Friday 7.9: Front squat + Grace (video)

Friday. Front squat 5x3 (PR max 95kg). Wod. Grace, time 5.40.

Awesome workout! Grace have been tickling me for a while and finally I got a good chance to measure where I’m at. My bro and Toni were also at the gym so there was also some training partner pressure involved ;) We took off by warming up with rowing, pull-ups, double unders, front squats and clean technique. The schedule was to do front squats and workout called Grace, i.e. 30 reps of clean & jerk, we modified the weight slightly lighter.

Strength. Front squat 5x3 (80+80+85+90+ PR 95kg). Sami took 100kg, Toni 80kg.

Toni had never front squatted so this was a huge day of progress. There was some technique learnt in the beginning and finally he lifted 80kg as his new PR. We took sets of three reps each, my sets started from 80 and ended up in new personal record on 95kg! There was still energy left to lift more, I’ll save that for later. I love to squat, these strength movements have taken a piece of my heart, I’m really into them, it makes good to confidence level as you can witness some quick development.

Grace. Time 5.40, scaled to 50kg. Toni scaled to 40kg, time 4.09.

This day was all about Grace. I had some positive nervousness in the morning as I woke up ‘cause I knew this workout was awaiting. And it was perfect that these two fellows were along as you can’t be too merciful to yourself as there are people shouting you forward in your workout. My PR in clean is currently 65kg, and 60 in push press so it would have been absurd to try Grace with 60kg, which is how it's originally meant to be done. Grace means you’ll have to clean & jerk the bar with 60kg from the ground to overhead position, 30 reps. Each time the bar has to come back down to the ground. In the overhead position ears can’t be seen if you look from the side. I used 50kg as my bar weight, which is about 80% of my max. Taking this into consideration, it was a tough weight to start with.

I really enjoyed doing the workout! It isn’t easy but it really gives you the opportunity to input the best you have to offer from your upper body strength. I had no strategy entering Grace so I just started lifting it as fast as possible because I figured fatigue will hit me anyway at some point. So why waste any time waiting for it? The first 7-8 reps went smooth, then the weight started to feel tougher. I had some problems that occurred at the latter half of the workout. The last 5 reps were disastrous as you can see, the bar felt so heavy that it was difficult to get it even to  my chest. My back arched and it was hard to get any assistance from my legs. So the technique is horrible to watch afterwards =) The last rep was inches away from a full extension but legitimately my training partners didn’t let it through, I lost another half a minute in the end because of this. I’m happy that all those counted jerks were good and acceptable ones so this is comparable the next time I’ll do it. Hopefully with the original 60kg that time!

Toni did his workout with 40kg bar and was able to perform Grace quicker, time 4.09. He said he'll do 6 reps in a minute and rest the remaining minute. That would have been precisely 5 minutes. However, he did the reps quicker. Especially Sami's encouragement made him go fast with the last reps. I think he could have taken the same 50kg bar and soon go with the 60kg. He has strength in there but he just haven't done these moves before. He will be a serious competitor once he gets the movements familiar. Well done big fella =)

Sami didn't take Grace this time, he just finished Diane the day before yesterday, 21-15-9 deadlift (100kg) + HSPU in 7 minutes. Today he went with 10 rounds of rowing, 30 rowing, 30 seconds rest, total of 1.700m in distance, average speed of about 1.38 / 500m. The original wod at crossfit.com was a total of 30 rounds. I'm going after that workout some day.

Thursday 6.9: Rest day

Thursday. Free day of crossfitting. We have a preseason floorball game going on right now, it's my turn to step aside and let the other goalies have their turn to help the team win amd practice team tactics. Currently, the score is 1-1, tight one :)

Tomorrow is going to be a tough cf day. One of the classic wods is awaiting for me, my bro and Toni, the first time we'll practice together. We'll start by putting our legs to test by squatting for strength training.

Wednesday 5.9: Rowing, skills training, tabata

Wednesday. This day was a mixture of all kinds of exercises. It all started 7:30am with rowing. My focus on the day was more like an active recovery and skills training, there was no strength training included at all, nor a wod. The idea was to meet up with Toni at the gym as I had planned to inspire him to better performance by coaching him but we had some miscommunication as he had a rest day due to several days of training in a row. So I decided to take a lighter version of training today as I had already wen through four sessions myself this week in two days.

