Monday. Macho Man @ 65kg. Metcon, 4rds of: 30 wb, 500m row. Time, 15.08.
Time for another benchmark workout, two days in a row. This is not one of the headquarter's benchmarks but Ben Bergeron's (a.k.a. competitorstraining). He's the Man in the biz, coach for a bunch of Crossfit Games athletes.
I've done this bad boy 3 times in the past years and it's eaten me alive every time. It's been completed at 60kg every time. Today I decided to roll the dice with 65kg. For maybe 3 minutes I thought this is gonna be okay. After completing 5 minutes it was a tough to digest I was only at mid way.
After 7 minutes it was a battle. My quads burned a lot but they held on for the entire 10 minutes. Got to say I was relieved when 10 minutes had passed. It was a good decision to go 65 kilos. Maybe some day 70kg could be the thing. It's not that any of the movements would be too tough but it's the entity. There is 9 reps per minute and the recovery part starts to feel rather short as time passes.
Macho Man @ 65kg
Metcon. Time, 15.08
4 rounds of:
30 unbroken wall ball shots
500m row
Needed to take some recovery after Macho Man. There was some walk between the stations so I lost quite a bit of time each round in the transitions. Anyway, 30 wall balls were written to be unbroken. Shoulders got on fire somewhere in the third round probably. Luckily I managed to go ub every round. Rowing was moderate pace, somewhere around 1:50. Didn't rest between the two though, just hopped on the Concept2 and grabbed the wall ball right away.
Saturday. Macho Man, emom x 10min: 3 power clean, 3 front squat, 3 push jerk @
60kg. Metcon, 15min amrap of: 5 hang power clean (70kg), 10 t2b, 15 box, 20 medball slam. Result, 300 reps.
We went to workout with Jasper this Saturday. It was destined to be a great bro sesh for real. We both had our own barbell play in the beginning and then hit a hardcore metcon together. This took place early afternoon, maybe a little too early as I had to put the alarm clock wake me up :)
Macho Man.
Every minute on the minute x 10
3 power clean
3 front squat
3 push jerk
Barbell @ 60kg
This is a perfect workout. If you haven't done it, just do it. No need to think about it, just hit the wod and suck it up. This is a benchmark workout at competitorstraining.com. Rx'd version is 85kg :) Not gonna put the barbell at that loading. Jerks would bring a lot of problems. I take this as a good conditioning workout and a way to improve muscle endurance at semi heavy load.
It's 9 reps at 60 kilos and makes breathing go heavy. I got this unbroken every round / minute and it took me about 20 seconds. I tried to do it as fast as possible to give my body as much recovery as possible. Good strategy in my opinion. This gets mental at some point. It looked similar and took as much time in every minute but it gets heavier mentally. It definitely helped to have a great training partner to push me further.
Metcon. Result, 300 reps (6 rounds)
15min amrap of:
5 hang power clean, 70kg
10 toes-to-bar
15 box
20 medball slam, 6-9kg
I suggested immediately as we entered the Box that we'd throw down together for a metcon. Luckily Jazz was all in right away. We wrote this together on the spot. It was a freaking pain feast. Pure conditioning. Cleans got heavy because they were taken from hang position. At times it felt nasty to keep my grip on the barbell. All elements were unbroken and rather steady pace throughout the wod.
On t2b's I almost started doing them 6-4 just to release the tension in my forearms but then again I decided to just push through. I had one miss on the box jumps as I didn't stand up properly but other than that they were okay. Those ball slams are cruel in their own way. We almost left them out but luckily not! We had one ball at 9kg and one ball at 6kg. The weight on the ball didn't matter. It's more about the movement as you're going up and down all the time. We alternated the balls every other round. It sure eased to have a friend battle through this one side by side. It basically resulted in shorter transitions as I noticed Jasper fight through his reps on a steady basis. It's freaking awesome to have him train at this same place now!
I'll have videos of both the Macho Man and the metcon. I'll post them tomorrow because I don't have access to my computer today.
Wednesday. "Macho Man". Emom, 3 power clean, 3 front squat, 3 push jerk (60kg), for 10min.
