Originally this day was scheduled to be some sort of rest day or active rest day. Anyway, light for sure. It's been an eternity since I've last time played around with rings for real so this day seemed like a great idea. Really enjoyed it. However, the morning was the real highlight of this Thursday. Toni turned 30 and we had a surprise party for him at work. We got him the Games standards Rogue Box for present and from the look of this mister's face I suppose he was satisfied on his present =)
Rings.
Muscle-ups
Front level progressions
Back lever progressions
Skin the cat
Handstand push-up hold
Ring dips
After not touching on rings with the intention of completing muscle-ups it was a bit intimidating to go for it. I seriously had my doubts if I would make any rep after such a long pause. On my first try I went over the rings but then for some reason my right hand slid off my body and I fell uncontrolled to the ground. That must have looked crazy as Pauliina was kind of scared for me. Anyway, I realized it was only a technical error and it was a good thing I took another attempt to get over it. Got 5 single reps without problems after all.
Next element was lever progressions, for both front and back levers. I took quite a few attempts and made it easier by bending one leg instead of keeping both legs straight. This is very challenging stuff and I'm very happy on the way I was able to perform. Haven't done these practically at all before.
Couple of sets of skin the cat for shoulder and core strength, and flexibility in shoulders too. It was a bit scary to try the handstand push-ups on rings. It took me couple of attempts before I got my feet up there but once I got it, it was all natural from then on. Felt comfortable in the bottom position but it was too heavy for me to push myself up. I simply couldn't move at all =) Tough as hell. Finally I took some ring dips with the deepest dip ever. It was great to play with the rings!
Wednesday. Ring skills. Barbell, overhead squat technique. Metcon, pair wod with my bro. As a team, complete 50 thrusters (50kg), 50 hang power clean (50kg), 50 push jerk (50kg), 50 front squat (50kg), 100 kb swing (32kg). Emom 4 burpees for both. Time 18.57.
It was kind of like a new year's resolution for me and my brother to train together more often this year, something like once a week or once every two weeks. Today was the 5th or 6th time we worked out together =) So we have not been able to stick to the plan. We live about 20 minutes away from each other but all the schedules of work and families are mixing up the time tables every now and then. We have tried but those moments have been rare anyway. Today was one of those valuable moments when I met with my bro for training purposes. And it sure as hell was worth it!
Bros, 2 x Lamppu
Skills.
Ring muscle-ups
Sipa has installed Rogue rings in front of their front door so he can practically knock a few muscle-ups every time he likes to. That's pretty awesome if you ask me. The roof is not that high so the hight is not ideal, at least for me. Sipa is shorter and doesn't mind it. I had some mental issues of having the rings lower than to what I'm used to.
Had to go for false grip and bent arms in the starting position. I didn't dare to swing that much because I was afraid to push my head to the ceiling. That's the reason why I landed in such a deep dip position. Take a look at the recap video so you'll know what I mean. Anyway, the muscle-ups felt effortless in general, felt good!
Barbell.
Overhead squats
I would have liked to take some clean and jerks too like my brother did but that right calf of mine is still sensitive. It doesn't hurt at all but I'm afraid it will get back to the same mood it was about a week ago if I smash it against the floor with too much force. That's why I haven't done any box jumps nor double unders either. Don't want it to collide against the ground that heavily.
So overhead squats seemed like a good call, especially as that seems to be my brother's strength. Probably his strongest bar movement so I needed some advice on that. This was purely for technique work. Weights were at around 40-50kg.
Metcon. Pair wod, Time 18.57
As a team, complete the following:
50 thrusters, 50kg
50 hang power clean, 50kg
50 push jerk, 50kg
50 front squat, 50kg
100 kettlebell swing, 32kg
On top of every minute, both complete 4 burpees
We wrote this one down yesterday evening with Sipa. This kind of chippers work pretty well for pair workouts. You gotta complete a bunch of repetitions of one movement before you are allowed to move on to the next movement. This type of pair workouts also flow well with bodyweight movements, let's say for example hspu's, pull-ups, burpees, box jumps etc. Our solution was to work with a weight in each station, 4 barbell movements and 2-pood kettlebell. The twist in the workout was those emom-burpees. Both have to complete 4 burpees in the beginning of every minute. Those are a game-changer.
Barbell work
Thrusters were probably the sickest of these barbell movements. Definitely didn't look forward to moving the bar on my turn, nor was Sipa, but it is a very beneficial movement for sure. Very comprehensive movement and makes you burn in a short time. We did these in sets of 5's, then changed turns. Every time the 60 seconds came full, it was time to drop down in the ground for some burpees, and then continue back with the thrusters as 4 burpees were done by both of us.
