Tuesday. Hero workout Chief, 5 sets of 3min amrap of: 3 power clean (60kg), 6 push-ups, 9 air squats. 1min rest between amraps. Result, 5rds each amrap.
Today I got a chance to train only in the evening. So I fueled up properly and hit the gym later. My body hurt from yesterday's session a lot. There were a lot of cleans on Monday and the weights were heavy so it definitely feels now. Pull-ups also makes my lats tight as hell so I was feeling quite hammered.
Okay, so they also have a rope here. Waiting for that to be installed on the ceiling
My warm-up consisted of traditional stuff but spiced up with some rowing / ghd sit-ups / burpee workout. I wanted to get my breathing go faster and get blood pumping in this body before touching a barbell for the first time. Normally 60kg cleans are like nothing but this torso was not as loose I'd like to so I was thinking how it might feel like.
When I finally began the workout it was tough already after the first amrap =) I really had to talk myself up to finish this one. I was in deep waters on the second amrap. My legs were burning so awfully that it made me sick. Power cleans started to torture my legs. Upper body felt fine with these even with a big number of pulling yesterday. That didn't bother but lower body was taking a big hit.
2nd round of Chief
Push-ups were the "easiest" part of Chief. Went unbroken with cleans and push-ups. It's been a while since doing this element in a workout. Those air squats were the toughest part of the entire wod. No idea how my legs were so jello on the second part of this workout. It looked okay on the video but the feeling was totally different =) It was a huge mental win to finish this workout rx'd and with 5 full rounds in each of the amraps.
Saturday. Strength, power clean emom. 1-6min 2 reps, 7-12min 1 rep power clean (max 95kg). Metcon, 3min amrap of: 3 power clean, 6 push-ups, 9 squats. Result 115 reps.
Today we are getting together with the family from Pauliina's side. It's an annual tradition to gather up and enjoy the company of nice people around us, hosted by my in-laws. I woke up a little earlier to get a chance to sneak to the gym for some crossfit.
I watched documents of Crossfit Games Champions Mikko Salo, Graham Holmberg and Rich Froning the last couple of days and got this inspiration from Holmberg. The idea was to challenge yourself with the weights on the power clean. I did exactly that. My squat clean is way better than my power clean so it seemed like a good option to power clean the barbell.
For the first 6 minutes you do doubles, then turn to singles. And preferably go up in the weights as you progress. This was every minute on the minutes stuff so there wasn't that much time to recover before the next lift.
I performed this one well. My max power clean before this day was 90kg. And I actually did that record lift couple of weeks ago. So actually it's gone up about 10kg in the past month or so. Not bad!
Metcon. Result, 115 reps
3min amrap of:
3 power clean, 60kg
6 push-ups
9 air squats
My schedule was a bit tight so I didn't have time for a good old metcon so I took a quick one. You probably know benchmark workout Chief. This was one round of Chief with all I got. All in effort and the result was 6 full rounds and 3 power cleans plus 4 push-ups before the 3min time cap came up. In Chief I've done about 5 rounds per amrap. There's a total of 5 x 3min amraps in that workout, with 1min rest between amraps.
Saturday. Skills, TGU. Strength, cleans (PR 110kg). Clean and jerk complex (max 95kg). Benchmark workout Chief, 5 x 3min amrap of: 3 power clean (60kg), 6 push-ups, 9 air squats, 1min rest. Result, 459 reps.
What a day! We slept late, ate a good breakfast and hit the gym with Pauliina. We met a friend - Juuso - at the gym for a training day. He's a new crossfitter and has taken on the challenge quite well in my opinion. I talked him into this sport for quite a while before he tried his first wod. Since then, he's taken on some pretty nasty workouts, Fran and Cindy to mention some examples. Today it was time for him for a PR squat of 115kg. I did some barbell work in different styles of clean & jerks, some PR stuff was also in play.
Skills.
Turkish get-ups, couple of sets
I've forgotten this movement totally. Yesterday evening Toni threw in this one so that's the reason I figured why not? We don't have any heavy kettlebells at the gym so I used dumbbells instead. It feels a little different with kettlebells / dumbbells. With kb's the weight leans towards the wrist where as db's don't. This was actually a good preparation to the training session as it activated pretty much every muscle in my body and stretched the shoulders as well.
