Wednesday 8.4: Snatch, T2b, High box + Running

Wednesday. AM: High hang snatches (up to 60kg). Metcon, 10min amrap of: 10 t2b, 10 db snatch (25kg), 10 high box (70cm). Result, 172 reps. PM: Running 4x400m. Total 7km running for recovery.

Being on a vacation is like living a dream. I get a chance to workout twice a day, eat and sleep well and still arrange things that needs to be arranged in life. I'm definitely taking advantage of this holiday! At noon I went to the gym to work on my snatches, then back home to eat. Later the same day I went running in the woods and ended up at Eltsu track for some intervals.

Snatches.

• High hang snatches
• 5 x 40, 40, 45kg
• 3 x 50kg
• 1 x 55, 57.5, 60, 60, 60, 60, 60kg

This time I decided to take these snatches from the pocket instead of floor. This way I get the touching point between barbell and hips to the correct place. From the floor it's not that obvious for me. I just realized today that on those days that I don't have hours to workout and there are snatches on the agenda, I need to focus purely on snatches. What I mean by this is I have to take such a long warm-up leading up to squat snatches that it's definitely worth sacrificing all the time on that.

If I skip the half an hour warm-up my shoulders and hips are not open enough and it feels like I'm forcing those extreme positions. Doing snatch balances with both a broomstick and empty 20kg barbell are a game changer. Those have really made my life better.

So it was time to do squat snatches. And it's really comforting to know it's okay to drop the barbell in case you miss it. It allows you to take more risks. I started to build up from 40kg, took two sets and the third 5-rep set as at 45kg. From then on I dropped the reps and added weight. Finished with 60kg singles. There's obviously tons of issues to be fixed on my snatch. Haven't really squat snatched before last fall because my mobility wasn't there. Now it's getting much better and there's a possibility to go deep.

Recap

Metcon. Result, 172 reps (5 rounds + 2 box)

• 10min amrap of:
• 10 toes-to-bar
• 10 dumbbell snatch, 5 right / 5 left (25kg dumbbell)
• 10 high box jump, 70cm

There were overhead squats and t2b's marked up in my calendar but that wasn't going to happen. I was done with that barbell for this day. Instead, I picked up a 25kg dumbbell and rolled a box so it stood at 70 centimeters.

This was intensive workout once again. Not that long - 10 minutes - so I was able to keep moving between the stations. There were 75 ghd sit-ups yesterday but my core felt good so I dared to put more t2b's in this one. Those went unbroken and they should have, even though they started to feel uncomfortable deep inside later in the wod because of those ghd's.

This dumbbells is pretty much the heaviest I've used for db snatches. Usually it's around 20-25kg. This time I did 5 reps with right hand, then 5 reps with left hand. One option would be to change after each hand. No biggie, but these were tough but okay.

Box jumps were the ones that wore be the most. Haven't done that much high box jumps. That's obvious because I haven't seen a high box before. Only randomly I've had the opportunity to do these 70cm jumps. Can't do them t'n'g style. They are singles but I'm going back up right away.

Running.

• 4x400m
• Total of 7km running

After eating, relaxing and foam rolling for 2-3 hours I put on my jogging pants on and headed outdoors.  It was a great weather for sure. Windy but sun was shining and birds were singing. My destination was in Eltsu track and field, the legendary training place. This is the practice place when Helsinki hosts World / Europe Championships in Athletics.

It's about 2km distance from my place to here so that was my warm-up. Some stretching and lunges, hip openers and I was ready to go. Took only 4 sets of 400m running. Basically because I've been busting my butt off this week and feel a bit sore from everywhere. Plus I hate running =) Don't even know why I bothered coming here. I guess because I wanna be a better all-around athlete. If I was about to compete, I'd be running more, much much more.

The point is I suck at it. I've ran so much in my past life that I've ran my share. When my floorball career was going on, it was part of a daily routine, on some days it was shorter, some days longer distances. Summer times were all about running to create a good basic conditioning. My pace today on those intervals was around 1:33 / 400m. That means to say it wasn't the fastest pace on planet earth. Still, it felt good to get these legs moving! Afterwards I did couple of rounds with different pacing, and ran home.

Thursday 24.4: Track and field, ohs, oh lunges

Thursday. Day in Eltsu. Skills, handstand walk. Mobility, hurdle step-overs. Plyometric, hurdle jump-overs. Sprints, 4x400m. Technique, overhead squats, overhead lunges.

