Thursday 26.2: Bar complex, pull-ups test, bench

Thursday. Bar complex of cleans, front squat and jerks. Gymnastics, max reps pull-ups (PR 41). Bench triples (70-90kg).

Felt good going to the gym with Pauliina. Body was okay, no prob whatsoever, ready to hit it hard. At warm-up I realized my legs are sore as hell. Foam rolling my thighs was painful as hell and I remembered I completed 4 sets of triples @ 135kg yesterday. I've done 1 set before at that weight… No wonder my trunks were a bit tired today. So it turned out to be a lighter day this Thursday. One PR was still the outcome!

Bar complex.

• 1 power clean
• 1 squat clean
• 2 front squats
• 2 jerks
• Weights, 40, 45, 50, 55, 60, 65, 70kg

One tremendous workout is completing this complex starting in an ascending ladder style. Starting from about 50% of jerk's 1 rep max, finishing one set of the complex and then add 5kg on the bar. Keep adding 5kg after each set till failure. Once you can't move the bar anymore, start over and repeat the whole thing. Awesome workout for strength, technique and muscle endurance. Love it!

I've done it twice to around 80-85kg, take a look at the specs and video here. I believe I could have it what it takes to reach 90kg, at least somewhere around there. Today my legs were jello at 60kg, they obviously hadn't recovered enough from yesterday. Other than that the bar was moving nicely. I had good cleans and jerks, the weights were quite light anyway.

Bench 90kg

Gymnastics. Result 41 reps

• Max reps unbroken pull-ups

Last time I tried for max reps was in the summer time as I was hitting benchmark workout Nicole at Pirkkola with Marko. Nicole is 20min amrap of pull-ups and running, nasty lady got to say. Anyway, as it was difficult to continue moving the barbell I decided to jump on the pull-up bar and give myself a gymnastics test. As many unbroken reps as possible. I wanted to nail a record even with a tired body.

I took a firm grip so my hands wouldn't get ripped due to friction between palms and the bar. Tried to keep it as stable as possible. Pull-up bars sometimes give me problems as the calluses tend to cause some injuries. Today it was no issue at all. At 15 reps it felt like nothing, easy stuff. At 25 reps I knew it's gonna be a PR day. I was able to continue the continuous movement up to about 32 reps, then took a breath and continued moving. It was a battle till the finish from then on.

My bro just got 40 reps about 2 weeks ago so it was compulsory to fight it a little on top of him. It's classic bro-rivalry between us that pushes us both to better achievements =) That's exactly the reason why we've been trying to match the schedules to train together. This far it's been impossible, hopefully we'll find some time.

Bench.

• 5x60, 5x70, 3x80, 3x90, 3x90kg

Wasn't ready with working out, Pauliina hinted me to try some bench. I took it easy as my body wasn't the most receptive at the moment. Still, it was good I got some reps at 90kg. This was more like a little fun in the end, nothing serious. The entire training day was lighter in nature. It was still awesome to hit those pull-ups better than I've done ever before.

Games update show

Mobility. In the end it was just natural to do some mobility, stretching and rubber band movements. Usually I'm in a hurry after the workouts and there's not that much time afterwards. I spend quite a time prior to the workouts in getting my body ready. Plus at home I use foam roll a lot and hang from a pull-up bar several times a day just to loosen some tension in the upper back of mine. Very useful stuff.

By the way, Crossfit Open 2014 is about to start now! The first event announcement goes live 5.pm pacific time, so in Finland we'll see it in the morning if I've understood the time zones correctly. Well, it comes sometime during the night so the first thing I'll do when I wake up is check the workout. I'm not participating in the Open but I'm following the competition closely and cheering for my bro and Toni in their pursuit on the competition.