dry heaving at Albuquerque CrossFit

I decided to train at Albuquerque CrossFit last night. They have olympic weightlifting classes on Tuesday nights. The box (gym) is really close to my house. & They also have a trainer there who's pretty good at coaching weightlifting, Joe Vegil. The only thing I don't like is everyone is in great shape. By great shape I mean crazy hard muscles and unbelievable 6 packs. I'm 5'11" 325 pounds. I'm the total opposite of ever other person in there.
During the warm up I felt very okut of place so i did warm ups behind everyone else in the hope that no one will notice me. Finally we start lifting. I grab a rack in the far corner. I'm trying the "out of sight out of mind" approach. And just my luck, the person who's in the best shape and is the most beautiful in the entire gym sets up right behind me.

She's also strong as heck, she was lifting as much as I am the entire workout. I'm feeling a little inadequate. To make myself feel better I say to myself, "you're an olympic style weightlifter. Let's show all these beautiful people what great weightlifting form looks like." And I do. My form was really good last night. 

As I'm lifting I'm trying to not breath heavily. I'm already imbarrassed by being three times the size of everyone else. I don't want to make it even more obvious that I'm out of shape by gasping for breath in between sets. A little over half way through the workout, I'm adding more weight to the bar and I inhale a bug. I immediately cough and then my cough turns into dry heaving! I'm gagging because I have an insect wiggling around in my lungs, but no one else knows why. I'm sure it appeared that I was dry heaving because I'm in such bad shape. I was hoping she didn't notice. So inbetween dry heaves I glanced out of the corner of my eye to see if she saw me gagging and making a fool out of myself. And she did. She was staring at me with a look of concern on her face. I was so imbarrassed. But, regardless of the humiliation I'll be back on Thursday night. Hopefully this time I won't make an ass out of myself.

weightlifting gym choices

My work schedule makes it so I'm only able to train at High Dessert Athletic Club with coach Joaquin Chavez on Saturdays. The rest of the week I've been lifting at a powerlifting gym. I'm miserable weightlifting at a powerlifting gym. They're great people there. But I'm the only one doing olympic style. It's not fun by myself.

The only other place I've found that i can fit weightlifting around my work schedule is Albuquerque CrossFit on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. The coaches there aren't real big on correcting form unless someone asks. But even without much guidance it's still better than being the only weightlifter in the entire gym. So starting on Tue I'll be training at both Albuquerque CrossFit and High Dessert Athletic Club.

I post bid and shift bid mid October. I'm hoping I can get a schedule that fits with HDAC. I love it there. And I got the best gains of my life there.

change of work schedule

My Captain called me and told me my work schedule is changing.... again. It sucks being the rookie at my new job. But this time my new work schedule benifits weightlifting training. I'll be able to train with Joaquin Chaves of High Dessert Athletic Club on Fridays and Saturdays. On Mondays and Wednesdays I'll train at Iron Soul. Earlier this week I was struggling to decide which of my three gym memberships I should cancel. Because of the new schedule I'll be unable to continue training at Albuquerque CrossFit. In October I'll be doing my first post bid. My number one goal is to get a work schedule that I'll be able to train at High Dessert Athletic Club 4 days a week. I'm really impressed with the coach, training, and team enviroment there.

3 gym memberships

I've been going to High Dessert Athletic Club (HDAC) and have been trained by Joaquin Chaves since we moved to Albuquerque in April. HDAC is only open a couple hours 6 days a week. In case i miss the 2 hour training a day thatHDAC is open I have another gym membership at Iron Soul, a wonderful little powerlifting gym that has 24 hour access, drop plates, and a bar that spins. The only down side to Iron Soul is I'm usually the only olympic style weightlifter in the gym. And it sucks working out alone. I recently started lifting at Albuquerque CrossFit because they have weightlifting classes that are held at a time of the week that I'm unable to train at HDAC. So now I have three gym memberships. I think its resonable to have a gym membership at two gyms in case I miss training at one of them. But having three is rediculous. I need to figure out which gym I'm going to drop, Iron Soul or Albuquerque CrossFit.  Obviously I'm keeping HDAC. I'll train with Joaquin as long as I'm living in Albuquerque and Joaquin is coaching. But one of the other ones has got to go. Which one?

