Sunday. CF Open 14.4. Result, 184 reps. Accessory, 5rds of: 40m farmer's walk (135kg), handstand.
Old school benchmark which I have somehow been able to avoid this far. It was about time to attack it. After couple of minutes rest it was time for accessory work in the form of strongman meets skills. Farmer's walk set for 40 meters and handstand practice between carries. It's been months since being in freestand handstand.
CF Open 14.4. Result, 184 reps (4 muscle-ups)
14min amrap of:
60 cal row
50 toes-to-bar's
40 wall ball shots
30 power cleans
20 ring muscle-ups
The thing that got me terrified on this workout as I was thinking about was basically the power cleans and muscle-ups. Everything prior to that is just basic conditioning, and I kind of think that's in okay shape in my part.
Rowing was kind of a cool ride and I kept a smooth breathing throughout that stage. It was quite accurately 800 meters of rowing with a 1.48 pace. It's rare to complete a big bunch of t2b's in a row so I decided to go by feeling on this one. Took 10 reps to begin with, then 5's from then on.
Wall balls were the easiest part of this workout, took them in two sets, 25 at first and then 15 to reach a total of 40 repetitions. Those power cleans at this stage of the workout with a rather good heart beat was interesting. The bar felt good in my hands all the time and the weight wasn't too heavy. But it just gets heart beat a lot heavier. Took these in singles for all 30 reps. First a 10 rep stint, then 5's till the end. My heart was racing pretty wildly after these.
Got to admit my body wasn't eager to jump on the rings after working for 12 minutes of rowing, t2b's, wb's and cleans. Damn it felt heavy to get myself on top of the rings. Got a double at first attempt, then two singles. They look easier than they felt and this got me thinking should I have forced myself to jump on the rings earlier with less recovery.
CF Open 14.4
Strongman / Skills.
5 rounds of:
40m farmer's walk @ 135kg
Handstand
Strongman meets skills. Very different type of elements. There were 2x25kg bumper plates on each handle so that means the total weight was 135kg for the farmer's walk. This was not a timed workout, more of an accessory work. It's been months since doing handstand so it was fun to get upside down and attack this skill. It was a good combination of movements.
Huh we were running errands with Pauliina for something close to 7-8 hours in a row. That was probably not the most ideal preparation for training session. But that was not the first priority for today anyway. I thought I'm happy if there is enough time to hit it at all =) After we came home I jumped in the car right away and started focusing on 16.4 which was released the previous day.
Saturday's cheat meal
CF Open 16.4. Result, 196 reps (31 hspu)
13min amrap of:
55 deadlift @ 102.5kg
55 wall ball shots
55 cal row
55 handstand push-ups
I watched Ro vs. Boz battle from Crossfit's Youtube channel (check below). That made me think about the strategy how to approach this one. The thing that got me intimidated was the combination of deadlifts right into wall balls. That sounds like a murder for lower back. Anyway, Rory seemed to do a deadlift set every 30 seconds. I figured going for that same game plan and see how it turns out. It was the perfect decision for me too. Went 5x10 reps and then 5 reps to finish it.
Tried to go for the first set of wall balls quickly and start moving. It was probably 15 reps to kick it off. Then it was mostly 10's with rather small breaks. This started to feel more in my legs and maybe lungs. Don't know, maybe it was just an overall feeling.
It took me about 15 seconds to get to the rower even though my focus was to get to the saddle soon and start moving the "boat", no matter the pace. No idea of the speed I had on this rowing piece. Tried to just pace myself and get breathing settled in the beginning and then stick to the pace.
CF Open 16.4
The most challenging part of this one strength-wise was the handstand push-ups. I have those pretty well under control but going for 55 reps in a row is not a piece of cake. I went 10 to start them, then 6 and 4 reps, little by little they went to smaller pieces. Those got hard, no doubt. End result was a total of 31 hspu's and 198 reps for 16.4.
Friday. CF Open 16.3. 7min amrap of: 10 power snatch @ 35kg, 3 bar mu's. Result, 71 reps.
It was freaking great to have a chance to workout at Toni's new affiliate. This was the second time I went there. The place is the coolest crossfit box I have ever seen. We were supposed to hit this newest crossfit open workout together they released last night. Looked like a nice workout as each and every one of them have looked like this far. Toni was busy running last minute errands for tomorrow's introduction class at the box.
