Sunday, December 8, 2013

Sunday 8.12: Squats, 15min amrap

Sunday. Ring skills. Back squats, 3x3 across (120kg). Metcon, 15min amrap of: 3 power clean (60kg), 10 box, 15 air squat, 30 du. Result 8rds.

My body felt great today, especially considering yesterday's hero workout. I thought it would be hammered. Okay my legs were stiff on the strength part and I had to stay at moderate weights on leg strength. But the metcon was perfect in its nature and I got a good crossfit training to kick this Sunday. Once again I took some ring muscle-up training to start this training. Some progressions and then a single rep. We'll see multiple reps sometime in the future, now I'm concentrating in singles to start the workouts.



For the past 2-3 months I've put more and more effort on mobility to start each training session. My sessions tend to last for 1h+, 60-90minutes. On some rare occasions I get out of the gym after 45 minutes. Usually it takes an hour or more.



For about 2min I focus on warming up, foam rolling at first, then sitting in squat's bottom position, then using resistance band to get my hammies and hip flexors activated. With the help of Kelly Starlett's tips I try to push my knees out to activate groins and flexors. It's been really helpful and my mobility has increased a lot. I can see that in the squat positions, and especially in squat snatch + overhead squat forms. There was a time when it was difficult to get in those positions at all.



However, the mobility afterwards seems to be an issue I don't have means to tackle. At least during the session I simply don't have enough time for. I do foam roll my back and legs every evening and hang from pull-up bar to increase mobility in upper back and shoulders. More stretching wouldn't do any harm.





Strength. Back squats 3x3 across (3x120kg). Even though I did good things to my lower body in the warm-up section they still weren't that fresh for heavy squats. It didn't feel that good so I stayed at 120kg for 3 sets of 3 reps. Maybe that's okay not to go max out every time =)





Metcon. Result 8 rounds
  • 15min amrap of:
  • 3 power clean, 60kg
  • 10 box jumps, 61cm
  • 15 air squats
  • 30 double unders

I was able to create a perfect workout today. I wanted a metcon where I could keep on going throughout the workout. The movements, weight on the bar, amount of reps were right on the money. I knew I could go unbroken if I concentrate enough on each movement. Got it through except the squats and one set on the double unders (20+10 reps).


On the clean I could have added kilos but I wanted it to be a weight which I could go and complete right away. Not to load myself up before grabbing the bar. It wasn't heavy at all but during the workout it of course started to go heavier. Good weight for this metcon. 70kg would have probably gone as solid, I believe.


I felt proud of myself entering the box jumps quite soon after the cleans. My breathing was heavy all the way due to the nature of the movements, they all make heart beat way faster. Those 10 box jumps were tough towards the end, my quads and hamstrings started to burn after a couple of rounds. I still went through them without stopping on the top or bottom.



It was a nasty combo of box and squats. That made the squats so much more challenging. Can you imagine, there were only 15 reps but having completed the box jumps and then putting more pressure on the legs made it feel like there were 20-30 reps of squats. I had to start doing them 10+5 from mid-workout on. I took 2 inhales in-between just to release the tension for a second or two.


My skills on the double unders have evolved, no doubt about it. Total of 8 rounds, of which 7 went unbroken. On one of them I missed after 20 reps and then did the remaining 10 on second attempt. And above all, I was confident all the way with them. At times the du's have felt like running in sand, not nice at all, very "sticky". But now I feel like I'm dominating the rope, not the other way around.


For me, one of the most important things was that I was able to maintain the round times equal. The first round was around 1:30, rounds 2-7 were around 2:00, and the last round was 1:41. It's important to keep a steady pace and in this workout it was possible. Naturally it feels like you'd like to take a longer breath but I was able to psyche myself in to a good mode this time.


Take a look at the first 3 rounds of the workout below. Thanks Pauliina for the camera action!





No comments:

Post a Comment