Thursday 4.2: Mobility

Thursday. Mobility

This was a rest day. I still drove to the gym, changed clothes, and sacrificed one hour of my time to mobility. Lots of stretching, resistance band work, playing with foam roll and lacrosse balls. Tried to work through entire body. Felt very good to get body loose big time.

Sunday 28.6: Clean, Front squat, Hspu, Box, Sled

Sunday. AM: Run and mobility. PM: clean triples (up to 100kg). Emom x 10min: 1 clean @ 100kg. Emom x 10min: 2 front squat @ 110kg. Emom x 21min, 1st: 10 hspu, 2nd: 15 box, 3rd: 20m sled push @ 110kg.

We spent the day in Klaukkala at the in-laws. Some quality time before the big day next Saturday. That's the highlight of this summer for sure, our wedding day =) Last preparations for that event. Next week's gonna be tight in the schedule so let's see how the training's gonna look like. In the morning we went running with Pauliina and his father for half an hour, then mobility session took place. In the evening I went to the gym for a long session.

Strength.

• Clean triples (70, 80, 90, 95, 100kg)

Couple of heavier cleans to start the day. Somehow those 95-100kg cleans felt rather heavy. There's no doubt I need to get my leg strength back in the game. It's all about the legs. More squats are coming.

Clean triples

Pulls.

• Every minute on the minute, for 10 minutes
• 1 squat clean @ 100kg

Triples were tough so I changed to singles and did one rep every minute for a total of 10 minutes. Pretty okay reps. I have felt smoother and I'd like to see them go down more explosively but I'll take these for now. Maybe it's only because there hasn't been much rest lately.

Clean emom

Squats.

• Every minute on the minute, for 10 minutes
• 2 front squat @ 110kg

Front squats are perfect after heavier cleans. This weight suits more to front than back squats. Yesterday's back squats were done at this weight only because of the time restraints. These were okay. Touch'n'go style. On the last set I decided to double the amount just for fun. That was no problem.

Squat emom

Metcon.

• Every minute on the minute, for 21 minutes
• 1st min: 10 handstand push-ups
• 2nd min: 15 box jump, 61cm
• 3rd min: 20 meter sled push, 110kg

This sucked big time. Hspu's were okay for 4 rounds, 5th was okay and the last two rounds were awful. Got them done unbroken still. Definitely not easy on the last rounds. Shoulders were smashed after each set.

Box jumps took the heart beat up, and wore my out whole-heartedly but not specifically legs or breathing. It was a feeling that just fatigued the entire body. It took about 25 seconds to complete each set.

Sled was tougher than I had thought. There were 112.5kg of weight plus the sled itself. This sled didn't get heavy but somehow it took a toll on my legs. Quads were killing me after each 20 meter leg. It usually hits right after stopping. Not that much during the push / pull but right after that. This seems to be the name of the game with sled work. Tough workout but I loved it! Great to have hspu's involved in this kind of long emom wod too.

Sunday 21.6: Overhead, Hspu, Dips + Run

Sunday. AM: Overhead technique. Gymnastics, 50 hspu, 30 ring dips. PM: 5k run, mobility.

Damn I'm crushed due to yesterday's brutal workout. Those deadlifts killed my back and lower body. And the long emom just wore me down completely. At least my body feels totally smashed. Energy levels were not great to be honest even though there was plenty of food and recovery on Saturday. We decided to go to the gym together with Pauliina but it was definitely a light session for me this time.

On the evening run

Overhead.

• Tecnique for push press, push jerk, split jerk
• Light weight, 40-65kg

Just took some complexes of presses and jerks. Stayed light with the weights in order to give my body a rest. I was mostly concentrating on my fiancé's press work. Getting her shoulders stronger. Proud of her putting effort on these awesome movements. Shoulder presses, push presses, push jerks and even some split jerks were witnessed. Great job! Natural talent.

Gymnastics.

• Not for time of:
• 50 handstand push-ups
• 30 ring dips

After pounding the bar for some time it was time to let it be and work bodyweight movements. Got 20-10-10-10 handstand push-ups for fun, and then 3x10 ring dips. Not for time, no pressure, just get the work done. Do your thing and smile.

20 hspu

Recovery.

• Run 5 kilometers
• Mobility

In the evening I went for a 5k run in a beautiful weather. Wanted to flush the legs and get some blood flowing in the entire body. It felt surprisingly light to run. I was afraid my back would be too tight to run but it didn't bother at all.

This route was a bit over 5k. I had a mobility break at midway. Basically did some hip and hamstring drills and hung from a pull-up bar multiple times to let my shoulders enjoy the moment. I read from somewhere that hanging from a bar would improve shoulder mobility in the long run. I've added that to my warm-up routines because they really need that. It might be beneficial to spend more time on the pull-up bar though.

Saturday 20.6: Sotts press, Deads, 30min emom

Saturday. Sotts press 5x5 (max 30kg). Deadlift, build up to a heavy 5-rep set (up to 180kg). Metcon, emom x 30min. 1st: 10m overhead walking lunges, 2nd: 10 burpee, 3rd: 10 box jump overs. Mobility.

Yesterday's midsummer party makes this weekend seem long as there was one extra day off of work. That's always good news hehe. People are usually at summer cottages at this time of the year and the city is quiet. It was awesome to spend time at friends' house and we made it back home after midnight. Slept late today and then I hit the gym sometime way after noon. No surprise the gym was also quite silent too.

From evening's recovery walk with my love

Sotts press.

• Sotts press 5x5 (20, 22, 25, 27, 30kg)

This was not scheduled but it's been at the back of my head that this would definitely be a good tool for me to improve mobility. Don't know if it's wise to put as much load on the bar as possible or just take it light but today was anyway the first day I had something else than a pvc pipe or 20kg empty barbell on my back for sotts presses.

