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.

Thursday 23.8: Rest day

Chilling out. Letting body recover. Yesterday was actually very consuming day after all. Tomorrow I'm gonna just take it easy. Tomorrow I think I must do some workout, otherwise it's going to be mentally difficult situation. I don't have access to a gym at the moment but some sort of home wod would be welcomed. Let's see how it all figures out.

Wednesday 22.8: Rest day

Today I woke up at six, took a flight to Stockholm, Sweden, for a mini vacation as my girlfriend is about to study there as an exchange student. I'm gonna accompany her for a few days.

Thus, today is a rest day. Let's see what kind of possibilities I have to crossfit on the following days. At least today's rest day was very much needed, my body wanted to have a short break, and yesterday's squats indeed had effect on my muscles. Anyway, I think I've been walking around Stockholm for about ten kilometers today so it has been a bit challenging day :)

Tuesday 21.8: back squat + two wods

Tuesday. Strength: back squats 5 x 5. Sets of 5-reps, max 105kg. Two wods consisting of back squats + pull-ups + walking lunges. The other one consisting of abs and double-unders.

Yesterday I had push press workout in the morning and the evening was supposed to be free from training as we had a preseason game and I wasn't planned to be in the roster 'cause I played the previous game. However, I received a phone call from coach 45min before the game began that I was needed as a back up goalie so I naturally packed my stuff and headed to our home stadium. Proper warm-up for the game and during the game I did 100 push-ups, 100 back extensions and 200 bench dips to get full utilization of the evening :) The game itself wasn't a success for our team, we lost 0-4 to a team that's playing one step higher than our team.

Strength. Third day in 8 days with squats. Last week's Monday was back squats, Friday was front squats and today again back squats. This was also the eight training in last five days so I think I've earned a day off after this :) My warm-up quite regularly consists of rowing, air squats, walking lunges, overhead squats, push presses, pull-ups, push-ups, abs, back extensions, short streching and moves that will open the pelvic area muscles. It takes about 15-20 minutes to get it going. I use a lot of plastic bar to extend my muscles to their extreme positions. Take it light in the beginning and with light weights, just get your body get used to what's about to happen.


For strength I took 5-rep sets of 90 + 90 + 100 + 100 + 105kg weights. I'm not 100% happy with my squat techinique today. My training partners weren't there with me to correct my errors so I may not have gone as down in each rep as I wanted. Don't get me wrong, they were close but not perfect, at least all of them. Anyway, my quads and hamstrings are burning so something was done correctly.

First wod. I saw this workout at crossfit.pori's web site, I moderated it a bit. The wod consisted of back squats, pull-ups and walking lunges. In brackets you can see how many pull-ups I was able to perform in each round.

• 18 back squats
• Max reps pull-ups (20)
• 15 back squats
• Max reps pull-ups (9)
• 12 back squats
• Max reps pull-ups (7)
• 9 back squats
• Max reps pull-ups (6)
• 6 back squats
• Max reps pull-ups (6)
• 50m walking lunges with 20kg bar.

There was a total of 60 squats with 55kg and 48 pull-ups that I managed to do. I didn't fight against the clock but just for the sake of curiosity I checked that it took about 11 minutes. Even though it was only 55kg, due to the amount of high reps, it began to  feel heavy in an excellent way. It wasn't too much but still you had to really work hard. And what about the pull-ups? I have never tried my personal record in pull-ups so I guess I must say my PR is 20 for now. Round after round my body felt heavier and arms / back felt more tired. Anyway, total of 48 reps is not bad, I'm happy with that or now. The crown of the wod was cruel: 50 meters walking lunges with the bar kept straight over head. You could feel it all over your body. The legs were close to cramping, shoulders were in pain and breathing started to get thicker as I held the bar over my head for so long. This was a tough exercise and very much recommendable!

Second wod. After some breathing and recovery, I still had some energy left, which I wanted to take advantage of. I ended up with doing abs and double-unders. Once again, not fighting against the clock, just concentrating to get the movements correctly.

• 10 knees to elbows
• 10 DU
• 10 knees to elbows
• 10 DU
• 10 toes to bar
• 10 DU
• 10 ab wheel
• 10 DU
• 10 ab wheel
• 10 DU

My plan was to do five sets of 10 knees to elbows and five sets of 10 double-unders. The K2E were heavy so I modified it to toes-to-bar and finally to ab wheel. I suppose there's still much to do with my technique in K2E and T2Bar because I'm doing those with slower pace compared to those crossfit.com's video clips. However, the double-unders were a piece of cake! How could there be such a difference. I'm telling you, they were ridiculously easy for some reason. They went unbroken in every set. I did take a single-under every time between but I mean all sets were unbroken in a double-single-double-single style. Very happy with this!!! Maybe there is light at the end of a tunnel.

