Saturday 27.12: CJ, Front squat, Bear Complex

Saturday. Emom, C&J, 1 rep @ 90kg, for 8min. Front squat 7x5 (110-115kg). Bear Complex, 10 reps @ 60kg.

Getting back to barbell work after Christmas! I had lots of anticipation to get my hands on a bar after couple of days break. It was definitely great to play with kettlebells, wall balls, rings and sled for a while but now it was time to get back to build some strength.

Clean and jerk.

• Every minute on the minute
• 1 clean and jerk @ 90kg, for 8min

This weight is not light for me. I know it's a baby weight for lots of crossfitters out there but for me this is something I need to work on. Max load is a three-digit figure but this is not far away from it. I figured there was kinda rest days earlier this week so my body should be pretty well prepared for this one. Okay, my legs were smashed from all the wb + kb work. My hamstrings were tight as hell. Answer to this might be squats haha

Anyway, I'm happy on my technique with the c&j's. No misses at all. Cleans were pretty solid. I should have brought the bar higher on my thighs and extend my hips more, that's something I believe needs to be corrected. Haven't watched the video yet but that's my first instinct. On the jerks the bar's path was vertical which pleases me a lot. It didn't travel forward which means to say something was done right.

Clean and jerks

Squats.

• Front squat 7x5 (115, 112.5, 112.5, 112.5, 110, 110, 110kg)

Just before I took off from home I checked how much was I supposed to lift on those sets of 5's. Had to take another breath as I looked it stated 115kg for a total of 7 sets. That's a freaking huge volume for me. I thought let's give it a shot, and took the first set at the planned weight. It was tough so I dropped 2.5kg and went on with that for the next couple of sets.

Those started to get on my strength a lot so I dropped another 2.5kg and finished the last 3 sets at 110kg. Each of today's sets was heavy. I'm glad for being able to smash through all 7 sets in spite of the fatigue in my legs. Last 1-2 reps of most of the sets were a mental battle for the most part.

Squats

Bear complex.

• 10 reps of Bear Complex @ 60kg:
• 1 power clean
• 1 front squat
• 1 jerk
• 1 back squat
• 1 jerk

Toni did a version of ascending ladder of classic Bear Complex. That inspired me to try it out in a bit different way at the end of this training session. I kept the weight the same at 60kg all the time, just took 10 reps and brought different kind of stimulus to my body compared to Toni's where he started at 40kg, added 5kg every 90 seconds and hit it as heavy as possible. This was more like muscle endurance type of workout.

Bear Complex

Good one, I liked. This would be a good one for let's say 30 reps for time. I've done 30 thrusters for time, 30 clean and jerk for time (Grace), 30 snatches for time (Isabel), and 30 squat cleans for time. This would be a great add to that group of benchmarks.