This position is a bit awkward to say the least. It's not as comfortable right now as I'd like it to be. Ideally the torso would be more upright and vertical in order to get good stability, and then it would also be possible to push bigger weights overhead in the squat position. Getting to that position comfortably would make a big difference on snatch, no doubt.

I was able to sit below parallel but going deeper than that would make the position away from ideal one so I stayed there. Some day I'd like to see myself sitting as low as possible. If I'm patient enough, that day will come.

These teens are machines

Pulls.

• Deadlift, build up to a heavy 5-rep set (100, 130, 150, 160, 170, 180kg)

It's at least 3 weeks, maybe 4 weeks since I've pulled some serious weights. The reason is clear. I had some weird pain like my left rib was broken or something. The pain was real but only when doing deadlifts. Plus coughing, strange stuff… So I wasn't sure if it would be possible to do these pulls. Very happy the pain is gone and I felt strong on deads today! This should be part of weekly programming to have heavy barbell in my hands.

Because I hadn't had deadlifts in a while my plan was to do sets at around 150 kilos but it felt great and the hunger got bigger during the course of the session so I kept adding weight. Finally went for a pretty heavy set at 180kg. For a second or two I was thinking about maxing out for singles but then kept it rational in the end. These felt very good, great to pull after a long break!

Deads and presses

Metcon.

• Every minute on the minute, for 30 minutes
• 1st min: 10m overhead walking lunges, 40kg
• 2nd min: 10 burpee
• 3rd min: 10 box jump overs

There was maybe 2 persons at the gym so I had the grass matt all by myself. That meant lunges for sure. In the previous post I wrote my legs felt fine on the wall balls but I guess the impact of Thursday's lunges and Friday's massive amount of wall balls hit me a little bit late as my lower body was pretty tight and sore. Let's see how more lunges will make them feel like.

Metcon recap

Long emoms are somehow bad ass. In the beginning they feel much easier. The workout starts to feel a bit uncomfortable at about 15 minutes. And at 20 mins I notice recovery is becoming an issue. Don't have enough time to get the heart beat back down before next minute starts. So the nasty feeling is accumulating by the minute, and the last 10 minutes are a misery.

This was the case with each movement. Do just 10 burpees and it's like nothing. Or 10 box jumps, no biggie even though they would be jump overs. But continuing this same pattern for half and hour and it starts to become another case. I like the agony of these. Even though these feel tough mentally I feel like I could continue for much longer. Got to do everything unbroken and so the time spent on each stations remains identical each round.

Wednesday 1.4: Run, Pull-up complex + Row, Press, Push-ups

Wednesday. AM: Run 8km and pull-up complexes (about 70 reps). PM: Metcon, 7rds of: 500m row, 10 push press (40kg), 20 hr push-ups. Time, 28min. Mobility

Damned those yesterday's training sessions hurt in my body as I woke up. Body was fatigued all over the place. Felt like I was hit by a truck. My answer to this was to sleep, eat big time, watch a movie and consider what's my next move. I packed my gear and walked to a nearby gym. Waited there for some time for the clerk to come. He/She didn't come and I felt like I'm done. Snatches weren't that tempting anymore so I left the place and decided to go for an easy run. In the afternoon there was anyway going to be another training session.

Run and pull-up complex.

• 8km run
• Bar muscle-ups
• Complexes of pull-up + chest-to-bar + muscle-up
• To the end, 5 sets of: 5 pull-ups + 5 chest-to-bars

I had no idea where I would go but taped my thumbs just in case and took gloves in case I happened to find a pull-up bar. Surprise surprise, I found one… Neither had I an estimate of how far I had traveled but luckily Google Maps tells the truth. It was a total of 8 kilometers of running. This was definitely more like a recovery run. At times I stopped to take some photos and enjoy the scenery.

The weather wasn't very summery and the air was cool and windy but it made for a good running weather. Easy to breath and temperature was good. Töölönlahti's water was freezing, hrrrr. Before I went running that traditional loop I stopped by at a pull-up bar that I spent some time last summer.

Basically my goal was just to have fun and play around. Took some bar muscle-ups only because I love the movement. Then a complex consisting of pull-ups, c2b's and finally a mucsle-up. That combination seemed a bit challenging. Maybe not because of strength but because of the rhythm. After practicing it, I found myself on top of the pull-up bar but at first it felt awkward to pull for mu right after c2b.

Bar muscle-ups

After fooling around for some time, the grande finale was to do 5 sets of 10 pull-ups, 5 regular ones, going right into 5 c2b pull-ups. This was a good combo for sure. I could have continued this pattern with these breaks for maybe 2-3 more sets unbroken. Or then more, don't know but the first ones were easy but 4th and 5th set were a bit tougher.

Pull-up complex

What I realized from the videos is that my regular pull-ups seem to go rather high and c2b's accordingly. It looks like my ribs are touching the bar. Well that's not a bad thing at all.

Pull-ups + C2b's

After taking my time on the pull-up bar, I continued to adventure my path around Helsinki. Had to do some foam rolling after getting home. Those quads really needed that treatment.

Metcon. Time, 28min

• 7 rounds of:
• 500m row
• 10 push press, 40kg
• 20 hand release push-ups

Afternoon's training session was also a lighter one. Didn't feel like going 100% today. There had to be rowing. That was not open for discussion. The rest I decided on the spot. Rowing and pressing. Push presses (or shoulder presses in the beginning) were the easiest part of this workout. My rowing pace was around a steady 1.52 / 500m.

Rowing was okay, easy in the beginning. Still, I decided to keep it at this pace as this was not supposed to be 180 heart rate all the time. More like a moderate workload from the beginning to the end. Towards the end the concept2 started to feel a bit more uncomfortable.

