Thursday 28.2: Step-ups, hspu, t2b

Thursday. Step-ups, handstand push-ups, toes-to-bar & knees-to-elbows.

My plan for Thursday was not to do heavy strength training nor a hard core metcon. This was an easier day for a while. I still wanted to give some pressure on my legs and shoulders. My workout's main ingredient was step-ups with a barbell in my back. I added some spice to it by doing hspu's, T2B's and K2E's between sets. This workout was not for time but for quality, skills and technique.

Step-ups, 90kg

Workout. For quality.

• 10 step-ups, 82.5kg, alternating legs
• Max effort handstand push-ups, 8 reps
• 10 step-ups, 82.5kg, alternating legs
• 10 toes-to-bar + 10 knees-to-elbows, hold on to the grip from start to end
• 10 step-ups, 90kg, alternating legs
• Max effort handstand push-ups, 8 reps
• 10 step-ups, 90kg, alternating legs
• 10 toes-to-bar + 10 knees-to-elbows, hold on to the grip from start to end
• 10 step-ups, 90kg, alternating legs
• Max effort handstand push-ups, 6 reps
• 10 step-ups, 90kg, alternating legs
• 10 toes-to-bar + 10 knees-to-elbows, hold on to the grip from start to end

I began the training session by rowing for a while, opening my hips by squatting with a pvc pipe, doing inverted holds and skin the cat with the rings. Then I took some long sets of back squats and tried to go as deep as possible, over 90 degrees to increase mobility. My sets were around 60-100kg. After getting properly warmed up I took two sets of 60 & 82.5kg step-ups. Why 82.5kg? Because there was another guy doing his squat sets as well so I figured that weight is alright for me as well. After couple of sets I added it to 90kg.

All together I did 6 sets of step-ups with 82.5 - 90kg. Between sets I did something totally else. Every other set was max effort of handstand push-ups (hspu) and every other time I did 20 reps of first 10 T2B and then 10 K2E by holding on to the pull-up bar continuously, not dropping down and adjusting grip in the transition stage.

My handstand push-ups rolled well. On the first set I did 8 reps (PR, previously 6 reps) through kipping method. On the second try I also did 8 reps but I changed the approach so that I tried to do as many reps as possible strict before kipping. I managed to do 6 strict ones, then adding 2 kipping versions to reach a total of 8 reps. On the last one I got 6 total reps (4 strict + 2 kipping).

On the pull-up bar the number of reps was no problem. I believe I'm rather solid with toes-to-bar and knees-to-elbows. It's the grip that sometimes becomes an issue. I decided to do 10 T2B reps, then change it to 10 K2E on the fly with the same grip. A total of 20 reps. It was nice to do these two movements, it's been some time since previous reps. This was the first time there was 90kg on the step-ups and it felt just fine in my back.

My training partner Toni took a rest day. In the evening I'll have some floorball with my team.