Tuesday 18.9: Two sets: Back squat + Griff (video)

Tuesday. Strength back squat (max 115kg, PR) +  DU skills + Hero wod Griff

Two training sessions. Morning concentrated in strength and skills. Evening training was all about running, hero wod Griff was ahead. I prepared myself yesterday evening for this morning’s training. As I opened my eyes today, I realized there’s some job to be done. As I entered the gym at 07.20 I sat on the rowing machine and began warming-up. Lunges, squats, overhead squats, some hip openers, ab wheel and finally some bear complex with 20kg bar. Bear complex movements include clean, front squat, push press, back squat, push press from the back position. Good warm-up. My schedule pointed out that this morning is dedicated to cleans, push presses and shoulder presses. At 40kg I felt this day will not go as planned. The soreness in my elbows showed first signs from which I understood I have to listen to my body and make sudden changes in plans. Result: move to back squats.

Strength. Back squats 5x5 (100+105+110+ PR 115kg).

Damned it was a good decision to go for back squats! I went for lighter weights for a while to get my hips and hamstrings get used to the movement. Once I took sets of 60+80+90 kilos for some time I moved forward. At the beginning I was disappointed that I couldn’t go all the way with cleans and presses but then I slapped myself in the face and did some mental work. I was not about to come to the gym this early in vain. “Go on and do what you came here for!” Ok, I did. Thanks for Toni and Pasi for backing me up in squats. It felt good all the way and I had good confidence in lifting the bar with all those plates at it. My previous PR was 110kg, I’ve reached those kilos only once so today’s sets were terrific for me. 5 reps for 100, 105 and 110kg. For 115kg I went for three times, fourth was a struggle and my training partners helped the rest of the lift. It felt awesome!

Skills. It’s rolling, and it’s rolling good =) Fantastic day! To the end I took 10x10 double unders and I mean genuine double unders, no single unders in between. Compared to the video I posted previously, the difference is that I can hold my ground and I’m not moving back and forth around the gym. My knees are still bent a lot but that doesn’t bother me at the moment, I'll fix that later. The main point is that I get doubles fast and continuously, I’m confident with the jump rope. It’s part of my daily warm-up to sacrifice 10min to jump rope training. And today I decided to do 100 DUs at the end. Not a bad way to finish the training. Here's my max performance (22 reps) which I did after those hundred reps. You can hear Toni's heavy breathing at the end, he's really giving his everything in his wod =)

Toni went for back squats as well. His max rep was 100kg, he did two reps for the maxes. His PR stands for 105kg. He also did a wod, time 12.48, consisting of 5 rounds of:

• 20 double unders
• 20 sit-ups

Simple and good workout. Similar like my yesterday’s workout with burpees and sit-ups. Good traditional movements and you still get your heart racing with huge velocity =) It was nice to see Toni progressing with double unders, managing 100 DUs in rather short period of time. It’s awesome to see his development.

Hero wod Griff. Time 11.01

After work, another training was looming ahead. The only thing I had confirmed was that I would go to Pirkkola's track field. I had a few options what to do and finally decided to go for hero wod named Griff.

• Run 800m
• Run 400m backwards
• Run 800m
• Run 400m backwards

I spent quite a lot of time in Pirkkola the past summer when I started crossfit. For the past 1-2 months I've done most of the workouts at a gym or near my home outdoors. So driving to the familiar track field was like driving home. It's difficult to include all possible elements of training in crossfit. You should be able to maintain and develop your strength, speed, stamina, mobility and skills. Even though I consider training a lot, it's still a struggle when I plan my training and how to include all possible movements continuously. I've heard the same from other crossfitters. That's one of the reasons why I've taken DUs as part of my warm-up. Maybe in the future I can take something like burpees and handstand holds as part of my warm-up. It's a good way to keep up with some movements. Anyway, today's warm-up in the evening included 1.2km run, hip openers, lunges, squats, 50 double unders, overhead squats etc.

Even though I prepped my body well for the workout, the morning's squat training was clearly seen from the very beginning of Griff. My time for the first round was 1.35, after two rounds it was 3.13 and midway 5.24. That means the latter half was 5.37. Not a huge difference during the workout but my pace from the very beginning should be faster if there wasn't squat training loading the burden. This probably wasn't the smartest planning, that I can tell =) Anyway, backwards running really brought fire to my calves, after 300m the pressure was high. Very tough day for my legs, I had to give them ice cold shower for five minutes when I got home, they were in such a pain. Now, I feel awesome as I look back at the day and what kind of achievements I reached: back squat PR, 150 DU just like that, and a hero wod is never a piece of cake.

Hey, what do you think of this guy? I talked for some time with him about training and crossfitting and sports in general. He was at Pirkkola for the 54th year in a row! He's 73 years old and has been going there for over 50 years with his pals, this time with only his wife anyway. Every year they take test results for 100m sprint, 1.000m run, shot put, hammer throw, long jump and discus throw :) How awesome is that?!? Think about it, he's been there over half a century, this guy really has some athlete blood running through his veins. RESPECT!