4th session at Albuquerque CrossFit

Last night I had my 4th training session at Albuquerque CrossFit. My form was poor and I kept missing cleans.  Joe came over and told me what I was doing wrong. I did my last two sets of doubles at %80 and they felt great. I'm really impressed by his coaching ability.

The CF coach I call Dick was at Albuquerque CrossFit tonight. The first time i met him he was an A-hole. He jumped down my throat 3 or times over small stuff he should of left alone. Tonight he was great.  Very friendly and personable. Perhaps the first night I met him he was just having a bad night. Everyone has them.

My strength has been increasing so much recently I decided to start taking creatine monohydrate again. If i can gain that much while dieting and without supplaments, I can't imagine how great I'll do while taking creatine.

workout number three at Albuquerque CrossFit

Today was my third training session of olympic style weightlifting at Albuquerque CrossFit. It was great. Jen B ran the class. She has a tremendous amount of weightlifting knowledge and is great at explaining it. The first two training sessions were ran by Joe. He was also awesome.  I met a couple more of the coaches today. They were really supportive and friendly. So far only one of the coaches was a dick to me. I can ignore one bad apple for great coaching and a training time that works well with the odd hours at my new career. I've decided to join to train there the days I'm unable to train at High Dessert Athletic Club.

ready for the 2nd annual John Davis memorial weightlifting meet!

Today was the best day of training of my entire life. I did snatch pulls, snatch pulls from the blocks, snatch dead lift/snatch pull from the knee combo's, snatch cleans, and 17 sets of snatches building to %80! I didnt drop a single repetition the entire session! I'm really excited about the 2nd annual John Davis memorial weightlifting meet on July 23rd.  I think I may finally get my dream of a 225k total!

I'll be training at Albuquerque CrossFit for the third time Sunday morning.

strike one

Yesterday I went in for my 2nd olympic weightlifting training session at Albuquerque CrossFit. The first time I trained here I was so impressed I was planning on signing a membership contract while i was there. But my mind was changed real quick on my 2nd visit by an employee with a big mouth and no filter of what he says or how it comes out. I may still sign up later, but I'm going to pay a drop in fee a few times to see if that employee is always a jerk or if I just caught him on a bad day. If he treats me like crap again I won't be coming back, which is probably going to be worse on me than them. I need a place to train after work. And it's rare to find a weightlifting coach with as good of an eye for technique and knowledge of form as Joe Vigil. 

(Joe Vigil, weightlifting coach, super friendly and supportive Albuquerque CrossFit coach)

The first time i was at Abq CF I was told i could bring in my kids as long as they were well behaved. I couldnt find a babysitter last night so i brought my 2 sons. Usually my kids hate me taking them to the gym because they have to sit there quietly for an hour and a half. But this time I told them about the area for kids that had toys at Albuquerque CrossFit. They were SO excited to go there!  When we got there the kids went to enter the kids area and a dog that was locked inside the kids area started barking at them like crazy. One of the trainers came out in a rush and told me "we discourage people from bringing their kids here".  I told him last time I was here so-and-so said I could bring the kids. He barked "it's a liability". 

"So does that mean what so-and-so said was wrong?"  He mumbled something under his breath.  Still not sure what the hell was going on I asked, "So can I work out or do we need to leave?"

He said, "get some chairs, they can sit in  the hallway. Don't let them near the dog he's scetchy." Three questions popped into my head:

1) why is there a kids area if no kids are allowed in there?

2) why the hell is someone bringing a dog who doesn't like people to a buisness where's there's always people?

3) why's this guy being so nasty to potential customers? Isn't that bad buisness? 

