Tuesday. Strength, front squat doubles (max 130kg). Metcon, 3rds of: 10 c2b, 10 front squat (60kg), 10 burpee. Time, 5.07.
My throat was still sore so I wasn't in the best shape at all. Yesterday's missed squats popped up in today's agenda, and I was hungry for them. There had to be some sort of metcon too and I got this one from competitorstraining.com from couple of days ago.
Strength.
Front squat doubles (90, 100, 110, 115, 120, 125, 130kg)
One single @ 135kg
There were no huge expectations for these squats but I just needed to get them done. It's been too long since squatting heavy and my legs were waiting for these big time. I thought they might be heavier but for some reason these felt great all the time.
It happened to be a good day of training. It's been a while since going to very heavy loads. And I got a double at 130kg which I believe has not happened before. My 1RM is 135kg so I cheered for this double for sure. After that I took one single at the shared pr number.
2x130kg
Metcon. Time, 5.07
3 rounds of:
10 chest-to-bar pull-ups
10 front squat, 60kg
10 burpee
This was obviously supposed to be a sprint from the first second. My face wasn't normal with nose and throat feeling a bit of a flu (not bad but something anyway) so I took it a little easier. My barbell was located far away from the pull-up bar which was probably not the best decision time-wise. There were a lot of people at the gym and I had not chance for this.
My strategy was to break the c2b's every round, drop down and quickly get back up to complete more reps. Didn't try to go unbroken in any round. Front squats definitely unbroken, and then pace the burpees, keep the same steady pace all the time. And walk between the barbell and pull-up bar to cool down the breathing. This worked well for today.
Sunday. Muscle-ups. Emom x 20min. 1st min: power snatch (42.5kg), 2nd min: 10 burpee, 3rd min: 8 ohs (42.5kg), 4th min: 30 du.
Yesterday's wedding party went late so I had to sleep late to get some training on. It was Sunday evening when I finally opened the gym door. It was supposed to be a little easier one and maybe a longer metcon. It changed during the course of the training session.
Gymnastics.
Muscle-ups
I forgot my balls home on the muscle-ups. I thought it might be a good idea to do like 20 reps for time. Okay, I did singles every 30 seconds for 3 reps, then took 2 fails, and lots my mojo. Finished it for 5 reps and called it quits.
Workout.
Every minute on the minute, for 20 minutes
1st min: 8 power snatch, 42.5kg
2nd min: 10 burpee
3rd min: 8 overhead squat, 42.5kg
4th min: 30 double under
The purpose of the workout was to do bunch of work and keep the intensity moderate, definitely not as high as normally. It's not common for me to put barbell work in a wod like this. Today I thought it might be a good idea to work on my weaknesses with the bar as well. So power snatches and overhead squats were in the game.
As I don't usually do that kind of stuff it was difficult to know how many reps would be suitable. Somehow I ended up with 8 snatch / ohs. Every minute I wanted it to be somewhere around 20 seconds of work and these actually were pretty much there, max 25 seconds on each movement. And the idea was naturally to do them unbroken.
Recap
This one totaled for 20 minutes which means it was 5 rounds of all movements. First round was what I was looking for, light work after lots of heavier training days. Round by round it got tougher. It was obvious these reps are gonna be done but I just felt my body thinking it's getting heavier all the time. I had one miss on the double unders so I punished myself on the last round by doing 50 reps instead of 30.
It was a good workout and I got a chance to really improve on these two weaknesses, snatch and overhead squats.
Thursday. Strength, split jerk 3-3-3-2-2-2-1-1-1 (max 95kg). Metcon, 10-8-6-4-2, clean & jerk (60kg) and lateral burpees. Time 4.47.
My focus for today was getting the bar up overhead. The solution for that was split jerk work taken from the rack. Going heavy, not maxing out though. Then for high intensity I took advice of Toni's hint and completed a workout he did just yesterday. I had in mind mixing clean & jerks and pull-ups but those burpees weren't that bad idea after all. Decided to roll the dice with this one. Juuso was there today to workout with me.
