Wednesday. Oly, power clean triples (up to 90kg), hang squat cleans (up to 100kg). Front squat 3-3-3-2-2-2-1-1-1 (up to 130kg). Metcon, 5rds of: 21 cal row, 15 pull-ups, 9 thrusters (2x20kg db's).
This time there was no rush at all so I took a good bunch of volume after work day before heading home to eat and recover. It was a whole lot of fun to throw down at the gym with some friends.
Oly.
A - Power clean triples (80, 83, 86, 88, 90kg)
B - Hang squat clean doubles (80, 85, 90, 95, 100kg)
The thing was to hold on to the bar and go for touch'n'go reps on the cleans. No dropping in-between but hold that grip and complete the triples and doubles. Consecutive power cleans at these weights are something I haven't been practicing that much so this was beneficial for sure. I built up to 90 kilos and walk home with some pride in my shirt.
Second part of cleans was hang squat cleans. These are closer to my forte as I can utilize my legs more. Thus, I was able to go to 100kg. Cleans felt pretty good. On the last one I had to adjust my grip before completing the latter rep of the heaviest load.
More barbell work. These were supposed to be done yesterday but I simply forgot to do them. Who does that? =) At home it came to my mind so I postponed it for today. Couple of triples, doubles and singles, with increasing load. The 130kg was heavy and took me a good time to bring it up so I dropped down to 125kg for the last two singles.
Metcon. Time, 15 minutes
5 rounds of:
21 cal row
15 pull-ups
9 thrusters @ 2x20kg dumbbells
After working with the barbell for some time my body felt like the session is about ready. Had to sell the idea of this metcon to myself more than normally. This was stolen from Ben Bergeron, just modified it a little. Original version was c2b pull-ups and thrusters were clusters. I figured it would be a better conditioning piece this way. No need to lean my elbows on my knees that much.
It worked very well for the purpose I was looking for. No idea what the pace was on the rower, just tried to get that Concept2 moving right away as I sat down. Pull-ups were unbroken on the first round, and then 10-5 from then on. Yes they were pain in the ass (okay, in the lats) but somehow I felt more comfortable on those compared to how I imagined they might feel like. There was 75 total reps anyway. Comfortable is probably not the right word, they were nasty. But I was able to keep moving which was the main goal here.
Thrusters kept heart rate up for sure, as did each of the elements in this workout. Went unbroken with the dumbbells. Shoulders got smashed on these though. Legs felt fine on the thrusters but really needed to focus to get the path good on the dumbbells.
Saturday. Metcon, 3rds of: 1min db thrusters (2x15kg's), 1min burpees, 1min row for calories, 1min rest. Result, 170 reps
Exceptionally, I had a work day today and then we had some family gathering in the evening so there was just a short time window that needed to be utilized. There was not time for lots of action. More like short warm-up, 3-2-1 and go!
Pretty much a perfect workout. Didn't need lots of warm-ups to get ready for this one. On the other hand it would have probably been wise to focus on increasing heart rate before starting this workout. This included lots of heavy breathing, and it was a good shock to my system in the first round.
At least this was consistent work all the way. It was tough. On the thrusters my shoulders were burning big time. Knocked 22 reps on the first try, then 20 got me in trouble on the second round, and third was pure agony. I almost dropped the dumbbell on my left hand because I just couldn't hold on to it anymore. But somehow I managed to push through the last couple of reps to reach 20 reps.
Burpees were much heavier than normally after tiring my shoulders first on the thrusters. I still managed to match the pace on the second round but then couldn't hold on to this same pace on the last one. Dropped the result by two reps on the third.
Rowing was the nicest part of this one. Or let's say the least ugly of the three elements. It got to my entire body for sure every time. On the last round I was able to step the game up a little to get 2 more calories on the Concept2. Very intense action, good one for this Saturday!
Wednesday. 1k row, time 3.22. Strength clean & jerk (max PR 70kg, clean PR 75kg), pair wods consisting of farmer's walk, dumbbell thrusters and step-ups, twice. Floorball in the evening.
This day was simply phenomenal! A lot of work was done and some personal records were broken. We took off with Toni by rowing our PR's, then we had strength training. I had clean & jerk on my list, Toni concentrated in push press. Then we took a pair wod, we loved it and felt we have more juice so we took another workout after that. In the evening I had my floorball practice. Between sessions we went to buy a regular sand bag with Toni and turned it into a "crossfit sand bag" =)
Row. Time 3.22, improving previous record with 4 seconds. In such a short distance, I have a feeling this was pretty awesome. I didn't have this in mind but as it felt light from the very beginning, I put some more power in the rows and it just slid through. I usually have my damper setting at 8, today as well. I have counted that some time ago I took 9 strokes to reach 100 meters, then it came down to 9, nowadays it's 7-8 strokes. I use a lot of leg power and I pull the handle quite far away and higher than I used to, that means the pull is more fierce and longer. Toni also id his personal record as he reached the momentum after seeing the digits on my clock. He was pulling it like a maniac and finally reached 3.27, that's pure force man!