Perfect surroundings in Eltsu. Mother nature was hugging me with astounding weather. It was extremely satisfying to work outdoors at the track. Started with skills training, then moved on to play with hurdles, some mobility drills and plyometric work. Then couple of 400m sprints, finishing it off with one mile run with easy pace. Wanted to touch the barbell too so I went indoors to work on my overhead squats and a newcomer, overhead lunges! My body has taken some hit this week so I kept it at one session today. Took a nap, and ate well to recover.

Track and field.

• 800m run, easy pace
• Handstand walk
• Hurdle step-overs 8x8
• Hurdle jump-overs 8x6
• Sprints, 400m every 3:00 (splits 1.30, 1.28, 1.27, 1.26)
• 1.600m run, easy pace

After running, warming-up, completing tons of lunges and mobility I took on handstand walking. The platform on a track is simply perfect. Couldn't be better. It was a totally different thing compared to my previous hs session in Klaukkala on grass that wasn't a balanced ground. I still need a flat platform with these skills.

It felt good today and my goal was to walk on my hands, not just trying to find balance. Didn't measure the distances, couple of meters were gained per attempt. It was around 20 seconds of inverted position.

Handstand walk recap

Hurdle work is great. Too rarely do I get the chance to go after them. When I played floorball I had one coach that obviously loved them so we used to play with them quite a lot in the summer time. For us goalies he put us do even more drills to enhance hip mobility. I remember having done hundreds of repetitions per training session.

Then, we used to run a lot after them. It was a totally different style of training that time. It wasn't much of strength work. Mostly core and endurance work by running in different methods. And as a goalie, I didn't run at all during the season =) But I guess my core got in good shape because of those times.

Hurdle recap

Today I reminisced some of those hurdle drills. Started by walking over the obstacles, 8x8. Don't have the best of hip mobility but I still feel like it was smoother than it used to be. There's clearly happened some development, on mobility all over my body. Crossfit has helped tremendously on this issue.

Another drill was jump-overs. I've done lots of box jumps that create explosiveness. This is somewhat similar exercise but also improve on elasticity, balance and coordination. Couple of times I lost rhythm on the jumps which indicate inaccuracy in my concentration. Once I focused it was a good workout! Would be awesome to have these more often.

I also wanted to run once there's a chance for that. Took 400m sprints, not all in effort but still with a good pace. I'd like to see myself running easy 1.20 splits and max effort somewhere sub 1.10. Not there yet. Those times used to be my regular times. I remember having ran 8x400m with an average of 1.22 pace when I started crossfit. That time I ran a lot more and okay, I weighed also 10kg less. I've gained lots of strength and muscle since then. My breathing is under control pretty well but my legs start to go burn on inner thighs a lot during the sprints. Got to run now in the summer time more than during winter to regain that speed. My round times got a little faster by the round.

Barbell. Overhead work

• Overhead squat technique (40-50kg)
• Overhead lunges 3x10, alternating legs (40kg)

After running for 1.600m for recovery to flush legs it was time to go indoors for some barbell work. Didn't go heavy this time, just worked on my overhead squat technique with rather light weights, mostly 40kg, one set of 50kg was thrown in too. In the beginning I noticed my depth wasn't there but luckily I had my coach (=camera) with me to witness this. He told me to go deeper so I fixed it. Too mostly sets of 5's but in the end a set of 15 reps just for fun.

But hey, how cool is overhead lunges? First time I tried it and now I understand how magnificent element that is. They've done front rack lunges and overhead lunges in Regionals and Games lately and I watched those events with a desire to hit this type of movements myself. They also had similar stuff in Finland's own "Crossfit Games", Winter War as we call it. I had only 40kg on the bar but I got the point.

It's definitely a whole-body movement where you have to keep entire core tight, do lots of work with legs and shoulder to stabilize the bar and not drop it. There's probably not a muscle in the body that you don't work with. I took 3 sets of 10 reps in the end of this training session.

Barbell recap

All in all, it was a great day. Skills, mobility, plyometric work, sprints and some barbell work. Only thing missing was a hardcore metcon. Let's see what tomorrow brings us!

Tuesday 15.4: Sprints, bar mu's, outdoor metcon

Tuesday. Outdoor training at Pirkkola. Sprints, 4x400m. Skills, bar muscle-ups. Metcon, 4rds of: 350m run, 20 pull-ups, 8/8 kb shoulder-to-overhead (32kg). Time 15.30

Outdoor training at Pirkkola, with my big bro, c'mon! I intend to spend more time here in the spring / summer, goal is to go once a week and practice on my running skills / speed / intervals and also bar muscle-ups. It's also great to combine running into metcons. These are actually all the elements we did today with Sipa, "sprints", bar mu skills and metcon with running. Tough one.

