Saturday. Clean emom x 10min: 5 hang power clean (60kg). Metcon, 5 rnft of: 500m row, 20 push-ups. PM: Recovery walk and stair running.
This day is a special one. Pauliina's friends arrived in the morning and picked up my future wife for her bachelorette's party =) That looked like a lot of fun right out the gate. That left me a lot of time to improve my fitness. So after driving this entourage to downtown Helsinki I went to my gym OP Center and hit a workout. Something awkward happened yesterday during the day and it has been feeling a bit funny in my core, on the left side. I have no words to describe it. Anyway, that led me to taking this day easier. There was also a kettlebell throwdown going on at the gym so I went to check it out. That looked really brutal. In the evening I went outdoors to enjoy the nature.
Emom.
Every minute on the minute for 10 minutes
5 hang power clean, 60kg
Yesterday evening was bad. As I tightened my core it hurt a lot on the left side. So I was on the verge of stepping back from training today. But I found myself at the gym and after activating this body it was all good and didn't feel that bad. Still, I didn't risk by loading up the bar to a heavy version. Instead, it was only 60 kilos and I took it as an emom workout to break a good sweat. Cleans brought no issues to my torso and it was actually a good barbell work for technique purposes. I focused on every single lift and tried to make the contact point as high on my thighs as possible. At the end of the cleans I tweaked my neck or something, now core is better but my neck hurts. What a screwup.
Workout.
5 rounds for time of:
500m row
20 unbroken push-ups
I took 50 push-ups after the cleans, then headed to see the kettlebell action upstairs. I've never witnessed this kind of events and had no idea what to expect. There was one organizer introducing me to this sport and told it's usually about snatches and/or clean and jerks of some kind. Some variance is still in play but the elements are familiar.
The event that I went to look was a 10 minute amrap of push jerks with 2 x 32kg (2 pood) bells. Okay, sounds brutal but let's add a twist. You are not allowed to drop the kb's to the ground at any point. Once you bring 'em down, your game is over. That's just simply mean and brutal =) Lots of mental game going on here. The best result was 70 reps but they told me some guy had jerked 110 reps in the past. That's a lot of jerking if you ask me!
Afterwards I went back down for a workout. I didn't time it but that didn't slow me down anyway, at least not much. I took 500 meter rows, and then 20 unbroken push-ups between rowing. Rowing was somewhere sub 1:50 pace. Push-ups felt great. Those usually are not in my wheelhouse but I felt very good on those this time.
Glimpse from the kb comp
Revovery.
6km walk
10 rds of stairs up and down
The weather was freaking sick. It was sunny and the sky was clear blue. For a Finn that is unbelievable. We don't have that much sun during the year so we tend to enjoy every single day when we have a summery weather =) I watched the Crossfit Regionals at the balcony for an hour or two, ate and recovered, then decided to hit it outdoors. It was mostly a fast pace walk for couple of kilometers. Once I got to almost Töölönlahti, I looked back and noticed the sky in the horizon was looming dark. It was obvious it's gonna rain big time soon. It changes rapidly.
So it took only minutes to get soaking wet but that's no biggie, I had sports wear anyway and I saw there was a stairway in the middle of the woods. That looked tempting and it turned out to a workout of 10 rounds of up and down the stairs. It was a total of 85 stairs up and 85 back down. It took about 9 minutes of constant moving. Strategy was not to stop nor slow down at any point. And the point was to step on every stair so it was small steps running on the ball of the foot. Good way to get blood flowing a bit faster and get some burn in the legs.
We had a game day with my floorball team. My role today was to be a back-up goalie so I had the chance to take it easier today. Let's call it active recovery. Half an hour soccer in the wintery Finland, then half an hour warm-up with the team at floorball field. As the game moved on, I took advantage of that time and used it for mobility. I took a ball and utilized it for mobility, as learned from www.mobilitywod.com. K-starr has some good ideas to improve mobility and elasticity.
Toni's workouts. Back squats and bench for strength and a 6min stair running metcon.
Bench press 10x60kg, 3x80kg, 1x90kg, failed attempt of 100kg, 1x97.5kg (PR), failed attempt of 100kg
Toni's Metcon.
6 min amrap
Stair ascent
Stair descent
On top of stairs 10 reps of either push-ups, sit-ups or air squats on rotation.
Toni went to a new location in the morning, a sports center called Pirkkola, a place where we trained in the summer time. He found a new Box there and got inspired so much that he PR'd his back squat and bench press, nice job! Several sets of back squats. He told me the first sets felt a but stiff but towards the end his joints were loose and he made good lifts. Other athletes at the gym were giving him some props as well. I would have liked to be there to see this guy break his records. That's awesome job Toni!
The sets in the bench press look a bit funny. 10 reps at 60kg, then he attacked his max load pretty soon after that. Toni has a twisted obsession of breaking 100kg and he will go beyond that some day. Today he tried it twice, didn't make it but still made a new record of 97.5kg. That's his bodyweight so now he's got to that point as well, nice!
Ode to the Fran (Benchmark girl workout Fran: 21-15-9, thrusters at 42.5kg and pull-ups)
Saturday. HC Triplet, 3 wods. Time 19.10 & 1.938 stairs. Toni's time 26.45 & 1.208 stairs.
