Saturday 3.1: Clean and jerk complex, 30min pair wod

Saturday. Skills, muscle-ups, rope climb. Strength, c&j complex, 1 clean + 3 jerk (max 95kg). Pair workout, 30min amrap of: 4 rope climb, 8 bar mu's, 16 burpee box, 32 partner wb's, 18m overhead walking lunges (40kg). Result, 5rds + 3 rope climb.

Great experience! Working out with Toni. This was my third trip to his crossfit affiliate ever. Every time it's been like two kids in a candy shop. These training sessions have been a blast and awesome things have happened. We like to throw down for a pair workout those times that we rarely get to train together. Today I learned new skills, we hit oly lifts and finally a long metcon together. It was probably closer to 3 hours that I spent at the Box. Later in the afternoon I headed downtown with Pauliina for a date night. Food and movies, just the way we like it =)

Skills.

• Bar muscle-ups
• Rope climb

I took about an hour to warm-up. No need to rush at all. That is great, body thanks for it every time. There was open gym and the Box was full of people so I took my time and taped up, mobilized my joints, did lots of Coach Burgener warm-ups, foam rolled, used resistance band to open up my shoulders and lats too. It was also awesome to just see everybody work their fitness. There were some studs at the affiliate. Couple of them are headed to Winter War, Finland's national competition to find out who's the toughest man / woman in the country.

Finally I touched the pull-up bar, took couple of reps just to get the rhythm going on. The rig was great and it's easy to string reps together. Much easier compared to my home gym, no doubt about it. There's so much room for legs to move around that you can use a good kip. For pull-ups I've developed a style where I don't need it anymore that much but for muscle-ups it's a taken.

For the first attempt at bar mu's I took 4 good reps. It's been a while since last time I had the chance to try these because at my home gym I should do them pretty strict and I haven't practiced those at all. So it must have been some time in autumn I took my previous bar mu's. Before any attempts I did couple of reps in my head to ease the path. After first rep it got back to muscle memory right away. On the second attempt I took 7 reps. Just for fun, getting the touch on the movement. Great feeling!

It was awesome to see people started to work their muscle-ups too, and we talked with couple of dudes on how to get those mu's rolling. I felt very humble people came to talk to me like I was a regular at their Box and give credits on those repetitions. They were also interested in the background as I'm not training at any affiliate. The atmosphere is warm here at Crossfit Vantaa. I understand why Toni busts his ass there on a regular basis.

I've touched a rope three times in my life. And completed as much as 2 rope climbs that I remember in all 35 years of my life. Climbing ropes was anyway my idea. I want to know how it feels like and I also want to be good at it. It's been in the back of my head to acquire a rope and throw it around a tree branch for some play time. Anyway, after Toni showed me how to do them, it was easy. It burned but there were no issues in getting up there.

Strength.

• Clean and jerk complex
• 1 clean + 3 split jerk (60, 70, 80, 85, 90, 95kg)
• 1 clean and jerk at 100kg

Little by little people started to leave from the Open Gym and we had time and space to work these complexes. Toni was guiding people during the morning so he couldn't work on his own naturally. We both completed clean & jerks in complex style. I did the same as last earlier, 1+3 style as jerk is weaker than clean. Toni has quite the opposite so he did 2 cleans + 1 jerk.

These felt good. I climbed up without a proper plan. Hit 80kg jerks t'n'g from front rack, and from 85kg on I took a breath before jerking it again. Okay, the bar was quite heavy even though I got them done well. So I didn't go heavier than 95kg even though I had something like that in mind. Still, I wanted to take one rep at 100kg just to get that heavy single under my belt. Have to get those heavy singles done too. I'm very satisfied on this strength portion!

Pair workout. Result, 5 rounds + 3 rope climb

• 30min amrap of:
• 4 rope climb
• 8 bar muscle-ups
• 16 burpee box jump
• 32 partner wall ball shots
• 18m overhead walking lunges, 40kg

Long workout. Neither of us knew how this would turn out to be like. It was a wild card so to say. With my top climb background and high-rep number of bar muscle-ups in a metcon, hmm. Haven't done them in metcons at all. And those are not walk in the park for my training partner either. He can definitely do both of them which is freaking awesome but these were both something that we are not used to on a regular basis. Plus Toni just did 28 bar mu's yesterday in his training session, that's a lot for us.

There were lots of elements that are not everyday elements. I'm really happy we were both able to perform well and consistently throughout the workout. In addition to ropes and mu's, we added spice to this soup by throwing partner wall balls in. That means I shot the 9kg ball to the wall, Toni caught it, and threw it right back. Overhead walking lunges are always a pleasure. Not very often you see these, my share of oh lunges usually takes place in Klaukkala when I work outdoors at the in-laws.

This workout was very well planned after all. Risk was worth taking. And it feels so good to get these new elements included in a metcon. We were able to maintain a solid pace all the way. Basically there weren't any big breaks when clock was running. This was more like interval training. While I was working, Toni had his break. When I was done, it was high fives and you're on mister.

We did rope climbs in singles, one for me, one for Toni, and repeat. Plan for the muscle-ups was to split them in 2 sets, 4 & 4. That worked perfectly for first 2 rounds. From then on I did 5 and Toni did 3 reps. Those were damned hard towards the end but we both nailed them as planned. Awesome work pal!

Burpee box jumps were naturally 8-8 for both. It was probably a bit tougher for Toni as I did them first, and he was down then. I had my time to settle breathing down whereas he was getting some wall balls right at his face after burpee boxes. Those box jumps really got to our legs, even with as few reps but still. Lunges were okay, not the toughest of these but they still got the wod-feeling on. And it never got easier to jump for the rope again.

Fastened recap of the entire 30 minutes

We battled through 5 full rounds and 3 rope climbs before the time cap was done. Got a total of 40 bar muscle-ups during the day and 15 rope climbs in addition to all other work. We got Toni a new toy for birthday present in addition to the Rogue box =), and he started to play with it right away. Sony's version of the Go Pro camera. Freaking awesome tool. Check out Ponyschannel on Instagram to see couple of videos from today's training. The video above is also made with that camera.