Sprints.

• 4x400m run

Those sprints were quite pathetic at this time of the spring. Haven't been running much during the winter time. My legs are still out of order from Sunday's funday-squats. They were stiff as wooden logs as we entered Pirkkola. Our goal was to take couple of faster runs on the track. Then hit some skills and metcon. Since it's been a while since running 400's we decided to take it easier on this first track and field session.

It felt like my legs were led. It was far from having a light feeling. My bro's body and steps looked way lighter and he felt like running faster. This was a good season opener, looking to improve my time a lot from today's time. I have actually never in my life timed 400m. Last summer we ran 1.10 when we took some sprints with Sipa and Toni. Today those splits were around 1.30. That's a pace I should have on longer distances too. I've maintained about 1.35min / round pace for 3k in the past.

Skills.

• Bar muscle-ups

I can complete bar muscle-ups without problems, have been able for a longer time already. But there are technicalities I need to fix. It's not balanced at all. My lower body does not do the work correctly. My right leg does some sort of kipping whereas left leg just hangs there. That results in landing unbalanced over the pull-up bar. That's not a good thing.

I was trying to fix this issue today with the help of my bro. As you see in the video I can do some sort of kipping movement with my legs but once I need to start pulling myself up I kind of forget the leg work totally. This is another issue that can be fixed here in Pirkkola. Once that's taken care of I aim to learn do the bar muscle-ups without that much of a kip so that I can do them also at my home gym where the pull-up bar is close to the wall. Currently that disturbs me too much so it's difficult to practice this skill there.

Metcon. Time 15.30

• 4 rounds of:
• 350m trail run
• 20 pull-ups
• 8/8 kettlebell shoulder-to-overhead, 32kg

This looks easier than it was. Huh, my hands got ripped even though I had proper rock tapes on both hands. My palms looked bloody messy after the workout. We completed this so that we ran the distance together my bro. As we came back to the spot I jumped on the pull-up bar and completed 20 pull-ups. At the same time Sipa was doing 2-pood kettlebell swings.

After those sets we changed roles. I did 8 right hand push jerks with the bell, then immediately after 8 left hand jerks. Sipa has some issues with his fingers, some sort of fraction, so he did strict pull-ups. That's also the reason why he did swings instead of jerks. Then we went to run together the same trail run again. Total of four rounds. Pull-ups turned out to be rather tough and jerks sealed the deal. Got the jerks unbroken and pull-ups went 15+5 for the first 3 rounds, and 10+5+5 on the final round.

We were both done after the workout. It took 15.30 to finish this one. Couple of photos, and then back home to spend quality time with my baby. It was awesome to come home to a ready dinner table, prepared by my love one. Power nap and some more eating =)

Tuesday 2.7: Sprints and pair wod

Tuesday. Sprints 4x400m with 90sec recovery. Pair wod with my bro. As a team, complete the following set of movements: 150 pull-ups, 150 burpees, 150 kb snatches (20kg). Time 23min.

Yes man! It was time for some outdoors training, one of the best shots of the week. I love these workouts. It's awesome to enjoy the summer weather and do some serious workouts with friends. Today Marko was not able to make it but Toni and my brother came along. We had some pair wod in front of us. Prior to that, we did sprints.

Sprints. Time 10.04

• Run 4x400m
• Rest 90sec between rounds

Time 10.04. On average this means 1.23.5 min per round. The first round was sick. It was clearly seen we are brothers with Sipa and the rivalry between us is fierce. Even though neither of us openly admits it before a metcon, it's obvious we both need to beat that other guy. Our first sprint was fast compared to our normal running pace. I led the round all the way to 250m, on the following 50m Sipa caught me and the final 100m we ran side by side to the goal line. Neither of us took an extreme sprint in the end because there were 3 rounds more to be completed. I thought the pace was not that fast but I stopped the clock at 1.10 so it definitely was faster than we would normally run.

It took some of the sharpest edge from both of us and pace got slower especially on the last two rounds.  Second round was around 1.20 and the last 2 rounds about 1.30. Toni's first round was 1.27, then pace also got a little slower, 1.30 plus minus 5 sec.