This day was a different one than normally. The purpose was to have that near death experience at the end of the day. Together with Toni we headed to Malminkartano, Helsinki to an outdoor location, which is known for its perfect jogging surroundings and what makes it unique is that it's the highest point in the city of Helsinki, approximately 90 meters above sea level. The view of from the top gives an outstanding 360 degrees panorama view in all directions. It's amazing once you get to the top. We had planned to perform three workouts at the spot with short rest periods. Once the other one performs, the other one does the workout. I think the day was a success.
First workout. Kettlebell swings, kettlebell clean & jerk, sprint. Time 8.44, Toni 12.27.
10 KB swing
6 KB clean & jerk
600m run
20 KB swing
12 KB clean & jerk
400m run
30 KB swing
18 KB clean & jerk
200m run
Total of 1.200m run, 60 KB swings and 36 KB clean & jerk. Kettlebell was 20kg in all movements. Run was a shuttle run. We measured a 100m distance, which we went back and forth as long as it was needed, i.e for the first round there were 6 x 100m sprints. This wod was kind of an awkward as the feeling got better towards the end of the workout. That's because the sprints went shorter. Swings with this 20kg kb aren't that bad for me, they haven't gassed me in any of the workouts that I have performed by far. The clean & jerk movement was somehow tougher with the left hand. It was clear for both of us that our right hands were stronger and some extra work was needed from legs / hips when jerking the kb with left hand. I considered this workout a good start for the day.
All sets went unbroken, total time was 8.44. It's hard to estimate how hard I ran, it felt that there was some heavy breathing so I don't know how much could have been improved. I had that slight thought in my head that if I run with the best I have, it's going to prevent me doing my best in the following 2 wods so I feel I saved some energy in running due to that. Toni said in some video that he thought the most difficult thing was the kb swings. He figured the same that his right hand was clearly stronger. Afterwards we realised it was all about how the left hand was positioned, it wasn't pointed out the correct way, especially as fatigue was crawling in. Toni went swings in 5-10 sets at the latter half of the workout, until that he went unbroken. To my eyes it seemed that he had the power to go unbroken with the clean & jerks as well but he had some short rest periods in between.
Second workout. 6 rounds, sprints spiced up with extra work for mostly legs. Time 10.26, Toni 14.18
100m sprint
50 squats
100m sprint
50 double under
100m sprint
50 lunges
100m sprint
25 burpees
100m sprint
50 double unders
100m sprint
50 squats
Tough one! There were a total of six rounds, 6 x 100m shuttle run and always in between there were some work to be done: squats, double unders (Toni went single unders but doubled the amount), lunges, burpees, double unders and squats. A lot of work for legs. Once I was finished, so were my legs... I tried to keep up a good running speed as the distance wasn't that long. I have no idea how fast or slow I kept sprinting. The amount of work to be done was quite perfect. Squats went good, lunges too, I managed the 25 burpees well. Because there was a tough pressure on cardio, my concentration wasn't the best in double unders, which caused me stumble a little bit too much. First 10 went good both times but then it was something on 5-10 on average per attempt. When I'm not burdened with fatigue, I can go 20-30 DUs in a row. So having that into consideration, jump rope took too much time.
Toni went unbroken most of the movements except single unders. The reason why he went slower on the other movements, is that he does them with little more consideration; short pause before moving forward, it just takes a bit more time with each rep. I figure it's all about more reps, more reps and more reps. Once you do more squats for example, you find out a technique that is most suitable for you, how to get a rhytm that suits you and how can you utilise your hand swings in that. Or for burpees, it's very much a skill related movement in which I have a lot to do still. Toni fought through the workout bravely!
Third workout. 10 min stair ascent. Stairs 1.938, Toni 1.208.
Huh, looking at the stairs from the bottom of 426 steps, the feeling is that it's a never ending path. I went up and down the first round in 4 minutes and more. At the second round my calves began to get the cramping feelings but still I figured this is all about psychology, how well can a man keep his head together and force his body to go further. "Just because your muscles start to hurt, it doesn't mean you have to quit", I remember reading from somewhere. It also gave me some boost as Toni shouted to me all the time. At the end of the workout he said there was an american basketball coach training four of his guys running up and down the same stairs. He said the guys were finalised after few minutes of running. Their coach referred to me running, that "hey guys, c'mon, that guy is doing a 10 minute amrap so shut up and go!" Haha, felt good! Total of two rounds up & down, and 234 steps up on the third round.
Once Toni was about to go his uphill stair run, all of a sudden the sky stormed and a hail occurred from nowhere. There was some sort of a Rocky - atmosphere as everyone else started running to shelters to avoid the rain and Toni was all pumped up to start his final workout of the day! Only "Eye of the tiger" was missing =) He went a total of 1.208 steps, one round up and down, then 356 to the second round, missing only 70 steps from finalising two ascents.
The conclusion of the day. Awesome!!! Three wods in a day with short rest periods was exactly what we craved for. The burden for the legs was extensive, and there was a lot of running outdoors which we haven't been doing much lately. The focus has been in strength training with wods including at the gym. The cardio type of training has been substituted pretty much to rowing and workouts that give pressure to our hearts. But one must not forget old school running, short and medium distances. We were very satisfied to the workouts and the pain given to our bodies. I am happy to my performance, only double under stumbling at some points was frustrating, other than that, the workouts went smoothly and everything went unbroken. I felt strong today. You'll find more videos from the day at youtube.com, then go for the channel "tommilamppu".
Toni, throw in your comments of the day, should we have another similar session in the future as well?