Push press work wasn't that bad. The loading was light so it caused no problems, especially in the beginning. However, doing push-ups right after pressing barbell probably had its own flavor. These push-ups were hand release versions to make them suck a little more than normal ones.

After having done the metcon I took my time to do mobility. Hopefully my body thanks for that tomorrow. I've been sleeping much more than normally and that is a prerequisite for me to train twice a day. Loving every second of this holiday thing =)

Monday 23.3: Clean, C2B

Monday. Power clean build up to a heavy single (max PR 100kg). Emom x 10min: 2 power clean @ 90kg. Skills, every 90sec: 15 c2b. Squat therapy and mobility.

There were high expectations for this Monday. I knew beforehand there wouldn't be no need to rush so I would be able to work my ass off. Schedule showed there were front squat doubles, maybe high rep back squats as well as cleans for barbell work. And then a very intense style metcon in the end. However, my throat feels like there's a piece of cactus right now, that's the feeling I've had all day. Don't have a flu though but this just doesn't feel right so I had to take it easy.

Meal prep for the week

Pulls.

• Power clean, build up to a heavy single
• 3x70, 3x80, 2x85, 1x90, 1x95, 1x100kg

Yesterday got me thinking what my max load for power clean would be. Max before this day as been 95kg and it's quite recent too. I have traditionally taken all heavy cleans with a squat. This part of the session wasn't that serious, just wanted to put some weight on the bar and pick it up on the front rack.

All of these cleans felt very good. Barbell's touching point on my thighs was quite high, and there actually was a short time when the bar was weightless as I turned it over. The last rep was 100kg which is 5 kilos more than I've ever power cleaned. I'd like to say it wasn't my max load. Well, it was but there definitely is more potential. I didn't try any heavier loads this time. Left some for next time.

Emom.

• Every minute on the minute, for 10 minutes
• 2 power clean @ 90kg

As these cleans were solid I threw in a workout of emom training. Doubles of 90kg, kinda heavy. But for some sick reason these felt very good too. There was a psychological effect. I had just lifted 100kg up so dropping 10kg back was a lot lighter mentally.

I felt like a superman lifting that 90kg for doubles every minute. Okay, not a super heavy weight for some people but for me 2 reps of power cleans at this weight is no walk in the park. Squat cleans would have been a different thing.

Clean 2x90kg

Skills.

• Every 90 seconds:
• 15 chest-to-bar pull-ups

Pull-ups - and especially c2b's - are always something that should be on the agenda of improvements. I just bought "natural grips" from Rogue at the same time with my rope, so they got to test on these c2b's. They felt very good as I put them on but unfortunately they didn't stay on place on the pull-ups. For 2-3 sets they were okay but at least the last one was a bit frustrating. I need some protection on my hands with the pull-up bar. At least on this bar as someone has taped it and there's a lot of friction with hands every time. I'm not a huge fan of rips and tears. And those tend to come very easily on my hands.

First set of chest-to-bar's was easy. Second one was a lot tougher. Third one was impossible to get through unbroken, I guess it was 10 reps on the first try on this set. And last set was a lot of pain. Focus was to get as many reps as possible on the first attempt, then finish the set as quickly as possible because there was that 90 second time window.

Mobility.

• Squat therapy
• Resistance band stretches
• Overhead squats with a pause in the bottom
• Snatch balance with a pause in the bottom
• Lacrosse ball work

I still wasn't ready even though it felt like there wasn't much I was able to do. So I grabbed a pvc pipe and worked on overhead squats and snatch balances and staying in the bottom position for seconds. Also did it with an empty barbell. Those extreme positions make good for mobility purposes.

Squat therapy's results were absolutely positive. Never thought I could get as close to the wall as I did today. It took multiple attempts, starting from much farther, and then every attempt was an inch closer. Finally my toes were about the length of my middle finger plus 1-2cm away from the wall. That's success!

Monday 2.2: Snatch technique, Mobility

Monday. Snatch technique. Mobility.

It was Super Bowl Sunday so I had to watch the game! It's broadcasted in Finland in the middle of the night, the game started at 01.30 am and ended at about 5.00 in the morning. Had time to sleep 2+ hours before the game and couple of hours afterwards. I went to work later than normally but for this reason I decided to lay low this Monday. By the way, it was a heck of a game!

Snatch work.

• Power snatch
• Overhead squat
• Snatch balance
• Sotts press from back rack
• Sotts press from front rack
• Mobility

It turned out to be much greater day than I had anticipated. I thought it would be very small gains but I had a training partner with me that has probably the best mobility in this entire country. I admire his elasticity a lot. He suggested we'd work on some oly stuff with barbell only. At first I wasn't that much into it because I had thought about rowing more today but luckily I jumped aboard.

I worked with hang power snatch but mostly on overhead squats and snatch balance. I did enormous amount of reps and went all the way to the bottom position. Between sets I did mobility drills Benjamin suggested and I felt the change right away. Doing ohs and snatch balance after those mobility workouts it was like my shoulders had been replaced with someone else's. It was awesome to hit bottom position with armpits pointing forward much more easily than regularly.

Gotta work these mobility things on a regular basis. I do mobility every evening anyway so just add some new stuff there. In the end I stretched my legs a lot, and felt very good exiting the gym to the sauna.

Sunday 25.1: Squats, 20min emom of mu / box

Sunday. Strength, back squat 7x5 (max 130kg). Emom x 20min, odd min: 2 mu, even min: 8 high box jump. Lots of mobility.

I dropped Pauliina at her friends in the morning and headed to the gym for some quality time on my own. Finally got some squats done with this body (okay, it's been a week or so) and felt great about it! After strength portion it was time to work on my weakness, muscle-ups. I've added volume a lot on these ones and it's paying off. Very glad about it.

Strength.