PR
Strength. Clean & jerk 3-3-3 (60, 65, 70, 75 failed / PR 75kg clean succeeded). I took clean & jerks, sets of 3 reps starting from 60kg. My max for clean is 70kg and I managed to take three reps of c&j today so I was extremely happy. In addition I decided to go for 75kg and got the clean nicely. I used all my juice in that move and I couldn't get it going anymore, I dropped the bar after that. I tried it once more after some rest but it was impossible. I'm glad I got 75kg clean up, 5kg improvement, nice!
Clean & jerk, 70kg
Toni did push presses, 3-3-3-3-2 (60, 65, 70, 72.5k, 75kg). Take a look at his video to witness the last set.
Push press, 75kg, Toni
Metcon. Time 8.13. Use 25kg dumbbells for farmer's walk and 15kg dumbbells for db thrusters. Both me and Toni had farmer's walk on the agenda, my other movements were 60kg step-ups and 15kg db thrusters. Toni's movements were farmer's walk, ring push-ups and 15kg db thrusters, the number of reps are marked after the movement.
90m farmer's walk, (Ring push-ups, 14 reps)
Step-ups, 13 reps (90m farmer's walk)
90m farmer's walk, (dumbbell thrusters, 10 reps)
Dumbbell thrusters, 18 reps (90m farmer's walk)
90m farmer's walk (ring push-ups, 17 reps)
Step-ups 14 reps (90m farmer's walk)
90m farmer's walk (dumbbell thrusters, 10 reps)
Dumbbell thrusters 14 reps (90m farmer's walk)
I hope you guys understand what this workout was all about =) We liked it, a lot! The main idea is that the 25kg dumbbells play the main role in this pair workout. The other one carries them continuously with farmer's walk style. While the other one farmer walks, the other does as many reps as possible during that time. If the one with the 25kg dumbbells, drops the db's, the other one has to stop as well. We did this workout at the gym so that 90 meters was a shuttle walk, 6x15m. My performance is listed first in the bullets above, Toni's movements are in the brackets. You still following? =)
Farmer's walk
I got all sets unbroken except the last two rounds of farmer's walk. My hands were getting numb and I lost my grip on the dumbbells. It was also challenging to grab the dumbbells for db thrusters right after that. This was an awesome workout and got to the whole body exactly as I wanted. It was also great to get this walk on the workout as the gym was empty and we had the possibility to add this one to the wod. The most difficult was definitely the walk. Last time when I did step-ups, I wrote that more reps or more kilos should be added. This time I added reps but still I have the feeling I wanted to be more exhausted after them. Thus, I will add more weights next time. Thrusters were tough but manageable. Let's say I didn't mind Toni dropped his 25kg dumbbells in farmer's walk so I had to drop mine as well.
DB thrusters
Second metcon. Exactly the same, time 8.23. Time difference +9 seconds.
90m farmer's walk, (Ring push-ups, 23 reps)
Step-ups, 12 reps (90m farmer's walk)
90m farmer's walk, (dumbbell thrusters, 10 reps)
Dumbbell thrusters, 16 reps (90m farmer's walk)
90m farmer's walk (ring push-ups, 13 reps)
Step-ups 12 reps (90m farmer's walk)
90m farmer's walk (dumbbell thrusters, 9 reps)
Dumbbell thrusters 17 reps (90m farmer's walk)
You know, we had an awesome feeling after the first workout and we kinda wanted something more. We thought of going for another similar type of workout but Toni threw the idea up to go for exactly the same workout and see how much of a difference will there be. Now it would be a matter of metabolic condition and also very much a mental game!
Our time was 9 seconds slower on the second metcon, not bad =) How about the number of reps between metcons?
Don
360m -> 360m farmer's walk
27 -> 24 step-ups
32 -> 33 dumbbell thrusters
Toni
360m -> 360m farmer's walk
31 -> 36 ring push-ups
20 -> 19 dumbbell thrusters
Not a huge difference, we can conclude that we managed to keep up the pace with both speed and number of repetitions between metcons. After a long day of work it was a notification that got us smiling greatly =) Finally in the evening I had my floorball practice.
Saturday. 1k row, time 3.26. Shoulder press 6x4 (max PR 60kg), push press 4x3 (max PR 75kg). Short metcon.
Today was game day, we had a home game in the evening. Still, I wanted to go to the gym in the afternoon and went for shoulder and push press because my Wednesday's wasn't a success story. I nailed it today and made some personal records. I started with classic 1.000m row, time 3.26 and finished the day with a short metcon in which I didn't time it at all, just wanted to do the workout for quality.
Push press, 70kg
Strength. Shoulder press 4-4-4-4-4-3 (40, 45, 50, 55, PR 57.5, PR 60kg). Push press 3-3-3-2 (65, 70, PR 72.5, PR 75kg). God damned this was a good strength training session! Personal records in both shoulder and push press, both improved with 5kg. And I was able to do even those weights more than once, I'm so satisfied with this one! Maybe it was the amount of carbs I put in my mouth yesterday and the fact that I had the chance for a good night sleep. My training sessions have usually taken place very early in the morning and still I have been able to improve my max results consistently. However, the afternoon and weekend trainings have probably been most successful.
Shoulder press, 60kg
Push press, 75kg
Metcon. For quality
3 rounds of:
10 knees-to-elbows
3 wall climbs
10 dumbbell thrusters (15kg db's)
I didn't rush with this one, just wanted to get those movements done with quality, I didn't time this one at all. I like all these moves.