This looked a bit intimidating as neither of the elements were too difficult / challenging. But the clock is the frightening factor here. It's quite a short one so you shouldn't have excuses for taking breaks. On the other hand, it was a no-brainer that this is going to murder forearms. I said that the minute I saw this workout was released and that was exactly the thing, at least in my case. Jumped on this without warm-up as both elements are light anyway and I only had a limited time to hang around.
Doing sets of 10 reps with light snatches is deceptive as it's easy in the beginning and round by round it gets more painful. I did both elements unbroken as I figured it's time consuming to start picking the barbell up again or being ready to jump up to the pull-up rig again. I believe it was a good choice. Don't know what would have happened if I cut the recovery times in the transitions. That would have most definitely brought issues on being able to go unbroken.
Great Sunday! It's Valentine's Day so we hooked up with some friends for Sunday brunch, enjoyed that time and then went to the gym in the evening with my wife. Couldn't be better. Re-test of an old crossfit open workout from 2013. Development has taken place.
Long story short. This went well. I'm fitter than before if I choose to believe this test. And I will. My snatch max load has not gone up tremendously since previous time doing this one but obviously muscle endurance and technique has.
Should have gassed more on the snatches. I realized that a bit too late though. I took some rest between singles. I have never done more than couple singles at 60kg so this was a new situation for me. It was also a huge win for me mentally. It felt like that bar was going up rather easily. At least considering what I thought about this beforehand. In the end I was able to speed it up. And after the 17 minutes were over I decided to continue to finish 30 snatches to get a piece of the feeling of benchmark workout Isabel.
CF Open 13.1
Metcon.
5 rounds of:
300m row
12 pull-ups
Had no time to recover between workouts so I just ripped the plates off the barbell and sat on the rower. Didn't time this at all. Rowing was not full effort, more easily this time. On the pull-ups there was no other option but to go unbroken, keep the legs tied together and focus on utilizing my hips. Good workout.
Great session! My legs were out of control due to yesterday's training session. I took couple of push jerks to get used to heavier weights before the metcon, then hit one benchmark workout from the 2012 Crossfit Open. In the end it was just some extra work to flush my legs from that tough workout.
This is something I've done maybe 3 times or so. It's gone to my guts every single time. Today it was tough because my legs were burning after the first round. Monday's training session had its effect for sure. But hey, actually something good happened before the timer went on. I took push jerks up to 85kg which is heaviest I've ever done this style. It was 5x40, 50, 60kg, then 3x70, 1x80 and 85kg. And that last rep felt very good and stabile, no problem whatsoever. There was room for record for sure.
Back to the workout. Box jumps and t2b's were unbroken each round. Boxes definitely take care that breathing is sky rocketing throughout the workout. But the burn came just after the box jumps had been completed. They went fine and I got a good rhythm every round.
T2b's were unbroken too. My grip started to slip on the last rounds but there was no doubt of hitting them in a row every round. Core felt great on those. But the beef of this wod is the part where barbell action takes place, hands down. I've tried both styles: unbroken and breaking it to two sets. Of course unbroken sounds good but that takes a bit more recovery between movements.
Today I went on by feeling. First 2 rounds were unbroken, then I started to complete it in 7-5 for most of the rounds. At some point I did 8-4. Damned I was sweating a lot, and heart beat was heavy for probably the last 15 minutes. There was some mental strength though as I was able to still keep moving, and keeping the transitions modest. End result was a PR which is always good news.
Workout. Not for time
5 rounds of:
300m row
15 ghd sit-ups
My tank was pretty much empty after the main workout of the day and legs didn't recover enough to hit another metcon with full force. So this portion was more like to do some extra work, and recover so tomorrow I'd be back in action. And legs especially. Pace was slow on the rower but ghd's unbroken. There I tried to engage hip flexors more than before.
Friday. Back squat doubles (max 137.5kg). Deadlift doubles (max 200kg). CF Open 14.3, result 130 reps.
This is the day when my 2 week holiday began, kaboom! It will be warmly welcomed in my heart. What this means is a lot of sleep, lots of training and a good bunch of food stuffed in my throat. I celebrated that with good load of posterior chain work.
Strength.
Back squat doubles (110, 125, 130, 135, 137.5), 1x140kg
Squats were quite tough on the heavier sets. Somehow emom training even on squats feel better than having a good break between reps. When the clock is running, heart rate is higher and I'm sweating much more and feel prepared for the strength work.
