Friday 14.11: Squats, Pair workout

Friday. Strength, back squat triples (max 135kg). Pair workout with Toni, 5rds of: 20 shoulder-to-overhead (50kg), 30 pull-ups, 40 ring push-ups. Time, 20.30.

We went to the gym early this afternoon. I had the privilege of working out with Toni, great man and a great athlete. We don't have the opportunities to train that much together so every time I see him work with a barbell, his technique seems to have improved since last time. Today I was admiring his push jerks and split jerks in a similar way, great speed! I got my squats in the beginning, then I talked Toni into throwing down for a pair workout.

Strength.

• Back squat, 3x100, 112.5, 127.5, 135, 135, 135, 135kg

Today I had planned on climbing up to heavy weights. Due to this damned wrist I have put a lot of work on lower body this week and yesterday there were plenty of pistol squats and rowing to get these legs smashed. Maybe that's why they weren't that fresh for extreme squatting. In the end, I'm very satisfied to this squat session! The only thing I was left thinking was that my last set was supposed to be hard core: 142.5kg (95%). We talked it over with Toni that maybe it's better to push it through with 135 anyway.

First sets were light and good warm-up sets. First real set was 127.5kg. However, that brought no problems at all but I felt the next set might be rough. And it was. I got a total of 4 sets at 135kg for triples which is 90% of my one rep max. Those were expectably heavy and Toni had to assist the last rep in either the first or second set, probably the first. My legs were chicken legs at that point and I realized it was some mental weakness. One pal was talking positive things to me about the loads I was able to lift so I decided to put some more aggression on the barbell. This resulted in getting the remaining sets done on my own. They were heavy but I got them!

Pair workout. Time, 20.30

• 5 rounds of:
• 20 shoulder-to-overhead, 50kg
• 30 pull-ups
• 40 ring push-ups

Toni had thought about concentrating only on light barbell work for technical purposes. I'm hoping this guy's back will heal soon so he can start lifting heavy bars again. He was easy to persuade for a pair workout. He had his back problems and I have my wrist issues so we talked it over for some time before we reached a consensus of what we are able to complete =)

This turned out to be shoulder-to-overhead with 50kg, pull-ups and push-ups on rings. I was very optimistic on push presses but still it was scary at the same time. I haven't pushed anything in about two weeks now. I tried it with empty bar and it felt painless. Then I threw 40kg on the bar just to see whether the weights would bring more pressure. It didn't. That feeling was awesome, so we decided to adjust the barbell at 50kg and go for some push jerks.

We agreed on the reps so that we both did 10 reps of jerks in the beginning. Later on in the workout it changed to 5's as our shoulders and triceps were burning too much. As you probably know, the pull-up station is close to a wall and it was too much for Toni to handle as he has used to do strong kipping pull-ups at Crossfit Vantaa where they have a great rig and plenty of room. That was a bit more difficult for that reason so we divided the reps so that Toni did 5's and I did 10's as this was my home turf. I went unbroken in the pull-ups which means to say there were 10x10 reps of pull-ups.

Push-ups are too painful but Toni suggested we'd try out them on the rings. That was a smart decision. In the first round we completed 20 reps in a row, then on the following rounds it was 10's, and a bit smaller sets in the last 1-2 rounds.

Originally we thought about this for 20min amrap but as the 5th round was so close to end we changed our minds in the last round to go a little further. We ended up doing 5 full rounds for time, at 20:30. It was a great feeling to train with Toni!