Wednesday 4.9: Mary + Handstand

Wednesday. AM: Benchmark wod Mary. Result, 9 rounds + 2 hspu. Total of 272 reps. PM: Skills, handstand

Back from Sweden in the morning, taking a nap, eating and heading to the gym. That rest day was a good thing for me, my body felt good after being a little stiff for a couple of days. Stockholm was beautiful as it always tends to be. It also seems to warm and sunny every time I've been there =) It was awesome to make a comeback there as it used to be Pauliina's home for a couple of months last autumn. It would have been nice to stay a little longer.

In Stockholm

Mary. Result 272 reps. Compare to 9th April and 21st February.

• 20 min amrap of:
• 5 handstand push-ups
• 10 pistols 5/5
• 15 pull-ups

I once read Mary is Mikko Salo's least favorite benchmark Girl. For some reason that inspired me to go for this benchmark early this year. I completed 7 rounds + 3 hspu's and today I was able to top that result with about 2 full rounds. Not bad! In April I did this one for 5 rounds for time. Then it was little less than 11 minutes. Today I happened to check time at that point and the digits showed it was about 9 minutes. Realizing I had topped my previous time clearly brought that much needed encouragement in the middle of the workout.

This metcon went very well in all meters. Every set of handstand push-ups were unbroken. I once dropped off the wall on the first rep because of weak balance but jumped right back up on the wall to finish the set. Don't know if I've done 47 reps in a workout, ever. Very glad about this amount!

Mary's rounds of 1-6

The pistol squat always gets me a bit confused. It feels taxing in the beginning as body is not yet fully prepared to do one-legged squats. Even though I mobbed my ankles and legs properly pre-workout. Then after squatting for a while, it gets much easier. Once you've been squatting some more, the strength-part walks in and it gets way tougher to get ass back up from the floor. I managed this movement well today. Same as with the hspu's, probably never smashed as many reps (90) in one session.


On the pull-ups I went unbroken for maybe 4 rounds. For the next 3 rounds I did 11+4 reps, and the last 2 ones it was 9+3+3. I focused on minimizing the rest period between the reps. Once I dropped from the bar, I shook my hands, tried to release the tension and jumped right back there. In my opinion I was more consistent with the breaks and transitions today overall as well. My pre-determined break was placed after the pull-ups. I had the feeling that if I tried to go straight to hspu's, it would have been much more challenging. As I held a break there, I was able to do the hspu's unbroken. Then I figured that I should do pistols right away because the two other movements are not leg-oriented.

Mary's rounds of 4-9

First round was around one minute, the next two ones about half a minute slower, and the following rounds were between 2:10 - 2:50. I was able to pace up on the last 2 rounds and cut some time on both of them compared to the previous one. All in all, I figure this workout went well for me.

After the workout I spent about half an hour for mobility at the gym. Used the resistance band and lacrosse ball to find painful points and then active stretching to finish it. Wish I had enough time on a regular basis to put enough effort on mobility. I've been taking stretching / mobility sessions in the evening, hopefully it pays off.

Handstand. Couple of hours later I went cycling for active recovery purposes and found a perfect place to practice on my handstand skills. Just couldn't drive by, had to stop and utilize the opportunity. In the beginning it was a bit shaky, my legs were waving in the air to all possible directions. Still, I was able to maintain inverted position and move forward. In the end I was focusing more on keeping my legs more together. It's still far from the look of gymnasts doing handstand walk :)

Toni's workouts.

• Skills: pull-ups, pistol squats, hspu, handstand walk, snatch
• Annie, 50-40-30-20-10, double unders & sit-ups. Time 7.20

He completed 5 sets of pull-ups, with incredible results: 14, 10, 10, 10, 8 reps!

The guy is getting better and better!