Sunday 17.5: Battle ropes, Push press, Long metcon

Sunday. Battle ropes. Emom x 10min: 2 push press (max 80kg). Chipper, 2k row, 50 ohs (40kg), 50 t2b, 50 s2o (40kg), 50 burpee box jump. Time, 28min

Once again, the signs are that the summer is around the corner. It was awesome to wake up to this kind of weather so there was simply no option but to put eat a huge breakfast at our balcony in the sun, digest it for a while and head outdoors for a long walk in the nature. That is our thing. In the evening Jasper joined me for a good training session at OPCenter.

Battle ropes. They acquired these battle ropes at the gym some time ago. I haven't touched them before. Only once last spring when we visited California with Pauliina there was one hotel that had them. That San Francisco hotel had insane gym. Really made a difference compared to other hotel gyms around there.

Jasper suggested these so we took turns learning how to make them move efficiently. This was basically our warm-up after some mobility. You don't have to do this for long in order to activate entire body and to break a good sweat. You have different styles I guess, doing small or big moves, we tried both and they had different stimulus. Good conditioning element!

Strength.

• Every minute on the minute for 10 minutes
• 2 push press (2x70, 2x73, 2x75, 2x78, 2x80kg)

Lately I haven't had any issues with my shoulder that hindered me from doing overhead strength for some weeks. This portion of the training session felt very good. We did them simultaneously with Jazz so that he started at 0:00 and I started my share at 0:30, taking a double every minute on the minute. This way we got a chance to observe the other's moves and give coaching tips during the presses.

I started at 70kg, and built up after every 2 minutes. It felt good all the time so I kept putting weight on the bar. My friend did the same, adding load after every 2 minutes. It was great to see him smash the weights too. Last set was something I needed to focus a lot on but it came up nicely.

Presses

Metcon. Time 28min

• 2.000m row
• 50 overhead squat, 40kg
• 50 toes-to-bar
• 50 shoulder-to-overhead
• 50 burpee box jump

Another inspiration from the Crossfit Regionals. Yesterday evening I already put the lights off and was about to put my head to the pillow. Then this hit me. Had to pick up my phone again and open my training notes. This is what I came up with. This somehow remotely reminds of the workout where they ran, did ohs, ghd sit-ups and a bunch of other stuff.

Chippers are the worst to me. Doing a bunch of work on one single movement without having the goal line in sight. As Jasper said at some point of the workout "why do you do this kind of shit?". I think that was a legit question for sure. That time I thought the same question myself. It was a dark moment.

It definitely helped to have a training partner do the same workout, and it pushed me further as well. Two kilometer row to start with. No point in putting all in on that one because what you gain compared to what it might do to your body is not worth it in my opinion.

Overhead squats were 10-8, and then mostly 6 rep sets.  Toes-to-bar's were 10-10-10, and 5's to the end. I felt yesterday's 120 ghd's in my core before this so that brought its own twist in a funny way. S2o's were pretty much the same as ohs. I remember they were 10-8-7, and then 5's all the way.

At this point my shoulders were killing me. So it was great to throw down, and push myself up from there. Hmm, let me think again, it wasn't. Breathing was at its max pretty soon after couple of burpee box jumps, and stayed there for the rest of the wod. I thought pushing it for a big set in the beginning, and then go by feeling. My mind changed after 7 reps, these felt horrible. I took 10 reps, and then had to do them in sets of 5 reps till the end. The feeling was a bit hopeless to say the least. We both seemed to share the same feeling. What a great workout for conditioning, pure crossfit!