Bros

Pair wod. Time 23min

• As a team, complete the following set of movements
• 150 pull-ups
• 150 burpees
• 150 kettlebell snatches, 20kg

Our legs were pretty wasted at this moment. Without a proper warm-up they were smashed. It was time to move on the the pull-up bar. The workout we did with my bro included 2 bodyweight movements and one kettlebell move. First, 150 pull-ups in a row, then 150 burpees and finally 150 kb snatches. All pull-ups have to be completed before entering to burpees, and then snatches.

Pair wod, pull-ups and burpees, first 10min

Our strategy was to go in sets of 10 reps throughout the workout. It pretty much went like that. I did 10's in the pull-ups whereas Sipa changed it to 5's after 100 reps. No big difference there. Other than that, we both went as planned. Good job! And those kettlebell snatches were the first ones for bro, he's openly done dumbbell snatches. The movement is almost the same but the way you have to handle the bell in the up-position so that it doesn't destroy your wrists.

KB Snatches

In the pull-ups I had to concentrate to get all those reps unbroken. I could have managed the sets up to 200 reps, I believe. That would have meant 100 reps for me. Burpees got breathing going faster and the snatches were not that difficult for me. We wouldn't have a more suitable weight in the snatches. 32kg would have been too tough? This was a good workout and it was spectacular to do it as a pair wod!

The end of the metcon, kb snatches

Toni's workout.

• 400m run
• 2min burpees (40 reps)
• 400m run
• 2min double unders (70 reps)
• 400m run
• 2min kettlebell swings, 32kg (34 reps)
• 400m run
• 2min wood thrusters (34 reps)

Toni was supposed to do this as a pair wod with Marko. The other one runs 400m and the other one does certain movements. Once the first guy finishes his 400m run, they switch roles. However, Marko wasn't able to come today (bit of a flu) so Toni imagined Marko was running for exactly 2min. Works well. Those repetition numbers in brackets above are numbers Toni gave me afterwords. He said those are more like estimates.

Pony

Tuesday 11.6: Nicole

Tuesday. Benchmark workout Nicole. 8 rounds and 120 pull-ups.

I'm waiting forward to these outdoor training sessions! We have agreed with Marko to meet in Pirkkola, outdoors sports center where they also have track and field possibilities. It's also the venue for "HC Triplet II, in to the woods". This time we were going to include running and other bodyweight movements. A new benchmark was ahead of me, girl named Nicole.

Nicole. Result. 8 rounds, 120 pull-ups.

• Complete as many rounds in 20min as you can of:
• 400m run
• Max rep pull-ups

How simple can a workout be? Run and do pull-ups, period. The location of the pull-up bar is not close to the track so we ran in the middle of the forest. I've enjoyed these running metcons, at least this far ;) My brother was doing Murph at the same time in another place, that's deep. It took about 32min from him. Got to try it some day.

Back to Nicole. Run 400 meters, then complete as many pull-ups as possible without dropping from the pull-up bar. Have no idea how fast I was running each round, my timer was on the ground. Even though my upper back was kinda jammed I still hoping to break that old 33-rep record of mine.

On the first round the pull-ups started to feel heavier than normally at about 15 reps. Shouldn't feel like that at this stage. However, I was able to force more reps, little by little I reached 35 reps and a new PR! Didn't come easy though. This gave me more confidence as I felt I wasn't at my best because the pull-ups started to feel heavy earlier than they should have.

For the net 3 rounds the number of pull-ups was 15 each round, and on the last rounds a bit less. Total of 120 reps and it was time. My lats were smashed already after the first round of 35 so I had some difficult thoughts about how to perform pull-ups with style. Here's the number of pull-ups each round:

• 1st round. 35 reps
• 2nd round. 15 reps
• 3rd round. 15 reps
• 4th round. 15 reps
• 5th round. 10 reps
• 6th round. 10 reps
• 7th round. 12 reps
• 8th rounds. 8 reps
• Total of 120 reps

Marko's workout.

• 800m run
• 50 wood thrusters
• 50 burpees
• 50 lunges
• 800m run

Good amount of reps for this fellow! A lot of sweat was shed and muscles will hurt tomorrow, and the day after. The only thing he subbed was the amount of burpees, dropped from 50 to 30. And the last sprint of his was phenomenal. It was cool to see him give his everything and sprint like a mad man!

Saturday 1.6: Sprints

Saturday. 4x400m, 90sec rest. 4x100m.

Those back squats yesterday made my hamstrings sore, and that's the way I like it! I still wanted to get some leg work done today as I had scheduled running for work today. We were planning to run sprints together with Toni and then some farmer's walk pair metcon but unfortunately we couldn't match the time tables together. My lither sister is having her graduation party today so I had to do my training in the early morning.

