Saturday 25.1: Rings, row, bench, du

Saturday. Ring skills. Metcon, 1.000m row, then 5rds of: 10 bench (80kg), 50 du, then 1.000m row. Time 29min.

It went late in the afternoon before I got a chance to workout. I was on the verge of having a day off but decided otherwise. Or actually I was thinking about taking it easier and maybe do some sort of metcon outdoors with bodyweight and kettlebells. But I changed my mind and hit the road. It was a combination of rowing, heavy-ish bench and double unders.

Ring skills. Just playing with the rings. Tried some muscle-ups, wasn't my day with them though. Then "skin the cat" movement, tried some front / back levers, ring rows to transition, staying inverted. Nothing serious, just wanted to get familiar with the rings with different movements.

Metcon. Time 29min

• 1.000m row, then:
• 5 rounds of:
• 10 bench press (80kg)
• 50 double unders, then:
• 1.000m row

Saturday night at the gym

This was a bit different compared to a "traditional" metcon if you can call any workout traditional. Intentionally I threw more weight on the bench than I knew I would be able to go unbroken. So the difference was that I knew beforehand it's gonna take some time for me to finish those 50 bench @ 80kg. Never done that many reps with that weight. Got to have some weight there though to get better and stronger.

My rowing took me 3.35 on the first kilometer and 3.32 on the last one. Double unders went well! 3 rounds were unbroken, and in addition to that I only did 2 mistakes in total on those 2 sets. One miss on at 48 reps on the first set and one miss on the fourth set if I remember right.

Workout is over

This wasn't that bad on breathing (except for rowing in the end) because I had to cut the bench into pieces. First round was 7+3, then the last 4 rounds were all 4+3+3. Got tougher by the round. It took me some time to walk the pain away between sets. Bench is something where I find it difficult to push through when chest and shoulders get numb when they're feeling tired. Something like clean & jerk you can push through mentally but bench feels different.

I'm glad I was able to perform smoothly throughout the workout, even though the bench took me some time.

We were walking in the woods in the morning with my baby and playing in the snow =)

Wednesday 9.10: bodyweight, plyometric work

Wednesday. Bodyweight movements, plyometric movements.

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.

Friday 19.4: Snatch EMOM, ring skills

Friday. EMOM for 12 minutes, 4 snatches, 50kg. Ring skills. Cashout. cycling and sit-ups.

Those Wednesday's hang squat cleans still hurt my upper back, it was a veery good workout! I did today's workout in a similar way. In addition there were ring skills included and some cycling to finish it. Toni is on a leave so he didn't wake up 7.00 in the morning to workout. Instead, he headed to a local gym in the afternoon.

Workout.

• Every minute on the minute for 12 minutes
• 4 snatches, 50kg

I'm very pleased for being able to lift 4x50kg snatches every minute for 12 minutes. That totals for 48 snatches. The CF Open 13.1 was an eye-opener for me. I still remember the feeling of having 60kg on the barbell, 7.5kg over my max load. It was a huge mental barrier to overcome but I nailed it 6 times in the competition. After that single workout I've been able to do sets with the same weight that was my max load prior to the Games. That feeling is simply awesome!

Today's workout was a mixture of strength training and metcon, as are all EMOM-workouts. It takes about 20 seconds to finish those reps and you have 40sec to recover. That means you are able to recover but heart still beats clearly faster than normally.

I was able to do all sets unbroken without losing grip of the barbell. Naturally towards the end it came heavier but still manageable.

Ring skills 2rnft.

• 2 rounds not for time
• 30sec invert hold
• 10 ice cream makers
• 30sec L-sit hold
• 10 toes-to-rings

After the snatch workout I played with the rings to get more natural with them and to improve skill level and ring grip strength. It didn't take long before forearms started to fire up. This was not a timed workout. I took my time while transfering between movements. Was able to do those hold movements unbroken as well. There were not many reps in this one but still I felt the burden in my forearms. Maybe those snatches had something to do with it.

Cashout.

• 5min cycling
• 100 sit-ups
• 5min cycling

To finish the training day I stepped up to the stationary bike and started moving. 5 min on, then 100 sit-ups in a row and another set of cycling.

Toni's new crossfit shoes

Toni's workouts. Strength elements, not looking for maxes.