• Back squat 7x5 (110, 115, 120, 125, 130, 125, 120kg)

Would you imagine I did deadlifts this week's Monday and today was the first day I was able to battle through back squats big time? Huh, but that only tells me I haven't done much deadlifting so my body hasn't used to the movement and protests this way. Got to step up my game on that one. How to still keep 2-3 squat sessions a week is a good question.

My plan was to hit 5x5 sets but in the course of the session I decided to add 2 more sets. Started at 110kg, then moved up 5kg after every set, and was able to build up to 130kg for a 5. That was quite tough so I dropped back to 125kg, and then 120kg for the last sets. Kind of like a pyramid hoax.

It felt tremendously good to squat again. These legs have to be strong in order to make everything else shine too. It all starts with the legs. No doubt about it.

Workout.

• Every minute on the minute, for 20 minutes
• Odd minutes: 2 ring muscle-ups
• Even minutes: 8 high box jumps

This was a great way to work on ring muscle-ups with a higher heart rate. Usually I'm all relaxed when I'm doing those. Basically because it's been too taxing for me to do them when tired. Today was the first time I combined some other element with mu's. It needed to be an emom training anyway because a classic metcon would have been too much. Okay, I've done Nate sometime in the history with false grip mu's.

Recap

I had one miss on a set on the rings but other than that I was able to work through the reps in the time frame. I took all sets in singles, 1 rep on top of the minute and the other after 30 seconds. It turned out to be a good strategy. Had one miss about mid-workout so I took one penalty muscle-up post-wod.

High box jumps are a great way to work on hip explosiveness. I jumped up, and stepped down. These were meant exactly to work on hip power. No need to rush through or do them as fast as possible. It took me about 25-30 seconds to complete the reps. It started with just one bumper plate on top of the 61cm box, then round by round I added one more plate on top of the previous one until there were 5 total plates plus the box. Once all plates had been used, I went with that height for the rest of the time.

Mobility. I focused a lot of energy to this part. Close to an hour mobilizing my hips, legs, lats, traps and stretching out. Lacrosse ball was part of the routine naturally. It felt great to get joints loose and these muscle tissues released. Better than a massage.

Saturday 17.1: Gymnastics, Cleans, Open 14.1 + Presses and metcon

Saturday. AM: Gymnastics, emom x 14min, odd min: 8 c2b, even min: 8 hspu. Strength, t'n'g squat clean triples (max 100kg). CF Open 14.1, 10min amrap of: 30 du, 15 power snatch (35kg). PM: Push press triples (70-77.5kg). Metcon of running, s2o's and t2b's. Time 19.51.

Rough day. Two-a-day. Pauliina was celebrating one of her friend's bachelorette party so I had my day to pretend I'm a professional athlete =) Ate a good breakfast, went to the gym, did mobility for much more than normally. Then hit it for a good 2 hours before heading home to eat, take a nap and eat more. In the evening it was time to drive back to the gym for another session. I'm telling ya that 1 hour nap did miracles. My body was tired from the first session but I felt great later in the day. Today also included lots and lots of mobility.

Gynastics.

• Every minute on the minute x 14
• Odd min: 8 chest-to-bar pull-ups
• Even min: 8 handstand push-ups

My daily dose of pull-ups are in the books. That emom workout I did just yesterday felt like a good idea to practice on this gymnastics movement. It hit me today in the morning that I want more of this fun but let's throw some handstand push-ups in the mix too. This was a good combo, alternating the movement every other minute. I also added reps for c2b's. These took only about 10 seconds on both of the movements and the recovery was abundant to get back in the game for the next minute. This indicates there's still more room to add reps or minutes on the pull-ups.

Gymnastics

Strength.

• Squat clean triples, touch'n'go
• Build up to a heavy triple (60, 70, 80, 85, 90, 95, 100kg)

Toni did these one day earlier this week and it inspired me to put this in my calendar as well. The idea was specifically to do touch'n'go style repetitions. That means not resting on the floor at all. I don't know have I ever built these up to a heavy triple. The heaviest reps have always been pretty much singles, I mean at around 90kg and beyond. Or then they have been doubles and triples but there has been a re-grip at the floor.

So it was cool to see how I would be able to fight through these mentally. It was difficult to hold on to the bar on the heaviest weights. When I catch the bar on front rack position, I don't hold it with full grip, it's more like couple of fingers are under the bar in squat clean position. So I have to throw the bar up, catch it again on its way down with a hook grip. With 95 and 100kg this started to come an issue but somehow I got it. On 100kg I had to adjust my fingers on top position before heading down with the barbell.

Clean was heavy but I got under the bar well anyway. My legs took some hit but they were strong all the way. They just got a little fatigue even though they held on well under the barbell.

Clean triples, tng

CF Open 14.1. Result, 260 reps (5 rounds + 30 du + 5 snatch)

• 10min amrap of:
• 30 double under
• 15 power snatch, 35kg

This is a good workout. I did this a while ago solo but the order of the movement was the other way around, by accident, and it was also mistakenly a 12 min amrap. I just didn't remember the specifics correctly so that's why. Plus we did this together with Toni as a pair workout, one athlete working for one round, then high fives and the other one steps up. That time I knocked all snatches unbroken because there was recovery between rounds.

Today those snatches were too much for me to fight through unbroken. I went 10-5 each round, didn't try to go ub on the first round as I anticipated problems by pedaling too much in the beginning. Maybe I still should have gassed more. There were one miss on first and second round on the double unders, other than that they were unbroken. Hook grip stayed on at the snatches but they just wore me down whole-heartedly. Maybe all that work being done had its effect on my endurance on this one. Anyway, this is a great workout, no doubt! Good engine wod.

Start of the wod

Strength.