Today's goal was to climb up on the weights, little by little. I was hoping to hit something beyond 140kg but this time I got only one single at that weight. Gotta get more of these heavy reps so my body gets used to them. It's a different thing to complete triple at 130kg than a single at 140-145kg.
Couldn't avoid the Friday pulls. There was a time when I didn't do deadlifts at all. Basically it was last autumn because of the Smolov squat program. It felt hard to squat after deadlift day. This year I solved this "problem" by pulling heavy stuff from floor on Fridays. On Saturday I'll hit a longer lower pace workout, somewhere around 25-40 minutes, and Sunday is reserved for gymnastics. That's been the base schedule lately.
Last time when I pulled heavier stuff it felt like my fingers are about to get cut off from the rest of my hand. I hadn't taken good care of my hands and there were calluses which I tried to prevent my holding the bar basically with my fingers. That was not cool. This time I had good hand maintenance beforehand which allowed me to take a good grip on the barbell with my entire palm.
This allowed me to concentrate fully on putting gall the pressure on my back and hamstrings. And the bar felt much lighter than last time because of this. Took quite a leap from 110 -> 150kg but the bar was moving with good speed there as well. I kept adding 10kg on the barbell. At some point I realized there's 190kg and I had never taken more than a single at this weight. Today it was a double and it didn't feel the max so I took a real milestone weight upon me. Freaking awesome to get a double at 200kg!
Huh, what a tough workout. My legs were fired from the previous strength work and it was definitely not ideal for getting the best possible result on this one. Still, I got only 2 reps less than last time. Box jumps were okay but after deadlifts they also maintained the heart rat low.
My back was shot already on the round of 85kg deads. Definitely due to the earlier pulls and squats. I didn't look back at my strategy from year ago but at least the beginning seemed similar. Box jumps unbroken, and the first round of deads unbroken too. Then, 10-5 on the 85kg deads, and maybe 5's on the round of 102.5kg's.
Next set of deadlifts was heavy. Damned the barbell weighed like a ton. And my back was fired up big time. Year ago at this stage it was 5's in the beginning, and then came down to 4's and 3's. This time it was more like 3-4 reps in the beginning, and then after 15 reps it was doubles to the finish. Having to complete the reps in smaller sets obviously took some time compared to last 14.3 attempt.
I still had the time to push through the last set of box jumps in the remaining 30 second time window. I'm happy on the way I got this one done. Last time I had time to do 3 more reps at 145kg but it was the only single workout for that day. And it would have been enough for one session but I wanted some squats and heavy deads done as well. Great session!
We were going to a a theater with Pauliina and a great friend couple. It was a show called Speksi, a traditional theater organized entirely by university students, this time it was medical students, future doctors. It was once again a blast, great show and awesome dancing too. We've hit it couple of times with Miia and Jake earlier too, they rock! =) Had to sneak in for a short workout. I dug in some old Open workouts and went after one of my favorites, Open 12.3.
This is probably the longest Open workouts there is in the field of Crossfit. At least the longest I've seen and done. For a while the feeling was great and fresh, quite soon though it becomes a little unpleasant (in a good vibe way). And at some point it starts to burn your guts from the inside, then it's just about pushing through and ignoring the voices in your head that tell you to slow down. I felt like a king after this workout! Got a better result than ever even though I've had e running nose for days now and my plan was to take it a notch easier than normally.
Strategy was to pace myself on the box jumps, unbroken but no need to have a panic mode pace on those. Just keep the body moving. Boxes kept my heart rate up and legs warm. I took a break before touching the barbell. This is where the difference is done on this workout, those shoulder-to-overhead's. It's a good question whether you should aim to go unbroken or break the sets.
I've tried both. Once I did those unbroken but that resulted in me having to get myself together before moving on. Plus I had to pause after boxes before getting my hands on the barbell. On another time I made those sets in two attempts. Today my strategy was clear. Box and t2b unbroken, and s2o's in 7-5 each set. And I stuck to that plan every round. Also on the first round even though it wasn't heavy at this point. It was important because that might have fatigued my shoulders too early on.
Yesterday I pressed / jerked for 5k of iron overhead and today was similar amount of weights being moved from front rack to overhead. My shoulders still feel great. T2b's were the easiest part of the entire workout. Awesome workout every time I've done this, and I felt like I deserved the show for the evening in good company!
Sunday. Skills, muscle-ups. CF Open 15.4, result 71 reps.
