Saturday 18.6: Bradshaw

Saturday. Hero workout Bradshaw. Time, 21.06 (PR).

We went to the gym with Pauliina at noon. Ate a good breakfast and went after a hero workout that I've done twice before. It's been ages since doing it before so it was about time to take a gut check.

Bradshaw. Time, 21.06 (PR). Compare to 25.11.2013

• 10 rounds of:
• 3 handstand push-ups
• 6 deadlifts @ 103kg
• 12 pull-ups
• 24 double unders

Had the same feelings as before prior to the workout. Looks a lot easier on paper than in real life. Pull-ups were the only thing I was concerned about. Hspu's were small number, deadlifts were light, and I hoped my shins would feel fine on the du's. I was ready to quite after 3 rounds though =)

Handstand push-ups were the clerkly the easiest piece of these 4 elements. Could have continued them forever. Deadlifts were light theoretically yes. But in real life those started to burn my hamstrings efficiently, and at some point of the workout I needed to take a break before getting on the pull-up bar as those deads hurt so much.

Pull-ups were the toughest of them all by a long mile. Went unbroken on the first 3-4 rounds. From then on I divided them into 8-4 till the end. Those hurt big time. Double unders went well. I foam rolled my shins properly. I've noticed that's the key to success. Without that operation my shins and ankles feel weird, tight and there's some sort of nagging pain in the shins. Today those felt great. Had some misses on couple of sets but majority of them were unbroken. On the last round my shoe laces opened up and the jump rope hit those laces. Couldn't move on like that so I got rid of my other shoe and finished the workout. Must have been an awkward sight, guy jumping rope with only one shoe =)

Strategy in the big picture was to head straight to the wall on the hspu's as they were easy. From there I walked to the barbell, rolled it from the rack to my lifting station and completed the required 6 reps. After deads I needed my break. In the beginning I went straight at the pull-up bar but little by little this transition as well as the completion of pull-ups got longer. After pull-ups I grabbed by jump rope, inhaled and exhaled, then started moving for the double unders. This is how it looked like in my head. It would have been cool to see a video but today there is none available.

Monday 25.11: Squats and hero workout Bradshaw

Monday. Back squats 3-3-3 (max 130kg). Hero workout Bradshaw. Time 22.43.

Couldn't let the hero workout be left alone, had to attack it. This was the one I was talking about yesterday. It's been tickling in my mind for the last couple of days and I didn't want to postpone it to the future. But, I had a dilemma. I wanted to do squats! Don't wanna skip them at all, have to do them 2-3 times a week. My legs have to become stronger and obviously they have already come. I'm still looking to get stronger on my lower body because that eases each and every movement.

Strength. Back squats 3-3-3 (120, 130, 130kg). It rolled well and it felt very good! Took some warm-up lifts @ 60, 80 and 100kg to get properly ready for the heavier squats. Usually I've put 110kg before adding it to 120kg. It was no problem to skip that and jump straight to 120kg. My squat form and technique was good in all lifts and the package stayed tight all the way. It's very promising I'm able to complete those 130kg sets without problems. It's heavy, no doubt but not too heavy. It would have been awesome to continue doing more heavy sets but there was a hero workout just around the corner. Usually I would have done just a hero wod but the last 2 days were easier ones so I wanted to do both strength and the wod.

Hero workout Bradshaw. Time 22.43. Compare to 4.5.2013.

• 10 rounds of:
• 3 handstand push-ups
• 6 deadlifts, 102.5kg
• 12 pull-ups
• 24 double unders

That's a long one and lots of repetitions. It looks okay on paper and I really didn't feel the pain before the workout. I once again thought beforehand this would have been lighter than it actually was. It was a tough one. The handstand push-ups weren't bad, look at the number of reps. Just 30 reps in total, and only 3 reps at a time. Also, the deads were about 50% of my one rep max and the barbell was moving nicely.