After thrusters came power cleans, from hang position. I knocked these faster than ever, touch'n'go style each round. Those shoulder-to-overheads were just grinding it through without thinking that much, we were still moving on in 5's. On the front squats we changed the game plan on the fly and completed 10's, then 8's on the next round and finally 7's to finishing it off. Those front squats were light in nature but at this point those started to burn legs too. Especially as there was no time to catch a breath at any point because the clock was running forward. So you better keep on moving constantly. Kettlebell swings progressed in sets of 10 reps.
Pair workout
Feelings after the workout
We had finally done all the work needed at 18.57. Luckily I had the time to push through those last kb swings in time so there didn't come extra 4 burpees. There was a total of 72 burpees done by both of us in the workout. It's sick to get together with my brother and workout. There's no doubt we push each other more in the wods and gain better results by training together. It's a pity we can't find more time for these purposes.
Monday. Row intervals, 5rds of: 600m moderate, 60sec rest, 100m max effort, 100m easy, 100m max effort, 100m easy. Ring skills in the end.
I've had a lot of barbells or kettlebells in my hands in the past training days so it was good to leave them alone for a day and concentrate in rowing. That is one king movement. This is something a man should have as an element on a weekly basis, rowing intervals. I also took some ring skills after getting my lungs burst out.
Row intervals. Total 5.000m
5 rounds of:
600m moderate pace (1.45-1.50)
60sec rest
100m max effort (1.29-1.38)
100m easy (2.10-2.15)
100m max effort (1.29-1.38)
100m easy (2.10-2.15)
This is taken directly from NCLab. That is Norcal Crossfit's site that offers a training plan for crossfit athletes looking to make it to the Games. With that said, you understand their daily workouts are sick. Chris Hinshaw is a remarkable endurance coach for these athletes too. Jason Khalipa, Miranda Oldroyd, Garrett Fisher, Pat Barber and the rest of the crew to mention a couple of names. These guys are something I look up to as athletes. If they publish a run / row / swim / skierg workout you better believe it's gonna kick you in the ass.
I've done couple of these in the past and this was a great one too! I had no doubts at any stage though. There was a 5k total of rowing in 5 cycles of 1.000m distances. What should the pace be like on each of these 3 phases? Hinshaw described it in the workout, I posted a picture of it below. My pace on the 600m row was somewhere between 1.45 and 1.50. The first 1-2 sets were faster, from then on I had to grit my teeth get the digits to stay sub 1.50. But I stayed, a mental decision.
Max effort pace was around one thirty and something. Mostly at around 1.35. In the beginning the pace was about 1.30 and the last round was even sub 1.30. On the easy part I took it very slow, just basically kept moving the boat but there was no ambition to go faster.
The thing in this workout was definitely the 600m row. I was glad every time it was over. It was the only distance after which I got to stand up for a while and reset my mental game. Max efforts were quick so even though it was max effort it wasn't that bad. After these 100m max efforts / easy parts were over there was no rest / recovery but I had to start rowing for that 600m distance again. That really sucked. I decided I'll try to keep the pace at the same level each round and that made me think about a happy place at times.
Ring skills.
Skin the cat
Front level progressions
I played around with the rings for a while just for the fun of it. Skin the cats and front level progressions. Those front levels are sick stuff. Can't do them right now because there's lack of proper body control so I took some progressions with one knee tucked in. It was a cool short session with the rings, liked it! Here's a short video of what skin the cat means.
Friday. AM: Snatch (max 65kg). Benchmark workout Isabel: 30 snatches for time (50kg). Time 3.01. PM: Ring skills. Recovery 9km / 30min cycling.
The tough holiday (=training) week continued today in Eltsu. Obviously I can feel it in my body there's been a lot of workouts in the past couple of days. It has helped that I've had the possibility for naps, no need to work and have had good company with Pauliina, the love of my life. She stayed home to study and I went to workout in Eltsu in the morning. It was snatches all the way.
40kg
Snatch.
5x40, 5x50, 5x50, 3x55, 1x60, 1x65kg
As I walked through the tunnels of Eltsu there were not another soul, got a chance to workout in piece. I taped my hands properly as it feels like there have become all kinds of wounds in my fingers and palms this week. When you hold on to a barbell on a daily basis, hand care plays a significant role in your life. If it doesn't, destiny will remind you to keep them in shape.
I took much longer warm-up to get properly ready for the work ahead of me. In the middle of my snatch session an old guy entered the cave. He was around 70 years old and had competed in weightlifting back in the days. It was more like 50 years from now. We talked in length about training, competing and, weightlifting and crossfit. To put things into perspective he snatched 120kg and clean & jerked 150kg as his one rep maxes. Those are pretty impressive numbers for a 20-year old dude back in the 60's!
It was a heart-warming feeling as the gentleman was giving props on my power snatches and the general fitness level of being able to smash 30 snatches away in relatively short time. That conversation boosted us to talk about crossfit of which he said sounded pretty much like a perfect training method. Couldn't agree more!
