Thursday. Deadlift trap bar triples (up to 215kg). Bench singles (up to PR 108kg). Metcon, 5rds of: 10 bench (80kg), 500m row. Time, 19.50.
Thursday is currently that day when I pull from the ground and do bench. Those are the two main elements of this day. Today was a lot of success. In all possible ways. Got heavy pulls under my belt and received a personal record on the press. Metcon was heavier bench than I've ever done so there was a good volume too and heavy breathing on the rower.
Pulls.
Trap bar deadlift
3x115, 145, 165, 185, 195
2x205
3x205, 215
My goal today was to give different type of stimulus to my body compared to conventional deadlifts. Trap bar is somewhat different than normal pulls from the ground. The centre of mass is right at the feet whereas in conventional deadlifts it tends to be a bit in front. If you look at it from the side, the grip is right where the feet is whereas in conventional deads the bar has to be a bit in front, slightly contacting the shins. This allows the athlete to put more pressure on legs.
And this really made my feet shake after each set. Back felt fine, and I believe the angle of my back was pretty straight, so I can look at these lifts with slight pride. There are two sides to this barbell. I started with having to go deeper in the start position so the distance pulled was longer. Went up to 3x195kg this way, and a double at 205kg. This is pretty sick as my 1RM is 210kg on conventional deadlift. After this, I flipped the bar over so the distance was shortened a bit. Then continued to pull triples at 205 and 215kg. It was awesome to hold this heavy barbell standing tall.
My point here was basically to prepare for the metcon. Doing heavier reps in the beginning, and then drop down to 80kg is a good tactic because then the barbell feels a lot lighter compared to when climbing upwards. First reps at 80kg felt semi-heavy but after going 100+ it felt light when I dropped down to 80kg.
Anyway, I took singles at 85kg and onwards. Thought about doing couple of singles and if it feels good, I might try to break the record because last time the PR was not the extreme max. Today I witnessed that to myself by taking 108kg up for a new record.
Metcon. Time, 19.50
5 rounds of:
10 bench press, 80kg
500m row
Combining rowing with any strength element as a couplet is tough. Try going deads plus row, and you're gonna be smashed. Or clean and jerks huh. Today it was bench and row. Okay I put the bench at 80kg which forced me to break the sets, except the first one which was unbroken. Then it was mostly 6-4 or 6-2-2, or something like that.
Rowing was 1.45-1.50 each round. My breathing went high on the rower but then dropped down on the bench. The reason for this was breaking the sets. Had I done this with 70kg I most likely would have done it unbroken. However, the goal of this workout was to familiarize myself with heavier barbell with good volume so this succeeded well. All in all, I feel like this metcon and the entire session was great.
Thursday. Deadlift 6x3 (up to 190kg). Bench 8x3 (up to 100kg).
This was a great day. I mean already before we opened the gym door it was a spectacular day at work. This carried on to the the training session as well. Deadlifts are scheduled to be on the agenda on a weekly basis, same as the bench. There wasn't time for a metcon. That would have included deads, ghd's and rowing.
My notes said 6x3 at 180kg. However, as I was building it up to heavy triples the warm-up sets were at 100, 130 and 150 kilos. Decided to start counting my sets from 170kg on. Two sets at each weight. Those weights felt very good so I kept adding stuff on the barbell up to 190kg. Felt like my back and legs are pretty strong. I wouldn't like to use chalk at all because it dries by hands a lot and results on rips often but on heavy deadlifts that seems to be compulsory. It helped tremendously to chalk up.
I haven't done 190kg for a triple ever before. Maybe a double but not a triple. 5x180kg has been witnessed twice, and lately the pulls have felt good so this was no surprise. Probably could have pulled even more.
Bench was another element of today's session. One day I understood this is a weakness of mine so I'll throw in this one about once every week. Definitely not going to stress about it but at the moment it feels like a good idea. To be honest, it's not that isolated movement that I have considered it to be so it will most likely be beneficial to overall fitness.