Monday 20.8: Push press + wod

Monday. Push press 5x5, max 55kg. Wod: 3min amrap on push press, 85 reps.


Strength training. Push press 5 x 5. Sets of 5-reps: 50+50+55+55+50kg. Today I concentrated purely on my shoulders and gave them all the pressure they deserved. Push press was the name of the day. For me, the sets of five repetitions was the best I could imagine. There were quite a number of reps and the kilos were high for me. I haven't tested my 1-rep max for push press but 5-rep max is 60kg, which I lifted about a week ago.

Wod. Push press (30kg), 3min amrap. 30+25+30 = 85 reps.
1 minute amrap
1 minute rest
1 minute amrap
1 minute rest
1 minute amrap

Today I gave my heart a "rest day" from training and concentrated on muscles. The wod had three rounds, each exactly one minute in length, 1 minute rest period in between. I had 30kg on the bar and the idea was to have as many reps as possible (amrap) in each work minute. I had 30 reps on first round, 25 on the second and again 30 on the last round. Total of 85 reps. As you can probably imagine, my shoulders were on fire afterwards (and during the wod). On the second round my shoulders started to get tired, which caused me to slow the pace a little bit. On the third round I dug some self pride from the pocket and decided to hit the same numbers as in the first round. I'm happy that I was able to do it. I really feel I have done something with my shoulders today. My first idea was to do this with 2 min amrap rounds but the reality hit me just before I begun. This was a good starting point and in the future there might be longer rounds or more kilos.

After some resting I decided to take the same exercise as I have now taken two times already: 4 rounds of 5 pull-ups and 5 dips. Total of 20 each. I really like this at the end. There's no hurry to do it, just complete it and make the reps clean, don't cheat yourself, concentrate on making the reps perfectly. Tomorrow I'm gonna concentrate on my legs, see ya!

Sunday 19.8: Deadlift + wod

Sunday. Strength: deadlift 5 x 5. Rest 5min. Wod: 21-15-9 bar-facing burpees + pull-ups. Time 5.03

Time for deadlift, the whole trio - me, Pauliina and Toni - were into deadlifting today. I took a strength training 5 x 5 style and the others moved onto "death by deadlift" after warming up. Therefore, another mental struggle was indeed about to be faced at our gym :) Pauliina was clearly the toughest of us. My 5-rep sets were 110+120+120+130+120kg. Toni lasted for 7 total rounds and 6 reps on the eight round, total of 34 reps (100kg). Pauliina's guts were strongest today and she lasted for 13 rounds and 7 reps, total of 98 reps (25kg). Pauliina hasn't been pumped up on crossfit and this was pretty much the first crossfit wod she's ever done so we were extremely proud of her effort and result!

Double-unders. Yesterday evening I had to take another training session, this time skills training. I had watched some crossfit videos after morning training and a lot of them included double-unders. Since I had some spare time I decided to take another half an hour to learn this skills move a little bit more. I can do a double-under, no problems in that whatsoever. The problem is that I can't repeat it several times in a row. That's why I'm normally doing every other jump as a double and every other as a single-under. Usually I can do a couple double-singles in a row, so yesterday's PR 17 reps was astonishing :) It is vital to get DUs going well because they are used in quite a number of wods. I can do a couple of DUs in a row but still, I always have to take that exra single-under inbetween so there's a lot to be improved. I don't have rhythm at all to keep the jump rope moving constantly, I kind of stop rolling the rope after  one DU. My skills definitely need more practice, today again I took some time at the gym to enhance in double-unders.

Strength and wod. The strength training was ok but for some reason the bar with all that weight on it felt heavier than I had thought beforehand. My sets were between 110-130kg, most of them with 120kg. At least my technique stayed correct, back straight and shoulder blades pulled just a little bit together.

At the end of the workout I took a wod consisting of bar-facing burpees and pull-ups, reps of 21-15-9. Bar-facing burpees means you do regular burbees but you always have to jump over a barbell. I put some weights on the bar so that it's compulsory to really jump over it. It's not allowed to step over it but you have to jump very time. Burpees went unbroken, wasn't so bad but pull-ups were broken from the very beginning. First 21 reps were something like 10+6+5. Second round maybe 5+4+4+2. Third round was a battle from the beginning, which forced me to conduct reps in 1-2 rep-sets. I have to keep on including pull-ups in my daily routine and start learning kipping style better to make it easier for my upper body. If I always have to do them broken I consume extra time constantly. Take Fran for example, I could drop over one minute of my PR just like that if I could perform pull-ups with kipping style.

