Pumping Iron in Prague

When I signed up for the Vienna half marathon, my friend said he'd meet me in Vienna to cheer on me if we also went to Prague.  I agreed, but I envisioned Prague as a bleak and cheerless place.  I expected Arthur Phillip's Prague, and I wasn't especially excited about.  

Given that, I was shocked to arrive in what I can only describe as the 'Europe" of Hayao Miyazaki's imagination.  

That's Prague Castle on top of the hill

I fell in love.

I had three workout days in Prague.  On the first, I visited the Alchymist Grand Hotel (the sister hotel of my hotel) to check out their gym.  The hotel is comprised of a few 16th century buildings, and the gym and spa were located down a flight of stairs.  This was the first time I ever worked out under a chandelier.  It was pretty funky.  They had some free weights in addition to the cardio machines, so I put together a decent routine.

 For my second workout, I went to drop in on a WOD at CrossFit Praha.

The workout had a different structure than any WOD I'd done before.  There were six rounds.  The first round was 24 situps.  The second round was 24 situps and 20 lunges.  The third was 24 situps, 20 lunges and 16 kettlebell swings and so on so that the fourth round added 12 push-ups, the fifth added eight burpee pull-ups and the last round added on a 135 lb deadlift.  

I finished in 23:34.

Zdenek, the owner, is awesome and I definitely recommend stopping by if you are ever in the area.  (They also have some pretty badass t-shirts.)

For my last workout in Prague, I took an early morning run over the bridges.  It was beautiful, but running on cobblestone isn't super pleasant.  That's probably the only thing keeping me from signing up for a race in Prague.

Charles Bridge early in the morningI'll definitely make my way back there someday, though.

-Gym Belle-

The Art of the Pull-up

Dressy pull-ups on a friend's roof deckI did my very first pull-up in July of 2010, and, since then, pull-ups have become one of my favorite things to do.  (Apparently, anywhere.)  There's something very satisfying about just sort of dangling off a bar and then hoisting yourself up over it.

My goal for this spring was to do 10 in a row without leaving the bar.  It hasn't happened yet, and it may still take a while.  My max is seven, and I'm generally psyched if I manage five in a row.  Often, it's just two or three.

It's frustrating that it's taking me so long to string together more consecutive reps, but at least I'm getting stronger.  On Saturday morning, I did 50 in total.  Most were singles or doubles and they were broken up over the course of a workout that took me nearly 45 minutes.  Still, 50 pull-ups is a lot of pull-ups, and way more than I had ever done in one workout. 

So, yay.

-Gym Belle-

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