Yesterday was an easier day with just couple of rope climbs in the books so I really wanted to get back in action. It was time for the weekly doze of muscle-ups. Plus the CF Open that was released couple of days ago seemed like an interesting workout so I decided to throw down for it. First Open wod I've done this season.
Skills.
Muscle-ups
Instead of just knocking muscle-ups for fun I paid more attention to how my feet work on those repetitions. They traditionally go here and there which is absolutely not efficient. And if I ever want these to be a strength of mine, that's not the way to do muscle-ups.
So I tied my feet together with a resistance band and hoped that would make a difference. This is something I might do with bar mu's as well. My technique on them is already much more solid than on the rings. Someday they'll maybe match. Hopefully… :)
It felt awkward to have that band preventing my feet to go apart from each other. For sure it made good things, and maybe I can deceive my body and muscle memory this way to think that's they way to do them.
It's freaking awesome that I have muscle-ups in the first place, even though there's tons of work to be done. And I felt immediately that this place was more difficult than the one I practiced on last weekend in Klaukkala. Only because this place is little too low. The ceiling is not as high as I'd like to. Unconsciously I keep my legs a little bent because I'm afraid they'll hit the floor. And those rings can not be set higher, otherwise my head will be hitting the roof or the pipes hanging from there. Yes, these are all good excuses. Just do the work, don't bitch about it.
Anyways, those muscle-ups kind of got to my left elbow for some reason and it got sore. Almost dropped the Open workout before it even started. Cleans were okay. Heavy but okay. But hspu's felt tough in the warm-up. That elbow bothered me a little.
CF Open 15.4. Result, 71 reps (5 hspu's in the round of 18's)
As many rounds as possible, in 8 minutes of:
3 hspu + 3 clean, 85kg
6 hspu + 3 clean, 85kg
9 hspu + 3 clean, 85kg
12 hspu + 6 clean, 85kg
15 hspu + 6 clean, 85kg
18 hspu + 6 clean, 85kg
Continue the pattern as far as possible
This really looked like potentially a great workout. And it was. Mixing handstand push-ups and cleans has never been a bad idea. One thing was a bit intimidating on this workout. My squat clean is rather strong with 115kg but then again 95kg is the heaviest I've power cleaned ever.
So it was obvious those might turn heavy after couple of reps. Hspu's are something I'm confident with normally. Now the pain in elbow was a little disturbing but I wasn't gonna bail because of that. The rep scheme was cool too. Usually these come in identically but this was biased for hspu's. Better that way because the bar was rather heavy.
CF Open 15.4
You can see the video above of the workout. I'm happy on the way I performed. If there is something I'd do better, it's hspu's. They felt heavy early on as I already explained. Plan was to go by feeling but my expectation was to do the round of 9's still unbroken, and then cut it to smaller sets. It would have also been awesome to drop the barbell after every rep but this gym wouldn't take it too good. Small difference but mentally that's big.
Sunday. Emom, 1 hang squat clean + 1 squat clean. Start at 80, add 2.5kg per min. Result (100kg). Metcon, 17min amrap of: burpees and snatches. Result, 150 reps.
Now this was a good day. Back on track! I took on cleans for barbell work, always a sure bet. I love the movement. You need to be fast to get them going. Well I'm not that fast but it felt great to get under the barbell with heavy load. I had plenty of options for metcon, all kinds of benchmark workouts came to my mind yesterday evening. Finally I ended up doing 2013 open workout of snatches and burpees, modified so that I could keep up the intensity all the way. Great workout!
Barbell.
Every minute on the minute
1 hang squat clean + 1 squat clean from ground
Start at 80, add 2.5kg per minute
Go for as long as possible
Result, 100kg
This was exactly what I needed. Complex style work with cleans. It was allowed to drop the barbell, no need to do them touch'n'go style. Actually mostly they were singles. The loads were rather big for me so t'n'g was out of question. I had hoped for reaching 100kg which is somewhat a benchmark weight for me from hang position. No prob if taken from floor but hang is a different game. Plus the intensity got higher because of short recovery time.
I took warm-up sets at 40-60-70kg before starting the workout. Felt great all the way! One rep at a time. The reps were short and quick naturally as they were singles but I took some time between the hang and floor position snatches so it was probably something like 30 seconds that it allowed me to change weights and recover. Towards the end it got shorter and shorter. I was just able to nail 100kg in the time frame.
