Don's Crossfit: Sunday 2.2: Pause squats, metcon of hspu, box

Sunday. Back squats with a pause (max 120kg). Metcon, 10-8-6-4-2 hspu, 20-18-16-14-12 box. Time 5.07. Warm-up, 1min amrap test of air squats. Result 61reps.

This was a good training day. This has been an easy week compared to normal training weeks and today was the first time I did a little longer sets with a barbell. The squats were heavy, considering they were done with a pause. And in the end was the first real metcon I've done since Monday. The metcon felt great! I've missed those. Next week I'm back to normal programming.

Warm-up. Result 61 reps

1min amrap of air squats

Pauliina saw this test somewhere, it's some sort of test published my Finnish military forces so we both tried it out with my baby. The standards were normal, full range of motion. Got to 60 reps, 1 per second. Pretty normal pace as I think about Tabata workouts. I've done about 20 per 20 seconds regularly. It was a good warm-up for a squat day. Of course I did the classic foam rolling, and resistance band things I always do to get some mobility done for pre-workout. Pauliina also smashed the workout with 53 reps.

Strength.

Back squats with a pause
5 x 80, 100, 110kg
3 x 120kg

Usually my pause squats have been either front squats or overhead squats. Back squats were cool too. Gonna do them occasionally. Wanna create strength from becoming out of the hole. The weights in paused squats traditionally have to be lighter because there's more and longer tension focused on the legs. You simply can't perform similar weights on the bar as with regular squats. I want my legs to become stronger, so I'll hit these paused squats on a regular basis together with normal squats.

Pause squats with 120kg

I believe I haven't gone this heavy at all on this type of squats? Completed 110kg for a total of 5 reps and a triple with 120kg. That felt very good. The last reps of 110kg were challenging so every rep done at 120kg was a success.

Metcon. Time 5.07

10-8-6-4-2, handstand push-ups
20-18-16-14-12, box jumps, 61cm

This metcon was created in a second. Wanted to get my breathing going and I haven't done handstand push-ups in a couple of days so it was easy to come up with a good combination of hspu's and box. Pauliina was suggesting to do higher box jumps as an inspiration from yesterday's Winter War. Great idea honey, gonna do them some day, just add couple of plate on top of a 61cm Rogue box.

A total of 30 hspu's and 80 box jumps. I was able to do this one unbroken without stopping to breath. Tried to keep the transition quite quick too. Had no idea how long it would take to finish this one so I started moderately and quickly understood it's gonna be a short one. This mostly burnt my legs.

Hspu's were not bad. Got to bounce them unbroken without much problems. Just jumped on the wall and decided to keep the body moving. The descending ladder made it easier. Had it been the other way around, from 2 to 10 it might have been tougher. Don't know, but I felt great for manhandling the movement.

Metcon, hspu's and box

Box jumps were tougher on the muscles. Had those squats prior to the workout so my legs were on fire in the end. As the number of hspu's were getting smaller it felt like this was all about box jumps. Still, was able to complete them nicely. Didn't stop at any point. All in all this workout went as planned and I'm feeling great!

Winter War. Yesterday we drove to Tampere to witness the Winter War, Finland's version of the Crossfit Games. It was freaking awesome! The atmosphere was spectacular and the athletes were real crossfitters. A total of 9 events of which the rowing 2-part event, something something similar to the last year's Games, a little shorter version though.

Mikko Aronpää, a great Games athlete, took the Finnish title for the third year in a row, 3-peat as they called Rich Froning =) It was a close call this year, as last year's second Mikko Ojala, an unaffiliated guy, huge monster, was a runner up before the last event.

In fact Ojala dominated the final but Aronpää still barely won because of his steady performance through all the workouts during the day, point difference being only 4 points (583p vs. 579p)

Ladder of thrusters and high box jumps

The ladies' winner was Saara Laaksonen, from Crossfit Turku. This year she got the gold medal after being second last year. She dominated the the final event and thus the entire competition. She had a total of 611 points whereas the second took 541 points. No doubt who was the fittest woman in Finland.

Aronpää and Ojala

I was checking the throwdown with Pauliina, Sipa and his training partner Jake. Toni was also in the scene. In fact he spent the entire weekend enjoying the atmosphere.