There was a nice exercise at www.crossfit.com few days ago:

• 30 rounds for distance
• 30 seconds row
• 30 seconds rest

I took off with this workout by completing ten rounds, my distance was 1.600m, one mile. I'll definitely take this wod some morning, seemed cool. After getting my heart pumped up, I took about ten minutes skills training with jump rope. All kinds of jumping, single unders, double unders, single unders by jumping in different styles, sideways, with one leg etc. Very useful, this is my new favorite, I've had my jump rope with me pretty much every time in the last couple of weeks and I will going to master double unders this autumn due to skills training =)

I also wanted to take a quick glimpse to overhead squats (OHS). My mobility in shoulders and back muscles isn't flexible enough to make the movement easily. It takes a lot of effort and it requires a lot of work to get to - let's say almost 90 degrees angle - in the bottom position. It went better than last time I tried it some time ago. I've been kidding around with PVC pipe at the gym and I can see some slow progression in my shoulder mobility. I was able to snatch the bar to satisfactory position and then somehow managed to squat with the bar 3 x 10 (20kg). I'm gonna take this as a skills training in the future, accompanied after some strength training and wods. Anyway, the morning workout (45min) was active recovery, so to say, and increasing mobility on my body. Good job in my opinion.

In the evening I had 1.5h floorball practice and my coach asked me to get the team mates warmed-up with crossfit style training so I decided to go with tabata squats and another tabata style workout. It was kind of a plank hold in an upright push-up position, with the difference that you must extend your arms a little bit forward along your body. That means your hands are not at the breast level but over the head. Then the entire body must do work, not just your shoulders. You have to keep the entire core tight, abs definitely and shoulders too. I didn't take notes on the reps in squats but they were around 18+ per round.

Tuesday: Clean and jerk, deadlift, wods (video)

Tuesday. Two times I packed my gear and went to the gym. First early in the morning, concentration on clean & jerk 5x3 (max 55kg), in the evening I focused on deadlift, 5x3 (max 140kg), also shoulder press 4x3 (40kg)and good morning included 3x8 (40kg). Both strength trainings were accompanied by wods. There was a PR result involved. Toni was at the gym in the morning as well and on a soccer field in the evening.

Morning strength training. 5x3 (50+50+55+55+50kg). This was the first time I combined clean and push press by doing a clean & jerk movement as strength training. Two step - move, first classic power clean and then pressing the bar up to a full extension for a rep. I had trouble lifting the weights, I didn't feel as strong in the morning time as usually. There were some difficulties to reach full utilisation of body strength that early. My legs were so jammed up due to yesterday's workout that they didn't help me in power cleans. However, I did some mental work during the practice, which helped me to finalize it with honour. I'm quite satisfied to the result after all. Max kilos 55.

Morning wod. 50-35-20. Time 12.26 (not racing against it anyway)

• Dips
• Wall balls (10kg plate)
• Double unders

My original plan was to do pull-ups instead of dips but that would have been a mission impossible from the very beginning. I can do 20 pull-ups in a row but then fatigue normally hits me very quickly and I can only do sets of max 5 reps at once. Thus, it would have taken an eternity to complete 105 reps of pull-ups just like that. That's why I had dips instead. I wasn't "fighting" agains the clock in this wod but still I wanted to put the time running as it usually prevents too many breaks during a wod. The purpose was more like to do the reps with quality. First set of dips went 20, then 10, then less. In the following 35 and 20 rep sets they went broken, something of a 5 rep average, my shoulders and arms begun to feel numb so I had no other possibilities.

My wall balls are a modification as I don't have wall balls at our "box" so I traditionally use a 15kg plate as a thruster, today I had 10kg plate on my hands. They went unbroken in first and third set but in the second set I had a small break. My double unders are in good shape nowadays. There is still a lot of work to be done with technique but at least I can make a good number of reps in a row and tens of reps in a wod is not that scary anymore =)

Toni also did a workout consisting of back squats, kettlebell and double unders. Here's a video of him doing the final round of kettlebells (16kg). I think the wod had 3 rounds of 10 back squats (60kg), 30 KB swings and 10 double unders.