• Push press triples (70, 72.5, 75, 77.5, 70kg)

There were several hours between sessions and a nap that made the difference. It's great to have a sleep during the hour, then hit another training session. Food is also the key to recovery. Today I used a lot of time for mobility at the start of AM session, and kicked off the PM session too with the same ideology, plus ended it with mobility work. I've probably never done this much body maintenance in one day. Felt good.

Push presses were a bit sticky, not the smoothest days of putting weight overhead. Weights were not awesome but I definitely had to do work to get them done.

Metcon. Time, 19.51

• 1.000m run
• 10 shoulder-to-overhead, 60kg
• 20 toes-to-bar
• 800m run
• 8 shoulder-to-overhead, 60kg
• 16 toes-to-bar
• 600m run
• 6 shoulder-to-overhead, 60kg
• 12 toes-to-bar
• 400m run
• 4 shoulder-to-overhead
• 8 toes-to-bar
• 200m run
• 2 shoulder-to-overhead
• 4 toes-to-bar

Goal was to get a good semi-long metcon in the system with lots of running included. This was my answer to the call. Descending distance / reps of all three elements guaranteed that the intensity stayed high. My running pace got faster towards the end as the meter were cut down every round with 200m. That way I was able to run quicker.

Even though push press triples were maybe not the best I've done in my life, this shoulder-to-overhead was good job from me. In real life, this was push jerk with 60kg. I got these 30 reps total whereas running was for a total of 3.000 meters. Because t2b's are obviously easier to complete than jerks, I doubled the amount of them each round so there were a total of 60 reps of those. They felt great all the way. Timer stopped at 19.51 after finishing all the reps. This was exactly what I was looking for! Great way to end the training day. In the evening it basically more eating, sauna and tv time =)

Mobility. I got inspired by Crossfit Reykjavik's youtube channel where Jami Tikkanen and Annie Thorisdottir demonstrated couple of mobility tips for the entire body. They actually have lots of those short videos there, go check them out. I posted one video yesterday. Today I took advantage of those tips, and got loose on my body. Lacrosse ball has been away in my training bag for too long but today it saw the daylight again. Resistance band is a daily tool to activate my body and it was in play earlier in the day of course.

Sunday 4.1: Skills day

Sunday. Skills, strict ring muscle-up progressions & handstand.

Huh, my body felt wrecked after yesterday's training! Like a truck had hit me. I don't even know what the reason is, what was so different in that session but it sure feels in my body. Toni had the same feeling this morning. However, he still went to row a half marathon today in the afternoon, crazy man… =) Okay, after breakfast Pauliina had to get her training done so we hit the gym in a classic weekend style. Huge breakfast of omelette and smoothies. Keeping it clean. My effort stayed at skills training. Not a bad choice at all! Felt much better after the session than before it.

Skills.

• Strict ring muscle-up progressions
• Handstand

Ring muscle-ups are an obvious goat for me. If a man has not performed Amanda ever in his lifetime, it's pretty obvious that ring mu's and snatch are not his strengths. I'm gonna make them count this year. That means I got to work those elements more often. It would be freaking cool to knock couple of strict muscle-ups. I'd take them on rings but also on the bar.

I played with the rings a lot today. Those really burned my upper body in a good way. On the video you'll see some of the action. Mostly played around with that transition part. It seems too challenging at the moment to pull high enough before I would make the "sit-up" in the transition part. I tried couple of strict reps but couldn't quite nail it. Some help would definitely be welcomed.

Handstand

There were just me, Pauliina and a third person at the gym so there was plenty of space to practice my handstand skills. It was a good shot as I got couple of decent attempts under my belt. In the process I also hit a PR in the time being inverted. It was 33 seconds whereas my previous max attempts in free handstand have been around 20-25 seconds. It was also great that I wasn't walking around the gym but stayed rather close to where I wanted to stay.

These kind of days are not that often but they are always very beneficial. Just work on the skills and get better at them. These do not burden body as much as doing barbell work or tough metcons but these are fun days. And the only way to get better at skills is to practice them, no surprise there =)

Monday 22.9: Amrap of 20min, barbell technique

Monday. Metcon, 20min amrap of: 5 hspu, 10 (5/5) db snatch 25kg, 15 t2b, 200m run. Result, 7rds + 1 snatch. Mobility. Technique, clean and overhead squat.

I'm very happy on the way I was able to recover from weekend. It was strenuous on my body but little by little it got better and started feeling stronger. Today I felt great to get back to work, barbells were mostly left alone. The metcon was a long amrap of bodyweight and dumbbells. Great one. Mobility was in turn next and finally some cleans with light weight and overhead squats with pvc pipe.

Metcon. Result, 7 rounds + 1 db snatch

• 20min amrap of:
• 5 handstand push-ups
• 10 (5 right / 5 left) dumbbell snatch, 25kg
• 15 toes-to-bar
• 200m run (on a treadmill)

Goal for today: get the lungs to work, breath heavy and keep going, leave heavy barbells alone, suck it up and move, no excuses. Result, succeeded. The movements suited perfectly together, and the rep-scheme was almost too. The only thing I would change now afterwards is the number of t2b's. Just a little less per round would have made me go unbroken all the way, and that would have resulted in even heavier breathing.

Handstand push-ups were light, I knocked them quickly touch'n'go style all the time, could have had something like 6-7 reps and it would have still been okay. I felt strong on these. Snatches weren't that nice. The dumbbell was 25kg, which is pretty much the heaviest I've used as db snatch. Single lifts at this weight feel great. It's a different game though, when you have 10 of them in a row. First 5 reps with right hand, then switch to left hand and repeat 5 reps. These started to feel hard toward the end but I stayed consistent with them.

Toughest movement of these was t2b. In the beginning it was a walk in the park. Second round, as easy. Third round, I started to anticipate the upcoming. Fourth round, this was a grind. On the fifth round I broke it to 10-5. This short break between hopping back on the pull-up bar gave some rest and got my breathing down. From this point on I believe my breathing was well in control because there was this compulsory break before being able to continue t2b's. It was simply too big of a burn in my hip flexors and core to continue.

