Last weekend we needed to prepare our home for the upcoming move. We finally moved this week's Tuesday. So there's been quite a lot of other stuff called life. Luckily those days have counted when I've had the chance to hit the gym. Unfortunately my gym card for Optimal Performance Center is over now, ended this Wednesday. I've bought some iron from Rogue and waiting to receive those this week.
Sunday.
Every minute x 15 minutes: Clean & jerk
5min: 5 reps @ 60kg
5min: 3 reps @ 70kg
5min: 1 rep @ 80kg
All sets touch'n'go
No pause at any point, just cycle the barbell. These felt great. There's something cool to move the barbell up and down without breaks.
C&J's emom
Wod. Time 5.33
3 rounds of:
10 power clean @ 80kg
10 high box jumps
This combo was tough, no doubt. Both elements took my breath away. Power cleans were not light. Especially for so many reps. I did those in quick singles. I'm very happy how well I got this metcon done even though it felt awful quite soon.
Monday.
Oly, jerk from rack 5x3 @ 80kg
Also touch'n'go style, push jerks. I did these every 2:00 but the recovery was enough. Not light for sure, not the heaviest possible but I needed to concentrate well to get these done. A little shaky on some reps in my opinion but still something I was able to manhandle.
Clean / Box metcon
Wod. Result, 232 reps (7 rounds + 8 pull-ups)
12min amrap of:
12 pull-ups
20 wall ball shots
Huh, this hurt. Unbroken on the pull-ups for maybe 4-5 rounds. I tried to keep the transitions rather short so that's why I needed to break them in the last rounds. Wall balls were ub for probably 2 rounds, then it was 12-8 for the rest of the way.
Wednesday.
Every minute on the minute x 15 minutes: 1 snatch @ 60kg
It's been a while since doing snatches so it was 'bout time. Decided to do one rep every minute. That seems to be enough recovery to smash another within the time cap. There are things to be worked on so I didn't go heavier.
Snatch emom
Gymnastics, 30 bar muscle-ups
This was not a timed workout. Just completed them for quality. It was 6-5-4-4-3-3-3-2. My lats are sore from that 12min amrap of pull-ups and wall balls. Great to be able to do these as well without issues still, even though my volume has been lighter lately.
Every minute on the minute x 20 minutes:
Odd min, 15 ghd sit-ups
Even min, 10 dumbbell snatches @ 25kg, alternating
This was the last day in OPC and I didn't have to hurry as the rest of the family was on the move. I decided to do another workout of core and snatches. It took 25-30 seconds to finish every set on both movements so there was consistency on the board.
Friday. Squat clean 4x5 @ 80kg. Accessory, 5rds of: 5 bar mu, 10m walking lunges, back rack @ 60kg.
It's been couple of days of hectic life as we have been arranging our upcoming renovation and moving from home to to another place. At the same time the in-laws are moving as well so we've been doing this thing together. I have still found time to workout. It's just been difficult to find time to write them down. It has also been the most important time of the year for crossfitters as the Crossfit Games took place and came to an end on Sunday!
Antti working on some box jumps
Barbell cycling.
Squat clean 4x5 @ 80kg
Touch'n'go
Huh, this was quite heavy in the morning. Body felt a little stiff even though Thursday was a rest day. Figured that doing these tng would benefit me in the long run. The weight was perfect for this morning. I worked with the rings for muscle-ups for couple of tries but those sucked. Couldn't get one. That was a freak show. The straps are meters long that go all the way to the ceiling. I have always worked with short straps that go about one meter over the rings to the ceiling.
It felt great to do the swing at Kehä, especially the back swing as the rings were high enough and there was no risk of feet hitting the ground. Then on the other hand I didn't have the skills to do the transition with these longer straps. It felt awkward all the way.
Accessory.
5 rounds of:
5 bar muscle-ups
10m lunges, back rack @ 60kg
I wanted to regain my confidence on the muscle-ups and went to smash them on the pull-up bar =) Couple of unbroken reps, then right onto lunges with a 60kg barbell on my back. After lunges I took my rest before completing another set. Those lunges felt good too. Haven't done lunges with 60kg or more that many time.
Friday. Ohs 7x3 @ 60kg. Emom x 10min: odd min 5 bar mu, even min 15 box jumps.