The only chairs I saw was in the kids area where apparently no kids are allowed. So I went to get the chairs and the dog got pissed off and started barking again. The employee ran over and stopped me from going in and told me in a rude  tone, "just let me get them." After he got the chairs I set my boys up in a way that they both could watch a movie on my phone but still be out of the way. While I was setting up the chairs the guy mumbled something while walking away from me about "no kids". Not 5 minutes later a lady walks right by him into the workout area with her very young child, about 14 months old, in a stroller. He doesn't say a danm thing to her bringing a baby into the training area where people are throwing weights around but he jumped all over my ass for my kids being in a hallway away from any training and barbells getting thrown all over? I think it's wonderful shes able to bring her kid with her when she works out. But why is it ok for one person but i get an ear full? Not cool. Not cool at all. I hope this problem doesn't repeat itself. I really want to train olympic style weightlifting here. Its the only place I've found that has oly weightlifting with a coach (a fantastic coach!) that late in the evening, and the location is perfect because it's on my way home from work.

Here's a picture of the "no kids allowed" children's play area. And there's my youngest staring longingly at all the toys no children are allowed to play with.

Olympic style weightlifting at Albuquerque CrossFit

My work schedule has changed and I found myself only able to train with my coach and my team on Saturdays. That left me training 3 times a week without a coach and without my team. Alone. Weightlifting by myself sucks. I found out Albuquerque CrossFit has a weightlifting class starting at 7pm on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. Those are exactly the days and times I'm available to lift with my new schedule. So tonight I tried Albuquerque CrossFit's weightlifting class. First thing I noticed was there was more people there who had 6 pack abs than I've ever seen in my life. In addition to being in incredible shape they were all... well..... georgous. I'm nothing like them at all. I'm 40 years old, bald, wear glasses, and weigh 310 pounds. I haven't seen my toes in half a decade. I've finally gotten to the point in my life that I'm comfortable with myself and how I look, but i felt really out of place there.

I did the group warm up and then started doing my weightlifting program. I noticed I was the only one doing my own program. Everyone else was doing the exact same weightlifting workout. I was afraid that was going to be a problem. But everyone seemed fine with it.

The coach, Joe, was really knowledgeable and threw out some really great advice on fixing some of my bad form. He noticed right away my calves are really really tight and he suggested working on my calf mobility. I wasn't expecting a CF coach to be that good at coaching weightlifting. Out of the 4 weightlifting coaches I've tried out I'd rate him in the top two! I was there an hour and a half. I was focusing on weightlifting as best I could and doing my best at ignoring all the beautiful people around me all doing the same thing and looking great doing it. I was hoping like hell I didn't stick out as badly as I felt I did.

All in all I'm happy I went there and i tried it out. I was impressed with the coaching. He had a great eye for technique. Which is rare in weightlifting.

I'm really happy I found Albuquerque CrossFit. It's only $75 a month for the weightlifting classes. No contract. Very reasonable. I think I'll like it a lot. I'm hoping I'll feel more comfortable and fit in a little better with the other athletes as i train there more.

weightlifting 4 days a week! Hurray!

It's funny how things end up working out for the best even when I'm not expecting it to.

The only reason I was willing to move to Albuquerque was because of the amazing weightlifting. Outside of the weightlifting i dont really like this city. But Albuquerque is a meca of weightlifting. And I really love weightlifting.

Recently my work schedule changed and I'm only able to train with my coach once a week. Training three days a week on my own without a coach or team mates sucks. Last night I was talking to a couple of my weightlifting team mates about my predicament. They let me know there's a place who's coaching schedule fits my new work schedule perfectly. I'm not changing gyms, I'll still be training with my primary weightlifting coach, Joaquin Chaves of High Dessert Athletic Club, on Saturdays. He's the bomb, I love that guy.

So on Tuesday after work I'll be checking out Albuquerque CrossFit. If the coach at Alb CF is a good fit for me and it's affordable I'll be training there on Tuesdays, Thursdays, and Sundays. On Saturdays I'll be training at High Dessert Athletic Club. Man, I can't tell you how badly I hope I can afford it and their coaching is good!