My 1RM is 102.5, dating back to stone ages. But I have done it probably once every 3 months =) In the past two weeks I've been able to climb up to 5x94kg and 3x96kg. Today these were upgraded to 3x100kg for a 3RM. That was a distant dream which came real life today. My plan was not to take a single rep at all but Pauliina refused to accept it, and so she talked me into trying that. Probably one of the easiest PR's I've ever done. Usually those are a lot of grind but this one was quite comfortable. Feels good to getting stronger in the entire body.
Thursday. Bench, 1RM (PR 102.5kg). Pair wod with Toni, 4 rounds of: 500m row / max effort double unders. Result 388 du's.
I was thinking about going for running intervals, 8 x 400m with 90sec rest between sprints. Luckily Pony said he would have a chance to come and do a workout with me. That doesn't happen too often so I definitely took it and did bench strength and a pair workout with him.
Strength. Bench press (5x60, 3x70, 2x80, 1x90, 1x95, 1x100, PR 1x102.5kg). Our goal was to find our 1 rep max load at bench. Part of this week's plan to find out the strength maxes. Want to know where I stand at 34 years. Today it was time to do bench. I got that new record in my pocket, 102.5kg, check!
We took some light weight warm-ups, doing multiple reps to get chest and shoulder muscles prepared for the upcoming challenge. I felt solid all the way to the 102.5kg rep. No problems to get the weights up. I do bench quite rarely, maybe once or twice a month so it's nice to see the results still climb up on a steady pace.
The last attempt of 105kg was far away from being completed. I guess my stomach was already full at that stage. I'm happy to the results. I was looking to get improvement on the numbers here. Toni's PR is also the same number currently.
Pair wod. Result 388 double unders, Toni 318 double unders.
4 round battle of:
Partner 1: 500m row
Partner 2: max effort double unders while partner 1 rows
This was nice and tough! The point was that the other one rows 500 meters and during that time the other one completes max effort of double unders. He has to stop when the first guy finishes 500 meters on the rower. Toni challenged me to take this as a battle so it was a little fun competition at the same time. After the row, we changed turns. Total of 4 rounds, that means 2.000m row and a lot of double unders.
You can see both of our results down there. I was very solid on the pacing. My rowing was within 0.8 seconds on those 4 sets, and there was a maximum of 8 rep difference on the double unders. It felt tough already on the first round because it was almost all in type of action from the beginning.
I have to keep practicing on double under technique more. I feel like there's something I could do to improve so it wouldn't be so taxing on my body. Maybe if I wouldn't jump that high, just kept the rope moving faster and keeping my entire torso straight all the time. Got to take some video to analyze more. Haven't seen my doubles in a video in ages.
Anyway, this was a good and heavy breather. We took the transitions easily with Toni so this wasn't all action without any pauses. They were definitely needed. It was awesome to workout with this guy after a long break!
Sunday. AM: Bench press singles 1-1-1-1-1 (max 100kg, PR). Metcon. 1k row, then 40 bench press (70kg), 1k row. Each time you rack the barbell, perform 15 air squats. Time 16.11. PM: Handstand walking.
Time to put the PR-shirt on and head to the gym. There was no room for error this time. I wrote it to my calendar a week ago that today I'm gonna break that damned 100kg in bench press. And the metcon to follow is a light version of what I've seen Blair Morrison do in the past. What he did was sick, I took it a bit easier.
Strength. Bench press 1-1-1-1-1 (70, 80, 90, 95, PR 100kg). No doubt about that 100k coming up. I only took couple of sets with empty bar and one set of 5x60 for starters, then started adding weights. This far I've done sets of 3 or 5 reps before I've tried that magical boundary to be crossed. Today my clear strategy was to do only singles. That 95kg was no problem, it felt good and I knew 100kg would come up as well. And it fit, had to work for it but it was a rep, PR!
Bench, 95kg
Bench, 100kg, PR
Metcon. Time 16.11
1k row
40 bench press, 70kg
1k row
Every time you rack the barbell, perform 15 air squats on the spot
I saw this workout performed by Blair Morrison and fell in love with the wod immediately. He did 2k row in the beginning and in the end, plus he completed 100 bench presses in between… Well, my wod consisted of 1k row and 50 reps of bench press. Unfortunately, as I re-counted the presses after the workout, I realized I had miscalculated and done only 40 reps, doup! What a rookie mistake. In that adrenalize flow I was sure I had done 50 but luckily I wrote those reps on paper and Pauliina asked my reps afterwards. That's when it hit me. So I obviously did 40 reps. Had I done 50 reps, it would have been probably 3 more bench sets.