Toni made some tabata workouts at the end, dips and single-unders. Little by little he's also getting to that double-under level, the first step has already been taken, he bought his own rope so it's easy to get it going at home as well. I have to keep on practicing, otherwise that guy is going to beat me in those. Tomorrow it's going to be a push press day, looking forward for it!

Saturday 18.8: Death by clean & jerk (video)

Saturday. Clean technique. Rest 5 min. Death by clean & jerk (42.5kg). Total of 54 reps.

Today at the gym: Pauliina & Toni.

I began the day with clean technique. Today I finally figured it out! The recipe for understanding what it's all about hit me like a lightning. I've been trying to get the whole movement going on in one attempt instead of putting it to pieces. Those two parts I've had troubles in are the step where you bounce it up from the thighs and when you pull the bar up in correct position of hands, elbows and shoulders. I haven't been able to do both correctly which means it kind of collapses and I have to tear the bar up with my hands purely instead of utilizing the explosiveness and gravity. I was practicing it with 30 and 40kg and it rolled nicely. Let's see what happens next time when I add some kilos.

Today's workout was challenging. About a week ago I wrote I've been thinking about "death by" type of wods and today it was time for this one: death by clean & jerk with 42.5kg. You can take a look at how it should look like, here's 2009 Crossfit Games champion Mikko Salo doing the same wod, except he has 20kg more weight on the bar. Looks easy when he does it :)

I was wasted after 9 rounds but still almost made it to tenth round. Result was 9 completed rounds and 9 reps on the tenth round. Total of 54 reps. Here's a clip of the final round. Breathing was so heavy it was hard to get a gasp. Anyway, it was perfect workout, I'll definitely take another round of it in the future!

After finishing I took the same short workout as yesterday: 4 rounds of 5 pull-ups and 5 dips. Not much but but that's not the purpose of it anyway, the purpose is to keep pull-ups and dips on agenda all the time on a regular basis and hold the technique correct. Toni had another type of workout today due to his minor knee injury. His knee seems a bit stiff which prevents him doing strength training and workouts involving a lot of leg work. He found his way to get his body want to scream by completing a four round wod of rowing and push-ups:

• 500m row
• 20 hand release push-ups

I think his time was 10.26. His rowing slid in a smooth motion with 1.50-2.00 / 500m pace. The push-ups were hard at least towards the end. I was doing my clean & jerk at the same time of his first three rounds so I missed the effort he put on the wod. Toni's triceps went numb at the end so muscles have been in use! I could hear him breathing probably the hardest I've heard by far so I suppose the day was a success for both of us :)

Friday 17.8: Front squat + wod (video)

Friday. Two different training sets today.
Morning training. Strength: front squat 6 x 5, max 90kg. 5min rest. Wod: 40-30-20-10: kettlebell (20kg), wall ball, box jumps. Time 10.36.
Afternoon training: Handstand skills training.

Strength training. Front squat 60+60+70+70+80+90kg. This was second time this week on squats. Back squat on Monday and front squat today. It feels like its rolling well at the moment. I'm getting low enough, enabling full range of motion, hip is in same angle as the knee. When I do 5 reps, first 1-2 reps may stay a bit too high but the last 3 reps go down enough, in my opinion, you can judge me by the video :) Last time I did front squats, the max kilos I put on the bar were 70kg. Today I took 5-rep sets starting from 60 + 60, adding it to 70+70, had enough courage to add it up to 80  and finally I figured I must take 90kg as well. It felt very good and I think I didn't utilize my potential to my max. These were all 5-rep sets, I'm not even after my ultimate 1-rep max. Very happy with today's strength training!

Wod. 40-30-20-10 reps

• Kettlebell
• Wall ball
• Box

Friday's wod activated mostly lower back muscles, legs and shoulders. It was a four round circuit (40-30-20-10) of three moves: kettlebell (20kg), "wall ball" modified to 15kg weight, box jumping. Box height was way too low, it barely touched my knee as I measured it but there were no other options at our gym. Anyway, a total of 100 reps each. Time was 10.36. I managed to fight through the first round of 40 reps unbroken. At the second round kb rolled through nicely but "wall ball" went in two attempts of 15+15. Box jumps were easy as the target was quite low. Third round same thing, kb and box unbroken but wall ball in two sets 10+10 as my shoulders started to feel tired. Fourth round was easy because of only 10 reps each. Even though it may sound an easy wod, I'm telling you I was out of the game for several minutes after 10.36... It was rough on respiration because all moves burdened my breathing a lot. Shoulders considered it heavy, which caused the wall ball to break in second and third round. Tough one in my opinion :) Try it out!