Snatch recap
Anyway, I had no specific objective for the snatch session. Wanted to build it up to rather heavy and listen to my body and listen to what it tries to tell me. it would tell me how far could I go. My goal was to do squat snatches but on the video at the spot I found out I didn't go below parallel. Just couldn't find the path all the way down. So those were definitely power snatches in description. But I tried to lower my butt below 90 degrees.
My max today was 65kg, not the most beautiful as I had to take couple of corrective steps to balance it, it was about to fall forward. Those 50-55kg lifts came up "easily", then on 60kg I had to concentrate a lot to get it. The last weight (65kg) failed at first, then I got it up on the second try.
55kg
Isabel. Time 3.01
30 snatches (50kg)
I had clean and jerks in mind too but it was way too goo momentum on the snatches to throw it away. I took couple of power snatches with 50kg and put the clock running. Probably would have been smart to rest a little after the power snatches. It felt like light weight so I didn't wanna wait anymore, just put the camera running and do the work.
Decided to go by feeling from early on. I took a set of 5 reps in the beginning, dropped the bar, and then decided to stick to this rep-scheme for as long as possible. Those 5's felt good and I had the possibility to drop the bar after each set so I pushed through those mental obstacles and kept the motor running with 5's. The grandpa talked to me every now and then, so I tried to say something back to be polite =) I almost made it to the end as planned. After 25 reps I decided to grab the barbell quickly. The recovery was too short for me to knock the last 5 reps in a row so I dropped it after 28 reps and then took the last 2 to finish at 3.01.
Isabel
This was second time I took on Isabel, the first one was at 40kg a little over a year ago. Then, in the beginning of this year I completed 30 snatches not for time but I remember those snatches being way consuming and I had to cut them to doubles from early on. I was very happy of being able to smash them in 5's almost to the finish line.
Rings.
Ring muscle-ups (10 reps)
Ring swings
In the evening Pauliina needed her fitness doze so we drove to "our" gym. This week has been ring-free so it was about time to go after them. I took no stress about the training session and it turned out I put effort in my ring skills. I took all reps without false grip. This is next level stuff for me. I try to get rid of false grip to being able to knock consecutive reps. Today I did one set of double, the rest being singles, total of 10 reps.
We noticed that my kip swing is a bit inadequate in terms of being as aggressive and smooth as I'd like to. I have a standard height to where I adjust the rings at the gym. It's about max height they can be 'cause otherwise I'll smash my head to the tubes running in the ceiling. After having done muscle-ups I raised the rings a little higher so that I had to jump to catch them in the starting position.
Muscle-ups
Now I was able to swing with much better motion, way smoother and way more momentum. However, now the rings are too high and I can't go over the rings because my head would touch the ceiling. Anyway, it felt good to practice on those swings and I gained more confidence on those.
Thursday. Skills, Ring mu's. Strength, front squats 5-5-5-5-5 (100-110kg).
My body was a bit hammered after yesterday's Barbara workout. It feels pretty much all over my body. That's why I took it easier today, no metcon at all. Some ring skills to start with and then front squats that I haven't taken in a while. That was more than enough for today.
Skills.
Ring muscle-ups
False grip
Non false grip
This progress has been great. I'm very happy I'm able to get ring muscle-ups without using false grip. Let's be honest, those muscle-ups where I haven't used false grip are the first REPS I've been able to do, ever. False grip reps have been pretty much no-reps because the elbows are not locked out in the starting position. Whereas in normal grip my elbows are locked out in the beginning, I just utilize a proper kip and swing to get over the rings.
And it feels awesome to get up there! I took couple of false grip reps and then practiced on this "normal" reps. I'm gonna keep on practicing this skill for sure. I made a promise in the end of last year that I'll focus more on rings the upcoming year and I've fulfilled that promise to myself. Still, I'm not where I wanna be so more work is ahead of me!
How cool is this one? Let's see if we can build something alike with Kari =)
Strength.
Front squats 5-5-5-5-5 (100, 105, 110, 110, 110kg)
Now my back is in good shape after 14.3 so it's okay to squat again =) It took a couple of days to recover. I decided to do front squats instead of back squats. I'm gonna get back to squat rhythm and work on getting my legs and engine stronger.
As I wrote in the beginning, my legs and entire body was shocked after yesterday so I didn't max out today. I took 5's with loads between 100 and 110kg. It was a moderate weight for me. Had to concentrate to get the weights up with style but it was something I was able to manhandle. It's not light weight for me at all, I'd call it moderate. Max hovers around 130kg.
We learned from Dave Durante and his stall bars tips in the beginning and in the end of the training session with Pauliina. I got to say it really stretched the hamstrings and popped up the tension in upper back, especially when we pushed the head properly between shoulders. Take a look at his tips on Instagram right here.
How close is that? What is this Toni? You better get that next time!
Saturday. Ring muscle-ups. Strength, back squats max out (PR 145kg). Pair wod with Sipa. Part I: complete 50 thrusters (50kg), on top of every min 4 burpees for both. Part II: Row 3k in sets of 250m while the other partner completes 15t2b. Part III: 20 squat cleans (80-90kg).
