Thursday 5.12: Ring muscle-ups!, 2 metcons

Thursday. Ring skills, first ring muscle-up done! Metcon, 5rds of: 4 deads (130kg), 8 hspu, 12 pull-ups. Time 9.11. Metcon, 21-15-9, pull-ups and burpees.

Yeah baby!!! Got the thing I've been dreaming of for a long time. Haven't worked that much to get it but last Sunday changed my attitude and I realized it's close. What am I talking about? Ring muscle-ups! I'm extremely happy about reaching this goal. After that I did two metcons, the first one for time, the latter one without clock running.

Check!

Skills. Ring muscle-ups. There you go, I'm glad I got it on video. This is one big step for me as a crossfitter. This is a movement that is considered a given after you've been training crossfit for a while but I can assure you, it definitely isn't an easy one. I tried it for a long time, maybe not that vigorously but still the thought was banging in the back of my head that I must get one rep done. So I tried it every once in a while and it felt like it's never getting closer. For some reason Toni has a huge determination of reaching a successful rep before the end of the year and he contaminated my mind as well.

We were training together last Sunday at his Box and he really gave me good tips on the transition stage. He's been working on this specific skill on "open gym" sessions and has got good instruction from the affiliate's coach. That's the reason he was able to assist me as well. I worked on the transition stage by going in to ring row position, laying almost on my back, and then pulling aggressively and simultaneously using my hips to dive into the deep dip position. I understood the movement from that specific training and it finally was the missing key in my training. Big hand to you Toni, couldn't have done it without you!

Metcon. Time 9.09

• 5 rounds of:
• 4 deadlift, 130kg
• 8 handstand push-ups
• 12 pull-ups

Nice one as well. The key in this workout was to nail the hspu's without stopping too much. I did the deads unbroken, same with the pull-ups. Deads weren't that heavy and pull-ups were easy, just 60 reps. Hspu's were the thing in this one. For 3 rounds I went unbroken and on the 4th one that you see on the video (last set on the vid) I went 6+2 and 5th round was 5+3.

I was thinking about squatting triples today but my butt and hamstrings are still sore from Monday's high-rep back squat training. Can you imagine, it's been 3 days, should be okay already but it was about double the total kilos compared to regular squat day. Squatting didn't feel that natural today so I took couple of lighter sets and moved on to this metcon. I got some work designated for hammies through deadlifts anyway. The combo of these 3 movements was a good one. There was quite a lot of walking around the gym because my barbell was away from the hspu & pull-up stations.

Metcon.

• 21-15-9
• Pull-ups
• Burpees

Seriously, those pull-ups felt light, had no problems to complete them and I was left hungry for them after the workout. That's why I wanted to get another quick one to do more reps. Decided to go for pull-up / burpee combo, 21 reps of both, then 15 and finally 9. Got them unbroken as well and had no problems with them either. It was a sick feeling, it felt like I could continue forever. Nice to witness a feeling like this. Maybe it was the euphoria after getting my first ring muscle-up =)

Sun is setting at 14.00, whaaaat? This is Finland, it's the darkest time of the year.

Today was a big day! Muscle-up has been teasing me for a very long time and today I feel like I reached something beyond words. It's been the one movement that I've been lacking to perform as a crossfitter. Now it's time to start working to improve on this skill, both bar and ring mu's. And there's a lot to train anyway, not just this skill. You'll never be ready, just keep on improving those weaknesses.

Nice after-wod meal, huge portion of avocado salad spiced with minced meat