As I look at the reps on video afterwards, the reps regardless of the weight look pretty similar to my eye. I ain't a professional so there might be a lot of variance but to me they look like a solid effort. I'd like to see my lifts look consistent, no matter if it's warm-up or PR attempt.
1 hang clean + 1 clean
The bar got high enough for me to catch it in high position and then travel it down to deep squat. This kind of squat is what I'm looking for in the snatch too. My mobility now allows me to front squat and back squat as low as I could possibly get physically but overhead squat / squat snatch is still shallow. There's only one option: to fix it. I'm very happy on today's lifts, no doubt about it.
Metcon. Result, 150 reps
17 min amrap of:
40 burpee
30 snatch, 40kg
30 burpee
30 snatch, 50kg
20 burpee
As many reps as possible in the remaining time of snatch, 60kg
This was a journey back to 2013 CF Open. The first workout that year was 17min amrap of: snatches and burpees, the difference was on the weights. That year the first set of snatches was 35kg and the second 60kg. That day I nailed my Personal Record on snatch about one and a half years ago, to 60kg. Same happened with my training partner Toni.
Still, my snatch is not on a huge level so knocking 30 light snatches (35kg) and then struggle with 60kg snatches for the remaining time was not something I was looking for. I wanted more intensity so that's the reason behind this decision on weights. If 60kg would be lighter for me, this workout would have rocked as rx'd.
It started with 40 burpees, always a pleasure in a workout =) I took my time with these, did them in 20-10-10 with just short breathing before hitting chest to deck again. I learned my lesson from yesterday's Fran of not running through the gates at 3-2-1-go. Burpees started to feel in my shoulders. They were warm to say the least.
Breathing was under control at this point because it was the first element, 40 reps done. There was 40kg bar waiting to be lifted. 30 snatches @ 40kg. Took 'em in sets of 6 reps, total of 5 sets. Had no idea how this would turn out but at the first sets I decided to go be feeling. Took 6 reps and thought this might be okay set. Didn't wanna make a stupidities by gassing too much. I believe these reps were perfectly fine for me at this weight.
After snatches had been done it was time for more burpees. By the way, I guess these were done on a 15cm target above the athlete's max height when he has his arms straight overhead. Today I did regular burpees anyway. That brought me enough intensity anyway. I did the set of 30 burpees in 20-10 reps, inhaling couple of times between sets. It didn't help so I figured going down again.
At this point I changed the plates on the bar and started lifting 50kg snatches. My shoulders were a bit afraid how that bar would feel like as they were getting fatigued. After first snatch I realized there's no need to stress about. It was definitely heavier than the 40kg bar but totally manageable. I had no misses at any point of the workout. The sets were 5 in the beginning, then a 4, and triples all the way from there on.
I felt like a winner after having completed all the snatches. Secretly I had wanted to finish them and I would have been pleased. Hadn't calculated how far I would be able to go but mentally I just wanted to get these done. There were still some tens of seconds to go so I started moving up and down on the burpees, 20 reps was ahead. At this point I must say they were not pleasant stuff but there was only one thing to do, move the body. After getting the final rep done there was 10 seconds left in the clock. Next station would have been 60kg snatches and I still had 50kg on the bar so no way I could have changed the loading.
Recap of metcon
This was an awesome metcon and a training day in general. Couldn't be more satisfied on my crossfit needs. Below you'll find out how Fran is done Games Athlete style =)
Decided to hit it hard today. If you don't know what to do and want to have a workout which makes you see god in the middle of the workout, choose a Crossfit Open workout. They all have that trait in common. They make you dig in the pain cave, deep. But once you've finished it, the feeling is great! You achieved something beyond words. Today was that day again. Prior to completing CF Open 12.3 I took some snatches.
Snatch.
Snatch balance technique
Squat snatch 5x30, 40kg
Power snatch (touch'n'go) 5x50, 50, 52.5, 55kg
It was cool to get some snatches in my system. I took some squat snatches to begin with. I wasn't the most confident with them because it's been a while since last time. But the movement itself is awesome and probably the most technical movement there is. Especially when you go from ground to squat snatch below parallel. I've taken a record lift at 67.5kg squat snatch. Today I wasn't close to that number.
I took couple of reps squat snatch @ 50kg but they stayed above parallel and I couldn't find a natural path all the way down so I decided not to force it. Instead, I worked on power snatches and they felt goooood! Couple of sets, all 5's. And the point was exactly to go touch'n'go style, without resetting grip on the ground. The last set was demanding but I got it as planned and left the lifting platform as a winner.