The time after first kilometer in rowing was around 3.30 (1.45/500m), steady pace. It got my heart rate up and it was time to move on to the bench. Transition took some time as I knew I have to put a lot of effort in the first set of bench as I was aiming for 10 reps. Can't do that many 70kg presses when fatigue bothers. I got those ten reps and moved on to first set of air squats. I completed those bench presses in 7 sets so I had to do 6x15 air squats, not a bad amount of squats in one workout. It was definitely the easy part of the wod. I remember Blair doing 22 sets of squats. In those quantities, it's gonna hit you, no doubt about it. And he did 100 reps with bodyweight, huh.
Those bench sets were 10+8+6+4+4+4+4. The first two sets I felt strong and the barbell was moving nicely. Third one was still okay but from then on I managed only 4 reps at once. Finally I was happy to completing all those reps and it was time to get that last rowing kilometer done. The speed was fast, the digital screen on the rowing machine showed a pace of 1.38/500m for the first 300m. I realized it's not gonna be that for long but it simply felt so good in the beginning. I had to utilize that feeling because it was 100% sure it's gonna hurt in the end. And it did! In the middle my pace got slower and I felt the pain, little by little the pain crawled in. I felt my abs, legs and upper body in general being tense and hurt but the goal line was looming so kept on stroking. Got to 1.000m at 16.11.
A good workout to say the least! I think this one might be renewed after some time and this one with correct numbers, 50 reps and let's see what kind of weights. 70kg worked well today, it was perfect for the purpose I was looking for. Distance in the rowing was also good, don't even want to imagine what it would be like with 2k row in both end…
Handstand walking. In the afternoon we went outdoors to our back yard with Pauliina to play around. I concentrated in handstand walk. This time my goal was not just to stabilize myself but to walk forward. PR was about 3-4 meters. Take a look at some attempts below.
For some reason that workout I did the day before yesterday still takes its toll on my legs. I tried to stretch them but still my walking is not pretty =) Anyway, that's only a good feeling as I know a lot of work has been done. This muscle pain had a lot of effect on today's programming. Bench press singles was what I started with and then the metcon included 3k row and semi-heavy bench presses. Tony didn't show up in the morning, we'll have to see if he's doing his training in the evening. Pauliina joined the workout.
Strength. Bench press 1-1-1-1-1-1 (70, 80, 85, 90, 95, PR 97.5kg). Also tried 100kg, didn't come up this time. I had not planned to do singles but I changed my mind as I entered the gym. It turned out to be a good decision as I hit a new personal record, adding 2.5kg to previous one, now it's 97.5kg.
I took some high-rep sets with only the bar, then 40 and 60kg before moving on to singles. The only purpose was to find that one rep max load at the moment. It seems to be quite close to 3-digit numbers, I'm getting there some day.
Bench press, PR 97.5kg
Metcon. Time 20.40
3 rounds of:
1.000m row
15 bench press, 70kg
Following the strength training I did a rather long metcon with rowing and bench press. I was thinking about the amount of rounds and the bench reps. Decided on the above except that I had planned to do only 10 bench presses. On the first round I continued to 15 and stayed with that rep scheme till the end. My rowing times per rounds were 3.30, 3.37 and 3.41.
On the bench first round was 6+5+4, on the second it was 6+5+2+2 and it was 6 reps on the first try, then a triple and maybe singles from then on, it started to get heavy all of a sudden. I didn't mind about the clock running so I took some time in the transition. That bench press seemed to suck my time as I couldn't do them unbroken. I still consider the weight was ideal for me. It was as heavy as I wanted it to be. Had I done it with 60kg, it would have been too light.
This proved to me it's possible to find some good workouts with bench press as well. I'm not going to add bench in to my schedule a lot more but I'll try to do it once in a while to add strength in chest, shoulders and triceps.
Did some mobility and stretching with Pauliina in the end.