Evening strength training. Deadlift 5x3 (120+125+130+135+ PR 140kg). Shoulder press 4x3 (40x40x40x40kg). Good morning 3x8, (40x40x40kg). I definitely wanted to make up the lack of commitment in the morning strength training by adding shoulder press to this evening wod. Never done it before, definitely going to in the future, I liked it. This was also first good morning practice with weights, good one as well for back muscles. But hey c'mon, new PR always lightens a man up! Awesome feeling after that last deadlift. I went from 120kg to 140kg by adding 5kg after each 3 repetitions. A friend took the grande finale on video so here it is, sorry for the inconvenience as the video is sideways.

Evening wod. 3 rounds of the following movements. Time 5.17

• 5 deadlifts (100kg)
• 10 pull-ups
• 15 squats
• 20 double unders

There were quite a number of reps already done for today so I decided to go a little lighter version wod at the end. Five reps of deadlifts, this time 100kg, adding 10 pull-ups, 15 air squats and 20 double unders. All but pull-ups were easy. The 100kg bar wasn't that heavy after some heavier lifting before. Squats were obiously not an issue and think about this: 2/3 sets of 20 double unders went unbroken, haha, I'm so happy about it! This was the second time during the day of "double undering" and they are rolling nicely! However, for the fatigue in my shoulders my pull-ups were lousy in the second and third rounds. First set unbroken, then they felt unbearable.

At the end I did some 10 minutes skills training for double unders and jump rope skills anyway. Just mixing it out and trying to get those double unders rolling without that extra single under in between doubles. I'm including jump rope training on a daily basis so that my body gets extremely familiar with singles and doubles and whatever you can do with the rope. Yesterday and today I practiced how to run with the jump rope =) Some cooling down at the end with streching, exercise bicycle and slow air squats with good motion range.

Monday 3.9: Back squats + wod (row, burpees, kb, du, lunges)

Monday. Back squats 5x5 (max 110kg) + wod: row / burpee / KB / DU / lunges. Time 13.03

Strength training, small rest period and then a workout consisting of rowing, burpees, kettlebell swings, double unders and lunges. I finalised the workout with a second set of rowing. I had scheduled hip thrusters as well but I didn't have enough time so I had to skip 'em. I must include those in some other training, but not early in the morning. Can't apparently wake up that early =)

Strength. Sets of 5 repetitions, once again, 80+90+100+105+110 (4 reps). My warm-up wasn't that good today, at least my joints didn't feel as flexible as they should have and what they are capable of. That worried me in the beginning but once I got it going, I forgot it rather quickly and it went smoothly. However, warming up is crucial so never forget to get the muscles and joints prepared before the workout! Another thing I was discussing with my brother was that there should be some variations in the strength workouts' amount of repetitions. I've been stuck with 5x5 sets and will therefore have more deviations in the future. 3x1, 3x5, 3x5, 5x1, 5x3, 5x5 type of sets. Bring some new stuff for the body so it won't get too familiar and doesn't stay in the comfort zone. This is the new approach to developing strength in my body. Today I still went through the routine with 5x5 reps. Max rep set was the same as my personal record of 110kg, I lifted it four times and on the fifth I needed a friend's help to get it pushed back up. Thanks Visa :) Anyway, I can't be dissappointed as 110 came up four times.

Wod. Rowing as main ingridient, with sidekicks of burpees, KB, DU and lunges. Time 13.03

• 1.000m row
• 20 burpees
• 30 KB (20kg)
• 40 DU
• 50 lunges
• 1.000m row

Beforehand I figured the pace of rowing would not make a difference in the final time as much as to do the other movements unbroken. A couple of seconds difference in the rowing pace per 500m wouldn't determine if the wod was successful or not so why try make record on the first rowing kilometer. Better to make it with good and fast pace but not so that you're totally out of the game after that. There was a time for that hero achievement: in the last rowing sprint. I clocked 1.45 / 500m pace on the first kilometer of rowing, went burpees unbroken, same with the kettlebell. There were too many double unders for me to manage them unbroken, I recall them somewhat around 15+10+5+10. Then lunges went unbroken as well, it was a thigh burner for sure but I didn't want any further interruptions after DUs. The last row was around 1.50 / 500m pace so the difference between rows was around 10 seconds.

