Friday 23.8: Bench and 3 metcons

Friday. Bench press 5-5-5-5 (80-85kg). 3 x 5min amraps, with 4 min rest between amraps.

I was wondering whether to take it easy or going for some heavier shit today. Was almost listening to my body and taking it a step back but then I reasoned to do some work. Bench press as strength training and then back-to-back-to-back metcons. It started to get a little taxing towards the end… Started the entire training session with practicing the swing on the ring muscle-ups.

Strength. Bench press 5-5-5-5 (80, 85, 85, 80kg). Bench is not the most desired strength movement in crossfit and not for me personally either. Still, it's important to keep on strengthening my chest as well. Occasionally I bring in the bench to my training and it's been enough to develop a decent strength level there as well. Today I did fives with weights between 80 and 85 kilos. Had no problem in finishing the sets.

Metcons. 3 x 5min amraps, with 4min rest between amraps.

1st amrap:

• 3 handstand push-ups
• 10 dumbbell snatches, 22.5kg
• Result. 5 rounds + 3 hspu

2nd amrap:

• 10 pull-ups
• 10 push-ups
• Result. 6 rounds flat

3rd amrap:

• 10 double swings, 2 x 10kg plates
• 10 burpees
• Result. 4 rounds + 10 swings

Last set of swings

Never tried this type of training. Don't even know where this popped in my head but I was determined to try it out. Wasn't sure if this was the best possible day for that 'cause my body feeling a bit tired. Those handstand push-ups were like from a slow-motion clip, at least they felt like it =) Had to use kip from the very beginning. I felt good about the way I combined 2 movements with each other in each of the workouts.

On the first amrap I got to 18 hspu's and 50 snatches. Really, those hspu's were very much slower than normally. And I was not able to go through strict reps which would have saved time in such a short workout. My upper body felt fatigue in the end. Rest 4 min and continue to the next one.

Second day in a row with 60 pull-ups. Those were no issue for me, all unbroken but the push-ups felt heavy. Maybe bench press had it's effect on my push-ups? Both movements concentrated in upper body so I had to take a 10 second pause after each round before jumping on the pull-up bar again. I wanted to nail them unbroken every time I got up there. I had to break the push-ups probably after 3 rounds as it suddenly felt so much harder.

On the last amrap I completed swings and burpees. Instead of kettlebells I used 2 x 10kg bumper plates on the swings. As this was the last metcon, my breathing was rather fast from the very beginning, even though there was plenty of time to recover between the amraps.

All in all, this was a nice way to combine a lot of useful movements in one training session. Could have maybe had some air squats involved as well for some more leg action. Or thrusters… And the main point in this type of setting is the pre-determined rest period between amraps. Could have been 3 minutes as well, don't think that 1min made any difference.

Toni's workouts. Strength squat snatch, metcon with squat snatches and du's.

• Strength. 3-3-3-3-3 (30, 35, 37.5, 40, 40kg)

Toni's metcon. Time 12.32

• 8 rounds of:
• 5 squat snatch, 30kg
• 15 double unders