After some heavy breathing I decided to take a short exercise in the end by 5 pull-ups + 5 dips, 4 rounds. Just taking it easy, letting my body remember what those moves are all about. It feels I haven't done those for a while. I just might take this short 20+20 set in the end of my training in the future.

Afternoon training. This was not planned beforehand but it felt awesome so I had to take advantage of the situation. I took a visit to my in-laws for dinner and some car washing. It was a perfect weather at their place as we washed a car so I decided to take approximately one hour handstand skills training at their lawn. I haven't practiced enough of this so I was very happy to have had the opportunity to advance in handstand training. At few times I achieved a stable and steady position for a few seconds so I really think I got forward with this as well and now I have more courage to try it out. Very successful day!!!

Thursday 16.8: Rest day

Thursday. Body is aching and we have our summer holiday so we took a trip to Finland's most southern point, Hanko. It's a beautiful place, worth a visit!

Wednesday 15.8: Clean technic + wod (video)

Wednesday. Clean technic + wod. Yesterday I was lost with the clean technic so I sacrificed today's training to learning it properly. I got forward but not entirely happy with the outcome. There are so many parts in perfect clean thatat this point it seems impossible to conduct it the way it should be done. Okay, I know it comes through practice and with the help of professionals. Today I got a lot of assistance from my girlfriend who corrected my mistakes. I'm also going to meet with my brother who really has it and knows how to teach it too. I'm looking forward to learn and practice more on the issue.

My body is in correct position when starting to uplift my body, back straight, legs in right position, hand grip ok. When I come up I can bounce the bar off my upper thighs and heighten my shoulders but the problem is the way my elbows and hands act. I can't get the elbows to stay close to my body, which causes them to swing infront kind of like in a front squat. This leads me using too much energy with my hands instead of utilising the power of gravity and explosiveness. If I don't bounce it off my upper thighs I can get the elbows act correctly but of course the quickness is not the same and thus the explosiveness is limited. I'm not going to add kilos before I learn this move proprely because this move has so longlasting effects in crossfit. I want to master it well before adding weights in the bar.

I was really exhausted in the morning due to yesterday's tough game. That's why I didn't want to have a rough strength exercise in the morning. This time I wasn't fighting against the clock in the wod. I took a modified version of a hero wod called "Nick". Genuine Nick is:

• 10 dumbbell hang cleans (20kg)
• 6 handstand push-ups (HSPU)
• 12 rounds

I modified Nick to 6 rounds and used 15kg dumbbells instead, that is 10 reps of cleans and 6 reps of HSPU. Total of 60 hang cleans and 36 handstand push-ups. The same technic problems obviously occurred with the cleans, no matter they were dumbbells or a bar. Some time ago I promised myself I would start practising HSPUs and this time I found a way to integrate it in a wod. I'm very happy with this workout. They were both powerful exercises and I was worn out when I finally left the gym. I had something close to 100 reps in bar cleans, mostly with 30kg weights and then add those dumbbell cleans and HSPUs. Well, in the evening I still have floorball training with my team. It's a tough week! :)

Tuesday 14.8: Game day

Tuesday. It's game day! We have a preseason game against Westend Indians in the evening at Tapiola.  Let's get back to crossfit tomorrow :)

Update. Game ended as draw, 3-3. Happy with the team's and my own performance in the game. We allowed only three goals, which is good considering the opponent. Finnish short report: http://www.indians.fi/teams/94/reports/1533

Monday 13.8: Back squats + wod

Monday. Strength: back squats 5 x 5, max 110kg. Rest 5min. Wod: 7-14-21, thrusters (40kg) + burpees + double-unders. Time 11.31.

I've looked quite a number of videos of overhead squats and snatches. I'm keen on learning that technic. First I'll have to take clean technic in control. Then I can proceed to overhead squats and snatches. I've taken overhead squats into my warm-up to familiarize my body to that move. However, today's strength training was all about back squats. I've lifted 130kg before but I don't count those at all because I haven't had the balls to lower myself enough. Today we didn't allow any exceptions with Toni but demanded each other to get down to 90 degrees. My sets were 80+90+100+110+100 with 5 reps each. I'm very satisfied with the development gained today! My personal weight is 75kg so I'm happy with this one.