Considering it afterwards, I put my heart into the wod completely. There may have been some time saving in double unders but I had to get my breathe at some points, I couldn't keep it continuous all the time. Burpees are a movement which in my opinion require skills to get them going fast. The movements have to be so smooth to keep the body going at all times. There could have been saved time seconds. Other than that, I'm happy with the kettlebell and lunges, I don't think I could have done them any quicker. All in all, I'd say this wod performance was rather good. In the evening I have 1.5h floorball training. Tomorrow I'm having two crossfit sessions in my schedule.

Sunday 2.9: Rest day

Sunday. No strength training nor workouts today. I'm only stretching and using my floorball stick (consider it pvc pipe) for mobility purposes. My shoulders are not that flexible so I want to pursue better elasticity for that area.

For a rest day, www.mobilitywod.com is a perfect for a visit. If you are in the mood for some heavy workouts, check out Mikko Salo taking care of "Three 3alls of Hell". Whichever your choice, enjoy!

Tomorrow morning I'm heading to pretty familiar place, the gym. I'm gonna make my legs numb and enjoy doing it!

Saturday 1.9: Gameday

Saturday. A weekend trip to Finland's former capital, Turku, to play two preaseason games. We won both games, first one 6-4 (empty net in the end) and the second one 7-3. Good performance from our team and two wins over two teams that were in top of their divisions last season. Not bad.

Tomorrow I'm headimg back home, let's see what the schedule says. Is it going to be a rest day? My neck was better for some days but today when I woke up, the pain had come back. I've been eating pills for the last days and had to quit the latter game after two periods due to the pain. Or then I still might do some skills training and mobility wod as Toni is probably going to the gym anyway, I might join him, at least to cheer him for better results :)

Clean (PR) + wod (video)

Friday. Strength: Clean 4x5 (max 65 PR). Wod: Clean + HSPU + DU. Time 6.58

Day of success! First of all, personal record broken in strength training and I beat my big bro in wod, c’mon! As I have said earlier, I consider him a beast, his strength level is way ahead of mine so I’m very happy for today’s win =) Even though that I’m supposed to compete against myself, it feels good to win your training partner. I read a cf blog from former NFL lineman John Welbourne, who commented he was blessed to have trained with some monsters during his career.

He wrote: “strength is contagious; if you start training with strong people, you will get stronger through osmosis. Most people in the CF community like to train alone, as CrossFit is a solemn sport. Just the individual, a clock and maybe a barbell. Most people train in garage by themselves. I watch at my own gym daily, before the workout the community is extremely friendly and supportive, but once someone screams “3…2…1…” everyone enters their pain cave and looks for their power animal to help them. When you lift heavy weights you need training partners. Partners to coach, spot and scream encouragement or remind you when you are being a bitch. Workout partners are a great barometer for your level of commitment.” This is so true, with good and strong training partners you achieve better results. Thanks for the support bro”

Strength. Sets of 5 repetitions, 50+50+55+60+65kg (2reps). The last one was my personal record (PR). I’m also getting better technique, I’m actually very happy to my short history and development in cleans. Back straight, bouncing it well, shoulders do their part, the explosiveness should be faster but then again, I can get under the bar to make it able to lift the weights. Today the limit ended up in 65 kilos. I tried 70kg twice but both times I wasn’t fast enough when trying to get below the bar. See the videos and be the judge. When adding kilos naturally technique begins to collapse. And I have to squat more when it gets heavier. I’m gonna stick with this 50-60kg level for a while, get it going in 5-rep sets until results can be seen, then add more kilos again.

Wod. Clean + HSPU + DU as follows. Time 6.58, Sami’s time 7.12.

• 4 hspu
• 12 hang clean
• 8 hspu
• 8 hang clean
• 12 hspu
• 4 hang clean
• 50 DU
• 12 hspu
• 4 hang clean
• 8 hspu
• 8 hang clean
• 4 hspu
• 12 hang clean

Wow, this wod was nice! Handstand push-ups really get to the core of shoulder muscles and due to the high reps in cleans they also hit a man quite thoroughly. In between those two rounds of HSPU / cleans 50 double unders get you to breathe like a maniac. Actually I was able to do all reps unbroken despite 50 DUs and first set of 12 HSPUs. The sight must have been a comic one in that 12 HSPU set, I managed to do only 2 reps, then I collapsed a few times because shoulders were too tired and I couldn’t keep myself in line. Once I began to fall sideways etc. Somehow, I got myself together and managed to do the 6 remaining of them unbroken and transferred to double-unders. After that the rest of the wod seemed easier, all sets unbroken. My bro was ahead of me before DUs but I was clearly quicker with jump rope and got the lead when moving to 12 HSPUs. The only thing I had in mine was to finish it before my competitor. He came with outstanding pace from behind but didn’t succeed in passing me. Final time difference 14 seconds. Good games Sipa!

