Wednesday 1.10: Squats, Couplet of cleans and box

Wednesday. Strength, Smolov, back squat 4x9 (112.5kg). Metcon, 10min amrap of: 8 hang power clean (60kg), 16 box. Result, 177 reps.

More squats, huhhuh. It's been taken up a notch this week, the loads are getting heavier every session. For some reason my legs have recovered very well after each session and there hasn't been issues that I anticipated before this entire Smolov-thing. But the weights are getting heavy =) Let's see how this all ends up. Afterwards I took a couplet of cleans and box jumps. Very good burner!

Strength.

• Smolov, back squat 4x9 (112.5kg)

There's not much mercy, it's all about squatting, every other day, or occasionally even back-to-back days. The sequences are 4x9, 5x7, 7x5, and 10x3, for 3 weeks. First week is done, today started the second week with 4 sets of 9 reps. The barbell was 10kg heavier compared to last week, totaling 112.5kg today.

Today's sets were getting heavy. First set was okay, second one was tough, third was a grind and fourth was miserable. I also asked for a spotter but then decided there's no point in that. Just take the bar up and do the required job. I was quite satisfied on myself after finishing these sets. There was plenty of recovery between sets to get my legs ready for the next set. I also did some stretching between efforts to release tension in hip flexors.

Below is the first set for you guys to see what happened

4x9 @ 112.5kg

Metcon. Result, 177 reps (7 rounds + 1 box)

• 10 min amrap of:
• 8 hang power clean, 60kg
• 16 box jump, 61cm

I took way longer recovery period after squats because I wanted to give a good effort on this metcon. My lower body was smashed after 4 sets of back squatting and for some reason there was some tension in my forearms as well, maybe because they were stuck in the same position under pressure. Especially now as my grip is more narrow to allow the barbell to rest on my traps more steadily.

Anyway, this workout turned out to a couplet of hang power cleans and box jumps. I've missed box jumps so much. Those have traditionally been something I'm good at and I tend to practice on them on a regular basis. Due to lots of squatting I've skipped boxes but lately I decided to take them back on the program.

I created this metcon right before I started doing it. The combination of these 2 movements seemed like a good idea, and thinking afterwards it really was a good one. I played with the reps a little. It would have been an easy idea to do something like 5-10, or something like that. But I wanted to do more in one set. I thought I might be able to do 8 reps unbroken in a row, at least for couple of rounds. In the end I realized I did all rounds unbroken.

Doubled the amount of box to get a good balance for cleans. Plan was to hit them unbroken too, and I stuck with the game plan all the way. The only rest I had, was in transitions. In my opinion, they weren't that long either. In the picture above you'll see the round times, and you'll probably notice they were quite even. That is always something that gets me smiling. My goal in every workout is to be solid, from the beginning to the end. I'm very pleased overall to Wednesday's training session. I focused on mobility after the session.