Tuesday 1.10: Bar complex

Tuesday. Bar complex: power clean, squat clean, 2 front squats, 2 jerks. Start @ 40kg, add 5kg, till failure. Then start over.

Okay, first day of October and it's time for barbell work. Decision: do a bar complex, with increasing weights. Good workout in my opinion. This was the second time I did it. Compare the workout to what I did back in March. This was all I did for today. Definitely enough!

Bar complex.

• 1 power clean
• 1 squat clean
• 2 front squats
• 2 jerks
• Start @ 40kg, add 5kg, continue till failure. Then, start over.
• Result. 1st round: 85kg. 2nd set: 1 jerk @ 85kg

The first rounds were good warm-up and preparation for the heavier rounds. Did the usual routines on the foam roll, dynamic stretching and some barbell warm-up before putting the 40kg on. It was very light in the beginning so I was able to start the workout quite quickly. Altogether there were a lot of sets and reps in the complex.

The complex consisted of 6 movements, 2 different cleans, 2 squats and to 2 shoulder-to-overhead movements. That equals 1 set. The idea was to start easy, then increase the load with 5kg after every 6 reps. Increase the load for as long as you can. Once you can't get the bar up anymore, start again @ 40kg and repeat the whole thing and go till failure again. It's a good goal to try hit the same numbers on the second round.

On the first set I got 85kg done, all 6 reps. It was tough but I was confident in hitting the reps perfectly. Used push jerk up to 75kg. Then split jerk for 80 and 85kg. The toughest part of the movements was definitely the jerks. Especially as that was the last part of the complex. Cleans were not bad, front squats made legs more fatigue and also made breathing go heavier. Completing 2 heavy reps was something that forced me to really focus on the jerks. Last 2 sets (80 & 85kg) were heavy. The last was so heavy that I decided to start all over again @ 40kg.

1st set @ 80kg

On the second round the 40kg felt so light that I pulled the barbell to my mouth =) Well, I was able to modify the pulling strength according to the weights. No surprise the bar started to feel heavier earlier than on the first round. So here was the mental aspect in play as well. Was able to reach almost the same figures as in the first round. Only the last jerk was a missed rep. That went under my skin for a minute but I got over it.

I'm actually proud of how well I performed today and how big weights I was able to move compared to earlier similar type of workouts. For example that complex I did in March, the weights were around 10-15kg heavier this time. That's a lot. C'mon!