Haven't done overhead squats in a while. My wrists usually don't like it that much. It's probably due to the wider grip. It feels difficult to go heavy on this movement because of that. After ohs I worked on some skills and box jumps.
Oly.
Overhead squats 7x3 @ 60kg
Towards the end I narrowed my grip and it felt better and better with each set. Before I haven't found it possible to go this narrow. My shoulder mobility has prevented it. For some reason it was much better today. It felt better in pretty much everywhere to go narrower. Got to try it out in the future as well. Stayed conservative on the weights as I wrote because of the wrists. They are fine normally but this is the only movement which feels awkward in there.
Workout.
Every minute on the minute x 10 minutes
Odd minutes, 5 bar muscle-ups
Even minutes, 15 box jumps (max reps on the last minute: 32 reps)
Muscle-ups needed to be done. There was no doubt about it. Just need to throw something in the mix so it wouldn't be just mu's. Emom wod seemed like a great idea, and it was. Five bar muscle-ups every other minute and then box jumps every other minute. On the last minute I did some more boxes than on the previous rounds.
Friday. Emom x 12min: clean (up to 100kg). Metcon, 3x4min amraps, with 2min rest between amraps.
After taking two days recovery there was no chance in this world I would have skipped the gym. It turned out to be a clean session and then a combination of metcons that I got from one pal.
Oly.
Every minute on the minute x 12 minutes
1-3min: 90kg
4-6min: 95kg
7-9min: 98kg
10-12min: 100kg
My plan was to hit a longer session but the traffic was quite horrible and basically cut my training time a little. Went after cleans in the beginning without that much of a warm-up. That was probably the reason why the barbell felt a little heavier than normally. I was looking forward to building heavier but decided to stay around 100kg because I didn't feel that smooth in the movement.
Clean recap
Metcon.
4min amrap of:
6 push-ups
6 pull-ups
Result, 8 rounds + 6 push-ups
2min rest
4min amrap of:
4 handstand push-ups
4 chest-to-bar pull-ups
Result, 7 rounds sharp
2min rest
4min amrap of:
2 strict handstand push-ups
2 bar muscle-ups
Result, 3 rounds + 2 hspu
This was a good twisted idea by Miku. Three different 4min amraps of pushing and pulling. It got tougher considering the movements the further the clock ticked. Yes, the reps decreased simultaneously. First of these metcons was the toughest for lungs. Those were light kinda light movements so I was able to move faster. It was about 50 reps each elements.
Next round the pushing changed to handstand push-ups. Those went well too as it was okay to use kipping motion and thus utilize the entire body to move up and down the wall. I'm glad c2b pull-ups were just 4 reps per round. Got exactly 7 rounds at this second amrap.
The last one was miserable. The fact that strict movements are not in my wheelhouse was witnessed efficiently on this one. First round of this was okay. On the second round I got a no rep (actually two of those), and since then had to singles and rest between reps. Bar muscle-ups felt a lot tougher than what I'm used to but I got them unbroken still.
Breathing was heavy on the first and second metcon, and muscles burned due to keeping this body in constant movement. On the last piece breathing stabilized because I wasn't able to just go further. It was more just about hitting a wall and trying to copy with that. Thanks Miku for this combo!
Saturday. HC Triplet Goes Kehä. Three team events with Toni and Sipa.
Huh what a competition day with the boys!!! The volume ramped up to this year's HC Triplet. To see what HC Triplet is really about you can scroll to the right hand side of the blog and check the links to prior Triplets. This was the fifth time we arranged this with Toni. Last two times my bro has been part of it too. Shortly, the idea is to thrown down for 3 grueling events to torture our bodies and minds. This year's "games" were a success as well. First time we did this inside, location was Toni's crossfit affiliate called Crossfit Kehä. Usually we have been outdoors, mainly in Pirkkola sports park. This was also the first year we had barbells included in the game.
Event 1. Time, 38 minutes
One athlete rows 300m constantly
In the mean while, 2 athletes chew down a chipper of:
50 bar muscle-ups
100 burpee box jumps
50 handstand push-ups
100 pull-ups
50 squat cleans @ 80kg
50 thrusters @ 50kg
All of the three events were supposed to be different style and different stimulus. The first one was classic chipper style workout with one guy rowing at the sidelines all the time. Just row your 300 meters and tag next one in line for rowing. We rotated the rower evenly of course for the entire 38 minutes that this bad boy took us to complete.