I forced myself to jump on the treadmill right after finishing toes-to-bar. On some rounds I took a zip of water, and then went on. Pace on the run was 16km/h. That suited well. On one round later in the workout I felt tired and put on 12 km/h. That felt too slow so I took it back up to 16, and kept it there. Round times were pretty consistent throughout the workout. It was the t2b's that slowed me a little because I had to drop down from the pull-up bar from 5th round on. Everything except those 3 last rounds were unbroken with all movements and I strongly feel my pace remained the same. It felt a little worse by the round - as it should - but mental game was in the house today.

Mobility and technique.

• Mobility drills
• Power clean
• Overhead squat

The workout got me so it took some time to just chill out and recover. I focused on mobility by using resistance band. Opened up my hip flexors as they got tight during the metcon. They were under a lot of pressure, basically every movement except hspu's put lots of heat on hip flexors. After some more stretching I felt my legs were back in the game and it was time to work on my clean technique. Just light weight, working on getting the bar as high on my thighs as possible. I tried not to rush it from the ground and carefully hit the contact point high on my quads. Lastly, it was time for classic overhead squat mobility drills, this time with pvc pipe. Agenda was keeping a good posture, chest up, armpits forward and knees out.

Sunday 21.9: Squats, Power clean, Box, Pull-ups

Sunday. Strength, Smolov squat 1x5 (122.5kg). Metcon, 6rds of: 3 power clean (80kg), 10 box, 10 pull-ups. Time 9.31

I'm telling ya my body felt crashed in the morning! God damned it was beaten up. Unfortunately I underestimated the importance of mobility and stretching for upper body. Hero workout JT really was a hero workout. It was a little deceiving as it didn't get to my lungs that much. But my muscles were sore as hell. This day would have been a perfect rest day for sure. Luckily Pauliina suggested we'd go explore the woods and nature instead of hitting the gym early in the morning. We slept like little babies until noon and I really needed that. The work week was long and during weekdays I don't get that much sleep anyway so it's vital in the weekend to get something back.

Strength.

• Smolov squats, 1x5 (122.5kg)

This was the last "easy" set of back squatting in this cycle. On Wednesday it's gonna be real stuff. Lots of volume for legs. Today it was only one single set of 5 reps with 122.5kg. I took warm-up with 60 and 100kg, couple of pause squats and explosive squats, to really get body prepared for this "set of the day".

My lovely fiancé <3

I'm a little scare of squatting 4 times a week for 3 weeks. That means 12 high-volume back squat sessions in 20 days. That would probably be okay, just need to do lots of mobility too but I need to do classic crossfit at the same time. Just need to listen to my body carefully not to overload the system. Because I got to be ready to have that bar on my back and do some serious work.

Squats of the day

Metcon. Time 9.31

• 6 rounds of:
• 3 power clean, 80kg
• 10 box
• 10 pull-ups

At first my initial feeling was to hit a 20 min amrap but then again I realized my body is indeed quite tired. Okay it felt much better than in the morning. That long walk and play in the woods made its work for recovery. In the morning I simply wouldn't have been ready to train but in the evening I was eager to get some training done! I'm happy for these quick recovery abilities. Anyway, I reckoned I'd better keep it shorter still.

Took some power cleans from ground and from hang and they felt fine all the way with 60-70kg so 80kg felt a good choice and I'm very happy on this decision. I took them all as singles, and at times I dropped the bar because there were no other souls at the gym. Cleans felt good all the way.

I still tend to bend my arms too early. There's this movement pattern that I've learned in the past and it's pretty damned hard to get rid of it. Hang cleans might have made it a little better but still this technical improvement would make a huge difference in the effectiveness of my lifts. Better technique smells like heavier lifts and PR's. But it's not that easy to correct. I'm working on it though.

100kg

Box jumps have been non-existing lately. I've been careful not to burden my legs too much so that's the sole reason why these haven't been part of my metcons. I figured it can't be that serious to have them involved too so they got in today. No problem with boxes. They're one of my strengths.

Pull-ups, the number of them wasn't big but the combination of them and power cleans somehow got to me and they didn't feel that light towards the end. There were no problems to knock them unbroken anyway. I would have done them ub for at least 10 rounds, I'm sure of it.

This workout was good, definitely so. And the reps were good too, wouldn't have changed it in anyway. With a fresh body I would have made it either 10 rounder or then a 20 min amrap. It would have constituted a lot of box and pull-ups, 100+ in total.

Metcon

Mobility.

• Overhead squat
• Stretching, mobility

In the end I took mobility drills, below is one of them. This one is designed for overhead squats. I need to get my armpits shown forward instead of downwards. We worked on this positioning with Toni. My stance is wider than in normal front / back squat and I'm really pushing it to get my arms / shoulders in good position. This is not easy for me. But I need to stop bitching about it and start improving it! =)

OHS mobility

Wednesday 17.9: Squats, Push press, 21-15-9

Wednesday. Strength, Smolov squats (2x122.5kg). Strength, push press 3-3-3-3-3 (max 85kg). Metcon, 21-15-9 of: pull-ups and power snatch (40kg). Time, 7.14. Overhead squat technique and mobility for 1h.

Today I was in no hurry at all. It extended to a good 2h+ session. Lots of things happened. First of all, I got back to squats, the Smolov program let be put the barbell in my back for some doubles. After that overhead strength was ahead of me. Metcon was a killer for forearms, even with hook grip on snatches. I spent at least 45min for the cool down, continuing improving overhead squat form and then mobility stuff in the very end.

Strength.