Okay, my upper body felt a little tired after those snatches. I took couple of push presses and push jerks with 52.5kg bar and those felt heavy. I was a little worried how this workout would turn out =) Especially as I recalled this being heavy as shit. CF Open workouts are always tough, Dave Castro makes sure that is universal feeling among crossfitters.
Okay, back to the workout. Box jumps unbroken. I think I've found a good and efficient way to perform box jumps. This spring I've done hundreds / thousands of them so I guess my technique has developed. And I can push my self through them, no matter the number of reps. That's something I'm pretty proud of.
Milko is a bit quicker going under the bar than me...
On those shoulder-to-overheads I basically went on with push jerks. For 2 rounds I did them unbroken. From then on I took them in 2 sets each round. Maybe once or twice as 6+6, then 7+5 to the end. And I got 7 reps on the 8th round as time hit 18min. This was a different strategy compared to last time where I completed every round of S2O's unbroken. However, it took me more time to recover before and after the jerks.
Now I was able to move much sooner to toes-to-bar. This resulted in a better end result than last time. I was a bit surprised to performing better. I thought that cutting the barbell work would cause harm but then again, I tried to move faster with shorter transitions. And I believe that was exactly what happened.
This workout is always a great test of fitness and today it sucked all my energy. Had to walk the fatigue away for some time before jumping on the rower to flush my body and put the fluids moving. I rowed for 1 kilometer with easy pace, just to recover. Great session!!!
I'd like to see Dan Bailey hit the podium with Froning and Spealler. That would be quite a combo, humble guys with super work ethic. There are such tough guys in the pool anyway that it's gonna be a sick competition, I love it! You've got Ben Smith, Jason Khalipa, Josh Bridges, Scott Panchik and the "black horse" Matthew Fraser just to mention few. Or is Matt a black horse or just a freaking monster, I don't know but his work capacity is tremendous.
Anyone of these guys could take the Games home but it seems like the champ himself doesn't have any weaknesses and that's really the key to success in crossfit. We have similar rivalry going on at the females' side so stay tuned for the Games!!!
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
It's been a grueling week of training, going for twice a day. That was a tough week I got to say. But I'm addicted to crossfit and love the journey continuously. Today I decided to take it easier and complete only one workout. I decided it better be a good one. What a better way than do the crossfit open workout?
CF Open 14.3. Result 133 reps (3 reps @ 145kg)
8 min amrap of:
10 deads, 60kg
15 box
15 deads, 85kg
15 box
20 deads, 102.5kg
15 box
25 deads, 125kg
15 box
30 deads, 145kg
15 box
35 deads, 165kg
15 box
Thank you Dave Castro for the workout. It was genius. I've done 21-15-9 workouts with deadlifts and box jumps with weights differing between 100 and 130kg. They have always been quick ones and all in effort has been needed from the very beginning.
60kg
60kg
This workout's nature was different because it was after all 8 minutes of work. The weights are light in the beginning but it's a good warm-up and preparation for bigger weights. The number of box jumps remain the same throughout the metcon, 15 reps between deadlift sets.
I decided to break the sets early on not to burn my posterior chain too much. That would not be a smart thing to do if you realized you have nothing in tank and it's only in the middle of the workout. So I dropped the bad already on the second set (80kg) after 10 reps. Box jumps I did unbroken all the way.
85kg
On the 102.5kg deads it was 7+7+6 reps and I started to understand why people have said the bar is going to get heavy. It was surprisingly tough on the 102.5kg lifts. Same reason for breaking the sets. When I do something like Diane or anything else with 21-15-9 and about 100kg I go unbroken because the number of total reps isn't that bad. But in this one it was a totally different thing.
102.5kg
Set of 125kg. Not a heavy weight, right? Well, it felt like it was 140kg at this point of the game. I took 5+5+4+4+4+3 reps to get through it. I was thinking about 5's all the way but on the third attempt I realized it's too ambitious so I had to drop it at 14 reps. I was glad the set was over after pumping up and down for a while.
125kg
After I had changed the plates to 145kg I checked the clock and saw there's about 12 seconds left in the workout. I knew I had to just grab the bar and take couple of additional reps at this weight.
145kg
I'm happy with the way I was able to work on this workout. I would have liked to finish more reps at 145kg. That started to become as heavy as I wanted it to be. It would have been awesome to nail all those heavy lifts just for the fun of it =)