Toni with 100kg on the bar

Metcon. Today's wod included thrusters with 40kg, burpees and double unders. Toni hasn't practiced double-unders before so he modified it to single-unders, doing them double the normal amount. Three rounds 7-14-21. That means 7 thrusters, 7 burpees, 7 double-unders, sencond round 14 reps each, third round 21 reps each. In the final round, Toni did thrusters as pure push presses without squats. Toni stopped at 11.27, my final time was 11.31. First round, not bad, all unbroken, not too heavy, good confidence level and it was rolling nicely. I did jumping rope with the rhythm double-under - single-under, every other jump is a double-under.

Second round brought the fight. Thrusters went something like 7-7, burpees started to feel heavy when doing push-ups but still ok. Double-unders took a lot of time. I noticed that I was way ahead of Toni when transferring to du's. It was the same situation as previously when I completed these jump rope exercises. I lost concentration which caused me to stumble. I had to try a few times to get it going. I could do something like 3-4 double-unders, then stumble for a while, then get another few reps. Toni caught me on this one and once again we transferred to thrusters about the same time. Third round was a huge battle. Definitely not unbroken, thrusters were around 4-5 reps unbroken, then a small pause and another 4-5 reps, burpees were slow and focus was somewhere else than at the gym when doing double-unders. It was a huge victory when finishing at 11.31. Thrusters were a killer for my shoulders, burpees and jump ropes were a pain for respiration. I have to introduce double-unders in my warm-up continuously to get familiar with it.

There is going to be 1.5h floorball team practice in the evening. Season is about to start soon, tomorrow is the first preseason game.

Sunday: Rest day (active recovery: tabata)

Sunday. Giving my body and neck another day to recover. I was eager to do workouts today as usual but its been a while since I rested so I decided to take it easy and take my dog for a swim instead.

Some workouts that I haven't yet tried out but which I'm looking forward to:

• Grace
• Eva
• Murph
• 21-15-9, burpees and pull-ups
• Push press, 2 min amrap, 2 min rest, 3 rounds
• 40-30-20-10, KB, wall ball and box jumps
• "Death by" - wods

Tomorrow I'll get back to crossfit training in the morning. Stay tuned!

Update. I couldn't stay away from training, I had to take some active recovery so to say... Tabata this:

• Squats (144)
• Ab wheel (64)
• Hollow hold
• Push-ups (69)
• 1 min rest between sets

I did 18 squats in each round, it wasn't that bad, maybe could have upgraded it to 19 or 20 per round, then it would have really burnt my thighs. Also ab wheels were a steady performance with 8 reps each round. Hollow hold after ab wheel got to my core abs nicely, I like those steady moves that you can feel burning and developing those core muscles such as plank position etc.

Hollow hold

Fatigue hit me in push-ups totally after two rounds. My triceps were killing me. First round 18 reps, second round 16 reps, third round 10, the remaining 5 rounds were 4-6 reps each, pathetic. Tomorrow I'll meet Toni at the gym for strength training and a metcon.

Saturday 11.8: Rest day

Taking it easy, enjoying the day in a different way :) I did morning walk and some pilates for starters. My body needs some break. My neck somehow injured in yesterday's training, it hurts like hell, it's difficult to bend my head but it will probably go away in a day or two.

Some random thoughts. Next time I'll do push press, I'll try out something like 2min amrap, 2 min rest, 3 rounds, compared to yesterdays's workout. For the past few days, I've been thinking about changing my strength training. I'm still learning technic for some moves but I'll start doing heavier sets. For example yesterday I could have done like 3 sets with 50kg, then once with 55kg and once with 60kg. I really don't understand why I let myself too easy with that push press, the session could have been more productive if conducted with heavier sets. My training will almost every time include strength training and a metcon, sometimes adding some skills training.

Some days I'll do cf workouts in the morning and in the evening I have floorball practice with my team. Some days I only do crossfit. Some days the morning set can be running or rowing, just increasing the level of stamina, sometimes it can be heavier type of running or rowing, interval maybe? I'm still learning when to have rest days. I've been listening to my body and try to analyse what it really wants. My mind wants to go every day but I try to listen what my body can take in for now. I will get it used to hard training throughout out the season / year so that it will demand training in the morning and in the evening. Let's see how long does it take to reach that point. I'm still developing the ideology of perfect training.

Friday 10.8: Push press + wod (video)

Friday. Push press 5 x 5 (RM 60kg). Rest 5 min. Wod: rowing and kb, time 10.10.

• Row 500m
• 1min rest
• 30 KB (20kg)
• 1min rest
• Row 1000m
• 1min rest
• 50 KB (20kg)

I enjoy giving pressure on my shoulders. A few years back I had problems with my right shoulder as it became inflamed during a floorball season due to too much training and too many games in a short period of time. It took about half a year to get it back in shape. I took a visit to a physiologist then and we decided that the best way to prevent similar injuries is to strengthen the joints and muscles in the shoulder and all those surrounding muscles as well. From that day on I've had that in mind. After starting crossfit, my shoulders have definitely got stronger.