This is exactly what I've been waiting for: some training time with my big bro! These training sessions are awesome, we can uptalk each other for great performances and also give tips on our techniques on lifts and skills. That's he reason why we try to hook up as often as possible to crossfit together. Reality brings some difficulties which is why this was the first time we worked together this year =) We started by playing with the rings, then maxed out on back squat and finally worked through a pair workout.
PR 145kg
Skills.
Ring muscle-ups
Complete 5 reps
Practice non-false grip mu's
This was a great session! I took traditional ring muscle-ups like I've done them always this far. No problem, taking a false grip then a slight kip and hopefully a quick transition to get over the rings and land on the dip position. We took 'em alternating with Sipa up to 5 reps. I think he took some doubles there as well. Anyway, we were done with this, just a little quick fun skills set before strength. Then we thought about trying to get some reps done without false grip. That's a totally different ball game when you take into consideration our skills level on this particular movement.
No false grip
I took my first try and was so close but once I got on top of the rings I fell through the rings. There was no doubt I would get one if tried another shot at it. Same happened with Sipa. It was just inches away. On our second try we both made it successfully. I almost took a double without false grip. If I have false grip there's no chance to go for a double. So this success significant for future progress. I'm very happy we both made it!
Strength.
Back squats
3x105, 2x125, 1x135, 1x145kg PR
There was only one objective on this one. Chase a new PR. Having done heavier sets for the past weeks has paid off. My loads on back squats have mostly been around 130-135kg for doubles, triples and fours. Earlier this week I got 140kg up 5 times (a double and 3 singles). Today on my climb up I jumped from 135kg straight to 145kg. It was tough, no doubt about it. Still, I had to try 150kg which was a pathetic attempt this time =) I'm gonna get it. Just have to do more work, getting legs stronger. This was a huge thing for me.
Skills and squats recap
Pair workout with Sipa.
Part I: Complete 50 thrusters (50kg) in sets of 5 reps. On top of every min, both complete 4 burpees
Part II: Row 3.000m, in sets of 250m. While other one rows, the other one completes 15 toes-to-bar
Part III: 20 squat cleans, alternating singles. Weights between 80-90kg
This was awesome! Three-part workout where the first part was about thrusters, second one about rowing and core work and finally heavy clean singles in a metcon is always refreshing. Completing it together with my bro made it even more fun. We are pretty much at the same level in fitness in both strength and metabolic condition so we can easily do same amount of work in about the same time frame.
The first part was a quick one. It was about 3.40 when we were done with the thrusters / burpees. After that I didn't take a look at the clock anymore. Every minute started by both of us doing 4 burpees, then the rest of the minute thrusters in sets of 5 per athlete. It was either 2 or 3 sets of 5 reps per minute. Breathing got fast quickly but I felt there's enough strength and endurance left in the tank, no prob hammering through the thrusters. Total of 16 burpees and 25 thrusters.
The second part of the workout was miserable. Rowing not that bad, my pace was around 1.40-1.42 for most of the sets, the last 1-2 sets were slower, something around 1.45. But those toes-to-bar were tough! We agreed on 15 reps or max effort if 15reps turned out too challenging. I fought through those 15 reps each time. For 2 or 3 sets I went unbroken, then had to break it. First 10+5, and finally smaller sets. My abs and hip flexors were burning badly. Very tough indeed! We rowed for 3k, so it's 1.5k for both plus 90 t2b's.
Pair workout
The last part of the workout was in my wheelhouse. Heavy cleans is something I love. And it seems to be spectacular to incorporate some heavy barbell stuff within a metcon. You can add cleans, deadlifts, thrusters or something alike. I like it anyway. We had planned on 80kg but I had to upgrade it after 3 reps. First to 85kg and finally to 90kg for the last 4 reps. Cleans caused me no probs whatsoever. I felt like I could have continued them forever. That was an amazing feeling because we were both smashed after the rowing and t2b's. It was cool how well we were able to recover so quickly for heavy lifts.
Thanks bro for joining me at the box. Saturday night fever, no one else at the gym. Just two Lamppu's working out. Good skills progressions, PR on strength and once again, an awesome workout with you. More of this!
It's been two weeks of hard core action since last rest day. Some days have been easier, some days tougher. And it's been lots of different style training sessions. Lots of squatting and rings, that's my focus lately. Many of the workouts has been created by intuition, on the spot. I'm happy I got a chance to work outdoors too. Today I continued the success of ring skills and then completed a metcon that smoked my upper body. Spectacular crossfit session.
Skills.
