Friday 27.3: Squat, Deadlift, CF Open 14.3

Friday. Back squat doubles (max 137.5kg). Deadlift doubles (max 200kg). CF Open 14.3, result 130 reps.

This is the day when my 2 week holiday began, kaboom! It will be warmly welcomed in my heart. What this means is a lot of sleep, lots of training and a good bunch of food stuffed in my throat. I celebrated that with good load of posterior chain work.

Strength.

• Back squat doubles (110, 125, 130, 135, 137.5), 1x140kg

Squats were quite tough on the heavier sets. Somehow emom training even on squats feel better than having a good break between reps. When the clock is running, heart rate is higher and I'm sweating much more and feel prepared for the strength work.

Today's goal was to climb up on the weights, little by little. I was hoping to hit something beyond 140kg but this time I got only one single at that weight. Gotta get more of these heavy reps so my body gets used to them. It's a different thing to complete triple at 130kg than a single at 140-145kg.

Live announcement of 15.5

Pulls.

• Deadlift doubles (110, 150, 160, 170, 180, 190, 200kg)

Couldn't avoid the Friday pulls. There was a time when I didn't do deadlifts at all. Basically it was last autumn because of the Smolov squat program. It felt hard to squat after deadlift day. This year I solved this "problem" by pulling heavy stuff from floor on Fridays. On Saturday I'll hit a longer lower pace workout, somewhere around 25-40 minutes, and Sunday is reserved for gymnastics. That's been the base schedule lately.

Last time when I pulled heavier stuff it felt like my fingers are about to get cut off from the rest of my hand. I hadn't taken good care of my hands and there were calluses which I tried to prevent my holding the bar basically with my fingers. That was not cool. This time I had good hand maintenance beforehand which allowed me to take a good grip on the barbell with my entire palm.

This allowed me to concentrate fully on putting gall the pressure on my back and hamstrings. And the bar felt much lighter than last time because of this. Took quite a leap from 110 -> 150kg but the bar was moving with good speed there as well. I kept adding 10kg on the barbell. At some point I realized there's 190kg and I had never taken more than a single at this weight. Today it was a double and it didn't feel the max so I took a real milestone weight upon me. Freaking awesome to get a double at 200kg!

2x200kg

CF Open 14.3. Result, 130 reps. Compare to 15.3.2014

• 8min amrap of:
• 10 deadlift, 60kg
• 15 box
• 15 deadlift, 85kg
• 15 box
• 20 deadlift, 102.5kg
• 15 box
• 25 deadlift, 125kg
• 15 box
• 30 deadlift, 145kg
• 15 box
• 35 deadlift, 165kg
• 15 box

Huh, what a tough workout. My legs were fired from the previous strength work and it was definitely not ideal for getting the best possible result on this one. Still, I got only 2 reps less than last time. Box jumps were okay but after deadlifts they also maintained the heart rat low.

My back was shot already on the round of 85kg deads. Definitely due to the earlier pulls and squats. I didn't look back at my strategy from year ago but at least the beginning seemed similar. Box jumps unbroken, and the first round of deads unbroken too. Then, 10-5 on the 85kg deads, and maybe 5's on the round of 102.5kg's.

Next set of deadlifts was heavy. Damned the barbell weighed like a ton. And my back was fired up big time. Year ago at this stage it was 5's in the beginning, and then came down to 4's and 3's. This time it was more like 3-4 reps in the beginning, and then after 15 reps it was doubles to the finish. Having to complete the reps in smaller sets obviously took some time compared to last 14.3 attempt.

I still had the time to push through the last set of box jumps in the remaining 30 second time window. I'm happy on the way I got this one done. Last time I had time to do 3 more reps at 145kg but it was the only single workout for that day. And it would have been enough for one session but I wanted some squats and heavy deads done as well. Great session!