This felt like it took an eternity. It was difficult to know exactly how much it would take time but it was no surprise it took energy, a lot of energy to get to the finish. Our plan was to go by feeling. We didn't divide the work load evenly, just agreed to go for a good bunch of reps, then tag the next one to work on his behalf.
Bar mu's kind of fell on my neck to complete mostly. Those felt pretty good today. I reckoned not to take too big bites as it was the first part of the workout. It was 3-5 reps per set all the way. Burpee box jumps were about 5 reps per dude at a time. That seemed to suit well for everybody.
Hspu's felt very good. Those also seemed to be good for Sipa and Toni too. So I only got to do one set for 10 reps and the second one for 5 reps. At this point I thought they would suck more but luckily not.
Pull-ups. Those could have potentially destroyed us but there was good mental strength and someone was hanging on the pull-up bar constantly. Toni ripped his hands right on the bar mu's so these were nasty to go after with a bloody blister in hand. Luckily he found a glove in his bag. It was probably not cool to do pull-ups with just fingers.
God damn that squat clean @ 80kg! Especially the first reps felt heavy. I was able to rack that barbell perfectly every time. It just felt heavy as hell in the bottom position. There was no doubt of standing it up though. But it really smoked legs and hip flexors with every lift. But those got better through time on everybody's behalf. I believe I got most of these done. Ideally it was planned so that we would do quick singles but it change on the fly and went by feeling.
In the beginning thrusters felt like they would definitely be the most disgusting element. Never have I done so light thrusters at 50 kilos! After 80kg barbell that really felt something we smashed rather easily. It was about sets of 5 reps all the way. Finally after 38 minutes it was over. Very good job guys! Great way to start the Triplet, awesome commitment from everybody!
Event 1
Event 2.
PART A. Time 17min
Interval work of kettlebells and shuttle runs
Each athele completes one round of work, tags the next one to work the same work load. Once every athlete has completed the first round, they move on to the next round
5th round: 20 double kettlebell front squats @ 16kg + 10x10m shuttle run
PART B. Result, 74 reps.
Right into part b, as many reps as possible in 8 minutes of:
Clean and jerks @ 70kg
This was nasty. If the first was more of a long, grueling chipper, this was interval work where legs were destined to get murdered in the process. Point was that Sipa started, he completed the 1st round of work, Toni and me rested in the mean while. Once Sipa threw himself over the finish line, I completed the same work load. And after I had done my part, Toni did his. After Toni, Sipa moved on to round 2, and this system continued through all 5 rounds.
The dark place definitely showed up on the shuttle runs. It was shuttle runs on purpose. That's a million times worse than 100m run itself. It really didn't matter which element of these five alternatives was going on. Okay they first swings were heavier, and front squats got our legs big time as well.
Sipa lost his calf in the process on one of the runs. He started limbing because of the cramp. Luckily we had magnesium spray and he was able to continue nicely. We had different weights for different movements. This time we agreed the loads were right were they needed to be.
It took us 17 minutes to complete the kettlebells and runs. Part B initiated right after the work had been completed. This frightened us a little prior to the workout. I thought why the heck did I program this heavy barbell right after intervals.
However, we got this! We won the barbell for sure. We kept the same order on this one. Sipa started, I was second, Toni came third. I felt strong already on the first rep. Took it on the front rack, and bounced it overhead with the same movement, not stopping at any point. Was able to keep this pace throughout the 8 minute time window. I felt like my partners also improved towards the end all the time, and it started to look like a feather in their hands towards the end! We got through 24 rounds + 2 reps. That makes it a total of 74 reps.
Event 2
Event 3.
15min amrap of:
Rope climbs
Grande Finale! We once saw Mikko Salo and Jonne Koski post a workout where they did 30min amrap of rope climbs. That really stuck to my head as we honored their work capacity with my bro. HC Triplet seemed like the perfect place to redeem that promise we made to each other to get after it some day.
The rope was long. A lot longer than I have used to climb in Klaukkala. Well, I have 7.6m rope but the distance to climb is probably 5 meters long. This was probably 7 meter all the way. At first we climbed to 5m (I went to mark it with a tape in the beginning) but at some point I decided to start going all the way to the roof. I still had something in my tank and strength left, and I didn't want that to be the case once HC Triplet Goes Kehä was finished!