400m sprints. Time about 10.10.

• Run 4 x 400m
• 90 sec rest between sets

I took some warm-ups running and a few semi-fast sprints to get my legs opened from the jam the squats had created. And also some hip openers to seal the deal. 400 meters is a long way when you're running to the fullest. I have no idea what my fastest lap would be if that was the only goal I had in the training and gave my all in that specific 400m sprint. Today I ran those 4 rounds at 1.22-1.24 on average.

You can't copy that feeling of wearing down when you compare running with other type of metcons. The feeling when you're about to get tired is sick in both cases but it's still totally different. Legs are burning and lungs are having a tough time. Kind of the same but still different. Hard to describe the difference. When running, most of the work is done through legs but in metcons you're doing more all-around work with the body.

I'm very happy I was able to get up from that bed early in the weekend to complete this workout. I'd like to keep running on agenda somehow on a weekly basis, hopefully I can carry it out through the summer.

Pirkkola track and field early in the morning

100m sprints.

• Run 4 x 100m
• Walk back for recovery

After catching my breath I did 4 sprints of 100 meters with recovery of walking slowly back to the start line. I felt quick on these ones! And especially after the 400 meters as the nature of the sprint is different. In 400 you got to take into consideration that it's gonna take something between 1.10-1.30, is it possible to go all-in from the first meters? Hard to believe, you got to have a strategy to reach the best time possible. And do that multiple times, and the game changes even more to get the best possible total time.

In 100m it's simply 100% from the first step, close your eyes, think about beautiful things and be mentally strong, it's anyway gonna be over in seconds so why not accelerate to the fullest from the first second! These sprints felt good all the way.

Last summer I did 8x400 with 90sec recovery once or twice. This was a good start for running sprints. Definitely didn't want to start with huge load so this was way better amount of meters to be run in the early summer. And even though there was only 2.000m in the digits as I stopped running I felt the burden instantly in my shins. These short sprints really makes my legs hurt. Had to give them cold treatment in the shower to get the fluids flowing. Hopefully it eases with more running =)

Don's family: The grand old man and his Susanna, all three bros and graduating sister

Toni's workout. Result 8 rounds

• 16min amrap of:
• 15 box (40cm)
• 10 push-ups
• 10 snatches (20kg)

Muffi and a new tractor wheel

Monday 30.7: 400m + 50 squats

Monday. 400m run, 50 squats. 4 rounds. Time 11.00.

Can I be happy for the time? I don't know. If I check the archives of the crossfit community, I suppose it was a job well done. However, my big brother did it for 10.14 so I should definitely be able to beat his time :) I had two friends to complete the workout as well, the other one timed 11.58, the other one 13.35. Both fought it through nicely.

My warm-up wasn't good enough, I should have done more effort to get the muscles prepared for the workout. Same applies to what happened after the workout. My thighs are sore already now. This was a good reminder why it is extremely important to pay attention to muscle recovery throughout every training session. Let's hope the evening stretching helps them prepare for tomorrow.

I felt fast in the first round, I checked the time, which confirmed the feeling, 1.18min. I didn't have a wrist watch so I couldn't keep up how fast I'm running or squatting. That would have been awesome. I have understood that you get better results by doing a solid performance through the wod, not by putting everything you got in the beginning. When you put too much effort in the beginning, the load of the latter half grows tremendously. I suppose that's what happened. Hard to say as I couldn't follow the time simultaneously but it's quite obvious.

I know I can get the digits down by taking the run slightly more patiently and by performing squats unbroken. Now I did those like 25+25. In the last two rounds I recall doing them 20+15+15. Even though I didn't rest - just shook both legs once or twice to prevent them cramping - there is definitely time I can take away. Now as I think of it, the run was surprisingly pleasant so I should keep up the pace, about 1.30 per round and do the squats unbroken in one minute. That's the goal next time.

After the workout, I practised something you could call a discomfort zone: handstand push-up (HSPU) and handstand. For some reason it's very fascinating to do them but for some unknown reason I haven't done them. Somehow I've been a bit scared to have the world upside down :) After practising today, it felt awesome! I'll have to take them in to the skills training regularly. I also did some double unders to remind my body how it's done. Muscle-ups seem to be far away from being realism. I've done some "jumping muscle-ups" to get the movements right in the end of it, I mean the wrist position and the dip by having a bar grip. Better than nothing but I really must get some assistance from someone who can do it to get it really going.