Ring muscle-ups
Complete 6 reps
I had a more difficult time for couple of training sessions. I was really deep back then. I was thinking about the progressions for ring mu's again, and how to get even a single rep. Then I watched Rich Froning smash the Cinco 2 in last year's Games and it struck me again how to get the reps done. Since then I've done 26 reps without any misses. That feels extremely good! And I've gained the confidence again to complete them rep after rep. It's good, GOOD!
CF Games Update Show
Metcon. Result 348 reps, 8rds + 5 t2b
20min amrap of:
7 handstand push-ups
7 toes-to-bar
7 ring dips
21 double unders
Okay, this was optimistic. More likely, the time frame considering the amount of hspu's was optimistic. It was a misery after about 4 rounds. My shoulders and triceps were completely smashed. It was intentionally 7 reps of hspu's which is not bad for couple of rounds but coming to think about the number of rounds, it was a lot! This was the most I've ever done in a workout - 63 handstand push-ups. I guess it was something like 3-4 rounds unbroken, then I had to start cutting the sets. First it was 4+3, then 3+2+2.
Toes-to-bar was clearly the easiest movement. Didn't cause any issues at any stage of the workout. And I was able to jump on the pull-up bar instantly without having to catch my breath. Ring dips is my "goat", my weakness which was exactly the reason I had it mixed in this metcon. Both hspu's and dips caused a lot of pressure on triceps and shoulders so having every other movement either hspu or dip was taxing on the upper body. I guess it was something like 2-3 rounds unbroken, then it was too much to handle at one attempt.
Stacie Tovar on CF Open 14.1
Double unders were my thing. Went through them unbroken. Only at one round - maybe 3rd one - got stumbled at 20 reps. Can you imagine that..? I was already done with the set in my mind and got sidetracked. So it was practically unbroken all the way.
It's difficult to describe the feeling in my upper body during the workout. It felt like there's not strength at all left. My breathing was under control all the time. It was odd that my engine was rolling nicely and without any problems, I felt like I could have continued for ever. But my strength vanished at some point. Especially from upper body. Each hspu was a battle in the last rounds, same with the dips. T2b's and du's were the "rest" in the workout. Very good workout in my opinion. And I'm happy there was a serious amount of hspu's involved in 20 minutes.
Friday. Ring skills, perform 10 muscle-ups. Metcon, 5rds of: 30du's, 10 pull-ups, 30du's, 10t2b's. Time 12.02.
My body was so tired yesterday that I decided to play it safe today. Left the barbells alone and concentrated in bodyweight action. Focused a lot on ring muscle-ups and then completed a 5-rounder of double unders and pull-up bar movements. The biggest news of the day was the Crossfit Open Announcement 14.1 from Atlanta. This was the first event announcement of a total of 5 weeks. The best performers from each region will proceed to the next stage called Regionals. What I was surprised of is that Mikko Aronpää is competing in Asia's region this year. Don't know why though.
Skills.
Ring muscle-ups
Perform 10 reps
There were couple of training sessions I had huge problems with ring muscle-ups. Bar muscle-ups are nowadays rolling pretty well. There's a lot of technique to be improved but I get the reps done. On the rings it's been way more shaky and it's not self-evident I get the reps at all. I was thinking a lot what's going wrong and why I'm not flying up there.
Once I watched Rich Froning compete in last year's Games in the final event I was somehow able to do some mental training and I understood how the transition part should be done, how explosively man must do the transition. It stuck in my brain and once I went to the gym and tried it, I got 5 reps (on Wednesday). Today I was aiming higher.
Had in mind to concentrate in this movement and perform 10 reps. No barbell movements today, just wanted to get a good feeling on the rings and save some energy from strength training. I was thinking if it's too ambitious plan to hit 10 reps but once I got the first rep it felt good to remember the teachings from Cinco 2 and last training session. Rep after rep flew by and it boosted confidence after one. Finally I got to 10 mu's and I was mr. happy.
Crossfit Games Update Show
Metcon. Time 12.02
5 rounds of:
30 double unders
10 pull-ups
30 double unders
10 toes-to-bar
Main ingredient being double unders, I wanted to mix 2 other movements done with the pull-up bar. First I had air squats in mind as one element (pull-ups, squats and du's) but it turned out to be a 5-rounder of du's, pull-ups and t2b's. It was about time to mix t2b's in a workout. Total of 5 rounds equals 300 double unders, 50 pull-ups and 50 toes-to-bar.
I performed well on the double unders except the first 2 sets. It took me 1 miss in both of them. From then on I think it was unbroken. There may have been a third set at some point that witnessed a miss. It was natural movement today. I watched someone perform 14.1 workout and he was circulating the jump rope like a maniac. It caught me thinking should I try to go faster on the double unders. On the other hand I'm having it in my wheelhouse currently so I'm not sure if I wanna make any changes to it.
Pull-ups were awkwardly challenging after those muscle-ups. Yea I did them ub as well as t2b's. There was only 10 reps of both but hanging from the bar started to become uncomfortable after a while. I could have cut the rest times between the movements and should focus on this aspect in workouts.