• Hang clean 5x5, 60kg
• Couple sets of deadlift, 100kg
• Bench press 5-5-5-5-2 (70, 70, 80, 90, 100kg)
• Dips 5x5

Thursday 28.2: Step-ups, hspu, t2b

Thursday. Step-ups, handstand push-ups, toes-to-bar & knees-to-elbows.

My plan for Thursday was not to do heavy strength training nor a hard core metcon. This was an easier day for a while. I still wanted to give some pressure on my legs and shoulders. My workout's main ingredient was step-ups with a barbell in my back. I added some spice to it by doing hspu's, T2B's and K2E's between sets. This workout was not for time but for quality, skills and technique.

Step-ups, 90kg

Workout. For quality.

• 10 step-ups, 82.5kg, alternating legs
• Max effort handstand push-ups, 8 reps
• 10 step-ups, 82.5kg, alternating legs
• 10 toes-to-bar + 10 knees-to-elbows, hold on to the grip from start to end
• 10 step-ups, 90kg, alternating legs
• Max effort handstand push-ups, 8 reps
• 10 step-ups, 90kg, alternating legs
• 10 toes-to-bar + 10 knees-to-elbows, hold on to the grip from start to end
• 10 step-ups, 90kg, alternating legs
• Max effort handstand push-ups, 6 reps
• 10 step-ups, 90kg, alternating legs
• 10 toes-to-bar + 10 knees-to-elbows, hold on to the grip from start to end

I began the training session by rowing for a while, opening my hips by squatting with a pvc pipe, doing inverted holds and skin the cat with the rings. Then I took some long sets of back squats and tried to go as deep as possible, over 90 degrees to increase mobility. My sets were around 60-100kg. After getting properly warmed up I took two sets of 60 & 82.5kg step-ups. Why 82.5kg? Because there was another guy doing his squat sets as well so I figured that weight is alright for me as well. After couple of sets I added it to 90kg.

All together I did 6 sets of step-ups with 82.5 - 90kg. Between sets I did something totally else. Every other set was max effort of handstand push-ups (hspu) and every other time I did 20 reps of first 10 T2B and then 10 K2E by holding on to the pull-up bar continuously, not dropping down and adjusting grip in the transition stage.

My handstand push-ups rolled well. On the first set I did 8 reps (PR, previously 6 reps) through kipping method. On the second try I also did 8 reps but I changed the approach so that I tried to do as many reps as possible strict before kipping. I managed to do 6 strict ones, then adding 2 kipping versions to reach a total of 8 reps. On the last one I got 6 total reps (4 strict + 2 kipping).

On the pull-up bar the number of reps was no problem. I believe I'm rather solid with toes-to-bar and knees-to-elbows. It's the grip that sometimes becomes an issue. I decided to do 10 T2B reps, then change it to 10 K2E on the fly with the same grip. A total of 20 reps. It was nice to do these two movements, it's been some time since previous reps. This was the first time there was 90kg on the step-ups and it felt just fine in my back.

My training partner Toni took a rest day. In the evening I'll have some floorball with my team.

Friday 1.2: Skills day

Friday. Skills oriented day. Plenty of different movements.

It's been quite a week after Barbara, Isabel, squats and cleans so today's goal was to take it a bit easier. Well, my shoulders and hands got to test today anyway as I was like a little boy when playing with the rings. They were my focus area but I also did other skills training.

Ring skills.

• Invert hold
• Skin the cat
• Levers
• Ice cream makers
• Ring push-ups

It's simply fun! Play with the rings. Probably should play a little more to someday master the muscle-up as well. I took a few sets of inverted holds, skin the cat, levers and one set of ice cream makers. To the end 3x15 ring push-ups.

Other skills.

• Double unders
• Chest-to-bar pull-ups
• Handstand hold
• Handstand push-ups (max PR 6 reps)
• One-handed push-ups
• Pistols

It was awesome to see I was able to hit my chest to the bar with pull-ups. It's been hard previously. I thought it would be more difficult but it actually touched the bar. Yeah baby, it inspired me to practice them more in the future. Handstand was another area where I wanted to put effort today. I wanted to break that old record of handstand push-ups so I added one rep to the old PR. Took some other sets as well. A newcomer was one-handed push-ups, positively surprised that I got them on the first try =)

Take a look at one of my training partner's show of one-handed push-ups.

One-handed push-ups, Anton