This was a dream day. Spent the day with the family, then towards the evening we met Toni and his wife at Crossfit Kehä, and hit a training session in the process. Toni had a plan to hit a hero workout Holleyman. Who was I to think otherwise. Kehä's coach Anssi also threw down with us.
Rx'd weight is 102.5kg. Considering my 1RM on power clean is registered at 103kg, that would have been quite humorous to go at the prescribed weight. Last time I did this one with 90kg at 28.10. So today it was 9 seconds slower but with heavier load. I consider this a victory! That's 92% of my max anyway. Took one rep at 100kg before we entered the wod to build some confidence on this heavy lift.
It was cool to have those guys with me to attack this hero workout. Wall balls were the easiest part, then came the handstand push-ups and lastly the cleans, those were heavy. Every one of them. Strategy was to do wall balls and hspu's rather quickly, then recover a little before the clean.
This was more like a strength session for me. Breathing stayed under control. Shoulders started to fatigue early on, maybe before 10 rounds were completed. But the thing was definitely the cleans. I'm super happy to hit every single lift without misses. Great mental win!
Saturday. Hero wod Holleyman, 30 rds of: 5 wb, 3 hspu, 1 power clean (90kg). Time, 28.10.
It was time to take a rematch with Holleyman. It's a hero workout that I've done once before year and a half ago. Since then my upper back strength and conditioning must have gotten better since I PR'd this workout with over 13 minutes. Why this workout came to my mind was because my friend Toni just hit it about a week ago with same weights so there was a good incentive for me.
Yeah, I know it's a bit messy but it shows most of the round times
Last time (and first time) when I completed this one my clean weren't as strong and I had to take the bigger weights as squat cleans. It's not that long ago that my max power clean was 90-95kg. Currently it stands as 103kg. Squat clean is a notch better, at 116kg. Holleyman is 225 lbs (102.5kg) as rx'd. That would be pretty much the same as my record for a single so obviously time is not ready for those weights, yet. Went after 90kg cleans which are no joke to me, especially for this many reps.
Naturally all the reps were to be done unbroken, just 5 reps of wall ball shots and 3 hspu's per round. My strategy was to hold on to a steady pacing from the very beginning. I tried to do a collage of most of the round times, check above. I believe my tactic worked as well as it could have worked. I'm very satisfied to this. It was around 55 seconds per round for all 30 rounds.
Plan was to knock wall balls and hspu's right away, and then shake my shoulders before the clean. Right after I dropped the barbell, I went to do another set of wall balls and hspu's. Then releasing the tension in the shoulders again. This worked well.
It was a long ass workout to say the least, and at times it felt like it's never going to end. I just tried not to think about the rounds or anything else of this workout for too much, just complete every set of wall balls, every set of hspu's and every single clean at a time, then head forward. This time this also got to my breathing more than before. At that time I remember my lower back being on fire on the wall balls and squat cleans (had to do them as squat cleans that time).
I thought I had recorded the first 10 minutes of the workout but after looking at the video at home this was all there was =) Memory card had gotten full after less than 5 seconds. Nice.
Saturday. Hero workout Holleyman (scaled), time 41.43
Yesterday was a rest day so it allowed me to go heavy today. Body was fresh and ready to hit it. Tomorrow we are going to the country side so it's most likely gonna be bodyweight, kettlebells and sled action. So I was considering between Holleyman and JJ. Both are newcomers in my training and both looked very challenging indeed. I didn't mind which one to go after so I asked Pauliina and she decided on Holleyman. So put on the clothes and do the work. Took some ring dips in the warm-up section to improve on my weakness.
Rx'd version would be done with 102.5kg power cleans. No squat clean allowed. That's a little too much for me, I usually do squat cleans anyway on the heavy lifts. I don't even know where my max rep would be for power cleans. Probably somewhere around 90kg.
Don't have a wall ball either (yet…) so I replicated the 9kg wall ball movement with a 15kg bumper plate. I feel like regular wall ball is easier movement compared to this one. It doesn't matter when there's only couple of reps at a time but if I'd go for 50 in a row, I'd rather do it with normal wall ball. These plates are on your face all the time. Plus you get that short rest as you throw the ball up on the wall. Anyway, I like to have 15kg plate if I don't have access to wall ball because I'm not throwing the plate in the air whereas wall ball needs to be thrown with explosive movement.
The workout itself was a little intimidating. As I think about it, 100kg clean is rather close to my one rep max (110kg) so I didn't know what to think about it. Also 90 handstand push-ups looked like an eternity of reps. Max number I've done in a workout is hovers somewhere around 60 reps. Well, okay this workout was gonna be a longer one so it might not devastate me in the end. Thought 150 wall balls would not gonna be any issue by any standard. I'm comfortable with the movement and consider that some sort of strength.
I started the workout with 100kg squat cleans. Don't know why but after a few rounds my lower back hurt a little in both squat cleans and wall balls. Not in positive way. I don't mind if my muscles hurt but this wasn't a pleasure feeling so I scaled to 90kg. Same feeling occurred in both squat cleans and wall balls, in the squat position. It didn't help on the 90kg squat cleans so after 15 rounds I decided to do power cleans. Had no problems after that at all so it helped mentally a lot. I had good form on both movements so it's difficult to understand where this came from. Anyway, it went away and everything's fine. I'm feeling great at the moment!
I once saw this workout completed year or two ago and it's been on the back of my mind since then. I looked up to this guy crushing Holleyman and wanted to give it a shot myself too. Some day maybe I'm able to do it rx'd. The cleans were the thing in this workout, at least for me. Wall balls were the easiest. Hspu's started to feel heavier at around 20 rounds. Managed to fight through them unbroken though.
Recap of Holleyman
This wasn't that much of a cardio stuff. That's because the barbell was so heavy I couldn't lift it right away. My body was sweating a lot but breathing was under control constantly. A good workout, nothing more can I say. Great one.
