Sunday 23.2: Front squats, deads and metcon

Sunday. Strength, front squat triples (100-120kg). Deads, emom, 2 reps @ 150-160kg, for 10min. Metcon, 21-15-9, high box jumps and pistols.

It's already 3 days since last squat day so why not shoot for another one? Couldn't find a reason so it was time load the bar, go down and back up. I found time for front squats this time. Heavy triples. And as I just wrote some time ago, if I wanna do deadlifts I better do them on the same day. So I took 2 deadlifts in emom style. My metcon was easier one today with two skills oriented movements.

Squats

• Front squats 3-3-3-3-3 (100, 110, 115, 120, 120kg)

I've done mostly back squats in the past week. Couple of paused front squat sessions. As I recall I haven't done that many front squats with near max loads. If I don't count the 130kg single rep some time ago. Anyway, I thought the time was ready to see some heavier reps.

115kg

I enjoyed the squats tremendously. When I first touched a barbell some 1.5 years ago front squat pretty soon became my favorite movement. Nowadays I love to squat no matter what type of movement plus heavy cleans are my kind of stuff. I'm very happy I feel comfortable under the bar because I believe strong legs are the key to success. It seems to ease all other movements plus it's vital part of having a strong engine.

I started the sets on the front squats at 100kg. This weight was a little too light but as I jumped to 110-120kg the bar got heavy. I'm very happy the way the bar moved today. Doing 2 triples @ 120kg satisfied my needs for this squat session. I haven't kept any stats of doing doubles, triples or any other sets. I've only put the 1 rep max numbers up. But I feel like doing 2 sets at 3x120kg is something that hasn't been seen before.

120kg

That felt great and now as I'm at home and thinking about this it feels even better as I understand I haven't done multiple triples at this weight. Got to love it!

Emom.

• Every minute on the minute, for 10min
• 2 deadlifts (5min at 150kg, 5min at 160kg)

Deadlifting after squatting works for me. Either for strength or for metcon purposes. I took only 2 reps per minute, every minute, for 10 minutes. That makes it 20 reps. The bar weighed 150kg for the first 5 minutes, after which I added it to 160kg.

I had no probs moving the bar. I wouldn't have mind the technique being better (chest more upright) but I'll take this for now. The palms of my hands were so sore for some reason. It didn't feel good to hold the bar. My hands were so dry that it hurt to have a decent grip. Got do to some maintenance at home.

This was a good one. The weight was around 75% of my one rep max. It might be a good idea to do deadlifts as emom training more. Usually I've applied it to cleans, jerks and squats and they seem to work perfectly.

Metcon. For quality

• 21-15-9
• High box jumps (61cm box + 8 plates)
• Pistol squats

Something fun in the end. Box jumps and pistol squats. 45 reps each. Twist with the boxes was that I added 8 weight plates on top of the box to reach some hight on the vertical jump. One plate is around 5cm so I guess this was about 1m high box jump.

This was created on the spot. It just came to my mind that I've been thinking about those high box jumps for a while. I asked Pauliina what could be mixed in with them, and decided to go whatever comes out =) Well, she made it a bit challenging on the lower body: pistol squats. Box and pistols, nice!

I was able to keep a good pace on the workout. Didn't have to stop at any time in either of the movements. That surprised me positively. I thought it would burn my legs bad but they survived well. And I didn't come crashing down on the box jumps after having fatigue in my legs. That was a plus. Box might be cruel and eat people's shins for breakfast.

This was a good training session, again. I was able to nail those front squat and deadlifts as I wanted and the metcon was a nice little play in the end to get some heart rate up and working on some skills.