I wanted to make it hard today. Had time for one good workout so I decided to make it a perfect one. This is a benchmark workout at competitorstraining.com, the best crossfit site I know, hosted by Ben Bergeron. I've written about this page earlier many times. Man and a barbell, nothing more needed.
Macho Man. At 60kg
Every minute on the minute, for 10min:
3 power clean, 60kg
3 front squat, 60kg
3 push jerk, 60kg
I warmed-up well before hitting the workout. I had no time for additional strength / skills training. Okay, this was as heavy as it gets so there was no need for one anyway. The idea is to complete 3 reps at each of the 3 movements, totaling 9 reps per min. I managed to get the plan done as prescribed. Rx'd the workout should be done @ 85kg. Plus if you make it through 10 minutes, you ought to add 1 more rep for each movement.
My goal prior to starting the clock was to make it 10 rounds and I stuck to that eventually. I'm telling you it would be awesome to drop the barbell on this kind of workout. After completing the last rep each minute the temptation is great to just let go. On couple of times I think I did but mostly I'll bring it nicely back down because this is not a crossfit box.
Power cleans were the easiest part of this one. It was the first move so there was not that much burden accumulated at first grip. It gets tougher towards the end of each minute. Front squats made me breath more and push jerks sealed the deal. I got everything done in the same time frame, no need to pause at any moment. It felt tougher after each minute, no doubt about it but it was tolerable.
I was glad it was over though =) I'd like to give it a shot @ 70kg but definitely in a place where dropping weights is considered ok. Push jerks were the nastiest movement of these 3 elements. I still went touch'n'go on my front rack position every round every rep. It felt great to being able to knock this workout as I had planned!
Tuesday. Clean & jerk 3x3 across (80kg). Competitorswod benchmark wod, "Macho Man" with 60kg for 10min.
Today was time for barbell play. Just warmed up, then started working with the bar. First quick clean & jerk sets before moving on to the main workout of the day. Something I've learned from competitorswod.com. Ben Bergeron has created a nice benchmark workout to test the work capacity of athletes. I was supposed to meet my bro today and workout together with him. Time schedules didn't match so we had to postpone it. We were planning to train together once a week but it hasn't started off well, haven't met at ll this January =) We're gonna make it happen anyway 'cause we both know the benefits of working together.
Strength.
Clean & jerk 3x3, across (all sets @ 80kg)
Touch'n'go style
Wanted to do couple of short sets touch'n'go style clean & jerks. Decided to go across, all sets at 80kg. It was a weight I was able to do solidly. I completed the jerks as push jerks. Felt like my technique was rather good in all sets, all jerks. The clean part felt heavier than the jerk this time. That's a bit awkward. Did the cleans as power cleans. My traps were extremely sore from yesterday's hang clean emom. That might have been the issue. Anyway, these c&j's felt good and solid. Didn't go for heavier or more sets because Macho Man was right around the corner.
Toni, 80kg squat clean
Macho Man. Weight 60kg (10min)
Every minute on the minute for as long as possible
3 power clean
3 front squat
3 push jerk
If you fail to make 5 full rounds, you must lower the weight and restart
If you successfully reach 10 rounds, add 1 rep per movement each minute
This has seemed cool every time I've seen it on the compwod's site. The only thing was that I didn't remember the last bullet point of this workout. If you can go beyond 10min, add 1 rep per movement each minute. I recalled it meant you should have had more weight. The rx'd weight for this one is 185lbs (84kg). That would be crazy weight for me to do as emom training. Had no idea how long I would be able to go on this one but I had a feeling 60kg might be too low. And it actually turned out to be too low.
Next time I'll go for 65-70kg, depending on the place where I'll do this one. If I can drop the bar I'll probably do it with 70kg. That would be so relieving to drop it after the 9th rep of the minute. At that point it feels pretty awful to hold on to the barbell. I completed all sets with similar pattern. Unbroken, in about 17-18 seconds. So there was enough recovery time to get ready for the next minute. It started to fasten breathing already after 3 minutes but it was manageable all the time. A good test in my opinion, got to go heavier next time!