Strength. Cleans
Hang clean, 5x60, 3x70, 3x80, 1x85, 1x90kg
Clean singles from ground 1x100, 1x105, 1x110kg PR
I had planned on doing a clean and jerk complex but decided to take some hang cleans prior to that main strength element. The cleans felt good so I ended up hitting some PR's =) First of all the heaviest bar I've ever hang cleaned is either 80 or 85kg at max. Probably 85kg, I recall I might have once taken a single at that load. Today I as able to get 90kg on my front rack starting from hang position. Some might call that a PR.
That was great and felt awesome! I had to hurry getting under the bar. I felt like the bar didn't come that up so there was no other option but to drop down and find a place under the bar. After 90kg hang clean I wanted to take a couple of regular full cleans, from ground as squat clean. The bar was light so it turned out I had taken a 105kg clean up and understood it's pretty close to a PR lift. My max load before this day was 107.5kg. I decided to give it a shot and skip it, jump to 110kg and try it out. I know it failed last time because I simply didn't dare to go under the bar.
The front squat part of the clean is not the thing, it's definitely the speed under the bar. And courage to drop there. Today I psyched myself up to the lift properly and had decided to get it. It wasn't the most beautiful lift I've done but hey c'mon it was 110kg, that's a big load for this guy.
110kg clean, PR
Clean and jerk complex.
1 clean + 5 split jerk (60kg)
1 clean + 3 split jerk (70kg)
1 clean + 2 split jerk (80, 85, 90, 95, 90kg)
The main focus of the day strength-wise was the jerk portion. I've been thinking about pushing / pressing more iron to the sky in the future to strengthen my shoulders. Push presses, push jerks and split jerks are gonna be the answer. Let's see how it turns out. Anyway, today I did this so that I picked the bar from the floor and then did couple of split jerks in a row.
Starting at low weight, building it up to 90kg and up. I think I'll still have to drop lower on the jerks. A positive thing was that I was mostly jerking the barbell upwards, not that much forward. And my back leg is not sideways anymore as it used to. I got some tips rom Toni's coach when I visited his affiliate. I appreciate the tips I got there.
After quite a lot of cleaning and jerking my fuel was pretty much gone. I had thought about it yesterday but at this stage it wasn't that attempting anymore as I had done more barbell work than I had planned. Chief is a tough bad ass so it would be nice to do it with a fresh body. Luckily Juuso was there too so I suggested we'd hit it together. It's definitely easier mentally to start off if you have a training buddy with you. He was in and so we put the clock running!
I don't know how the total result should be announced but I completed 5+ rounds per amrap. I played it safe all the way. I got those 5 rounds in about 2:30-2:40 each amrap. I thought pushing the limits to the final seconds all the time would have burned my legs badly so I left something in the tank in each 3min amrap. There were a total of 81 cleans, 153 push-ups and 225 squats.
Cleans were the easiest part for me in this one. Then came the push-ups and lastly the squats. It has surprised me every time how the squats eat the juice out of legs. I went through all the movements unbroken except the last couple of sets of squats where I took one second of breath to release the tension in my lower body.
Push-ups are tough for me normally but in Chief I believe I haven't had any issues. That's naturally because of the number of consecutive reps. And the clean is light weight for me so I would be surprised if that brought any issues. The only thing I'm wondering afterwards is should have I gassed more in the earlier amraps to gain better result. I know I could have pushed it for 6 rounds on the first amrap. But how would it affect the following sets as it would obviously suck the strength out of a human being more fiercely.
Don't know the answer. Maybe it could be worth doing couple of short amraps of this one just for fun to see how many rounds I could hurry if it was just for let's say 2-3 amraps with all-in mode. Could it possible to maintain that 6 round pace? I was happy for being able to keep this pace today and speed up a little on the last set. I was done after the workout, both of us were. Chief is tough.
Friday. Cleans, 1 rep every 30 seconds @ 85kg for 10min. Hero wod Chief. Result 72 cleans, 144 push-ups, 207 squats.
Was looking forward to try this new workout, how it feels like to go for rather heavy single cleans with only short rest periods. There was also a hero wod looming in the horizon, the Chief. I've done it once and I remembered it was a handful. Toni was supposed to do it side be side but had some timetable issues and left home to complete it at his back yard.
Cleans.
