Sunday 9.2: Mu's, back squat triples, tough metcon

Sunday. Skills, ring muscle-ups. Strength, 5x3 across @ 130kg. Metcon, 15-12-9, thrusters (50kg), pull-ups, ring dips, burpees. Time 12.00.

I had been waiting for this day anxiously. Rest day behind me and lots of energy to be used. Two things I'll look forward every time I have the possibility to do so: ring skills and squats. Those are also two challenging things for me. I celebrate each ring muscle-up I get currently. I don't take them for granted. Squats are something I've forced myself to love. My legs have gotten stronger and it's been transformed also to deadlifts and pretty much all movements. As they say: you wanna get better at something, make your legs stronger. It all begins there.

Working on weaknesses

Skills.

• Ring muscle-ups

Last time I tried these at Liikuntamylly last Friday, I couldn't get any reps done. I knew my body was way too tired to reach the reps. It's still such a taxing movement to me that I need to concentrate properly and the body needs to be receptive to it.

It also seems that I need to do some ring rows to transition movements before attempting any rep. My doing couple those plus a couple of chest-to-bar pull-ups I think the real muscles get activated and I'm better ready for the real deal. Today I got 2 successful reps before getting 2 misses. As I said, I'll celebrate each and every ring muscle-up I', able to perform =) I understood it was time to move on to back squats.

Strength.

• Back squats 3-3-3-3-3 across
• All sets @ 130kg

I had pre-determined the weights already at home 2 days ago. I was hoping to get 120-130 triples for a total of 5 sets. As I started to put weights on the barbell I realized it's very comfortable and the weight is not heavy this time. I took some warm-up sets @ 60, 80, 100kg, then climbed up to 120 and took a triple. Still, I felt like it's time to go heavier so I added 10 more kilos and completed 5 sets @ 130kg.

This is worth celebrating, I don't remember doing this heavy sets, probably like ever. Total of 5 sets, all at 130kg or higher. I've done a triple with 135kg but I don't think multiple sets of triples have taken place at these weights. Rest day probably made it a bit easier but all in all I'm very happy those weights are coming up. There was a time couple of months ago I didn't do many sets at over 100kg, it was more like doing higher reps at lower weights. I've figured it lately because of Pauliina that I need to go heavier in order reach new numbers in squats. I genuinely believe I should be able to squat 2 x bodyweight at some point.

Recap

Metcon. Time 12.00

• 15-12-9
• Thrusters, 50kg
• Pull-ups
• Ring dips
• Burpees

This workout sucked! In it's own gentle way. Thrusters took my strength away and it was very challenging to keep going. It's not an issue for me to get a breath but my strength simply ran out. I wanted to go unbroken for as long as possible but today it wasn't possible all the way. On the thrusters I did the first and last round unbroken, on the second round I did 8+4 reps.

Pull-ups were the easiest ones on this one. Sure it felt a little bad after doing heavy thrusters but it was manageable all the time. Ring dips were the worst. Thrusters were the most all-around energy-sucker but on the ring dips I felt like my power vanished from my shoulders and triceps. Had to cut them to pieces already in the first round. It looks in the video like I hadn't gone low enough but there's a mirror in the gym in front of the rings. I took a glance on every rep that I see my elbow over the shoulder to reach full range of motion. Well, go figure, it was tough anyway.

Number of burpees wasn't bad but the combination of dips and burpees is a killer for the upper body. On the burpees I just tried to think of nothing and just keep on going. Went unbroken on them. The metcon was a good gasser. I wasn't able to keep moving all the time. My goal in pretty much all metcons is to force myself to keep going without having to rest too much. Today the thrusters and ring dips were too much to handle and I had to take breaks to recover some strength in my body.

The training day was great in general. Got some ring mu's to in the beginning, did some heavy triples at back squat and the metcon was one good nightmare. Loved it!