It felt super good to climb. And I was very positively surprised how well my body was able to hold on with just short recoveries between climbs. Toni had some issues with his shoulder and had to withdraw at some stage and it was on me and Sipa to finish the 15 minutes. That made the recovery even shorter. Still, we somehow were able to move up and down the rope nicely. I have no idea of the amount of reps we completed. Sipa had an idea of about 20 reps per dude.
These competitions have always been tough as nails for us. Definitely heavy work both physically and mentally. These are written to be tough, and we succeeded in that goal. As we look at this afterwards I got to say some progress has taken place for Sipa, Toni and I. There's no way we could have done this volume in the last Triplet in 2014. Neither did we have the skills back then required in this comp. So it's very uplifting to stop for a while and think how much progress has been made in the past years.
Saturday. Squat clean ladder 10-8-6-4-2, climbing weights up to 100kg. Time, 5.48. Skills, 6x5 bar mu's.
The weather is ridiculously beautiful! We went for a morning walk with my baby around Töölönlahti. No wonder there a lot of people doing the same thing. Afterwards I hit the gym for a quicker session. Got the inspiration from the upcoming Regionals.
Ladder. Time, 5.48
Squat clean ladder
10 cleans @ 60kg
8 cleans @ 70kg
6 cleans @ 80kg
4 cleans @ 90kg
2 cleans @ 100kg
The first event at the CF Regionals is similar ladder with squat snatches and heavier weights obviously. It starts with 80kg snatches. I've never seen that kind of weight on my snatch barbell =)
This was a good metcon completed with bar only. I went singles from the very beginning at each weight. Listened to my legs and body and worked through that. First load went nicely. On the second one it got spicy in towards the end. On the 80kg's I guess it was a triple, then singles. At 90kg it got tricky. It's a weight I can manhandle but at this point the previous work had its effect so I needed to focus on every single lift. Two singles at 100kg were cool. The latter burned lower body nicely!
Skills.
Bar muscle-ups 6x5 reps
My body is kinda smashed right now. Especially upper body. Meathead Thursday got my back on the deadlifts. It's been ages since pulling from the ground. Also bench has been missing from my program lately. Doing bench and then 100 ring dips yesterday made my chest and shoulders tight for sure. Still, these muscle-ups rolled well today. This was a definitely a positive thing!
Friday. Back squat, up to 3x140kg. Metcon, 5rds of: 300m row, 200m shuttle run, 10 burpees. Time, 14.07. Skills, 5x5 bar mu's.
Late evening workout. My body was definitely very tired due to not having enough recovery the entire week. Don't know if it was the best idea to go to the gym. Afterwards I was pleased though.
Strength.
Back squat 5x90, 3x110, 1x120, 1x130, 3x140, 2x138kg
This was absolutely a disappointment when working out as I didn't hit the numbers I was looking for. On the other hand I feel it's okay that I can hit a triple @ 140kg even on a very crappy day.
Metcon. Time, 14.07
5 rounds of:
300m row
200m shuttle run (10x20m)
10 burpees
This was a good one, and my round times were consistent. The rounds varied in just seconds, it was somewhere at 2:50 per round. Rowing was maybe 1:45 pace, no idea about the run but it took a little more than the row. That turn after every 20 meters caused that. Burpees went smoothly
Skills.
Bar muscle-ups 5x5
It was great to get some skills action also in the books. Got these nicely, some reps were tough on these sets but mostly it was alright
Thursday. Back squats 5x5 @ 135kg. Accessory, 5rds of: 5 bar mu, 12 reverse lunges @ 50kg
Getting heavier and heavier on the squats. Another grind day by having a barbell on my back. Then skills and more leg burn afterwards. Didn't time that one at all. It was more like accessory work even though the recovery time wasn't too long.
Strength.
Back squats 5x5 @ 135kg
Last days of this progression that I wrote by myself. It's been 5's all the way. Different amount of sets every time but the main point is that I'll keep adding weights on the bar and keep the volume up. It's been mentally tough at times and especially the last couple of squat sessions have built a lot of personality so to say. These sets were challenging sets but I managed to finish them, very happy!
Accessory.
5 rounds of:
5 bar muscle-ups
12 reverse lunges @ 50kg
This was not a timed workout. I did the muscle-ups and immediately walked to the bar, back racked it and took 12 reverse lunges. Then sat down for a while, went back to chalk my hands and hit another set. It was great to get muscle-ups done, it was simply awesome. I had a miss on the third round. Then got my head around the game again and finished the following repetitions smoothly.
