Monday 22.4: Grace, headstand, handstand

Monday. Grace. Time 3.48. Handstand hold, headstand & handstand training.

There are a couple of benchmark workouts that make me nervous. Some of these make my stomach go upside down and just before the zero-hour for a second I try to find an excuse why not to do them. That's only because they are cruel and make your body scream for pain. Then I get a grip and talk myself up to crash the workout. The feeling after these workouts is something that can't be described in words. It's freaking awesome, the reason I love crossfit and today was no exception!!!

Grace. Time 3.48

• 30 clean & jerk, 60kg

It's unfortunate they forbid videoshooting your own training sessions at our Box so I don't have video material to offer from my newest Grace. Sometimes it's possible to take pictures or videos if there are no other people working out but today there were plenty of them. This was the first time I did it with the original weights, rx'd weight is 60kg. For the first time I did it back in September 2012, then together with Toni we completed a double Grace in October 2012, and the last time was in December 2012, all were done with 50kg on the barbell. That weight is history, the only possibility is to do it with 60kg nowadays.

My strategy was to do sets of 6 reps for as long as possible. I recall doing the previous Grace in sets of 6 reps. Today the sets were 6-6-5-4-4-2-1-1-1. The breaks between sets were rather short in my opinion, at least they felt like it =) The first 6 reps were done in about 20+ seconds and 12 reps were in records after 60 seconds. I tried to keep the breaks somewhere around 10-15 seconds in the beginning. From 17 reps on the burden was going up rapidly. It was a tough mental play from then on. I forced some reps up even though my body wanted to take a rest. From 21 I got to 24, then a double and finally 3 singles in the end with no rest between them, only dropping and lifting again. Finally the clock stopped at 3.48.

Tension in forearms was tingling and definitely the most difficult part was the jerk. I believe my clean is at a pretty ok level and I didn't have problems in getting the bar at my chest. Some of the jerks were more like push press or even a shoulder press. For some reason you might sometimes forget to utilize the legs and hip drive and that was exactly what happened at some reps. That's why they felt heavier than they should have felt in the end. Luckily I had no failed reps during the workout, managed to push the bar all the way up to full extension with each attempt. I was extremely satisfied after the workout as I felt I gave my everything to Grace. My goal with both Grace and Fran was to go under 4 minutes and I reached those objectives with both of these benchmark girls.

Inverted. Headstand and handstand practice

• 3 x ME static handstand hold against wall
• Headstand training
• Handstand training

My bro has strong handstand skills and he's been talking me into testing max effort of static handstand hold against wall. I took three attempts, first attempt was 1 minute, then I had to drop off the wall, the following attempts were half a minute each. It probably wasn't the easiest one after doing 30 clean & jerks =)

Then I did some headstand and handstand training. Once again, headstand rolled well. I had no problems in finding a stable form and holding a straight body from head to toes. I also tried another type of approach. Previously I've held my hands close to my head, actually they are located just beside my head, touching the back of my head. The stability comes from head, forearms and elbows touching the ground. The other option is to create a triangle from both palms and a head. Both versions worked for me. In the end I did some free handstand training. To finish the training I did mobility for lower body.

Toni's workouts.

• Back squats 5x5, 100kg
• For 10 min, 30sec on, 30sec off. Distance 1.751m

Pony's goal was 5 sets of 5 reps and he managed to complete them as planned, all sets with 100kg. From the other side of the gym I heard some growling so I guess he really had to focus on the last reps =) That rowing metcon starts to become a classic among us, it definitely is a good workout. You can do it for 10, 20 or 30 minutes, all are good versions.