Tomorrow I'm going to head to western Finland as we have to floorball preseason games over there. I'm going to play the latter one so this weekend is probably not going to be that much cf oriented. I've done my share for this week, one wod on Monday, two wods on Tuesday, two training on Wednesday, one on Thursday and today as well. There has been quite a number of workouts after last week's rest period and I'm very happy to the workouts. A lot of "cardio" type of training, strength workouts have been included as well and skills training was major part of the week as well. Very good combination in my opinion.

Thursday 30.8: Run 3k

Thursday. Run 3.000m for time. Time 11.28

Test run with my team. This is classic stuff in floorball teams, usually we run these tests in three different versions during off-season to see where stamina level is at the moment. The versions are 5k run, 3k run and 12min run for distance, a.k.a cooper test. Today's test was about running 3 kilometers as fast as possible, 7.5 rounds in running track. Fastest guy's time was 11.12

My goal was to run each round at 1.30min pace. First round was 1.27, time after two rounds was 3.03. At that point I realised pace has to be kept at this level, slightly increased if possible. I tried to keep focus on running technique, keeping good posture, long steps, using hips to their advantage. Anyway, the run was horrible. After three rounds those feelings of extreme discomfort and disblief usually start to rise and then you realise you're not even half way to the final. Coach yelled after 4.5 rounds that we still have 4 rounds to go. That was bad, I had no idea how long we've been running and the feelings were far from positive. Next round he figured out his miscalculation, which eased the rest of the way tremendously, "only 2 rounds to go guys!".

At that point my legs lost that burning pain and they were more like numb, in a positive way. I was able to maintain the pace and when there was only one lap to go I got the boost that I needed. It was boosted when I managed to run by one of my fellow runners. The last 120 meters were awesome, I remember the feeling perfectly. Some sort of euphoria exploded as there was one guy ahead of me some 15 meters, I decided I'm going to win that guy and from somewhere I pulled in the biggest gear I had and tightened my pace a lot. That guy heard my heavy breathing and started to pace it up as well. It was close, finally he won with a couple of meters.

Coming to think about it, I ran 1.32 per round on average, total time 11.28. I don't know what I could have done better, I kept the speed from the very beginning and I'm happy I was able to still do final sprint even though I was totally beaten by those 7 previous rounds. My energy level worn out when I hit the goal line. I'm happy to the run but my PR is 11.27 so this leaves something to improve. My brother suggested we run 5k for time, let's see if we're gonna do that.

This brings another question to my mind. How should my cf programming be implemented? When I started crossfitting in April / May, I used to run much more than nowadays. I've always thought my stamina and condition is good, my strong point. Then I began to add strength training and have been so pumped up about it that I'm going to continue with that path because I'm not satisfied to my strenght level at the moment. However, I think I must keep on adding running to workouts as well. I've been substituting running with rowing but still they are different things, I must have them both included properly. There are some limitations due to my gym's location / equipment. I'm not able to integrate running and strength training at all currently due to this limitations. Then, also skills training should be a daily operation, hand stand skills, ring skills, muscle ups etc. This is a bad one, how is there time to do everything :) That's what I love in crossfit, you're always improving and you'll always get new inspiration from the workouts. Let's see at the gym tomorrow!

Wednesday 29.8: cardio wod (video)

Wednesday. Wod. Row 750m + 20 DU, 3 rounds. Time 11.46.

I met with Toni at our gym 7.00am for another workout. Toni’s schedule included push press + burpee combination wod, I concentrated purely on cardio this time. I took quite a lot of time in warm-ups, over 30 minutes probably. I wasn’t planning to take any strength exercise today at all so I spent fifteen minutes doing some mobility work by tens of reps with back squats, front squats, overhead squats (OHS) and push presses, with the help of bar and pvc pipe. My aim was to do good long extensions in each end, squatting to the bottom and to full extension at the top, improving mobility and flexibility.

