Monday 5.5: Gymnastics day

Monday. Gymnastics: Skills, ring muscle-ups. For quality, 5rds of: 5 strict push-ups, 10 pistols, 15 pull-ups. More skills, weighted pistols squats, one-arm overhead squats, one-arm overhead pistol squats.

Wanted to take it a little easier today so I went through a different style training session. Started off with ring muscle-ups, then some more bodyweight stuff by working on my strict hspu's, lots of pistols and a good bunch of pull-ups.

New fruit & nut bar in test

Skills.

• Ring muscle-ups

It felt as good as it always does =) Had no problems getting up there, that seems to be the trend now. I'm very happy over this topic. Haven't used much false grip lately because I wanna get rid of that. It's there in my skills tool bag just in case if I need it but mostly I try to go without false grip.

Workout. For quality

• 5 rounds of:
• 5 strict handstand push-ups
• 10 pistol squats
• 15 pull-ups

This is important stuff. Haven't done many strict hspu's and it was a good reminder when I looked at the Regionals workouts that these need to be worked as well. It was said in one of the Update Shows that there are teams that have said they didn't practice strict hspu's at all in the past year. I bet these guys will face some problems in those tough workouts.

So I did 5 strict hspu's per round. They are clearly tougher than kipping version. Then pistol squats. On some rounds I went alternating leg after each rep. On some rounds I did 5 reps left leg, then switched to right leg. I tried to do these as slow and controlled as possible to teach my body the correct path up and down. I felt very confident on the movement. This is my thing. I remember not being able to complete one single rep when I started crossfit. By crossfitting my mobility, strength, balance and coordination has improved so much that this movement is not challenging anymore.

Pull-ups I did unbroken. That was the goal and I had no doubts of not reaching that. I tried to keep my legs together, looking to engage good kip movement in my hip.

Skills.

• One-arm overhead squats, 10kg kettlebell
• Weighted pistol squats, 10kg kettlebell in front rack position
• Weighted pistol squats, 10kg kettlebell in one-arm overhead squat position

In the end I played with my mobility, and skills. I'm not sure I have ever been able to complete a 1-arm overhead squat with a kettlebell. At least to parallel. It felt magnificent! Something has happened and my mobility has improved. The weight itself was light, the main focus was on body movement.

After having done couple of tens of pistol squats, I took a kettlebell in front rack position and did some weighted pistols. It was naturally heavier but similar movement, no problem. But the last thing was over the top: pistols squats while having a kettlebell in 1-arm overhead squat position. That was sick. Never thought I'd make it but there I was, had to sit in the very bottom, stay there for a second or two as a pause squat and then get back up.

This was the first crossfit video I ever saw. Ben Smith doing thrusters and c2b's