Today we took on the strength training with Toni, push press. After getting our bodies ready for the exercise, we took 30 + 40 + 50 + 55 + 60kg push press with 5 reps, the 60kg bar was lifted only once, it was too heavy for several reps. Thinking about it afterwards, we should have lifted something like 50 + 50 + 50 + 55 + 60 kg, it was way too light in the beginning so there were not that many reps with heavier kilos.At least  I'm wiser for the next time.

Our metcon consisted of rowing and kettlebell swing with 20kg kb. I saw this wod in some crossfit gym's home site and it got my attention immediately. Toni was instantly pumped up so we decided to give it a shot. The idea was to start with rowing 500m, then compulsory 1min rest period, then 30 kb swings, 1 min rest, 1,000m rowing, 1min rest and finally 50 kb swings. Toni started it, rowing like a maniac, finishing rowing at 1.49, first swings took about 1 minute. The latter rowing was however over 4 minute drill, and you could see the fatigue hitting him. The last kb swings were a fight against oneself. Body wants to quit but mind says: lets go! Final time 12.30. Good job man.

I begun the rowing faster than ever before, ending with 1.39 at 500 meters. Kb's were easy the first time. The second rowing hit me in a similar way as with Toni, after 400 meters it seemed like I had rowed for eternity and strength is about to fade away. I fought it trough, ending it with a pace somewhere around 1.45 - 1.50 / 500m. My strategy with the kb was to do 25 + 25 but while doing it I decided not to drop it and I managed to perform them unbroken. I'm very happy not to keep any pauses in between. It was a mental win! Final time 10.10. I don't know what I could have done better, I'm very pleased. There might have been only 50 sec rest between 30 kb and 1.000m rowing as my time taker was asleep, thanks Toni ;)

This was a good day of training. Toni enjoyed it as well, the entire week has been a blast. My girlfriend was also at the gym, naturally, and did a whole set of strength training.

I still could have added some heavier set in the push press, that's the only thing I'm regretting. The metcon was a tough one on the heart and arms, they were on fire after rowing, also my legs and calves were almost cramping when rowing so I really think I left my body at the gym. My body needs a short break because of all the burden it has carried this week so tomorrow is going to be an easier one.

Thursday: 9.8: Floorball

Thursday. Team training, 1.5h hours of floorball, which started with a good warm-up. We played a whole lot of 3 against 3 games, which means there are good shots coming all the time, heart is pumping back and forth all the time, a lot of work for the goalie, nice! To add some spice to the day, I did push-ups, abs and back muscles, 150 each, total of 450 moves. Tomorrow, I'll head to the gym after work, there's gonna be strength training and a metcon. By the way, that's my last work day as my two week holiday is about to start! My girlfriend is going to move to Stockholm to study for the autumn so I'll be joining her to move there.

Wednesday 8.8: Helen (video)

Wednesday. Helen. Time 8.29.

Schedule pointed today is time for Helen. I've been preparing myself mentally for this girl for over a week. She was tough but I was tougher :) 400m run + 21 kettlebells + 12 pull-ups, for time. I used the brand new 20kg KB that I received a week ago. I headed to Kauniainen running track because there are ideal circumstances for this workout. The pull-up bar is perfect, at least for me, and its right beside the track so there is no time wasted in any point of the wod. My brother was there to coach me and demand the best of me, which is crucial to dig out the best potential I have.

First Helen ever, I'm pleased with the result. Running was somewhere around 1.25-1.40 between three rounds. Pull-ups were unbroken in the first round, 6-3-3 in the second and something very broken in the last one... Kettlebell was the easiest of the trio, even though it felt heavy at some point. My bro didn't accept some of the swings and I think one pull-up was unaccounted for but that's great. I love it that he didn't accept those lousy performances. Breathing was heavy as was expected but still manageable. Four rounds could have been crushing but she only lasts for three rounds. Total of 1.200m run + 63 KB + 36 pull-ups for today.

My brother did the classic 400m run + 50 squats, 4 rounds, in 10.04 time. Improvement of 10 seconds compared to last time, he is an animal. Still, he wasn't happy with the performance. He ran the first round very fast which caused problems in third and fourth round. Squats started to become imperfect, next time those won't be counted, this time I let them through ;) My previous time was 11.00. 