Ben Smith doing a 136kg snatch

The most difficult part of the workout was the pull-ups. Doing sets of 10-12 reps shouldn't be that difficult but considering the amount of all the other work, all the other movements, it started to become heavier and heavier. The last rounds were kind of a struggle. Still, I got them unbroken till the end. I can see I've done more double unders this month than normally. The focus has been on the form and I've been trying to do them as effortless as possible, straight torso, not that high a jump, keeping the rope moving at a steady pace. I did all but 1 rounds unbroken. On that specific round I did 21 reps ub and then did a miss. That was the only stumbling during the entire wod, I finished all other movements unbroken during those 22-23 minutes.

This was about a 6 minute PR in Bradshaw. I've done it once before half a year ago and it can definitely be seen my metabolic condition has improved. That time was cut off basically from the transitions / rest periods. Of course it helps that the barbell felt lighter and the hspu's were easier as well because there's more strength now in my shoulders. It's no surprise that strength makes it easier to keep on moving in such workouts.

Rich answering to questions concerning his training methods

Saturday 4.5: Hero wod Bradshaw

Saturday. Hero wod Bradshaw. Time 28.33

My programming still includes benchmark workouts and hero workouts. Today was time for another cruel and long workout. Last weekend it was Seven, today Bradshaw was waiting for me at the home Box. Toni did front squat strength and then a barbell complex type of workout.

Stretching in the end with my baby

Bradshaw. Time 28.33

• 10 rounds of:
• 3 handstand push-ups
• 6 deadlifts, 102.5kg
• 12 pull-ups
• 24 double unders

Beforehand I looked at the movements and thought this ain't gonna be that tough. That's the most stupid thought you might have before a crossfit workout =) I've clearly developed in handstand push-ups but I'm still a bit concerned when I see them in a workout. Usually at some point of the wod my strength in triceps and shoulder seem to fade away even though I apply kipping style. I was confident that deadlifts would not be a problem because the weight was not heavy. The second thing after HSPU's I was worried about was the amount of pull-ups, 120 reps total… That's a lot! And finishing it with 240 double unders, didn't know how to react to that number.

I put the clock running and started working. The result was that I completed each and every handstand push-up as strict, that means no kipping whatsoever, not during the entire workout, c'mon, that was progress. I was very proud of it. I started doing them strict and just felt very good during the whole workout, had no problems with them.

Pull-ups in Bradshaw

Deadlifts were as light as I thought beforehand, they were also unbroken throughout the entire 10 rounds. I had to catch a breath between these two movements and I didn't rush during the Bradshaw at any point, I took my time with the breaks because I thought moving too quickly to the next movement would cause harm later on because this was known to be a long workout.

How about the pull-ups? I did them unbroken in the beginning and from 4th round on I kept telling to myself that try to do also the next round unbroken. Round after round I talked myself up to do them without dropping from the pull-up bar. Towards the end it got tougher and tougher. On the last 2 rounds Toni came to cheer on next to me and helped me to finish all 10 rounds unbroken! All 120 of them.

The only movement that I didn't manage to perform unbroken were the double unders. My legs were smashed from yesterday's high-rep bodyweight back squat / snatch metcon and it turned out difficult to keep on jumping. I'm not sure but I'd say 5-6 rounds were unbroken, but some had to be taken in 2-3 sets.

All in all, I'm very satisfied to how well I did the movements. And there were a good number of reps each movement. The point were I could have done better was the transition phases. I rested for some time as you can see in the video below. It was difficult to pace myself and to know how quickly I should have done the movements in order to keep a good and steady pace and still not go too fast to burn myself down.

9th round of Bradshaw

Toni's workouts. Front squat 4x80, 3x85, 3x90, 1x95kg.

• Wod. EMOM for 12 minutes. 60kg on the barbell.
• 1 power clean
• 1 hang squat clean
• 2 front squats
• 2 push jerks

Below you'll see two videos from Pony's training today. First front squats and then one round of his emom training with the 60kg barbell. He managed to do all reps as planned.

Here's Toni's front squats with 85kg

Toni's EMOM training