I never imagined OHSs would be that challenging. It’s very difficult to go low enough with bar hanging overhead. My back starts to lean forward automatically and makes it extremely tough on my mobility. If I keep my back straight and steady, I can’t go low enough. There are physical limitations coming to play. I just have to keep on practicing it. As long as I’m doing that good job with hitting the bottom in back / front squats, I’m sure this will keep improving as well. Still, I must take overhead squats into daily warm-up routine to fasten my body’s familiarization with the movement.

Wod. Three rounds of rowing 750m and between sets 20 double-unders. All pressure was on cardio. Time 11.46. My rowing pace was 1.45-1.50 each round. That means my rowing took less than 5 minutes and 30 seconds. Transition took a lot and DUs the rest of the time. I managed to do 10 DUs in a row each time and then the rest went on in smaller pieces. Once again, lack of concentration! It’s annoying to think about it afterwards that if I had done it with better focus on the jumping, my time would have been faster. Because the only thing I can blame it on, is me. This is probably one of the defects training alone (Toni was doing his wod at the same time). If you’re there to cheer for your pal, you get better results as you are kind of forced to give your everything. Now as I think of it, I used way too much time getting my breath in transitions and while doing DUs. I’m happy with being able to do some many DUs in short period of time as I wrote already yesterday but I know that these sets could go unbroken with little more effort. Here you can see a glimpse of those double-unders of mine. I guess my hands are swinging too much on the sides, maybe? help if you know what to do =)

Toni’s wod. 21-15-9, push press (40kg) + burpees. Time 9.40. This guy has improved a lot. He’s lost 7 kilos in one month of crossfitting, what do you say about that? That’s awesome! Today he also skipped strength training and focused on ripping his heart out. I missed the first round of his wod ‘cause I was doing my own simultaneously. He did the set of 21 push presses unbroken and managed to fight through the burpees as well. It redounded upon the second round as he had to complete push presses mainly in sets of 3 reps as his shoulders went noodles. I’m proud this guy went chest down no matter how awful it felt. No cheating. The movements were slow towards the end but went on “unbroken” anyway. On push presses some of the reps didn’t go to full extension in the upright position but this time we let them through. Final time under 10min with 45 push presses and 45 burpees.

In the evening I have training with my floorball team. There’s been a one week pause since last training so I’m looking forward to blocking some shots again.

Tuesday 28.8: Clean + wod

Tuesday. Evening workout. Strength: cleans 5 x 5. Rest 5min. Wod: 12 "amrap" of 3 cleans (40kg) + DUs. Total of 196 DUs.


Strength. Second workout of the day. Main focus on cleans. First strength training with 5-rep sets. Sets were 50 + 50 + 55 + 60 (2 reps) + 60. I'm beginning to get it going, finally! With leighter weights the form stays nice but when I add kilos, it naturally gets tougher. The higher the kilos, the more I have to squat. Power cleans with 55kg are not possible, squat cleans is the only possibility. On that first set of 60kg, I lost belief and third rep didn't come up as I had planned, had to drop the bar. For a while I figured what the hell is going on, dug my self confidence back from somewhere and finalised the strength training with 5 reps on 60kg. Damned it felt good to make a come back! By the way, that's my PR.

Wod. Every minute on the minute for 12 minutes: 3 power cleans (40kg) + as many double-unders as possible in the remaining minute. Score is the number of DUs performed. Result 196 DUs. Below are the number of DUs per each round.

30 + 20 + 17 + 13 + 16 + 13 + 15 + 11 + 14 + 14 + 15 + 18 = 196

Midway to the wod, my heart was racing outrageously, can't even describe the feeling afterwards. For some reason, I still liked this workout a lot! It felt bad but good at the same time. Cleans weren't bad, there were so few of them per round and kilos were not that high. Still, with higher kilos this could have been a nightmare for me. As you can see from the DUs per round, focus began to lose after a while and caused tripping and thus losing time. I can't imagine me doing double-unders without pausing once in a while so it didn't bother that much. I would have needed the short break anyway. This wod felt like I was doing double-unders all the time. Even though I had troubles with DUs I'm still happy to the total amount. Considering that I could barely do one DU a while ago, now I did 36 cleans and almost 200 DUs in 12 minutes. Look at the bright side of it :)

I'm getting back the the gym tomorrow. I convinced the person who is responsible for the equipment at our box to order Rogue Fitness rings, which is fabulous news for all us crossfitters at the gym. Let's see when they come, can't wait to start including ring dips, ring push-ups and muscle up practising to my workouts!