I did some clean and jerk work earlier in the week, on Monday. Then, the set-up was a little different as I took the barbell from ground with a clean and then finished it off with 3 touch'n'go split jerks. Plus, it was "every minute on the minute" - work so the nature was a little different. Anyway, it was a great way to get these shoulders activated to overhead work and prepare for this day mentally. Bar felt light on Monday, it was 70kg all the way for 12min emom.
I had determined the weights beforehand, especially for the triples and doubles. I was a little sketchy on the singles and left a little room for listening to my body and make the decisions on the fly. Got the triples done in TnG style without resting the bar in the front rack position at all, just bouncing it back up right away. Those were not bad at all, I felt confident with them. Had some issues with my right shoulder though, it felt very tight and you could say it didn't feel perfect on the lifts when I had my hands straight overhead.
85kg double
Anyway, it was time to add 10kg on the bar and go for doubles. Same thing, shoulder wasn't perfect but the weight itself was okay to handle. Got identical lifts on all 6 attempts at this stage. However, I didn't want to bring too much burden on my shoulder so I jumped to 90kg for the singles. Had in mind doing them all at 95kg but decided to jump there gradually, from 90kg with 2.5kg increase after every jerk.
This was a good session in my opinion. Got good heavy lifts and reminded my body how it feels like having considerable weight overhead. And I got to say it feels awesome! I love having bar up with straight hands, there's something brutal in that =) Let's make these shoulders stronger!
95kg single
Metcon. Time 4.47
10-8-6-4-2
Clean & jerk, 60kg
Lateral burpees
God damned Toni! This was not cool at all. I realized it when Toni said his time on this metcon. Before that I hadn't thought about the length of this workout. Obviously it was going to be short and intense, all in effort. Got to go hard from the beginning. It was kind of a mixture of Grace (30 clean & jerks for time) and 30 burpees with a slight twist: you got to jump over the bar after every burpee. That's a lateral burpee. Toni nailed this one in 6:10 and was one of the toughest stallions at his affiliate. So I had the usual butterflies in my stomach that always come before Grace or Fran.
It was game time baby. My plan hitting in to the workout was doing the first set of c&j's in 5-5. I could push them through unbroken, no doubt but I thought that would bring a disaster pretty soon. I think it was a smart move for me. Got them as planned, then went after burpees. For some reason I have the same issue with lateral burpees & bar-over-burpees as Toni has pretty much all the time ;) that is trouble in counting the reps right. After looking at my performance from the video, there seems to be 13 burpees on the first round and 7 on the round of 8's. Luckily there were anyway more than there were supposed to be, otherwise I would be devastated.
Clean & jerks and burpees workout
Burpees weren't nice for sure but they were the easier movement. No doubt. But they had a serious effect on me. On the round of 8 clean & jerks my shoulders were smashed from the first set of burpees. All of a sudden the bar felt like 70kg. I took this set in doubles, 4x2reps. Round of 6's went in two sets, 3-3, round of 4's in 2-2 and the last one was 2 singles. The bar got heavier towards the end but I kept telling myself this is a quick workout, don't whine and keep moving. Finally I got the work done and the digits stopped at 4.47.
I was very satisfied with this time, considering my Grace is a little sub 3min and there were 30 lateral burpees accompanying those c&j's. Couldn't decided which was burning more in the metcon, my shoulders or thighs. Both were in flames plus my lungs were trying to get mouthfuls of air but it seemed difficult at the moment. This felt horrible as all short "balls to the wall" metcons do but at the same time it felt great!
These guys are phenomenal, the Masters of the Crossfit Games, which means to say they include in the age groups of 40+ all the way to 60+ division. I look up to these guys a lot. Fitness does not look at the age of a human being, take care of your bodies people
Thursday. Metcon with clean & jerks, burpees and double unders.
Due to time table issues, I had to go with this workout today. Awesome workout but not the most optimal way to do clean & jerks twice in two days. Yesterday I was doing those heavy ones as emom training and today combined lighter c&j's with burpees and du's. It's been a lot of heavy breathing this week and Thursday was no exception.
