Wednesday 5.3: Back squats and CF Open 13.2

Wednesday. Back squats 2-1-1-1 @ 140kg. Crossfit Open 13.2, 10min amrap of: shoulder-to-overhead (52.5kg), 10 deads (52.5kg), 15box. Result 237 reps.

Time for another squat day. That's definitely something I've forced myself to love. I recommend it to every one. I believe it benefits the overall preparedness when your legs are in shape and ready to keep the engine going. First it was heavy squats @ 140kg and then I reminisced last year's Crossfit Open by performing one of those workouts.

Strength.

• Back squats 2-1-1-1 (across 140kg)

I had in mind to take a couple of reps @ 140kg. For warm-up I took sets with 60, 80, 105 and 125kg. I was thinking about how to reach 140kg for the first time. Should I take a step somewhere around 130-135kg before making it to the final weight. The 125kg bar felt good so I decided to jump 15kg up to 140kg.

Double squat @ 140kg

I had an ambitious thought about making doubles at this weight. It was my 1 rep max for a long time. Some weeks ago I renewed it with a small increase to 142.5kg which currently stands as my max load. Having 98% of my max lift is not a walk in the park. Had an ambitious thought about completing doubles. It's already something considering I have lifted this weight up only twice in my life time. Both singles naturally, with months between the lifts.

Squat @ 140kg

You'll see the first set above. This is a day to put in the history books; a double @ 140kg, c'mon! I rested properly before attempting to the next set. The bar was a little too heavy for more doubles so I went on with singles. End result was 5 reps in total, a double and 3 singles.

Metcon. Result 237. Compare to 16.3.2013

• Crossfit Open 13.2
• 10 min amrap of:
• 5 shoulder-to-overhead, 52.5kg
• 10 deadlift, 52.5kg
• 15 box jump, 61cm

I've been thinking about the Open lately because it's very current topic in the crossfit world now. I thought about last year's workouts and remembered doing this wod - CF Open 13.2 - with a taste of blood in my mouth. What I remember from this workout was that it was a bad ass. Breathing heavy at all times, legs getting burned and overall it was a miserable experience, classic crossfit!

And I recalled it correctly, it was nasty. I improved my performance a little. Not tremendously but still improved. I watched the video from last year yesterday and noticed I was moving pretty much all the time. So I was wondering how could I save some time. Just thought about trying to keep the body moving constantly. Okay I got all the reps done unbroken. But if you look at the scores from last year's scoreboard, the best athletes completed way over 100 reps than I was able. That is sick. I'm wondering how those studs were able to move so quickly. And it's impressive that they have such a strong engine.

The bar was 115lbs (=52.5kg) and thus light. Had no problems in moving the bar. Toughest part of this one was box jumps, without a doubt. Those heavy squats may have had some effect because I felt my quads getting burned already on the second round of box jumps. Wouldn't have thought them to get smoked so soon.

This was a very good crossfit workout. 10 minutes is a short time but sometimes it feels it takes ages to finish. Got to almost 120 box jumps and that's naturally the reason my lower body was smashed.