It felt simply super to nail those muscle-ups on the rings just like that. Well, not "just like that" but anyway, I got what I wanted. No missed reps at all, pure success. I hope I'm able to keep the recipe for successful reps in the back of my head in the future as well. Once I'm so confident with single reps it's about time to start working towards several reps and proper swing. Now it's time to perfect those single reps and gain good confidence.
Crossfit Open Announcement 14.1
Here's the Crossfit Open 14.1. It's a repeat workout from Crossfit Open 2011. We did this once about a year ago with Toni. I remember it wasn't fun, pure agony =) Shoulders were in fire and I kinda remember our double unders weren't going great at the moment which made it a bit more miserable. It's a good crossfit workout, no doubt about it! We only have small plates at the gym at light weight. The first big plates are 15kg plates. It would be important to have big plates on this workout.
Wednesday. Skills, ring muscle-ups. Strength, back squats 4x3 across (135kg). Pair wod, 3 rounds of: athlete 1 rows for 500m, in the mean while other athlete completes 10hspu and rest of time air squats.
C'mon! This time I dominated the workouts. First of all, ring skills. I've had serious problems with the rings lately. For today I had done my home work and was ready to conquer them. Secondly, heavy back squats were a pleasure. Definitely a success story right there. Thirdly, I got a chance to do a pair workout with Toros, the same guy as yesterday. He's good guys, definitely going to hit more pair workouts in the future with him.
Skills.
Ring muscle-ups
Complete 5 reps
I had written in my phone in advance that "ring muscle-ups (complete 5 reps)". Plus I watched Rich Froning threaten gravity on the rings in the Crossfit Games 2013. I just posted the Cinco 1 & 2 workouts video in the blog. I watched him complete the reps unbroken and with such a quick transition that it was easy to make some mental training in my head yesterday and today before gym.
Chalked my hands and grabbed the rings. I only had in mind the speed of Froning and tried to replicate that. The feeling was super as I landed nicely on the rings. Tried another one and got it too. At that point I reminded myself all the time about the quickness of the transition, it's the key to success. Was able to got to those 5 reps in total. That's the furthest I've ever gone with ring mu's.
Strength. Heavy squats
3-3-3-3 back squats, all sets @ 135kg
Yes! Got all 4 triple sets done with 135kg. That's unbelievable for me. I've progressively increased the weights as my "coach" at home has pushed me. First it was doubles at 130kg, then triples and finally 4's. As I got them up, I increased the load to 135kg and I've taken doubles with that weight earlier so today it was time for triples.
Big thing is also that I've got used to bigger weights which is a huge mental barrier that has now overcome. I'm very happy with this. I decided beforehand that I'm gonna take these sets up, 4 sets @ 135kg. The last rep was quite tough on at least 2 of the last sets. It was a lot of growling as I was getting myself up from the hole.
Metcon. Pair wod
3 rounds of:
Athlete 1 rows for 500m
Athlete 2 completes 10 handstand push-ups and rest of time max reps air squats
Result 60 + 40 + 40 air squats
Yep, Toros and I hit another pair workout in a row. This was a surprise call. I had rowing and hspu's in mind during the day so it was natural to do it as a pair wod too. The point was that the other one was rowing all the time. While the other one rowed, the other one completed 10 hspu's. Toros did 10 pull-ups, either on pull-up bar or rings. After 10 reps had been done, the rest of the time was max reps of air squats.
First of all, I got the hspu's unbroken on each of the three rounds. That was cool. On the first round I got to 60 squats. It really ate my legs alive, they were done after the first round. On the second and third round I got 40 reps both round. The most horrible thing was the rowing. It felt like I had no strength left anymore in my lower body. My pace was about 1.40 on the first round and 1.47 on the last one.
It was a perfect training session! Ring muscle-ups + heavy back squats + pair workout- Couldn't ask for more.
Saturday. Ring skills. Strength, snatches 6x1 (around 60kg). Metcon, 5rds of: 5 power snatch (50kg), 10 pull-ups, 5 thrusters (50kg), 10 box. Result, 12.45. Cashout, 3x10 ring dips.
More oly lifts for Saturday. I did some clean & jerk work yesterday but still decided to go for snatches today and then a tough metcon to finish the deal. Did some ring mu progressions in the beginning. I've had some issues with them so I adjusted the rings lower and did jumping mu's plus some ring rows and transitions from ring row.
Strength.
Power snatch
6x1 (55, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60kg)
For a long time I've been working my snatch technique and looking to improve the entire movement. It's such a complex movement. Lately I've been thinking about taking less reps with heavier weights to increase the strength on the movement. My kilos are way lower than they should be on snatch. And mobility is some sort of issue as my power snatch is better than my squat snatch. Okay about a week ago I for 57.5kg up on squat snatch whereas my power snatch max rep is currently 62.5kg.
