This was the weekly gymnastics quota. I really like these days now as my muscle-ups are about to jump to the next level. Gymnastics days equals no-barbell / no-metcon programming. Simultaneously these days are my active recovery days as I don't like pure rest days that much. Not that I needed one today. Okay, my back muscles are sore in a good way.
Gymnastics.
15 muscle-ups
Handstand
L-sit to tuck hold
Elbow levers
Those muscle-ups are really coming together finally. At least there's some progression in my technique as they are somewhat lighter and I can do them with shorter recoveries. I didn't time those repetitions but it was somewhere around 10 minutes to get those reps. I took singles in the beginning, then one friend told me to take a double as singles looked too easy. That was a big motivation for me :)
After muscle-ups I took couple of sets freestanding handstand, that was okay. Then something new cool stuff on putting couple of bumper plates on top of each other, and performing L-sit on them, and from there transferring it to a tuck hold. That was a great core movement, definitely not an easy one. Finally some elbow levers and different kinds of body control movements. Great training day!
My body is crashed from yesterday's workouts with my bro. Heard that he's suffering from some muscle pain as well, no surprise. So today I took it much easier and concentrated in playing with rings and then mostly did plyometric training to improve on my explosiveness. Also some elbow levers saw daylight.
Elbow lever
Skills training of the day.
Rings: inverted hold
Muscle-up progressions (jumps from ground, swings)
Bar muscle-up (all 1 of them =D)
Elbow levers
Plyometric jumps (high box jumps and jumping from knees to squat position), about 70 reps
Jumps from knees-to-ground to feet-to-ground, 3 x 10 reps
Most of my time I focused in high box jumps. I took 5 reps on each of the hight levels. Added a bumper plate after each set. Finally there were 8 plates on the Rogue box. Could have added more, there was still some gap to be filled. It started to feel a bit intimidating and the plates were running out as I stocked them on the box so I stayed at 8 plates. Took a few sets with that highest stack.
These plyometric workouts are supposedly increasing explosiveness in hips and thus improve on pretty much all possible movements there are in the weightlifting scene. These type of training sessions are rare but fun. In a day like this when my body feels it's been shocked by earlier days' workouts I'm able to squeeze these in. Maybe the body could benefit the most if it was fresh but I felt this was a good decision.
Then some elbow levers or what ever you wanna call them. I held my both elbows at the hip, tried to stabilize my body by leaning on them, aiming to find a steady straight core. Not an easy job, must say! It's very challenging and taxing movement and it's not many seconds I can hold on to this position. I also sometimes work on this movement on the floor by leaning only one elbow on the hip, the other one is free of my body. Even tougher.
And then in the end some sets of this type of jumps, also same goal as with the high box jumps: creating explosiveness on the hips. Starting position is on your knees, end position is landing on your feet as quickly as possible.
I'm glad I went to the gym and did something light work, hoping my body is well prepared for tomorrow's workout.
Skills. Elbow levers. This movement is something I've tried a few times. Got the inspiration from Blair Morrison's crossfit blog. It's part of the Prasara Yoga movements looking to improve body control. Take a look at some of the videos in Sinor's Youtube channel. Worked today towards one-handed and two-handed levers. Perfect stuff for warming up!
Metcon. For completion
3 rounds of:
500m row
20 box jumps, 61cm
20 pull-ups
My juice wasn't there in full mode so I did a 3 round metcon with rowing, boxes and pull-ups. The last one is something I've been neglecting and will definitely get back on track with them. Looking to nail around 400 reps per month to keep on improving. I'm behind my goal this month but there's still time to get back.
Mobility. My body was somewhat bruised so I kept this workout light. Concentrated a lot in mobility after the metcon. Lot of stretching for lower body, hamstrings, hip flexors, glutes… Also utilized my new resistance band for lower and upper body mobility workouts. Finally the new lacrosse ball had its turn to hammer my upper back and hip flexors. Really worked well. I've been doing way more mobility workouts in the last 2 weeks. I have some fixation to get my hips and upper back better mobilized.