1 rep every 30 seconds @ 85kg for 10 minutes
Total of 20 reps
Enjoyed this one a lot. I remember seeing Chris Spealler who I've seen completing similar type of workouts. Not same, but similar. I felt good with the weight, could have added weight which surprised me positively. I thought the bar would start to come a challenge but I manhandled it all the way. It felt like each lift was similar, no wiggling or shaking at any stage. Felt simply awesome.
This one is a lot of work. It's one of the rare workouts where I've had to lay on the floor after time is done. Today I took it a bit easier but was stilled gassed. It's a 19min workout including the rests. 5 sets of 3 mini workouts, 3min amraps followed by 1min rest and recovery period.
On the first round I got through 5 rounds in 2:30. I didn't feel like a beast so I needed to save some energy. Saved too much I think. Had I gone all in, there would have been enough time to squeeze almost one round more. On the second round I also had about 15-20sec left on the clock. The third round was tough, barely made it through 5 rounds in 3mins.
The middle of the workout was the toughest mentally. On the fourth round my transitions were slower and stopped occasionally to catch a breath. That third 3min amrap had its consequences and I felt more gassed in the beginning of 4th cycle already in the beginning. Thus, got a result of only 4 rounds. There was also some time left on the clock when finishing it.
The last round on pretty much every workout is always easier than the round before. It's time for that final sprint. Almost made it to 5 rounds, missing only the air squats. The most challenging movement in Chief is the squats. Sounds awkward but that's how it's been both times I've done it. All cleans and push-ups unbroken. From some point on I had to finish squats in 2 sets, taking 2 inhales in the middle of it. I'm having trouble understanding why it happens with such a little amount of reps but that's how it was. Comparing to the February's performance, today my squats were perfect. I don't like to watch that past video because of the those over the parallel squats. Today I felt great about them!
Have no excuses, should have pushed harder from the beginning to reach an ideal result. I was reaching for 5 rounds each cycle and recover the rest of the time, no matter how much is left on the clock. Seemed a good idea in the beginning but turned out not to be =) There was a lot of reps on this workout anyway. Total of 72 cleans (4.320kg), 144 push-ups and 207 air squats.
Results of Chief. Total of 72 cleans, 144 push-ups and 207 squats
1st cycle: 5 rounds
2nd cycle: 5 rounds
3rd cycle: 5 rounds
4th cycle: 4 rounds
5th cycle: 4 rounds + 6 push-ups
Toni's workout.
Hero wod Chief
Result. 5, 4, 3, 3, 3 rounds.
He completed them at the back yard of his house. Tell us some feelings Pony!
I'm having a week off from work so I have the possibility to train at day time, no need to wake up that early. The side effect is that Toni is training at different times so I got to do some more mental game. Luckily Pauliina had the possibility to come to the box with me. My agenda for today was a hero wod, which carried out exactly as I wanted: better muscular endurance. It was a high rep workout with cleans as main strength ingredient.
Time!
Chief.
3min amrap of
3 cleans, 60kg
6 push-ups
9 squats
Rest 1min. Repeat for a total of 5 cycles. Post rounds completed for each to the 5 cycles.
There were quite a number of reps in total during this total of 19min workout. On average I was able to maintain 5 round pace throughout the Chief. Naturally in the beginning it was easier and then in the middle of the workout I had to rush to get those rounds full. Finally on the last round it was only 6 squats shy of 5 rounds.
Clean
This was a "fun" workout if you can call any workout hilarious. It was exactly what I wanted. I need to play high rep games with rather heavy kilos. For this purpose completing 78 cleans with 60kg worked well! There were also 150 push-ups and 219 squats. I was able to perform all those cleans well without troubles, same with the push-ups, all unbroken. My legs were killing me at some point of the workout. I was surprised about that but maybe it was yesterday's game that still burnt my legs. My thighs were cramping in the evening :) Because there was 1min break between 3min amraps my breathing got a chance to slow down but it quickly came heavy as the next amrap began.
Push-ups
Chief was pretty awesome as it improved my metabolic conditioning, allowed me to high-rep cleans and I got the chance to work my triceps and chest with push-ups, let's not forget the leg work needed for this one.
Squats
Results of Chief. Total of 178 cleans, 150 push-ups and 219 squats
1st cycle: 5 rounds + 3 cleans
2nd cycle: 5 rounds
3rd cycle: 5 rounds
4th cycle: 5 rounds
5th cycle: 4 rounds + 3 squats
1st 3min amrap of Chief
Cashout. After resting a while my cash out concentrated in triceps.
