Saturday 14.9: HC Triplet III

HC Triplet III. Three workouts in a day!

It's that time of the year again, time for a Hard Core Triplet number three. I have nothing left in my tank, I mean nothing. The day was superb, exactly what we wanted with Toni. There was a total of 3 mean workouts of which any would have been enough for one day's workout. But the nature of the HC Triplet is to reach your limits and go beyond, we did 3 of them. This was the third time we organized this event and to probably no one's surprise, this was the toughest. The weights have become heavier in time, reps have become higher but one thing remains: the feeling afterwards that you've given your everything and left it on the battlefield. Thanks a lot Toni for sharing this day with me, you were awesome training partner!

You find more pictures in Instagram on Donscrossfit and Ponyschannel under the hash tag #hctriplet. I added a video to the end of this post, a recap of the Triplet. I hope Toni writes his own feelings in the comments so you guys get a good idea of how these workouts felt on his behalf.

Triplet, workout I. Time, Don 20.43, Pony 24.50

• 400m run
• 50 kettlebell swings, 32kg
• 50 squats
• 400m run
• 40 kettlebell swings, 32kg
• 75 squats
• 400m run
• 30 kettlebell swings, 32kg
• 100 squats

The first workout was a humbling experience… Total of 1.200m run, 120 swings with 2 pood bell and 225 squats. The combination of these made both of our backs cry. And of course hamstrings and quads were on a tough test as well. It took me 20-30min to recover from that agonizing back pain.

On the first round I intentionally didn't run too fast 'cause that's not the part where you catch up or lose time. It's the amount of breaks you have to keep during the movements and in the transitions. 50 swings were divided to 35+15 reps and squats I did in 25+25 reps. Swings were not bad, actually it felt surprisingly light in the beginning.

The second round was 10 reps less of swings but 25 reps more of squats. That was the name of the game, decreasing swings and increasing squats. Such a simple movement as air squat is (done with bodyweight only), it starts to burn the thighs, a lot! This workout didn't give much room recovery for legs so that may have had it's sick twist there as well. I did the second round of swings in 25+15 and squats in 3 sets of 25 reps.

Last part of the run was probably a pathetic view, my legs just couldn't keep the pace up and it turned out to be a slow run. But that was not the problem, run was ok today. And it wasn't the swings or the squats either. It was the combination of these that brought some kind of pressure on low back that was increasing by the round. The third round of kb swings was thus painful. I did 3 sets of 10 reps and grimaced my teeth on every rep. The last set of squats went on in sets of 20 reps.

Triplet, workout II. Result, Don 5 rounds & Pony 3 rounds

• 15min amrap (as many reps as possible) of:
• 5/5 kettlebell clean & jerk, 32kg
• 10 pull-ups
• 5/5 kettlebell snatches, 24kg
• 10 pull-ups

Loved it! Olympic lift movements done with kettlebells and pull-ups to add some spice to the mix. We used the same 32kg bell for the clean & jerks and Toni's new 24kg bell for the snatches. The idea on the second part of the Triplet was to put more focus on upper body. As you probably realized, the first part was a leg killer =) We wanted to have a good bunch of pull-ups and bully on our upper body with those two different kettlebell movements. I believe we succeeded in that goal perfectly. Plus this was a good breather as well. Lifting stuff overhead puts heart rate always high and this was no exception.

I managed to do this workout unbroken all the way. Total of 5 rounds so there were also 100 pull-ups completed in the 15min time frame. I just realized today after talking it with Toni that my pull-up technique is something of a mixture between kipping and butterfly pull-ups. Maybe there might something to work on so that it would become more "economical" and consume less energy on them. Anyway, they are rolling very well nowadays and I consider them somewhat a strength for me. But there's always things to look for as improvements.

Toughest part of this wod was breathing and c&j was heavier compared to snatches. At least that's what I think. We both haven't done any heavier kb snatches than 20kg prior to this day so it was encouraging to see that the bell was flying up. Maybe it would be smart to try that 32kg bell as well. My snatch PR with barbell is 62.5kg so it's pretty much on the limits whether I can snatch that 2 pood bell or not.

Triplet, workout III. Result, Don 4 rounds + 10m lunges. Pony 3 rounds + 22m lunges

• 5 rounds of:
• 22m walking lunges with a sandbag on back, 25kg
• 50 double unders
• 20 burpees
• 15min time cap

What a finish… Looked easier on paper but once the moment got closer to actually perform the workout, I started to add up the number of reps ahead of me. Looking to go for all 5 rounds, it would have been 250 double unders and 100 burpees, plus those weighted lunges. Du's and burpees as a combination at this stage of the day when our hearts had taken a very hard stress on the previous workouts. But hey, we figured that's why this is HC Triplet. Just do it.

Got 4 full rounds and half way on the lunges on the 5th round. Total of 200 double unders and 80 burpees. Burpees were definitely "the thing" on this one. I laughed out loud when Toni speculated earlier on the day that burpees would be the rest part of this metcon. No way man! And I guess you also found it out =)

What can I say about the day as a summary. I simply loved it. Crossfit is what I like to do and I got a chance to do exactly that, these workouts were the essence of crossfit. High heart rate from the beginning to the end. Lots of different type of movements and workouts that were different in nature. I believe there is not a single muscle in my body right now. My body was cramping towards the end of the Triplet and I really felt hard work had been done.

I'm very proud of my training partner today. Toni has increased a lot of his work capacity, skill level and strength base. It also seems to me that his recovery has become more effective. Today he had shorter rest periods during the wods and received good results in my opinion. He's never tried a 32kg kb clean & jerk with 32kg and on the very first rep he made it look easy. Same with the snatches. I've never seen him nailing those kipping pull-ups just like that, I enjoyed looking how well he performed.

HC Triplet will stay in the back of our heads and we'll repeat it after a few months. The first Triplet saw the daylight in September 2012 and this was the third one. Here you can have a recap of Triplet III