Handstand. After a couple of hours I decided to take another session by training skills. It's been some time since previous handstand session and it was awesome to go for it after a while! I'm a bit afraid how I can keep up with this special skills training during winter time. Hopefully I'll find a place to train. It might be quite challenging to handstand in snow =)
Toni's workouts.
Complex pair wod consisting of:
Static dip hold
Lunges with 10kg plate overhead
Burpees
Heard that the number of lunges was around 200m and burpees at 80 reps.
Tuesday. AM: Overhead squat 3-3-2-2-1-1 (max PR 70kg). Back squat, emom 3 reps @ 100kg for 10min. Metcon, overhead walk, pistols, front rack lunges, hspu. Time 12.58. PM: row 2k easily, elbow levers, mobility, stretching.
Uuh mama! Another shot to train @ Liikuntamylly. The place is spectacular, can't describe it well enough. Now I'm probably getting close to the feeling of people working out at a regular crossfit box. Only imagination is a limiting factor because you have everything there. That's why my workouts today were a bit different. Overhead squats (possibility to drop weights) and the elements of the metcon are impossible for me to carry out at my home gym. In the evening I went to gym for elbow levers and mobility,
Warm-up.
Run 800m, then 3 rounds of:
10 push-ups
20 air squats, then:
50 wall balls, 5kg
This was a good set to get some blood running in my veins. Running for starters, feels good as normally I get to cycle or row to begin with. That wall ball was also a little twist. Unfortunately that ball was the heaviest, otherwise I would have nailed Karen at some point.
Strength. Overhead squats 3-3-2-2-1-1 (40, 50, 55, 60, 65, PR 70kg). Yes! I tried this about a month ago, that time I also shared previous record of 65kg but failed on the 70kg. Today on my first attempt of 70kg my core collapsed, then shoulders and that made me drop the bar. After half a minute of desperation I realized I'm in the best place to work out, I'm having my PR shirt on and above all, this should be fun. I went back to the barbell, took it in back rack, jerked it up, got my lunges full of air and did what I came here for. It might have been a bit shy of parallel. I'm not used to do squats without mirrors so it was difficult to know. My overhead squats are deep nowadays but this might have been some cents short. Anyway, it felt very good!
Back squat emom. Back squat, 3 reps every minute on the minute @ 100kg for 10 minutes.
Yesterday evening I planned to go for front squat singles as well but then realized it's more vital to work on my hamstring and posterior chain in general to some day squat 150kg. That's my goal to say it out loud. I need to work with semi heavy loads and get more reps. The load today was pretty good for me. I really like the emom training method because it gets to your breathing, muscles durability and strength in the long run.
I went for 10 minutes. Had no problems to lift that 100kg each minute. A total of 30 reps. Next time I might add some weight, 105-110kg. Good pressure on my hamstrings. And my goal was to go as deep as possible, definitely below parallel.
Metcon. Time 12.58
4 rounds of:
25m walk, barbell overhead carry, 40kg
5/5 pistol squats
25m lunges, with bar in front rack position, 40kg
5 handstand push-ups
This was sick. I realized after first round it's gonna be tough, especially on legs. I had this totally planned yesterday except for the pistols. Had an empty space there so I went to ask Pauliina what she would throw in there. The answer was cruel. Those pistols changed the game pretty much. Going for weighted front rack lunges after that made my legs burn deeply.
The first element - overhead carry - was a little light. Would have been perfect with maybe 60kg. Then it would have been tough as well. However, I had to use the same barbell so 60kg would have been a disaster in the lunges part. On the first round my pistols were a bit shaky, then it got better. Tougher but with better and smoother technique.
On the first round those lunges went unbroken, the remaining round I had to drop the bar once each round. Handstand push-ups went unbroken which pleases me a lot. I did some strict reps each round and once it started to get on my triceps I changed it to kipping hspu's.
This morning session was at least as spectacular as yesterday. Another PR saw day the light and I got to work on my lower body very well. No need to rush, I took my time in the cooling down as well. I ran for 1.000m and stretched as well.
Row, levers, mobility. After working hours Pauliina had scheduled hitting the gym so I joined her but was determined to take it easy. Rowing 2k with a slow pace to start with. I intentionally kept the pace close to 2:00 / 500m, with a smaller damper setting that normally, it took me 7.53 to finish it. Just to activate the body and get ready for stretching.