Newborn mini pig from Toni's in-laws =)
Metcon. Time 12.10
1 clean & jerk, 1 burpee, 30 double unders
2 clean & jerk, 2 burpees, 30 double unders
3 clean & jerk, 3 burpees, 30 double unders
4 clean & jerk, 4 burpees, 30 double unders
5 clean & jerk, 5 burpees, 30 double unders
6 clean & jerk, 6 burpees, 30 double unders
7 clean & jerk, 7 burpees, 30 double unders
60kg on the barbell
Yep, it really got to the core of crossfit. Strength, bodyweight, skills and breathing. The weight for clean & jerks wasn't heavy, actually in the end it felt light. However, through time the barbell got heavier and heavier as both burpees and double unders made my shoulders more tired. I got them unbroken for the 5 first rounds. On the 6th I did 4+2, and on the last one 4+2+1.
Not a huge amount of burpees, they were not the beef on this workout. The purpose of them was still to make me breath a bit heavier. Double unders. I wrote some time ago that next time I do DU's I might just add the number of reps per round. Guess it was that time I did some warm-up battle with Toni. We did sets of 10x20 reps then, alternating turns. I was good with this skill today, except on the last round. I guess I made one mistake on the second round after 4 reps, then jumped through without any flaws. For 5 rounds I went unbroken. The last round was difficult. Lost my concentration and stumbled a bit.
Liked this workout to the fullest. Tough combination of 3 movements, stuffed together to make a human soul cry. Just the way it should be. Loved it!
Found a short series of mr. Froning
Toni's workouts. He did a pair workout with one of his buddies. 20 min amrap of cleans, swings and thrusters, all completed with kettlebells. An some additional bear walk. No idea how they combined the movements together but the story tells there were about 40 reps each movement.
Tuesday. Strength: clean 5 x 5, max 60kg. Wod: 5 clean (40kg) + 10 burpees. 5 rounds. Time 4.45.
Yesterday's team training still makes my body ache, especially my legs have the feeling yesterday wasn't a rest day :) When I walked to the gym with a friend of mine - Toni - we both felt our bodies were not as sharp as they should've been. So we forced them to be anxious, preparing bodies by rowing, running, doing pull-ups, push-ups, squats, abs, overhead squats etc. Suddenly, the feeling was totally different. The same eagerness came back as usually so we started the strength training.
I took 5 rep cleans with 40+40+50+60+60kg weights. I realised my technic isn't as fast as I hoped so after the workout I took cleans with only the bar (20kg) to learn the technic better. I got more explosive than before, so I think I moved further with cleans. I'm very satisfied with today's training!
After doing the cleans, my buddy started his wod and I took it on camera. That was my rest time. He fought through the same wod as Mikko Salo did in his "Sisu"-document as he did three workouts in a day. The workout was 5 deadlifts + 10 burpees, 5 rounds. He did it with a load of kilos but hey, he's a beast! Because this was Toni's first deadlift workout ever, he put 60kg on the bar. Time 7.19, well done dude!
My wod was similar to his: 5 cleans with 40kg + 10 burpees, 5 rounds. Time 4.45. I put effort in the burpees for the chest to hit the ground. My cleans were hang power cleans because I wanted to learn the bar bouncing technic by utilising the thighs and gravity. I have hard time to bounce it if I lift it from all the way from the floor. After watching the video at home I realised my hands are quite tired in the last burpees, I should've put more energy in making them perfectly. Anyway, this was a good wod, I'm going to come back to this one again.
After work, I had my floorball practice with the team again. 30-40 run for the beginning, and then 1h practice. I call it over for this day =)
Tuesday. Two workouts for today. Morning consists of strength and wod. The afternoon exercise concentrates in rowing.
Strength: clean 5x5. Rest 5 min.
Wod: 5 clean + 20 burpee + 10 DU. 3 rounds. Time 7.58
Interval rowing, 4 x 500-750m
Morning training is over. So am I... The first part consisted of strength training. Some of the crossfit movements are a bit strange for me so I'm still learning. Especially weight lifting moves like cleans and snatches. I took off with merely the bar (20kg). 5 reps, 1-2 min rest, then add some kilos, repeated 5 times. The sets were 20 - 30 - 40 - 50 - 60kg. My technic is clearly evolving, still there is some job left to be done. With leighter weights, I can keep the package tigth and solid but in 60 kilos I can see that it comes a struggle and my technic kind of collapses. Then it's purely a matter of state of mind, you decide you are stronger than the bar and you can move it to the right position. So I won the bar this time. This is not my max, I know that but I need some more practice on the move.