Snatch 60kg
I took lighter reps today for warm-up before adding it to 55kg and taking a single rep. I felt like there's more in the tank so I went up to 60kg. I wasn't looking for a max rep today but heavy singles instead. Felt good to get all those 60kg reps up because it was so close to my max load. Very happy even though the technique wasn't perfect. Some of them fell a bit forward as you see from the videos. There were some crowd at the gym so I couldn't tape all the lifts.
Snatch 60kg
Metcon. Time 12.45
5 rounds of:
5 power snatch, 50kg
10 pull-ups
5 thrusters, 50kg
10 box, 61cm
This was heavy shit! I completed all movements unbroken, snatches were he most challenging for me this time. It was more like the combination of all the movements that made it cruel. Doing snatches, pull-ups and thrusters is a nasty combo, I can tell it now. My upper body was pretty smashed after this one. The boxes were the easiest one on this one.
Had to stop every now and then to catch some breath and strength back from mid workout on. I'd like to be able to move on constantly but this workout was too much for me. There were 2 bar movements with weights that are significant to me, in a metcon I mean. 50kg thrusters and snatches are not that bad if I'm doing them for strength but in a metcon it's a totally different thing.
Legend
Those bodyweight movements were naturally easier and I had no problems whatsoever. Still, it was the combination that made this workout as difficult as it was. My round times got slower, don't remember the exact times anymore but I have a feeling the first one was less than 2min and the 4th was over 3min. I paced up on the last round because the finish line was in sight.
Wednesday. Skills day @ Taitoliikuntakeskus. PR in bar muscle-ups (9 reps)
Lots of playing around, no agenda, playing like a kiddo. My friend Jari - a former professional snowboarder - invited me to come to this place to work on some skills so I definitely jumped aboard. It turned out to be great! This was a place where you can do pretty much everything you want in gymnastics, move your body and simply have fun.
Skills. What I ended up doing was something like this:
Trampoline jumping
Bar muscle-ups (PR 9 reps!)
Ring muscle-ups
Handstand
Handstand walk
Vertical jumps
Back lever attempts
Rope climb
Some other playing
We warmed up and finished the session by jumping around on the trampoline. This is familiar stuff for Jari as he used to do this kind of training on a daily basis in the history. I believe this was the first time ever for me to jump on a trampoline. That's sick but I don't recall ever doing it =) It definitely got my body prepared and pumped up. It felt a bit difficult to manage it as you can probably see from the video haha
After getting ready I decided to hit a couple of bar muscle-ups. It was a traditional gymnastics bar which was extremely slippery. I was afraid of getting any reps on that bar. It was also thicker than what I have used to. Took the first rep, decided to hit another. Turned out I crushed the old PR in bar muscle-ups with 9 consecutive muscle-ups!!! Previous record was 4 reps. The last ones where tough but I got them. Rested on top for a while and kept going. Great result for me.
We also played around with the rings. At this point I managed to get only 1 successful rep done, tried 2 more but didn't manage to reach good control on the transition stage. My body was smashed from the rope climb I had just tried. By the way, that's way tougher than it looks!
The place was perfect for all this kind of work. The floor was very flexible, made for gymnastics purposes so handstand and handstand walk was destined to happen today. On my first attempt (not on video) I was able to reach some sort of unbelievable stability on handstand hold, I simply stayed still without moving and I felt my feet were correctly flexed. Just felt like the best from I've ever had. Also tried to do some freestanding hspu's but happened to smash my head to the floor every time, nice
There were some parkour guys working out that jumped on the walls and moved around solidly. I tried to slide sideways on one wall as an inspiration from those guys. Jari also challenged me to some vertical jumps on pretty high box so I took it and got it. Take a look at the videos, it's difficult to describe all the fun we were able to haver there.
No doubt I'm going there another time too. Beforehand I thought this skills day would be lighter one. But my legs and back were cramping at times during the training. And upper body is done from all the muscle-ups. I guess there were about 15 reps in total. It was a lot of playing, we spent around 1.5h in the place and getting it done. Awesome place!!!
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 =)
Monday. Skills, ring muscle-ups. Back squats. Hang clean emom, 3 reps @ 70-75kg, for 10min.
This Monday was metcon-free training session. Started with ring skills. As I wrote in the turn of the year, I'll add more rings in my training 'cause those are definitely a weakness of mine. Continued with back squats. My legs were the stiffest ever so it was not a success. Luckily I was able to come up good with every minute on the minute training on hang squat cleans. That felt good and I left the gym with good spirit.
Skills.
Ring muscle-ups (3 reps)
I'll try to squeeze in ring skills about twice a week. That should be the normal case. Maybe not always ring muscle-ups but some sort of ring play anyway. Last year I didn't focus on the rings much so naturally it was difficult to get better at them. Now I've been able to do tens of ring muscle-ups, singles but still reps. Today I did 3 reps, pretty much "every minute on the minute" style. I tried the fourth rep in the same time frame but failed to get up so I moved to squatting.