I got carried away with elbow levers, inspired from Prasara Yoga, I've added some video clips lately. It is an awesome movement to get to know your body, core and balance. I've been working on that one-handed elbow lever, same today. One of my friends showed 2-handed elbow levers as an example so I gave it a shot and succeeded in the movement at first try! Tried it twice, felt pretty natural actually. I'm gonna work on that one-handed lever progression in the future as well. Good work for core, balance and definitely on shoulders.
Workout. 10 to 1, down by 1's. Scaled hspu, toes-to-bar. For completion
Toni completed clean triples, power cleans as always. He's done squat cleans with mainly warm-up weights only. It came up nicely up to 70-75kg. On the 80kg bar he missed that third rep twice but after he realized it was only a mental game, he finished the last set with style. He had the bar high enough on the earlier sets as well but just didn't go under the bar quickly enough.
On the workout / metcon, it was purely for completion, not for time. Handstand push-ups wrere scaled to a foam roll. There were 55 reps both movements. Starting from 10 reps, coming down to 1 rep, down by 1 rep at a time.
Saturday. Prasara yoga: elbow lever progressions. Metcon of kettlebell presses, swings and air squats. Time 13.38.
We are spending the weekend at the countryside. The surroundings are perfect as always. This weekend I'm gonna leave barbells alone and concentrate in bodyweight movements and kettlebells. To warm-up I did elbow lever progressions and then a metcon with kettlebells and air squats.
Elbow levers. This looks easy but is very demanding on the shoulders. I mean very taxing. I got way better this time with the movement than before. Only few seconds of staying still but I got much better control over my body than earlier. My shoulders were on fire after having completed this part. Worked on the lever progressions for about 10 minutes. Having the skill to balance your body with the help of your core is nothing short of spectacular. I'm gonna keep this one on my schedule in order to develop as an all-around athlete.
Metcon. Time 13.38
3 rounds of:
20 kettlebell presses, 20kg
50 air squats
20 kettlebell swings, 32kg
50 air squats
We packed our kettlebells with us, one for Pauliina, two for me. In this workout I did the presses with 20kg bell and swings with 2 pood bell. Between kettlebells there were 50 air squats to pressure my legs. Times for those 3 rounds were approximately as follows:
Round 1: 4.10
Round 2: 4.50
Round 3: 4.40
Total 13.38
The presses were completed in sets of 5 reps per hand, then changing hands. All kettlebells unbroken, both movements. Air squats were more difficult. There were 300 of them. First set unbroken, then I believe I had to break it. Usually the first attempt was 20, then 15 and something else. My hamstrings were killing me in the end. Hard to believe such a simple movement can cause such a tremendous burn. Air squat is a genius move!
This workout got my heart pumping blood in my veins and lunges also had to do work. It was a warm day and it was awesome to do this outdoors. The only thing bothering were the flies and other bugs flying around me :) Easy to swing a kettlebell when a bug is eating my calf…
I was tempted to practice on my handstand walk but now I just wanted to relax for the rest of the day. We put chicken skewers on the grill and enjoyed a food feast at the terrace. It was an easygoing and relaxing day with Pauliina!
Took it easy today. Practically no barbells at all today. Just worked on some split jerk with empty barbell, it's hard to land the feet in perfect position. Probably because I just haven't practiced that movement. Only occasionally. I worked on elbow levers and planche hold. Then some handstand hold agains the wall for time (max hold 1:00) and then tried to let my heels get off the wall and hold my body still.
Mostly this day was not physically taxing except those elbow levers. I definitely felt them in my shoulders. This Prasara Yoga stuff I've learned from Blair Morrison is sick. Looks very easy and is extremely demanding. I have a long way to go before I feel comfortable in those positions. I will still determinedly work on those movements to improve body control. It's tough, excruciating, difficult to learn but still probably very rewarding once you get the hold of it. And I'm sure it not only bodyweight movements but also other movements easier where you handle some weights. And obviously mobility enhances as well.