Tuesday 7.8: Clean + wod (video)

Tuesday. Strength: clean 5 x 5, max 60kg. Wod: 5 clean (40kg) + 10 burpees. 5 rounds. Time 4.45.

Yesterday's team training still makes my body ache, especially my legs have the feeling yesterday wasn't a rest day :) When I walked to the gym with a friend of mine - Toni - we both felt our bodies were not as sharp as they should've been. So we forced them to be anxious, preparing bodies by rowing, running, doing pull-ups, push-ups, squats, abs, overhead squats etc. Suddenly, the feeling was totally different. The same eagerness came back as usually so we started the strength training.

I took 5 rep cleans with 40+40+50+60+60kg weights. I realised my technic isn't as fast as I hoped so after the workout I took cleans with only the bar (20kg) to learn the technic better. I got more explosive than before, so I think I moved further with cleans. I'm very satisfied with today's training!

After doing the cleans, my buddy started his wod and I took it on camera. That was my rest time. He fought through the same wod as Mikko Salo did in his "Sisu"-document as he did three workouts in a day. The workout was 5 deadlifts + 10 burpees, 5 rounds. He did it with a load of kilos but hey, he's a beast! Because this was Toni's first deadlift workout ever, he put 60kg on the bar. Time 7.19, well done dude!

My wod was similar to his: 5 cleans with 40kg + 10 burpees, 5 rounds. Time 4.45. I put effort in the burpees for the chest to hit the ground. My cleans were hang power cleans because I wanted to learn the bar bouncing technic by utilising the thighs and gravity. I have hard time to bounce it if I lift it from all the way from the floor. After watching the video at home I realised my hands are quite tired in the last burpees, I should've put more energy in making them perfectly. Anyway, this was a good wod, I'm going to come back to this one again.

After work, I had my floorball practice with the team again. 30-40 run for the beginning, and then 1h practice. I call it over for this day =)

Monday 6.8: Floorball

Monday. Today I'll have to skip crossfit because my floorball season starts. It's the first training after summer with the team. It's going to be about 1.5h practice. This week there is going to be floorball on Monday, Tuesday and Thursday. On other days I'm going to do crossfit!

Afterwards. It was a tough one! Wearing those goalkeeper's clothing on in this weather was shocking. My body got cold chills because it was hard to keep myself hydrated properly. After a long pause it was anyway quite cool to play floorball again. The season starts already in 1-2 months so we'll have to start practicing hard this entire pre-season.

Sunday: 5.8: Deadlift + wod (video)

Sunday. Strength: deadlift 5 x 5. Max rep 135kg (3 reps) PR.
Wod: 5 x deadlift (90kg) + 10 burpee + 20 KB (20kg) + 5 HSPU. 3 rounds. Time 5.50.

I went to the gym with my girlfriend to do some crossfit. I had planned to do push press as strength exercise but my shoulders were not as receptive as they should be for that workout. My girlfriend did thrusters and burpees, among others.

Rowing, bycicle, air squats, pull-ups, push-ups, stretching etc. for warm-up. Body was actually very eager to get it going so I started the deadlift. After some lighter weights the final 5-rep rounds were 100 + 110 + 120 + 130 + 135kg (3 reps). 135kg was my personal record, second time this week. Felt good!

Wod:
5 deadlift (90 kg)
10 burpees
20 kettlebell swings (20 kg)
5 handstand push-ups.
Three rounds. Time 5.50.

First time I integrated HSPU into metcon training. I couldn't let myself too down because I'm not too familiar with the move. Overall, this wod was quite nice and I'm happy with my time. A lot of deadlift for one day, probably I'll see the difference in my lower back tomorrow. There wasn't that many burpees, maybe should've increased the number of them slightly, to 15 or 20. That would've changed the entire nature of the workout because of intense respiration.

Saturday 4.8: Run

Saturday. I went jogging for about 40 minutes, somewhere around 7.0 - 7.5 kilometers. Quite easy pace, which was the purpose of the exercise after all. My legs were jammed due to yesterday's squats so I decided to take it easy today and try to recover my legs and prepare them for next week. I will continue my everyday stretching process tonight as well.

I finally got my new 20kg kettlebell, which I bought about two weeks ago, c'mon! The shipping took a while but now I received my new friend. It's a beauty :)

Friday 3.8: Fran + back squats (video)

Friday. Fran: 21-15-9 thrusters and pull-ups. Rest 5 min. 5 x 5 back squats. Fran time 5.31. Back squat RM 120kg.

10.00 am, time for Fran. I was nervous already yesterday due to this upcoming workout. It was kind of a similar feeling as before a floorball game. This is one of the things I love in crossfit, everyday is a competition, a race against the clock and a fight against your own mentality! It's a different world compared to jogging or lifting weights in a traditional way. I love it!

