Wednesday 30.9: Row, Shoulder press, Sled, Burpee

Wednesday. Conditioning, 3rds of: 1.000m row, 2min rest. Shoulder press 7x3 (up to 60kg). Intervals, every 3:00 for 21min, perform 20m sled push + 12 burpee.

Morning workout. Conditioning went pretty well but the strength part is always a bit of a struggle in the early morning. Barbell felt heavier than normally. Or actually the bar wasn't that heavy but my limbs felt kind of awkward throughout the session. This is not ideal time of the day for me. But it was great to get a good sweat on!

Conditioning.

• 3 rounds of:
• 1.000m row
• 2min rest between sets

Rowing is something I could basically hit quite soon after walking to the gym. But because it was somewhere 9.00 - 9.30 when it was time to do the work, I took my time in warming up properly before taking the first stroke. Pace was sub 1.50 for each interval. My legs got tired in the middle of the first set =) They started to burn, that shows how "fresh" my body is in the early morning.

For the last two rounds I tried to focus more on the pull with my upper body. Yes, that's definitely not ideal, rowing should be initiated from strong legs but today this lower body would have been out of order for the rest of the session so I had to to this choice.

Strength.

• Shoulder press 3-3-3-3-3-3-3 (50, 55, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60kg)

Traditionally I have ignored shoulder press for strength training. My ideology has been that it's better to have heavier loads overhead in the form of push press / push jerk / split jerk. When you have heavier loads up in the air, it must be more beneficial. This is something that I've tried to implement. Shoulder press is still a great way to test out for pure shoulder strength.

Lately there has been quite a lot of elbow pain. This has occurred more or less in the heavier barbells. Doing shoulder press has not created this kind of pain so I thought it's good to hit some strict press sessions and increase strength in shoulders. It's felt good lately to lift the bar up. Hopefully I can do this stuff in the future as well. It's an awesome feeling to totally burn the shoulders, by any means possible.

Intervals.

• Every 3:00, for 21min, perform the following:
• 20m sled push + 12 burpee

This was created on the spot after presses. Burpees came to my mind first, sled slowly creeped somewhere from the back of my head. Great couplet in my opinion! The purpose of this workout was to go all out from the gates in every set, then maximize the recovery before next session. There would have been no point in taking each interval easily. The point was to go hard.

As this type of workouts usually tend to be, this got tougher towards the end. There was enough recovery between each interval but legs were burning more and more in the last rounds, and breathing was not easy. Actually it always hit me right after the last burpee. That was the toughest part as it felt like someone just hit me in the face at that point. These were quick intervals so it was possible to go 100% pace from the very beginning in all 7 sets.