Friday 9.1: Front squats, Diane

Friday. Strength, front squat 7x5 (115-120kg). Metcon, Diane, 21-15-9 of: deadlift and hspu's.

We went for a dinner after work together with Toni and couple of other colleagues. We had booked a table at restaurant Pastis in Helsinki, good atmosphere and great for a small group's Friday night dinner =) Had to sneak to the gym earlier to hit my daily doze of crossfit.

Damned I felt bad for Jason Khalipa on this event in 2012

Strength.

• Front squat 7x5 (120, 120, 117.5, 117.5, 115, 115, 115kg)

The weight on these load were getting serious. They were supposed to be 120kg squats with a bar on front rack position. One set was okay, the last rep was a battle though. Second set was horrible on the last 2 reps so I decided to drop down 2.5kg. That was a good call. I got the third set done in a similar way as the first. Then it got tough again, and the last two reps were big grinding.

Got energy for one more set at 117.5kg before I had to come down to 115kg. I knew at those thresholds that I have to decrease the load with 2.5kg because the last reps were so challenging and the form wasn't beautiful anymore. I'm very satisfied to that call.

All in all these squats were as mentally and physically tough as I had anticipated. I'm happy they are over to say the truth. Got to take one more session of heavy triples before getting back to regular back squat / front squat rotation.

5x120kg

Diane. Compare to 20.2.2014

• 21-15-9 of:
• Deadlift, 100kg
• Handstand push-ups

I had Diane in mind already about a week ago but today it happened. After squats I took couple of deadlifts and clean pulls just for fun. Then all of a sudden there was exactly 100kg on the bar and I realized myself pulling it for multiple reps. I decided to change the game plan on the fly to complete Diane, classic benchmark stuff. I like this workout because it also shows how your hspu's are developing. By the way, Diane should be 102.5kg to be rx'd but as I just wrote, this was not that much planned so it was accidentally 100kg on the bar.

Because this wasn't that much planned beforehand, I had no clock running at all. My lungs are not in 100% condition so I thought about taking it easier with metcons. As I was pulling away I noticed at some point I'm doing this exactly as if it for time. So it kind of was but there wasn't the timer on anyway.

It was kind of weird to pull deadlift from the ground as it's been so long since that has taken place. I didn't do them unbroken as I would normally do with this kind of light weight. Only last round was unbroken. Hspu's were 16-5 on the first round. Second round might have been 9-6 or 9-3-3. And last round was probably 5-2-2. Anyway, I am sure I spent less time on handstand push-ups than before.

The session was good. Only thing that was a bummer was that my neck got somehow tweaked or something at some point during the front squats. It's sore and it's difficult to tilt my head. Hopefully that goes by quickly, I'd like to turn my head normally.