Warm-up 20 minutes, body waiting for the workout, anxious to start bouncing thrusters and doing pull-ups. Last time I did Fran in 5.48min, June 25th. I think my squats did not go as down as they did today. My thrusters were unbroken that time but pull-ups felt heavier. In June, I had to do thrusters with 40kg because I didn't have proper equipment. Today thrusters were 42.5kg and I put effort on squatting in 90 degrees angle. A few push presses were not perfect, I admit. I was surprised that I struggled with push presses after about 20 of them. It just felt heavy and thus I had to do a few cleans that I wasn't thinking beforehand. I still managed to improve my time, so I'm very satisfied with today's Fran overall! New PR is 5.31. Tony taped the performance so I'll post it afterwards.

My friend Toni also did Fran in a modified style. For a guy who has just started crossfitting (and immediately fell in love with it) doing 30kg thrusters and jumping pull-ups 21-15-9 is something you can look up to. This guy has a good attitude and he leaves his heart in the battlefield after workouts. I really appreciate his effort! He's done three wod:s in 26 hours: Tabata + Baseline + Fran =)

After a few minutes rest, I collected some weights on the barbell and begun doing back squats 5 x 5. Max rep was 120kg. I'm learning the technic everytime I do it. If I keep my legs too wide, I can't go down enough. If I keep my legs closer to each other, I can drop lower but my back curves a bit even though it should be kept strict.

Second training
I felt so good after work that I decided to go the gym again :) My agenda said front squats 5 x 3/5 and interval rowing. Max reps (3) for front squats were 70 kilos. I concentrated in lowering my butt enough and I made it to 90 degrees. Front squats felt very good actually. I rested some 5 minutes and decided to row three times 1.000 meters with 2 minute rest in between. Total time 14.42. Pretty fast pace but I was totally out of the game when I finished. It felt like my chest is going to burst into flames. I consider rowing very efficient way of increasing stamina and I'm definitely going to continue rowing on a regular basis. I finalized the day with ab-wheel and toes-to-bar workout, 30 each, alternately: 10-8-6-4-2. I'm pretty much done for today, only stretching awaits me in the evening because the body and muscles must taken care of :)

Rowing
First round 3.39 (1.49 / 500m)
Second round 9.10 (1.45 / 500m)
Third round 14.42 (1.46 / 500m)

Thursday 2.8: Rest day

I'm going to the gym for a mobility wod. Just warming up, doing some mobility workouts for shoulders and legs plus some stretching. I'll do proper stretching in the evening as usual.

I couldn't stay away from the gym so I cheered for my girlfriend and another friend doing their workouts. The other one did the "baseline" wod, the other concentrated in a modified wod consisting of push press + kettlebell + good mornings and pull-ups. Good job!

Wednesday 1.8: Deadlift + handstand (video)

Wednesday. Strength: deadlift 5 x 5. Max 130kg. Metcon: 7 min AMRAP. 5 deadlift (80kg) + 5 pull-ups + 15 push-ups. Total 6 rounds, 5 deadlifts + 3 pull-ups.

Workout consisted of two parts as usual. The first one concentrating in strength. I made a personal record in deadlift with 130kg, nice! It was heavy but I had the feeling I could have taken it one notch up, maybe 135 or 140kg. Preparation was good, warm-up was comprehensive and my whole body was awake when I started to put kilos on the bar. My legs were aching from previous days' training but I got them going quite nicely in the warm-up.

Metcon included deadlift, pull-ups and push-ups. I'm not quite sure if I did 6 or 7 full rounds, let's make it 6. In addition I hurried some extra moves in daedlift and pull-ups. Total amount in this 7 minute amrap workout was 35 deadlifts with 80kg, 33 pull-ups and 90 push-ups. I've put a lot of effort in accomplishing the moves perfectly. Special effort on the push-ups, chest must touch the ground. I should also start doing the pull-ups in a chest-to-bar-mode instead of chin-to-bar. I did push it through unbroken except the push-ups. First 30-50 were easy, then the problems begun. Deadlifts and pull-ups were pretty light but push-ups after midway seemed heavier than they normally are. This was a surprise but obviously the combination of all these three movements was too much for my upper body.

After I got myself together I did some abs. Tabata ab wheel for those classic 8 rounds, 20 seconds on, 10 seconds off. After about two hours I went to the close-by park near my home and practiced some handstand with my girlfriend. I love this workout! As you can see, I'm not mastering it but hey, this is a proper start anyway =)