Monday 1.9: Front squats and Team DT

Monday. Strength, 5-5-5-5 (max 115kg). Team DT, 5rds of: 12 deads, 9 hang power clean, 6 push jerk, with a 70kg barbell.

It was a great training day for sure. What led to this? My main man Toni came back to our gym where it all started from. My body felt tired yesterday but today it was all fresh. Good move by Toni to start persuading me to hit a partner workout of the hero wod DT. We did it as a team, first time for me to hit this one. Did some front squat as strength to start the session. Toni went after hang power cleans for strength.

Strength.

• Front squat 5-5-5-5 (100, 110, 115, 110kg)

My last back squat session (last Saturday) was not a huge success, and that's been bothering me so I decided to get it out of my system as soon as possible. Changed it to front squats for this Monday, and 5's were in my mind for the entire day. It was a better effort, that 115kg was a tight one but 110kg lifts left a little energy in my tank still. 100kg front squats are too light for strength regularly. There might be days when they seem suitable but at the moment we are at a stage where the bar needs to have more load than 100kg. I'm very happy on the depth of my squat nowadays. Toni said something strange has happened to my mobility. It's been a while since we've trained together and nowadays I drop my butt to the ground every time I squat for strength. That feels like a huge thing for my mobility too.

Team DT.

• 5 rounds of:
• 12 deadlift, 70kg
• 9 hang power clean, 70kg
• 6 push jerk, 70kg
• One athlete completes all of the deads, cleans and push jerks, then passes off to the other athlete who completes all the reps. That is one full round

This was awesome. Tough but awesome! I began this partner workout by doing one round of DT, after which I handed it over to Toni and he nailed one similar round. We both did 5 rounds alternating after each round. The bar was at 70kg which was a little intimidating, especially as I don't know if I've ever done heavier hang power cleans than 70kg. My hang cleans have traditionally been "high hang cleans" or "tall cleans", meaning I don't use the momentum of taking the bar from mid-thigh or lower. It's mostly from a still position by initiating the bar from as high as possible.

It was a mind blowing experience hearing some tips on the bar movement from Toni. After we talked about it for a while, I tried his advice and nailed easy 60 / 70kg hang power cleans. That was strange as hell. But when I think about it, it's not such a mystery. When you clean it from lower position, it's pretty obvious you get more momentum and elevation to the barbell. Thus it feels lighter and you're able to clean / snatch more weight.

Those deadlifts were light naturally. The number of them and the movement pattern itself makes me breath more heavily than normally. So I took 11 deads, dropped the bar, caught my breath and moved on to cleans. There I took the last (12th) deadlift to get to the starting point of hang power cleans. Had no idea how many hang power cleans I might take. Something like 5 was in my mind in the beginning. But once I started pulling, it happened out that I took 8 reps in a row, then dropped the bar. Then another breath taking session and regrip on the bar. Take the last hang power clean and put the bar overhead, 6 times unbroken.

That was the game plan from then on. This was ambitious but I was able to stay with this rep scheme all the way for the entire 5 rounds. Practically unbroken sets of deadlifts, hang power cleans and push jerks. I just dropped the barbell between these movements before moving on to the next move. Because I was able to stick to this system, that also kept the round times steady. It took me about 1:30-1:45 each round. It was the recovery time between movements that got a little longer towards the end because of heavy breathing.

I'm thankful for Toni for giving those valuable tips on hang cleans. This was an awesome workout, especially done with a partner. That's why it was possible to keep a good pace on each round. Doing DT as individual would be totally another ball game because of lack of recovery time. The bar is rather heavy for this kind of movement pattern.