Toni's workouts. Time 8.36
200m run
10 pull-ups
200m run
10 wood thrusters
200m run
25 weighted lunges
200m run
50 double unders
200m run
Pony went outdoors in the evening to do a metcon. Got some pictures from it below.
In the morning I concentrated in upper body strength training and after work we went outdoors with Pony. Main objective was to run and create a metcon with a high heart rate and make muscles hurt. Then we also took advantage of Pirkkola's outdoor pull-up bars to practice pull-up techniques.
Personal Record, c'mon! It's been a while since bench pressing for max load, must have been in February since seriously trying to go at 90kg or more. My goal was to do sets of 5 as long as possible. I haven't done 5's with 85kg prior to this day. Managed to push them through for 2 sets and on the third one 3 reps. The last set was very tough, first rep not so bad but the following 2 reps needed extra effort. My training partners talked me into trying for record numbers. Didn't need much of persuasion =) I was ready to try it instantly. I took 90kg and it came up easily! That was weird considering how much effort needed to be done for 85kg. Okay, there were multiple reps with that weight so guess that's only natural. There were no other options left but to put 95kg on the barbell and take it up. Thanks Hannu and Visa for spotting the weights!
As I was already focused on upper body strength, why not take weighted dips to maximize the effort. Sets of 5 reps, starting with bodyweight, then using 8kg dumbbell between legs, then 12.5kg db. After this I put on a belt where I was able to mount plates, first 17.5kg, then 25 and finally 30kg. Managed to keep sets unbroken constantly. In the end I did quite a lot of triceps to strengthen that part as well. I want to make the handstand push-ups perfect some day and triceps are the key to success!
Weighted dips, 30kg
Metcon. Run and squats, wearing a weighted vest.
10 rounds of:
100m sprint
20 squats
Wear a 9kg vest
This was much more wearing than it may sound on paper. We wanted to do 4 rounds of 400m run and 50 squats between rounds but the track was not yet open. It was full of snow still, it's only April. Even though the streets are snow-free, there are still some white in the forest. It didn't take long before Pony modified the workout to 10 rounds of short sprints and 20 air squats between rounds. We did it together at the same time. To put some more difficult level in to this one, I had a 9kg vest throughout the workout. My quads and hamstrings were devastated after this one, already in the middle of it. We managed to keep a steady pace all the time. If there was a clock running, I believe the lap times would not have dropped significantly.
Pull-ups. Several sets of pull-ups.
On the first set of regular pull-ups I was still wearing the weight vest, and took 10 reps for warming up. Then I took a few sets of regular ones, followed by chest-to-bars. I've had difficulties at home Box 'cause the rack is located so close to wall. I feel like I have to do a bigger kip and I need that spaceat least now in the training phase. Here in Pirkkola that's possible. I did some sets of C2B's, max set was 8 in a row. As a cashout I did max effort of regular pull-ups, that was 20 reps after all training, I'm pleased.
Agenda for today was to go for one hard core benchmark workout that would beaten me for sure, no doubt about it. However, yesterday my throat got sore and I'm not feeling 100% because of a in-crawling flu. I didn't want to risk anything by doing a metcon so I concentrated in strength training today. Haven't done bench in a while so it was about time!
It was also time to PR this one. It was back in Sweden in November. I have done it only occasionally since then. Because of this my goal today was far away from going after personal record. I wanted to do 5x5 with heavy weights. During the strength training I wanted to add the stakes. I started with 70, then 75kg. I decided to stick with 80kg for the rest of the sets. Because it felt so awesome, I wanted to go for another set to finish 6x5. I still felt an urge to go further. I put 85kg on the bar in an attempt of a single rep, which turned out ridiculously easy. My previous max was 87.5kg. Today I skipped it and went straight for 90kg, new PR attempt. Take a look below.
Bench, 90kg
I felt stable and confident and I felt it's coming up way too easy considering it's a PR attempt. I was positively surprised I was able to do this after 30 heavy reps already. Well, I added weights and tried 95kg twice. You find the videos in my Youtube channel. The first one might have come up without help, the other one had no chance. Pauliina suggested to drop 2.5kg and go for 92.5kg and I did. Take a look below, new PR. I'm extremely satisfied for today's effort. New maxes were created and I haven't even been practicing bench for a while.