Strength.
Back squats
5x120, 2x125, 5x100, 5x100, 5x100kg
It's just an excuse - I know - but we were on a tight schedule today so I did a stupid move and tried to hurry through a bunch of workouts I had in mind. So my warm-up for lower body was poor and it felt like I was drinking tar all the way. Didn't feel like going heavy today so I stayed rather low on the weights. I tried to nail 5's but on the set of 125kg I lost my balance and fell forward, thus had to drop the bar. Decided to lower the weights to 100kg and complete 3 sets with short recovery periods.
Workout.
Every minute on the minute
3 hang squat clean between 70-75kg
2x70, 2x72.5, 4x75, 2x70kg
This was good stuff. Every minute, complete 3 hang squat cleans. I took kind of a ladder, going up from 70kg to 75, then last 2 minutes dropped down to 70kg. Originally I had planned to do 8 minutes but wanted to go for extra 2 min in the end. That 70kg was something I was able to manhandle. The heaviest bar was tougher and I definitely had to work on my explosiveness when dropping under the bar. That was actually a great workout to practice speed under bar.
The weights were great for me this time. It wasn't too easy, and not the heaviest I could do. Doing a triple rep on 75kg was tough on grip strength too so it was a grip strengthener as well. Great one!
We hit the gym today in the early afternoon with Pauliina to do some work. Started with some skills that would develop my muscle-up in the long run. Then some bench press with heavier weights of my max. The metcon was the main workout of the day. I had my "ENGINE" short on for a reason. Today's focus was on increasing metabolic condition an my engine, once again.
Skills.
Ring swings.
My ring muscle-ups are done with just a small swing currently as you've seen on videos. The video analysis of two guys' muscle-ups on last Thursday's post was mind-blowing to me. It got me thinking whether I should start practicing that huge swing. Even though Toni hasn't got a mu yet on his scoreboard, his swing is huge. Definitely helps him on the way to multiple reps in the future.
So I grabbed the rings - not false grip - and tried to keep my body in as hollow body position and as tensed as possible during the movement backwards and forwards. It felt okay, I'm not that sure how it should look and feel like but I'll take today's moves for now. Felt good. I was not trying to get muscle-ups, just worked on the swing itself.
Strength.
Bench press 5x3 across @ 90kg
This was second bench session in 10 days, and third during month, what's going on?!? Don't know but I simply felt like benching as I was thinking about today's workouts yesterday. I stayed with the plan and decided to go 5 sets of triples, across. That's all sets with the same load, today my weight was 90kg. I haven't benched ever before starting crossfit and I still recall this weight was way too far of my PR some time ago.
I'm happy I was able to nail 5 sets with 90kg and there might have been some strength left after those sets so it went well. I still wanted Pauliina to spot the last 2 sets as the last rep started to become heavy. I could have gone slightly heavier in the first sets but it was 5 sets in total and I wanted to do them all with same weight today so it was 90kg all the way.
Metcon. Result 7rds + 30 du = 420 reps
20min amrap of:
5 handstand push-ups
30 double unders
5 thrusters, 50kg
15 box jumps, 61cm
Good combo! Steady pace all the way. Think about this. My last 5 rounds were all within 9 seconds of each other. My goal in metcons is to hold my speed at a solid level for as long as possible. It's natural that the beginning is always a bit faster but then I simply try to hold on to that pace for as long as possible. Another goal I have is to go unbroken for as long as possible. It has a mental effect on metcons. When you're going unbroken you feel stronger and more confident to finish the metcon with style.
My time ran out just as I had done double unders in 8th round. Handstand push-ups were not an issue today, actually they were the easiest part of this workout. I did them kipping style. I've come to think I should also be doing strict versions from time to time, same with pull-ups. Should do more strict versions.
I did 6 rounds of double unders unbroken. On the 4th round I did 16 reps, then stumbled and finished the round. On the last round I had similar moment, lack of concentration. All in all I feel like those double unders went well. Once again I was concentrating in keeping my torso as straight as possible. I'm not there yet but getting better. I've increased the number of reps since November in order to reach better form.
Thrusters, hmm. Luckily I put only 5 reps per round which is something you can nail anytime with 50kg. My hip flexors were extremely stiff today so front squatting with the bar didn't feel perfect. The weight was moderate so I had no problems with thrusters. Awesome movement though!
Recap
Last movement of the round was box jumps. It resulted in over 100 jumps so the fatigue really drilled into my legs. Each time I finished those 15 reps my legs were burning. I was happy the next movement was hspu's to give some recovery for my legs. I took a zip of water after every set of boxes as they really sucked my juice. I got them unbroken every round, the pace just wasn't the quickest possible.
I was happy with my performance with all movements. And especially with my metabolic condition. That was the greatest achievement of the workout. This training day was good as a whole too. Bench went well and metcon was great.
