Actually, fun.
• WOD: 10 rounds
  10 burpee pullups (I subbed 7 burpees + 10 ringrows)
  1 minute rest
  finished in 19 minutes even.
• 5x3 power cleans
  45, 55, 75, 75, 85

How I felt: good all day. Appetite under control, productive. During the WOD I felt great--energized and strong--and my last round of burpees + ringrows was as fast as my first. And as I said, I love working on power cleans!