Tuesday 28.8: rowing

Tuesday. Wod: row 500m + 10 toes to bar + 10 dips + 10 pull-ups. 3 rounds. Time 11.31

I woke up clearly earlier than normally to have a chance to go my box before work. I had scheduled rowing as main ingredient, adding some spice with toes-to-bars, dips and pull-ups.

• 500m row
• 10 toes-to-bar / knees-to-elbows
• 10 dips
• 10 pull-ups
• 3 rounds

I wasn’t fiercely fighting against the clock in the morning. It felt like my body wasn’t as awake as I wanted it to be so I took the wod by concentrating in quality, not the pace. My rowing pace was somewhere around 1.45 each round so I managed to keep it up quite nicely. In the first round of abs, I did T2Bs and the following two rounds K2Es. I’m missing the correct technique in T2B which causes me to swing too much. However, in swinging my knees to elbows I found a nice rhythm and therefore managed to do them rather rapidly. For some reason (maybe yesterday’s tabata) my dips felt heavy and pull-ups were a battle from the beginning. Only first set of pull-ups went unbroken. And too much time spent on breaks between movements, if I wanted to do this wod faster.

I haven’t tested this early wod by far but will definitely give it another shot. Maybe the body needs more warming up before getting it started. I’ll have another session in the evening, let's see if I get more out of myself.

Monday 27.8: Tabata

Monday. Tabata: Du (84) + push-ups (84) + sit-ups (96) + squats (166).


Finally, after five days of resting (40km walk and carrying stuff) I got the proper chance to do some workouts, I was missing this badly! I flew back tonight from Stockholm in the evening and decided to take some tabata workouts for starters. My neck still hurts like hell, no idea what those push presses caused couple of weeks ago. I did tabatas for double-unders, push-ups, sit-ups and squats. Tabata means 8 rounds of work: 20 sec work, 10 sec rest, repeat 8 times. Very quick and efficient way of training. You can apply it to pretty much everything you can imagine of: pull-ups, rowing, back extensions etc.

Double-unders, total 84 (15+15+8+8+12+6+10+10)
Push-ups, total 84 (20+15+12+9+7+7+7+7)
Sit-ups, total 96 (12+12+12+12+12+12+12+12)
Squats, total 166 (20+20+21+20+21+21+21+22)

DU 84. I'm glad my double-unders are finally beginning to roll. I had some lack of concentration in some of the rounds, that's why I stumbled a bit too much. Actually I stumbled in each round at least once. Once I get rid of those stupidities, numbers are gonna rise a lot.

Push-ups 84. On push-ups, same issues occurred as last time. My strength level works for the first 2-3 rounds, then I have to struggle quite much to get myself pushed back up. I'm proud of doing push-ups properly, hitting low enough. Previous record was 69.

Sit-ups 96. Not bad at all, I just couldn't be any faster. Could have lasted for longer.

Squats 166. After one week's pause, these slid nicely. I remember I did something around 18 reps per round last time. Now the lowest was 20 reps. Very good

Saturday 25.8: Walking

Schedule here in Stockholm has been walking with bags about ten km per day. This day was not an exception. My legs are killing me. However, I miss my box. The one where my biggest fights have been fought, the toughest workouts have been done, where I've struggled mentally and overcome those barriers, where I've always left as a winner.

I've had some time to figure out how to practice the following weeks. Schedule is going to be tight and hard, physically and mentally, but that's the way I like it. I've put the strength trainings and metcons already to my calendar so you'll gonna be reading about them soon. There's gonna be some classics included, some are enacted from crossfit.com's workouts and most of them are my own modifications. Now I'm recharching my batteries so I will be back with huge amount of energy and enthusiasm! I'll be back in Finland on Monday evening and first cf workouts will begin right on Tuesday morning.

Friday 24.8: Rest day

Third day in a row of "resting". I've been rather exhausted these days. Normal day: wake up at about 8.00, walk around the city, go to sleep at midnight.