Monday 6.1: Overhead complex and a twisted Cindy

Monday. Overhead barbell complex. 5 working sets of: 1 shoulder press, 3 push press, 5 push jerk @ 60kg. Metcon, twisted Cindy. 20min amrap of: 1 c&j (60kg), 1rd of Cindy, 2c&j, 1rd of Cindy, 3c&j, 1rd of Cindy… Result. 341 reps.

What a training day! My shoulders are so messed up from busting my ass off at the gym. Got to give my pal Joni some credit from bringing the metcon in to my knowledge he had seen somewhere. I don't know if I like that he tipped it to me or not. It was a rough one! Plus there were some serious presses and jerks done prior to the metcon so it had its own flavor in the mix too. Took me some time to recover for sure.

Overhead complex. Presses / jerks.

• 5 working sets of:
• 1 shoulder press + 3 push press + 5 push jerks
• Barbell at 60kg in each set

This was something new and definitely worked to increase strength and muscle endurance. The weight was good for 5 sets. I wanted the weight to be across, i.e. same weight in all working sets. Took warm-up sets with 40 and 50kg. Shoulder press was the limiting factor for which it would have been difficult trying to add kilos on the barbell. I can shoulder press 75kg for a single but doing 65-70kg after couple of sets would have been very challenging. Plus there was a total of 9 reps per set so 60kg turned out to be great this time.

It was also cool to mix these three different style of shoulder-to-overhead movements into each other and practice on the various lifts together. About a year ago we used to have lots of press days with Toni where we worked on our shoulder strength, starting at shoulder press and once the bar went heavier we transitioned it to push press. Those were great workouts too.

The last set was quite tough and it took some minutes to recover and get ready for the upcoming metcon. Could not have moved directly to it because the work load for shoulders was burdening. Got to try this one another time as well.

Recap of overhead complex

Twisted Cindy. Result 341 reps.

• 20min amrap of:
• 1 clean & jerk (60kg) + 1 round of Cindy (5pull-ups, 10 push-ups, 15 air squats)
• 2 clean & jerks + 1 round of Cindy
• 3 clean & jerks + 1 round of Cindy…

Gee, thanks Joni =) He just mentioned it by accident one day and it stayed in my mind to haunt. Kind of a Cindy but you'll have to complete 1 clean & jerk on the first round, then 2 reps on the second, always increasing 1 more c&j after every round of pull-ups, push-ups and squats. Cindy is one classical benchmark workout to test one's fitness. Tough test indeed.

Those clean & jerks were absolutely the hardest part of this one. I got to 9 full rounds of the workout and on the last round I completed 10 c&j's, 5 pull-ups and 1 push-up. Damned they were tough. For a long time after the workout I felt like my shoulders were on fire. I went unbroken with bodyweight movements from the beginning to the end but had to cut the c&j's after 6 rounds.

I realized the nature of this workout already after 3-4 rounds. It was a lots of work. And once it was a long workout I decided before the workout not to rush and gas myself out. Because the first rounds might be easy and you could rattle them through quickly but it would definitely get back at you after a short while. So I took my time with the transition before grabbing the bar for clean & jerks.

For first 6 rounds I got the c&j's unbroken, the 7th round was 5+2, 8th round was 5+3 and the 9th was 6+3. On the last round I got 4+3+3 reps. It was bad when I had to let go of the bar. It's not easy to go for another rep right away. That's why I tried to do it unbroken for as long as possible.

Good workout indeed and perfect training session. This took my breath away and was definitely one of the toughest in a while!