Sunday 31.8: Rings, Rowing, Pistols and Pull-ups

Sunday. Skills, ring muscle-ups. Metcon, 5rds of: 500m row, 10 pistols, 15 pull-ups. Not for time.

Today my body was tired all the way. Felt good wearing my gear and hitting the gym. But once I started moving around, it was obvious pretty soon that this is not going to be one of those days that you remember as an old grandpa. I still got some work done in the metcon that left a good feeling. Plus the mobility session afterwards was from heaven.

Skills.

• Ring muscle-ups

Last ring muscle-up session was the best I've had ever in my life. It felt so natural and the most effortless it's ever been. Today was quite the opposite =) There was some frustration in the game too as it didn't go the way I had imagined in the morning. Didn't wanna stay and bang my head against the wall so I took 3 singles and left it there. Better effort next time. It felt like this tired body wasn't ready for this technical movement.

New mobility toy

Metcon.

• 5 rounds of:
• 500m row
• 10 pistol squats, alternating
• 15 pull-ups

Prior to this workout, I worked for a while on shoulder presses and push presses with light weight barbells. Just kept it at 40-50kg to activate my upper body. This workout was the main thing of this Sunday. I've had pistol squats in my head for a while, and just waited for a good opportunity to throw it into a metcon. This was "Mary"-style action, replaced handstand push-ups with rowing. This was not for time but it took me about 20 minutes. That means to say my rowing was 1.47 on the first round, the next two 500's were 1.48, fourth 1.50 and the last one 1.53.

My goal on the bodyweight movements were to go unbroken, and that was accomplished. Pistol squats went okay. I have no problem knocking them. Form might be better but the movement itself is a pleasant one. My left pistols are clearly stronger than the right leg ones. It might be because of the ankle mobility. I played floorball as a goal keeper for years and my style improved exactly my left leg / ankle much more than the right one. I always played with my left leg under my butt so there's much more flexibility because of that.

Pull-ups were definitely the most challenging part of this workout. I wanted to go unbroken on each round and I'm happy I was able to do exactly that. I believe I could have done 1-2 rounds unbroken on pull-ups too if needed.

This workout was not a timed one but it took me about 20 minutes to finish this one. Didn't rush between stations, but I moved with a purpose still. It was great to have pistols, it's such a good movement. I'll try to remember writing more of those in my metcons.

Recap

Mobility.

Yesterday as we spent the day in the city we happened to wander in couple of sport stores and bought a new mobility toy. We experimented it yesterday for the first time and today it was in heavy use after the workout. Both of us with Pauliina felt like our bodies were hammered from the past days' training so we pounded each other's body with this thing, don't know what to call it =) Maybe it's a "mobility stick".

I just laid on the ground relaxed and Pauliina smashed my quads, hamstrings, calves, traps, lats, arms and basically everything you can massage. Then we changed roles. It felt great after this session. I tried my widest stance in air squat position and it was probably the widest I've ever had. As you can see from the pictures, it's quite the normal of an average Joe but for me it's almost double the regular stance. This was success.

Miami vs. New York