Thursday 11.9: Squats, Hspu, T2b and Running

Thursday. Strength, back squat, continuing Smolov squats. Metcon, 15min amrap of: 10 hspu, 15 t2b, 200m run. Result, 6rds.

This was a busy day, had to sneak into a dentist in the morning and barber shop in the evening before having the possibility to pick Pauliina up for a late night training session. It turned out to be a good session indeed. My friend Jasper also joined us for crossfit. Pauliina has taken sprints into her program on a frequent basis and she's utilizing tabata perfectly. Little by little she's moved more into crossfit =) This was the second day of Smolov squats, and 15min amrap was there to finish this man.

Strength.

• Back squat 3x8 (95kg), 1x5 (100kg), 2x2 (110kg), 1x1 (115kg)

This was exactly the same rep scheme as yesterday, and the weights were identical too. They felt okay, at some points it felt even better than on Wednesday. The point of this frequent squatting rhythm in the beginning is to get the body used to squatting big volumes. This is part of "Smolov" squat system. You can google it to find out what's it's all about. The point is I'd like to see my legs stronger so this is the first experiment of a strength program. Purely aiming to increase lower body strength.

Squats

Metcon. Result, 6 rounds

• 10 handstand push-ups
• 15 toes-to-bar
• 200m run (on a treadmill)

This workout was great. What I had in mind was something of hspu's and t2b's. I'm glad I changed my original plan which included pistol squats and burpees. I was never pleased with how that workout looked on paper. I thought about including rowing as part of this but Jasper just went working on concept2 and it bailed him right in the beginning. There have been some issues with the machine lately. There's something wrong in the chain and it kind of misses strokes at times. That feels a bit insecure.

Pauliina suggested to take running involved. I don't like to run on a treadmill but for some reason I jumped on to this idea, and made it a 200m run, combined with hspu's and t2b's. Those worked very well together, and I was able to keep good intensity on all movements. Luckily Pauliina also talked me into running faster than what I started at. First round was 12km/h pace, then on the second one I increased it to 16km/h, and kept it there till the end. That was way better pace. It's difficult to know what a good pace would be, especially because I haven't used treadmill practically at all. Just on few occasions. It worked pretty well on this kind of short sprint. You'll never witness me run 10km on that machine =)

I got handstand push-ups unbroken for 4 rounds. That felt very good, and those rocked pretty well up and down as kipping hspu's. On the 5th round it was 6-4 and on the last one 8-2. On the last set the first reps felt lighter for some reason compared to the round before. Also toes-to-bar was my thing today. All rounds unbroken, boom! They felt heavy in the end of the 4th set. Still, I was able to grind through and get them done without dropping down from the bar.

Awesome training day! I felt confident on the squats and on the metcon I was able to maintain a steady pace. It took me 14:50 to finish the workout. I tried to increase the speed of the treadmill a bit higher from 16km/h but accidentally I pushed a wrong number so I ran the last 130m with 18 unit incline. Don't know what that "18" means but suddenly I was running on uphill at a pace of 16km/h. So I was burned after that last sprint and didn't attempt any hspu's anymore. This was enough and I was done.