Okay, after 5 min rest I took a metcon, created by myself. Three rounds consisting of 5 cleans (40kg), 20 burpees and 10 double unders. Cleans were not bad, I could have upped it to 50kg. However, the burpees and DU combination was brutal. My heart was racing as maniac. I could push through the burpees, not unbroken but almost. I can do those jump ropes in a double under - single under - double under - single under... - style. Now as my pulse was very fast, concentration faded a bit which caused me to perform something like 16 double under attempts to gain 10 reps. That means I used a lot of energy to a double unders which were not counted as reps, this is something I could have saved a lot of time in.
Afternoon metcon was all about rowing my ass off. It shortened the distance and hastened the speed. I made it pyramid style. First set was 500m second one 750, third one 750 and the last one 500m. I also did 5 x 10 toes-to-bar.
1. 500m, 1.50 min
2. 750m, 2.38 min (1.45 min / 500m)
3. 750m, 2.30 min (1.40 min / 500m)
4. 500m, 1.40 min
The first set was warming up, then I started to put more effort to the pulls. I tried a different style than normally. Usually I row so that my pull is rather quick and the return to starting position takes almost the same time. This leads to exhaustion in time. This time I put more effort on the pull, it was stronger and quicker and the return part took about twice the time compared to the pull. I read some elite crossfitters do it like this. No wonder, my results were faster than what I'm used to. I usually aim for speed somewhere around 1.50 min / 500 meters. This time my time was 1.40 - 1.45 min / 500 meters in the last three rounds. That difference is huge! I will concentrate in focusing more power to pulling and letting my body to recover for a second or two before the next fierce pull.
This week's training I have to post afterwards as it's already Thursday. I was resting the entire previous week due to some irregular beating of my heart. I didn't do any workouts Monday through Saturday. On Sunday I was at the gym doing some squats, deadlifts and push presses.
Monday. 800m run, 40 push-ups, 20 box jumps. 5 rounds. Time 26.20. Practising muscle-ups. Tabata hollow hold. Stretching in the evening.
I had two friends with me to run along. I had some doubts about running due to last week's problems so I kind of held back during the workout. However, afterwards it felt good and I had those bad thoughts in vain.
Tuesday, first workout. 5x5 back squats. Max 100kg. 5 min rest. WOD: 5 L-pull-ups, 20 burpee, 25 KB swing (16kg). 4 rounds. Time 10.36. Stretching in the evening.
Felt good. Still taking it easier than normally with the squats. Starting to feel pretty good though. I experimented this type of training from Mikko Salo's training programme: first weight lifting, then rest, then wod. I liked it and probably going to continue like this. This wod caused heavy breathing due to burpees. Kettlebell was too light I think. I have already ordered 20kg KB at my own expense. This 16kg was the heaviest at the gym.
Tuesday, second workout. Row 4 x 750m, 2 min rest between sets. Time 16.48. Practising double unders.
The first training session took place 10.00 in the morning so this afternoon workout was planned to be easier. My girlfriend went to the gym so I immediately tagged along. Rowing started nicely in every four sets. The last 250 meters were slower as fatigue struck. I'm going to increase the amount of rowing in the near future.
Wednesday. Bear complex. 5 rounds 20+25+30+35+20. 5 min rest. WOD: 5 Deadlift (80kg), 5 toes-to-bar. 5 rounds. Time 3.43. Stretching in the evening.
The first time ever to try out bear complex. Pretty tough I would say. Sound easy when you think about the weights I carried. However, for me they were enough, this time... Next time I'll raise. After short break I took on the deadlift and Toes-to-bar combination to strengthen the middle body. Nice combo, deadlift could have been maybe 90kg but due to the nature of the workout maybe it was better to be that 80kg. They were both movements where grip is essential which caused it slightly painful in the palms towards the end.
Thursday. Rest day.
Stretching in the evening. I feel like hitting the gym but I must think this rationally. I'm going to stretch today and take another workout tomorrow.
