Saturday 29.3: CF Open 14.5

Saturday. Crossfit Open 14.5: 21-18-15-12-9-6-3, thrusters (42.5kg), bar-facing burpees. Time 14.29.

One word: Brutal! The last workout of the Crossfit Open competition was announced the other night (Finnish time), with 5 past champions on the staage at the same time. The reigning champ Rich Froning dominated the workout by going unbroken all movements and ridiculing the barbell and burpees. It looked like he's moving a toothpick when he had the bar on his hands. I wanted my share of the feeling and suggested to Juuso we'd hit the workout together. Yesterday we were celebrating and went out with my work team but we both went home at midnight and prepared for the workout ahead of us. Earlier in the morning my bro had done the workout too. So it was time to hit the gym with Pauliina and Juuso.

Metcon. Crossfit Open 14.5. Time 14.29

• 21-18-15-12-9-6-3
• Thrusters, 42-5kg
• Bar-facing burpees

The number of reps was high. When you start adding the reps together, it climbs up to 84 reps for each movement. 84 thrusters sounds bad already before you've touched the barbell. Then add 84 burpees with a twist there. I've done bar-facing burpees only once in my life. The mental picture I have in my head was that I remember spinning around without knowing which way to go. But I guess that's part of the 10 elements needed in crossfit: coordination, agility and balance in this case.

I think CF Open 2014 covered all elements

I heard my bro went to complete this workout at a local affiliate in the morning. He did a good job there so I had some pressure about getting the work done in shorter time than he. It's part of the bro-rivalry =) He revealed his strategy of cutting the thrusters in 2 sets. Considering my strength level I knew I have to cut most of the thrusters in 2 sets but I had planned to go unbroken on the first round. Decided to make it 14+7 instead because of my bro's tip. That was probably a good thing. This was a long workout so gassing yourself in the beginning brings problems in the end.

You have to know your own limits and capabilities. It turned out I knew mine pretty well. There were no setbacks during the workout, everything went as planned. What surprised me was that the burpees were tougher than the thrusters. No doubt the thrusters were burning my shoulders but they were more manageable than the bar-facing burpees. Don't know if it was the hop over the bar or what but it got tougher by the rep.

So on the first round I cut the thrusters in 14+7, on the second set it was 10+8. My clear plan was to finish them in 2 attemps all the way by completing most of the reps on first attempt. That's because there's a mental side of it. I didn't want to do them 50/50 because by doing most of the reps at first you understand there's just couple of reps left to complete so you don't rest that much between the attempts. If I had gone for 50/50 I think I would have taken more time off the bar than I now did.

On the round of 15 I did 9+6 reps, and then next round it was 8+4. At this stage I decided to do the remaining sets of thrusters unbroken, no matter what. And that planned stuck till the end, the round of 9's, 6's and 3's went ub. I tried to grab the bar as quickly as possible in the two last rounds because there wasn't much left to agonize.

On the burpees the amount of reps felt hopeless at times. Comparing the bar-facing burpees to regular burpees these felt like a never-ending movement. It honesty felt like the number of them is not going down at all. I had decided beforehand that no matter what kind of feelings would come up I would push them somewhere in the background and just grind through. At some point there was gonna be just a couple of reps ahead of me. And finally the last rep was done at 14.29.

I'm proud of this guy, Juuso, a brand new crossfitter I was able to brainwash to this great sport. He's been doing some spectacular workouts with me lately. Today he hit this CF Open workout, the first one in his life. Great battle, well done man!

What was toughest on this workout? Muscle pain in the shoulder area. Both movements burnt the same area. Breathing was also heavy from the beginning. That's always the case when you have thrusters in play. This is mental workout for sure. Don't rest too much between reps. Just do it.

Here's the first 10min of my workout. My camera can only record 10min at a time