Lunges burned my legs more than I anticipated in the beginning. Last reps of each set were heavy but I refused to pause at any moment. The bar was rather light anyway so I decided to push forward.
Friday. Snatch from the blocks (up to 3x55kg). Skills, bar mu's.
On Friday we were on our way to Klaukkala to spend the Easter with Pauliina's parents. Toni invited us to hit it at his Box. We worked on our snatch technique and then some bar muscle-ups in the end. This was rather quick session.
Oly.
Snatch from blocks
5x30, 40, 45kg
4x50kg
3x55kg
The height of the blocks was about just below knees. This is probably very beneficial to me especially as the tendency is I'm not pulling the bar high enough with patience. By focusing on pulling at this level it was easier to go after this deficiency. I'm pretty happy on the snatches on Friday. Not quite sure how many sets I took but at least the above mentioned were done. Probably some more.
Skills.
Bar muscle-ups
This just came on my mind for a cashout. Some fooling around. Tried different versions on this skills. Basically I was trying to learn how to kip because my mu's are more or less "strict". I don't mean that in a positive sense. I have troubles in utilizing a proper back swing. I just drop down and pull myself back again. The below video was my first set. After that I took some more and tried to force a better back swing.
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.
Sunday. Metcon, 15min amrap of: 5 bar mu, 20m walking lunges (40kg). Result, 167 reps. Accessory, every 3:00, for 24min, alternating between: 20m sled push (165kg), 40m farmer's walk (115-125kg). Strongman Sunday mixed with skills. That was the goal for today. My hands have healed pretty well from last muscle-up session and luckily they held on well today on those bar mu's too. Hitting a skills workout in the beginning, and then strongman elements in the latter piece.
Metcon.
15min amrap of:
5 bar muscle-ups
20m walking lunges, 40kg, back rack
These are both excellent movements. The barbell was light for back rack lunges. That was no surprise but the main ingredient of this workout was definitely the muscle-ups. Lunges paired up greatly. I was able to do the lunges unbroken, and would not have accepted it in any other way. They still got me breathing heavier and burned legs on the last meters for sure. They also gave my upper body that much needed rest between muscle-up sets.
I'm very happy on the performance on the pull-up bar. It was 5's all the way, unbroken each set, c'mon! Got through 7 sets of muscle-ups finally. It was only 8m short of full 7 rounds for result in the 15 minute time frame. Mu's got challenging somewhere in the middle of the workout. Okay, they were not a walk in the park at any point but still I was confident throughout the metcon.
This was a good call. Had both elements in my notes but hadn't closed how to chase them. Decided to go heavy and alternate between these two every 3 minutes. Didn't do any movement specific warm-ups. Instead, just piled the plates on each other and started to move the sled. The weight on the first leg of the sled came as a surprise. It weighed a ton. But I got it moving and continued to keep the legs churning.
Bought parallettes today, boom!
Farmer's walk was the "easier" part of these two. Maybe only because I'm more familiar with it. For the first two sets the cases were loaded with 2x20kg plates. Then for the latter sets I added 2.5kg on each end.
My body really felt this one hours after it was done. Somehow my quads were shaking and felt weak afterwards. That made me smile inside. The work was definitely put in. Got to keep these elements in the program in the future too. I'm positive these are giving a positive effect on overall fitness.
Saturday. Metcon, 4rds of: 4 bar mu, 20 wb. Time, 5.24. Push jerk triples from blocks (up to 85kg). Farmer's walk 2x20m (up to 135kg).
Huh I was waiting this session like a little kid. Reason: yesterday was a day off. We went outdoors for a dinner and quality time with family. Today I had decided to take the first step towards the newly acquired Rogue jerk blocks. Respect to the gym owner who finally got these bad boys! This place is great.
Metcon.
4 rounds of:
4 bar muscle-ups
20 wall ball
Session started with a skills related conditioning piece. I went back and forth in my head between ring and bar muscle-ups and finally ended up with bar mu's. It's been an eternity since doing mu's last time so it was about time to throw down.