• Back squat (Smolov) 2-2 (across 122.5kg)
• Push press 3-3-3-3-3 (70, 75, 80, 85, 85kg)

I've been missing squats for a while now. This Smolov training cycle began with 3 days of squatting in a row, since then it's been easier. There are couple of days still left to go until some serious ass squatting takes place. Then it's gonna be 4 times a week of back squats. Today was only 2 doubles at 122.5kg. Naturally there were some lighter weights to get prepared, did them at 60 and 100kg. Some pause squats and speed squat, with full range of motion. These doubles felt light today. I've tried to let my legs recover in my training lately, exactly because people tell this Smolov thing is tough stuff. This far it's been easy but soon things are gonna change.

It was quickly over, as I didn't even keep that big a rest between squat sets. I quickly changed weights and took over the rack. First warm-up sets at 60kg I took from ground but first set at 70kg from rack. At this point I was properly ready for the overhead work and it didn't feel tight anywhere in my body. All of these sets felt a good weight to push around. Still, after every set I felt there's room to add kilos. The last station was at 85kg which was very good weight for me for a triple. Happened to push it up for 2 sets. that was great!

I believe my max push press for a single is 90kg this far so having a triple this close to max is success. Actually the last set of 85kg was even better than the first one.

Haha, Milko Tokola on fire

Metcon. Time 7.14

• 21-15-9 of:
• Pull-ups
• Power snatch, 40kg

I saw one monster completing a workout of 21-18-15-12-9-6-3 with these same movements, snatches at 50kg. That sounded attempting but would have been way too heavy for me and the intensity would have sucked big time. This scaled modification suited well for today. Of course I had hook grip on the snatches but this one killed my forearms nevertheless. Towards the end it was difficult to hold on to either of the bars. Two pull-movements sealed the deal.

Got the first set of pull-ups unbroken, not sure how the second set went, unbroken or then 10-5, really just don't remember. Third set was miserable. At this point grip strength was gone. It was 5-2-2 on the round of 9's. Snatches went 7-7-7 on first round, 8-4-3 on the second and 4-3-2 on the last set. I tried to keep the recovery short. That's how it felt but don't know how it looked like =)

SF @ LA

Technique.

• Overhead squats
• Mobility

I had decided to take it easy after the actual workout session. My back was sore the entire day. Like I had done some serious back workouts. But I didn't. So I was wondering why the heck is it sore. In the warm-up I realized we worked a lot on overhead positioning and form with Toni yesterday. My tight felt very tight then and that's the reason why this happened. It definitely didn't bother my training today but it was funny to witness these two are linked together.

I wanted to continue working on this weakness. Got to get the form good before I'll add more load. Working simply on a pvc pipe will make good on my mobility. I took a lot of sets without weight, and each rep felt in my back. It's very tight and needs to get loosened up for better mobility. Plus I was able to keep the armpits facing forward. That is the biggest gain I got from working the form with Toni, and still being able to go below parallel. There were also a lot of different mobility drills involved in the end.

Working on ohs mobility

Sunday 31.8: Rings, Rowing, Pistols and Pull-ups

Sunday. Skills, ring muscle-ups. Metcon, 5rds of: 500m row, 10 pistols, 15 pull-ups. Not for time.

Today my body was tired all the way. Felt good wearing my gear and hitting the gym. But once I started moving around, it was obvious pretty soon that this is not going to be one of those days that you remember as an old grandpa. I still got some work done in the metcon that left a good feeling. Plus the mobility session afterwards was from heaven.

Skills.

• Ring muscle-ups

Last ring muscle-up session was the best I've had ever in my life. It felt so natural and the most effortless it's ever been. Today was quite the opposite =) There was some frustration in the game too as it didn't go the way I had imagined in the morning. Didn't wanna stay and bang my head against the wall so I took 3 singles and left it there. Better effort next time. It felt like this tired body wasn't ready for this technical movement.

New mobility toy

Metcon.

• 5 rounds of:
• 500m row
• 10 pistol squats, alternating
• 15 pull-ups

Prior to this workout, I worked for a while on shoulder presses and push presses with light weight barbells. Just kept it at 40-50kg to activate my upper body. This workout was the main thing of this Sunday. I've had pistol squats in my head for a while, and just waited for a good opportunity to throw it into a metcon. This was "Mary"-style action, replaced handstand push-ups with rowing. This was not for time but it took me about 20 minutes. That means to say my rowing was 1.47 on the first round, the next two 500's were 1.48, fourth 1.50 and the last one 1.53.

My goal on the bodyweight movements were to go unbroken, and that was accomplished. Pistol squats went okay. I have no problem knocking them. Form might be better but the movement itself is a pleasant one. My left pistols are clearly stronger than the right leg ones. It might be because of the ankle mobility. I played floorball as a goal keeper for years and my style improved exactly my left leg / ankle much more than the right one. I always played with my left leg under my butt so there's much more flexibility because of that.

Pull-ups were definitely the most challenging part of this workout. I wanted to go unbroken on each round and I'm happy I was able to do exactly that. I believe I could have done 1-2 rounds unbroken on pull-ups too if needed.

This workout was not a timed one but it took me about 20 minutes to finish this one. Didn't rush between stations, but I moved with a purpose still. It was great to have pistols, it's such a good movement. I'll try to remember writing more of those in my metcons.

Recap

Mobility.

Yesterday as we spent the day in the city we happened to wander in couple of sport stores and bought a new mobility toy. We experimented it yesterday for the first time and today it was in heavy use after the workout. Both of us with Pauliina felt like our bodies were hammered from the past days' training so we pounded each other's body with this thing, don't know what to call it =) Maybe it's a "mobility stick".

I just laid on the ground relaxed and Pauliina smashed my quads, hamstrings, calves, traps, lats, arms and basically everything you can massage. Then we changed roles. It felt great after this session. I tried my widest stance in air squat position and it was probably the widest I've ever had. As you can see from the pictures, it's quite the normal of an average Joe but for me it's almost double the regular stance. This was success.

