Thursday 12.11: Muscle-ups, Bench, Squat

Thursday. Skills, muscle-ups 7x3. Metcon, 50 bench for time @ 70kg. Every time you rack the bar, complete 30 air squats on the spot. Time, 9.20.

Plan was a bit loose this Thursday. I had plenty of stuff in my head as my car's engine started. It turned out to be muscle-ups for starters. Then building up to a heavy single on the bench press, and finishing the session with bench related metcon. My hand ripped so there was no chance for deadlifts which was supposed to be on the agenda as well.

Skills.

• Muscle-ups, 7 sets of triples

Got to admit I wasn't approaching the rings with huge confidence. Reason for this was there's been time since doing ring mu's last time, and I remember they didn't go too well that time. With this in mind it was a hugely positive surprise to knock the triples without any issues. To be honest, these were probably the easiest sets of muscle-ups I've done in my life. At least in the top performances. Now as I think about it afterwards, it might have been a good idea to smash a new record of consecutive repetitions but I stuck to my plan of triples.

Didn't have a timer rolling but it was basically some walking around the gym, chalking hands and getting back to rings. I felt after every set there is room for more work. Usually triples are not this easy, and it might feel like a huge battle to get 3 reps in one set =) Don't know why this was from another planet but at least my kip was patient. I kept my get together, let the body swing fiercely backwards on the way down, and then I didn't rush the pull on the way up.

On the last set I decided to go for more reps. It turned out to be 4 reps in total after which I felt my hand ripped so I came down. Feeling was true as I just witnessed one of the biggest rips I've had ever. This is at least the size of my thumb nail. Anyway, this was a huge thing to boost confidence on the rings. Total of 22 reps.

Metcon. Time, 9.20. Compare to 22.11.2013

• 50 bench press for time @ 70kg
• Every time you rack the barbell, complete 30 air squats on the spot
• Bench was 10-8-7-6-6-5-4-4 reps

Plan was to build up to a heavy single before starting the workout, just to fool the body by doing heavier reps first. Then the weight on the actual metcon wouldn't feel that tough. I decided to go with 70kg which I thought would be something like 7-9 sets. This was just a gut feeling. Warm-up sets were 6x50, 6x70, 3x80, 1x90, 1x95, 1x100kg.

Well I put the sets above in the bullet point and it went pretty much the way I thought and planned. My goal was not to look for the most ideal time but more like keep moving all the time. Not recover too much after air squats to get maybe a bigger set of bench done, vice versa. Go back on the bench, grab the barbell and do as many as you can. Don't know if I could have completed 50 reps with fewer sets. I wanted to get my heart rate up and make this feel on the lungs too, not just chest / triceps / upper body.

Actually what hurt the most in this one were my quads. Went unbroken on the air squats, deep ones, and with good rhythm. They never got a good recovery so completing 210 reps in sets of 30 really burned my legs. This was a good workout, and