Nice combo. Shoulders were burning pretty well. I still battle with the feeling of how much to gas in metcons including muscle-ups. I'm kinda afraid of hitting the wall on those so I hold back a bit throughout the wod. In this one I felt like I kept good breaks between wall balls and mu's but then again afterwards it was like I could have gone faster. Or with shorter breaks.
Like a dream come true. This is an understatement though. I've seen dreams of these since day one when I started crossfit. My clean is way stronger than my jerk so this is a tool to work on my overhead strength and technique with heavier weights. It's a different thing to lower the barbell on front rack position compared to this where you can drop it on the blocks and tie another shot at it.
I basically didn't have any plans as this was a totally new thing for me. Took a set at 60kg, then 70kg, and just built up by feeling. Finally there were 3 sets of triples at 85kg. Only afterwards I realized that was definitely the heaviest push jerks I have done in my life. 85kg as a single is PR for me and today I did 9 reps at that weight. Split jerk is over 100kg but push jerk's limits have been at this point. I guess something good has happened even though heavy barbells have not been over my head in a month. Felt super happy on this part!
Strength.
Farmer's walk 2x20m (105, 115, 125, 125, 135kg)
Lately I've learned to respect this movement big time. The matt is 20 meters long so I grabbed the handles and went one way, dropped them down, and came back after a little breath taking session. This is definitely an entire body element that requires you to fully engage the entire body. That also results in developing every piece of this body.
This strongman stuff is great. I'm planning to add this to my program on a weekly routine. At least some strongman piece for sure, variance is the key to everything. Pretty obvious stuff. This was the heaviest I have done this far. It started to get on my grip strength in the last round.
Went to the gym early in the morning. As I anticipated my legs were smoked. Did some technique work in the beginning and then a longer metcon with modest pacing. In the afternoon only bench presses, short session.
Yeah, messy notes but it reminded me what to do next in the metcon =)
Oly.
Clean
Snatch
There were barely weight on the barbell. It was either an empty or 40kg barbell all the way. This was mostly concentrating on pause cleans at different phases of the bar path. I believe there is something to this drill that might make a big difference in the long run. Probably the most significant thing with which I have got gains on the snatch technique has been to cut the movement in pieces and do high pulls too.
Metcon.
3 rounds of:
5 bar muscle-ups
10 power cleans, 60kg
15 burpees
20 kettlebell swings, 24kg
25 ghd sit-ups
30 double unders
400m row
Long workout. It took something like 8-9 minutes per round to complete. In the first round my body didn't react too well for the muscle-ups. Those felt heavier than normally. On the second and third round I got them rocking much better.
Power cleans were quick singles in every round. Very smooth in my opinion. However, they got me breathing heavily, especially after jumping right on to 15 burpees. That was a nice combination. I paced myself on those, didn't rush at all but kept the body moving all the time.
Swings were unbroken, the weight was only 24kg so that was kind of no-brainer. Ghd's were quite easy. Yesterday I found out that the happiness to good double unders is to foam roll shins before the jump rope action. Today I did the same trick and du's worked well. Had one miss in one of the sets but I'm very happy on the du's!
Rowing was modest pace all the way. Also the transitions were not the fastest. The purpose of this workout was to keep heart rate under control from the very beginning. Good workout.
Strength.
Bench press 5x3 @ 90kg (first set 5 reps)
After eating twice and sleeping in between I went to the gym again to do bench for strength. After a lengthy warm-up I climbed up to 90kg at which I did 5 sets. The first was 5 reps, the rest were triples. All across @ 90 kilos.
Friday. Thruster ladder, 8min amrap of ascending weights. Result, 43 reps. Metcon, 5rds of: 3 bar mu, 5 power snatch (40kg), 7 hspu, 10 pistols.
Weekend is coming and I'm loving it! Today was a good session at the gym. When I was warming up I accidentally heard from one of the coaches that floorball team Tapanilan Erä is coming to train to the gym. I knew there are some old pals that I used to play with in a different team. It was great to see those guys and throw some small talk while we threw down. Great times! These are the guys I miss from playing floorball seriously. The people around us.
Rosendahl!
Barbell conditioning. Result, 43 reps (3x80kg)
8min amrap of:
10 thruster, 40kg
10 thruster, 50kg
10 thruster, 60kg
10 thruster, 70kg
10 thruster, 80kg
10 thruster, 90kg…
Winter War qualifications are now taking place which means they are trying to find out who are the toughest crossfit athletes in Finland. The contest is in February but qualification is taking place now in December. This was event 1 maybe three years ago. This year it was similar with the difference that the weights started at 50kg. Otherwise the same ideology exists. I figured I'd get a better workout by starting at 40kg to get some heavy breathing.