Bench, 92.5kg
Cashout. Dips and triceps, total of 60 each. For quality, not for time.
5 rounds of
12 dips
12 triceps
My cashout today was a nice addition to bench press. More effort for chest, shoulders and triceps. 60 dips, 60 triceps in 5 rounds. No need to rush, concentrate in quality and unbrokenness. I also had the possibility to train kipping dips in the last two rounds as it started to feel heavy.
Dips
In the evening we'll celebrate our one year anniversary with Pauliina by eating at legendary Hard Rock Cafe and enjoying stand up show =)
At gym in Stockholm with Pauliina, nice! Good workout, good results. I took strength workouts and finished with handstand skills training. I'll take my metcon next time, which I had in mind for today. It will include kettlebells and hopefully gonna be very rough.
I started off with cleans but it simply didn't go the way I wanted so I didn't get stuck with it but quickly changed to shoulder press, which turned out to be a good deal. I took a PR in shoulder press, adding it up to 65kg.
Shoulder press, 65kg, PR
After shoulder press I moved on to bench press. Alternating with Pauliina, I was determined to hit big numbers on this one as well. My previous max was 2x85kg. Today I took a steady 3 rep set and then put more weights on the bar. New record saw the daylight: 87.5kg. I also tried 90kg but today was not the day for that one. The results for today's strength training were better than I thought when entering the box.
Handstand. The conditions for practising free handstand here in this particular Swedish gym are perfect. There is a large room with a floor covered with soft mattresses. Ideal to train for handstand and handstand walk. I was wondering how I would be able to progress with these skills and asked for Pauliina's view on this one. She simply said I should move my hands when balancing and move my hands if I want to walk with my hands. Well, I listened to her, moved my hands and was able to perform so much better than before. I realized I had never even tried to move my hands when inverted, simply just trying to find a stable and solid form and failing time after time. Today I couldn't stop practicing as I was so happy I was able to stand for a few seconds and move around by standing only with my hands. Awesome!
Toni's workouts. Toni texted he did exactly the same workout I did a litte over a month ago, 20th October. In addition he took that PR with back squats as he promised, he did good today!
Name of the game: bench press and snatch technique. I haven't done metcons basically at all this week. Only yesterday's "Sevenish"had my heart beating fiercely. This programming was intentional because of two reasons. First of all, I wanted to give my body an easier week after HC Triplet and secondly, my throat was a bit sore so I didn't want to risk health. I still managed to get a good week of work through strength exercises, as well as working for skills and technical issues with light weights. Tomorrow I'm gonna get back on track with metcons, you'll see…
1k row
Strength. Bench press 5-5-5-2-1 (60, 70, 80, PR 85, 85kg). Yeah baby! Previous record of 80kg was a two rep record 1st November and three rep set 20th November. Today I took it up five times, c'mon! As I put the plates on the barbell I simply knew it's gonna come up, and it did. I definitely wanted to pile up more even though I was alone at the gym. Luckily the bench press station has these safety bars installed because I didn't get that third rep up :) I took two reps with 85kg, took one minute rest and then another single with 85kg. I was extremely happy to the results! Every time when I have rowed good numbers in the warm-up I've done records in strength workouts. This time was no exception, my 1k row was timed 3.22. All the bench press videos from the five sets are available in my Youtube channel.
85kg, 2 reps, PR
Technique. Power snatch and squat snatch. I really worked on my technique today and tried to get it going. When I do my thing with an empty barbell, it all seems to fall into pieces. When I look at it from the video, I still see the problems of bringing the bar up too far away from my body and when I do squat snatches my knees tend to lean too far ahead of my ankles in the final position of that "overhead squat". Even with these flaws I like the way my squat snatches look like compared to where I started from. Still, I'd like to be able to add weights, it's pretty pathetic to lift only 40kg snatching. Where will that take a man in the Open 2013? Nowhere. Better keep on training that technique and having the guts to squat when snatching. I will go after 50kg soon.
Squat snatches
Toni had a rest day today. Smart man, tomorrow I bet he has that energy boost and he will break his bench PR =)