Miami vs. New York

Sunday 11.5: Active recovery

Sunday. Active recovery.

I felt like crap as I woke up. It aches in probably every cell I have in my body. Some places hurt more than others. My upper back is sore, hamstrings and butt cheeks are sensitive too. It feels like there's not much strength within me. If I had to do 60kg clean & jerks it would be a nightmare. Yesterday was a great experience and spectacular workouts.

I took it easy today, just wanted to get my blood flow and get the juice moving in my body. Didn't touch the bar at all nor did I do any bodyweight movements. Just used some cardio machines, rowing, treadmill and stuff like that. Easyyyyy.

Active recovery.

• 1km row
• 1km crosstrainer
• 1km cycling
• 1km running
• 1km crosstrainer
• Mobility

Recap

Tomorrow morning we are traveling to the States with Pauliina. Destination California! First time ever for me traveling there. I've been to Florida twice and last year we visited New York with Pauliina. I love traveling to USA, it's my kind of place, there's something that suites us both.

We are going to Los Angeles first, then Las Vegas and finally San Francisco, for a total of 2 weeks. It's gonna be spectacular, no doubt! This is a holiday for sure so I'm not gonna stress about sports that much. But even though we are at the other end of the world we are definitely going to take care of our fitness somehow. Stay tuned.

Thursday 24.4: Track and field, ohs, oh lunges

Thursday. Day in Eltsu. Skills, handstand walk. Mobility, hurdle step-overs. Plyometric, hurdle jump-overs. Sprints, 4x400m. Technique, overhead squats, overhead lunges.

Perfect surroundings in Eltsu. Mother nature was hugging me with astounding weather. It was extremely satisfying to work outdoors at the track. Started with skills training, then moved on to play with hurdles, some mobility drills and plyometric work. Then couple of 400m sprints, finishing it off with one mile run with easy pace. Wanted to touch the barbell too so I went indoors to work on my overhead squats and a newcomer, overhead lunges! My body has taken some hit this week so I kept it at one session today. Took a nap, and ate well to recover.

Track and field.

• 800m run, easy pace
• Handstand walk
• Hurdle step-overs 8x8
• Hurdle jump-overs 8x6
• Sprints, 400m every 3:00 (splits 1.30, 1.28, 1.27, 1.26)
• 1.600m run, easy pace

After running, warming-up, completing tons of lunges and mobility I took on handstand walking. The platform on a track is simply perfect. Couldn't be better. It was a totally different thing compared to my previous hs session in Klaukkala on grass that wasn't a balanced ground. I still need a flat platform with these skills.

It felt good today and my goal was to walk on my hands, not just trying to find balance. Didn't measure the distances, couple of meters were gained per attempt. It was around 20 seconds of inverted position.

Handstand walk recap

Hurdle work is great. Too rarely do I get the chance to go after them. When I played floorball I had one coach that obviously loved them so we used to play with them quite a lot in the summer time. For us goalies he put us do even more drills to enhance hip mobility. I remember having done hundreds of repetitions per training session.

Then, we used to run a lot after them. It was a totally different style of training that time. It wasn't much of strength work. Mostly core and endurance work by running in different methods. And as a goalie, I didn't run at all during the season =) But I guess my core got in good shape because of those times.

Hurdle recap

Today I reminisced some of those hurdle drills. Started by walking over the obstacles, 8x8. Don't have the best of hip mobility but I still feel like it was smoother than it used to be. There's clearly happened some development, on mobility all over my body. Crossfit has helped tremendously on this issue.

Another drill was jump-overs. I've done lots of box jumps that create explosiveness. This is somewhat similar exercise but also improve on elasticity, balance and coordination. Couple of times I lost rhythm on the jumps which indicate inaccuracy in my concentration. Once I focused it was a good workout! Would be awesome to have these more often.

I also wanted to run once there's a chance for that. Took 400m sprints, not all in effort but still with a good pace. I'd like to see myself running easy 1.20 splits and max effort somewhere sub 1.10. Not there yet. Those times used to be my regular times. I remember having ran 8x400m with an average of 1.22 pace when I started crossfit. That time I ran a lot more and okay, I weighed also 10kg less. I've gained lots of strength and muscle since then. My breathing is under control pretty well but my legs start to go burn on inner thighs a lot during the sprints. Got to run now in the summer time more than during winter to regain that speed. My round times got a little faster by the round.

Barbell. Overhead work

• Overhead squat technique (40-50kg)
• Overhead lunges 3x10, alternating legs (40kg)

After running for 1.600m for recovery to flush legs it was time to go indoors for some barbell work. Didn't go heavy this time, just worked on my overhead squat technique with rather light weights, mostly 40kg, one set of 50kg was thrown in too. In the beginning I noticed my depth wasn't there but luckily I had my coach (=camera) with me to witness this. He told me to go deeper so I fixed it. Too mostly sets of 5's but in the end a set of 15 reps just for fun.

But hey, how cool is overhead lunges? First time I tried it and now I understand how magnificent element that is. They've done front rack lunges and overhead lunges in Regionals and Games lately and I watched those events with a desire to hit this type of movements myself. They also had similar stuff in Finland's own "Crossfit Games", Winter War as we call it. I had only 40kg on the bar but I got the point.

It's definitely a whole-body movement where you have to keep entire core tight, do lots of work with legs and shoulder to stabilize the bar and not drop it. There's probably not a muscle in the body that you don't work with. I took 3 sets of 10 reps in the end of this training session.

Barbell recap

All in all, it was a great day. Skills, mobility, plyometric work, sprints and some barbell work. Only thing missing was a hardcore metcon. Let's see what tomorrow brings us!