Tapanilan Erä
Went unbroken on the first two sets, both at 40kg and 50kg. Those were pretty self-evident beforehand as I thought about this. It's been time since doing 60kg thrusters so it was a mystery how those would feel like. My warm-up wasn't perfect and I felt my elbows being very tight. After doing 40kg thrusters for couple of sets in the warm-up and stretching a little more, they started to cooperate.
However, I had to power clean the barbell on the front rack before starting the first repetition. Ideally I would squat clean the bar but it makes it more challenging to get a full grip and having an ideal grip to press the barbell up and overhead. 60kg was 6-4 reps.
At 70kg the barbell was clearly heavier but I got through the set with 4-3-3 reps. Last weight was at 80kg, and I had to go for singles for each rep completed. Legs were good all the way, those felt strong all the time. Shoulders are my weaker part compared to legs and core and it was not surprise that upper body bailed on me on the thrusters finally. It was difficult to know how much to rest between attempts. Didn't wanna burn my shoulders out totally but then again it's not cool to have too long of a break.
Thruster ladder
Metcon.
5 rounds of:
3 bar muscle-ups
5 power snatch, 40kg
7 handstand push-ups
10 pistol squats
This was inspired by Bobby Noyce's workout that I saw in Youtube yesterday. This was a little modification compared to that. He also had overhead squats after snatches, and muscle-ups were completed at the rings. Those bar muscle-ups felt in my core after doing 100 ghd's yesterday. Maybe there's a correlation between those. Bar mu's were as perfect as are in my case. I was proud of those for sure.
Last thruster done
Snatches were light but in the course of action it was probably a good weight as after those it was time to throw myself upside down against the wall for hspu's. My butt is still a bit sore but it definitely didn't bother at all. It was awesome to do pistols, it's such a freaking good movement. Everything went unbroken and that was the goal for sure. Didn't have a timer rolling. That didn't change the nature of the workout a bit. This was my best effort for today.
Saturday. Metcon, 5-4-3-2-1 of: bar mu and hang snatch (50kg). Technique, 5x5 hang power snatch (40kg). Skills, bar mu's.
My plans included muscle-ups and snatches. No actual strength work as separate stuff. Rings were first priority but somehow my back felt tight, probably due to all the cleans this week. Yesterday was good volume with them. I thought bar mu's would roll better so I changed them on the fly.
Metcon. Time, 4.54
5-4-3-2-1 of:
Bar muscle-up
Hang squat snatch, 50kg
This is obviously supposed to be a quick one. Yes, I went unbroken on both movements and got it without misses. I was not the most confident with snatches as my warm-up didn't go exactly as I planned. I took hang snatches at 40kg, then 50kg. Those were fine. Then jumped to 55kg and took 2 fails. The first one stayed in front and the second one was a poor attempt, and I didn't go under the bar. More like a snatch high pull =) For some reason there's a huge difference between my clean and snatch. The bar just feels a ton heavier when my grip is wider.
Anyway, I knew I'm gonna do the muscle-ups in a row each round, especially by catching some breath in the transitions. However, on the snatches I wasn't that cocky. So it was a positive signal to hit the first round of 5 reps unbroken. That boosted the self talk in my head and I got the remaining rounds unbroken too. Couldn't grab the barbell right away after dropping down from the mu's. And vice versa. Main goal was to go unbroken. Don't know, maybe I could have gone faster. Not much today but maybe a little. It was difficult to know my body and how it would hold on with this kind of combination.
Technique.
5x5 hang power snatch, 40kg
The metcon was top priority for sure but I wanted to work on speed with snatch afterwards. It's pretty sick how heavy the bar feels like doing snatches. It's always been like that. Even though I kept the bar close. That was my goal in these power snatches.
Skills.
Bar muscle-ups (sets of 3-5-5-5 reps)
Skills in the end, couple of sets. I thought about doing triples for a total of 15 reps but after first set I decided to do 5's. Felt good about these muscle-ups in every single set. Considering the longest streak of mu's I've done in the history of crossfit (10 reps) today's sets felt pretty good. Maybe there is more in the tank than the record says.
